A set of tracks thought to be that of a Bigfoot sighting in B.C.’s Southern Interior last month belonged to a moose.
That’s the opinion of Bigfoot Okanagan, a group dedicated to archiving evidence of Bigfoot or Sasquatch experiences.
In an article first published by The Valley Voice, a group travelling on Highway 6, south of the village of Silverton, reported a possible nighttime Bigfoot sighting on Dec. 25.
According to the article, the sighting was quick, but they eventually made their way back and looked for tracks, which they found.
The story mentioned through another source that Bigfoot Okanagan, however, ultimately discounted the sighting.
In an interview on Saturday with Global News, Bigfoot Okanagan spokesperson Leon Thompson confirmed that the group did indeed visit the site, albeit days after it happened.
Thompson said the group uses scientific methods to ensure they know what they’re looking at instead of hoping what they’re looking for.
He noted the group includes people who are trained in a variety of different fields and professionals that deal with high-stress situations.
“When we heard about this report, it was a few days after it was posted on (another) Bigfoot site,” Thompson said. “It was quite exciting for us because it was captioned as being the best Sasquatch track ways of 2020, which is quite the declaration.
“And so we were excited because (the tracks) were between six inches of snow to knee-high snow. And if there were tracks, we should be able to follow them for miles, even if they were covered in snow.”
So Thompson said a small group drove to the site 10 days later, in terrible winter weather. He said the group saw photos of the tracks before leaving, and thought they looked suspicious, but decided to see them firsthand.
“We were pretty sure we knew what we were going to walk into,” said Thompson. “But we decided to use it as an educational opportunity for people who may be interested in Sasquatch to learn how to analyze and break things down.”
Thompson said after getting to the site, they somewhat lucked out in that one person in the group that reported the sighting noticed them while driving by. That person returned and talked to Bigfoot Okanagan.
“He showed us exactly how things went down and the tracks that they later followed,” Thompson said. “The good thing was is that they were smart enough not to walk over the tracks.”
The tracks were located in a clearing area of around 200 feet long, along the highway.
From there, Bigfoot Okanagan dug near some of the tracks, then towards them, slowly exposing the ‘ice mould’ at the bottom where it contacts the ground.
“By the time we got down to the bottom of it, it was clearly moose (tracks),” said Thompson.
“There were other tracks, rabbit tracks, coyote tracks, but we didn’t say any of the so-called and (website-report) claimed eight-foot stride tracks. None of them had toe marks. You could clearly see they were hoof marks.”
Thompson surmised what the group saw that night, while travelling at 100 km/h, was the back and rear of a moose standing on its hind legs. He figures the moose, facing away from the road, was stripping the bark from a tree, with its two front legs in the tree.
Thompson said the witnesses were awesome, but they “were really hoping, which a lot of us do.”
For more about Bigfoot Okanagan, visit their Facebook page or their YouTube channel.