Out there ...

This week, Jonathan Thompson brings us a story (p.8-9) about Ol’ Big Foot, the last known wolf to roam southeastern Utah in the 1910s. But Sarah Melotte, writing for the Daily Yonder, has a story on the Bigfoot, as in the hairy, mysterious, man-beast said to roam the wilderness and haunt our days and nights­.

Over the last couple years, Melotte said she has been, “omnivorously consuming content” about encounters with strange creatures whose existence scientists can’t prove. Some of that content includes “The Secret History of Bigfoot: Field Notes on a North American Monster,” by avowed Bigfoot skeptic John O’Connor.

In the book, O’Connor cites data from the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (yes, there is such a thing), the only self-proclaimed scientific group researching Bigfoot. BFRO collects Bigfoot sightings in an online database that goes as far back as the 1980s.

Melotte gathered all of the data from January 2024 – April 2025, forming a map of sightings across the United States, with comments from individuals claiming to have had encounters. (For the record, she notes “Bigfoot” refers to a species of animal, not necessarily an individual monster. And that readers should take the data with a whopping grain of salt. Then again, Bigfoot and his cryptid counterparts are beyond the realm of scientific inquiry, so the map should be, too.)

From 2024-present, there were 37 reported Bigfoot sightings in the U.S., with about half occurring in metropolitan counties and the other half in rural counties.

“I went to check my cows Tuesday and … saw a track made by something heavy enough to leave a clear imprint,” wrote one Texas rancher on the BFRO database.

Near Newberry County, S.C., a hunter said he heard a Bigfoot vocalization, which sounded like a grunt. “Turned around … and seen a approx. 7 to 7.5 foot tall brown human like shape through all the brush,” the hunter wrote. “Had long brown hair, ape like face and long arms.”

Closer to home, Bigfoot (Bigfeet?) were sighted in Catron County, N.M., north of Silver City, in June 2024 and in Boulder in March 2025. “Looking out front door window at 10 p.m. on March 12, I see ape-like creature walking very briskly north on 49th St. in front of my property. It was very large, about 8 ft. tall, hunched forward,” reported the Boulder individual.

Then again, maybe it was just a college student stumbling home from the bars?

To read the story and the map database in its entirety, go to www.dailyyonder.com.