BRHV's Debbie Ray and lead researcher Gayle Beatty.
By Jamie Larson
We all choose to believe in certain things that help alleviate our general anxiety about the incomprehensible complexity of existence. Gayle Beatty, lead researcher for the
Bigfoot Researchers of the Hudson Valley, and her ever-growing group of seekers choose to believe in Bigfoot. So we were curious. If Bigfoots are here, what have they been up to this winter? And if we choose to believe in them, how and where can we find them, too?
“We go out in the woods with a dozen or so members from time to time," said Beatty, who gives semi-regular talks around the region on the subject. “A lot of people are interested, but there’s a liability to taking people out. Older people could have a heart attack. "
The Head Hunter
Gayle Beatty is BRHV's nucleus. When she was a 15-year-old troublemaker growing up in Pine Plains, New York, she got into an argument with her parents and ran away to go solo camping up Stissing Mountain. No stranger to the outdoors, she barely flinched at the late-night screech of an owl outside her tent. But the bone-chilling, inhuman roar that followed sent her crying and screaming down the mountain and into the arms of her mother and father.
The memory faded until 2012, when she happened upon the Animal Planet TV show
Finding Bigfoot and once again heard the “vocalization" that curdled her blood so many years before. Now an experienced hunter, fisherman, mother, wife and proprietor of the
Hook Line & Sinker Bait Shop in Red Hook, she came to the shocking realization that she is surrounded by the cryptozoological creatures, who have abilities that range from the mythical and magical to the alien and astrological. Beatty is convinced she has found proof that the upper Hudson Valley is home to one of the largest populations of Bigfoots ever recorded.
BRHV members with "Survivorman" Les Stroud.
“I know that the Hudson Valley is known for paranormal and UFO activity and those go hand in hand with sightings of Bigfoots." Beatty said from her BRHV command center beside a large, clean, swirling tank of minnows in the back of her shop. “There are hundreds in the Hudson Valley. Every area we’ve gone to we see a lot. They live in clans of five to 20. We see clusters of little ones in the trees. We’ve gotten eye shines from over 20 in a single group."
Beatty says BRHV’s recent growth in notoriety has been due to its large Facebook following. And the national Bigfoot community has taken notice of BRHV’s large body of research, as did TV’s “
Survivorman" Les Stroud, who came to interview the local researchers about their findings for his show on the search for Bigfoot. And
Story Horse Documentary Theater, run by well-known actor/writer/director couple
Jeremy Davidson and
Mary Stuart Masterson, are currently writing a nonfiction performance based on Beatty and the BRHV. Whether you believe or not, there is something undeniably captivating about the joyful positivity Beatty and her friends exude.
While they don’t have any meetings currently scheduled, the group used to meet pretty regularly at
The Enchanted Café in Red Hook and are currently lining up a gathering at the
Kozy Kitchen in Hyde Park. The BRHV is regularly requested to give public and private presentations around the region, recently meeting with a troupe of Girl Scouts. The group also presents at regional conventions including the upcoming
2016 CNY Crypto-Para Con in Rome New York (May 13-15). Following BRHV on
social media is the easiest way to keep current on upcoming events.
How To Find A Saquatch
“You have to know what to look for; 90 percent of people walk right by them," Beatty said. “A lot of them are in nature preserves because Bigfoot know there is no hunting. We see them in multiple-use areas."
Beatty said some of the best places for a beginner to look are in the areas around
Montgomery Place, Thompson Pond in Pine Plains, Tivoli and Tivoli Bays and any wooded public trails. She also said there has been a lot of Bigfoot activity at
Olana. The landscapes made famous in the paintings of Frederic Church are apparently teeming with Sasquatch.
“This is the perfect habitat for them. In the winter they live in caves but we’ve seen they can live in unused barns," said Beatty, adding that while they are usually brown, searchers have seen different colored Bigfoots in the area. “I’ve heard reports of a white and black one together and two reports of blond ones in Tivoli at the rec park in 1985."
When collecting data, the BRHV look for snapped branches, animal kills, fur on barbed wire fences, really bad smells and stacked-up rocks (which they believe are potential Bigfoot graves). BRHV also look for crude structures made of branches.
“You say maybe a person or teens built that, but I say no. It’s a Sasquatch. We found a bunch of swamp flowers wrapped up with grass," Beatty said, producing a now dried, rudimentary bouquet. This was a particularly appropriate gift for Beatty, as she also runs a business,
Feather Fantasies, making elaborate flowers out of dried plants and feathers. “I felt it was a gift and other researchers have been gifted."
Beatty said to stay safe and limit the likelihood of a Bigfoot attack, be aware of your surroundings, never search alone, be gentle and bring gifts the creatures like.
“They are so intelligent and you have to give them respect," fellow member Debbie Ray said. “They love music and tobacco and incense and drumming. It draws them out. Other researchers knock and yell. That’s disrespectful."
Beatty maintained that’s why they’ve been so successful at capturing images of the creatures. Bigfoot are difficult to see with the naked eye because, Beatty says, they have the biological ability to cloak, “like
Predator." Apparently that is the reason they, and other cryptozoological creatures, are always blurry in pictures.
While the BRHV doesn’t claim to have all the answers, they’re not ruling anything out. The group believes Bigfoot can cloak, that the creatures may be the offspring of Native American women, abducted and impregnated by aliens 12,000 to 15,000 years ago. Researchers ascribe a spiritual aspect to the creatures which gives them the ability to affect the weather, and that they come in greater numbers when they feel humans are mistreating the earth.
“They could be warning us that we need to stop polluting," Beatty said.
Bonding Over Bigfoot
In February of last year, Ray, a school nurse from Hyde Park, found large tracks around her home. She called the police but she says they brushed her off. She found Beatty and the BRHV online and quickly called them out to make plaster molds of the 19-inch footprints. Since then Ray has become an enthusiastic member of the group. For the BRHV, a side effect of searching for Bigfoot has been the creation of many new friendships with likeminded locals who share an interest in the paranormal.
“We bonded. I like Gayle so much," said Ray, dressed in a sweater covered in neatly stitched Bigfoots. “It’s fun once you get going. You’re outside. It’s just a wonderful way to spend your time."
Both Beatty and Ray know that most people will never believe them, but that doesn’t deter them. “We feel like we’re making history," Ray said, who’s also working with Beatty on a children’s book about how to find Bigfoot.
“No photo or video, even a clear one, will ever satisfy anyone," the BRHV lead researcher said. “Just to go out and find proof and have a good time, that’s enough — to experience it ourselves, teach others and hopefully, some day communicate with them. That’s the ultimate goal."
Bigfoot Researchers of the Hudson Valley
99 Mill Road, Red Hook, NY
(845) 758-6920
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