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Geographical Index > United States > Iowa > Dubuque County > Article # 653
Media Article # 653
Article submitted by Steve Moon
Thursday, October 25, 2012 The Search for BIGFOOTBy Jim Winter
Dubuque Telegraph Herald
The search for BIGFOOT
A father and son say they saw some of the creatures a month ago near Sundown Mountain. A national research group says there have been multiple sightings in the tri-state area over the years.
Area bigfoot sightings
Bigfoot sightings by county since 1970, according to the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, the only scientific research organization dedicated to explaining the Bigfoot mystery.
* Dubuque County -- 4
* Delaware County (Iowa) -- 2
* Clayton County (Iowa) -- 1
* Iowa County (Wis.) -- 1
Dubuque County expedition Investigator Steve Moon will lead a four-day Bigfoot expedition in April at a location in Dubuque County. Camping will be available on site. To register, go to www.bfro.net.
Posted: Thursday, October 25, 2012 12:00 am | Updated: 7:30 am, Thu Oct 25, 2012.
The search for BIGFOOTBY JIM WINTER TH ASSISTANT CITY EDITOR JWINTER@WCINET.COM | 25 comments
Less than a month ago, a father and son were fishing in a stream just off Twin Springs Drive west of Dubuque.
It was dusk, with a half-moon illuminating the sky and the woods on the other side of the creek. The father and son, who are avid hikers and know the area well, first heard sticks breaking and rustling and assumed raccoons were coming to the other bank of the creek to drink.
Then they saw it. Something larger was coming toward them. The father believed it was a deer and thought nothing of it, until the light of the moon revealed a creature walking on two feet. The creature stopped between two trees, squatted and watched. Less than 10 minutes later, another creature came close to the first one, and six minutes later, a third creature appeared, farther away, and let out a "piercing shriek," the father noted.
"Nothing like the calls that are heard on the TV shows," the father reported. "This was high-pitched and frightening."
The father and son ran back to their car, and a few days later the father sent a report to the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, the only organization dedicated to scientific research of a creature commonly known as Bigfoot, or Sasquatch.
The sighting near Sundown Mountain Ski Resort is the most recent from the area reported to the organization, which tracks reports across the country. There have been multiple sightings in the tri-states, with as many coming in Dubuque County as all other counties in the tri-states combined.
"There's no doubt the northeast part of Iowa is ideal habitat with all its canyons, streams and caves," said Steve Moon, who is a professional research librarian who investigates Iowa cases for the organization. "They are where people normally don't go. There's a lot more out there than you think."
Moon conducted an investigation into the claim by the father and son and went out with them to another location a couple weekends ago for a night investigation, as Bigfoots are believed to be mostly nocturnal. They had experiences then, too.
Moon made Bigfoot calls and within 10 minutes, some came down the hill from above them.
"We heard movement, snaps of twigs, heavy foot fall, and we saw their eyes glow," Moon said. "Before our hour there was up, we were surrounded on three, possibly four sides by the creatures."
Moon, the father and son had a stick thrown at them.
"When we see something like that, we have to remember we are in their living room," Moon said. "They will tell you when they don't like you around."
Moon has investigated other sightings around Dubuque, including one on Aug. 31, 2011, when a creature ran in front of car across U.S. 52 just outside Durango. He also investigated a case in November 2007 on Hickory Hollow Court off Old Davenport Road south of Dubuque. In that case, a roofer looked at the woods behind a house and saw a Bigfoot move out from behind a tree, look at him and move away across a field.
"I was making a phone call to try and get some help on a very large roof I was working on," the witness wrote in a report to the organization. "My arm with the phone dropped and my jaw dropped."
The only other sighting in Dubuque County reported to the organization took place in January 1982 at the access road to FDR Park off North Cascade Road, south of Dubuque. A man saw a large "boulder" in the middle of the road stand up on two legs, look at him and lope down the road toward the park.
Brian Preston, executive director of the Dubuque County Conservation Board, is skeptical the creatures exist, but he did receive a report six to seven years ago of a man who saw rocks arranged in a way that led him to believe a Bigfoot was in Swiss Valley Park. A common trait of Bigfoots to mark territory is to stack rocks, according to the Bigfoot researchers group.
"I'm a little skeptical," Preston said. "There is so little area and so many people out and about that you think we would have observed one."
In his 34 years in the Dubuque County Sheriff's Department, Sheriff Don Vrotsos can't recall ever getting a call about a sighting.
That's not surprising to Moon, who said Bigfoots tend to avoid direct human contact on purpose.
"They are intelligent creatures," Moon said. "When it comes to not being seen, they are more like a ninja and we are more like Elmer Fudd."
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