Customer Reviews

Bigfoot

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4 star:		(1)
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I have a had strange relationship with this book. Years ago, back in the 1970s, I was immersed in Bigfoot/Sasquatch material.
I was into Ivan Sanderson and John Green, John Napier and Rene Dahinden, and anyone else into "Sasquatchology". Even searched out an old edition of Theodore Roosevelt's "The Wilderness Hunter" at the University of South Carolina's Thomas Cooper Library to read the "Ghost Story" chapter, which is the famed "Baumann Recollection" of trappers attacked by a bipedal "whatsit" in Idaho's Salmon River Country circa the 1840s. Wanted to read the story as Roosevelt wrote it, and a chiller it is.
Throughout all this period of bigfoot fascination, however, I always stayed, as I thought, "grounded in reality". This was some sort of primeval survival, I believed. This is an ape-man.
This is a pithecanthropus or a gigantopithecus or some relative to one of these. It is smart and it lives in the forests and it avoids humans as much as possible. Everything I gleaned from anecdotes about Ape Canyon, Albert Ostman, the Ruby Creek sightings, William Roe and others convinced me we were dealing with a biological creature here. (And, in MOST...but not ALL...cases, still do).

Then one day I spied on a bookshelf a slender little paperback volume with a greenish "impressionistic' cover that announced itself as "Bigfoot", by B. Ann Slate & Alan Berry. I thought, "Alriiiight!" and made the purchase. Took it home and began reading it and started scratching my head. Thought "Whaaaaat?". Paranormal bigfeet? Interdimensional manifestations? Three-toed sasquatches? Invisible ape-men? My "rational" self recoiled at such notions as reported therein.
I thought "This is utter crap" Complete rubbish" and pitched the book into a box somewhere. Later on I heard more such "blather" from another writer named Eric Norman. I decided he was as full of it as Slate and Berry were.

When the "Six Million Dollar Man" started encountering Bigfoot as a cybernetic "bodyguard" to space aliens on television, I decided I knew then who else had bought Slate & Berry to read, the six-mill producer! And figured their claptrap married up perfectly with his own.

But, over the years, as I kept sticking my nose into such things, I kept ENCOUNTERING these three-toed, paranormalist-friendly accounts of bigfoot(with no Steve Austin attached to them).AND stories of sasquatch sightings in "window" areas with associations to UFOs and "spooklights".
I started getting perplexed then. Why? Because little by little I started seeing/hearing incident patterns that harkened back to that "stupid" book I had so blown off years earlier.

So what did I do then? I started LOOKING for the cussed book, fruitlessly. Finally tracked it down through a used book service and ordered it. THIS time I read it with a lot more of an open mind than I had back in the mid-70s (as well as with much more knowledge of corroborating material and testimony)...and found myself completely blown away by it.

I would have to say, right now, that I believe "Bigfoot" by Slate and Berry to be one of the true CLASSICS in this area of research. AND, as one earlier reviewer very aptly put it, it WILL give you the "willies" (note: if anyone here is too young to understand this reference, it refers to the great African-American character actor of the 1940s, Willie Best. See Willie do his thing with Bob Hope in "The Ghostbreakers", when the spectre of the old Spanish grandee walks through his Cubam castle. Willie made a career out of being so frightened by the supernatural that he would shake and shivver hilariously, go bug eyed...MUCH better than Don Knott's as "Mr. Chicken"...and mutter his famous signature gag-line "Feets don't fail me now!". Because of Willie Best, anyone finding themselves in nervous agitation over "something strange" was said to have a case of "the Willies").

Other people have reported on this type of thing (paranormal-like sasquatch associations) in the years since "Bigfoot" was first published; Loren Coleman, Brad Steiger, John Keel, and Scott Corrales, to name but a few. Yet another is Texas writer Rob Riggs, whose "In the Big Thicket" is an excellent compendium of bigfoot/ghostlight mutual phenomena.

It also should be said that Gian Quasar, the author of the excellent "Into The Bermuda Triangle" is completing a book on Bigfoot/Sasquatch that brings a great deal of new research into line that indicates these "things" are NOT cuddly-wuddly "Harry And The Hendersons" type play-pals. That they are quite dangerous in certain circumstances...maybe more dangerous than the average PETA-phile would like to believe. And THAT is ANOTHER thought that might provoke a case of the willies.

But, back to the subject volume here...the Slate/Berry paperback...thirty years ago I would have told you, "Don't bother with this stupid book. Save your money." TODAY I tell you, don't MISS this wonderful, insightful MILESTONE in the literature.

Seemingly proof of the old adage, "With age comes wisdom".

First off, this book gave me the willies. It has a lot of information on the subject especially the events that took place near the Sierra's in the late 60s early 70s, but it relates the information in a well crafted narrative with atmosphere. Good at presenting possible supernatural/extradimensional aspect of sasquatch phenomena

When I read Slate and Berry's book in 1976, it finally helped the Bigfoot phenomenon "make sense" within my mind. The psychic/interdimensional component of this phenomenon has been sadly overlooked since the 1970's and even then, no book summarizes this approach better than B.Ann Slate and Alan Berry's own look into the subject. I would urge all researchers to spare no resources in finding this book. No library can be said to be truly complete without it.

Alan Berry is a investigative reporter from the San Francisco Bay Area. He has also served as an aid to the California legislature. This man did not gain those positions without integrity. And you understand that Berry is not some crackpot immediately upon setting into the book. Berry's story starts in the California Sierra, with an invitation from a group of hunters, to meet a family of creatures that have been regularly visiting their campsite. Berry completes the long hike in to the remote sight armed with tape recorder and camera. The recordings that were made during his first trip are proof positive of Sasquatch's existence! (Sound recordings are available on CD) This is the research book that all others should be measured against...

I've read most of the books on the subject of Bigfoot. I have had mixed reactions to them but this is the one I have the most mixed about. This book is truly well written and immerses you into the authors' research. I got this book for the background on the Sierra Sounds calling vocalizations. I was entranced in the story of the events leading up to the encounter. However, I quickly fell out of the trance when they started talking about paralyzing lights showing up. From there on out, I found the book less to my personal liking. I'm not one of those the believes bigfoot (plural) are extradimensional beings, have telepathic powers, or are UFO related. For these points, the book didn't hit home for me, however, many others will take interest in the book for those very reasons.

It's all a matter of which bigfoot camp you belong to. 1) Bigfoot are natural occuring yet elusive terrestrial animals - in which this is not a good book for you; or 2) Bigfoot takes a much bigger step into the paranormal/UFO world and then this is a great book for you.

When I read Slate and Berry's book in 1976, it finally helped the Bigfoot phenomenon "make sense" within my mind. The psychic/interdimensional component of this phenomenon has been sadly overlooked since the 1970's and even then, no book summarizes this approach better than B.Ann Slate and Alan Berry's own look into the subject. I would urge all researchers to spare no resources in finding this book. No library can be said to be truly complete without it.

I had fantasies of bigfoot looking in my window for months!!!

I purchased and read this book after its initial publication in the mid '70s. It was my first introduction to the possible paranormal origins of Bigfoot. Having recently come out of the occult and converting to Christianity at the time, I recognized some of the similarities, and their true source. One particular story involved an incident in Pennsylvania, where the individual was overtaken by the same spirit of a Bigfoot. Seemingly demon possessed. Ufos, telepathy, spirit possession and strange disappearances into thin air, all sound a bit fishy. Even the famous series of encounters north of Yosemite National Park, from which the "Sierra Sounds" recordings originated had elements of the supernatural. Especially as the experiences went on. Do I believe all Bigfoot/Sasquatch/Skunk Ape explanations to be from the spirit realm? Not at all. I am of the school that believes there are cryptids, in this case Gigantopithecus, still waiting for classification. But when it comes to certain strange occurrences; yes, I believe they really happened, but were supernatural counterfeits. You'd have to be Spiritually minded to understand what I mean. Remember I was once heavily envolved in the paranormal.

This book has very compelling stories, but some of the conclusions drawn I find dangerous. The same can be said about the whole UFO phenomenon. Just read some of the many so-called "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and you'll see blaring similarities to the world of the occult. Believe me when I say, beware of falling into the trap of the paranormal. This from one who practiced ESP, Astrology and Spiritualism. And having had evil spirits literally put a pillow over my face while lying in bed, trying to suffocate me, discerning the source of some of these other experiences comes quite easy.

In conclusion; yes, I believe in a real creature out there called Bigfoot, but not recognized by science as of yet. A real flesh and blood creature just waiting to be discovered. But I believe also in a counterfeit being perpetrated upon us by the spirit world, with all its recognizable satanic calling cards of possession, telepathy, other dimensions, ESP and even the ability to transform into human appearance, or disappear into thin air (read the Native-American couple's story living near Little Rock, Ca. at the time). Of these, this ex-dabbler into the occultic spirit realm would warn. Beware! Well written, but not for those ignorant of, and unable to discern between the good and the evil in the spirit world.

This is a book that will start conservative Bigfoot researchers thinking about alternatives to the old outmoded "flesh and blood" theory of Bigfoot. The psychic elements are brought out and the book makes the reader re-think. Erik Beckjord, Curator, UFO/Bigfoot Museum, San Francisco,CA ( long-time investigator.)

I got my first copy of this book when I was in third grade, which was approximately the time it was published. Of course, in those days I didn't know that people who write books sometimes "make stuff up." I thought everything in this book was true. I would read it late at night in my bed and become afraid to look at the window, because Bigfoot might be looking in at me. For some reason it was a popular topic in the 70's. All the kids at school believed in the creature. This book is full of anecdotes about people's encounters with Bigfoot. Even the authors claim to have been "stalked" by some of them in the course of their researches. It's an interesting read if you want something light to pass the time with. I'm sure you can get a copy for fifty cents somewhere.