Bigfoot out of this world

French UFO expert Jacques Vallee found it necessary to develop a new classification of UFO sightings, which he called AE3. This classification was intended to include encounters involving other anomalous sightings, such as Bigfoot. Loren Coleman (with Jerome Clark) also wrote a book titled "Creatures of the Outer Edge" (1978), in which he placed Bigfoot alongside other "highly strange" sightings.

A wave of UFO sightings occurred in the eastern United States, and with it came sightings of Bigfoot. One of those who wrote about it at the time was Stan Gordon. From that moment on, Gordon became the foremost interpreter of the UFO-Bigfoot connection.

On October 25, 1975, in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, a farmer and his ten-year-old son watched a red ball land in a field. Ape-like creatures began approaching them until the ball flew away and the creatures fled to nearby trees (Matthews, p. 111).

Such challenging cases aren't limited to Pennsylvania, however. In the summer of 1981, an Ohio family was surprised to find a twenty-inch footprint in the woods. This was quickly followed by a series of incidents involving UFOs and Bigfoot, with other witnesses (source: Kahuna, paranormal-portals.com).

Also in the UK, Rendlesham Forest in Suffolk – better known for an alleged military close encounter with a UFO – has its own legend of a hairy bipedal creature called a "shug-monkey" (source: www.newenglandghosts.com).

Are these double sightings just coincidence? Three years before Chewbacca, a milkman named William Bosak saw Bigfoot piloting a UFO! Returning from a meeting, around 10:30 p.m. on December 9, 1974, he was surprised by a spherical UFO with a transparent dome on top. Inside sat a brown, furry, ape-like figure that appeared to be operating a control panel (The Huffington Post, July 6, 2012).

Charles Bowen's classic 1974 book "The Humanoids" (which he also published) lists furry bipeds as one type of alleged UFO occupant. It's no surprise, then, that researchers from both camps are collaborating: a conference on Bigfoot was held in Kecksburg, USA, in July 2014. In Russia, the ufological organization Kosmopoisk devotes some time to searching for evidence of the snowman's existence.