Fictional cops slay imaginary giant critter

A few weeks after Billings Gazette reporter Jim Hagengruber took a new job in Coeur d'Alenc, Idaho, the biggest sasquatch story in years broke in Montana.

I couldn't reach Hagengruber to get his reaction, so I can only imagine the deep sense of failure he must have felt upon seeing the headline--"Bigfoot shot by Montana police!"--on the cover of the December 30, 2003, edition of the Weekly World News.

Hagengruber was The Gazette's top reporter on the Bigfoot beat, though some of the editors thought he shouldn't have been wasting his time on sasquatch stories. Now he has been vindicated by no less prestigious a journalistic outlet than the Weekly World News.

True, there are some anomalies in the story, and some troubling questions have been raised about the black-and-white cover photo accompanying it, but a grocery store tabloid wouldn't just invent a story out of thin air, would it? Some of the other headlines in the Dec. 30 issue--"Pope OKs space alien priest" and "Man travels world on Monopoly money!"--sound a little suspicious, but let's stick to the sasquatch.

A Frisky Bigfoot

The gist of the WWN story was that a couple from New Zealand was hiking in Beaverhead Rock State Park, between Dillon and Twin Bridges in southwestern Montana, when they were accosted by a leering Bigfoot who apparently had amorous designs on the female New Zealander.

After running far twenty minutes, with the Bigfoot in hot pursuit, the couple, "bedraggled and drenched in sweat," reach a road, where two Montana Highway Patrol officers, luckily, were passing by. The troopers ordered the 7-foot-tall hominid to stop, but when it didn't, they blasted him with thirty rounds to the chest. The photo shows hairy Mr. BF on his back on the highway, apparently right where he went down.

Now for the difficulties. The photo shows white squad cars with the word "police" on the trunk and side, and on one car there is a license plate beginning with "23," the number for Musselshell County.

I talked to Lt. Col. Randall Yaeger, deputy chief of the Montana Highway Patrol (MHP) in Helena, who said he was not "officially aware" that any officers under his command--all of whom drive black patrol cars--had had an encounter with a Bigfoot.

"If something like that were actually to happen," he said, "our guys would be so proud of it we couldn't keep it a secret."

Capt. David Dill, head of the Billings region for the Highway Patrol, said MHP cars say "Highway Patrol" on the side, and all of them have Lewis and Clark Bicentennial license plates that begin with "MHP," followed by the officer's badge number.

"I can assure you," he said solemnly, "we didn't shoot a Bigfoot."

The Roundup Connection

I thought perhaps the WWN reporter had somehow confused Roundup cops with Highway Patrol officers, bur Rosie Mercado, the dispatch supervisor in Roundup, blew that theory away.

For starters, she said, there are no "police" cars in Roundup, only Musselshell County sheriff's vehicles. And she doubted very much that any Musselshell County deputies were cruising near Beaverhead Rock State Park, far to the west.

"As far as I know, I haven't seen no sasquatch run over or shot or nothing like that," she said firmly.

I began to wonder why everyone sounded so certain of their facts, so ... defensive. What were they, trying to hide?

Doug Monger, administrator of the Parks Division of the Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, also tried to cast doubt on the story. He said it would be hard to imagine anyone being chased for twenty minutes through the seventy-one-acre park, and he described Beaverhead Rock as a "sagebrush mound" bearing none of the thick foliage shown in the WWN photo.

Despite his evident skepticism, Monger offered up an intriguing possibility: "We used to have an employee down there with a real hairy back and a big beard," he said. "Come to think of it, we haven't heard from him in a while."

This was Monger's official statement. He also said, in hushed tones, though he may have to deny it, "I'd love to tell you everything I know, but I've been threatened with death, and not just by scientists."

Did you bear that, Hagengruber? Your Pulitzer Prize is waiting for you, back in Montana.

Ed Kemmick is a writer for the Billings Gazette, where this article first appeared.

COPYRIGHT 2004 Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal
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