"Sasquatch encounters? Sightings? Wood knocks? Howls? We want to know!"
Animal Planet's popular television show "Finding Bigfoot" is coming to the Warren/Bradford area, according to a poster at the Bradford Area Chamber of Commerce.
A town hall meeting for the show is set for 5 p.m. Friday at the Lafayette Township Volunteer Fire and Rescue Department's station on Route 59, across from the federal prison.
Anyone interested in participating should contact the show at findbigfootpa@gmail.com.
The show was reportedly drawn to the area in response to several alleged "Bigfoot" sightings along Route 59. The show's producer Joe James declined to comment.
Representatives of the Chamber had been contacted by James and asked to recommend a site for a town hall meeting. The site had to be big enough for 100 people.
The show stars members of the Bigfoot Field Research Organization Matt Moneymaker, Cliff Barackman, James "Bobo" Fay and Ranae Holland. While the intent of Friday's meeting wasn't immediately clear, the show frequently holds town hall meetings in areas where "Bigfoot" sightings have taken place, and interviews local residents to find "hot spots" of suspected activity. The BFRO then investigates based on the information gathered.
Parts of the town hall meetings may be televised as part of the show.
This will not be the first time the BFRO has ventured into this region searching for the ever-elusive "Bigfoot."
Back in 2007, the now famous "Jacobs Photo" was taken on the Allegheny National Forest by a stationary trail camera. The camera's owners didn't know what the image was they had captured. They sent it to the BFRO for help identifying the image.
The BFRO contacted anthropologists and primate experts, who believed the image was of some sort of a primate, Moneymaker told The Era at the time.
The Pennsylvania Game Commission weighed in on the controversy, saying the image was most definitely that of a bear with mange. Others said it was a fisher, a bear that had just taken a swim, a dog bear or a multitude of other possibilities.
Members of the BFRO said it was a "juvenile Sasquatch," referring to an apparent lack of a tail of the creature in the picture, and the length and shape of the legs.
The group has conducted several investigations on the Allegheny National Forest in the years since.