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does it mean'to hunt Bigfoot? What\are we really looklna.. for? The traditional belief, If you rule out alien landings, is tnat Bigfoot descends from Gigantopithecus, the giant C;�inese primate from prehistoric times, There's a theory that small numbers of the ape crossed over through Russia and into North America, surviving in the dense forests of the Pacific Northwest while dying out in their native lands. • According to Bigfoot lore the beast is nocturnal, migratory, perhaps a hominid. Sightings put it at anywhere from four to seven fej!t tall, stinking of skunk I a'nd rotting flesh and covered in dark brown hair with a'humanlike face, Once, while camping on the Oregon coast, a man named Peter Byrne heard Bigfoot roar-two screaming blasts separated by a five-second interval. Byrne-who spent 36 months in the late fifties criss-crosJing the Sikkim Himalaya searching for the Yeti, and two years playing hide-and-seek with Bigfoot throughout the Cascade Range in the early seventies-began the Bigfoot Research Project'in 1,992. With assistance from the Academy of Applied Science, Byrne intro duced new technology to the search by hiding infrared cameras and motion sensors throughout the Great North Woods and replacing old�fashioned tracking techniques with electronic surveillance equipment. Computers generated possible migration p-atterns. The "sound" science of rumors was also used. See an oversize footprint in - the backyard? DiaI1-800-BIGFQOT. But since last spring, the Bigfoot Research Project is no more. The project was subsumed by the l')Iorth American Science Institute (NAS1),'a central repository. of artifacts and research papers -dealing with Bigfoot phenomena. NASI will analyze mote than 400 eyewitness reports of • Bigfoot sightings and distribute the scientific analysis of the famous Patterson-Gimlin 'film-that �hoddy video.of a large hairy thing walk ing t�rough the woods. It will be archive central f,or things tha\ go bump in the forest. . - ' . • number is shut down, but deservedly so. They.used to get iI''Call every eight minutes, up to' 5,000 calls a month, m�stly pranks. Though they will still 'investigate reported sightings ahd Which isn't, when all is said and done, a bad thing. The 800 - plan to expand the s�i1'nce network, NASI wants to take the' research out of the-·nerႀ and focus on applying the .scientific ,method to North America's oldest mystery. "NASI is intefested in solving the phenomenon." says Deborah Wolman, Operations 'Director. "We want to know w�y the legend has endured for so long."-Steven Kotler ,