(Historic) Cliff Crook
Cliff Crook’s interest in the legend of bigfoot began in 1956, when he was sixteen years old, during a camping trip in an isolated section of backwoods near Duvall, Washington. According to Crook’s retelling of the encounter, a bigfoot approached the camp site where he and three friends were gathered around the camp fire. One of the boy's German Shepherds took off after the creature but was picked up and thrown to their feet. They reported hearing a deep horrendous sound as the beast came closer. The boys took off and ran home barefoot, leaving everything behind.
From that point on the topic of bigfoot became something of an obsession for Crook; he developed a variety of items for bigfoot researchers as well as an extensive collection of items aimed at tourists. These items included the bigfoot Totem postcard, Wild Creek Bigfoot postcard, bigfoot bumper stickers, buttons, ribbons, shirts, caps, the Bigfoot Map, the Bigfoot Trailblazer, the Bigfoot Trails newsletter and Bigfoot and the Moon.
Crook developed a seven-point tracking test to detect hoaxed bigfoot prints in 1976, and in 1982 he established North America’s first bigfoot reports headquarters and research database, called "Bigfoot Central."
As Crook continued his ongoing research into the existence of bigfoot, his name became more synonymous with the creature. In 1987 Crook served as an uncredited technical consultant for the Hollywood movie Harry and the Hendersons, which featured a character based on his description. In 1991, Bigfoot Central became the first bigfoot research organization officially sanctioned by the state of Washington. All seemed to be going well for Crook as he continued his research and commercial marketing of bigfoot.
However, in the mid 1990s, after he allegedly purchased and promoted what he claimed to be the clearest known photographs of a bigfoot, Crook became the focus of much criticism and controversy. In October of 1995, Crook claimed to have purchased seven photographs from an unnamed wildlife official who allegedly heard a splashing sound behind him while hiking near a lake deep in the woods. As he investigated the sound he looked down from the cliff he was standing on to see a large bigfoot in the water below. He snapped several pictures of the creature; these photos would later become known as the Wild Creek Bigfoot Photographs.
