(Historic) Henry Franzoni
Henry Franzoni (b. 1957 died August 22, 2024) was a pioneer in the Internet era of sasquatch research. Franzoni grew up in Glen Ridge, NJ, but attended prestigious Reed College in Portland, OR. Following his tenure at Reed, he returned to Manhatten, worked as a computer programmer until 1988, and then moved back to Oregon. Franzoni and his wife experienced a possible sasquatch encounter during a camping trip, prompting his involvement in bigfoot research.
Franzoni (with Silas Salmonberry) created the first bigfoot email list and newsgroup, the Internet Virtual Bigfoot Conference, in 1993, as well as the first bigfoot/sasquatch web sites (including sites for Matt Moneymaker, Peter Byrne, Rene Dahinden, Ron Morehead, Chris Murphy, and Ray Crowe) and the first online sighting submission form and database. He was a member of the board of advisors for Peter Byrne's Bigfoot Research Project (1993-1998) and a member of the research board for the North American Science Institute (NASI) from 1998-2000. He assisted in the development of remote monitoring systems and GIS data analysis systems for the Bigfoot Research Project and investigated over 400 sighting reports in Oregon and Washington. Results of his research on geographic place names and Indian stories were presented at the University of B.C. Sasquatch Symposium in 1998.
As part of the NASI project, Franzoni contributed to Jeff Glickman’s seminal paper "Towards a Resolution of the Bigfoot Phenomenon." [1] Franzoni also collected most of the Pre-Columbian Native American stories found on the BFRO web site. Other contributions include providing narration for and appearing in the "Sasquatch Odyssey" and "Bigfoot Monster Mystery" documentaries, and contributing to books such as Robert Pyle's "Where Bigfoot Walks," Thom Powell's "The Locals: A Contemporary Investigation of the Bigfoot/Sasquatch Phenomenon", various books written by Chris Murphy, and Fate Magazine columns by Loren Coleman. He appeared on German and Australian TV in the typical bigfoot spokesman role, and on an Unsolved Mysteries episode pursuing a fake sasquatch while a FLIR equipped helicopter followed.
Franzoni designed, implemented, tested, and maintained computer systems for various government entities and corporations for 25 years, and he is currently the Senior Vice President of Thought Matrix Consulting, Reston, Va. He has also been engaged in monitoring anadromous fish populations across the Columbia/Snake River Basin on behalf of tribes, states, and the federal government. He designed and operated a regional scientific data center and biological data collection, analysis, and distribution systems for the fisheries agencies and tribes of the Pacific Northwest, and he provides technical expertise to federal and state governments in the fields of fisheries and EBT. Franzoni has co-authored various scientific research papers in the field of fisheries science, including a quantitative study of Chinook survival in the Columbia/Snake River Basin.[2]
Henry Franzoni appeared in a Bigfoot documentary Sasquatch Odyssey: The Hunt for Bigfoot (TV Movie 1999) on TLC in 1999.
