A team of experts has been searching for Bigfoot in the forests of central Oregon as part of a documentary for the Travel Channel. More than 10,000 people have described eyewitness encounters with Bigfoot in the US over the past 50 years, with almost a third of all reports coming from Oregon.
The researchers tracked Bigfoot 'hotspots', analyzed footprints and used thermal cameras to hunt for the legendary beast. One of the team members is Mireya Mayor, a primatologist at the Florida International University, who told LiveScience that an undiscovered primate hiding out in Oregon’s forests "is totally within the realm of possibility."
"When I went in search of western lowland gorillas, because of the dense vegetation that they live in, the fact that they're not habituated and in fact avoid humans at all costs, there were times where we were no more than three feet away from a 450lb silverback and didn't know that it was there for a good hour or two," she said.
Mayor shared the footage with another primatologist, and she says he was impressed.
"When he saw the footage, he was completely blown away," Mayor said."[He] agreed with me that something apelike was far from its home."