Flap: Cottage Grove, Oregon, Apr–Jul 1972

The reports, in order

1. Apr 1972 Witness reports finding a 17 1/2-inch track near Salmon Creek with toes wider and heel narrower than usual.
   Bigfoot · Salmon Creek, Oregon
2. Jun 1972 Witness reports that [name] and three others heard heavy pounding on their cabin walls and door during the night in 1972, followed by the destruction of a…
   Bigfoot · Cottage Grove, Oregon
3. Jun 27, 1972 Witnesses report seeing an upright, dark-brownish hairy creature standing among felled timber near the McKenzie River Valley.
   Bigfoot · Oregon
4. Jul 1972 [name] and another youth claim to have seen bigfoot on a hill in July 1972.
   Bigfoot · Cottage Grove, Oregon
5. Jul 20, 1972 Witness reports seeing a dark brown, muscular creature with a pointed head and no neck staring at their dog before running away into the alder thickets.
   Bigfoot · Oregon

Sources: oregonbigfoot (5).

How we find flaps

• Plain rules, no model: reports within 37 miles and about four months of each other are grouped, and a group counts only when it is at least 5 times what that place usually sees over the 10 years either side.
• A flap needs at least 3 reports from at least 3 separate documents: one article listing six sightings is one telling.
• Copies are not confirmations: a story reprinted in thirty papers counts once.
• Investigator logs (BFRO, NAWAC, the Loch Ness Register) are left out, because a busy field season looks just like a flap.
• Only reports placed to a town or county and dated to the month are used. A flap is a burst of reports, not proof of a creature: panics, hoaxes and newspaper fashions make flaps too.

Every flap →