Bigfoot Hunters Believe New Jersey Could Hold the Key to Solving the Sasquatch Mystery

Bigfoot may be more than just a legend in New Jersey, where researchers say the state has become a popular place to search for the mysterious creature.

The Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization has documented 79 reported sightings across the state, including 18 in Sussex County and 16 in Burlington County, according to an NJ.com article published on Thursday, October 29.

Mike Familant, a longtime Bigfoot researcher, has spent more than a decade investigating possible encounters, per the outlet. He identifies High Point State Park, Stokes State Forest and the Delaware Water Gap as areas where sightings have been reported.

Familant’s interest began during a 2011 camping trip in Florida, when he and a friend heard unexplained knocking sounds before rocks began landing near their campsite, the outlet reported.

“Then a 15-pound, laptop-sized boulder came crashing through the trees and landed five feet away from us,” he said.

“That 15 minutes changed my life forever,” Familant said.

In 2022, his team recorded an unusual sound at High Point State Park. According to Familant, a military linguist who reviewed the recording could not match it to a known animal in northwestern New Jersey, per the report.

Another investigator, Mike Patrick, described tracks that were discovered during a November 2014 expedition in Wharton State Forest.

“They found probably 15 sets of footprints,” Patrick said, NJ.com reported. “And they were two different sizes and they were barefoot.”

Per the outlet, researchers made casts of approximately a dozen impressions, but the source of the footprints remains unknown.

Jacob Korbel, another investigator, recalled hearing strange sounds during a 2021 expedition in the Pine Barrens.

“About 100 yards away in front of us, there’s this whoop response,” he said, the outlet reported. “And right away, I’m like, that’s nothing that I’ve ever heard before. That’s not an owl, that’s not a coyote, fox.”

The Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, founded in 1995, investigates sightings by interviewing witnesses, examining locations and searching for possible physical evidence.

Despite years of searching, Familant acknowledges that he has never personally seen the mysterious creature.

“I don’t try to convince people of anything,” he said, according to the article. “I haven’t seen a Bigfoot myself, so I can’t say with 100 percent certainty that they’re out there.”

As Globe previously reported, Ohio residents have also claimed to encounter Bigfoot, with a series of sightings across the northeastern part of the state earlier this year. Witnesses described enormous footprints measuring up to 17 inches, strange screams and towering, hair-covered figures, Fox 8 reported.