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CACHE COUNTY -- The claim of a possible Bigfoot sighting is drawing attention to Cache County. The Animal Planet TV show "Finding Bigfoot" went there to follow up on a video shot by some campers in Providence Canyon.
The Bigfoot hunters made a trip to northern Utah in search of that elusive Sasquatch. While it may be the first time Animal Planet has been searching here, it's not the first time that someone has seen the creature nearby.
"It turns out our archives here had over 50 stories of Bigfoot sightings from the area," said Dr. Lynne McNeill, professor of folklore at Utah State University.
McNeill was interviewed for the show, despite some hesitancy on the part of the producers to connect what they were looking at with folklore. She said the producers learned that folklore isn't always fiction.
It was a video on YouTube that initially drew the show to Cache County: A shadowy figure walks across the back of a bonfire while some young people have some fun on a camping trip.
That could just be anyone in the woods, though.
–Melanie Cope
KSL showed some still images from the video to a few people on the Utah State Campus. The photos were a bit grainy, and students seemed unconvinced.
"Looks like all the other ones I've seen," said Kevin Cope.
"I didn't see anything," said Shaun Anderson.
Bigfoot is not the only thing Animal Planet came to see. They held a town meeting and talked with several other people about their own sightings. "I haven't seen convincing, hard evidence that Bigfoot exists," said one participant. "But I haven't seen convincing, hard evidence that Bigfoot doesn't exist."
As with any urban legend comes skepticism.
"That could just be anyone in the woods, though," said Melanie Cope.
Still McNeill said that isn't a bad thing.
"I think that, if there were no skepticism, stories about bigfoot wouldn't be interesting. "What makes them interesting is the debate," she said.
