Four years spent the trail of ‘bigfoot’

Bigfoot is real, or so says a new report from the North American Wood Ape Conservancy.

The 229-page report chornicles more than four years and 12,000 hours of research by the group attempting to complete the first ‘serious’ scientific study into what they call the 'wood ape’.

“There were so many people from so many walks of life that were having these encounters. Many were not extraordinary encounters, just quick visuals of a large hairy thing walking around where it shouldn’t have been,” conservancy member Brian Brown told ABC News.

Another member, Daryl Colyer, served with the United States Air Force and considered Bigfoot a myth until saw one for himself.

“Ahead of me, 40 50 yards I see this figure, that jumps across the trail. It’s upright, it’s jumping like a long jumper across the trail, it lands across on the opposite side of the trail,” Colyer told ABC about his sighting. “It hits the limb, makes the limb move, takes a little skip hop and disappears into the woods.”

The 62-member conservancy broke themselves into teams and spent most of the summer months camped out in Oklahoma’s Ouachita Mountains.

Their findings report consistently hearing “wood-knocks”, which are audible replies to them hitting a wooden bat off a nearby tree.

They also say there were numerous instances of “rock rain” hitting their cabin and others where rocks were thrown at researchers.

Another discovery were “nut-cracking” stations where they found a small rock sitting atop a larger one with smashed hickory nuts in between.

Despite all their evidence, the NAWAC says they don’t believe it will change the science communnity’s opinion on the matter yet.

“As compelling as e believe it to be, we don’t present that as proof,” said Brown. “We don’t believe it’s enough to establish this as a real animal.”

Sadly, none of the 12,000 hours of research resulted in an actual photo of a wood ape.

Asked why, Colyer’s answer was simple, “They [the apes] associate these cameras with humans so they stay away from them.”