By Tim Binnall
A cross country runner in Washington state was understandably amused to discover that he and his cousin had inadvertently spawned a suspected Sasquatch sighting after some bewildered witnesses observed the pair out in the wilderness and thought they were Bigfoot. The somewhat deflating but undoubtedly instructive case of mistaken identity reportedly occurred on February 4th when an unnamed individual was riding his motorcycle with a friend and his young son in a fairly remote forested area near the city of Centralia. Their excursion took a strange turn when the boy drew their attention to what appeared to be a ten-foot-tall bipedal creature approximately a half-mile away from the group.
In reporting the sighting to the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (BFRO), the witness indicated that the suspected Sasquatch was "moving across very rugged terrain" towards a tree line where it ultimately vanished from sight. The motorcyclist went on to marvel that the creature "moved so fluently with little arm movement, unlike a human running." The sighting proved to be promising enough that the BFRO dispatched an investigator to look into the report and he concluded that "based on the description of the way this creature walked and its speed across the terrain, I believe that these three witnesses were fortunate to see a Sasquatch."
News of the February sighting was subsequently picked up by local newspaper The Chronicle, which did a story on the possible Bigfoot observation last week. However, shortly after the account was published, the case unraveled as high school cross country runner Gunnar Morgan stepped forward with a rather remarkable revelation. "That Sasquatch running was me," the teen told the newspaper, explaining that he and his cousin "run often in that exact wilderness area." As for how they could have resembled the famously sizeable cryptid moving in such an unusual fashion, he suggested that this was "because we were running side-by-side and we run extremely fluidly compared to most people."
Lest one suspect that Morgan's debunking of the sighting is some kind of sinister scheme orchestrated by nefarious forces hoping to suppress the belief in Sasquatch, it turned out that the teen happened to be wearing a GPS-enabled device during their run. A check of the tracker confirmed that the two runners were, indeed, in the precise spot when the witnesses spotted the 'Bigfoot' that day. Standing a little over six feet tall, Moran mused that the sighting is somewhat understandable as "from a distance, we could be mistaken for a larger creature." Ultimately, the young man called the case of mistaken identity "all very funny." It is uncertain if the witnesses feel the same way about their once-in-a-lifetime Sasquatch sighting falling flat.