But to a growing number of believers in Texas, Bigfoot lives among us, and they are now out to prove it.
"We know that they're there," said Travis Lawrence with the not-for-profit Texas Bigfoot Conservancy.
"We've heard them, we've seen them, we've smelled them."
Like the characters on Animal Planet's "Finding Bigfoot," Lawrence investigates sightings. He claims to have once seen a Bigfoot, as well as its unexplained over-sized footprints.
"Isn't it incredible that in our backyards in North America there could be a seven, eight-foot tall ape?" he asks. "I mean, if that's real, if that's true, that's incredible. That's the zoological discovery of all time."
Sightings in Texas are nothing new and date back to the settlement of Native Americans. But today, the most seem to be happening in the same place. And it is not far from Houston.
According to the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy, Liberty and Montgomery Counties have had 28 sightings in recent years. It is the most of any region in Texas.
Lawrence claims that most center around the dense and remote Sam Houston National Forest.
"That's plenty enough land for anything to live and pretty much go undetected," he said.
Unlike other parts of the country, which market themselves to Bigfoot believers, the forest's sightings may still be something of a secret.
Yet some visitors are now on the lookout.
"We have to have something to hold in your hand, that you can say 'look, it's real, it's irrefutable,'" Lawrence said.
Source: KBTX.com
