PERRYSVILLE — An inaugural all-things-Sasquatch festival is coming to Pleasant Hill Lake Park in September.
The Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District has organized an event dubbed “Bigfoot Basecamp Weekend” featuring a VIP dinner and town hall event with a bonafide Bigfoot expert, a guided Bigfoot hike, an outdoor movie night and other activities.
It will take place Sept. 9 to 11.
The weekend’s star features Matt Moneymaker, founder and president of the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, a website that tracks sightings across North America.
The event kicks off with a ticketed VIP dinner with Moneymaker on Friday. The dinner will include a town hall at the Mohican Lodge and Conference Center.
Moneymaker is expected to speak about his own encounter with sasquatch, sightings in Ohio and “the use of new advanced thermal imaging technology.”
“Thermal imaging video will be live-streamed from around Pleasant Hill Lake Park by drones,” reads the event’s website.
The dinner costs $75.
Those who want more can purchase an exclusive site on the park’s primitive camping area for $150. The camp is located at the location of an encounter on Aug. 18, 2020, according to the website.
The purchase gets you access to BFRO volunteers, a Bigfoot-themed welcome box and a chance to share stories with fellow Yeti searchers.
“Saturday’s activities will include a (town hall) with Moneymaker, guided pontoon tours, and survival skills activities, to name a few,” said Louis Andres, program specialist at Pleasant Hill Lake Park, in a press release about the event.
“A nighttime thermal drone search will also be broadcast Saturday night to survey for large mammal targets — coyotes, deer, sasquatches, etc. — assisted by ground spotters with handheld thermal imagers,” he said.
Ohio ranks fifth in the United States with more than 300 sightings, according to numbers found on BFRO’s website.
Ashland County alone has nine reported sightings, two of which happened in 2021.
The first sighting last year was reported by a 20 year-old woman who “saw a creature, seven or eight feet tall and covered in gray fur, racing back into the woods” near Warehouse 24-Hour Gym in Ashland.
Ashland County’s second sighting happened in July. A 51 year-old man saw a “large, all-black figure” walking toward woods in his freshly planted soybean field.
Richland County has four reported encounters, according to the BFRO website.
Tickets and additional information for the event can be found here.
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