This astounding work brings professional investigative abilities and forensic artistry to the field of Bigfoot studies. **NEW: the 'Bigfoot Sightings Map' lists all of the Bigfoot sightings and encounters that are investigated in this book **This astounding work brings professional investigative abilities and forensic artistry to the field of Bigfoot studies. David Paulides, a former police investigator, has applied his skills to questioning Bigfoot witnesses. The results he has achieved in gaining access to witnesses and getting detailed information from them is both remarkable and intriguing. Furthermore, he commissioned a forensic police artist to meet with witnesses and sketch the creatures they saw. These drawings provide insights into the creature's nature never before realized. The result of this team's work is by far one of the most convincing accounts ever written on Bigfoot. The conclusion reached - that this creature, long revered by the Hoopa people, definitely inhabits the forested regions of Humboldt County in Northern California - is so convincing that those people who doubt Bigfoot's existence will be forced to think again! For Bigfoot believers and skeptics alike, a new book about sightings in the Hoopa area raises a number of challenging questions. The Hoopa Project by David Paulides is the first major research report of North American Bigfoot Search, an organization formed in 2004 by a group of Silicon Valley executives curious about prior experiences they'd had in Northern California forests. One significant difference between NABS and every other Bigfoot organization is our dedication to stay on a regional project until every possible angle of every sighting has been researched, witnesses interviewed, locations and food sources understood, and an extensive list of variables answered, the NABS Web site says. Paulides is the public face of NABS, which he says has members of the academic community who don't want to be exposed to ridicule by publically supporting research into the controversial topic. NABS' initial project was to gather every recorded report of a Bigfoot sighting in the four-county region of Del Norte, Humboldt, Trinity and Siskiyou counties (as well as southern portions of Jackson and Curry counties in Oregon). Paulides brought in Harvey Pratt, an FBI-trained forensic sketch artist with years of law enforcement experience in Oklahoma. A member of the Cheyenne and Arapahoe tribes, Pratt's Native American background was helpful in gaining rapport with the primarily Hoopa tribal population in the valley. The bulk of The Hoopa Project is detailed reports of 16 incidents and 33 sightings in the Hoopa area, as well as forensic sketches of most of the sightings. The stories and pictures offer at least two important developments in Bigfoot research. One, they demonstrate that probably the vast majority of potential sightings go unreported. Many reports in the book came from witnesses who do not make a habit of sharing their experiences. Often, these people were professionals in fields such as teaching and forest management and some were tribal leaders, including one former Hoopa tribal councilwoman. They did not approach Paulides - they were approached by others who had already come to trust him. Paulides says he understands the hesitation to come forward. Coming from a police perspective, 50 percent of all rapes are not reported. Let's think about why that is, Paulides says. They're humiliated, embarrassed, intimidated by the legal process and don't want to come forward. A lot of the same issues apply to bigfoot. They don't want to be ridiculed or downtrodden by the community, so a lot of people shy away from anything that would draw ridicule. But the more you talk to people in the community, the more you see how prominent it is. Paulides says he's discussed this issue with others members of NABS, and they estimate that as many as 80 percent of all sightings go unreported. But for Paulides, the most interesting piece of information produced by the project was the overwhelming consensus about Bigfoot's appearance, which runs counter to popular modern depictions of the creature. --Matthew C. Durkee, The Daily Triplicate, California I finished reading the David Paulides book, The Hoopa Project: Bigfoot Encounters In California, Hancock House Publishers, 2008, gifted to me by Investigator X, and I fully concur with her high assessment of the book. It is a valuable addition to a number of volumes aimed at answering the question: Do bigfoot exist? Even if the other volumes did not exist, this work is convincing enough for any open-minded investigator in answering the question positively. It is noteworthy that unlike other BF pro-existence studies, this one is based solely on generally misjudged and undervalued anecdotal evidence. Footprints, hairs, scat, DNA, vocalizations, their discussion and analyses are not to be found in this book. The author only gives a short list of such evide