Published: 8/22/2022 4:03:48 PM
Modified: 8/22/2022 4:00:15 PM
Have you seen Bigfoot?
No, seriously, have you seen it? A 1½-foot concrete statue of the cryptid, ape-like creature was taken off the front yard at 57 South St. last month and the family it belongs to would like it back.
Sarah Gray’s husband, Matthew, and four children purchased the statue from Whitney Hill Antiques in Greenfield and gave it to her for Christmas last year. She chose to name it Gerald and display it on a stump in front of the house. Her kids soon chose a bigger stump and the statue stood there until June 22.
“I was out doing errands and I came back and realized that he was missing from our front yard, off of our stump out here,” Sarah said in her kitchen on Friday. She posted a picture of the statue to Facebook to explain it had disappeared and ask for help finding it. That post got 250 shares and she placed near the stump a large sign asking for the statue’s return, but Gerald remains missing.
“We don’t know what happened. I don’t know if somebody thought he was maybe free,” she said.
Sarah said she did not report the incident to the police because she does not want to burden them with such a matter.
“It was upsetting, but I didn’t want to really involve the police and make a huge deal out of it,” she said. “But for me, it’s very sentimental. I have no hard feelings toward the person that took him or whatever – I would just like my Bigfoot back.”
She said some people have stopped by her house to show her pictures of sasquatch statues they have found, but so far none of them have been Gerald.
Sarah said the inspiration for the gift came when she saw a 3- or 4-foot statue on Route 63, heading into New Hampshire. She said her family bought it for Christmas because she couldn’t stop talking about it. Sarah said the gift was particularly special because her oldest child, Timothy, 17, and his friends were Bigfoot enthusiasts in middle school.
Lost or stolen Bigfoot statues are not unheard of in Massachusetts – in April 2020, police in Worcester recovered a 6-foot statue stolen earlier that month from outside the Brimfield home of a University of Massachusetts Amherst anthropology professor. In April of this year, a 7-foot metal Bigfoot lawn ornament was reported stolen from a home in southern Michigan.
Sarah Gray said she believes there is a possibility that sasquatch-type beasts exist and that some reported sightings, most of which occur in the Pacific Northwest, are the result of a species not yet known or understood by mankind. The Washington (state) Military Department maintains a “Legend of Bigfoot” page (bit.ly/3QXBP3i), and the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (www.bfro.net) was founded in 1995 and bills itself as “the only scientific research organization exploring the bigfoot/sasquatch mystery.” There are also various television shows about the search for the creature.
Reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 262.