{"id":13115,"date":"2021-07-09T20:25:07","date_gmt":"2021-07-10T00:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=13115"},"modified":"2021-07-09T20:25:41","modified_gmt":"2021-07-10T00:25:41","slug":"bigfoot-believers-to-gather-at-rp-center-to-discuss-reported-sightings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2021\/07\/09\/bigfoot-believers-to-gather-at-rp-center-to-discuss-reported-sightings\/","title":{"rendered":"Bigfoot believers to gather at RP Center to discuss reported sightings"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Is Bigfoot more than a myth? True believers are meeting in Lakeland this weekend to share stories they think show the elusive, fabled creature is real.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cFlorida has the third-largest number of sightings in the country, only behind California and Washington. The bulk of them are over on this side: Polk County, Collier County,\u201d claimed Marty Pippin, the organizer of the inaugural\u00a0\u201cGreat Florida Bigfoot Conference\u201d<\/a>\u00a0happening Saturday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Green Swamp Wilderness Preserve is seen as a treasure trove for Bigfoot \u201cresearchers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cA lot of sightings out there. A lot of activity in that area,\u201d Pippin said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There have been up to 350 sightings in Florida, according to Pippin. In the Bigfoot fandom, \u201csightings\u201d are considered visuals of the Bigfoot itself, tracks, or trees that fall in a superhuman way, among other signs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot many humans can pick up trees and rip them out of the ground, carry them from one place to another, stick them between two trees,\u201d David Sidoti, a Bigfoot believer from Lakeland, said. \u201cSo that tells me it\u2019s like a keep out sign. It doesn\u2019t want you in this area.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some people believe Florida is home to an entirely unique species known as the \u201cSkunk Ape.\u201d It\u2019s a point of debate in the community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An event like Saturday\u2019s \u201cGreat Florida Bigfoot Conference\u201d gives participants a safe space to discuss their experiences and their theories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou get a lot of those people that will hold on to these stories that they\u2019ve had for their entire lives and sometimes have never talked about them or shared them,\u201d said Pippin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you think Bigfoot is real?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cThere are some weird things that have happened when we were in the woods and on the mountains in Tennessee so I can\u2019t deny there\u2019s got to be something,\u201d said Candyce Coker, a believer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t believe in Bigfoot. I think it\u2019s kind of absurd,\u201d non-believer Brandon Gray said. \u201cThey should go to Alaska if that\u2019s what they want to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The event headliners are Cliff Barackman and James \u201cBobo\u201d Fay from \u201cFinding Bigfoot\u201d on Animal Planet. The event kicks off Saturday, July 10 at 9:45 am at the RP Funding Center. Tickets start at $20.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is Bigfoot more than a myth? True believers are meeting in Lakeland this weekend to share stories they think show the elusive, fabled creature is real. \u201cFlorida has the third-largest… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13117,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[760],"class_list":["post-13115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-bigfoot-believers-to-gather-at-rp-center"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}