FOUR CORNERS

New Mexico, November 2007

The Navajo Nation extends into the states of Utah , Arizona and New Mexico , covering over 27,000 square miles of unparalleled beauty. Diné Bikéyah, or Navajoland, is larger than 10 of the 50 states in America. Visitors from around the world are intrigued and mystified when they hear the Navajo language – so, too, were the enemy during World War II. Unknown to many, the Navajo language was used to create a secret code to battle the Japanese. Navajo men were selected to create codes and serve on the front line to overcome and deceive those on the other side of the battlefield. Today, these men are recognized as the famous Navajo Code Talkers, who exemplify the unequaled bravery and patriotism of the Navajo people.

*Navajo was a name given by the Spanish to the people who are correctly called the Diné. Out of respect to our hosts and new friends, this writer will refer to these people in my writings, as the Diné from this point on.
To learn more about these people, goto; http://www.navajo.org/history.htm

The report from Jim Snell

"Here is some stuff from the 4 corners investigation, Looking forward to seeing you in a few days! Talk soon Brother" - Jim

Report: 4 Corners New Mexico

We pulled into Farmington New Mexico and met with our team members David Ortiz and J.C. Johnson, there had been recent reports of activity around some nearby caves. These caves went deep into a large rock formation on the outskirts of town. We geared up and hiked up to the location where we found an entrance to the caverns. It was large and deep; we could feel the cold air rushing out of the mouth of the cave telling us there had to be several entrances and outlets. As we descended into the dark caves we came to an area inside which had a lower and large upper level, several tunnels leading in different directions.

Left to right are; JC Johnson, Brian Mazzola, Steve Kulls, TJ Biscardi, David Ortiz, Jim Snell, and Leonard Dan

As you can see, not an easy place to investigate!

We found corn husk, cobs and stock throughout the caves, the nearest corn field was about ½ mile away. We also found several tracks inside, large cat, snake and fox, and yes even some imprints we believe to be very squatch-like, from size and stride we think they could have been from the creature. A nearby native had reported sightings of the creature to David and J.C. before our arrival. We made our way through the tunnel system and explored every area that was accessible, it was a very interesting area and very conducive to a creature habitat.

From there we made our way onto the Diné Bikéyah (Navajo Nation Reservation) where we met local native Leonard Dan, who by the way is the nicest guy you’d ever want to meet, and at 69 years old he had no trouble keeping up, even surpassing the experienced team in 5 days of intense field work, needless to say he impressed the hell out of all of us. Leonard invited us to camp out on his property where there had been many sightings of a creature the locals call ’Big Joe’. We had noises in the night, agitated and scared dogs, and had bait taken, it was a very exciting place to research.

A few days into the investigation we were met by our newest team member Jimmy Jernigan who flew in for the investigation. We packed up and headed out to Lucachucai’s mountain a very vast and secluded mountain with an elevation of over 9000 feet. We investigated what we could of this very large area being somewhat restricted to Leonard’s land. There are several sheep camps up there all abandoned for the winter, the wind was wicked and the nights were extremely cold, some of the team had trouble with the elevation change, but in spite of these adversities we pushed on and checked out the area.

We found it to be ideal habitat for the creature, we found several bear tracks, and the thing that sticks in my mind about the area is there were no animals in sight and it was extremely quiet except for the wind which sounded like a swiftly flowing river, and the view over red valley was incredible!

We returned to the valley and over the course of a few nights we did have some disturbances in the night. One night something circled our camp, the 2 dogs we had with us ran towards the tree line with tails straight out barking at something! It wasn’t long before they both returned with tails between their legs and for the first time ran into one of the tents and cowered. These dogs are quite used to the indigenous wildlife, and not much is out there for them to be scared of! It was at this time Steve heard a large crash in the woods catching him off guard, the team quickly gathered flashlights and pursued the noise through the thick and thorny brush, whatever it was, took off much faster than we could get in there to follow.

A view of the Valley!

In the morning we found no suspicious prints, so we immediately re-baited the area, set up cameras and raked down the ground to prepare for any visitors, of course when you are 100% ready for something to happen usually it is quiet and uneventful and that was the case our last night out there. We enjoyed hearing all the stories and reports from the locals, and our 2 local team members have done some great work out there, we look forward to a return trip, until then we’ll have David, J.C. and Leonard working the area in search of the Bigfoot called ‘Big Joe’.