University students search for sasquatches in Simcoe County

The search for sasquatches has led many people to far corners of the world, but a group of young enthusiasts think Big Foot may be hiding on Barrie's borders.

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A group of students from Trent University's Sasquatch Society have been spending time on the outskirts of Barrie lately, claiming they've gotten numerous reports of the unconfirmed creatures lurking in Simcoe County.

"A lot of them interestingly are highway crossings, typically at night," said Ryan Willis, one of the group's members. "So what that means is someone is just driving along, and then a Big Foot runs across the road in front of them or sometimes behind in some of the ones we got and things like that, and there's other ones out in the woods, it kind of varies a bit."

Reports of the elusive ape-like creatures go back decades, with perhaps the most famous sighting coming from the 1967 Patterson Gimlin film.

Of course, with no scientifically proven sightings, the group knows there are naysayers.

"We don't want it to be considered a niche thing," said Joel Porter, another one of the group's members. "We want it to be talked about more openly, and you have a lot of these people who have sasquatch experiences, and they don't want to talk to people about it just because they think people will ridicule them or they won't be believed."

The group did not want to publicly disclose exactly where they were searching to avoid disturbances.

They did plan on camping out along with various tools, including infrared technology and speakers, to try to lure any sasquatches that they believe are in the area.

"So what we're going to do is we have some audio recordings of sasquatch calls that have been taken by other researchers, and we're going to play those audio recordings while we're out in the middle of nowhere and see if we get a response," said Porter.

The search is part of a TV pilot set to air on the Wild TV Network later this year.

However, a recent study published online in bioRxiv pours cold water on the students' search, suggesting Big Foot sightings may simply be those of bears.