If you've ever wondered whether Bigfoot is "just a Pacific Northwest thing," the numbers say otherwise. Reports come from almost every corner of the country. Some of the busiest states are a long way from the big Douglas firs of Washington and Oregon.
For our sightings page and map, we started with a public dataset compiled from the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (BFRO) reports database. The BFRO has been collecting and posting reports from across North America for decades. A data scientist named Timothy Renner scraped those public reports into a tidy dataset, and the TidyTuesday data project republished it in 2022.
We kept only the reports that have map coordinates attached. That left 4,045 US reports across 49 states, running from a single 1869 California entry to 2021. Every one links back to its original BFRO page, so you can read the witness's own account in full on the BFRO site.
The top ten states (mapped BFRO reports)
| Rank | State | Mapped reports |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Washington | 539 |
| 2 | Ohio | 283 |
| 3 | Florida | 281 |
| 4 | California | 277 |
| 5 | Texas | 218 |
| 6 | Illinois | 210 |
| 7 | Oregon | 186 |
| 8 | Michigan | 160 |
| 9 | Missouri | 139 |
| 10 | Georgia | 113 |
Counts are for reports with coordinates in the public dataset we use, through 2021. They are not the BFRO's complete current totals.
A few things that jump out
Washington is in a league of its own. With 539 mapped reports, Washington has nearly twice as many as the next state. That fits its reputation. Washington is home to Ape Canyon on Mount St. Helens, to Skamania County's famous 1969 Sasquatch ordinance, and to a whole culture of Sasquatch mascots and festivals. We dig into all of that in our upcoming Bigfoot in Washington State post.
Ohio is number two. That surprises a lot of people, but Ohio has its own homegrown legend, the Grassman, plus one of the longest-running Bigfoot conferences in the country at Salt Fork State Park.
Florida is right behind. The Sunshine State's Skunk Ape helps explain why Florida ranks so high. Wikipedia notes that the BFRO has archived reports from almost every county in Florida.
Texas, Illinois and Michigan show that Bigfoot reports aren't limited to mountains. River bottoms, big woods, and farm country all show up in the data.
The top counties
Washington's dominance shows up at the county level too. Seven of the ten busiest counties in the dataset are in Washington:
| Rank | County | Mapped reports |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pierce County, WA | 69 |
| 2 | Snohomish County, WA | 48 |
| 3 | Skamania County, WA | 41 |
| 4 | Lewis County, WA | 40 |
| 5 | King County, WA | 37 |
| 6 | Tuolumne County, CA | 36 |
| 7 | Grays Harbor County, WA | 29 |
| 8 | Coconino County, AZ | 26 |
| 9 | El Dorado County, CA | 22 |
| 10 | Okanogan County, WA | 22 |
A few of these are worth a closer look. Pierce County, home of Tacoma, is Washington's second-most populous county (921,130 people in 2020), a reminder that big populations next to big forests produce a lot of reports. Tuolumne County, California, is the opposite: just 55,620 people, with Sonora as its only incorporated city, yet 36 reports. El Dorado County lies entirely in the Sierra Nevada, from the Gold Country foothills to Lake Tahoe. And Arizona's Coconino County, with Flagstaff as its seat, is the second-largest county by area in the contiguous US, bigger than nine states.
When the reports were made
The reports aren't spread evenly over time. Just one entry predates 1920, and the 1950s have only 24. Then the numbers climb: 96 in the 1960s, 425 in the 1970s, 426 in the 1980s and 534 in the 1990s. The 2000s are the peak by a mile, with 1,562 reports, almost 39% of the whole dataset. The 2010s added 856, and 2020 and 2021 added another 108 before the dataset ends.
Which states are still busy? Since 2010, Washington (120) leads, followed by Illinois (91), Florida (78) and Ohio (74). In 2020 and 2021 alone, Washington (19) and Ohio (18) are far ahead of everyone else, with Idaho (7) in third.
Across all years, reports peak in summer (1,369) and fall (1,354), with spring (689) and winter (633) far behind. October is the single busiest month (545), followed by July (505) and August (475). February (162) and March (168) are the quietest. More people are outdoors hiking, camping and hunting in summer and fall, which may explain a lot of that pattern.
States that might surprise you
Just outside the top ten you'll find Colorado (107), Kentucky (102), West Virginia (96), Arkansas (91), Alabama (86) and Oklahoma (83). Arkansas has the Fouke Monster. Oklahoma hosts a big October festival in the Kiamichi country. West Virginia even has its own Bigfoot museum.
At the other end of the list, Delaware (3), Vermont (4), North Dakota (4) and Rhode Island (5) have only a handful of mapped reports each. In our dataset, Hawaii has none.
Why do some states have more reports?
There's no single answer, and we want to be careful here. A higher report count doesn't prove anything about Bigfoot. It reflects how many people sent in reports, plus where the BFRO's investigators have been active. Some factors that likely matter:
- Big forests and lots of people nearby. States with large wooded areas and big populations produce more outdoor visitors, and more visitors means more reports.
- Local legends and media. When a region has a famous story, like Boggy Creek in Arkansas or the Skunk Ape in Florida, people know what to call what they saw and where to report it.
- Active research groups. Areas with active field researchers tend to generate more documented reports.
It's also worth knowing what scientists think. A 2009 study in the Journal of Biogeography (summarized on Wikipedia) compared where Bigfoot reports happen with where American black bears live and found a very close match. The authors suggested many sightings could be misidentified black bears. Whatever your view, it's a good reminder to think about bears when you're out in the woods.
How the reports are classified
The BFRO sorts reports into classes:
- Class A: clear sightings in circumstances where misidentification can be ruled out with greater confidence
- Class B: distant or poor-light views, plus all sound-only reports
- Class C: secondhand reports
According to the BFRO, reports are investigated before they're published, by phone or a field visit, and a report isn't considered credible if the witness can't be contacted.
Our dataset breaks down almost evenly between Class A (2,015) and Class B (2,014), with just 16 Class C reports.
That even split hides big differences between states. Among states with at least 80 mapped reports, the highest Class A shares belong to Arkansas (69%), Alabama (66%) and Oklahoma (64%), followed by Kentucky (61%), Missouri (59%) and Texas (59%). At the other end, California (38%), Washington (42%) and Michigan (45%) lean Class B. In other words, the Pacific Northwest and California produce more sound reports, distant glimpses and tracks, while the South produces a higher share of clear sightings. Why that happens is an open question. On our sightings page, each row is a short summary in our own words: when, where, season and class. The link takes you to the full report on BFRO.net.
Want to explore your state?
Head over to the Bigfoot map to zoom in on your county, or browse the sightings list by state. If you think you've had an encounter of your own, check out our upcoming guide on how to report a Bigfoot sighting. It walks through what to write down and where to send it.
And if your state looks lonely on the map? Well, maybe you'll be the one to change that. Just remember to bring a camera, a buddy, and a healthy respect for the bears.
Source: BFRO.net (public reports database). Summaries on our site are written by Everything Bigfoot™ from structured report data and are not quotes from witnesses.
