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Billy Willard, who is searching for evidence of Bigfoot in Virginia, held a plaster cast he made of a suspicious footprint. (Bill O’Leary/Washington Post)
Billy Willard says he’s on the verge of a major discovery that could change the way humans think about the natural world, not to mention their need for a creature-proof home security system.Here in Spotsylvania County, in the forests around Lake Anna, Willard contends there have been 14 sightings in the past decade of that most fabled of cryptozoic beasts: Bigfoot.
Or Sasquatch, as the elusive, apelike brute is referred to in other circles — and on the side of Willard’s blue pickup. The decal on the truck reads “Sasquatch Watch of Virginia,’’ of which Willard is chief pooh-bah (when he’s not earning a living installing and removing underground home oil tanks).
Go ahead, call him a loon, a flake, a huckster. He’s heard it all. But Willard knows what he knows, which is that three people from this area — a woman, her husband, and their granddaughter — told him they saw a shaggy, super-sized figure on two legs gallivanting across their wooded property.
Last month, Willard led a weeklong expedition to the site, where he installed five motion-sensor cameras that will snap photos if and when the big galoot wanders by again.
Willard, 41, says he’d like to lead a tour of the property and introduce the witnesses, really he would. But the woman who says she saw what she believes could have been Bigfoot fears an avalanche of ridicule, which is why Willard is left to deliver his version of what happened a few miles away, in the parking lot of a Dairy Queen.
“We believe we may be close to some kind of major discovery,’’ he said. “All the things they would need are here, fresh water, shelter in the woods. The high concentration of sightings tells me they’re here.’’
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