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GRAND RAPIDS, Minn. — At first, nobody wants to raise their hand.

It's the first hour of the annual Minnesota Bigfoot Conference. It's a Saturday morning, and there are about 150 people inside a brightly lit ballroom at a hotel in Grand Rapids on Oct. 5.

This is what's labeled "Town Hall" on the one-day event's schedule. It could just as well be labeled "Safe Place." It's a term used almost right away by event organizers from the to reassure attendees.

Abe Del Rio, the founder and director of the group who goes by the online nickname "Elusive1," says later this kind of hesitance is normal. Everyone with a Bigfoot story has probably been disbelieved — mocked even.

But not here. Not in this ballroom. All Bigfoot encounters are welcome.

"You guys are in an absolutely safe place for this," Del Rio says. "Who would like to share what they've seen?"

One or two hands go up, and the stories begin, one after the other.

Jeremy Fugleberg / Forum News Service

The Minnesota Bigfoot Conference — now in its fifth year — is home to a remarkable display of radical acceptance, a crucial element among this community of Bigfoot believers, who see themselves as beset by skeptics. The vast majority of serious scientists consider Bigfoot (or Sasquatch, if you prefer) a definitely mythical creature, and consider cryptozoology, the study of cryptids such as Bigfoot, a pseudoscience.

MNBRT, a group with nine members who volunteer their time to look for and track sightings of Bigfoot across Minnesota, is followed by about 10,000 fans on It bills itself as "a group of like minded individuals that work together in proving the existence of Sasquatch/Bigfoot using scientific methods in collecting evidence and working with the best academic experts in this field."

There have been 79 reports of Bigfoot sightings or evidence in Minnesota, mostly in the state's northwoods, maintained by Of course, many people haven't reported their own experiences, including many of those who attended this year's Minnesota Bigfoot Conference.

Jeremy Fugleberg / Forum News Service

Among the Bigfoot community, it can be hard to tell who is a true believer and who is just a Bigfoot fan for the sheer fun of it. Bigfoot as an idea has become a cultural phenomenon, supposedly spotted in flesh-and-blood in every state, and the subject of innumerable tourism T-shirts and tchotchkes.

But the goal of the Minnesota Bigfoot Conference is to give all believers the benefit of the doubt. Even when the stories get a little ... out there.

"I hope you do talk about it — this is the place for it," Del Rio urges the crowd.

Here, in this hotel ballroom, your story will be believed.

Grand Rapids is Trump Country. Trump 2024, "Make America Great Again," and related signs festoon the city and stick up from the grass along neighboring roads. There's a Trump store in town selling all kinds of Trump-related merchandise. The day of the Bigfoot conference, a group of Trump fans gather in downtown Grand Rapids to wave flags and accept passing cheers and car honks.

But inside the ballroom at the Timberland Lodge and Hotel, there are hardly any bright-red Trump hats to be found (Forum News Service saw only one all day). Here, political talk is out. In, in this refuge from politics: Bigfoot belief, discussion and merchandise — Bigfoot lamps, Bigfoot Koozies, Bigfoot T-shirts, Bigfoot signs.

Jeremy Fugleberg / Forum News Service

A Bigfoot conference is not the place to go if you're a reporter and you want people to speak on the record. Multiple attendees approached for an interview flatly denied a request for their names. One gave a name that, when checked later, couldn't be verified as real.

Many hadn't attended a Bigfoot conference before, but described finding out about it online, via social media, or in advertisements stapled to the wall in gas stations.

Some believed in Bigfoot, others were there for the fun of it.

"I enjoy cryptid lore," said one attendee from the Twin Cities area. She had found the event on Facebook and had been struck by the discussion about Bigfoot vocalizations — the long howls as well as the yips known in Bigfoot-world as

Jeremy Fugleberg / Forum News Service

"I never thought about what Sasquatch sounded like," said the anonymous attendee. She didn't mention the vocalization contest earlier, where a number of children competed to make the most rousing Bigfoot sounds, screeches and howls.

There are Bigfoot teams who make an appearance. There are "The Squatchmen" and "She-Sqautchers" wearing team-branded clothes — more evidence that this is the place to be if, ultimately, you're on Team Bigfoot.

At the morning town hall, a radio personality and MNBRT member, takes the microphone from Del Rio and begins working the crowd, telling them they're part of the community.

Sturgis tells his own story, an encounter with a 10-foot-tall Bigfoot while on a solo hunting trip in 2013 — first a terrible smell, then the creature itself, standing 15-20 feet away.

"So we locked eyes for about 30 seconds, and studied each other, and I was scared out of my mind," he says. The experience turned him from a skeptic into a believer.

"The hardest part was ... trying to tell people afterwards what had happened and not being taken seriously," he says. "That's the biggest stigma for people that have encounters is just to come out and say, 'Hey, I had this happen, this happened to me, and I was scared it happened to me.' "

Jeremy Fugleberg / Forum News Service

With each new testimonial, another few hands go up, people willing to tell their stories.

Some tell about hearing howls, others recall whoops and screams. One woman tells about how she and her sister saw a "large, light brown thing" too big to be a bear while camping.

More sightings, some told in brief, some at length. Some seem like well-told stories. Others do not. One man quietly tells of seeing a 4-foot-tall creature alongside the road in 1995, a story he's never told in public like this.

A man with a drooping mustache recounts a story about encountering a particularly voyeuristic Bigfoot — who the man says he promptly side-kicked over a cliff.

Even among a room of believers, his account elicited awkward chuckles, then a wave of doubtful laughter. Joel Sturgis takes his ballcap off and scratches his head, smiling. "I don't know how to follow that up," he says.

"Mine is kinda tame compared to that one," agrees the next person to stand up and tell his story.

A woman recounts her experiences with "higher-dimensional entities" — in this case, a Bigfoot that stole her Froot Loops cereal as a kid. A man recalls how he had a vision before seeing two Bigfoot females.

A woman named Michelle talks about seeing something cross the road in front of her, and how people — even family members — won't believe her.

"Even though it was super brief, it changes your life. You sit there and go, 'Wow, these things exist and nobody can tell me otherwise because I saw it for yourself,' " she says. "I just want to thank you for the welcoming community ... to share and not be, you know, considered crazy."

Suddenly people have been telling Bigfoot stories for nearly two hours.

Later, Del Rio and Sturgis call the conference a success. MNBRT estimated about 575 attended, making it the biggest Biggest conference in the Midwest, Del Rio says.

The Minnesota Bigfoot Conference included well-traveled Bigfoot speakers who were there to share their expertise and stories and often to sign their books. But the openness — the radical acceptance — remains the beating heart of the event.

"We know there are a lot of people out there that are in fear of coming out and coming forward and in fear of being ridiculed," he said. "First and foremost, we wanted to get the Bigfoot education and awareness out there, but also at the same time, at the other side of the coin, have a safe platform people can come and go to, to relay what they've experienced."