The Kiamichi Mountains provide the apelike creature a habitat that’s rich with deer, berries, honeysuckle and plenty of woodsy cover, believers say.

“You could hide an army in there and never know it,” said D.W. Lee of Stilwell, the global director of the Mid-America Bigfoot Research Center.

Last October in Honobia, the researchers saw “eye shine” from a creature standing about 8 feet tall, but not the red-beady kind.

“They would get close enough that the camp fire would shine in their eyes and it would show green,” Lee said.

Like ghost hunters, the Bigfoot researchers will be equipped with night vision goggles and scopes, along with an array of audio and video equipment. They will record hours of footage from the trail for viewing after their trip.

Lee said the creatures typically throw rocks at them when they’re sitting around a camp fire.

“If they wanted to hit you, they would. It’s like they just want to see how you’ll react. Other times you may get in areas where you’re not welcome. If you’re close to the little ones — the young Bigfoot — they’re going to make sure you leave,” Lee said.

The only time Lee said he became fearful in the woods was during a Chelsea trip.

“I saw three groups of Bigfoot going across a field in front of me,” he said.

About a year ago, they poured a cast of a footprint believed to be Bigfoot about 15 inches long and 5 feet wide in Chelsea. They’ve photographed footprints along logging roads in the Kiamichi Mountains. The fine dirt makes it easy to see the tracks.

Mountain-area natives and Sasquatch-track followers are familiar with the creature’s distinctive screams and whoops.

Lee said Bigfoot is intelligent and can mimic the sounds of other animals.

“We do hear a lot of owl calls, but you can tell it’s not an owl because it’s like an 800-pound owl hooting at you,” Lee said.

About five years ago, Lee’s group received a report from a man hunting deer in a tree stand in the Kiamichi Mountains. It seems his pager went off and after he turned it off he heard something in the woods mimicking the beep-beep sounds of the pager.

“When he turned around he saw Bigfoot standing there. His words were that it was a 'big something’ that he just didn’t want no part of,” Lee said.

Perhaps Jane Goodall gives skeptics some pause. In a 2002 interview with National Public Radio, Goodall said she believes the creature could possibly exist. She said she based it on Native Americans she’d spoken with who all describe the same sounds and their reports of two sightings. There are also books written from all over the world about the unknown animal.

Some have shot down Bigfoot sightings in Oklahoma as actually black bear sightings. Lee said that unlike black bears, Bigfoot walks upright exclusively and at seven to eight feet are much taller than black bears.

Lee is a network administrator.

“We’re not just a bunch of country hicks,” he said.

Hundreds attend the Honobia Bigfoot Festival and Conference each year. This year it will be held Oct. 2-3 and sponsored by the Talihina Chamber of Commerce.