The first phone call was to determine if he was crazy.
How else to enter a conversation with a Teamster who claims to have a tape of a talking Bigfoot?
So we chatted for a while, and he told me some of his story. I decided that Rich LaMonica is probably not crazy. Just to be sure, I asked him if he is crazy and he said he is not. I believed him.
So we met for coffee.
He was waiting in the lobby of the Country Kitchen, a slight man, 47 years old with blond hair past his shoulders, a beard and pale blue eyes, holding a dog-eared package containing a big plaster footprint under one arm and a briefcase full of books under the other.
We got a table and almost immediately we were knee-deep into the story that, in many ways, has changed the life of this man from Firestone Park. The story of how, driving his truck late one night in 1988 down a Guernsey County back road, he caught a figure in his headlights disappearing into the woods, a creature covered in fur, broad-shouldered and definitely not human.
And how four years later, he discovered an organization of Bigfoot enthusiasts and told them his story, which, being Bigfoot enthusiasts, they embraced.
And how he began returning to the place where he'd seen the thing, and how one night he heard something outside his tent that turned his blood cold, a rising wail that set dogs to barking far off in the distance.
And finally how, in 1994, he went back again with a voice-activated tape recorder and sometime in the night captured the few seconds of sound that he believes is the world's only recording of a speaking Bigfoot.
You can hear it for yourself on LaMonica's Web site, http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/System/6591. I've listened to it. It's about three seconds of gibberish, distinct, but totally indecipherable, not unlike the rushed garble of those backward-masked subliminal messages on loopy '70s albums.
Mostly, I had the same first impression that many other people (including LaMonica) have had: It sounds a lot like Yogi Bear.
The sound, which LaMonica has translated phonetically to ``Etoobessielaysentoolsmit (pause) init,'' could be something. That's the best I can offer.
And having met LaMonica and listened to his story, I can't make myself believe that he's the kind of person who would be lying. He's earnest and self-educated, and, frankly (and with all due respect to truck drivers and Bigfoot enthusiasts) far more eloquent than I might have expected.
He has had the tape analyzed by two professors in Kent State University's Speech Pathology and Audiology Department and by a sound engineer in Kansas.
The verdict? It's in the tenor range, probably made by a creature about 6 feet tall with a large body and head. The engineer tried to duplicate the vocal tone with human subjects, but couldn't.
LaMonica also played the tape for a man familiar with ancient Native American dialects. (Bigfoot experts believe the creature may have had contact with Indians.) The man said the passage could translate either to ``We are watching'' or ``We are being watched.''
If, at this point, you're trying to figure Rich LaMonica out, you should know that long before he spotted the figure on the roadside in 1988, he had an avid interest in Bigfoot, dating to his childhood. He's the kind of person who wanted to see what he saw, and wanted to hear what he heard.
He is used to being doubted. It goes with the territory. He's looked for other explanations himself, but has found none.
``I am totally convinced at this juncture that what I have on this tape is nothing but articulated speech,'' he says, ``and I can't imagine it could be anything else -- Yogi Bear notwithstanding. I want to believe that the world is not totally explored. Not only do I want to believe that, I believe it.''
