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The Hoopa Project
This astounding work brings professional investigative abilities and forensic artistry to the field of Bigfoot studies.
This astounding work brings professional investigative abilities and forensic artistry to the field of Bigfoot studies. David Paulides, a former police investigator, has applied his skills to questioning Bigfoot witnesses. The results he has achieved in gaining access to witnesses and getting detailed information from them is both remarkable and intriguing. Furthermore, he commissioned a forensic police artist to meet with witnesses and sketch the creatures they saw. These drawings provide insights into the creature's nature never before realized. The result of this team's work is by far one of the most convincing accounts ever written on Bigfoot. The conclusion reached - that this creature, long revered by the Hoopa people, definitely inhabits the forested regions of Humboldt County in Northern California - is so convincing that those people who doubt Bigfoot's existence will be forced to think again!
This astounding work brings professional investigative abilities and forensic artistry to the field of Bigfoot studies. David Paulides, a former police investigator, has applied his skills to questioning Bigfoot witnesses. The results he has achieved in gaining access to witnesses and getting detailed information from them is both remarkable and intriguing. Furthermore, he commissioned a forensic police artist to meet with witnesses and sketch the creatures they saw. These drawings provide insights into the creature's nature never before realized. The result of this team's work is by far one of the most convincing accounts ever written on Bigfoot. The conclusion reached - that this creature, long revered by the Hoopa people, definitely inhabits the forested regions of Humboldt County in Northern California - is so convincing that those people who doubt Bigfoot's existence will be forced to think again!
336 pages, Paperback
First published August 31, 2008
11 people are currently reading
731 people want to read
About the author
David Paulides
20 books533 followersWriter, researcher, and investigative journalist.
Paulides is mostly known for his writing on disappearances in national parks and Big Foot / Sasquatch.
Paulides is mostly known for his writing on disappearances in national parks and Big Foot / Sasquatch.
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
October 27, 2021
A trained law enforcement professional turns his skills to investigating Bigfoot incidents and sightings based on witness interviews. The Hoopa Project: Bigfoot Encounters in California by David Paulides provides the results of a years long investigation in a specific area.
Paulides’ years as a police investigator shows early with his matter-of-fact recounting of how he got interested in the search for Bigfoot and what convinced him that it might be worth his time. This straightforward approach continued throughout the book especially in what led him to selecting the Hoopa Valley in northwestern California to be the focus of his search and how he gained the trust of the residents of the Hoopa Indian Reservation to get interviews and asked for signed affidavits. Paulides’ use of affidavits and the hiring of law enforcement forensic artist Harvey Pratt, a member the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribe, to draw sketches based on interviews with witnesses gives this book extra weight for those believers and skeptics that read the book. Unfortunately, it appears the later editions, one of which I read, reproduces the images only in black and white thus making maps hard to decipher for the information that were included to provide. While Paulides straightforward writing can seem dry it provides evidence of his law enforcement background which makes it attempts at engaging the reader with more personable language jarring. As part of each witness interview Paulides gives the reader a description of the location based on his personal research in the area, however his attempts to connect a location to other witnesses comes off awkward due to referencing accounts that appear later in the book while not identifying where said account could be found in the text. Yet while these writing decisions are annoying, they do not take away from overall effort.
The Hoopa Project is the first to two books David Paulides wrote in the late 2000s before going on to his more well-known Missing 411 series. Overall, it’s an intriguing read for those interested in the search for Bigfoot.
Paulides’ years as a police investigator shows early with his matter-of-fact recounting of how he got interested in the search for Bigfoot and what convinced him that it might be worth his time. This straightforward approach continued throughout the book especially in what led him to selecting the Hoopa Valley in northwestern California to be the focus of his search and how he gained the trust of the residents of the Hoopa Indian Reservation to get interviews and asked for signed affidavits. Paulides’ use of affidavits and the hiring of law enforcement forensic artist Harvey Pratt, a member the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribe, to draw sketches based on interviews with witnesses gives this book extra weight for those believers and skeptics that read the book. Unfortunately, it appears the later editions, one of which I read, reproduces the images only in black and white thus making maps hard to decipher for the information that were included to provide. While Paulides straightforward writing can seem dry it provides evidence of his law enforcement background which makes it attempts at engaging the reader with more personable language jarring. As part of each witness interview Paulides gives the reader a description of the location based on his personal research in the area, however his attempts to connect a location to other witnesses comes off awkward due to referencing accounts that appear later in the book while not identifying where said account could be found in the text. Yet while these writing decisions are annoying, they do not take away from overall effort.
The Hoopa Project is the first to two books David Paulides wrote in the late 2000s before going on to his more well-known Missing 411 series. Overall, it’s an intriguing read for those interested in the search for Bigfoot.
July 13, 2013
This was a very interesting book. Having grown up in the Hoopa Indian Reservation, I heard about the 1958 incident at Bluff Creek and saw the cast of the footprint. I didn't really pay much attention to it for the next 4 years or after I left the reservation in 1962. However, after reconnecting with friends in Hoopa a couple of times in the last few years my interest was peaked. A longtime friend mentioned that her nephews had seen Bigfoot up the hill from where we had been gold panning on the Salmon River. (Not when we were there of course.) The author, a former police investigator, did a great job of interviewing locals about their encounters with Bigfoot. The fascination for me was that so many of the family names were familiar to me. I had gone to school and been friends with members of their families from 1951 to 1962. I am not totally convinced that Bigfoot exists, but the similarities in the encounters, the drawing's done by a forensic artist from the witnesses leaves the door open for further consideration. The author has written another book called Tribal Bigfoot with the same kind of investigations in other areas of the country. That is my next read!
December 26, 2024
His documentaries are better. Guy’s passionate about bigfoot and wants to warn people about his presence, so it must’ve be hard to find a serious book editor. 👽🛸
July 14, 2009
This is one of those unexplained mysteries that won't go away. Is is possible that a small population of bipedal apes roams the pacific northwest?
In the Hoopa Project Dave Paulides, a former police investigator, interviews over thirty eyewitnesses who live on or near the Hoopa Indian Reservation in Northern California. They all claim to have seen an upright walking ape covered in hair that ranges from 5-8 feet in height. What is also interesting is that Paulides hired a forensic sketch artist who worked for the FBI to interview the witnesses and draw what they saw. The results are quite intriguing. There are enough similarities and differences that one would expect in a normal ape population. Who knows? Maybe there are still some undiscovered animals out there that continue to elude modern science.
In the Hoopa Project Dave Paulides, a former police investigator, interviews over thirty eyewitnesses who live on or near the Hoopa Indian Reservation in Northern California. They all claim to have seen an upright walking ape covered in hair that ranges from 5-8 feet in height. What is also interesting is that Paulides hired a forensic sketch artist who worked for the FBI to interview the witnesses and draw what they saw. The results are quite intriguing. There are enough similarities and differences that one would expect in a normal ape population. Who knows? Maybe there are still some undiscovered animals out there that continue to elude modern science.
December 23, 2024
Meh.
Well this wasn't what I was expecting. I was gearing up for some fascinating accounts of Sasquatch/Bigfoot. Instead I got pages and pages and yet more pages of stats, numbers and maps - maps by the way that refer to a blue or a red section but are printed IN BLACK AND WHITE!!! Wtaf?!! Get your shit together Paulides!
Honestly it's hard to find a good book about Bigfoot. I was expecting Paulides to be the I-Ching with his investigative background but man does he make this shit boring!
I found this so disappointing. 2 stars is being kind.
Well this wasn't what I was expecting. I was gearing up for some fascinating accounts of Sasquatch/Bigfoot. Instead I got pages and pages and yet more pages of stats, numbers and maps - maps by the way that refer to a blue or a red section but are printed IN BLACK AND WHITE!!! Wtaf?!! Get your shit together Paulides!
Honestly it's hard to find a good book about Bigfoot. I was expecting Paulides to be the I-Ching with his investigative background but man does he make this shit boring!
I found this so disappointing. 2 stars is being kind.
September 8, 2021
In preparation for a future fiction novel, I read this documentary style book. Since childhood, I've been interested in Sasquatch. This novel is excellent! The interviews, background information, professional law enforcement and forensic artist drawings takes the research to a whole nother level. For Sasquatch enthusiasts, this book is a must read.
May 13, 2020
The time, care and passion that the author put into this book is obvious. We get to enjoy the fruits of his labors with an in depth look at the most popular areas for Bigfoot encounters, as well as many firsthand accounts. There was no stone left unturned.
March 26, 2020
The book reads like a well written text book, and reports the facts, as presented to Paulides. I appreciated his professionalism and straight forward approach to the topic. This is a fascinating read as I have long been interested in the North American large apes that native peoples see and/or acknowledge, but the so-called 'sensible' folk generally ignore up until they view one for themselves. Reading so many first hand accounts of people who had the rare opportunity to see something most people refuse to believe exists was interesting to say the least. The forensic drawings of so many different Bigfoot almost freaks me out, which I'm allowed as I currently live in Bigfoot country, nearby Olympic National Park.
This is an aside to reading this book, that in 2000 I attend a Passports in Time event in Orleans, CA, where I attended an Ethno-botany class taught by Josephine Peters. She is amazing and so knowledgeable. To see her Bigfoot experiences in this book was exciting. I wish I'd thought to ask her about Bigfoot at the time but instead I recall bombarding her with questions on native uses for plants. Sooo... cool! Also at a later date I had the pleasure of going on a birding trip on the Hoopa Reservation where we searched for and found my first ever Ruffed Grouse. It was wonderful having the rare pleasure as an outsider of being able to have been to some of the spots mentioned in the the Hoopa Project book.
This is an aside to reading this book, that in 2000 I attend a Passports in Time event in Orleans, CA, where I attended an Ethno-botany class taught by Josephine Peters. She is amazing and so knowledgeable. To see her Bigfoot experiences in this book was exciting. I wish I'd thought to ask her about Bigfoot at the time but instead I recall bombarding her with questions on native uses for plants. Sooo... cool! Also at a later date I had the pleasure of going on a birding trip on the Hoopa Reservation where we searched for and found my first ever Ruffed Grouse. It was wonderful having the rare pleasure as an outsider of being able to have been to some of the spots mentioned in the the Hoopa Project book.
January 1, 2020
Great book if you're interested in Bigfoot, which I am! I even took a trip to this area this past September just to see how remote it really is...gorgeous country, very remote and seemingly many untraveled or barely traveled roads there! I can see how Bigfoot could reside here, but unfortunately...no sightings...ha ha ha, but nice to have the area in my mind for future readings about this creature! Stories in here are well documented and believable, most folks do not even want to tell their story for fear of reprisal, that is what made this book so very interesting...the trust they put in David Paulides to print their stories, some NEVER being told to another human being since their sighting many, many years ago!
September 9, 2019
This one took a long time to get through, but it was still fun.
I did feel the amount of encounters was a bit much and repetitive. I also wish there were some more photographic evidence of the encounters other than the sketches. As much as I loved the forensic sketches, I felt like it didn't really add much to the actual narrative of the book.
Overall it was a fun book, and really liked the in-depth look at the environment and setting of one of the most active Big-Food sites in the US. It did get a bit long and tedious by the end, and there wasn't any real finalized conclusion, which was a big draw back.
I did feel the amount of encounters was a bit much and repetitive. I also wish there were some more photographic evidence of the encounters other than the sketches. As much as I loved the forensic sketches, I felt like it didn't really add much to the actual narrative of the book.
Overall it was a fun book, and really liked the in-depth look at the environment and setting of one of the most active Big-Food sites in the US. It did get a bit long and tedious by the end, and there wasn't any real finalized conclusion, which was a big draw back.
April 28, 2016
One of the most fascinating and intelligent books I have read on this subject. David Paulides used a professional investigators approach to categorize and collect witness accounts of Sasquatch in a specific geographic area of California. He used a forensic artist to sketch the witness sightings, and bring together a collection of drawings that off insight into what people are seeing in the forests around North America. A brilliant unbiased approach to researching an often controversial subject.
August 25, 2025
I never didn’t believe in Bigfoot, but until I read this book I didn’t realise the extent of sightings and information recorded (predominantly in the area of California whereby this research was carried out). The very genuine and consistent witness sightings from people of all ages and backgrounds, the balanced and fair approach with which David Paulides carried out his research and wrote this book, along with usual common sense, proves that these encounters happened. At this point nothing could convince me that Bigfoot doesn’t exist.
May 13, 2013
An interesting look into Bigfoot investigations by a retired police interrogator and nationally renowned forensic sketch artist. Paulides interviews all of his witnesses after they sign legal affidavits. He has a forensic sketch artist run a round 2 with the witnesses to draw what they saw. It adds a lot of credibility to investigating the Bigfoot mystery and he does make the case that Sasquatch has more human qualities than non-human qualities. I also think his work into defining a habitat for Sasquatch was quite well done. However, he lost me at the end when he in so many words says that he thinks that Native American war deserters took to the mountains and mated with North American primates to make these newer, more human-looking Sasquatch. It was kind of disappointing to read through this tight-fisted and professional work only to have wild predictions wrap the book up. The journey was still fun, and I learned a lot about what it means to live, work, and visit a Native American reservation that isn't a casino in today's world. All in all it was a good book but he seemed afraid to leave his book as a simple investigation so he satisfied the nutbirds by giving them a bananas theory about hot hot ape sex Nor Cal.
May 22, 2017
A no nonsense paranormal researcher you can get behind.
December 27, 2017
I had to deduct one star as this style of dry writing leaves me parched.
But nobody comes close to the hard work and integrity of David.
If you like this, you should get Tribal Bigfoot too.
But nobody comes close to the hard work and integrity of David.
If you like this, you should get Tribal Bigfoot too.
November 27, 2018
Very credible. Author takes great pains to authenticate interviews.
January 5, 2024
I have been following David Paulides work now for quite some time and as you are probably aware by now since an extremely young age I've always been drawn to unexplained phenomena and unsolved mysteries past and present. Bigfoot is of course one of those mysteries which has fascinated me for as long as I can remember so I searched and searched for a reputable book on the phenomenon and Hoopa project kept popping up, I can tell you that there's a good reason why, because it's quite simply the best book on the hairy cryptid which exists, why you might ask well because David Paulides goes the extra mile and provides physical evidence of its existence. David is a former police officer and approaches this from a detective standpoint in gathering evidence and requiring Affidavits to be signed by each witness which adds credibility to his findings which in turn add a degree of foundation to the findings. If your curious about this elusive cryptid then I urge you to get yourself a copy of the Hoopa Project you will not be disappointed, I'm a firm believer after devouring this fantastic book.
February 9, 2025
I have been following David Paulides work now for quite some time and as you are probably aware by now since an extremely young age I've always been drawn to unexplained phenomena and unsolved mysteries past and present. Bigfoot is of course one of those mysteries which has fascinated me for as long as I can remember so I searched and searched for a reputable book on the phenomenon and Hoopa project kept popping up, I can tell you that there's a good reason why, because it's quite simply the best book on the hairy cryptid which exists, why you might ask well because David Paulides goes the extra mile and provides physical evidence of its existence. David is a former police officer and approaches this from a detective standpoint in gathering evidence and requiring Affidavits to be signed by each witness which adds credibility to his findings which in turn add a degree of foundation to the findings. If your curious about this elusive cryptid then I urge you to get yourself a copy of the Hoopa Project you will not be disappointed, I'm a firm believer after devouring this fantastic book.
November 21, 2023
The approach taken by David in this book based on research and data has drawn some very interesting conclusions. The artist sketches based on eye witness testimony is very compelling too based on the thousands of other reports. Either this is one of the biggest collective hallucinations in the past few hundred years or there is something to all of these reports.
July 4, 2021
Not a trained writer, but the passion and commitment to his research and craft is unbelievable
September 8, 2021
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October 6, 2021
Very interesting and informative.
June 5, 2022
Useful if you're looking for a good summary of Bigfoot encounters in California. Otherwise, it reads like a text book. I got about half-way through before I got tired of the repetition and gave up.
Read
July 30, 2025wonderfully amazing and accurate, i never need to read another thing on Bigfoot!
August 23, 2021
The author brings the police procedure in his investigation of bigfoot. (His former law enforcement background is unverifiable.) First of all, eyewitnesses must sign affidavits. An affidavit is a written statement from an individual which is sworn to be true. It is an oath that what the individual is saying is the truth. In our case the only way to prove definitely that someone is lying, you must prove that bigfoot does not exist. The witnesses also must provide enough information for an artist (who as claimed by the author has to be a believer) to sketch their "human" suspects. Human because all the drawings have typical human traits, Native American, like the witnesses. Coincidence? Even female witnesses describes female bigfoot! According to the author all these people are genetically related with bigfoot. This is fairy stuff, little people, big people living in a parrallel world with humans. Every year we hear about hunters killing other hunters because they thought they were bears. If somebody (with or without gun) is so positive that a human can be a bear, the opposite could also be true.
August 1, 2016
really enjoyed the content. it got a bit repetitive on the Location summaries after every account and especially at the very end with the artist sketch interviewing. Worth picking up if you're interested in the Bigfoot habitats around the Patterson-Gimlin Bluff Creek footage.
January 31, 2024
The time, care and passion that the author put into this book is obvious. We get to enjoy the fruits of his labors with an in depth look at the most popular areas for Bigfoot encounters, as well as many firsthand accounts. There was no stone left unturned.
November 15, 2013
I beeeellliiieeeeeve.
July 13, 2014
A thorough, focused and fascinating evolution in Bigfoot research by a former police officer. This book might make anyone a believer.
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews