Something's Afoot: Sasquatch Gets Into A Tall Tale Of Paternity

Oops, we were scooped! Seattle secretary reports Bigfoot is daddy of 4-year-old furry son! Family values mean nothing to father, as he is nowhere to be found!

In her "startling confession" in a just-released edition of the Weekly World News, 29-year-old Katie Martin of Seattle says she and Bigfoot conceived Kelly Kendall Martin, also known as Littlefoot, while she was on a camping trip to Mount Rainier National Park in July 1987.

Although Martin claims she fainted dead away at the first sighting of her 7 1/2-foot suitor, soon the couple were communicating "through some sort of telepathic link."

Bigfoot wooed Martin with flowers, berries and fresh fish, she said. "One thing led to another, but I really don't want to get into that," she is quoted as telling the Florida-based national tabloid.

Cy Hentges, spokesman for Mount Rainier National Park, said yesterday it was the first he'd heard of a Bigfoot liaison with a park visitor. "Where did this happen, at Bridal Veil Falls?" he asked.

Littlefoot made his entry into the world on April 28, 1988, delivered by an unnamed doctor who "was horrified to see that his face was covered with curly brown hair," according to his mother.

"I could shave his face, but he knows that Bigfoot is his daddy and he's proud of that," the secretary was quoted as saying.

In the article, Martin said she still searches for her summertime love during yearly visits to Mount Rainier, but she "hasn't seen hide nor hair of the boy's father" since their two-week fling.

The fact the legendary manlike giant ape left Martin to raise their son alone doesn't surprise Grover Krantz, a Washington State University anthropology professor and veteran seeker of Sasquatch, or Bigfoot.

"He probably wouldn't make a very good father," said Krantz. "Like most other primates, he'd be tolerant of kids but he wouldn't do anything to help them economically."

"He'd provide protection and minimal entertainment, such as playing with him and tickling him a little bit," explained Krantz. "But he wouldn't provide food or anything else - that's the mother's job."

Krantz, who has a book on the Sasquatch coming out next month, said although it's unlikely Bigfoot would mate with a human, "it's remotely possible."

The Weekly World News, which plastered the story on its cover, said the author did not work in the magazine's Lantana, Fla., office. The managing editor declined to talk about the "world exclusive" or reveal how they found Martin and Littlefoot.

Martin and son apparently are keeping a low profile. A telephone call to the sole-listed Katie Martin in Seattle was answered by a man who denied he was Bigfoot ("I wish I were," he said) but declined to reveal his identity.

He said Martin is "working right now. . . . She has to feed that little bigmouth."

When Katie Martin called The Times, she said she was not "that" Katie Martin but she admitted playing along with the 10 or so press calls she has gotten each day.

The calls from radio talk shows in Detroit, Los Angeles, South Dakota and elsewhere start about 4 a.m., and she has been contacted by a film producer, Martin said.

"This is a once-in-a-lifetime thing, I figure, and I'm having lots of fun with it," said Katie Martin, 27, who's not a secretary and didn't give birth to Littlefoot or Anyfoot, for that matter. She's hoping to parlay her fame into a guest shot on "Late Night With David Letterman."

Martin said she has never been to Mount Rainier, and she could look like her namesake in the magazine only if she "doubled my weight and put my hair in a ponytail on top of my head."

But does she believe in Bigfoot's existence? "Heck, I do now," she laughed.