“Money who?”

“Moneymaker, Matt Moneymaker.”

Today, thanks to Matt Moneymaker and his mates on Animal Planet’s Finding Bigfoot, everyone seems to be beating on tree trunks in the forest.

Of course, Animal Planet’s former #1 most popular program made tons of money on Squatch wood knocking, and keep doing it on almost every show.

Heck, there’s probably a Bigfoot hunting crew answering another faraway Sasquatch seeking group’s tree banging right know. Who knows?

Finding Bigfoot’s fans have spread the meme of wood knocking throughout the world of hominology and cryptotourism, whether it works or not.

There is no firm scientific evidence that wood knocking responses or sounds in reply are caused by Bigfoot, let alone attract anything.  No one knows if the knocking actually bring Sasquatch closer to the tree beating humans. It never has produced a single sighting of a Bigfoot caught on film.

But it’s fun for many hunters, although often treated juvenilely (see above image).  It is a double entendre not appreciated by serious researchers in the field, whether female or male. Certainly, wood knocking doesn’t seem to be going away. Copycat wood knockers are all over the woods these days.

When Finding Bigfoot began, Matt Moneymaker excitedly seemed to say that the origins of wood knocking was a recent development – and, incorrectly, that he was the source.

In the premiere episode, Moneymaker stated: “Just so you know, one of my claims to fame in the Bigfoot world is that I was the one who discovered that Bigfoots do wood knocks, and that figured out that if you make sounds that they’ll respond. No other Bigfoot researcher had ever figured that out or knew that before, because they didn’t really go into the field that often.”

This comment by Moneymaker caused a storm of online discussion in 2011, and it quickly became apparent that MM had misspoken.

Questions about the history of the wood knocking behavior have been asked often since Finding Bigfoot first appear.

Another email inquiry came in just this week.

The author (CS) of this recent message inquired:

“Many recent Bigfoot reports mention their [the Bigfoot hunters'] use of banging sticks against trees followed by distant whoops. Is this something new, or are there accounts from the time of Patty or pre-Patty mentioning this unique behavior?”

For ease of examining the talk and researchers’ exchanges from 2011, here are the links to the “when and who” of wood knocking.