Rapids-area girls featured on 'Finding Bigfoot'

SARATOGA - Fourteen-year-old Addalynn Kawleski has spent half her life fascinated by the idea of bigfoot and consumed with a television show devoted to the legendary creature.

"I don't know, it's just so interesting," said Addalynn, 14, a freshman at Nekoosa High School. "The idea that these big, tall animals could be living among us, it just interests me. ... I even think I might like to study cryptozoology (the study of animals that are rumored to exist)."

So when her mom, Heidi Kawleski, shared a USA TODAY-Wisconsin story about the "Finding Bigfoot." show coming to the state for the first time to film an episode, Addalynn had to contact the show and tell them her bigfoot story. "I wrote them an email. It was a really, really long email," Addalynn said. The story persuaded the show's producers to invite Addalynn to a town-hall style meeting of bigfoot spotters at Rondele Ranch in Harshaw, in Oneida County.

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Of course Addalynn went, along with her younger sister Alaina, 12, and their mom. Addalynn and Alaina told the story about how they saw yellow glowing eyes in the woods behind their Wisconsin Rapids-area home about three years ago during a Christmas-time outing. Theirs was one of many tales of bigfoot sightings from the crowd of maybe 75 people, but it stood out to the producers and the stars of the show.

They asked to visit the Kawleski home a few days later, to feature the story on the television show. The episode, titled "Brews, Brats and Bigfoots," chronicling the crew's first visit to Wisconsin, featured Addalynn and Alaina, along with a short re-creation of the tale. The show premiered on Feb. 19 on the Animal Planet channel.

Both girls loved the whole experience. "I think it was the best thing to happen in my life, so far," Addalynn said.

Heidi Kawleski laughs about the adventure. "I'm like, 'Oh, this is just their imaginations,'" she said about her daughters. "But then I'm there (at the town hall) listening to all the stories. And I think, maybe it's not their imaginations."

The bigfoot sighting happened a few years ago at a Christmas party with a bunch of relatives at the Kawleski home. Addalynn persuaded some of the other kids, Alaina and their cousins, to go out into the backyard of the Kawleski's 5-acre property for some "bigfooting."

It was dark, and the kids had been out there for about an hour. "We banged some sticks together, and did a few calls," Addalynn said.

Then above a woodpile, the group saw a couple of yellow gleaming eyes, staring right at them. This freaked them out, and they all ran into the house.

Later that evening, the kids went out again. This time, a prankster uncle did his own bigfoot call, and they ran into the house so fast that they bowled over Addalynn and Alaina's younger sister, Azleigh, who was a toddler at the time. That was enough bigfoot hunting for most of the kids.

But not Addalynn. Her curiosity overrode her anxiety about being outside with a potential Sasquatch on the prowl. But she stuck to the deck of the family's split-level home.

"It was just me outside, and I was doing some calls. Then I saw the same yellow eyes staring out in the middle of the trees," Addalynn said. "It was the same exact thing."

When "Finding Bigfoot" co-host Ranae Holland visited the girls at their home last summer, she quizzed them on what they saw. By this time, Addalynn and her younger brother, Croix, 8, also had found a large footprint in their backyard, back by some black raspberry bushes, and Addalynn showed her the photos.

Holland, a Sioux Falls, South Dakota, native, is a field biologist and a bigfoot skeptic. She questioned Addalynn and Alaina about the details and suggested that perhaps the eyes could have belonged to an owl, or another more common central Wisconsin woodland creature such as a raccoon.

Addalynn won't go so far as to say for sure she saw bigfoot, but she still believes that it probably was.

"I don't think it was an owl," Addalynn said. "The eyes were just so big. I don't know what else it could have been, except bigfoot."

The whole experience, the bigfoot sighting, the town hall and being on TV, was exciting for both girls. Seeing what could be bigfoot is a little scary, especially for Alaina, who doesn't really watch entire episodes of "Finding Bigfoot" because they creep her out.

But, Alaina said, "it was one of the coolest things ever to be on TV."

And Addalynn is more interested in ever to keep on looking, whether bigfoot actually exists or not. "I think it just made me want to be more aware of what's out there," she said.

Keith Uhlig: 715-845-0651 or kuhlig@gannett.com; on Twitter @UhligK.