Two Bigfoot stories made the news in September. A drink company put a $1 million bounty on proof that he exists, and a town in upstate New York threw its tenth annual festival celebrating a local law that protects him. Nobody connected them, and the connection is the good part: the bounty asks for exactly the kind of evidence that would get you in trouble in Whitehall, and the fine print says the million was never going to be paid anyway.
Here is what each story actually says once you read past the headline, and what it means if the prize sends you into the woods with a Jeep and a flashlight.
The $1 million bounty, as reported
Fox Business reported it on September 21: Hard Mountain Dew is offering $1 million to anyone who can prove Bigfoot is real. Entrants must be 21 or older and must submit at least four types of evidence from a list of seven. Submissions are judged against standards developed with Bryce Johnson, a Bigfoot researcher who has appeared in and produced a docuseries on the subject. Even with no grand prize winner, 100 entrants get cash equal to a free pack of the drink.
Erica Taylor, the brand's senior brand director, put it this way in the article: "Every fall, someone's got a story of a shape in the trees or a sound they can't explain."
The evidence list on the official bounty site is more specific than the coverage let on. The footprint has to measure 37 to 38.5 inches long. The handprint has to be 13 inches. The thermal footage has to show a seven- to nine-foot heat signature moving at 20 to 25 miles per hour through dense forest. The hair has to be dark brown, black, or reddish brown and contain unknown DNA markers. And the "environmental remnants" have to show no machinery or storm damage nearby.
The $1 million bounty, as written
The official rules are a different document from the press release, and section 5 is the part worth reading. The contest grand prize, it says, is presented solely for satirical, entertainment, and promotion purposes and is not intended to be awarded. It calls the million a humorous element of the promotion, and says that by entering, all entrants acknowledge the satirical nature of the grand prize.
The intended prize is the first prize: $20, enough for a pack of Hard Mountain Dew, awarded to one hundred entrants. The rules say every eligible entry is evaluated solely for that first prize, and the scoring has nothing to do with proving anything. Entries are scored on originality (1 to 15 points), creativity (1 to 15), integration of Hard Mountain Dew (1 to 15), and overall impression as judged by a Bigfoot expert chosen by the sponsor (1 to 55). The top 100 scores go into a random drawing on or about December 1, 2026.
The sponsor is Green Rebel Brewing Company of Boston. The promotion runs from 9:00 AM Eastern on September 16 to 11:59 PM Eastern on November 30, 2026, and is open to legal US residents 21 and older. The bounty site itself hedges in plain English: "Our lawyers made us say this: The $1M Grand Prize requires actual, verified proof that Bigfoot exists."
None of that makes it a scam. It is a beer promotion with a joke prize at the top and real, small prizes underneath, and the rules say so. It does mean the headline number should be read the way the sponsor's own lawyers read it. If you enter, enter for the fun of it and the $20.
The town where collecting it would be illegal
A few hours northwest of the sponsor's Boston address, the Town of Whitehall, New York, has spent two decades on the other side of this question. In 2004, the town passed an ordinance declaring itself a protective habitat and Bigfoot sanctuary, making it a municipal offense to hunt, carry out violence against, or harass a Sasquatch within town limits. Local accounts credit researcher Paul Bartholomew with writing it and dedicating it to the memory of Warren L. Cook, a Castleton professor who investigated sightings in the area.
In 2023, the William G. Pomeroy Foundation put up a historic marker at 68 Skenesborough Drive that reads, in full: "For centuries, local stories tell of sightings of giant hairy beasts that walk upright and leave huge footprints. Local law protects them." Whitehall calls itself the Bigfoot Capital of New York State, and more than 40 encounters have been documented across Washington and Warren counties.
On September 26, 2026, ten days after the bounty opened, Whitehall held its tenth annual Sasquatch Festival and Calling Contest at Skenesborough Park: free admission, 15 or more food trucks, 150 or more vendors, Bigfoot researchers presenting through the day, and the calling contest at 5 PM in the amphitheater.
Read the two documents side by side. The bounty wants a hair sample, a footprint pressed into dirt, and someone close enough to film a heat signature. The town says do not hunt, harm, or harass. A Whitehall resident who went looking for the million inside town limits would be collecting evidence against a creature their own town board has declared protected. Whether a symbolic ordinance would ever be enforced is a separate question. The point is that one of the few places in America that has thought about Bigfoot in legal terms landed on protection, and it did so twenty years before anyone offered a bounty.
Whitehall is not the first. Skamania County, Washington, got there in 1969, and our cryptids-by-state guide covers that ordinance and the Gifford Pinchot country around it. For the northeast version of the legend, our Pennsylvania Bigfoot sightings piece maps the reports one state over.
The rules that are actually enforced
Here is the part we have standing to say, because this shop funds trail work. A million-dollar prize for hair, footprints, and "environmental remnants" is an invitation to go into the backcountry and take things out of it. Most of the land where people will look has rules about that, and unlike a Bigfoot ordinance, these are enforced.
In any National Park System area, federal regulation 36 CFR 2.1 prohibits possessing, destroying, injuring, defacing, removing, digging, or disturbing from its natural state living or dead wildlife or their parts, plants or their parts, and mineral resources. That covers a tuft of hair pulled off a branch, a nest, and the kind of broken-limb "remnants" the bounty lists. National forests, BLM land, and state lands have their own rules on collection, and they differ by unit, so check the one you are standing in before you bag anything.
Leave No Trace says the same thing in four words under its fourth principle: take photos, not souvenirs. Its sixth is to watch wildlife from a distance. Three of the bounty's seven evidence types, the photo, the audio recording, and the thermal video, require taking nothing and disturbing nothing. If you are going to play along, those are the three to play with.
And stay on the route. A convoy of hopefuls cutting new lines through a forest to reach a "sighting" does the kind of damage that closes trails to everyone, Bigfoot or not. Our trail etiquette guide covers how to be the vehicle a land manager is glad to see, and the Trail Stewardship Micro-Grant is where the money goes when a club does the opposite of what a bounty encourages.
If your rig is already on his side
Bigfoot has been riding on spare tires and fender vents for a long time. We wrote about why he became an off-road icon, and the Bigfoot and Sasquatch collection has a few ways to declare which side of the bounty you are on.
The short version
The $1 million is a joke the sponsor wrote into its own rules, with a hundred $20 prizes behind it, and it closes November 30. Whitehall, New York, has protected Bigfoot by local law since 2004 and threw a party about it in September. If the bounty gets you outside this fall, go. Take the photo, record the sound, run the thermal camera, and leave the hair, the nest, and the branches where you found them. The woods will still be there when the promotion is over, and so will he, if he was ever there at all.
Checked October 1, 2026. Contest terms are the sponsor's and can change; read the current official rules before entering. This is general information, not legal advice.
Frequently asked questions
Is there really a $1 million bounty on Bigfoot?
There is a promotion with that number. Hard Mountain Dew, through its sponsor Green Rebel Brewing Company, is accepting Bigfoot evidence from September 16 through November 30, 2026, from US residents 21 and older. The official rules, though, state that the $1 million grand prize is presented solely for satirical, entertainment, and promotion purposes and is not intended to be awarded. The prizes that are intended to be awarded are one hundred $20 first prizes, drawn at random from eligible entries.
Can you actually win the Hard Mountain Dew Bigfoot bounty?
Not the million. The rules say the grand prize is not intended to be awarded, and entries are judged only for the first prize, on originality, creativity, integration of Hard Mountain Dew, and a Bigfoot expert's overall impression. The top 100 entries by that score become eligible for a random drawing of $20 prizes on or about December 1, 2026.
Is it illegal to kill Bigfoot?
In a few places, yes, on paper. The Town of Whitehall, New York, passed an ordinance in 2004 making it a municipal offense to hunt, harm, or harass a Sasquatch within town limits, and a 2023 historic marker there says that local law protects them. Skamania County, Washington, passed a similar ordinance in 1969. Everywhere else, Bigfoot has no legal status because no agency recognizes the animal, but the land you would be searching on has plenty of rules of its own.
Why is Whitehall, New York, called the Bigfoot capital?
Whitehall sits in Washington County in upstate New York, where local stories of large hairy creatures go back generations, and more than 40 encounters have been documented across Washington and Warren counties. It passed the 2004 protective ordinance, it carries a historic marker declaring it a Bigfoot sanctuary, and it has hosted a Sasquatch Festival and Calling Contest every fall for ten years.
Can you collect Bigfoot evidence in a national park?
Not the physical kind. Federal rules for National Park System areas prohibit possessing, removing, or disturbing wildlife or their parts, plants, and other natural features, which covers hair samples, nests, and debris. Photos, audio, and thermal video are the evidence types you can gather without taking anything. National forests and state lands have their own rules, so check before you dig.
What do you need to submit for the Bigfoot bounty?
At least four of seven evidence types: a footprint 37 to 38.5 inches long, a 13-inch handprint, a photo, an audio recording, environmental remnants with no machinery or storm damage nearby, thermal footage of a seven- to nine-foot heat signature moving 20 to 25 miles per hour, or a hair sample with unknown DNA markers. Entrants also confirm the evidence is real, unaltered, and their own.
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