Bigfoot

For other uses, see Bigfoot (disambiguation).

"Sasquatch" redirects here. For other uses, see Sasquatch (disambiguation).

Bigfoot

Grouping	Cryptid
Other name(s)	Sasquatch
Country	United States, Canada
Region	Pacific Northwest (Primary)
Habitat	Forests, Swamps, Mountains

Bigfoot or Sasquatch is alleged to be an ape-like creature inhabiting remote forests, mainly in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States and Canada. Bigfoot is usually described as a large, hairy, bipedal ape. Believers in its existence contend that such an animal, or close relatives of it, may be found around the world under different regional names, such as the Yeti of Tibet and Nepal, the Yeren of mainland China, the Orang Pendek of Indonesia, and the Yowie of Australia.

Bigfoot is one of the more famous examples of cryptozoology, with an ongoing argument about its existence. The scientific community considers the Bigfoot legend to be a combination of folklore and hoaxes. Despite its dubious status, Bigfoot has become a popular symbol (see Bigfoot in popular culture).

Description and behavior

Bigfoot is described in reports as being an ape between 6–15 feet (1.8–4.6 m) tall weighing in excess of 500 pounds (230 kg) and covered in dark brown or dark reddish hair. Alleged witnesses have described large eyes, a pronounced brow ridge, and a large, low-set forehead; the top of the head has been described as rounded and crested, similar to the sagittal crest of the male gorilla. Bigfoot are reported to have a strong, unpleasant smell by those who have claimed to have encountered them. The enormous footprints for which it is named have been as large as 24 inches (61 cm) long and 8 inches (20 cm) wide. Proponents have also claimed the creatures to be mainly nocturnal and omnivorous.

Sightings of Bigfoot occur mainly in the Pacific Northwest but also in many other areas of North America and other regions. Cryptozoologist John Willison Green has postulated that Bigfoot is a worldwide phenomenon.

History

Sightings of Bigfoot begin 1830s but it was only in the latter half of the twentieth century that it became a phenomenon of wider interest. In 1840, Protestant missionary Reverend Elkanah Walker recorded stories of giants that were persistent among Native Americans living in Spokane, Washington. The Indians claimed that these giants lived on the peaks of nearby mountains and stole salmon from the fishermen's nets. In 1847, Paul Kane reported stories by the native people about skoocooms: a race of wild men living on the peak of Mount St. Helens. However, Kane did not describe them as ape-like and they appear to have been regarded as supernatural, rather than natural, creatures.

The earliest unambiguous reports of gigantic ape-like creatures in the Pacific Northwest come from a 1924 issue of The Oregonian, when prospectors at a location in Washington, later dubbed Ape Canyon, heard rocks being thrown at their cabin at night. They shot at what they called "mountain gorillas" and the next morning they found large footprints near by. Pro-Bigfoot authors claim that similar reports appear in the press dating back to at least to the 1860s.

The natives of the Pacific Northwest have had legends of hairy wild men since at least the nineteenth century. They had a number of names such as sokqueatl and soss-q’tal. In the 1920s, J. W. Burns, a Canadian teacher, came up with the term Sasquatch, which he said was from Salishan, combining the different creatures into a single one.

Bigfoot became a more popular phenomenon following the publication of a Yeti footprint in 1951 by Eric Shipton. It eventually culminated in 1958 when large footprints were found in Humboldt County, California by bulldozer operator Jerry Crew. The story was published in the Humboldt Times along with a photo of Crew holding a cast of one of the footprints; it gained international attention after being picked up by the Associated Press. The origin of the tracks has been attributed to Ray Wallace, by his family, shortly after Wallace's death. The large tracks pictured in the media inspired the familiar name "Bigfoot".

Bigfoot candidates

Various types of creatures have been suggested to explain both the sightings and what type of creature Bigfoot would be if it existed.

Bears

When standing on their hind legs, bears are roughly the same size as Bigfoot is supposed to be. Along with their prevalence in regions said to also be inhabited by Bigfoot, they are a likely candidate to explain some sightings. Similarly, a tale presented in Theodore Roosevelt's 1900 book Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches about two hunters encountering a violent bear, is sometimes used by Bigfoot proponents as historical evidence of the creature's existence.

Gigantopithecus

Bigfoot proponents Grover Krantz and Geoffrey Bourne believe that Gigantopithecus is a plausible candidate for Bigfoot. Bourne points to the facts that most Gigantopithecus fossils were found in China and that many species of animals migrated across the Bering land bridge, concluding that it is not unreasonable to assume that Gigantopithecus might have as well.

The Gigantopithecus hypothesis is generally considered entirely speculative. As the only known fossils are of its mandible and teeth, there is some uncertainty about Gigantopithecus's locomotion. Krantz has argued, based on the shape of its mandible, that Gigantopithecus blacki could have been bipedal. However, the mainstream view is that Gigantopithecus was quadrupedal, and it has been argued that Gigantopithecus's enormous mass would have made it difficult for it to adopt a bipedal gait.

Bernard G. Campbellin wrote: "That Gigantopithicus is in fact extinct has been questioned by those who believe it survives as the Yeti of the Himalayas and the Sasquatch of the north-west American coast. But the evidence for these creatures is not convincing."

Extinct hominans

A species of Paranthropus, such as Paranthropus robustus, with its crested skull and bipedal gait, was suggested by primatologist John Napier and anthropologist Gordon Strasenburg as a possible candidate for Bigfoot's identity.

Some Bigfoot proponents suggest Homo erectus to be the creature, but Homo erectus remains are not found on the North American continent.

Validity

Scientists and academics overwhelmingly "discount the existence of Bigfoot because the evidence supporting belief in the survival of a prehistoric, bipedal, apelike creature of such dimensions is scant." In addition to the lack of evidence, they cite the fact that Bigfoot is alleged to live in regions unusual for a large, nonhuman primate, i.e., temperate latitudes in the northern hemisphere; all recognized nonhuman apes are found in the tropics of Africa and Asia. Great apes are not found in the fossil record in the Americas, and no Bigfoot remains have ever been found. Indeed, scientists insist that the breeding population of such an animal would be so large that it would account for many more purported sightings than currently occur, making the existence of such an animal an almost certain impossibility.

Many scientists do not give the subject of Bigfoot's existence serious attention, given the history of dubious claims and outright hoaxes. Napier wrote that the mainstream scientific community's indifference stems primarily from "insufficient evidence ... it is hardly surprising that scientists prefer to investigate the probable rather than beat their heads against the wall of the faintly possible." Anthropologist David Daegling echoed this idea, citing a "remarkably limited amount of Sasquatch data that are amenable to scientific scrutiny." He advises that mainstream skeptics take a proactive position "to offer an alternative explanation. We have to explain why we see Bigfoot when there is no such animal."

In a 1996 USA Today article titled "Bigfoot Merely Amuses Most Scientists", Washington State zoologist John Crane is quoted as saying: "There is no such thing as Bigfoot. No data other than material that's clearly been fabricated has ever been presented."

Ecologist Robert Michael Pyle argues that most cultures have human-like giants in their folk history. "We have this need for some larger-than-life creature."

George Schaller is one of a few prominent scientists who argue that Bigfoot reports are worthy of serious study. A 2003 Los Angeles Times story described Schaller as a "Bigfoot skeptic," but he also expressed his disapproval towards other scientists who do not examine evidence, yet "write [Bigfoot] off as a hoax or myth. I don't think that's fair." In a 2003 Denver Post article Schaller said that he is troubled that no Bigfoot remains have ever been uncovered, and no feces samples have been found to allow DNA testing. Schaller notes: "There have been so many sightings over the years, even if you throw out 95 percent of them, there ought to be some explanation for the rest. I think a hard-eyed look is absolutely essential." Napier generally argues against Bigfoot's existence, but added that some "soft evidence" (i.e., eyewitness accounts, footprints, hair and droppings) is compelling enough that he advises against "dismissing its reality out of hand." Other prominent scientists who have expressed guarded interest in Sasquatch reports include Russell Mittermeier, Daris Swindler, and Esteban Sarmiento.

Although most scientists find current evidence of Bigfoot unpersuasive, a handful of prominent experts have offered sympathetic opinions on the subject. In a 2002 interview on National Public Radio, Jane Goodall first publicly expressed her views on Bigfoot, by remarking, "Well now, you'll be amazed when I tell you that I'm sure that they exist... I've talked to so many Native Americans who all describe the same sounds, two who have seen them. I've probably got about, oh, thirty books that have come from different parts of the world, from China from, from all over the place...."

Prominent anthropologist Carleton S. Coon's posthumously published essay Why the Sasquatch Must Exist states, "Even before I read John Green's book Sasquatch: The Apes Among Us, first published in 1978, I accepted Sasquatch's existence." Coon examines the question from several angles, stating that he is confident only in ruling out a relict Neanderthal population as a viable candidate for Sasquatch reports.

Krantz and others have argued that a double standard is applied to Sasquatch studies by many academics: whenever there is a claim or evidence of Sasquatch's existence, enormous scrutiny is applied, as well it should be. Yet when individuals claim to have hoaxed Bigfoot evidence, the claims are frequently accepted without corroborative evidence.

In 2004, Henry Gee, editor of the prestigious magazine Nature, argued that creatures like Bigfoot deserved further study, writing, "The discovery that Homo floresiensis survived until so very recently, in geological terms, makes it more likely that stories of other mythical, human-like creatures such as Yetis are founded on grains of truth ... Now, cryptozoology, the study of such fabulous creatures, can come in from the cold."

Demonstrable hoaxes

Many proponents of Bigfoot admit that many of sightings are hoaxes or misidentified animals. Loren Coleman, a cryptozoologist, and Diane Stocking, a Florida Bigfooters, have estimated that as many as 70 to 80 percent of sightings are not real.

Bigfoot sightings or footprints are often demonstrably hoaxes. Author Jerome Clark argues that the "Jacko" affair, involving an 1884 newspaper report of an apelike creature captured in British Columbia was a hoax. Citing research by John Green, who found that several contemporary British Columbia newspapers regarded the alleged capture as very dubious, Clark notes that the New Westminster, British Columbia Mainland Guardian wrote, "Absurdity is written on the face of it."

In 1958 bulldozer operator Jerry Crew took to a newspaper office a cast of one of the enormous footprints he and other workers had been seeing at an isolated work site in Bluff Creek, California. The crew was overseen by Wilbur L. Wallace, brother of Raymond L. Wallace. After Ray Wallace's death, his children came forward with a pair of 16 inches (41 cm) wooden feet, which they claimed their father had used to fake the Bigfoot tracks in 1958. Wallace is poorly regarded by many Bigfoot proponents. Napier wrote, "I do not feel impressed with Mr. Wallace's story" regarding having over 15,000 feet of film showing Bigfoot.

In 1967, Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin reported that on October 20 they had captured a purported Sasquatch on film in Bluff Creek, California. This came to be known as the Patterson-Gimlin film, the best evidence that Bigfoot exist. Many years later, Bob Heironimus, an acquaintance of Patterson's, revealed that he had worn an ape costume for the making of the film.

Alleged sightings

There have been many hundreds of alleged Bigfoot sightings. These are some of the most notable ones:

• 1924: Fred Beck claimed in an 1967 book that he and four other miners were attacked in July, 1924, by several "apemen" throwing rocks in an area later called Ape Canyon. This case was publicized in newspaper reports printed in 1924. Speleologist William Halliday argued in 1983 that the story arose from an incident in which hikers from a nearby camp had thrown rocks into the canyon.
• 1941: Jeannie Chapman and her children claimed to have escaped their home when a large Sasquatch, allegedly 7½ feet tall, approached their residence in Ruby Creek, British Columbia.
• 1940s onward: People living in Fouke, Arkansas have reported that a Bigfoot-like creature, dubbed the “Fouke Monster”, inhabits the region. A high number of reports have occurred in the Boggy Creek area and are the basis for the 1973 film The Legend of Boggy Creek.
• 1955: William Roe claimed to have seen a close-up view of a female Sasquatch from concealment near Mica Mountain, British Columbia.
• 1958: Two construction workers, Leslie Breazale and Ray Kerr, reported seeing a Sasquatch about 45 miles northeast of Eureka, California. Sixteen-inch tracks had previously been spotted in the northern California woods.
• 1967: On October 20, 1967, Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin captured a purported Sasquatch on film in Bluff Creek, California in what would come to be known as the Patterson-Gimlin film.
• 1970: A family of Bigfoot-like creatures called "zoobies" was allegedly observed on multiple occasions by a San Diego psychiatrist named Dr. Baddour and his family near their Alpine, California home, as reported in an interview with San Diego County Deputy Sheriff Sgt. Doug Huse, who investigated the sightings.
• 1995: On August 28, 1995, a TV film crew from Waterland Productions pulled off the road into Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park and filmed what they claimed to be a Sasquatch in their RV's Headlights.
• 2005: On April 16, 2005, A creature resembling a Bigfoot was reportedly seen on the bank of the Nelson River in Norway House, Manitoba. Two minutes and forty seconds of footage was taken by ferry operator Bobby Clarke from across the Nelson River.
• 2006: On December 14, 2006, Shaylane Beatty, a woman from the Dechambault Lake, Saskatchewan, Canada, was driving to Prince Albert, Saskatchewan when, she claimed, saw the creature near the side of the highway at Torch River. Several men from the village drove down to the area and found footprints, which they tracked through the snow. They found a tuft of brown hair and took photographs of the tracks.
• 2007: On September 16, 2007, in the Allegheny National Forest near the town of Ridgway, Pennsylvania, hunter Rick Jacobs captured an image of an animal using an automatically triggered camera attached to a tree which some claimed was Bigfoot. A spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Game Commission challenged the Bigfoot explanation, saying that it looked like "a bear with a severe case of mange."
• 2008: In July, berry-pickers reported a Sasquatch sighting in northern Ontario, Canada.
• 2008: In August 2008, two hikers, Rick Dyer and Matthew Whitton, claimed that they had discovered the body of a deceased Sasquatch in a forest in northern Georgia. Dyer and Whitton contacted Tom Biscardi, a long-time Bigfoot enthusiast, to look at the body. One sample of genetic material, supposedly from the alleged remains of the Bigfoot, has been shown to contain human DNA and another sample opossum DNA, while a third has been inconclusive for technical reasons. Biscardi claims that the opossum DNA could be attributed the stomach contents of the carcass.

See also

• Bigfoot in popular culture
• Bigfoot trap
• Evidence regarding Bigfoot
• Formal studies of Bigfoot

Similar alleged creatures

• Almas - Mongolia
• Barmanou - Afghanistan and Pakistan
• Chuchunaa - Siberia
• Fear liath - Scotland
• Fouke Monster - Fouke, Arkansas
• Hibagon - Japan
• Kapre - Philippines
• Lake Worth monster - Lake Worth, Texas
• Momo the Monster - Missouri, Louisiana
• Người Rừng - Vietnam
• Nuk-luk - Northwest Territories
• Old Yellow Top - Canada
• Orang Mawas - Malaysia
• Orang Pendek - Sumatra, Indonesia
• Pennsylvania Creature - Pennsylvania
• Pitt Lake Giant - British Columbia, Georgia, South Carolina, Pennsylvania
• Skunk Ape - Florida
• Yeren - Hubei, China
• Yeti - Tibet
• Yowie - Australia

Similar beings in folklore

• Giant - Southern Europe
• Ogre - Northern Europe
• Troll - Scandinavia
• Wendigo - Canada and Eastern US
• Woodwose

Sources

• Bayanov, Dmitri, America's Bigfoot: Fact, Not Fiction, Crypto-Logos, 1997, ISBN 5-900229-22-X
• Alex Boese (2002). The Museum of Hoaxes: A Collection of Pranks, Stunts, Deceptions, and Other Wonderful Stories Contrived for the Public from the Middle Ages to the New Millennium. Dutton/Penguin Books. ISBN 0-525-94678-0.
• Bourne, Geoffrey H. and Maury Cohen, The Gentle Giants: The Gorilla Story, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1975, ISBN 0-399-11528-5
• Bryant, Vaughn M. and Burleigh Trevor-Deutch, "Analysis of Feces and Hair Suspected to be of Sasquatch Origin" (in Halpin and Ames)
• Byrne, Peter, The Search for Bigfoot: Monster, Man or Myth, Acropolis Books, 1975, ISBN 0-87491-159-1
• Campbell, Bernard G., Humankind Emerging, Little, Brown and Company, 1979, Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 78-78234
• Clark, Jerome, Unexplained! 347 Strange Sightings, Incredible Occurrences and Puzzling Physical Phenomena, Visible Ink, 1993, ISBN 0-8103-9436-7
• Coleman, Loren and Jerome Clark, Cryptozoology A to Z, Fireside Books, 1999, ISBN 0-684-85602-6
• Coleman, Loren and Patrick Huyghe, The Field Guide to Bigfoot, Yeti and Other Mystery Primates Worldwide, Avon Books, 1999, ISBN 0-380-80263-5
• Coon, Carelton, "Why Sasquatch Must Exist" (in Markotic and Krantz)
• Daegling, David J, Bigfoot Exposed: An Anthropologist Examines America's Enduring Legend, Altamira Press, 2004, ISBN 0-7591-0539-1
• Green, John Willison, Sasquatch - The Apes Among Us, Hancock House Publishing, 1978, ISBN 0-88839-123-4
• Guttilla, Peter, The Bigfoot Files, Timeless Voyager Press, 2003, ISBN 1-892264-15-3
• Halpin, Marjorie and Michael Ames, editors, Manlike Monsters on Trial: Early Records and Modern Evidence, University of British Columbia Press, 1980, ISBN 0-7748-0119-0
• Hunter, Don and Rene Dahinden, Sasquach/Bigfoot: The Search for North America's Incredible Creature, Firefly Books, 1993, ISBN 1-895565-28-6
• Krantz, Grover S., Big Footprints: A Scientific Inquiry into the Reality of Sasquatch, Johnson Books, 1992, ISBN 1-55566-099-1
• Long, Greg, The making of Bigfoot: the inside story, Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2004 ISBN 1-59102-139-1 (Long was able to track down a man who claimed he wore the monkey suit for Roger Patterson's film)
• Loxton, Daniel, "Bigfoot", Skeptic Magazine, 11(2). 2004. http://www.skeptic.com/index.html
• Markotic, Vladimir and Grover Krantz, editors, The Sasquatch and Other Unknown Primates, Western Publishers, 1984, ISBN 0-919119-10-7
• Mozino, Jose Mariano, Noticas de Nutka: An Account of Nootka Sound, Iris Higbe Wilson, editor and traslator, University of Washington Press, 1970, ISBN 0-295-95061-7
• Napier, John Russell Bigfoot: The Sasquatch and Yeti in Myth and Reality, 1973, E.P. Dutton, ISBN 0-525-06658-6
• Powell, Thom, The Locals, Hancock House, 2003, ISBN 0-88839-552-3
• Pyle, Robert Michael, Where Bigfoot Walks, Houghton Mifflin, 1995, ISBN 0-395-44114-5
• Sanderson, Ivan T., "First Photos of 'Bigfoot', California's Legendary 'Abominable Snowman'", Argosy, February 1968, pg 23-31, 127,128, ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN: a legend come to life.
• Sjögren, Bengt.Farliga djur och djur som inte finns, Prisma, 1962
• Shakley, Myra, Wildman: Yeti, Sasquatch and the Neanderthal Enigma, Thames and Hudson, 1973
• Sprague, Roderick, "Carved Stone Heads of the Columbia and Sasquatch" (in Halpin and Ames)
• Sprague, Roderick and Grover Krantz, editors, A Scientist Looks at the Sasquatch II, University Press of Idaho, 1978, ISBN 0-89301-061-8
• http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/east/06/30/china.bigfoot/
• http://www.parascope.com/en/articles/bigfootRussia.htm
• http://skepdic.com/bigfoot.html
• http://www.who2.com/bigfoot.html

External links

Bigfoot supporters

• Alliance of Independent Bigfoot Researchers (AIBR)
• Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization
• Willow Creek - China Flat Museum - includes an entire building dedicated to Bigfoot, including footprint casts, maps, photos, and other documents
• LorenColeman.com - website of Bigfoot researcher Loren Coleman
• Bigfoot-lives.com - A UK-based Bigfoot site
• Bigfoot Discovery Project
• Bigfoot on MonsterQuest

Skeptical views

• Article by Benjamin Radford, in Skeptical Inquirer, March/April 2002
• Article by Kal K. Korff and Michaela Kocis, in Skeptical Inquirer, July 2004
• Bigfoot - from the Skeptic's Dictionary
• Skeptic World - Bigfoot