Bigfoot, also known as Sasquatch, is
an alleged ape-like creature
purportedly inhabiting forests,
mainly in the Pacific Northwest
region of North America. Bigfoot is
usually described as a large, hairy,
bipedal humanoid. Many believers in
its existence contend that the same
or similar creatures are found
around the world under different
regional names, most prominently the
Yeti of the Himalayas.
The scientific community considers
Bigfoot to be a combination of
folklore, misidentification, and
hoaxes, rather than a real
creature. In general, mainstream
scientific consensus does not
support the posited existence of
mega fauna cryptids such as Bigfoot,
because of the improbably large
numbers necessary to maintain a
breeding population and because
climate and food supply issues would
make such purported creatures'
survival in reported habitats
unlikely.[4] Despite these facts,
Bigfoot is one of the more famous
examples of a cryptid within crypto
zoology.
Bigfoot is described in reports as a
large ape-like creature, ranging
between 6–10 feet (1.8–3.0 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 is commonly reported to have
a strong, unpleasant smell by those
who have claimed to have encountered
it. The enormous footprints for
which it is named have been as large
as 24 inches (61 cm) long and 8
inches (20 cm) wide. While most
casts have five toes—like all known
apes—some casts of alleged Bigfoot
tracks have had numbers ranging from
two to six. Some have also
contained claw marks, making it
likely that a portion came from
known animals such as bears, which
have five toes and claws.
Proponents have also claimed that
Bigfoot is omnivorous and mainly
nocturnal.
Wild men stories are found among the
indigenous population of the Pacific
Northwest. The legends existed prior
to a single name for the
creature. They differed in their
details both regionally and between
families in the same community.
Similar stories of wild men are found
on every continent except
Antarctica. 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."
Members of the Lummi tell tales
about Ts'emekwes, the local version
of Bigfoot. The stories are similar
to each other in terms of the
general descriptions of Ts'emekwes,
but details about the creature's
diet and activities differed between
the stories of different
families.
Some regional versions contained
more nefarious creatures. The
stiyaha or kwi-kwiyai were a
nocturnal race that children were
told not to say the names of lest
the monsters hear and come to carry
off a person—sometimes to be
killed. In 1847, Paul Kane
reported stories by the native
people about skoocooms: a race of
cannibalistic wild men living on the
peak of Mount St. Helens. The skoocooms appear to have been
regarded as supernatural, rather
than natural.
Less menacing versions such as the
one recorded by Reverend Elkanah
Walker exist. In 1840, Walker, a
Protestant missionary, recorded
stories of giants among the Native
Americans living in Spokane,
Washington. The Indians claimed that
these giants lived on and around the
peaks of nearby mountains and stole
salmon from the fishermen's
nets.
The local legends were combined
together by J. W. Burns in a series
of Canadian newspaper articles in
the 1920s. Each language had its own
name for the local version.17] Many
names meant something along the
lines of "wild man" or "hairy man"
although other names described
common actions it was said to
perform (e.g. eating clams).[18]
Burns coined the term Sasquatch,
which is from the Halkomelem
sásq’ets (IPA: [sæsq’ets]), and
used it in his articles to describe
a hypothetical single type of
creature reflected in these various
stories. Burns's articles
popularized both the legend and its
new name, making it well known in
western Canada before it gained
popularity in the United States.
While the legends that form the
basis of Bigfoot had been around for
decades, if not centuries, and had
been unified by Burns, it was not
until the 1950s that Bigfoot truly
came to fame. In 1951, Eric Shipton
photographed what he described as a
Yeti footprint. The photograph
was published shortly thereafter and
gained wide attention.
The notoriety of ape-men grew over
the decade, culminating in 1958 when
large footprints were found in Del
Norte County, California by
bulldozer operator Gerald Crew. Sets
of large tracks appeared multiple
times around a road-construction
site in Bluff Creek. After not being
taken seriously about what he was
seeing, Crew brought in his friend,
Bob Titmus, to cast the prints in
plaster. The story was published in
the Humboldt Times along with a
photo of Crew holding one of the
casts. Locals had been calling
the unseen track-maker "Big Foot"
since the late summer, which Genzoli
shortened to "Bigfoot" in his
article. Bigfoot gained
international attention when the
story was picked up by the
Associated Press. Following
the death of Ray Wallace, a local
logger, his family attributed the
creation of the footprints to
him. The wife of Scoop Beal, the
editor of the Humboldt Standard,
which later combined with the
Humboldt Times, in which Genzoli's
story had appeared has stated
that her husband was in on the hoax
with Wallace.
The year 1958 was a watershed not
just for the Bigfoot story itself
but also for the culture that
surrounds it. The first Bigfoot
hunters began following the
discovery of footprints at Bluff
Creek. Within a year, Tom Slick, who
had previously funded searches for
Yeti in the Himalayas earlier in the
decade, organized searches for
Bigfoot in the area around Bluff
Creek.
Distribution of reported Bigfoot
sightings in North America.As
Bigfoot has become more well known,
becoming a phenomenon in popular
culture, sightings have spread
throughout North America. In
addition to the Pacific Northwest,
the Great Lakes region and the
Southeastern United States have had
many reports of Bigfoot
sightings.
Prominent reported sightings
About a third of all Bigfoot
sightings are concentrated in the
Pacific Northwest, with most of the
remaining sightings spread
throughout the rest of North
America. Some Bigfoot
advocates, such as crypto zoologist
John Willison Green, have postulated
that Bigfoot is a worldwide
phenomenon. The most notable sightings include:
1924: Fred Beck claimed in a 1967
book that he and four other miners
were attacked one night in July
1924, by several "apemen" throwing
rocks at their cabin
in an area later called Ape
Canyon. The men went outside and
shot at what Beck described as
"mountain gorillas". The next
morning, large footprints were
claimed to be found around the
cabin. 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.
There are also local rumors that
pranksters harassed the men and
planted faked footprints.
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.
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 at 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-inch
(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
(4,600 m) of film showing
Bigfoot.
1967: Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin reported that on October 20
they had captured a purported
Sasquatch on film at Bluff Creek,
California. This came to be known as
the Patterson-Gimlin film, which is
purported to be the best evidence of
Bigfoot by many advocates. Many years later, Bob Heironimus, an acquaintance of
Patterson's, claimed that he had
worn an ape costume for the making
of the film.
Proposed explanations for
sightings
Various types of creatures have been
suggested to explain both the
sightings and what type of creature
Bigfoot would be if it existed. The
scientific community typically
attributes sightings to either
hoaxes or misidentification of known
animals and their tracks. While
crypto zoologists generally explain
Bigfoot as an unknown ape, some
believers in Bigfoot attribute the
phenomenon to UFOs or other
paranormal causes. A minority of
proponents of a natural explanation
have attributed Bigfoot to animals
that are not apes such as the giant
ground sloth.
Misidentification
The reported size of Bigfoot
approximates that of a bear standing
on its hind legs, and bears have a
high prevalence in regions said to
be inhabited by Bigfoot; as such,
they are likely candidates to
explain some sightings. A recent
example comes from a series of
pictures taken in 2007, claimed by
The Bigfoot Field Researchers
Organization to show a juvenile
Bigfoot, which the Pennsylvania Game
Commission has said shows a bear
with mange. Dr. Jeffrey Meldrum
believed the limb proportions of the
suspected juvenile in question were
not bear like, stating he felt they
were "more like a human." A tale
presented in Theodore Roosevelt's
1900 book Hunting the Grisly and
Other Sketches, describing an
encounter between two hunters and a
violent bear, is sometimes presented
by Bigfoot proponents as historical
evidence of the creature's
existence.
Hoaxes
Even proponents of Bigfoot admit
that many of the sightings are
hoaxes or misidentified animals.
Cryptozoologists Loren Coleman and
Diane Stocking 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."
On July 14, 2005, Tom Biscardi, a
long-time Bigfoot enthusiast and CEO
of Searching for Bigfoot Inc.:,
appeared on the Coast to Coast AM
paranormal radio show and announced
that he was "98% sure that his group
will be able to capture a Bigfoot
which they have been tracking in the
Happy Camp, California area." A
month later, Biscardi announced on
the same radio show that he had
access to a captured Bigfoot and was
arranging a pay-per-view event for
people to see it. Biscardi appeared
on Coast to Coast AM again a few
days later to announce that there
was no captive Bigfoot. Biscardi
blamed an unnamed woman for
misleading him, and the show's
audience for being gullible.
On July 9, 2008, Rick Dyer and
Matthew Whitton posted a video to
YouTube claiming that they had
discovered the body of a deceased
Sasquatch in a forest in northern
Georgia. Tom Biscardi was contacted
to investigate. Dyer and Whitton
received $50,000 from Searching for
Bigfoot, Inc., as a good faith
gesture. The story of the men's
claims was covered by many major
news networks, including BBC,
CNN, ABC News, and FOX
News. Soon after a press
conference, the alleged Bigfoot body
arrived in a block of ice in a
freezer with the Searching for
Bigfoot team. When the contents were
thawed, it was discovered that the
hair was not real, the head was
hollow, and the feet were
rubber. Dyer and Whitton
subsequently admitted it was a hoax
after being confronted by Steve
Kulls, executive director of
Squatchdetective.com.
Gigantopithecus
Bigfoot proponents Grover Krantz and
Geoffrey Bourne believe that Bigfoot
could be a relict population of
Gigantopithecus. Bourne contends
that as most Gigantopithecus fossils
are found in China, and as many
species of animals migrated across
the Bering land bridge, it is not
unreasonable to assume that
Gigantopithecus might have as
well.
The Gigantopithecus hypothesis is
generally considered entirely
speculative. Gigantopithecus fossils
are not found in the Americas. As
the only recovered fossils are of
mandibles and teeth, there is some
uncertainty about Gigantopithecus's
locomotion. Krantz has argued, based
on his extrapolation of the shape of
its mandible, that Gigantopithecus
blacki could have been bipedal.
However, the relevant part of
mandible is not present in any
fossils. The mainstream view is
that Gigantopithecus was quadrupled,
and it has been argued that
Gigantopithecus's enormous mass
would have made it difficult for it
to adopt a bipedal gait.
Matt Cartmill presents another
problem with the Gigantopithecus
hypothesis: "The trouble with this
account is that Gigantopithecus was
not a hominine and maybe not even a
crown-group hominoid; yet the
physical evidence implies that
Bigfoot is an upright biped with
buttocks and a long, stout,
permanently adducted hallux. These
are hominine autapomorphies, not
found in other mammals or other
bipeds. It seems unlikely that
Gigantopithecus would have evolved
these uniquely hominine traits in
parallel."
Bernard G. Campbellin wrote: "That
Gigantopithecus 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 Hominines
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, despite
the fact that fossils of Paranthropus are only found in
Africa.
Some Bigfoot proponents suggest
Neanderthal or Homo erectus to be
the creature, but remains of either
species are also not found in the
New World.
View among the scientific
community
The scientific community
overwhelmingly "discount[s] the
existence of Bigfoot because
physical evidence supporting belief
in the survival of a prehistoric,
bipedal, apelike creature of such
dimensions is scant or
nonexistent." For example, 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." In
addition to the lack of evidence,
scientists 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. Thus, as with other
proposed megafauna cryptids, climate
and food supply issues would make
such a creature's survival in
reported habitats unlikely.
Furthermore, 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.
John Napier asserts that the
scientific community's attitude
towards Bigfoot stems primarily from
insufficient evidence.
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."
A few scientists have offered
varying degrees of support for
Bigfoot study and beliefs. Field
biologist George Shaller has spoken
in favor of greater study of Bigfoot
evidence while still
expressing skepticism towards the
possibility of its existence.
Similarly, Napier has argued that
some "soft evidence" is compelling
enough that he advises against
"dismissing its reality out of
hand.". Other scientists who
have expressed guarded interest in
Sasquatch reports include Russell Mittermeier, Daris Swindler, and
Esteban Sarmiento. Jane Goodall
in a 2002 interview expressed her
personal hope of the existence of
Bigfoot, but allowed that there is
no concrete evidence for the
creature. Anthropologist
Carleton S. Coon, whose theories on
the evolution of race in humans have
been largely discredited, also
expressed support for Bigfoot's
existence in a posthumously
published essay.
