BIGFOOT

The names bigfoot in the United States and Sasquatch in Canada refer to a hairy manbeast reportedly seen in the forests of northern California, Oregon, Washington, and Idaho as well as British Columbia and Alberta, Canada. Hundreds of people claim to have seen this creature; their descriptions are not only largely consistent but are also similar to descriptions of manbeasts reported in other locations around the world, such as the yeti of the Himalayas and the yowie of Australia. Generally, bigfoot/Sasquatch is said to be 6 to 9 feet (1.8m to 2.7m) tall, with a shaggy-haired reddish-brown, brown, black, white, or silver body; no apparent neck; and a coneshaped head. In most cases it is seen walking through the woods alone, but a few people claim to have seen what appeared to be a family of the creatures. Those who have heard the noise made by a bigfoot/ Sasquatch say that it does not speak in the human sense but instead makes sounds similar to an ape’s. Footprints that seem to have been left by a bigfoot are similar to human prints, but they can be 16 inches (40m) long and 7 inches (17.5m) wide.

Historical References

Perhaps the first published account of a bigfoot/Sasquatch sighting appeared in 1870, when the Antioch Ledger newspaper in northern California offered the story of a man who claimed that he had seen a creature that seemed half-man and half-gorilla. No other such stories appeared until 1901, when the Colonist newspaper in British Columbia reported that a lumberjack had seen a manbeast with reddish brown hair all over its body. The Colonist reported other sightings in 1904 and 1907, and within a few years many British Columbians believed that an ape-man lived in their area. In 1920 a teacher name J.W. Burns called this creature “Sasquatch” in writing about descriptions of a similar creature in Indian folklore, and the name stuck.

The name bigfoot was popularized in the United States in 1958, after a group of construction workers saw strange tracks at their worksite near the northern California town of Willow Creek. One of these workers, Jerry Crew, made a plaster cast of a footprint and showed someone at the Humboldt Times, which then published a photograph of the cast alongside a story about the creature, which the construction workers called “Bigfoot.” Within days, this story had been reprinted throughout much of America.

Tracks, however, are the only physical evidence so far seen of bigfoot. In 1924 the Portland Oregonian carried the report of some miners in southwest Washington who said they had shot at an ape-man near their cabin, but they subsequently found only tracks there. Albert Ostman of British Columbia claimed to have been taken captive by a bigfoot family that same year while camping, although he did not report the incident until 1957. Ostman claimed that he had escaped from these creatures, who never tried to hurt him, after six days. Bigfoot investigators John Green and Ivan T. Sanderson subsequently interviewed Ostman and pronounced his story credible, but skeptics call it nonsense, suggesting that the man’s delay in reporting the event makes it likely that he made up the story.

The Patterson Film

Skeptics also ridicule a home movie that supposedly shows bigfoot. The footage was supposedly shot on October 20, 1967, by Roger Patterson, who, just the year before, had self-published a book titled Do Abominable Snowmen of America Really Exist? According to Patterson, he decided to search for physical evidence of bigfoot’s existence and to create a filmed documentary of his quest. Patterson explored various forests of the Pacific Northwest with a sixteen millimeter movie camera. Finally, at a site in northern California’s Six Rivers National Forest known for bigfoot sightings, he and a friend, Bob Gimlin, said they spotted a bigfoot beside a creek and caught it on film as it disappeared into the forest. Bigfoot investigators later found tracks at the site; however, their size and the distance between them cast doubt on the film’s authenticity. Specifically, some experts say that the strides made by the creature on the tape do not match the measured distance between the footprints. Also in question is whether the creature on the film is anything more than a human in some kind of costume: At least one photo expert claims that the trace of a zipper is visible on bigfoot’s back. Believers in bigfoot dispute such claims, arguing that Patterson lacked the skills to create a convincing bigfoot costume. Skeptics note, however, that because of his book, Patterson had a motive to go to some trouble to create a bigfoot hoax.

In either case, in the years since the Patterson film appeared, many other sightings of a bigfoot or its tracks have been reported in remote wooded areas of the Pacific Northwest. Researchers specializing in bigfoot have also found what they believe are bigfoot hairs and feces and have recorded what they think are bigfoot vocalizations. Consequently, some reputable scientists, like primatologist John Napier, suspect that bigfoot might be a real ape that has yet to be discovered by science.

SEE ALSO:

• Abomiable Snowman
• John Green
• Yowie

SOURCE:

The Greenhaven Encyclopedia of Paranormal Phenomena – written by Patricia D. Netzley © 2006 Gale, a part of Cengage Learning