Cryptid Curiosities ‘Bigfoot’

The possibility of unknown beasts or creatures living among us has captured the curiosity of people around the world since time began. From ancient cultures telling tales of gods and monsters who walk the earth, to modern day cryptozoologists, who try to find evidence of definitive proof that cryptids are real. With so many credible eye witnesses and thousands of new species being discovered each year, it’s sometimes hard to deny that there may just be something out there still waiting to be discovered.

Bigfoot?

Bigfoot is possibly the most notorious of all cryptids and possible the most debated as to its existence. Many ask the question of ‘where has he been hiding? Surely something so large would be spotted on a regular basis,’ But with over 10,000 reported sightings in the united states alone, maybe bigfoot isn’t hiding as well as people seem to believe?

What is a Bigfoot?

Usually described as a man-like ape creature or a hairy ape-like wild man, most accounts agree that Bigfoot is a large muscular, bipedal creature that displays both ape and man-like attributes. The height of the creature varies anywhere from a modest 6ft to a giant 15ft tall, thought that the smaller of the creatures are females or young offspring. Often described with a broad neck, long arms and covered in fur or hair, ranging from black, dark brown to reddish colour. Some reports say that the creature displayed glowing eyes or eye shine, although this is disputed by sceptics and believers alike as eye shine isn’t present in humans or known ape species.

The name ‘Bigfoot’ was coined in 1958, when Jerry Crew discovered large 16” human like footprints while working as part of a logging company in the Six Rivers National park in California, in an area by Willow creek. After discussing his find with his work colleagues, it was discovered that others had also noticed similar footprints in the area. There was also an instance of an oil drum weighing 450 pounds that had been thrown down a hill without explanation. The workers at the logging company began using the term ‘Bigfoot’ to describe the creature that stalked their work site and after a picture of them holding a cast of one of the footprints made the front-page of a newspaper on October 6, the story of Bigfoot spread and the term was used to describe other large footed unknown creatures. This was far from the first report of a Bigfoot-like creature though. Reports from back in the 16th century from Spanish explorers and Mexican settlers in California, told stories of what they called ‘Dark Watchers’ stalking their camps at night. While illustrations and Glyphs estimated to be between 500 and 1000 years old, depict a large ‘Hairy man’ thought to be a Bigfoot-like creature.

Bigfoot-like creature sightings have been reported from all over the globe, each with its own unique name but similar descriptions. From the Skunk Ape of the south-eastern United States to the Yeti in Asia and the Yowie of Australia, these creatures and reported sighting are widespread. Another term used for the creature is ‘Sasquatch’ which roughly translate to ‘hairy man’ in the Halq’emeylem language. ‘Hairy man’ is a term widely used across different cultures to describe the creature and could be a generally more acceptable explanation for what Bigfoot really is.

Bigfoot behaviour

picture from hauntedaukland.com

One thing Bigfoot is well known for, is its tremendous strength and is the supposed culprit for many bent or uprooted trees that are sometimes stacked in unusual ways, like being weaved together or in crisscross patterns. Although sceptics point the finger at humans or other animals doing this the undeniable truth is that whoever or whatever is the culprit, they have incredible strength to uproot trees in this manner. In some cases, people have even found deer carcases, suspended high in trees or found ground nests similar to one’s apes would naturally create.

Due to the majority of sightings occurring at night, it is thought by many that the creature is nocturnal although this is found to be unlikely by experts, as humans and apes are diurnal in nature. Some sightings are of individual creatures suggesting Bigfoot to be a solitary animal, while others report family groups more indicative of ape behaviour. Bigfoots are also known to show behaviours of rock throwing, potentially a sign of feeling threatened and also wood knocking, thought to be a form of communication among a group. Sounds of this wood knocking has been recorded on various occasions, usually accompanied by the creatures range of vocalisations, such as howls, screams, moans, grunts, whistles and even a suggested form of language. One such recording from the early 1970s dubbed the ‘Sierra Sounds’ has been analysed in detail. After listening to the recording the U.S Navy Cryptologic linguist Scott Nelson said,

‘It is definitely a language. It is definitely not human in origin and it could not have been faked.’

The recording was also analysed at the university of Wyoming by Dr.R.Lynn Kirlin professor of Electrical Engineering and concluded that the vocal tract length of the speakers indicate that the sounds were made by a creature with “features corresponding to a larger physical size than man” and that the tape shows no signs of being pre-recorded or altered. Although sceptics still dispute the noises to be misidentified calls from animals such as wolfs, owls and coyote, people still report hearing ape-like calls echoing through the forests of the United States.

Encounters

The Battle of Ape Canyon 1924

In 1924 Fred Beck and four others were prospecting up in the forests of Mount St Helens, a place they knew well and had been to before. After a successful day the men headed back to the cabin they used while in the area. The log cabin was very basic, it was small and had no windows but was a sturdy roof over their heads to protect them from the elements. On their way back to the cabin they discover a large footprint initially thought to be by a bear but was much larger than a bear’s footprint. After some discussion they realise a few of them had seen similar footprints and heard strange whistling sounds coming from the forest. Later while Fred and his friend Hank are fetching water they see a large silhouette of a creature up on the hill top, eliminated only by the moonlight. They shoot three shots at the creature potentially killing it as the creature tumbled off the hill top. The men ran back to the cabin while hearing whistling coming from the trees around them as though two animals were communicating. They barricaded themselves in to the cabin for the night until all went quiet and they each drifted off to sleep. Later a commotion woke the group as rocks and small boulders began to bombard the cabin knocking chunks out of the cabin walls. They started to hear the sound of people running around the cabin and used the holes that had been knocked out of the walls to peak outside to see what was out there. What they saw terrified the men beyond belief, three ape-like man were standing outside the cabin no more than a few meters away holding boulders in their hands like they weighed nothing. The men try to fire at the creatures as the attack on the cabin continued as whatever was outside tried to fight their way into the cabin. By morning all had eventually gone quiet again and as the sun shone through the gaps in the cabin walls the men tentatively made their way outside. The cabin was surrounded with rocks that had been thrown and the cabin walls were all scratched and torn up. The men grabbed their things and left the forest as soon as they could.

Albert Ostman story 1924

Ostman was a lumberjack who was vacationing in British Columbia, a place near Toba Inlet. As Ostman lay asleep in his sleeping bag he was allegedly carried away by a sasquatch for 3 hours until eventually being dropped on a plateau, surrounded by a family of sasquatch. Ostman remained in the company of the family of sasquatch for 6 days, eating sweet grass they gave to him. He attempted to leave but was stopped by the large male of the family who kept him captive until Ostman feed him snuff making the sasquatch groggy, allowing Ostman to make his escape. It was 24 years before Ostman told the story of his encounter for fear of being thought crazy, but eventually told his story to a newspaper in 1957.

Patterson, Gimlin film 1967

Possibly the most notorious encounter with Bigfoot due to the 59.5 seconds of footage, was captured by Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin at Bluff Creek California. They were horseback riding through the woods when they spotted a large creature by the edge of the Klamath River. Patterson estimated its height to be around 7 feet tall but the exact height was heavily debated. They claimed to see a large, hairy, bipedal, ape-like creature, covered in short, dark reddish brown or black fur, covering most of its body. Patterson’s horse reared after sensing the animal, making it hard for him to dismount but eventually managed to calm his horse and take his camera from his saddlebag and record the now iconic Bigfoot footage.

The Mike Wooley Story 1981

One cold day in December of 1981 Mike Wooley was out deer hunting in Louisiana. As he stood in his deer stand a young Dow deer came running out of the trees and rested on the ground in front of him. As Mike aimed his rifle a large gorilla-like creature jumped out of the bushes. At first Mike thought it was someone playing a prank on him, trying to stop him deer hunting, so he starts shouting at the person telling them to leave but the person or creature didn’t move. Mike raised his rifle to get a better look through his scope and soon realised it wasn’t a person in an ape suit. There was steam coming off the creatures face and its nostrils flared as though it was angry, then as Mike is staring at the creature in bewilderment, it lets out a tremendous roar that Mike describes as sounding like a lion’s roar. The creature seemed extremely angry with Mike who believed it may have been as a result of him pointing his rifle towards the creature. Off in the distance a loud whistle sounded from the forest. The creature stopped roaring and turned its head to whistle back in the direction the sound had come from. After another creature similar to the first, appears from the treeline, Mike jumped from his deer stand and began running down the trail towards his vehicle. Looking over his shoulder he could see one of them running parallel to him through the trees beside him. He gets to his truck and jumps in but as he is driving off he sees that the other creature was following him, down the track behind him. Mike still claims that he was in fact the aggressor for pointing the gun at them and warns others that this action is likely to invoke a reaction from the creatures.

Where are they hiding?

Even with a vast amount of eye witness sighting, many suggest that if such a large creature was to exist, it would be see on a more frequent basis. Bones and remains would have been found at some point, after all we are regularly finding bones from dinosaurs that went extinct millions of years ago. There are a lot of reasonable arguments for a Bigfoot creature not existing in the modern world, with so much of the earth discovered, where are they hiding? A few things need to be realised first, before anyone can completely rule out the existence of Bigfoot. The world is a very big place, with areas of concentrated populations but also large areas of unpopulated areas. In fact, around 20-40% of the earths land surface is relatively untouched by humans. New species of animals are still being discovered and although many of these are smaller creatures, a new species of orang-utan was classified in Indonesia, in just 2017. In the USA, approximately 47% of land is uninhabited with vast areas of forest and swamp land rarely explored. The Tongass national forest in Alaska is 17 million acres of Pacific temperate rain forest. The Chugach also in Alaska is roughly 6.9 million acres of forest, rivers and glaciers and the Humboldt-Toiyabe that straddles Nevada and California is 6.7 million acres. That’s over 30 million acres of land, just in Americas three biggest national parks, where Bigfoot and his friends could call home. We also have to consider that this is supposedly an intelligent creature, who knows his way around the forests he resides and potentially sees humans as a threat, meaning they are likely going to keep their distance and could be hiding up trees or in caves. The largest cave in the world, Hang Son Doong, located in Vietnam, was only discovered in 1991 and was not fully explored until 2009, measuring more than 5 Kilometres long, 200 meters high (over twice the height of the statue of liberty or big ben) and 150 meters wide. If a static cave can stay hidden for so long, it’s not so far fetched to believe that a small group of moving creatures could keep out of sight.

So why don’t we find the dead ones who can’t hide?

Another reasonable question when we are still finding dinosaur bones. Dinosaur bones aren’t actually bone though, they are fossilised bone, which is actually stone. We can already establish that if a Bigfoot creature does exist, they are intelligent and try to remain hidden in less travelled locations. We bury our dead, maybe they do too. Admittedly it is strange that no documented remains have ever been found but if they do bury their dead in less travelled areas it is unlikely that anyone would stumble across them. Even bones rot away eventually, which can happen in just 20 years and anyone who was to stumble over partially decomposed bones may just assume it was a deer or other animal carcass.

Misidentification

What if Bigfoot does exist but isn’t quite the hairy ape-man we all picture. Misidentification or exaggeration could be the difference between a beast from the unknown and a wild man who hasn’t bathed in a month. After all, if you pay attention to a lot of the descriptions from some of the most credible witness reports, the majority of them describe a ‘Hairy man’ not necessarily the ape beast that is usually depicted when describing Bigfoot. There are also a lot of known creatures that under certain conditions could appear to be something they aren’t.

Wild man and cannibalistic humans

Stories of encounters with wild men living in the wilderness have been prevalent throughout the ages. Most thought to be feral children who had been abandoned in the wild to fend for themselves, or former members of a civilised society, who had either gone insane or were forced to flee due to conflict or persecution, adapted to live in the wilderness and call their home. In 1871 a Wildman was captured near Morgantown, West Virginia, described as,

‘half man and half beast, with long brushy hair, giving him the appearance of a gorilla more than a human being.'

The Wildman said his name was Thomas Foley, a native of Ireland. After being cleaned and dressed he took an opportunity to escape and returned to the mountains, tearing his clothes off as he ran. The national parks are commonly thought to be inhabited by wild men and feral cannibals. Often getting connected to the vast number of people who go missing in national parks every year. Some try to deny the existence of wild men are still present in the national parks but many park rangers have confirmed their existence, even going as far to report of wild men attacks on fellow rangers. These wild men are often suggested to be the Bigfoot creatures people are seeing in the forests and with the physical description, it’s easy to see why. There have been incidences where people have been mistaken for Bigfoot casting doubt on the fable, such as in 2017 when reported sightings came flooding in after a shaman wearing animal furs was vacationing in a North Carolina forest.

Other animals

In the early 1920s chimpanzees were imported for experiments in laboratories but many found their way into the pet trade and soon chimpanzees and gorillas became household pets, encouraged by popular media, parading them around on TV screens wearing clothes and acting human. People soon discovered that these cute little creatures grew into large, powerful, aggressive animals. Realising they could no longer care for these creatures, many were released into forest and swamp land across America. Other animals over the years escaped from zoos and circus’s, many destined to perish or to live out a harsh, solitary existence, forced to adapt to a new habitat but with the humid subtropical climate of the south-eastern United States, there is good reason to believe a population of Apes could not only survive, but thrive and adapt to their new environment. Some footage captured of the apparent Bigfoot, has been identified to more than likely be of some kind of ape and in some cases, display ape like traits, such as nest building and ripping bark off trees, something chimpanzees are known to do for a food source when alternative food sources become seasonally scarce. This behaviour has also been witnessed by brown bears in Siberia. Bears of course, being an obvious culprit for Bigfoot Misidentification, as they are well known for inhabiting the same locations as many Bigfoot sightings. The American Black bear is known to stand at around 5-7ft tall when upright on its hind quarters and the Grizzly stands at around 8-9ft. Bears with the skin condition mange, have been described to look like chimpanzees and at a glance in a dark forest, could easily be mistaken for something else but many eye witnesses claim they have a vast knowledge of the animals native to the area and stand firm with their descriptions of what they saw.

Scientific view

The expert’s general consensus is that there has not been enough evidence to prove that Bigfoots existence is credible. Although fossilized evidence of similar creatures has been found such as Gigantopithecus, to date no fossils of this creature have been found in the Americas. Other anthropologists such as Gordon Strasenburg, suggest that a species of Paranthropus, an extinct hominidae, as a possible candidate for identification, although fossils of Paranthropus are found only in Africa. Generally, the existence of such a large species of great ape is found to be unlikely. The numbers to maintain a breeding population would have to be significant, to the point that they would find it hard to remain undetected.

My view

I always maintain that it is hard to believe in anything without hard evidence but with the sheer number of sightings, I do believe it is possible there is something out there. I don’t necessarily believe that it’s a clumsy Bigfoot and the Henderson’s looking ape man but I do think the possibility of unkempt, wild mountain men, can live out in the wilderness and can become aggressive when confronted is likely. I believe a lot of sighting are hoaxes and misidentification but fully believe a wild band of ape could be thriving in the American wilderness. It makes sense to me, that if a group of apes were living in a marsh or swamp environment, they may spend more time walking bipedally and after time build stronger muscles and find this action normalised. There are many possibilities and I don’t think, in my opinion, the idea of an ape-like wild man existing can be completely ruled out.

Without seeing something first hand, it’s difficult to believe in anything without proof. There are many animals known to exist that we believe in, even though we haven’t seen one with our own eyes, and with new Bigfoot sightings rolling in on a regular basis, maybe one day there will be the proof that makes us all believe.