On
this date in 1990,
an
episode of Northern
Exposure
first
aired, in which
Bigfoot was
discovered.
Here
are 10 things you might not know about the
mythical monster, Bigfoot.
What
does Bigfoot look like? Bigfoot is said to be 7 to 9 feet (about 2
to 2.75 meters) tall and covered in Brown, Black, Red, or sometimes
even White fur or Hair. Its feet are about 13 inches long (0.3
meters). Hence the name Bigfoot. Evidence for the existence of the
creature often takes the form of footprints in mud. People who claim
to have seen Bigfoot at night report that it has red, Green or Yellow glowing Eyes.
What
does Bigfoot sound like? Some people have claimed to have recorded
the sounds Bigfoot makes, which include howls, screams, moans,
grunts and whistles. Native American legends mention a creature they
call Midnight Whistler, which makes a sound like the whistle of a
steam train. Some people have claimed to have heard Bigfoot
communicating using a rudimentary form of language, or by knocking
wood with their fists or sticks, or by hurling rocks. It has also
been suggested that Bigfoot may produce infrasound, because
some people who say they’ve seen one report that they felt
disorientated or anxious, and lost time, similar to the reports from
people who claim to have been abducted by aliens.
There
is even a report detailing what Bigfoot smells like. According to
Michael Rugg, the owner of the Bigfoot Discovery Museum: "Imagine
a Skunk that had rolled around in dead animals and had hung around
the garbage pits."
This
kind of creature is known as Bigfoot in parts of North America, but
there are other names for similar creatures in other parts of the
world, including Sasquatch, Witiko, Wendigo, Yeti, Abominable
Snowman, Skunk ape, Grassman, Fouke Monster and Wood Booger.
So
how did these legends start? Native American legends about such
creatures have long existed. The Tsul ‘Kalu, for example, which is
said to have been able to read minds; one even married a Cherokee
girl and it was believed this marriage was to blame for everything that went
wrong for the tribe thereafter. In modern times, an early report was from
Jerry Crew was a bulldozer operator for a logging company in 1958.
He found a set of large, 16-inch (41 cm) human-like footprints in
the mud in Humboldt County, California. At the same time, other
strange things happened around the camp, like huge oil drums being
moved with no explanation. The logging workers started calling the
unknown culprit "Bigfoot." Humboldt County now brands
itself as the Bigfoot capital of the world.
The
most famous evidence is a short video film known as the
"Patterson-Gimlin movie" after the men who shot the film.
The film shows a large, ape-like creature walking through a wood.
Some say it was simply a bloke in a gorilla suit (I watched it, and
admit it did look to me just like that!) That said, others have
tried to disprove that theory by getting people to put on gorilla
suits and walk around. They claim none of those people move exactly
like the creature in the film.
A
poll in 2020 suggested that about 1 in 10 American adults believe
Bigfoot to be "a real, living creature". Some of that 10%
make it their mission in life to prove it to the rest of us. The
Appalachian Investigators of Mysterious Sightings (or AIMS) is one
such organisation. There’s even a name for the activity of looking
for evidence of the creature’s existence: "Squatching",
"Squatchin'" or "Squatch'n". Whether it exists
or not, there’s actually a law in Washington which states that
killing a Bigfoot is illegal, punishable by a fine of up to $10,000
or five years in prison.
Why,
then, has nobody found one? Even a dead one? Perhaps, say the
believers, they bury their dead. Some have even claimed to have
found Bigfoot burial grounds. Uprooted and bent trees in some
forests could be, according to them, be Bigfoot marking his
territory.
Assuming
Bigfoot doesn’t exist, how can the mysterious sightings be
explained? Hoaxes involving blokes in gorilla suits is one
explanation, of course. Others include incidences of mistaken
identity – what people actually saw was a Bear standing on its
hind legs, or a primate that had escaped from a circus, a zoo, or
from being someone’s exotic pet. Others have said that a large,
extinct ape species, Gigantopithecus
blacki,
isn’t actually extinct at all, but migrated across the Bering land
bridge with other animals many years ago. No fossils of this ape
have been found in the Americas, though, which tends to discount
that theory. Shamans wearing furs or forest hermits have also been
offered as explanations, and of course, pareidolia, the tendency to
observe human-like faces and figures within the natural environment.
It
has been suggested that Bigfoot has a pet of sorts. There is another
legendary creature called a Chupacabra
(which literally means “goat sucker”) which is said to be a kind
of vampire which preys on livestock and forest animals. The legend
is that Bigfoot uses Chupacabras rather
as we use hunting dogs to help them catch prey. Needless to say, no
evidence has been found that this might be the case.
I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them.
