Hiding Isn’t Always Easy: Discovering Bigfoot

In the late 1950s, on a logging site in northern California, one of the equipment operators by the name of Jerry Crew found something very puzzling. Crew found a series of gigantic, 16-inch humanlike footprints tracked through the mud. Crew’s boss, Ray Wallace also was involved in the discovery. They knew that these massive footprints were unusual and had no clue who’s prints they were. They decided that “Bigfoot” would be a suitable name for whatever creature created these prints. Crew and Wallace decided to go down into the small town below their construction site to speak with a taxidermist. The taxidermist they came in contact with was, Bob Titmus. Titmus did not want any publicity, because of that, this part of the story many people do not know. Titmus gave Crew, and Wallace instructions on how to create plasters of the giant prints. Back at camp Crew made the first plaster casts of the prints and took them down to the town. The newspaper editors took pictures of Crew holding the plaster casts and they got spread all over the world. Crew, Wallace and the rest of their construction crew claimed to see more footprints, and even droppings from about August through November. These discoveries stir up much controversy. This lead curious individuals to a life dedicated to finding Bigfoot. After years of discoveries, there are many theories on what Bigfoot is. But the most logical explanation to this mystery is this: Big foot is a human-hybrid that has been on this earth since it was created by God, and resides in the wildernesses all over the world. It is just a matter of time until Bigfoot is discovered.

Taking a stroll into the mind of scientists, ‘logical’ people, and even our ancestors could help explain the phenomenon behind Bigfoot. There are an estimated 10 to 50 million species in the world, and we have only discovered about 1.9 million of them. Because of this a scientist’s mind would call Bigfoot a real undiscovered species. Our ancestors from all over the world have stories to tell about a similar beast. Our ancestor’s minds would tell us that Bigfoot has always been around and will live on. As we continue to have sightings and discoveries of Bigfoot, renditions of the stories will continue to be passed on through generations of time. The mind of a ‘logical’ person would tell you that, all of the evidence we have collected correlates. There is evidence from all over the world. It is nearly impossible, nor is it logical, that something can be recreated perfectly. Especially not over, and over again. Bigfoot is real.

At the break of dawn many years ago, on a summit 5,800 feet above sea level in a city in Africa, a team of wildlife researchers were trailing down reports of a weird primate. This strange primate was one that the native hunters know as ‘Kipunji’, the scientists suspected that this animal would prove to be notional. Then somebody yelled “Kipunji!” and everybody turned to lay their eyes on what the biologists described as “the most bizarre monkey I had ever seen” (Conniff). It was about three feet tall, with a thick fur coat and brown hair was seen out around its black muzzle. “Bloody hell! That’s got to be a new species” (Conniff). This was quite uncommon for an outsized primate to be discovered within the twenty first century in a heavily inhabited geographical region, where human beings have been kicking around for as long as we have been human. However, this is “a new age of discovery” (Conniff). Big, colorful, even spectacular, new species appear to be turning up everywhere these days. Smithsonian Institution did an interview with Dr. Richard Conniff, a field biologist who said, “The number of species being found today compares favorably with any time since the mid-1700s — that is, since the beginning of scientific classification. These new species, they write, may be weird enough to induce the same sense of awe, amusement, and even befuddlement that remarkable new organisms inspired during the last great age of discovery from the 15th through the 19th centuries” (Smithsonian Institution). This single story would support the explanation of: Bigfoot being on the earth, residing in the wilderness, waiting to be discovered. The discovery of new species is going to be further driven by the new technologies.

With all of these undiscovered species it makes sense that Bigfoot could potentially be one of them. When scientists think they may have found a new species they have to make sure that the species has not already been found or described anywhere else. Some ways that they do this is by visiting museums, coordinating with other specialists, studying DNA, reading journals etc. Most of the time, scientists may travel to exotic locations. These places are usually untouched by humans. Their goal is to collect samples and, evidence from the habitat. They take their specimen’s back to their labs and get to work down a road that they don’t know where it leads to. They could discover something or they could ‘waste’ their time searching for nothing. Once they get a lead on something such as DNA, they begin their search to find the actual creature. The issue with discovering new species is the money, and time. An organization or a person literally has to dedicate their life, or a portion of it, to their research. According to David DeFranza with the organization TreeHugger Natural Science said “Some species discoveries happen in a flash. Other times, however, the gap between discovery in the field and the official declaration of a new species can take years, even decades. In fact, the average amount of time, according to a new survey, is 20.7 years” (DeFranza). This would prove that not declaring Bigfoot a species quite yet is not unusual. Take the advice from the poem, Piers Plowman, “Patience is a virtue”.

Sightings, recollection, and folklore of a giant, hairy, man, ape-like, creature date back nearly one thousand years. Similar stories all around the world are still making record daily. At this point some would consider Bigfoot to be part of folklore (that is one of the theories, at least). Folklores are interesting because they blur the line between fiction and non-fiction. According to Dr. S.E. Schlosser, “The term folklore is generally used to refer to the traditional beliefs, myths, tales, and practices of a people which have been disseminated in an informal manner – usually via word of mouth” (Folklore Definitions, 2010). Folklore can kind of be related to what modern times call a rumor, or exaggeration. The term was created to use when addressing something that is partly true, but not completely true. Think of the game telephone where there is an original phrase whispered to the person beside you, and it continues to be whispered down the line and when it gets to the end it is usually a completely different word that sounds similar to the original but isn’t quite right. Because of this, folklore can have facts but mixed with fiction.

There is folklore that describes the Bigfoot we believe today, that leads to the logical explanation that Bigfoot has been around since the earth was created. He is the fact of the folklore. He is the phenomenal creature that has been talked about for centuries before anyone had ever realized that everyone was talking about the same creature. One of the oldest recorded references of Bigfoot comes from the Native Americans. Specifically, the Kwakiutls. The Kwakiutls have totem poles that seem to match Bigfoots description. The Kwakiutl are Indians from North America that live in what is now British Columbia, Canada. The Kwakiutls tell stories about mythical creatures called the Dsonoqua, and the Buk’wus. According to a website: Kwakwaka’wakw Folklore, Myths, and Traditional Indian Stories, “The Buk’wus is the Wildman of the Woods, he is a non-human character that lives on the edge of the forest near the ocean shore. He lurks at the mouths of creeks where he entices the souls of drowned humans, persuading them with ghost food to come and live with him. He lives in an invisible house in the woods…”. There is also the Dsonoqua, who is a wild woman of the woods representing the dark and dangerous side of Canadian wilderness, stealer of children yet bringer of wealth. She is described as big, tall, bold, and graciously walks through the forest. She is also depicted looking very similar to Bigfoot. Sasquatch, another name for Bigfoot came from Dsonoqua. The term Sasquatch was around back in the 1930s before any of these popular, mainstream North American sightings (The Canadian Encyclopedia).

Since Bigfoot has been a long time coming, cases like this get turned over to a special science called cryptozoology. Cryptozoology is literally the study aiming to prove the existence of entities from folklore record. Now that most of the world have overturned Bigfoot to be a folklore it is up to cryptozoologists to prove Bigfoots existence. Cryptozoologists call their subjects cryptids. Rachel Shea with National Geographic wrote, “A cryptid is any animal that has never been described by science, usually something very unusual…that stretches the limits of what is scientifically plausible. A cryptid can't be a single animal. If there's one of them, there's got to be many of them. While cryptozoologists are constantly finding evidence on what Bigfoot is and that there is no way never existed, they are also trying to find why Bigfoot may also be a hoax” (Shea, 2016).

The evidence that has been collecting from multiple sources is all connected in one way or another. When Crew, and Wallace reported all of their findings, it stirred up curiosity in Titmus. Titmus and one of his colleagues then started down a lifelong road dedicating their lives to finding Bigfoot. In 1967, men by the name of Roger Patterson, and Bob Gimlin claimed to have filmed a female Bigfoot around that same place in Northern California where the original prints were found previously, 10 years ago. (Remember the Indian folklore of Dsonoqua? She was the wild woman of the forest. How coincidental is it that the Patterson-Gimlin video is claimed to be a female?). Titmus went straight to the film site where they claimed to have spotted Bigfoot. While there he found eight tracks and this convinced investigator that the film was genuine (Green, 1997).

Titmus also collected brown hairs from bushes and branches in the same area the Patterson-Gimlin video was filmed, and other footprint locations. At that time (1970’s) they did not have a way to identify the hairs. John Green, (Titmus’s friend) shared some facts in Titmus’s obituary and eulogy that he wrote: “Years later it became possible to identify the hairs by immunological reaction. According to the eminent scientist that did the experiment the hairs proved to be from a higher primate and limited the possibilities to human, gorilla or chimpanzee. But no hair match exactly with these possibilities” (Green). This brought more obvious evidence considering there are no chimpanzees, or gorillas in California. Titmus’s achievements were recognized in 1987 by the International Society of Cryptozoology, this made him an honorary member, the first person from the United States to achieve that distinction (Coleman). According to Daegling author of Bigfoot Exposed: An Anthropologist Examines America's Enduring Legend, “When credited scientists have spoken out in favor of there being an undiscovered primate behind the phenomenon, a cornerstone of the argument has been that, from the perspective of natural history, the existence of Sasquatch-creatures cannot be ruled out”. Some research done by the FBI and other scientist was done on samples of hair found by many other Bigfoot enthusiasts. The research discovered that one of the hair samples was brought in from Oregon in 1990, and was an exact match to the hairs that Titmus brought to scientists in the 1970s, it was also a unique human hybrid of some sort (Oregon Wild).

In order for Bigfoot to be a human hybrid species that exists on the earth. Bigfoot must be able to produce. Research has also gone into fossil record, evolution of primates, Bigfoots habitat being unreachable by humans and so on. These findings can be argued as research is so variable. Bigfoot research is currently at what you could call a stand still. While cryptozoologists and many other enthusiasts are searching every day, nothing new has been discovered for a few years. While there are reported sightings every so often there is no new, or recent physical evidence. At this point they are digging deeper and trying to find something buried under the surface that we aren’t seeing that may help us find him.

Ray Wallace the man in the 1950s who you could say, “started” the Bigfoot phenomenon passed away on November 26, 2002. Once he passed away, his children announced that their dad had used a pair of carved wooden feet to stomp tracks of oversized footprints in a Northern California logging camp in 1958. His son said to The New York Times, “This wasn’t a well-planned plot or anything, it’s weird because it was just a joke, and then it took on such a life of its own that even now, we can’t stop it” (Egan). Apparently Mr. Wallace loved to play jokes. His son said, “his father had a friend carve the feet. Then he had a truck drive him slowly, to create a large gait, as he stomped the prints in the ground”. While some say that this was a hoax from Wallace, others that have spotted prints know that what they saw was real, with Wallace being dead there’s no way he is making prints now.

The only way to make sense of the picture on a puzzle, is to connect the pieces to make the puzzle a picture. Taking a stroll through the mind of scientists, logical people, and our ancestors can really help us make this connection. Between new species being found daily, physical evidence found that connects in various regions of the world, and the facts pulled from folklore that match up dating back to the early 180’s there is enough evidence to support the only logical explanation. Big foot is a human-hybrid that has been on this earth since it was created by God, and resides in the wildernesses all over the world. It is just a matter of time until Bigfoot is discovered. “The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence” (Gin Rummy, The Boondocks).