Bigfoot evidence evaluated - Letters to the Editor - Letter to the Editor

I thoroughly enjoyed Benjamin Radford's article about Bigfoot (Match/April 2002). He summarized the evidence for and against Bigfoot in a succinct and objective manner, and I agreed wholeheartedly with his conclusions. However, there was one major piece of evidence--or lack thereof--that he did not discuss: the lack of evolutionary antecedents.

After all, a giant mammal like Bigfoot didn't just suddenly materialize out of the vacuum like a quantum fluctuation. The fossil record clearly demonstrates that monkeys have been in the Americas since the Eocene, roughly 20 million years ago. But these keys have remained relatively small, and largely confined to South America. We see no fossil record of transitional species leading up to an eight-foot tall, 500-pound hairy ape. Nada. Such a creature roaming the forests of North America must have evolved from other species. Surely, some of these transitional species would have left their mark in the fossil record. But no transitional species have been found, despite the enormous numbers of professional and amateur fossil hunters who have combed North America.

The fact that we see no fossil record of creatures leading up to Bigfoot, and zero physical evidence for Bigfoot creatures today, leads to the inescapable conclusion that Bigfoot simply does not exist.

Robert Naeye, Editor

Mercury magazine

Astronomical Society of the Pacific

San Francisco, California

Benjamin Radford responds to Robert Naeye:

I'm glad you liked my article, and you make an important point. Due to space constraints, I had to limit my discussion strictly to the main evidence offered in support of Bigfoot's existence. Different theories on Bigfoot (such as whether it is a paranormal entity) and non-evidence, such as the lack of evolutionary antecedents, are just as important but unfortunately could not fit.

I am pleased to announce that I solved the problem of Bigfoot over thirty years ago. During a summer doing field geology in the Klamath Mountains, I soon noticed that every hamlet had a sign saying "Welcome to Bigfoot Country." My partner and I concluded that Bigfoor was probably collecting royalties and living in a penthouse suite at the Mark Hopkins in San Francisco. Given the street people who were then (and now, for that matter) walking around in San Francisco, Bigfoot could probably wander around without drawing the slightest attention.

Steven I. Dutch

Professor, Natural and Applied Sciences

University of Wisconsin-Green Bay

Green Bay, Wisconsin

I really enjoyed Benjamin Radford's article on Bigfoot. Radford's reasons for being skeptical of Bigfoot's existence are solid, but he overlooked one: Bigfoot believers can't seem to agree if the creature is merely some type of undiscovered animal or a paranormal entity with weird, almost superhuman, powers.

A number of books were published in the 1970s exploring the latter view. These include Earth's Secret Inhabitants by D. Scott Rogo and Jerome Clark, Creatures of the Outer Edge by Clark and Loren Coleman, and Bigfoot by B. Ann Slate and Alan Berry. The Bigfoor stories recounted in these books differ significantly from the usual "hairy, manlike being seen running through the woods" reports that sometimes pop up in newspapers. In these books, Bigfoot appears in or near UFOs, becomes invisible, wears trousers, fails to leave tracks in fresh mud, is impervious to bullets, and so on. This "paranormal Bigfoot" is definitely more than just a flesh-and-blood animal unknown to science.

The paranormal Bigfoot is out of fashion with most of today's Sasquatch hunters, but in the 1970s, when this view was considered cutting edge, Bigfoot sightings with paranormal features were common. This seems to me to be strong evidence that the mystery behind Bigfoot has a cultural, not biological, answer.

Robert Boston

Silver Spring, Maryland

Yes, in fact see the following letter we received from perhaps the main proponent of Bigfoot paranormalism.--EDITORS

I've seen snippets of the new articles on Bigfoot, and after having done field work over thirty-six years, I agree that a physical Bigfoor animal simply is not there. But due to personal contacts with them I do find that they are some form of manifested "OOBE" [out-of-body experience] event, and are temporary beings. Now this can be a new target for skepties to shoot at.

John-Erik Beckjord

Director

Sasquatch Research Project

It is time to call a truce and look at how amateurs, scientists, hobbyists, academics, hunters, and skepries can move forward together in search of valid evidence for or against Bigfoot/Sasquatch.

Radford's article in SKEPTIC INQUIRER on hominology reinforces my thoughts that we are at a historical crossroad in which the serious study of unknown primates can now begin. Recreationally and scientifically, Bigfoot-hunting is having a significant impact on our culture, as I will explore in a new book due out next year....

It took over fifty years ... for the first dead mountain gorilla to be brought back to science after it was rumored to be in east Africa, and for the first live panda to be extracted from Tibet after the first few were killed. It takes time to find animals. We must be patient. Dr. Bernard Heuvelmans, the father of cryptozoology who died last year, once wrote of the eyewitness accounts of giant lemurs in Africa. Today, they have been officially and scientifically described. There are other success stories in the field of primate biology.... The age of adventure is not over in primate cryptozoology, and SI's look at the subject merely reinforces this notion.