Yes, Virginia, There Are Bigfoot
Posted by: Loren Coleman on September 21st, 2011
First published on September 21, 1897, here is my variation on that famous letter:
Dear Editor—
I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Bigfoot. Papa says, “If you see it in Cryptomundo, it’s so.” Please tell me the truth, are there Bigfoot?
Virginia O’Hanlon
Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except [what] they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be women’s, men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours, humans are mere insects, ants, in their intellect as compared with the boundless world about us, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, Virginia, there are Bigfoot. They exist as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Bigfoot! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith or scientific investigations, then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
Illustration by Guy Edwards.
Not believe or accept the evidence in Bigfoot! You might as well not believe in Sea Serpents. You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the tote roads in northern California to catch Bigfoot, but even if you did not see Bigfoot coming down the path, what would that prove? Nobody sees Bigfoot too frequently, but there are sign that there are Bigfoot out there. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see, oftentimes. Did you ever see Nessies dancing on the loch? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and undiscovered in the world.
You tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, and the scientific method can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
No Bigfoot! Thank God! they live and live forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, they will continue to make glad the heart of childhood and Bigfooters.
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
LOL. Bigfoots little helpers, the Orang Pendek, exist too, right?
what was that. felt timeless.