Flashback 2005: The Skeptical Inquirer

Originally published at Cryptomundo on October 30, 2005, a classic from Richard Noll:

(The Electric Prunes – I Had Too Much Too Dream Last Night)
I like walking into and spending hours at a good book store. I do so with my iPod on, listening to music so the place doesn’t seem so dead. I wonder how much the music influences me in what I look at or purchase? Quite a bit I would imagine by judging some of the things I cart home.

I am fascinated by a variety of topics. I can lose myself to the consternation of others looking for me, blending in with the rows and rows of books on shelves. I recently found a new book on mutants. I don’t really find the subject that fascinating but the fact that it was located in a place I hadn’t expected caught me by surprise – Science, so I just had to look. I thought this kind of thing would be where you would find material on circus and sideshow attractions. Who categorizes these anyway?

I opened it up to read chapter headings. In it was the first picture I have ever seen of Homo trogloytes – cave-dwelling Man, named and classified by Carl Linnaeus. It was a line drawing of a hairy, upright female creature. In his tenth edition of Systems Naturae, he wrote right next to it H. nocturnus – Man of the night.

What was Linnaeus trying to describe here? Bigfoot literature has brought this item up as important to their cause, that a famous scientist (second some say only to Darwin himself) described such a creature, giving it a name. Was he describing a Bigfoot? Or was he describing a Chimpanzee? The author of this book seems to think much differently… it was only a disguised albino, a wood-cut borrowed from Jacob Bontius’s ‘ourang-outang‘ in Historia naturalis indiae orientalis.

Finally getting over to the magazine rack I spy the latest Skeptical Inquirer rag. I scan a copy quick and come to Benjamin Radford’s review of Bigfoot Exposed by David J. Daegling. I buy the magazine and sit down with a coffee to read it. I liked the book but knew there were a few condescending errors in it. Others can speak of those details but I am more interested in my own search…

In my mind, this was probably the biggest event for Bigfoot in 2004. I think everyone who is into this subject should read it. It will remain on my shelf just like Green, Krantz and soon Meldrum.

You know, I find truth to be one of the biggest mysteries of all… and any such truth for me can be very different from that of others. Are either less valid? How does one know they have reached a truth?

Rick Noll About Rick Noll
Rick Noll has been actively searching for the Sasquatch since 1969 and continues his pursuit with extended field trips into the Pacific Northwest's most remote regions. Rick has worked with Peter Byrne, René Dahinden, Grover Krantz, John Green, Jeff Meldrum and the BFRO during all this. He helped with many documentaries on the subject including Animal X: The Skookum Expedition and Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science.

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