Baylor Professor weighs in on Bigfoot
Posted by: Craig Woolheater on October 10th, 2005
The Sun Sentinel, a Ft. Lauderdale, FL newspaper, ran a story today about Bigfoot sightings in a small town in Illinois. The paper quoted Dr. Christopher Bader, a sociology professor at Baylor University in Waco, TX that I have corresponded with in the past.
"Bigfoot is one of those things that people like believing in, because, how boring would the world be if we thought we had discovered everything?"
Chris and I traded emails a little over a year ago. He was quoted at that time in an article that ran in the Dallas Morning News where he said, "My students ask me all the time: ‘Do you believe in UFOs? Do you believe in ritual abuse? Do you believe in Bigfoot?’ " He said. "My answer is that I just don’t care whether they’re real or not."
"When I was a kid, I used to try to find Bigfoot in the woods or worry that UFOs would come to my room and get me."
He’ll admit to never losing his fascination with the mystery associated with tales of the supernatural.
"If we ever caught Bigfoot and put him in a cage," he said, "I’d be really depressed."
So I wrote him asking about his interest in Bigfoot. I was able to find him listed in the Baylor faculty directory and shot him an email. I told him that I found the article interesting, especially his quotes about Bigfoot.
He replied with, "I knew your name sounded familiar – one of the first things I did upon moving to Texas was look at texasbigfoot.com. I’ve been at Baylor for a little over two years. But I was born and raised in Washington and have read about Bigfoot since I was a kid – read the Sanderson books, the Bords, etc. when I was in elementary.
I became involved in the Bigfoot issue a bit more in college. We were required to do an observation of a group that interested us. One of the groups I picked were people with an intense interest in Bigfoot (i.e. either hunting Bigfoot or claiming some sort of special relationship). It was a great way to mix my studies with something I was interested in. I spent a lot of time with a guy named Datus Perry (he passed away a few years back). He claimed dozens of sightings, made models of Bigfoot and painted pictures, etc.
Don’t have the DMN article handy and can’t remember what I said about Bigfoot. But in general, I study it as a social issue – how have attitudes about Bigfoot changed over time? How are Bigfoot hunters treated by society? What is it like to believe in something most people don’t? How is Bigfoot used in the media, etc. So when I’ve studied Bigfoot I’ve generally been trying to learn about the people who devote their lives to it rather than Bigfoot itself. That being said, I devour any Bigfoot book that comes out (I found a copy of the Lake Worth Monster recently), and find some of the evidence very convincing – the Bossburg cast, etc. Like most people across the country, I was unaware of the amount of activity in Texas – when I found your site I read the cases for hours. Of course I was disappointed that there seems to have been no activity near Waco ;)"
Who knows, maybe Chris will show up this weekend at our annual Texas Bigfoot Conference.
Co-founder of Cryptomundo in 2005.
I have appeared in or contributed to the following TV programs, documentaries and films:
OLN's Mysterious Encounters: "Caddo Critter", Southern Fried Bigfoot, Travel Channel's Weird Travels: "Bigfoot", History Channel's MonsterQuest: "Swamp Stalker", The Wild Man of the Navidad, Destination America's Monsters and Mysteries in America: Texas Terror - Lake Worth Monster, Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot: Return to Boggy Creek and Beast of the Bayou.
