October 11, 2007

Bigfoot Ignorance is Bliss

Daryl Colyer, one of my colleagues from the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy, sent the following to be shared with the readers of Cryptomundo.

The Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy (TBRC) often gives public presentations to groups regarding the sasquatch mystery. Sometimes as often as twice a month, I find myself giving such presentations in front of small, medium or large groups of people whose interest in the subject may range from sheer apathy to total fascination to outright hostility. While the fascination of some in our audiences with the subject can be exciting, the hostility encountered from time to time is quite puzzling.

I distinctly remember one occasion immediately after giving a presentation to a group of about 200 or so hunters and outdoorsmen. Several of the men approached me afterwards to share their own experiences. Finally, one older gentleman approached me after a few minutes. He seemed visibly disturbed. He quietly and solemnly said to me, “Look,” as he looked around the room as if to make sure no one else could hear him, “I’ve been hunting all my life. If they’re really out there, I just don’t want to know about it!”

I replied, smiling, “You’ve been hunting all these years? What’s changed?”

The gentleman frowned, abruptly turned and walked hastily out the door. I chuckled as I watched him disappear through the doors.

What had changed was the old hunter’s perception of it all. With my presentation, he had become aware. Perhaps he still did not fully subscribe to it, but he had apparently begun to consider the possibility that the sasquatch was real and it obviously troubled him.

I remember another time after a friend of mine, who is a news anchor for a medium-sized market TV station in Texas, had gone out in the field with us and subsequently did a three-part segment on the subject and the TBRC on the evening news, entitled “Secret in the Big Thicket.” The piece was very well done and the response was overwhelmingly positive, according to my friend.

Out of the many positive responses, however, there were a few exceptions.

My friend called me one day after the final part had aired to tell me about a particular email he had received from a university professor. The email, which I never saw, was apparently extremely lengthy and had quite an angry tone to it. The professor apparently went to great lengths to excoriate my friend for taking on such a frivolous and inane subject and demanded to know if he would soon be doing a story on the Loch Ness Monster residing in nearby lakes. Furthermore, she severely insulted my friend by harshly calling into question his talents and skills as a journalist.

My friend was perplexed by the anger displayed by someone who was obviously highly-educated, yet extremely unreasonable. He also seemed a bit saddened by it and discouraged. As we say down south, my friend was quite “down in the mouth.”

I tried to cheer him up and suggested that the old aphorism, “Ignorance is bliss,” could be applied. I told him that, apparently, it can be a bit disconcerting for some people to truly consider the possibility of the existence of such a species as the sasquatch.

I suppose there’s a degree of comfort for some in blissfully making their walk out to their hunting stand at 04:30, while it is still dark, supposing that they are aware of every type of wildlife species in their surrounding area. In this context, perhaps the college professor and mother of two does not feel particularly thrilled at the prospect of staying in southeastern Oklahoma or East Texas campgrounds reputed to be visited from time to time by a smelly hairy large upright myth that just may not be a myth after all.

Filed under Bigfoot, Bigfoot Report, Cryptomundo Exclusive, Cryptozoology, Men in Cryptozoology, Sasquatch