April 2, 2007

Are You Out There Bigfoot?

Are you out there Bigfoot?

Dear Bigfoot:

It has come to my attention that you still don’t officially exist and yet refuse to leave popular culture. This raises a question: what’s wrong with you?

Don’t crouch under that sequoia, shrugging your hairy shoulders and grunting all innocent. And stop scratching. It’s 2007, Bigfoot. Isn’t this fugitive lifestyle getting a bit tedious?

Be a Wildman and come out of the cave already. Stop scurrying into the brush like a frightened marmoset whenever some startled human nervously shakes a video camera in your direction for 12 seconds.

Here’s a thought: stand there and pose. Straighten your bipedal hominoid spine. Offer some missing link DNA. Smile. Raise one of your freakishly long arms, wave hello and yell, “Me Bigfoot! Nice meet you!”

Never mind the “Skookum Cast” or the 1967 Patterson-Gimlin film. If the world needs hard evidence, that would do it. Science would have its proof. Free at last, Sasquatch, you’d be a free at last! More important, I wouldn’t have to watch new docs each year about Bigfoot sightings, hoaxes, evidence, history, legends and folklore.

On Saturday, you see, CTV is broadcasting There’s Something Out There: A Bigfoot Encounter, which explores the impact a 2005 sighting had on ferry operator Bobby Clarke. That 40-second tape Clarke shot in Manitoba garnered international attention, not that you would have noticed, sitting there and picking fleas from your shaggy torso.

On May 23, meanwhile, Space will air Bigfoot’s Reflection, a look at some of the believers who devote considerable time and energy to finding you. Which raises a second question: wouldn’t it be great to finally be found?

No more patronizing gags on The Simpsons or Family Guy. No more alarmist portrayals as on The Six Million Dollar Man. No more hasty “reality” show expeditions, such as the pilot that’s now being filmed in the States.

No more Harry and the Hendersons.

Think about it, Bigfoot. You wouldn’t have to pick mulberries and catch salmon with your mouth. You wouldn’t have to sit around with other Bigfeet, boring them with the same old stories, like that time you were trying to steal a few burgers but the campers returned so you had to totally pretend you were a bear. Or the time you were taking a shortcut to the creek and stumbled upon a group of drunken frat boys who pinned you down and shaved your face.

You could get a condo in Willow Creek, Calif. You could attend Seattle Supersonics’ games just to freak out Squatch the Mascot. You could earn a living as a consultant to Boston Pizza, which just hired a new spokesperson, “Louie the Bigfoot.”

You could find email addresses on Bigfoot.com for the faithful who’ve made plaster casts of your footprints over the years and send them e-cards: “Me Bigfoot, You Thanks Believing!”

You could watch The Capture of Bigfoot. Then you could get wasted on Kokanee beer and watch Revenge of Bigfoot. During the slow parts – oh, there are many – you could surf YouTube and post anonymous comments on videos such as “Strange Humanoid Encounter,” which as of yesterday had been viewed 191,375 times.

“Me Bigfoot. That smell hoax!”

I’m reminded of something Bigfoot enthusiast René Dahinden said to the fifth estate in 1976: “I will keep on searching till I find the damn thing.”

He never did. And now he’s gone.

So come clean, Bigfoot. For the next generation. For the curious kids who read books about cryptozoology, and name their pets Yeti and Yayoo and Skunk Ape. For the youngsters who lined up last year to see exhibits such as “Bigfoot Rendezvous” and “Bigfoot in Texas?”

Now’s the perfect time. Bigfoot academics such as anatomy professor Jeffrey Meldrum at Idaho State University have become experts on you. The time to be taken seriously is now.

So ask yourself this bookstore question: do you want to be on the science shelves or jammed between conspirazoid titles about the Loch Ness Monster, Bermuda Triangle and UFOs?

If you don’t reply to this letter, I guess we have our existential answer. But if you’re out there, Bigfoot, it’s really time to grow up.Vinay Menon
The Toronto Star

Filed under Bigfoot, Bigfoot Report, Cryptotourism, Cryptozoologists, Cryptozoology, Evidence, Eyewitness Accounts, Folklore, Hoaxes, Pop Culture, Sasquatch, Television