Bindernagel on Finding Bigfoot

Editor and publisher Daniel Perez: Television shows like Finding Bigfoot? Harmless entertainment to you or is there some good education to be gleaned from it?

Dr. John Bindernagel: “With due respect to my good friends and serious investigators James “Bobo” Fay and Cliff Barackman, I despair at the way they have been manipulated to become actors. However, I must qualify this comment as I am very aware of the tendency to misrepresent a situation when pressured by film directors. I also have allowed my integrity to lapse in such circumstances. My concern is that this reality television show has become the face of Sasquatch research for many North Americans. As such, it misrepresents what Sasquatch research really is: the methodical plodding through historical accounts in university libraries, the careful preparation of abstracts for presentation at professional and scientific conferences, and the drawn-out process of getting shy eyewitnesses to share their reports.

There are also the hours replying to e-mails and listening to Sasquatch reports on the telephone in the hope that this may be the report worth following up and help us approach the tipping point. Also, there are the long days of driving to follow-up a promising report, only to find that the anticipated “evidence” is that of someone well-meaning but wanting to believe that the shadows filmed are Sasquatches and not just shadows, or, at best, videos unacceptable to show one’s skeptical scientific colleagues who already dismiss the P-G film.

In short, actual Sasquatch research can be pretty boring and generally uninteresting to television audiences. But portraying it the way it has been portrayed seems to have convinced my already-dismissive scientific colleagues that we investigators are indeed delusional and misled. It has further repelled scientifically-minded viewers looking for serious treatment and informed scientific comment.

But the mass media and the participating actors may be less at fault for exploiting the Sasquatch as a subject of entertainment than are my scientific colleagues for their unwillingness to provide an alternative scientific treatment of the subject.”