February 6, 2006

John Green: What is Bigfoot?

This article was originally presented at the 2003 International Bigfoot Symposium by John Green. This is the 3rd part of more to come. Posted with John Green’s written consent.

The first part is available on Cryptomundo here.
The second part is available on Cryptomundo here.

Let me stress that I am speaking strictly about just one form of unrecognized bipedal primate, the huge one that makes the enormous footprints in North America. There are others described, particularly in Eurasia, that I don’t pretend to know much about, and those which are a lot smaller presumably have a very different history.

Also I should warn you that some of the things I have to say will be things many of you don’t want to hear, and may refuse to accept. Being, like a lot of sasquatch hunters, a contrary sort of person, I’ll get to that part right away.

First, and foremost, we are not involved in a story that can be shaped to fit our own fantasies, and it is not necessarily one with a happy ending.

Most of us probably started out with a mental image of what these creatures are, but if we aren’t prepared to amend it to fit the facts as we learn them we are not likely to accomplish anything. Most of us also want to believe that our efforts will be beneficial to the sasquatch in the future. I sincerely hope that will be the eventual result, but experience suggests that a disturbing episode will come first.

The evidence is crystal clear that we are dealing with animals, not semi-humans or super-humans. That means that anything that any of us do towards proving that sasquatch exist brings closer the day when zoologists and physical anthropologists will take over from the amateurs.

They will want to study these creatures in every possible way, and some, I expect, will get official permission to collect for dissection not one, but several.

I am, of course, familiar with the argument that we should only study sasquatch the way Dr. Goodall studies chimpanzees, and such methods will certainly be tried. I doubt, however that they will prove to be practical with creatures that are so much more mobile in their home environment than humans, and even if they are practical, they cannot provide all the information that will be wanted.

The anatomy of creatures that walk in much the same way that humans do is going to be studied in detail. To do that effectively will involve dissection, and will require more than one cadaver, because the cuts made while exploring one bodily system destroy the others.

You may consider what I have described so horrifying that it will never be allowed, and attitudes towards animal rights may have changed to the point where that will be the case, but 30 years ago I was shown a freezer full of chimpanzees stacked up like cordwood awaiting dissection for just such a study.

So if your top priority is to make sure that no sasquatch is killed, your most logical course is to do what over the years quite a few like-minded people have already done—drop the whole thing and hope, although of course it won’t happen, that everyone else will do the same. 

To be continued tomorrow… 

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