Bigfoot Bogus Bunkum
Posted by: Loren Coleman on March 31st, 2011
(Special permission to use Savage Chickens cartoons from artist Doug Savage. For more, see here.)
Rumors. Falsehoods. Not even half-truths. Misinformation. I listen to it about Bigfoot, am ask about it regarding Sasquatch, and challenged with it all.
Visitors to the International Cryptozoology Museum are merely repeating what they overhear in the media, from their non-cryptozoology-aware family and friends, and/or according to notions they have carried around in their heads for years.
All of these comments are untrue, but people state them as facts as I give them tours around the place, where despite many cryptids being showcased, the talk always returns to Bigfoot.
Here are a few of these “Bigfoot Bogus Bunkum” (most of which are about the Patterson-Gimlin footage):
There is only one Bigfoot.
No one ever sees Bigfoot.
No evidence is found for Bigfoot.
The only ones are seen in northern California.
One of those guys who took the film made a deathbed confession.
Hoaxer Ray Wallace’s wife was in the suit.
A Hollywood stuntman made a deathbed confession.
A friend of Roger Patterson’s was definitely in the costume.
A football player has confessed to being the Bigfoot in the 1967 Bluff Creek film.
Tom Biscardi was part of the hoax of that film of the Bigfoot.
A family of Bigfoot was killed at Bluff Creek. And the film is part of the coverup.
+++
As it turns out, every one of the above statements are groundless.
Share a few you hear.
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
OK. A couple. Or so.
1) There’s no fossil evidence, which proves it isn’t real.
(It’s been estimated that we have records for 5% of the primate species that have ever existed.)
2) They are only in the Pacific Northwest.
(I actually never hear ‘only in California’.)
3) It’s ludicrous to think they live in places like Illinois and Iowa.
(Actually, those states may have better habitat than the PNW. PA and OH are hotbeds of sightings that appear as strong as anything from anywhere. Shoot, MD has 28 reports on the BFRO database. I just put in another one.)
My favorites from the list are “no evidence” (bespeaks a misunderstanding of what evidence means) and “no one sees them” (which emboldens not only skeptics but proponents to say things that are just flat wrong).
I hope we’ve gotten past “there’s only one.”
There’s more than one of them? 😉
How about some of these which I often hear.
– Bigfoot is a mindless, bloodthirsty beast. (as they are portrayed in, well, just about every movie about them)
– The PG footage has been proven to be a hoax. (I hear that one A LOT)
– They are only seen by drunks or other crackpots. (ignoring the vast amount of sightings made by seemingly credible witnesses)
– There was no Bigfoot before the surge in its popularity.
– The P/G film is the only good piece of footage. (although it is the best)
– There’s no way something like that could remain hidden that long.
– There are no recent large animal discoveries.
– The plural of Bigfoot is Bigfeet.
Oh I could go on and on.
–
m_m: the way we characterize apes, that the reportage shows the exact opposite is, to me, one of the most telling vouches for the quality of the eyewitness evidence.
and other than that: good list!
Another favorite I forgot:
– they’re HUGE.
(sightings seem to indicate an animal quite a bit smaller than the naive pop-culture depiction. Now they ARE big.)
And yeah, it’s BIGFEETSIES. I love skewering popular perceptions.
(Uh oh. This is not a nomenclature thread; this is not a nomenclature thread…)
Thanks for the nod, DWA…I think Iowa has 40 sightings and counting. Now whether BF calls Iowa home or just comes to visit is a whole other conversation altogether, but been seen multiple times it has. And there have a been a few tracks and so on.
As for myhts…how about my two personal favorites (they’ve been mentioned, but it’s worth repeating–because for some it’s such an easy out…for them:):
1) Something that big could never stay hidden.
Really? Just considering the thousands of square miles of uninhabited country in the Pacific Northwest and Canada. While we like to think the earth is over populated, we’re no where near to having eyes on everything. And no offense, but people aren’t the most observant critters in the first place…
2) If there was a BF we would have found its bones or decayed remains by now.
My personal favorite and often made by people that have no understanding of how Nature operates. Crypto shows have proved how fast a carcass or a corpse can disappear in the wild, eaten by scavengers, broken down by the elements and insects and how quickly something can disappear. Never mind the possibility that perhaps BF’s have some sort of rituals or rites concerning death anyway. We are not the only species on the planet who conduct rites or rituals for death. Yeah, I’ll give it to you for free: elephants. Go look it up and do some reading. It’s not that crazy of an idea.
If you really doubt BF, just read the autobiography:
In Me Own Words: The Autobiography of Bigfoot by Graham Roumieu…:)
DWA referring to OH and PA;
“those states may have better habitat than the PNW”
Really?
I usually find your remarks right-on and insightful, but anyone with google maps might dispute this claim. There have always been sightings in OH and PA, but frequency compared with the PNW or even OR by itself are a tiny fraction. Very little hoorah was given to the east or south as biomes capable of supporting mystery hominids prior to MonsterQuest, now sightings are way up.
I have been in the thickest of the east coast/mid west forests and, compared to the temperate rain forests of the Pac NW, they are like city parks.
Nice try.
Mahalo X:
Don’t know how I missed this, but better way late than never.
For one, John Bindernagel, who when he’s not a key bigfoot theorist is a wildlife biologist of extensive experience, was extremely skeptical about eastern and midwestern states as Bigfoot habitat, revised his thinking upon visiting the region personally and seeing how much richer its hardwood forests are in potential forage than the predominantly conifer forests of the PNW. He believes individuals can have much smaller home ranges in the habitats he found in the eastern and midwestern states.
(Not to mention which people seem to be reporting the same things, just as consistently.)
Not only that, but the PNW is traditionally “squatchy,” due to its representation in the media, so people would be, I would think, more likely to pipe up with reports there than in areas not recognized that way.