part one and two case for the sasquatch

8/13/2019 Part One and Two Case for the Sasquatch

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Native American cultures also had stories of

< )gres. Many have bee n absorbed into m odem

Bigfoot lore. However, most liad little in com-

K n with the sasquatch—or witli each other

\ll in all, they're what we'd expea: wildly

diffen?nt cultural tales from societies scat-

tered over an entire continent. ModemBigf{x:)ters tiave stretched to combine them

into one pool of sasquatch evidence, but it's a bad fit.

West Coast Native traditioas are often awkwajdly lumped together in support

of Bigfocx. But, there's no question at all about on e thing: the m od em sasqLiatch

legend really did start with West Coast Natives...

iyom the East coas

are quite different than West coast stories. Natives In the Eas

told of ••cannibals" with hairy faces, details that a re never men

tioned in West Coast stories. Some Bigfoot writers artj i trari

assume that s tor ies f rom both coasts descr ibe the sam

species—though poorly. Others suppose that these region

differences indicate the existence of different Eastern an

W estem sasquatch species.

But, the Eastem c^res don^t sound tik Bigfool Many wecovered in stone—not hai r Proeigtoot anthrop ol t^ is t D

Growr Kran t i explained that these ••stone dads " could "stnk

with l ightning from their fingers." He thought only West Coa

stor ies described sasquatches. "At tem pts have been made

relate native stories from other places to the same phenom

non,- he wrote, -but wi th l i t t le success." On the other han

Krantz felt. -Native stones that can confidenBy be related

me sasquatch occur throughout the Pacific Northwest." Oth

Bigfooters agree. B j t is this confidence well placed?

Tlie mcxiem sasqu atdi story is

Canadian. It began In the 1920s in the

small town of Harrison Hot Springs,British Columbia (close to the U.S.

border, near Vancouver B.C., and

Bellingliam, Washington).

Tliere, a teacher named J. W. Bums

who worked on the Chehalis Indian

Reservation begun to hear mmois aLx)Ut

hairy giants. Eventually, he started asking

questions. This was history's first

sisquatch investigiition.

His iutides on the subject introduced

the word "sasquatch" decades before tlie

American media popularized the temi

"Bigfcx^t.' Oddly, "sasquatch" isn't a wordin any Native language, despite its authen-

tic ring. Buras invented it (supposedly

based on one or more similar Native

words— tlie details are no longer clear).

On April Fools' Day, 1929 (just m onth s

Ixifore the Great Depression began),

Machxin s a^fcizine published a Bums

article entitled "Introducing B.C.s Hairy

Giants." It was the first time the public

ever heard of the Native ogres.

He wrt>te, "Persistent mmors led the

wTiter to make diligent inquiries among

old Indians. Tlie question relating to tlie

subject was always, or nearly always,

evaded... But after three years of plod-

ding, I have come into possessitin of

infonnation more definite and authentic

tiian has com e to light at any other time,"

Buras had found die one tiling that

coLild transfonn Ux'al rumor into major

modem legend: eyewitnesses

Bums' Native witnesses were the

first to de scribe "sasquatches" (the

word was invented just for their stories).

And, tliey said some surprising things. First of all, tlieir sasqLiatches were human

Today we describe sasquatches as completely shaggy, with thick ftir completelycovering tlieir heads and bodies. They look and behav e like animals.

The Chehalis wild men were sfimething completely

different. Tliey were •'nude," with "hair, not fur'' and

long hair on tlieir heads. (One sasquatdi's "long

straight hair fell to her waist.") Ano ther witness said, '

"Except tliat he wa s covered in liair and twice the ,

bulk of the average man, there w as nothing to dis-

tinguish him from the rest of us"—something less

like Qiewbacca and more like a hairy Amold

Schwarzenegger.

Everyone agreed that Sasquatches lived in

mountain c-aves or villages, not in die woods. One

Native wimess wrote tliat the elders he cxjnsulted 'about his sighting said "the wild man w as n o doubt

a 'Sasquatch,' a tribe of hairy people whom they

claim have always lived in the moLintains—in tun-

nels and caves." Another said he found a sasquatch

cave with "a sort of stone house or enclosure" inside.

And, the original sasquatches could talk

Yes, talk (See "Chatty Sasquatche s,'' righ t.)

So, we re Bums' witnesses lying, or per-

liaps mocking him.' Or were they telling

the truth? We'll probably never know.

Everyone involved has died, and there was no

physical evidence in the first place. But we know

on e thing for a fact: tl ie BigtVx)t lege nd .stiirted with

witnesses who described something else.

In the '60s, Bigfooter John Green explained.

"The Sasquatch with which Mr. Bums' readers

were familiar were basically giant Indiaas.

Although avoiding ci%4U2ation, they had cl<Xhes,

ftre. w ea po ns.. .and lived in villages. They w ere called

hairy giants it is true, but this was taken to mean they had long hair

on their heads, sometliing along the lines of today's hippies."



P U B L I S H E R AND

EDI TOR IN C H I E F

Pat Unse

C O - P U B L I S H E R

Michael Shermer

EDI TOR AND W R I T E R

Daniel Loxton

JR. SKEPTIC ADVISORS

Cheryl HebertEmrys Miller

Shoshana CohenTyson G ilmore

Emity RosaDevin Ziel

STAFF

Jaime BoteroTim Callahan

Andrew HarterDr Tom McDonou0i

CONTRIBUTORS T O

THIS ISSUE:

Pat Linse is oneof the foundersof the SkepticsSociety and a

creator of bothSKEPTIC and JR

SKEPTIC magazine

She illustrates.writes for. andedits JRP SKEPTIC

magazine.

Daniel Loxton isthe editor of JR.

SKEPTIC magazineHe wrote andillustrated this

issue,

Jim W W Smith

is an illustratorfrom British

Columbia, Canada.He is currently

working with Patand Daniel on

illustrations for theupcoming BaloneyDetection Series,

WATCH FOR the

upcoming, full-color

book

series for

more on Bigfoot

and other weird

"paranormal"

mysteries

In Part One of our special lcx)k at Bigfoot. we examined the history- l:)eliind th

legend's development. We discovered that hoaxes and the desii'e for fame m ay g

a long way toward explaining the mystery. It's clear that the legend was gradual

built up from femous cases—and it seems that many of tho,se cases s\'ere hoaxes

But that's not the whole story. Even if the m ost spectacular and famous caseare bogus, there's a .staggering amount of addit ional evidence to consider. I

the past 50 years, hund reds of pe op le have reported ly spotted sascjuatches. and

thousands of tracks have been discovered. H air samples have bee n recoveredfilms shot, and DNA tests done. While the dramatic "star" cases get most of the

press in both Bigfoot books and the skeptical literature, the rest of the evidencdeserves to be examined. We'll look at some of it here in Part Two,

Cryptozoologists claim there's a "mountain" of

evidence. This is entirely true. The question

"How much of it is good evidence?"Bigfboters agree that the collection of cases include.s—definitely and without

doubt—a high percentage of hoaxes and mistakes. Some say that n umb er is as

high as 80%, Most agree that the majority of cases are baloney. And thafs

where agreement stops. While sasquatch researchers argue that there are realcases mixed in with the bogus ones, no one can agree which is which. For

every Bigfooter who promotes a given case as a clear example of the realthing, another sees the same case as an obvious fake.

Ft)r exam[5le. Dr. Grover Knintz (an antlii-opologist and sasquatch author)and Dr, John Napier (another antliropologist and sasquatch aLitlior) reached

exactly opposite conckisions aboLit the Patterson film. Both thoughtsa,sqtiatches exist, and lx)th were liiglil>' qualified scientists. Yet, Napier

denounced the fibn, while Krantz supported it, Napier concluded, "There is littledoLibt that the scientific evide nce taken collectively poin ts to a hoax of some kind.

The creature shown in tlie film does not stand up vv'ell to functional aiiiilysis."

Disagreeing completely, Krantz wrote, "No matter how the Panerson film is

analyzed, its legitimacy has been repeatedly .supported. Tlie size and shape can-

no t be duplicated by a man. its weight and movements coirespond with eachother and c^]ually aile out a human subject; its anatomical details are just too

good." ,-•

The problem is that there's no way to settle these arguments. Without

definite examples of real sasquatches, there's no way to evaluate possible

examples. What ' s needed is an actual specimen for compar ison. As it is.

w h e n it comes r ight down to it, everyone is just guessing.

sa.squatch

is.



Eyewitnesses are an importantpart of the case for the sasquatch.

Unfortunately, they agree even lessthan researchers. Sighting reports contradict one another in everydetail. Can we sort them out?

Not very well. If we had a sasquatch to study, we could say, "This account is anaccurate description of a sasquatch, and this one isn't." But we don't. Ls a witnesswlio repons a l6-foot sasquatch more or less reliable than one who spots a

sasquatch eight feet tall? We simply have no idea. And, it's just as bad when wit-nesses do agree As respected Bigfooter Joh n G reen warn ed, "there Ls ample intbrmation

in print now to give anyone the details for a convincing story." All anyone can dois disregard the knoini hcxixes and mistakes (now here near all), and thenselea some reports that might be true— once again, by simply guessing.

There's no doubt that some "witnesses"

are hoaxers themselves, but otliers have reallyseen something in the woods. Could it all be a case of mistaken identity?

The most popular suspects are bears. Skeptics point out that grizzlies are about the same size as

reported sasquatches, live in the same places, and have the same shaggy, red-brown coat. Bigfoot fanshave little patience with this explanation. All Bigfooters know some "sasquatch" sightings involve bears,but most think it's a fairly rare mistake. It's popular for Bigfoot books to run pictures of bears standing

beside sasquatches to show that the differences "are very obvious."It s an argument that s usually ma de by p eop le with little experien ce in the wo ods . Those wh o've

worked around wild bears know misidentification not only can happen, but often does.

creatures reportfar from bear^ , like

ape- or the yowi

°f Australia. But-"ost Sightings sill

come from grizzlycountry.

For many years I

was a shepherd indie wilderness of

northern BritishColumbia, Canad;i. A hundred miles from help,our three-person teams managed 1500 sheep

all summer long. We were used to bears, andwe had to carefully watch our surroundings. Ii

was our job to notice everything.All the same, we quite often mistook sheep ioi

bears, stumps for bears, and bears for stumps.

Now, stumps and bears look nothing alike—cer-tainly less alike than bears an d Bigfoot But, suchillusions were common, especially at a distance.

They even had a (not ver>' imaginative) name."Hey," we d ask eacli other, "is that a grizzly, or a stump-bear?"Sometimes they'd seem to move, but tum out to be logs. Other

times "stumps" would walk away, bears after all.Tliese illusions happen because (despite the comparison

pictures in Bigfoot books) the world isn't like a police

line-up. Instead, bears and stumps (and everything else)are usually partly concealed by bushes or trees, or faraway,

or seen through mist, rain, or dust. In bright .sun, deep,shifting shadows break up the visual world; in poor

weather or twilight, dimness causes its own problems.Viewing conditions are never perfect, and often terrible.

It's actually \'ery easy to be fooled. And, oitr own condition

can make diings worse, A good example is sleepiness.I once w oke from na pping alongside the sh eep (after work-

ing 16 hoLtrs a day , we d d rop in the dirt for some shut-eye

whenever we could) to see five or six sheep milling around,maybe 40 feet away. Half-asleep, I groped for my glasses.When

I slid them on, that whole group of sheep trans-

formed into a single huge grizzly. (That woke me upfasLO

A similar thing hap pene d to my old friend

Jolene. The sound of upset sheep woke her.Stumbling to her feet, she saw through the bushes

that a strange dog was bothering the flcx:k. Yelling,Joe grabbed a stick and charged through the

brush. Just as she realized there was no reason for here to be a strange dog in the middle of now hereshe ran straight into three grizzlies The surprisedmother bear and her grown cubs stood up, tow-

ering over the terrified young shepherd.ITiankfully, they allowed her to back away with-

out incident. (Shortly after, I heard momma bear'sbellow echo up the valley. She sounded like a tyrannosaur.)

The tnith is that Ixrars really do look an awful lot like Bigfoot(especially, but not only, when they stand up). T here are count-

less bear sightings every day, so it would be shocking if people

didn t mistake bears for Bigfoot every once in a while.

Experienced wood s-people may be less vulnerable to m isidenti-fication illusions, but they're not immune. And, some sasquatchsightings involve totally raw city folk who would hardly know a

bear from a girafte. If only a tiny fraction of one per cent of bearencounters result in misidentification, we'd e^tpect at least asmany "sasquatch" sightings as actually occur.

And, baais aren't the otily source of confusion. As BigfooterGrover Krantz rightly warned, "With enough imagination

almost any object of about the right size and shape can beseen as a sasquatch." Exhaustion, nervousness, or evendrugs can generate "Bigfoot" sightings. 'Sasquatches,"

Krantz cautioned, "often come out of whisky bottles."



•'Without footprints,

the Sasquatch would

present no problem.

mixture of legends

and lies, with perhaps

an occasional

hallucination thrown

in But none of these

easy explanations can

the ground. Something

has to make them.

sible explanations...

Either they are made

by men or they are

nade by some creature

feet of the right ;

size and shape. I

^igfooter John Green

In late 1969, just days before the draft fx^gan for tiie VietaimWar, an extraordinary set of Bigfcxjt tracks was discovered nearthe tiny mining town of Bossbuig in Washington State. (At thetime the town was dying; ttxliiy it is abandoned. TheWashington State Tourism wehwite says. "Now only weeds andwildlife inhabit the town..,perhaps a ghost or two may linger")

Tliese prints, found near the town dump, showed somethingexiting, something never before .seen in a sasquatchtrack: one ftx^t was obvioiLsly deformed. Surely, itseemed, this "cripple" foot was clear sign that it had

been made by a living animal, an animal that hadsuffered a terrible disease or injury. It was a case that -,would change the Bigfoot world forever /, •

By an am azing co incidence, a Bigfcxjt researchernamed Ivan Marx had recently moved to Bossbuig,Marx had been part of oil millionaire Tom Slick'ssasquatch expedition [see Part One], and throughMarx, the biggest ruimes in Bigfoot research quicklyheard about the amazing find.

Bigfooter Rene Dahinden reached the site first (afterMarx). He found one intact print (which ,someone liad cov-ered with a cardboard box, protecting it from days of weather

and curiosity seekers), Dahinden quickly made a plaster c-ast.Then he rented a trailer, moved it onto Ivan Marx's proper-

ty, and prepared fbr a long, serious search of the .surroundingarea. Working with Marx, combing the wintry countryside, hefound what he was looking for in less tlian two weeks.

That cold, snowy moming they had set out by car to searchthe roadsides. After several miles. Marx hopped out t(5 checksome Bigf(x>t bait at one of their secret spots. Almost immedi-ately he leapt back into the car. hollering, "Bigfooi tracks "

After years on the trail, Dahinden iiad been burned befbre.He sat quietly filling hLs pipe, waiting for the punchline. Then,when it appeared that Marx was serious, he began to suspect

Through all the theorizing, skepticism, and belief, one single fact shines out in the cuse for tlie

sasquatch: for decades, something has been leaving great big u~acks all over North America,

^-tiatever makes them, the tracks themselves are real. Thousands have been found, examined,photographed, or cast witli phister To many people, the explanation is obvious—Bigfcxjt

Could this be right? The footprint evidence, like eyewitness stories, can be divided into

two major types: the famous cases, and everything else. The star footprint cases (including

the original Bluff Creek tracks and those from the Patterson film site) seem to offer thebest evidence—which is why they became famous. The countle.ss other cases offer less

powerful evidence, but they make up for it by sheer weight of numbers.

Unfortunately, the key footprint cases are now so tainted by the high likelihood that they werehoaxes that we can't do anything with them . But Bigfoot fans don 't see it that way. After all, they

point out, the famous cases arc confirmed by hundivds, even thousands, of secondary cases.

But, why are thase cases considered gcxxl evidence? Well, they're confimied by the famous casesIt's a circular ai lm e n t, and neither type of case Ls very convincing without the other.

So, let's look at both: first another famtsus case, a nd then the general footprint evidence.

a hoax. After all, it was pretty convenient that tracks shouldappear at a spot he was checking e\ ery diiy.

There was a Jeep parked nearby, and they noted the licenseplate number. No slouch at sensing a con, Dahinden had theright idea. But he probably had the wrong suspect.

They raced back to town for camera equipment—and a gun,(It isn't clear why Bigfoot hunters didn't have cameras with

them.) Returning, they explored tlieir big discovery.

They found tracks all right, Loren Coleman writes,"Boy, did they fin d tracks " To this day, these Bossbu ig

prints reniiUn among the best ever discovered. Theywere clear, fresh, and numerous: exactly 1,089 huge,obvious Bigfoot tracks, featuring the distinctive, authen-

tic-looking "crippled" right f(X)t, Tliere was even a spotv\ here the creature liad apparently rested, and anotlierwhere it had stopped to pee in the snow

Tliey spent hours carefully counting, examining,and photographing the amazing prints. They wereextremely convincing. (In fact, these tracks wouldsoon change skeptical anthropologist Grover Krantz

into one of the world's leading Bigfoot hunters,) Themen were bursting and yelling with excitement.

But, the tmil was aiso a bit odd. It wandered randomly overthe countryside, up hill, then down, acitxss fences and a railway,without really going anyw here. The tracks almost doubled backon themselves. Stranger still, the trail started and stopped at spotswhere no tracks could hxf made: a rocky river-shore cjn one end ,and the liighway on the other. The men couldn't follow eitherend of the trail. This was very suspicious—^yet, tlic tracks werejust so gocxi

But, what were the odds that the most spectacular tracksever found would appear right on Dahinden's regular searchroute? He wa s worried that it was all too gotxl to f̂ true.

He was right.



Even more CrippleFcxH tracks appeared

over time, and other

hunters (including Roger Patterson, of sasquatch film fame)flcx'ked to the area, Tlie hunt intensified. Snowmobiles, 4x4s,

and even planes searched for the creature for weeks, but noth-ing new was discovered The cTank>', independent Bigfcxrters

were starting to squabble amongst theniselves, Dahinden left,Tlien something totally weird happened. A prospector

niimed Metlow walked into their camp to sayhe h ad a sasquatch for sale He implied tliat it

was safely stored away, and offered just enoughinfonnation to hook his audience,

H(K:)k them he did. Immediately, tlie menwere divided into two competing groups: Patterson's friends

versus Dahinden's, A bidding war started, even though ntine

of them had ,seen the sa,squatch, or knew any-thing about Metlow, or even knew what tht

actual story was .supp<xsed to Ix;, The campwas soon physically divided when the

Patterson people moved to a hotel Many ol

tlie [X'ople involved stayed bitter for yean-.al'K^ut the behavior of the others. (Of course, some of themdidn't get along very well in the first place,)

With neither group talking to each other, and eachdesperate to l">e the fii^t to get their hands on Metlow's

Bigfoot, Bo.ssbui^ became a slapstick comedy. Thegroups began stiUking each other-—literally staking out

and tailing each other across the countryside,

Metlow kept fishing for more money, A millionaire

backer of Patterson's flew in to negotiate, and oftered ahuge sum just for a hint of where to kx>k. And they

were ofP A chopper carried the Patterson crew to the

site Metlow^ suggested, witli Dahinden's pals pursuingby plane. Bigfoot fever had made everyone

completely crazy by this time (one of

, Dahinden's CTew even threatened to shootdown Patterson's chop|x?r) But thLs chase

had a twLst: Metlow had no sasquatch. Itwas a hoax. Tliere was nothing there to find.

When the offers for liis non-e?dstent

sa.squatch reached 555,000 (alx>ut a coolquarter million today), Metlow retreated

from the negotiations. Then, suddenly, heclaimed he liad a sasquatch fcxjt in his

freezer. One peek at this frozen evidence wouldcost S5000 (then enough for a new car) The

Bigfixitcns quickly agreed. But, Metlow thenclianged liLs story: it wasn't actually in his freezer,

but at fiis sister's place in Oregcjn. The huntereimmediately sprang for plane tickets.,,

But Metlow never got on the plane.(Reportedly, he cashed in the ticket

and spent tlic money on

booze.) llie hoax finallyunraveled

The Metlow hoax was a fiasco, but it was also a

sideshow. What about the tjriginat Cripple Foot tracks?Even today, they're among tlie most convincing

tracks ever found. Many argue, as anthropologist JohnNapier wrote, that "It is very difficult to conceive of a

hoaxer so subtle, so knowledgeable—and so sick—whowould deliberately fake a footprint of this nature,"

Many books end the discussion there, but it isn't reallythat hard to conceive of such a hoaxer. All you need is

someone with the will to fool Bigfooters and a good idea

of ho%v to do it.One man in that position was Bigfoot hunter Ivan

Marx, He was the first investigator to see the originaltracks, to tell others about them, and to spot the amazing

series of 1,089 tracks in the snow. Suspicious? Well, yes.Many discussions of this case leave out one other key

fact, a fact that al but settles the case: it soon becameknown that Marx was a Bigfoot hoaxer

Embarrassed by the Metlow hoax, the other hunters left,

while Marx stayed at his Bossburg home. From there, he keptDaliinden up to date on his "finds,' They were amazing, andcontinuous—handprints, footprints, and then the ultimate evi-

dence: a film of Cripple Fcx)t iLself̂ He used a tracking dog, he

said, to investigate a sighting. It led him right to the creature.Dahinden returned, telling a reporter, "Ivan has a movie and

that leaves only tw o ch oices. Either it is real or it Ls not. That's whatI'm here to find out," Reports of the film went out over the news

wires...and suddenly the Bossburg circTJs was back in tow'n,

Patterson's millionaire backer fiew back in, offeiing $25,000 for

a copy of the film (about the cost of a new house). ResearchersJohn Green and Peter Byrne (the big game hunter from oil tycoon

Tom Slick's yeti expeditions) swept in with their own offers.Byrne began paying Marx $750 a month Cabout $3500 today)

to keep the film in a safety deposit box, while he began diggingdeeper into the story. Months went by, while Byrne paid Marx

money to live comfortably off a film in a vault.

Then, loc^al farm kids showed Byrne where Marx had shot the film.Examining the location, he learned that tlie cTeaaire in the film was much

smaller than Marx claimed. It also appeared Marx had lied about the

leases he used, and other key details. Soon it came out tliat Marx hadIxjught kxs of fur pieces dght before the film was shot It was anothe r hoax.

Marx soon left the area, leaving Byrne to discover that the film inthe safety deposit box wasn't even a real copy of the fake film. It was

blank. (The following year, Marx would surface on TV, peddling adifferent fake film of a Bigfoot in the snow. It wasn't very convincing.

Soon after, Bigfoot authors Don Hunter and Rene Dahinden wrote, "Itcertainly was someone in a beast's suit,..there was little doubt that

what we were watching was a snowjob in a blizzard.")So, wliat can we say alx)ut tlie impressive Cripple Focjt tiacks? Despite

their fame, it's extremely likely that tliey were a hoax ccxjked up by Maix, Hewas the first to find the tracks, and he created another major "Cripple Foot

siisquatch" hoax just a year after the tracks emerged.

Some Bigtoot fans cling to th e h op e tfiat tlie first tracks we re ge nuine , a ndthat Marx's hoax film was based on a true story." This doesn't seem realistic.

Tlie whole case is contaminated by hoaxes, and it just can't be taken seriously.



Is a massive government

conspiracy behind

Bigfoot? According to oneprominent Bigfooter, if

sasquatches aren't real,this may be the only otherpossible explanation

Anthropologist Dr.

Grover Krantz was one of

the first real scientists toargue that sasquatches

exist. Often called one of

11 ic "Four Horsemen ofSasquatchery," Krantz was

involved in the search

from the 1960s onward.

He was accomplished inhis regular anthropologi-

(..il work, and a heavy-\\eight in the Bi^oot

v\orld. According to cryp-

tozoologist Loren

Coleman, "Krantz was tbemost quoted aiithorit}^ on

the Bigfoot controversy."

Despite these creden-tials, some of his pro-

Bigfooi arguments were

weaker than (Others. Onewas so .silly and peculiar

that it can only count asv>-ishful thinking...

According to Dr.

'\i:tntz, there are only

11 nee ways to account for

,ill tbe Bigfoot tracks dis-

c()\'ered over the years:

L Sasquatcbes left

them, or;2. They were made by

sometliing like 100,000L asual hoaxers" wh o

iiave liieen working inde-pendently, just copying

eacb other's work over

tbe years." on

3. Bigfoot tracks are

secretly planted by a vast

government conspiracy,"a well-oiganized team of

one thousand such peo-ple, working full-time."



Of course, Krantz thought that sasquatches do exist. Hewas trying to show that real sasquatches axe far more

likely than hoaxes. To do this, he pulled some fast ones.In his view, both the "amorphous horde" of amateur

hoaxers and the highly funded coaspiracy were utterly

silly explanatiotis. (If a conspiracy was b ehind it all. Krantzconcluded, 'well over a billion dollat:s must have beenexpended on this project.")

Krantz aigued that faking so many tracks would requirean outrageous and tinrealistic amount of effort. But, howmany tracks have there really beea'

According to Krantz, by the '90s there were a staggeringone hundred million different sets of footprints WowIf this were true, it really would take thousands of

people to fake them all. However, Krantz's argumentwas based not on the sets of tracks he knew about,but on the number he felt must have occurred.

Using a bit of fuzzy math, Krantz began by taking thetotal number of track finds recorded in John G reen s files(about 1(XX)), and then multiplying tliat by 100 (on the

random assumption that other hunters probably had 100times as many cases squirreled away). This was a guess

on his part, and it was not a good one. After all, Green iskno wn a s the greatest collector of Bigfoot informationin the world, and tliere aren't that many Bigfooters. A few

thousand" is probably a better estimate of the total sets oftracks ever recorded rather than the whopping 100,000sets of tracks that Krantz came up with.

But, he wasn't done. He went on to multiply thisinflated total by 10. on the assumption that 9 out of 10people who find tracks never tell anyone beyond a few

close friends. (This was a nother guess, although perhap s

a more reasonable one.)HLs final leap was completely reckless. He assumed

that since many tracks are found in remote areas, most ofthe tracks e\'er made mmt never have been found. So, hemultiplied his already gigantic total by another 10 0 times,

giving us his amazing estimate of 100,0(X),0(X) sets oftracks (or over a billion individual footprints).

There are big problems with this last guess. WhatKrantz didn't consider is that almost all fake footprints

are found. This Ls bec aus e h oaxe rs plan it that way.

Often fake footprints are planted where some unsus-pecting sucker is likely to stumble across them (at work-

sites, campgrounds, farms, roadsides and so on). Othertimes, hoaxers plan for specific individuals, like friends,or even sasquatch researchers, to be the ones to discov-

er them . And, in cases w here footprints are found far fromnomial human traffic, we have to remember that noth-ing stops hoaxers from "discovering" their own handi-

work In many cases, eltlier the hoax er or a partner is theone who soon "finds" the tracks.

Krantz's "conspiracy" argument is based on numbers

that just don't hold water. But still, an awfiil lot of tracksreally have been found. Could independent, amateur

hoaxers truly be behind al l of them?

few bad arguments didn't make Krantz a fool. HisBigfoot Sasquatch: vidence (available fromHancock House) is among the best of the pro-

We know that many Bigfoot tracks are hoaxes. It's a faa.However, faking such tracks takes quite a lot of planning and

effort—and all just for a joke. Many people wou ld never evenconsider it. Stirely caily a very tiny percentage of the populationat large would ever actually bother. Yet, we're stuck with this

problem; either sasquatches are real, or lots erf people—prd^blyhundreds—have ^jne to the trouble of faking tracks.

How likely is it that there have been enough hoaxers toaccount for all the focftprints? It's impossible to know, but some-thing called the Law of Laige Numbers can help tjs to guess.

Seemingly unlikely things can beaime completely inevitable ifthe numb ers are laige enough. For example, the U.S. population

is around 295 million people. That number is humungous, andit tells us something important: as fiinior Skeptic co-publisherMichael Shermer likes to say, it means 'events with million-to-

one odds hap pen 295 times a day in America."

Yes, there are lots of Bigfoot tracks on record. If they were

all phony it would mean there were thousands of morningswhen someone, somewhere woke up and thought. "Today

I'm going to fake some footprints." But. compared with thepopulation of the U.S. and Canada, that isn't nearly asunlikely as it sounds.

Consider this: if the number of people faking Bigfoot trackswas the same as the number killed hy lightning, 82 Americanswould take Bigfoot tracks every year Or, how about this one :

according to the U.S. Department of Justice, "If recent incarcer-ation rates remain unchanged, an estimated 1 of every 15 per-

sons (6.6%) will serve time in a prison during their lifetime." IfBigfoot hoaxers were, say, 10,(XX) times rarer tlian conviaedcriminals, the U.S. would still have abotit 2000 stich pranksters.

If even one-millionth of one per cent of Americans faked

some tracks each week, that would lê enough to account forevery track find in history.

Now, there's no need to

take that sort of numbersgame seriously. We're basi-

cally pulling those numbersout of a hat. But, we knowthat some people do fake

Bigfoot tracks—ând it takesonly a vanishingly smallnumber of hoaxers to

accotint for all the footprints.

And, while BigfotXers aiguethat the nurr^r of trackshave been underestimated, Iwould a i ^ e that the number

of possible hoaxers is higherthan most people suppose.After all, I've thought about

trying it, just to see if I couldpull it off. So has everyone in

my family, and so havemany of my friends.

Haven't you?

Junior SkepticAdvisor ShoshanaCohen models apair of classicBJgfoot fee t. Tomake them we founda picture of a fâstercast of the famousPattersontracks thathad a rulerincluded inthe photo,so we wereable to m a k ^them the sairiesize and shape.We cut the footoutline from apine board witha jigsaw. Afterusing wood carving'tools to sculpt thetoes and instep wenaited them to apair of sneakers.



POOT OOS

One of die least-mentionc^d

secrets of Bigftxjt reseû-ch Ls tliat

tracks cT)me in a bewildering\'ariety of shapes and sizes.

Their basic anatomy is allover the map. Some are merely

larjje. while others are tmlygiant {ranging fiom human sizes

up past two feet long). Many

Bigtbot tracks have five toes,but others feature four toes, or

six, or three, or even two Heels

\^ry from nonexistent, to nar-row, to cartcx;)nLshly wide. Some

tracks are apelike, witli thumb -

like big toes. Others aren't.

There are tracks with long toesand short, high arches and no

arches, and so on.

If they all came from a real

.species, they'd look reasonablysimilar. With the exception of

injured or malfomied feet, real

animals leave consistent tracks.

Bigf<xjt doesn't.Or, if a conspiracy were

behind it, as Krantz ironically

suggested, we tnight expect

them to agree on a "stan-dard" Bigfoot track (perhaps

manufactured at their secretheadquarters). But, there's no

standard at all.

What's going on? Obviously

they can't all he real—or from

the same source

The wild assortment of differ-ent kinds of tracks suggests

that eîch set of footprints jiust

somebody's personal idea ofwhat Bigfoot tracks should

look like. And, tracks are

found pretty much every-

where TV has evercarried the legend.

But, some tracks domatch "classic" Bigfoot

prints. Could a few real

ones be hidden among ttiemany takes?

We simply have no idea. Without a known exam-

ple of real sasquatch footprints for comparison (ifthere are any), we have no idea how to separate authentic tracks from fakes. It could

be that none are real, or that certain types are. Maybe all three-toed Bigfoot tracksare the real deal, or maybe that's a sure sign of a phony. Everyone has a theory, but

no one can tell for sure.

Ail the same, tlie situation looks exactly as we would expect if die focxprints were all

ma de by peo ple indep endently deciding to pull hoaxe s for fun, profit, or mi.schief The faathat some tracks resemble each other is no evidence agaiast the "independent hoaxers"

theory. Imagine that you wanted to hoax Bigfcx)t tracks. What would you do? Many peo-

ple would begin by studying Bigtoot tracks in books, on the intemet, or on TV.We know for a fact that this happens. Hoaxers have admitted copying their fake feet

frotn Bigfoot lxx)ks. Since they were bawd on "die real thing," tliey looked "genuine" and

die hoaxes fooled experienced Bigfooters. [See ''Missing die Bus," opposite page.]Examples of "real tracks" to copy fiave bee n widely published ever since th e 1958 Bkiff

Creek tracks—^whicii were aLso probably fake. Even widiout hi:x>ks to copy from, Bigfoot

tracks aren't hard to design from scratch. Most are just simplified cartoon vereions of, well,

big feet, and look quite a lot like they were carved from a wooden plank.

If we assume diat all tracks are btjgiis, it isn't surprising diat some kx>k alike, or that

many vary by a large degree. With famous examples to copy, there should be some agree-ment betw een hoaxes. But, every hoaxer also has the chance to improvise howev er they

like. Three toes? Why not

"Witnesses" are often part of a

hoax. A nKâster hoax needs two

things: a monster (a suit, or footprints, or photo of a toy, orwhat-have-you); and, someone who seems believable to see

the creature, find die tracks, or take the picture.

"Planting someone in the audience" is the oldest trickin the book. A collaborator can point out your creature to

an innocent crowd, or lend their reputation to your hoax.

In the case of the hoaxed "Surgeon's Photo" of Nessie, arespected doctor agreed to claim he'd taken the picture

himself. This sort of deception-by-teamwork is common

in Bigfoot hoaxing (and in all sorts of gags and congames).

The simplest trick of all is to say you were the w itness. Just

come back from a hike and claim you saw Bigfoot, or maketracks and photogniph them yourself. What could he easier?

D<:) these sorts of tricks occur in the case of Bigfoot? Youbet they do—these, and every other trick under die sun

This is a terrible burden for sasquatch researchers.Imagine you'd been on the trail of Bigfoot for years, riskingridicule (or even yt)ur job). Then imagine that wheneveryou .spoke to a witness or examined evidence, you alwayshad to wonder: "Is diis a trick? Ls someone putting me on?"Bigfooten> have to stake their reputittioas on the cases theydiink are legitimate, while running the constant lisk thatsomeone might later reveal in die press—to millions of peo-ple—that it was "all just a joke." (No can say Bigfootersaren't brave )



No onean denythat itis most

unlikelythat any

speciesof large

animalcouldexisttoday

withoutits

bonesbeing found,

but

unlikely

prove

in awhile.

—JohnGreen

From the begin-

ning, one questionli-. i' iL̂ Lied Bigfooters; "If sa squatch -

es exist, why hasn't anyone found a dead one?It's been 80 years since J. W. Bums lx?gan dig-

ging into small town rumors, and not one bcxlyor bone has ever been found. Many people feel

that something should have tumed up by now.Dr. Krantz's answer has become the standard

response: "Well, if beais are real, why don't wefind their bones? I've talked to hunters, many

' game guides, conservation peop le, ecology stu-dents, and asked them, 'How many remains of

dead bears have you found that died a naairai

death?' Over twenty years of inquiry my grandtotal of naturally d ead bear bo nes found is zero "

This argument comes up in every Bigfootbook or conversation. It sounds convincing,

but it's seriously flawed.

To begin with, bear bones are found. Pro-sasquatch wildlife biokigist Dr. John Bindemagel

told Junior Skeptic that he s found two bear skullshimself. (Wliile working in the Canadian forests,I too found a bear skeleton.) And, while it's

aigued that bears "that died a natural death" are' never found, it's not clear why anyone would

think that. As Dr. Bindemagel explained, "I real-ly don't know how the two bears whose skulls I

encountered died—'natural' deatli or otherwise. I don't see

why we wouldn't find bear skeletons just like we occasionallyfind those of deer, moose, etc. The point—âs I see it—is that

we fmd very few skeletons of any wildlife species relative totlie numbers of live individuals." This is because bones gener-

ally don't survive long in nature. TTiey're usually scattered byanimals, decompased by weather, or covered by leaves. But,

we still find some bones from all the k now n anim:ils.And, the "no-dead-bears-either" argument ignores a key

issue. Bears (and e ven animals as elusive as cougars) are some-times killed &> human action. The same should be true of

sasquatches. Witnesses describe sasquatches behaving muchlike bears: they investigate camps, steal food from hunters,

cross highways and railway tracks, and stumble across people

in the woods. Drivers have described slamming on the brakes

to avoid sasquatches in the road. Hunters have claimed theyhad Bigfoot in their sights, or even that they shot one.So, they're not that elusive, not according to witnesses.

Eventually their luck should run out. It seems to have beensenior Bigfooter John Green's expectation in 1970 that he

might not have long to wait. "I have thought for a longtime," he wrote, "that the most likely way for the Sasquatch

question to be settled is for some deer hunter to downone—and I believe that becomes more probable each year

as more and more people learn.. .that the first man to bringone in is sure of fame and perhaps fortune."

After al these years, sasquatch bod ies should have tu me d

up (peihaps shot, or perhaps hit by a truck). None ever

have. Tliere are only a few possible explanations for this:• Tliey could be so rare that we have to wait even longer;

• They could be too smart to be killed by hunters, cars, or

otlier human hazards;• They have been found, but no one has ever come forward

with the evidence, or;

• They don't really exist.Tlie rarity aigument isn't bad. If sasquatches are endangered,

humans might not kill one very often. But, the eyewitness

evidence seems to say otherwise. Hundreds of people haveapparently spotted these creatures, everywhe re from the Arctic

to Florida. "As to their being endangered," wrote Green, "it isa ridiailous suggestion...we have evidence tliat they have a

range of millions of square miles.. .and that diat they are to befound just about everywhere in it, yet we have no indication

that man has ever been able to hunt and kill even one."

That's pretty weird Either mtxst witnesses are wrong, an dw e shou ld sto p using their reports as "evidence" for Bigfoot. or

most of them are right—in which case there are lots ofsasquatches, and they should tiim up from time to time.

Yet they never do. Could they be too smart or elusive to be

killed? There's no reason to think so. if they're caught in head-lights and rifle sights. Intelligence isn't liulletproof amior.

If sasquatches exist, we really should have found a body bynow. Ls it possible that somebcxly has. bu t kept it a secTet? Tlial

seems like a stretch. If a hunter shot a real Bigfoot, he wouldn'tjust shrug and walk away. Think wliat it would be worth

Or. imagine hitting a sasquatch on the highway. They'resupposed to weigh many hundreds of pounds, so hitting one

would total most vehicles—ând likely kill tlie driver. (Collisions

with moose are frequently fatal for both sides.) It would alsoleave a very big animal dead on the road. Even if you wantedto, how could you hide that before the next car came along?

So where does this leave us? With honest wôrds from Dr.

Krantz: "Ihe failure to produce a specimen continues to bestrong evidence agaiast the Sasquatch." This was true when

Ki-ant2 said it in the 80s, and the argument becomes more pow-erfLi witli each year that passes.



HAIP 5AWU 5 No sasquatch bodies are available for sci-

entific study. But what about hair samples?Over tlie decades, promising "sasquatch hairs"

have been plucked from trees, fences, and bushes.

Independent experts have examined iTtiny witliI powerful microscopes. Unfortunately, not on e

"sasquatch" hair has ev er p anne d out. As Dr, Krantzwrote, "In mast cases where competent analyses

have been made, [either] tlie niiUerial tumed out tobe lx)gus or else no determination could be made."

Most tumed out to be hairs from ordinary animals,including bears, humans, and even cows. Others

were synthetic "fun-fur" (Some hoax samples wereexposed only after becoming famous.) And, in manycases, tlie samples could not be identified.

On TV, these words—"could not \x identified"—

are often used to imply that tlie liair c<ime from anunknfjwn species. Really, it means n o conclus ions were poss ible. Scientists

couldn't even tell if some samples came from an animal at all.As Krantz explained, "When a hair cannot be matched, labeling it as

an unknown species is not necessarily warranted." To identify hairs, youneed samples from the same species. Unfortunately, as Krantz wrote, "nocomparative collection exists of all types of hair of all mammals, A hair

that is unlike anything in a North American collection might be from thearmpit of a bear or from an escaped llama,"

Since no know n samples of Bigfoot hair exist (no know n samples of Bigfoot

anything exist), it wouldn't be possible to pro\'e that a hair sample really didcome from a sasquatch. And, even with the right samples, microsc-opic com-parison isn't 100% certain. (If two samples cam e from, say, your ow n head, t he

most anyone could say is that they look identical.)

PMA Obviously, when

no collection

contains known

Sasquatch hairs

there is no way

to prove that

the hair youfind comes from

a Sasquatch.

At best you

will only be

unable to

prove that it

didn't.

—John Green

DNA is much more reliable.

You can tell by testing DNAif it's from a human, an ape,

or some other animal. If it was actually

sasquatch DNA you could even tell howclosely related it was to humans, or what

kind of ape it was closest to.

Researchers have eagerly tested suspected

sasquatch samples for DNA. The findings? Sofai\ "sasquatch DNA" has been a total bust.

Recently, high hopes were held for hairsextracted from a famous plaster cast of a spotwhere a sasquatch may have lay down in the

mud to reach some fruit left as bait. Manycoasider this "Skookum cast" the best evi-denc e to come along in years, so finding liaire

to test was an exciting development. TheDNA analysis of those hairs (and possible sali-

va from one of the bait apples) was featuredin a Bigfoot documentary called Sasquatch:

Legend MeeL^ Sciefice. 'Once again, die

results were disappc^int-

ing. While DNA wasfound, it was human.(Eitlier tlie hair came

from the Bigfooters whomade the cast, or thesample was contaminated

at the lab).

1. Researchers may likeknow that the DVD (fromWhite Wolf Entertainmefinally makes thePatterson-Gimlin film rea

ily available for study. ItIncluded as a DVD specfeature (usefully, in orignal and zoomed versionand at various speeds).Unfortunately, the com-pression is quite visible

Oh yes. Yes indeed.— -^< c^^ >4 (S " ^ I/x)king for BigftKrt isn't like looking for perpetual motion. The fun (and seductive) thing

'^ '^ \' - ^ about Bigfoot is tliat nothing com pletely mles out tlie pt^ssibility tliat it might exist. We( —-̂ already kno w that simibr species (like gorillas) exist now , and tliat other similar creatures (like

Gigantopithecus existed in the past. And, we discover n ew animals all the time.And yet, Bigfoot is a long, long way from a sure bet. Lets face it: the vast

majority of tlie evidence is lousy. Much of it is fake, much of it is built onmisidentification, and much of it is just useless (such as three-line news reports

that an unnamed someone said they saw a sasquatch). Are there any authen-tic cases? Perhaps. No one knows, not for sure. But it doesn't look good

While no case has ever proven tme, many have proven false, '"̂Tlie search has continLied for 80 years now witli nothing to show for it. There's

still no solid evide nce. Sasquatch rese archer Dr Krantz was realistic about t he sit-uation: "The proof required in this case Is an actual specimen, nothing less will

suffice." He added, "At this point tlie burden of proof is still on the believers.Until a specimen is produced tlie skeptics will continue to hold the field."

Either a sasquatch will one day be found, or the search will continueuntil the last searchers are sick of it. When to throw in the towel is a question only they

can answer. For many, it will be no time soon.Their qLiest is a hard path. As Dahinden said, "I have my doubts all ± e time about what

I'm doing: I've always liad them. It's a lonely place to be, on one side of the fence withthe rest of the world on the other side. But it's where I have to stay."

Twenty yeai-s later, Dahinden is gone, but others search on. Some remain convincedthat the evidence is overwhelming. Otliers just think a long shot is worth the gamble.

A human skull beside reconstructed fossil skGigantopithecus biacextinct primate that mhave been very similarBigfoot.

part one and two case for the sasquatch

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