BIGFOOT

Heritage, history, and evidence… or lack thereof.

Oh lord, he’s comin’

 

Hello ladies, gents, everyone in between ~ as I’m continuing the same focus and site as my first semester passion blog, I decided to title the posts from this semester slightly differently than those in the past to clarify which belong where. Is Bigfoot really some sort of case-study? No, absolutely not. But he’s both historical and mysterious, the titular characteristics of this blog, and I thought it would be a fun place to start out rather than grisly murder-mysteries or disappearing children.

So, Bigfoot. Is he real? No. Well, I don’t think so. You can disagree with me, and I’m sure even if you won’t openly you might have a slight, albeit deeply suppressed and shamefully hidden, suspicion or belief or even curiosity regarding this godforsaken Sasquatch. And you know what? That’s fair. There’s been a lot of speculation, false information, hoaxes, and all sorts of anecdotal evidence surrounding Bigfoot or other similar creatures for decades. Way, way too much for me to cover in a blog post, much less an actually entertaining blog post. So, for your sake and mine, I thought I would just break down the history, as well as some of the “best,” or most compelling, popular, unexplainable, etc. etc. pieces of evidence in favor of our boy here.

As a brief disclaimer, a lot of this information or these theories come straight from internet searching, and it’s a bit hard to find reputable sources for Bigfoot theories (shocker) but I tried my best to keep them within reason.

1. Where did Bigfoot come from?

While folklore and urban legends surrounding large, hairy creatures of various sorts have floated around human civilization for centuries, Bigfoot as we know him today (big, tall, often primate or ape-like, covered in hair, big feet) made his public debut in the late 1950’s when a small Californian community ran a news story on massive, 16-inch footprints left around and in a construction site. Headlines reported the footprints “puzzled residents,” as strange massive footprints rightfully ought to do, and said paper, the Humboldt Times, gave the culprit of the mysteriously large prints an ever-so creative name: Bigfoot. And he’s been wreaking havoc in the depths of American forests and leaving other weird footprints in the hearts of conspiracy theorists ever since.

2. The Patterson Footage / Images

The image at the top of this post, perhaps the most well-known and widely circulated image of Bigfoot to ever exist, actually comes from a real video. It’s pretty short, but it shows an unknown creature stalking across some sort of forest or clearing – it doesn’t seem to resemble anything else, like a bear, and appears to be way too tall and large to be a man in a suit. Or so people claim. This is really the only footage of Bigfoot that hasn’t been proven to be a hoax or replicated in some way to expose its ingenuity, in part because the footage is on the older side (1967). Many researchers believe it to be nothing more than a dude in a suit, but no one has ever stepped forward to admit this (except a select group of people trying to get famous off of Bigfoot clout – all debunked). The filmmaker responsible for shooting this footage, Bob Gimlin, claims he believes he knows what he saw and that it couldn’t have been a man in a suit… but, again, has no professional opinion to back him up. Watch and see for yourself, I suppose.

 

3. Reality TV

For a long time, the only “evidence” of Bigfoot was purely anecdotal – he said, she said, he saw, she saw. And, aside from videos and photos like those above, most things were easily able to be debunked or explained away through much more likely and plausible scenarios. Still, Bigfoot stomped on in the minds of many Americans, and as technology evolved, so too did the lengths people are willing to go to in order to PROVE that he exists. Enter Finding Bigfoot, or Expedition Bigfoot, or Chasing Bigfoot, or Mountain Monsters, or any other reality tv or documentary program based SOLELY. On finding. Bigfoot. Finding Bigfoot has been running since 2011, folks. And they have yet to find Bigfoot. Or maybe they think they have – but the proof isn’t in the pudding, guys. Because there is no proof. There is no pudding.

So why do people still want to believe in Bigfoot so badly? Your guess is as good as mine. Until someone finally tackles him down, I will remain a staunch skeptic.