When people you respect believe in Sasquatch

February 20, 10:45 PM
by Dylan Otto Krider, National Skepticism Examiner

Noel was my MFA advisor when I was in Norwich University's writing program. He's smarter than me, better read, and a few years old but looks younger and is definitely in better shape. And, okay, I can admit, he's a better writer.

About the only issue I have with Chris is that he believes in Bigfoot. When I say, "believes", I don't mean it's one of those little quirky beliefs we all have that you know would make people think you're crazy if you mentioned it (in my case, it's the fact that I'm absolutely convinced Dan Rather was framed by Karl Rove); I mean Chris is probably one of the leading researchers who has hunted the famed beast, with a book and DVD.

Bigfoot has always been like martians to me. I had never seen any compelling evidence to suggest some kind of giant primate could exist, undiscovered, in North America. It's always been one of those things like the Loch Ness monster that has so many people who want to believe that it breeds a lot of hoaxes and examples of wish fulfillment but very little hard evidence.

Then, I discovered Jane Goodall, of all people, is a believer. In trying to track that item down, I ran across this National Geographic article that looks at some of the respected researchers who think there might be something to this. Granted, they are in the minority, but there are a few of them out there.

As any good scientist will tell you, the greatest breakthroughs are counter-intuitive, so a good scientist needs to keep an open mind. The flip side of that is that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If a phenomenon is real, it will hold up to scrutiny. So science is a contintual balancing act between open-mindedness and skepticism, considering every possibility, then doing everything you can to knock it down.

I look forward to getting a copy of Chris's book and DVD, and hopefully can talk him into an interview, and expect it would be an chummy discussion (I respect him too much for a debunking that goes for the jugular).. So I am open to considering the evidence, but as of yet, have seen nothing that convinces me this is anything beyond something fun to contemplate.

I will say, there seems to be more reasonable people giving credence to the idea of Sasquatch than I thought. But...

...the vast majority of scientists still believe Bigfoot is little more than supermarket tabloid fodder. They wonder why no Bigfoot has ever been captured, dead or alive.

"The bottom line is, they don't have a body," said Michael Dennett, who writes for Skeptical Inquirer magazine and who has followed the Bigfoot debate for 20 years.

Bigfoot buffs note that it's rare to find a carcass of a grizzly bear in the wild. While that's true, grizzlies have not escaped photographic documentation.

Hair samples that have been recovered from alleged Bigfoot encounters have turned out to come from elk, bears or cows.

Many of the sightings and footprints, meanwhile, have proved to be hoaxes.

After Bigfoot tracker Ray Wallace died in a California nursing home last year, his children finally announced that their prank-loving dad had created the modern myth of Bigfoot when he used a pair of carved wooden feet to create a track of giant footprints in a northern California logging camp in 1958.

Dennett says he's not surprised by the flood of Bigfoot sightings.

"It's the same kind of eyewitness reports we see for the Loch Ness Sea Monster, UFOs, ghosts, you name it," he said. "The monster thing is a universal product of the human mind. We hear such stories from around the world."

http://www.examiner.com/x-4112-National-Skepticism-Examiner~y2009m2d20-When-people-you-respect-believe-in-Sasquatch