Bigfoot: Legend, Evidence, and Science

1the twist

Everyone thinks Bigfoot was born in 1958, in a newspaper. Here's the twist: the giant is far older, and the name is the newcomer.

2six ideas

This is a course of six ideas, and we open with the oldest: the stories told by Native peoples of the Pacific Northwest. Want the short version instead? Switch course off and ask again.

3many peoples

Across the Pacific Northwest, many nations told of wild hairy people of the forest. Not one monster, but many different beings, each in its own language.

4Sasq'ets

The Sts'ailes people of British Columbia speak of Sasq'ets. That word, anglicized by a schoolteacher named J.W. Burns in the 1920s, became our word Sasquatch.

5other names

Other nations had their own beings: the Lummi told of Ts'emekwes, the Salish of the Skookum, and further east, Wendigo-like giants. The names differ, and so do the meanings.

6a guardian

Here's the part Hollywood skips. In these stories the being is often a teacher or a guardian of the wild, enforcing respect for the forest, not a beast to hunt.

7a warning

Some stories also warn children away from dangerous woods and rivers. A hairy giant is a memorable way to say: don't wander off alone.

8the whole idea

So the keepsake picture: many peoples, many names, one forest. Oral tradition carried these beings for generations, long before anyone said Bigfoot.

1the collision

Welcome back. This is section two of our six-part course: what happened when settlers with notebooks and newspapers met stories that had lived by word of mouth. Here is the twist: reports came first, the name came later.

2who arrived

Settlers pushed into the Northwest in the 1800s, with loggers, miners and trappers. They heard native accounts, and they wrote down their own strange encounters in letters, diaries and local papers.

3Jacko, 1884

Here is a famous early report. In 1884 a British Columbia paper described Jacko, a young ape-like creature supposedly caught near Yale by railway workers. It was never proven, and may have been a tall tale.

4wild men

Notice the pattern. Reports from the 1800s and early 1900s called these beings wild men, apemen, even gorillas. Newspapers loved a thrilling headline, and every retelling grew a little taller.

5Ape Canyon

Then came 1924, the Ape Canyon story. Miners on Mount St. Helens claimed they fought off hairy creatures that threw rocks at their cabin. The tale spread across the country, and the legend had a new template.

6Sasquatch spreads

Now the name itself. In the 1920s schoolteacher J.W. Burns collected native accounts and wrote them up for magazines using the word Sasquatch. The frontier press made a native name famous, though stripped of its original meaning.

71958 tracks

Last piece: Bigfoot. In 1958 a logger named Jerry Crew found huge tracks in Bluff Creek, California. A newspaper editor coined the headline name Bigfoot, and the word swallowed the older ones.

8the whole chain

So here is the whole picture: native stories first, then frontier tales, then Sasquatch in print, and finally Bigfoot in a headline. Each layer kept the giant and lost some of its meaning.

1before and after

Before 1967, Bigfoot was a regional curiosity. Then a rodeo rider named Roger Patterson pointed a camera at a creek bed, and a legend got a face.

2the plate

This is section three of our six-part Bigfoot course, and it's the hinge. Want the quick version instead? Switch course off and ask again. Now, Bluff Creek, October 20th.

3the ride

Patterson and Gimlin rode horses along the creek. Their story: a hairy figure stood behind a log, horses reared, and Patterson ran after it, filming as he stumbled.

4frame 352

The footage runs about sixty-one seconds. The figure walks away, then turns at frame 352 to glance back. Most famous frame in cryptozoology.

5believers

Believers saw a muscle ripple in the thigh and a bent-knee gait humans struggle to copy. In 1968 Dr. Grover Krantz first dismissed it, then spent years studying it.

6skeptics

Skeptics countered: nobody ever re-filmed it, the film's chain of custody is murky, and in 1998 Bob Heironimus said he wore the suit. Patterson died in 1972 never confessing.

7the template

Here is the real legacy: the film never settled anything, but it set the template. Every sighting since pictures that same dark, upright, glancing figure.

8the keepsake

On one board: Bluff Creek, 1967, one short reel, and a figure that became the face of every sighting that followed.

1the evidence

Here's the odd thing: Bigfoot believers have never run short of evidence. Footprints, hair, DNA. So why has no scientist ever accepted it? Let's examine each clue.

21958 tracks

Footprints first. In 1958, bulldozer worker Jerry Crew found giant tracks in Bluff Creek, California. A newspaper coined the name Bigfoot, and the legend exploded.

3the hoax

Then the twist. In 2002, the family of Ray Wallace revealed he'd stamped those tracks with carved wooden feet. Yet thousands of other casts exist, so not every print can be his.

4hair tests

Now hair and scat. Samples labeled 'mystery primate' keep arriving at labs. When tested, they turn out to be bear, deer, cow, even human, never an unknown ape.

5DNA study

The biggest test: geneticist Bryan Sykes, in 2014, sequenced thirty supposed Bigfoot samples. Every one matched known animals, except two matching an ancient polar bear lineage in Svalbard.

6the verdict

Here is the keepsake. Footprints can be faked, hair belongs to known animals, and DNA finds no new ape. Each clue dissolves when we test it carefully.