This photo is probably the best-known image of a “Bigfoot,” a legendary creature believed by some to inhabit the forests of the Pacific Northwest from California to British Columbia. It’s from a grainy home movie shot in the woods of northern California in October 1967.
In the movie, something resembling a gorilla walks upright like a man, glances at the camera, then disappears into the trees.
In an article here, titled “Is Bigfoot Real?,” Popular Mechanics offers a brief history of Bigfoot encounters, and says the famous Patterson-Gimlin film from which this still frame was taken “is definitive proof that Bigfoot is real” for some people, while to others “it’s a hoax.”
There’s no question that people have perpetrated Bigfoot hoaxes. Some of the more notorious ones are recounted by Wikipedia here.
Other purported sightings have been attributed to bears, escaped apes, and even “feral” humans and hermits dressed in animal skins (Wikipedia, above). Some researchers have posited they could be survivors of ape or hominid species known to have existed in the past.
What’s missing in this detective story is a corpus delicti — i.e., a body, living or dead. If Bigfoots are real, and exist in enough numbers to maintain a self-replicating population (otherwise, they would die off), there should be physical evidence of them. There isn’t. Only reported sightings, alleged footprints, and film images subject to interpretation and dispute.
What do the experts say? In USA Today articles here, a Washington State University zoologist was quoted, “There is no such thing as Bigfoot. No data other than material that’s clearly been fabricated has ever been presented,” and a University of Washington anthropology professor was quoted, “I don’t believe the thing exists.”
The fact there are Bigfoot stories from many cultures on several continents is not itself convincing. It’s no secret that humans invent stories to explain things they can’t understand otherwise. It’s a universal human trait that exists across geography, cultures, languages, and millennia. And stories tend to get embellished as they’re passed from person to person, and handed down through the generations.
As for the Patterson-Gimlin film, scientists are divided between whether the “creature” in the photo above is a human in a suit, or a nonhuman creature, but trend toward skepticism of the film’s authenticity. Hollywood makeup experts, however, argue faking such a creature on film was beyond their industry’s capabilities of the time. (See Wikipedia summaries here.) There is no conclusive answer.
I’m skeptical. It’s plausible to me that a hitherto-unidentified primate or hominid could have crossed the Bering land bridge to North America from Asia around the time the ancestors of Native Americans did, and continuously inhabited this continent up to pre-modern times, occasionally being seen by Native Americans and recited in their stories and legends. It’s far less plausible that such a creature could have eluded unambiguous detection this far into the modern era while maintaining a population large and concentrated enough to sustain its continued existence. That, plus the obvious motives for people to stage “evidence” of Bigfoot and promote Bigfoot legends, inclines me to believe there are no real Bigfoots out there.
But popular legends die hard, and this one doesn’t seem likely to go away any time soon.
While it is just barely possible that a group of ape like primates could exist in the Pacific Northwest, it does seem we should have the body. Anyone who drives Highway 2 or Highway 20 would come to the conclusion these creatures could not avoid being hit and killed year after year. There is one or more episodes of “Naked and Afraid” in our woods that show survival here is not easy. Worse Bigfoot has been seen in all 50 states. If they exist they gotta be hiding out in a suburban home. The theory of a connection between some UFO and bigfoot is at least as plausible as bigfoot living among us in Connecticut. There is of course the fact some folks are making money out of bigfoot. He does keep the economy of a few towns chugging along. Not too mention gigs for various enterprises all done by human actors until the real bigfoot shows up for the gig. So no proof of any humans appropriating Bigfoot culture or likeness.
Maybe they appropriated human culture and are hiding among us. As you say, in suburban homes.