"NO, BIGFOOT IS NOT DEAD" > Page 1, 2
There have been many other Bigfoot hoaxes, to be sure - people looking for attention or notoriety - just as there have been countless hoaxes surrounding such phenomena as UFOs, ghosts and lake monsters. And such fakery undoubtedly muddys the water of real research and enables closed-minded skeptics and media (who very often don't consider or aren't even aware of the real evidence) to ridicule and dismiss the phenomena out of hand.
Researcher Jeff Meldrum, an associate professor of anatomy and anthropology at Idaho State University, has been investigating Bigfoot evidence for years and has gathered many convincing plaster casts of footprints that might have been made by Sasquatch. He has as many as 50 prints that contain anatomical features that he believes come from some unknown primate. "To suggest all these are explained by simple carved feet strapped to boots," Meldrum told newspapers, "just doesn't wash."
A Long History of Sightings
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| In 1928, trapper Muchalat Harry was actually abducted by a Sasquatch on Vancouver Island and carried to its camp where he was watched and prodded by a curious clan of about 20 of the creatures. | |
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As noted above, there were many eyewitness accounts of Sasquatch long before Wallace's high jinks in 1958. Apart from the Native Americans' long tradition of the Sasquatch, white men exploring the North American wilderness confirmed the existence of the creature:
- In 1840, Elkanah Walker, a pioneer and missionary to the Spokane Indians in Washington State, recorded in his diary tales he had heard from the natives about the race of giants who lived in the snow-covered mountain peaks, who stole salmon from the Indian nets and whose smell was nearly intolerable.
- In 1892, a German fur trapper by the name of Bauman was hunting with a friend around a section of the Salmon River in the Bitterroot Mountains between the state of Idaho and Montana (where Bigfoot sightings continue to this day). Their terrifying encounter with Bigfoot was recorded in a book by Teddy Roosevelt.
- A Colonist newspaper from the early 1900s in Victoria, British Columbia, printed several stories about "monkey men" being spotted in remote wooded areas.
- J.W. Burns, a British Columbia schoolteacher who is credited with popularizing the term "Sasquatch," wrote many articles for newspapers and magazines about the giant hairy creatures in the 1920s.
- In 1928, trapper Muchalat Harry was actually abducted by a Sasquatch on Vancouver Island and carried to its camp where he was watched and prodded by a curious clan of about 20 of the creatures. (There are several other accounts of such abductions.)
- In 1955, another trapper named William Roe claimed to have a very close encounter with a female Sasquatch on British Columbia's Mica Mountain. He nearly shot the creature, but admitted that it was so humanlike that he couldn't bring himself to do it.
Hundreds of other reports can be found at:
- The Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization's Geographic Database of Bigfoot/Sasquatch Sightings and Reports
- Bigfoot Encounters - state by state listings
The skeptics who choose to ignore the large amount of anecdotal evidence, the footprints and the anomalous hair samples contend that if Sasquatch does exist that certainly we would have found at least small groups of them by now. How, they reason, could a population of such creatures evade man for so long? The assertion that a population of primates could not remain hidden from civilization for long periods of time is untrue. In fact, in November, 2002, a new, secret population of orangutans was discovered on the island of Borneo. Conservationists believe that there could be as many as 2,000 apes in this previously unknown group. It is not unreasonable to imagine that colonies of intelligent primates could be living in the unexplored wilderness of North America.
The Wallace hoax has not
killed Bigfoot. "Not by a long shot," says cryptozoologist Loren
Coleman in his excellent article, "Is
Bigfoot Really Dead?" "Ask yourself, why is this a big story?
Because the media knows people are interested and curious about the subject -
not because they can be spoon-fed hoax stories and believe them. Bigfoot lives
on." 
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