Science Or Pseudoscience?

Bigfoot:

Science or Pseudoscience?

Jennifer Mangano, Kristina Burja

Brad Smith, & Daniel Sedman

Group # 2

Bigfoot, also commonly known as Sasquatch, has existed in folklore and myth in many countries around the world for hundreds of years: “…Abominable Snowmen or Yetis in the Himalayas, Yeren in China, Sasquatch or Bigfoot in North America, Forestmen in Indochina, and Yahoos, Yowies or Hairymen in Australia” (Loofs-Wissowa). Even though the descriptions of Bigfoot vary slightly between each country, the common factor in each involves the depiction of a vary tall, large ape-like creature that is covered with thick dark hair all over it’s body and walks on two feet.

Bigfoot’s existence became well known and apart of popular debate starting in North America. Bigfoot was first brought about in the early part of the nineteenth century. “The first sighting of a Sasquatch by a white man apparently came in 1811 near what now is the town of Jasper, Alberta Canada. A trader named David Thompson found some strange footprints, fourteen inches long and eight inches wide, with four toes, in the snow” (Hunter). Most of the early proof of Bigfoot’s existence came from stories of people who had encounters with the creature. Bigfoot started to gain national attention when hard evidence started to come about. In 1958, enormous footprints were found in northern California and plaster casts were made. These footprints were believed to have been left by Bigfoot himself. The most infamous proof of Bigfoot came in 1967 when Roger Patterson claimed he caught Bigfoot on film. This film has never been conclusively proven real, but there has been no evidence that it was a fake either. The film shows what appears to be a female ape-like creature walking through the forest on two feet. Scientists throughout the years have studied this film. They have noted the structure, the stride, and the prominence of muscles on the creature’s body. This film was the beginning of the enduring mystery of Bigfoot’s existence in this world and what has now become a question of reality or of imagination.

One of the most interesting things about the numerous sightings and research done of Bigfoot would be the evidence; Ranging from footprints to videos that we have all seen on TV. Even to this day there is still a consistent amount of sightings every year. The evidence does vary however, from Bigfoot being five to eight feet tall. This of course could be from age differences, exaggeration, and unfortunately hoaxes. A Bigfoot foot print averages around sixteen inches long and seven inches wide, in comparison to an average human male being around eleven inches long.Unlike the pictures and other evidence the foot print is the once article of evidence that always seems to remain around the same.

There are so many people fighting to prove or disprove big foots existence weather they are curious researchers, people who have claimed to see him, money hungry hoaxes or just everyday people interested in idea or thought of him. Bigfoot is still to this day a legend, is it possible? Yes, but unfortunately nothing has been proven yet.

How people or evidence is against the idea of there being a Bigfoot.

First I would like to start off by saying I do not believe in Bigfoot. Researchers from all around have searched for the so called Bigfoot and haven’t come up with any hard evidence proving that there is a Bigfoot. But on the other side you can’t say that there is or isn’t a Bigfoot. I believe that many people might misidentify what they are seeing. The person simply convinces themselves to seeing a tall hairy creature in the dark and simply says it was a Bigfoot that they saw.

One of the most common types of Bigfoot evidence is casts of giant footprints. Skeptics say that this evidence is fairly simple to fake (Bigfoot 3). There are many Bigfoot stories, tales, legends, reports, and other submissions of hair samples, footprints, but with all of the “evidence” there has yet to be any outright scientific proof found (unifiedworlds.com).

Some questions frequently asked are, why haven’t we found the remains of a Bigfoot that died of natural causes? A short answer given: Because we have never looked for these kinds of remains (bfro.com 410). This short answer is without question pure laziness in research. There are many researchers who go looking for Bigfoot, where one was recently sited or where on has been in the past to find clues of there existence. And researchers have come up with nothing to prove that there is definitely a Bigfoot.

It is said that Bigfoot is a predominantly nocturnal animal and its night vision exceeds that of man substantially (texasbigfoot.com). No one can say that Bigfoot is a nocturnal animal that would be making assumptions. Everybody just makes assumptions about Bigfoot because there is no evidence to back up there claim making it a pseudoscience.

Due to the fact that the Bigfoot legend is not really something that people have decided needs disproving there isn’t a great deal of active research being done to officially disprove the Bigfoot myth and even if there was since it is a pseudo science there is no way to totally disprove it. Efforts to disprove Bigfoot typically come in response to some new piece of “Evidence” that has come to light that supposedly proved the Bigfoot myth once and for all, this kind of reflex response from the scientific community is really all that can be done. A video can come out showing the creature running around and they can disprove that particular video, or a picture will be distributed and they will try to show that the picture is a composite. The majority of the evidence given is so speculative that one has to wonder if it is even worth the time to disprove it. On a recent sighting expedition the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization( claims to have found numerous footprints of the creature on their most recent expedition, conclusive evidence that the creature does indeed exists, and yet they cannot post photos of said footprints on their website because they claim “Sasquatch tracks can be impossible to preserve in two dimensional photographs. They are three-dimensional by nature, most often shallow pressure patterns in uneven soil. Their subtle indentations seem to disappear in photos.” ( They also say that these tracks are comparable to mountain ranges in photos, wherein you cant really see the depth of a mountain range from an orbital photo, perhaps not but it doesn’t do a theory well to say “We are the only ones qualified to tell you whether or not you have seen a footprint or not”, and besides that it occurs to me that a 600-1000 pound animal, which is what they estimate one of these creatures weighs, would leave slightly more than a “Shallow pressure pattern” in the ground, on a backpacking trip with a 60lb pack on my I back I leave more than that behind, and I weigh in at around 255-260lbs pack included. They go on to say that unless you have been properly trained to find these pressure patterns you wouldn’t know what you were looking at even if you were standing right over one. So what we have essentially is a group of people who decide the what’s what of all things Bigfoot and they readily accept any evidence that anyone can submit when it deals with generic sightings but as for photos and movies they have to at least be difficult to disprove and yet there can be no disproving it since there is really nothing to disprove, and you can’t use their own methods against them since standing in the woods says “Well, as you can see Bigfoot is not here, and he hasn’t been here for the past two weeks, so we can conclude he doesn’t exist” It doesn’t work because the study of Bigfoot is in fact a pseudoscience and thus can never be disproved.

Annotated Bibliography

Hunter, Don and René Dahinden. Sasquatch/Bigfoot: The Search for North America’s Incredible Creature. Buffalo: Firefly Books, 1993.

This book tries to answer many of the main questions scientists and enthusiasts alike have dealt with throughout the years regarding the existence of Bigfoot. The author presents a variety of background and history into the myths and legends of Bigfoot. Hunter is one of Western Canada’s most regarded and accomplished authors and journalists. Dahinden is a legendary Canadian Sasquatch hunter who has spent decades trying to track down Bigfoot. The author goes into great detail when presenting stories of encounters and other evidence. The material in the book was too detailed and it was hard to weed through the paragraphs to find material relevant to my paper.

Loofs-Wissowa, Dr. Helmut . Seeing is believing, or is it? How scientific is 'Wildman' research? 15 January 2005. <

In this article, the author discusses the scientific aspect of research done to prove Bigfoot’s existence. He mostly describes his personal research experiences and methods proving that Bigfoot can be scientifically regarded. Dr Helmut Loofs-Wissowa, a trained anthropologist, is retired Reader in Asian History and now a Visiting Fellow at the Southeast Asia Centre, Faculty of Asian Studies, ANU. Dr. Loofs-Wissowa's work is covered in the Japanese television film on "Wildman" research, among other topics. This article was more biased than scientific. The author did present some valid arguments, but didn’t present any hard evidence of Bigfoot’s existence.

“Bigfoot- Fact or Fiction?” Supernatural Zone.16 January 2005.

This source was very helpful. It had at least three different sightings I could use as examples in my paper, it was not only detailed and specific but also objective. During a project like this it is very important to find an objective source because it makes it easier to read and make your own opinions on the information presented to you. It was also very helpful when it came to the presentation because of all the charts and pictures available for making it easier and more exciting to present.

Krantz, Grover S. Bigfoot Sasquatch Evidence. Hancok 1999.

This book gets into even more detail about the evidence left behind from various

Sightings. Hundreds of peoples claims of coming into contact with Bigfoot and have brought about all sorts of evidence such as footprints, pictures, hairs, and videos.

This source was helpful but not sure how objective it was, it seemed that when I was done reading this I was almost convinced that Bigfoot was a money scandal.

Coleman, Loren. The Field Guide to Bigfoot, Yeti, and Other Mystery Primates

Worldwide. New York: Avon Books, 1999.

This book was also quite in favor of the Bigfoot myth, there was a great deal of information on sightings and the like since the myth took on form from a footprint cast rumored to be a print of the legendary beast. The information comes from a person who truly believes in the myth and thus any information that was given against these sightings or plaster castings of the foot is either lift out or made to look so ridiculous that it couldn’t possibly be true.

Once again the source is appropriate for a project that was objectively presenting information on the legend, however since this is a project about science behind the research being preformed on the legend it is an excellent source due to the fact that it contains some of the arguments on both sides being portrayed in a different light.

Carroll, Robert Todd. Bigfoot [a.k.a. Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas,

Mapinguari, Sasquatch, Yowie and Yeti. 16 January 2005. <

In this article it discusses recreations of the Peterson film in1967 to find out whether or not the footage is real or just a hoax. It discusses different research methods and explanations about Bigfoot.

“The Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization”Frequently asked questions. 16 January

2005/ <

In this article it discusses the frequently asked questions about Bigfoot like, is there any physical evidence? How come there isn’t any Bigfoot road kill? Those are a few examples. It describes scientific explanation for all the frequently asked questions.

“The Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization” 18 January 2005. <

This website is dedicated to the absolute proof that Bigfoot does in fact exist, the group goes on numerous sighting expeditions and even has a form on the website to inform them to the general public. They also have sections of their site dedicated to the different stories and videos that have been made about Bigfoot and the various arguments that have been made against them.

Obviously this source is incredibly bias towards the Bigfoot legend. However in light of this project in which we attempted to separate science from pseudoscience it is a valid source, demonstrating methods of both sides attempting to prove their own particular theories.