Data on sasquatch piling up
Sightings, tracks, hair consistent over the years

Stephen Lindsay - Correspondent - May 12, 2007

Second of three parts

Bigfoot. Sasquatch.

It is understandable that people are skeptical anytime they hear of something associated with those names. It seems incomprehensible that an 8-foot-tall, apelike animal could, in this day and age, remain hidden, even in the wilderness areas of the West.

However, in the past 50 years, an impressive body of evidence has been gathered that purports to demonstrate the existence of a native North American ape. Even lacking an actual body of a sasquatch, a lot of this evidence looks awfully good to a lot of people who are in a position to critically evaluate it.

Last week, I mentioned three Ph.D.-credentialed scientists in the Northwest – a biologist and two physical anthropologists – who have been or are actively collecting and analyzing data.

Foremost among them is Jeffrey Meldrum of Idaho State University, who writes in his 2006 book, "Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science": "The nature and extent of the evidence fully justifies – in truth, demands – the serious attention of scientists."

So, what is the "nature and extent" of this evidence that demands scientific scrutiny?


Well, along with highly publicized sightings, movies and videos purporting to show an apelike creature, there is physical evidence of the type you'd expect if one of the "CSI" TV programs were investigating the issue. And there is a startling amount of supporting data.

In discussing sasquatch behavior and ecology based on hundreds of sightings reported by highly credible observers – including wildlife biologists, foresters, field geologists and law enforcement officers – John Bindernagel, in his 1998 book, "North America's Great Ape: the Sasquatch," states: "Many people are unaware of just how many reports of sasquatches or sasquatch tracks exist, for how long they have been reported and over how large a geographical area they occur."

Bindernagel goes on to note "a remarkable consistency in physical features and (apelike) behavior" of the creatures described. In some areas, such as Walla Walla's Blue Mountains, recognizable individuals, based on sightings and footprints, have been recorded over several decades.

Bindernagel also notes that reports from the early 1900s in Washington and British Columbia are surprisingly similar to recent reports and to the legends going back centuries.

While some sightings and footprints have been demonstrated to have been frauds, most have not.

The famous 1967 Patterson-Gilman film purporting to show a walking female sasquatch never has been shown to be a fake, even with today's digital tools. And, believe me, people have dissected it, looking at all the details, expecting to prove a hoax. None has succeeded.

In addition, the film has held up to critical evaluation by experts in the biomechanics of locomotion. So, if not bogus, what do you call the creature in the film – or the creatures in more recent videos?

As for physical evidence, of what is it composed?

Among the least convincing would be nests and dens, oddly twisted-off treetops of a thickness and height difficult for a man to accomplish, and recordings of calls that are uniform, yet from different areas, and were not made by any known animal.

The exciting findings, though, consist of forensics-type data.

Footprints have been found that have fine skin ridges, called dermatoglyphs, which are equivalent to fingerprints. A former FBI fingerprint expert, who also studies skin ridges in zoo apes, has identified dermatoglyphs in plaster casts of purported sasquatch prints that are neither human nor from any known ape but are quite apelike. He even has found scars that show the unique healing pattern of primate skin.

Footprints have been found to be biomechanically accurate for weight and stride of an 800-pound biped – and quite different from those of a human foot. The dynamics of these footprints, based on soil and terrain variations, would be impossible to fake without an extensive knowledge of foot anatomy and function.

Furthermore, these details have been consistent over the years and in far-flung locations.

Probably most astounding of all, however, have been the analyses of hair found in areas associated with sasquatch footprints and sightings all over the West. While these hairs do not match human, ape or any other known hair for morphology, they are amazingly similar among themselves and are more apelike than anything else.

Keep in mind: These disparate forms of evidence have not come from one source, one place or one period of time. These data represent too many uncontrollable variables to all be a part of some larger hoax.

Yet, these data are remarkably constant in pointing to a large apelike animal living in the wilderness areas of California, the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia and down the Rocky Mountains into Colorado.

Meldrum has staked his career on his confidence in this evidence. In an Associated Press article that appeared in The Spokesman-Review last Nov. 6, headlined "Bigfoot research stirs up ISU," Jesse Harlan Alderman pointed out that Meldrum's fellow researchers at ISU are "hostile" and call his research "pseudo-academic" and a "joke," with "some even calling for the school to revoke his tenure."

Despite the ridicule, Meldrum does have his supporters in the scientific community. His dean at ISU calls him "a bona fide scientist," and Jane Goodall, the ground-breaking chimpanzee researcher who, according to Alderman, "believes in the legend," wrote for the jacket of Meldrum's book that he "brings a much-needed level of scientific analysis to the sasquatch – or Bigfoot – debate."

As I finished writing this column, I contacted Meldrum to confirm his conclusion as quoted in Alderman's article that "Bigfoot exists." He reaffirmed for me his certainty of the data:

The body of evidence includes repeat appearances of identifiable sasquatch individuals over successive years.

Examples of footprints that appear to preserve fine dermatoglyphic details have been regarded very seriously by a number of professional fingerprint examiners.

Hair samples have stood up to scrutiny, indicating a primate of indeterminate identity.

The persistence of this evidence, although remaining contested and controversial, warrants long-overdue consideration by the scientific community.

So what do you think? Could there be an 8-foot-tall, apelike, upright-walking animal in this day and age in the forests of the West? In the forests of North Idaho or Kootenai County?

There have been purported sightings and footprints here. Furthermore, a lot of the evidence that Meldrum and others refer to comes from the Blue Mountains near Walla Walla.

Next week, I'll take a look at what's been going on just outside of Walla Walla as well as here in North Idaho.

Sasquatch could be just that close.

Seeking sasquatch

Scientists studying phenomena believe creature exists; many questions surround Bigfoot sightings

Spokesmanreview

Stephen Lindsay
Correspondent
May 5, 2007

First of three parts

Do you think there is an apelike creature, Bigfoot or sasquatch, living in the forests of the Northwest? What do you make of the 15-inch footprints that have been found all over and by the hundreds, if not the thousands? What do you think of the 1967 Patterson-Gimlin film of a so-called Bigfoot walking in Northern California? Are all the purported sightings of Bigfoot just hoaxes or simply misidentifications?

Did you know there are bona fide, Ph.D.-bearing scientists studying the Bigfoot phenomena who are convinced there really is such a creature? Were you aware that one of those researchers taught for 30 years at Washington State University until his retirement in 1998 and another currently teaches at Idaho State University?

Are those enough questions for now?

Actually, probably not, for this is a subject with lots of questions – and hardly any answers. But the questions are fascinating, and the new prospects for answers are astounding.

So, a few more questions: Have you ever heard of Bigfoot sightings in North Idaho? Did you know that one of the hottest areas for recent, as well as older, Sasquatch records is the part of the Blue Mountains that straddles the Washington-Oregon border just outside Walla Walla? Were you aware that documented sightings of Sasquatch in the West date back to 1811?

Let's stop with the questions, and I'll begin to answer a few of the historical ones.

I'll skip all the Native American "legends" that relate to sasquatch except to point out that the term "sasquatch" comes from the Salish family of languages used by tribes in the Pacific Northwest, including British Columbia, to describe a Bigfootlike beast.

The name "Bigfoot" was coined by a reporter to portray the source of some huge tracks found near Bluff Creek, Calif., in 1958.

In 1811, a 14-inch footprint was observed near Jasper, Alberta. In 1840, a missionary to the original inhabitants of the Spokane area wrote home concerning a problem with hairy giants that were stealing salmon. In 1893, Theodore Roosevelt published a story of a sasquatchlike creature told to him by an "old mountain hunter in Idaho." And in 1925, the Oregonian newspaper reported on a group of miners who had been attacked by stone-hurling sasquatchlike animals at their cabin near Ape Canyon on the flank of Mount St. Helens.

All these reports predate – from 147 years to 33 years – the Bigfoot hoopla that started in 1958 with the Bluff Creek footprints.

When I was a teenager, the 16 mm Patterson-Gimlin film purporting to show a walking female Bigfoot was touring the Northwest, and I attended one of the showings. At the time, many people were calling the creature a "man in a monkey suit."

In 2002, someone confessed to being the "woman in a monkey suit," but her assertion failed to hold up. Recent evaluations of the film have found no evidence of a hoax. Certain anatomical details of the creature are too odd, yet real, to have been faked.

Now for some of the academic questions: Who is studying the "evidence" of sasquatch, and what is the nature of that evidence? Three of the best-qualified researchers to take the evidence of sasquatch seriously are – or were – working close by.

Grover S. Krantz, who died in 2002, was the Ph.D. physical anthropologist from WSU who was the first of his academic stature to take a serious look at Bigfoot footprints.

Second is Jeff Meldrum, also a Ph.D. physical anthropologist, who is at Idaho State and has just published an eye-opening book on sasquatch data, "Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science."

Third is John A. Bindernagel, a Ph.D. wildlife biologist in British Columbia who has moved beyond dealing with the controversies of existence to addressing ecological questions that would concern an apelike creature in northern North America.

There are others, but these are the most prominent of the local scientists.

Also a prime influence in taking a serious look at sasquatch data is journalist John W. Green. One of the original reporters to do a story on the 1958 Bluff Creek tracks, he has followed and documented 50 years' worth of happenings – obvious hoaxes included – since that time in numerous articles and books. His long-term perspective has been particularly important in bringing the study of Bigfoot to where it is today.

There are more questions, to be sure, and I have a few more answers, too.

What is the nature of the evidence for sasquatch? I think you will be surprised.

What of Bigfoot in North Idaho? Yes, there have been reports of sasquatch from the forests of eight of the northernmost counties of Idaho, including Kootenai County, as well as from three of the adjacent counties in Washington.

What, too, of the Walla Walla area? Someone – or something – has been very active there for a long, long time.

To answer these questions, in the next two parts of this series, I'll summarize the evidence for Bigfoot and put together a collection of reports of an apelike creature in North Idaho and Walla Walla. We'll see what answers are to be found in the growing body of scientific literature on sasquatch.

Seeking sasquatch
Scientists studying phenomena believe creature exists; many questions surround Bigfoot sightings

Sasquatch resources

Web sites

Bigfoot encounters – www.bigfootencounters.com

Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization – www.bfro.net

Bigfoot Information Project – www.bigfootproject.org

Books by experts on sasquatch

"Bigfoot Sasquatch: Evidence," Grover S. Krantz, Ph.D., deceased physical anthropologist from Washington State University, 1999.

"North America's Great Ape: The Sasquatch," John A. Bindernagel, Ph.D., wildlife biologist actively researching sasquatch in British Columbia for more than 30 years, 1998.

"Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science," Jeff Meldrum, Ph.D., physical anthropologist at Idaho State University, 2006.

"Sasquatch: The Apes Among Us," John Willison Green, a journalist reporting on sasquatch evidence for 50 years, 2006.

Monday, May 14, 2007
Data on sasquatch piling up
Sightings, tracks, hair



Stephen Lindsay
Correspondent
May 12, 2007

Probably most astounding of all, however, have been the analyses of hair found in areas associated with sasquatch footprints and sightings all over the West. While these hairs do not match human, ape or any other known hair for morphology, they are amazingly similar among themselves and are more apelike than anything else.