Bigfoot

1 ANSWERS

1. Brett
   

   Bigfoot is unquestionably North America's biggest cryptozoological mystery. If its existence is ever proven-and nothing short of an actual specimen will satisfy most scientists-it would, at the very least, provide revolutionary insights into human evolution. If Bigfoot is there, it is almost certainly a relative of ours. In fact, Bigfoot proponents are divided on the question of whether it is an ape or a kind of early human being.
   
   In what follows we define Bigfoot (or Sasquatch as it has traditionally been known in Canada) as the giant anthropoid reported in the northwestern United States (northern California, Oregon, Washington, and Idaho) and far western Canada (British Columbia and Alberta). In this vast region of mountains and forests, the idea that an undiscovered, extraordinary anthropoid could survive, undetected by all but the rare startled eyewitness, is at least conceivable if still, of course, incredible. One can imagine, in other words, such creatures in the natural world.
   
   It is necessary to say this because creatures of superficially similar appearance figure in reports in virtually every state and province of the continent. These are not imaginable in any conceivable natural world, and indeed many of the reports, with their intimations of the paranormal or at least of the zoologically nonsensical (three-toed tracks, for example), suggest phenomena not so much of nature as of the Goblin Universe. Though sometimes called "Bigfoot," these are not what we are concerned with here; these sorts of para-anthropoids are the subject of the entry hairy bipeds.
   
   Bigfeet, according to their leading chronicler, Canadian journalist/ investigator John Green, average-according to many hundreds of reports from eyewitness testimony-seven and a half feet in height. They are usually of solitary disposition and are seldom seen in the company of others. Hair covers almost all of their bodies, and their limbs are proportioned more like those of people than of apes, though their broad shoulders, nonexistent necks, flat faces and noses, sloped foreheads, brow ridges, and cone-shaped heads are more characteristic of animals than of humans. They are omnivorous, largely nocturnal, and mostly inactive during cold weather.
   
   Primatologist John Napier, one of the relatively few scientists to pay serious attention to the Bigfoot phenomenon, notes that in a number of the more credible reports the "Sasquatch is covered in reddish-brown or auburn hair.... Although auburn is the commonest overall color mentioned, black crops up, also beige, white and silvery-white.... Footprints range in size from 12in-22in. In 66 percent of 33 reports the commonest quoted range is 14 in.-18in., with a mode of 16in.... The most frequently reported width is 7 in.

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