Isn't This All a Hoax or Hallucinations??
by Michael Willey
Many assert that the bigfoot/sasquatch is merely the product of over-active imaginations and cunning hoaxers. However, published accounts of sightings of a hairy, bipedal creature date from the 1840s, while Native American and First Nation accounts date back centuries. Sightings have been reported in Tennessee and in every other state in the Union, except Hawaii, and, in a majority of the Canadian provinces. Sightings have been reported by a broad spectrum of humanity, ranging from housewives to law enforcement officers to experienced, seasoned hunters, loggers and other outdoorsmen. It is highly unlikely that all those sightings are the result of either imagination or an elaborate, nationwide hoax. Further, reports submitted by trained observers and seasoned outdoorsmen are especially helpful when dealing with the contention that many bigfoot sightings are the result of over-active imaginations and/or mis-identified bears.
In addition to actual sightings, there is a wealth of physical evidence that points to the existence of sasquatch in North America. For example, literally thousands of footprint casts have been collected over the years. Could some of those footprints have been faked? Undoubtedly. Are all of those footprints fake? Highly unlikely. Why? Because all primates have dermal ridges (i.e., finger prints) on both hands and feet, and many of the plaster casts of bigfoot footprints reveal dermal ridges on the bottom of the foot. Further, many of the plaster casts reveal movement in the toes and the foot from stride to stride. Both dermal ridges and toe movement are difficult, if not impossible, to fake.
We believe the following quote to be an accurate appraisal of the possibility that all bigfoot evidence in existence is the result of a hoax:
"Either the most complex and sophisticated hoax in the history of anthropology has continued for centuries without being exposed, or the most manlike and largest non-human primate on earth has managed to survive in parts of North America and remains undiscovered by modern science."
-- G.W. Gill, Past President of the American Board of Forensic Anthropology and Professor Emeritus at University of Wyoming
If you're still thinking, "It's all a hoax!" then consider this:
"But let us look at what would be entailed in explaining all sasquatch reports as hoaxes. Published sasquatch reports in North America date from the 1840s and continue up to the present.... They have come from the west coast, extending from California to Alaska, but also from most states and provinces in central, eastern, and southern North America. Sasquatch trails--a trail is a series or line of tracks--have been followed for several miles in snow. Trails in soil show the characteristic huge footprints, long strides, and impressions sufficiently deep to indicate great weight. Explaining the tracks and trails with a human hoaxer requires the involvement of tall, powerful athletes able to maintain yard-and-a-half-long steps up steep embankments carrying over two hundred pounds while wearing false feet capable of flexing from step to step. Explaining the activities attributed to sasquatches requires athletes able and willing to throw logs and stumps with ease and to spend interminable lengths of time on remote islands waiting for clam-diggers or other humans to chance by. These athletes must also camp out undetected in remote mountainous areas, ready to scream and bellow for prolonged periods when a logging operation starts up. To explain the consistencies of sasquatch appearance, anatomy, gait, vocalization, and behavior discussed in this book requires truly enviable levels of dedication, scholarship, motivation, and organization with an equally impressive level of funding."
-- John A. Bindernagel, Ph.D., North America's Great Ape: the Sasquatch, page 27-28
One must either believe that every sighting, every footprint, every recorded vocalization, every sample of hair and scat, in short, every shred of evidence, is the product of an elaborate, international, centuries spanning conspiracy and hoax, or one must believe that the largest of the great apes is walking the forests of North America, unrecognized and uncollected by science. A much greater leap of faith is required to believe the former than the latter.
Top of Page