Sasquatch

Because of an incident that has injured a friend’s foot, I am trying to think healing thoughts, and I was trying to think of ways to cheer her up. This has led me to start thinking of her as Big Foot, the mythical Sasquatch.

I genuinely do have an open mind about such matters, but prefer to rely on science to provide evidence than rely purely on folk tales. It is like many of the so called sightings of UFOs, from some points of view in poor light an airliner can look like the classic UFO shape. Equally, a brief glimce of a bear in the woods can transform into something different in the observers eye. I know that occasionally I have seen a bird and have been mistaken about the species until I could see more detail.

Therefore, as most of the sightings of Sasquatch have been by people that are not experienced observers, they may not have recorded, mentally, what they are really seeing. Also an adrenalin rush may add to the distortion of those observations. By that I mean that people unconsciously add detail to what they have seen. In addition people are not that good at estimating size and distance. Therefore it has to be said that the evidence of Bigfoot is far from strong.

Now looking at the other side of this coin, is the legend. It comes from Native American tradition, and with all folk tales there is a grain of truth in the story. But what that is has been lost to the past. It could be that there is a humanoid animal in the woods that is living away and afraid of humans. While rare there are still new discoveries of mammals in isolated locations with a population that is barely sustainable.

So keeping an open mind, if such a population does exist, it could be avoiding human contact perhaps because these creatures have not fared well at previous meetings. In the mad world of conspiracy theories, it is claimed that the US Government does know of and have proof of the existence of Bigfoot. While I seriously doubt that, I do however suspect that the federal authorities would not be keen to go searching to resolve the issue one way or the other. If they found nothing there would be people saying what a waste of tax dollars, and the conspiracy theories would say that it was all a cover up, get Mulder on the case. But equally if the federal authorities were to find Sasquatch, as a rare and endangered species then the law would require that protection was put in place. As I know from talking to people here, even when there is good evidence of a rare bird or amphibian or some other rare and protected creature being in a state, the US Fish and Game service are not keen to acknowledge the fauna’s presence.

I really do not know if Sasquatch exists, or if it ever existed. The romantic it me would like to think so and I love the idea that they are avoiding human contact, but until I see some real and compelling evidence then for me Sasquatch will remain a myth.