Bigfoot - Halloween Special

Happy Halloween! For this year's spooky special - we're heading over to the US for the most legendary cryptid of all time - Bigfoot! How did this monster get its nickname? Why is this monster an American icon? Find out this week!

Transcript

INTRO:
Hello and welcome to Myth Monsters, my name is Erin and I’ll be your host for these little snack bite size podcasts on folklore and mythical monsters from around the world. 

These podcasts focus on the actual cryptids, folklore and mythic monsters from global mythology, rather than focusing on full stories of heroes and their big adventures.

I’ll also be dropping in some references that they have to recent culture and where you can see these represented in modern day content so you can learn more, and get as obsessed as I am about these absolute legends of the mythological world.

Happy Halloween! It’s the spookiest day of the year - I hope your trick or treat costumes are ready and pumpkin spice lattes are coursing through your veins for this special episode on a truly legendary monster. 

Of course, I do save these really big monsters for Halloween specials - so if you have a favourite you’ve not seen yet, it might be in my schedule for Halloween next year! I am dressing as Steven Toast from Toast of London this year, as well as Crowley from Good Omens - so I will put through the pictures as soon as I have them on Twitter.

DESCRIPTION:

How to start a story so massive - that is really the question with this monster. We are heading over to the US for this epic cryptid, and probably the most famous one of them all - Bigfoot or Sasquatch!

Bigfoot is generally described as a large, muscular humanoid ape that stands at around 8-11 feet tall, with a coat of reddish brown or dark brown fur. He reportedly has an ape-like face with sharp canine teeth, and oversized feet and hands. However, through history this report has changed - with him originally being very bear-like, with a rounder body like a bear walking on two legs, but has adapted overtime to be an apeman like figure, with an almost completely human face - with a lot of body hair. His arms are noted to be almost too long for his body, with broad shoulders and no visible neck to speak of. The footprints of Bigfoot are said to be as large as 24 inches long by 7 inches wide, which is, of course, linked to the name.

He walks with a slouched gait, which is very similar to large apes and is known to have no eye-shine, which is common in most animals but not humans or great apes - meaning you cannot spot him amongst the darkness like you would birds of prey, raccoons or foxes. Bigfoot apparently smells as bad as you can imagine a big hairy monkey man to smell of and to quote ‘imagine a skunk that had rolled around in dead animals, and then hung around garbage pits’. It is said that he can also howl and scream but then other reports say that they can communicate in infrasound. Some others say that they have created their own language, as well as using wood knocking for communication.

They are supposedly nocturnal and solitary, but we do believe that in terms of reproduction - they do come together to mate and will have pods with children. They’re most likely omnivores due to their humanoid DNA, and are believed to feed on plants as well as deer, rabbit, salmon, elk and bear as well as fruits and nuts that they will forage. They are particularly wary of humans, and will naturally avoid us - meaning that they’re incredibly hard to catch and/or prove any source as gospel. I will also add that I am referring to Bigfoot as he just as this is natural to me when talking about it colloquially, however, there are both genders noted within folklore.

In regards to where you can find one well the most common area, it is only found in the United States, and with that most commonly within the Northwest region. This covers Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming officially, but he is generally seen throughout the entirety of North America, which does include Canada too. Bigfoot has been spotted in every single state in the US, other than Hawaii - which makes sense as they have their own mythology and they’re pretty far from everyone else. The most likely place to spot one is in Washington State within the mountainous areas that are thick with woodland. Bigfoot are most likely to make their homes within caves or even tree teepees as well as sometimes being reported to make floor nests like gorillas and larger apes. 

Bigfoot has no specific powers - like at all. I guess it’s only power is to be super elusive and apparently, really good at missing bullets and tanking tranquillisers. There have never been any bodies of Bigfoot or Sasquatch recovered, and so we don’t actually know how long they live for, what they can die of, or if they can catch any diseases or have conditions - and so we really don’t know much about these monsters bar their basic description as they are just so hard to spot and find. Those who have supposedly caught or shot Bigfoot have either never been able to find the bodies, or the bodies have been removed after discovery by an unknown force.

ORIGIN:

Onto etymology - well this is where it gets really interesting. Bigfoot of course is English and comes from the fact that they have massive feet, but Sasquatch is a Native American word from the Halkomelem language, spoken by the Sts'ailes tribe in British Columbia in Canada, meaning wild man or hairy man. There is also famously a region of Canada called Saskatchewan, which some people believe comes from an abundance of Sasquatch - but to myth bust this, it comes from the Saskatchewan River and is the Cree word for swift flowing river, not the monster we know and love.

I guess this is also where I have to explain Sasquatch and Bigfoot too - and trust me I had to look this up, as I always thought they might be two separate monsters. Alas, they are not. Sasquatch is the official name for Bigfoot and is technically the species name - whereas Bigfoot is a colloquial nickname for the monster. There are several different types of Sasquatch under this banner, such as the cousin monsters of Bigfoot, the Yeti or Abominable Snowman, The Yowie, The Skunk Ape, The Yeren or the Almas - which are all considered other apemen like cryptids from all over the world, and I’ll get into more later. So I guess this is just a fun fact, but also something to note - I’m only going to be referring to Bigfoot in this episode and not the others. 

And even more interesting is their history - and we have such a delightful background for this one, as it does have roots so far back into American history, as well as really recently cryptozoology, merging mythology into it.

Most cultures do have a hairy humanoid within their ancient folklore - much like the sister monsters that I mentioned which are from all over the world. Therefore, it is believed that the Sasquatch most likely is a variant folktale of the European Wild Man stories, which go back even further to Medieval times in around 407 BC, meaning that this monster might go back all the way to not only Europe, but all this way back in history too, inspiring many monsters to come across the world. 

However, Bigfoot was first mentioned within Native folklore, you probably guessed it from the Sasquatch etymology and we don’t know how far this goes back due to the lack of knowledge around Native folklore from outsiders, which happens. However, we do know that the Sts'ailes tribe in Canada used Sasquatch to describe a shapeshifting monster that protects the forest - whilst this doesn’t describe Bigfoot entirely, it certainly gives us a good idea of a monster under this name. Many other Native American tribes also mention this monster under different language names too, such as the Lummi tribe from Washington and Iroquois tribe from New York.

The first written account of Bigfoot was all the way back in 1811, when America was a relatively new official country, and an explorer, David Thompson, who was mapping the States and Canada wrote in his book that ‘The Spokanes believe in a race of giants which inhabit a certain mountain to the west of us’. The Spokanes were a local tribe in Washington and told him about a hairy giant race who lived on salmon and they would steal people in their sleep to take back to their mountain homes. David Thompson was also the first person to record a Bigfoot footprint which was one and a half foot long. 

In 1840, reports of salmon stealing monsters made it into the Christian public of the US with them being reported to live in the mountains of Spokane in Washington by missionaries. More reports of the monster started getting out to the American public within the 1840’s, and then in 1893, President Theodore Roosevelt wrote in his book that he was told about the hairy humanoid mountain men that stank and would be aggressive towards people if they went too close - however, even Teddy Roosevelt had his doubts in the man who told him this story as he had German ancestry, and thought it might have been a folktale from there.

Skip over to the 1900’s, and in 1924 a bunch of gold prospectors from Oregon reportedly got into a fight with a group of ape men whilst in a gorge near Mount St Helens. They fought them off with guns vs rock throwing from the ape men, and the prospectors ended up fleeing in the middle of the night - giving the area a new name, Ape Canyon, which it has to this day and is still massive for Bigfoot sightings.

In 1958, when laying concrete in California - Jerry Crew found a human-like footprint in the mud that was 16 inches tall. His crew told him that they had previously found others like this on other sites around the area, as well as things being moved without a trace. They started calling the monster Bigfoot and a plaster cast was made of the print and it became the first ever published evidence of the monster in the Northwest, and the term Bigfoot was coined. However, in 2002, it was discovered that Jerry Crew had a collection of wooden feet in his basement and he was responsible for the prints, and in 1930, foresters came forward to take claim on the Ape Canyon too.

There is another explanation to the Bigfoot nickname and that is of Chief Big Foot, who was a Wyandot chief - who was generally a massive man, but also had huge feet. He was nicknamed this by the local town and has a park and school named after him in Wisconsin. As well as this, there were two historically large bears in California who were both named Bigfoot as they were around 2,000 pounds - and they had supernatural powers attached to them by the local town. 

In 1967 though, the most famous incident around Bigfoot happened, called the Patterson-Gimlin film. You might not know the name of this, but you’ve most likely seen images from this film, including the one I’ve used in my advertising this week. This is the most famous image of Bigfoot, and the one that is used to prove its existence. This was filmed in Northern California, and was 59 seconds long where a supposed Bigfoot runs out of frame. This tape is still debated to this day, and there are countless books and documentaries about this footage - honestly I could write a whole episode on this, so I’ll keep it short here.

But there have been countless sightings from the 1960’s up to the present day. All together there have been over 10,000 Bigfoot sightings recorded in the US - which is a huge amount for a cryptid, and they are still being recorded to this day. Alongside sightings, there have been countless pieces of evidence given in to be studied, such as footprint copies, hair, DNA, body prints and photos - all of which have been studied and not found to be anything out of the ordinary, or they are still being debated about. 

But alongside evidence and sightings, there are always hoaxes - and Bigfoot is truly a champion of hoaxes within the cryptid space. From 1968 all the way to 2022, there have been at least 8 large scale and convincing hoaxes around Bigfoot, such as frozen corpses made of latex, live specimens that never existed, animal frankensteins and gorilla skulls - all of which garnered fame and fortune for the people creating them until they were busted. 

So what about studies - have they actually found anything over the years? Yes and no - there have been countless studies over the years, with most of them concluding that the monster does and could not exist through tracking the US countryside. They’ve also done a few DNA investigations, mostly of hair, one of which was in 2014 at the University of Oxford, who found it to be black and brown bears, as well as a load of other woodland creatures. However, they did find DNA from an extinct type of polar bear from 40,000 years ago - but when they ran this test again, it was brown bear fur. In 2019, the FBI did a DNA test on hairs collected from 1976 and found that they were all deer family hair - so it’s been pretty slim since then.

There was an interesting one done in 2012 from a vet who said that she had found evidence of a human relative that was around 15,000 years ago, a type of Homo sapien mixed with an ape species of some kind. However, the vet was not a geneticist and so her report is generally considered to be poorly investigated and not peer reviewed for authenticity or accuracy.

This moves us onto explanations for the monster, and honestly most of them have been covered but there are some interesting ideas. The most likely explanation is that of black or brown bears - black bears are known to walk around on their hind legs and they’re not massively fond of humans being around are a bear species that will try and leave a human area. Another explanation is just humans and misidentification. There is a condition I covered in my last Halloween special known as Hypertrichosis, which is increased hair growth across the entire body, known as Werewolf syndrome. This is really common in Latin genes, as well as Native genes - so it could be simply a case of someone back in the 1700’s seeing someone with a hair condition. Lastly, it’s thought that monkeys or apes escaped from collectors or zoos, as the sightings are usually close to human civilization in terms of locale. The other most popular explanation is that this could be a thought-extinct lower evolution of humans or Homo Sapiens that have managed to survive amid numerous Ice Ages and industrial revolutions. These creatures have been dubbed Giganto pithecus in Latin - and have been proved to exist within archeology, but within fossils - not bones.

But more excitingly, for mythical comparisons - there are loads but these are all sister monsters that come under the Sasquatch species. There is most famously the Yeti from Nepalese folklore who are not white as the films say, but also brown/reddish furred bipedal apes. There’s also another American cryptid called the Skunk Ape, who is known to wander around the woodland areas of the Southeast United States. In South America, there is the Maricoxi, in Australia, there’s the Yowie and in China and Mongolia, there is the Yeren and the Almas - I’ll cover these all in their own episodes, but I’ve covered the Yowie already, as well as the Yeti for last year’s holiday special!

So why is it SO famous? Why is this monster the cryptid king? We don’t really know - cryptozoology is a relatively new pseudoscience which started in 1955 officially, which is definitely around the same time as Bigfoot started to become more famous. However, I think that it is because it’s probably one of the more believable monsters out there considering that people believe that they could be lesser evolved humans. It makes sense I suppose, but it is also from the US - where mythology isn’t really a thing because the country itself is so new. Native mythology is really US mythology, but the non-Native public created cryptozoology for the new US and Bigfoot is a perfect poster monster for this, having been seen across the whole US at some point. It’s a perfect representation of an American monster, and for a considered US pseudoscience, it makes sense that this monster is the crowned king of cryptids. 

Lastly, speaking of its cultural impact, Bigfoot is a big thing in the USA. There are organisations set up to record Bigfoot sightings and investigate them such as the Bigfoot Field Research Organisation, which has its own database of Bigfoot resources and provides credibility checks for hunters. That’s another thing - there are actively Bigfoot hunters in the States, much like there are Loch Ness Monster hunters here in Scotland. There are also countless conspiracy theories around Bigfoot, such as government cover ups with bodies, alien accusations, Bigfoot being within Area 51 for example.

But Bigfoot has become part of the American identity within the cryptid and mythology/folklore space - as well as being an American icon in itself. 1 in 10 Americans believe Bigfoot exists, there are music festivals, companies, amusement parks and even a Marvel superhero based on this monster. He naturally encourages tourism from Bigfoot hunters or ‘Squatchers’ as they are coined, as well as being a perfect mascot for any Pacific Northwest sports team. He is very often used in environmental campaigns against causes like deforestation and climate change, as well as being named the Social Distancing Champion during the COVID-19 pandemic by the US government.

QUIZ BREAK

Now onto our Halloween special segment, and wouldn’t be a special without a special part in the middle now would it? I’ll read out these questions, and then I’ll post them in polls on Twitter so that I can see your answers! 

Now some of these have not been covered in the podcast, and are general knowledge or modern media questions - so it will be tricky!

Ready? Let’s go!

When was the famous Patterson-Grimlin Bigfoot video recorded?

a. 1972

b. 1965

c. 1967

d. 1983

What percentage of the American public believe Bigfoot exists?

a. 3.1%

b. 17.6%

c. 39%

d. 64.2%

Which state has the most sightings of Bigfoot?

a. Ohio

b. Utah

c. Washington

d. Oregon

Which state is the only one to NOT have reported a Bigfoot sighting?

a. Delaware

b. South Carolina

c. New Jersey

d. Hawaii

The word Sasquatch comes from the folklore of which Native American tribe? (Sts'ailes)

What American comedy-duo wrote the song Papagenu in tribute to the Sasquatch? (Tenacious D)

What are the sister monsters to Sasquatch? (Yeti)

What does Bigfoot smell of? (Skunk)

What is the scientific name for Bigfoot? (Gigantopithecus)

What is the most common animal explanation for Bigfoot?

1. Orangutans
2. Humans
3. Gorillas
4. Black Bears

And that’s it! I hope you enjoyed that and I’ll have the questions up by the end of today so you can show off your Bigfoot knowledge!!

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CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE: 

Now onto modern media, of course - there is absolutely loads for this, so I’ve had to pick the most popular! I’m sorry if something you love is missed!

For art, I would always recommend having a look at the hoax or the believed pictures of Bigfoot - however, it’s a cryptid! So have a look at independent art this week for Bigfoot and Sasquatch, support your local artists!

In movies, we have; Bigfoot 1970, 1987, 2006, 2012, , The Cabin in the Woods, My Little Pony, The Son of Bigfoot, Half Human, A Goofy Movie, Drawing Flies, Cloud With a Chance of Meatballs, Cry Wilderness, Missing Link, Harry and the Hendersons, Smallfoot, Open Season, Big Trouble in Little China, Kong: Skull Island, Dawn of the Beast, The Legend of Boggy Creek, Letters from the Big Man, Star Wars, Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny, Primal Rage, Exists, Night of the Demon, The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot, Hotel Transylvania, Little Bigfoot, Night Claws, They Call Him Sasquatch, Willow Creek, Turkey Hollow, Valley of the Sasquatches, Tickles the Clown & Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. 

For TV, we have; Finding Bigfoot, Tenacious D, The Invisible Man, DuckTales, Phineas and Ferb, The Six Million Dollar Man, Trailer Park Boys, Harry and the Hendersons, Ancient Aliens, Unsolved Mysteries, Destination Truth, Animal X, Futurama, The Simpsons, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Powerpuff Girls, The Pentaverate, Super Sentai, Dexter’s Laboratory, Mr Pickles, We Bare Bears, The A-Team, Round the Twist, SheZow, Timon & Pumba, Gravity Falls, Lost Tapes, The Goodies, Sanctuary, Ultraman, In Search of, McGuyver, Castle, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, Masked Rider, Chasing Bigfoot: The Quest for the Truth, Monster Warriors, Reservation Dogs, 1000 Ways to Die, Ben 10, Family Guy, Scooby Doo, The Secret Saturdays & X-Men.

In video games, we have ones such as; Bigfoot, ANNO: Mutationem, Darkstalkers, Assassins Creed 3, Grand Theft Auto 5 and San Andreas, WarioWare Gold, Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare, Poptropica, Bigface Marsh, The Sims, Arcanum, Tony Hawk’s Underground 2, Sam & Max Hit The Road, Banjo-Tooie, Ski Resort Tycoon, Zoo Tycoon, Riddle School, Pokemon, NetHack, Monster Rancher 2, Diablo 2, Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, Mother, Delta Force, Metal Slug, Final Fantasy, Brave: The Search for Spirit Dancer & Ben Jordan: Paranormal Investigator.

My book recommendation this week is Apeman, Bigfoot, Yeti, and the Last Neanderthal: A Geneticist's Search for Modern Apemen by Bryan Sykes as it’s a great book on Sasquatches and their cousins. Or there is On the Trail of Bigfoot: Tracking the Enigmatic Giants of the Forest by Mike Dupler for some tracking experiences if you’re at all interested in that side of this monster too!

DO I THINK THEY EXISTED? 

Now it’s time for, do I think they existed? 

No. That’s it - I have nothing else to say, I am so sorry to all my die-hard cryptid fans. Bigfoot, to me as a Brit, feels very American to me - almost as much as stars and stripes, barbecues, Walmart and apple pie. Whilst I love you all dearly, this one is just too much for me - but that’s also what I love about this monster. I really love that Bigfoot is this unconventional American icon - and I am so glad he is embraced as that.

Bigfoot also encapsulates the cryptid community as possibly the biggest and most famous of them all, and I see why he has that place in history and long may it continue. However, my personal opinion is that this was a man in a monkey suit and it just became something so wild - and I honestly do not know how or understand how considering the internet was not a thing back in the late 60’s. How did Bigfoot become something we talk about in the UK? It’s crazy. Also if something as massive as this existed, I just believe we would have found it by now - which is my opinion on most larger cryptids that are more than one in terms of population.

What I do also love is that people are so committed to finding him, and like I say almost every episode, I love that folklore, mythology and cryptozoology are kept alive by this kind of belief and that keeps me in a job and fills my heart with joy as a folklorist. It’s ones like these that I’m glad to keep interested in so that the scientific community gets involved and we get answers - so please do keep going my Bigfoot believers.

As an added tidbit, my favourite EVER portrayal of Bigfoot in media is in Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny - my family and I will still sing ‘BIGFOOT IS MY FATHER AND HE WANTS TO PROTECT ME’ with all my soul at every gathering.

But what do you think? Does Bigfoot roam the trails of the US woodlands? Let me know on Twitter!

OUTRO: 

Ah what a legend to cover this spooky season - I’m thrilled that we got to do this and I have been waiting three years for the appropriate time to bring him on, so I hope I’ve lived up to the expectations of the most demanding of cryptid fans, he is truly an icon of cryptozoology and really why any of it exists - so it is almost an honour. 

Lastly, I want to wish you all a very happy Halloween or Samhain if you celebrate like I do - as well as a safe one! 

Next week, we’re heading down under for an Australian cryptid, and one that you may think you’ve seen before - at least on the Crocodile Hunter. We’re looking at the fearsome Drop Bear, so I hope you’re smothered in Vegemite and checking all the gum trees for these blighters next Thursday!

I am at BlizzCon in Anaheim, California this weekend to get my World of Warcraft and Diablo fangirl on, so if you are around - please do stop and say hello! You truly cannot miss me with the ginger hair and the mermaid tattoos.

For now, thank you so much for listening, it’s been an absolute pleasure. If you enjoyed this podcast, please give it a rating on the service you’re listening on - I’ve got the twitter for any questions, or suggestions on what monsters to cover next and I’d love to hear from you. The social media handles for Tiktok, Youtube, Threads and Instagram are mythmonsterspodcast, and twitter is mythmonsterspod. But all of our content can be found at mythmonsters.co.uk - you can also find us on Goodpods, Buymeacoffee and Patreon if you want to help me fund the podcast too.

Come join the fun though and share this with your pals, they might love me as much as you do.

But for now, stay spooky and I’ll see you later babes.