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Mystery Primate: Who, or what is Bigfoot?

http://www.thestatesman.net/page.arcview.php?clid=18&id=149706&usrsess=1

Arnab Nandy says that an understanding of such creatures
lies not in myth, folklore and legend but ultimately
in reality.

They say we are not alone. If there is any truth to the testimony of eye witnesses worldwide, we appear to live amid a variety of humanlike and ape-like creatures whose existence has been largely ignored, forgotten, or denied, at least in recent history. Despite the crowding of the earth’s surface with our species, there is apparently ample room left over for our elusive cousins to hide. And they have done just that - for the most part. But as the reports of encounters accumulate, it has become increasingly clear that an understanding of these creatures lies not in myth, folklore, and legend, but, ultimately, in reality...

...Bigfoot.

People have been enchanted, excited and haunted by this name for many years now. What is this Bigfoot? Is it real? What does it look like? These are some of the many questions that men have tried to find the answers of for decades. But what exactly is the truth? Let’s find out.
The enigmatic creature has been variously described as standing 7-10 ft (2-3 m) tall and weighing over 500 lb (225 kg), with footprints 17 in. (43 cm) long. It goes by many names.

In northern California it is known as “Bigfoot”, ”Mapinguari” in the Amazon, “Sasquatch” and “Yowie” in Australia, and Yeti in Asia. Some also refer to it as the “Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas”.
Most scientists discount the existence of Bigfoot because the evidence supporting belief in the survival of a prehistoric biped ape-like creature of such dimensions is scant.

The evidence for Bigfoot’s existence consists mainly of testimony from Bigfoot enthusiasts, footprints of questionable origin, and pictures that could easily have been of apes or humans in ape suits. There are no bones, no scat, no artifacts, no dead bodies, no mothers with babies, no adolescents, no fur, nothing. Not that there aren’t “sightings” of such.

There are “sightings” galore. However, there is no evidence that any individual or community of such creatures dwells anywhere near any of the “sightings.” In short, the evidence points more towards hoaxing and delusion than real discovery. In addition to the eyewitness testimonials of enthusiastic fans, the bulk of the evidence provided by proponents of Bigfoot consists of footprints and film.
Of the few footprints available for examination in plaster casts, there is such great disparity in shape and configuration that the evidence suggests many independent pranksters.

Probably the most well-known evidence for belief in Bigfoot’s existence is a film shot by Bigfoot hunters Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin on Oct 20, 1967, at Bluff Creek in northern California.

The film depicts a walking ape-like creature with pendulous and hairy breasts. Its height is estimated at between 6’ 6’’ and 7’ 4’’ and weighing nearly one ton. More than 30 years have passed, yet no crypto-zoologist has found further evidence of the creature near the site except for one alleged footprint.

However, according to veteran Hollywood director John Landis, ”that famous piece of film of Bigfoot walking in the woods that was touted as the real thing was just a suit made by John Chambers,” who helped create the ape suits in Planet of the Apes (1968). Bob Gimlin, Patterson’s associate, issued an ambiguous statement through his lawyer in Minneapolis: “I’m authorised to tell you that nobody wore a gorilla suit or monkey suit and that Mr. Gimlin’s position is that it’s absolutely false and untrue.” The question is - what is “absolutely false and untrue”?
According to Michael Wallace, Bigfoot is a hoax that was launched in August 1958 by his father Ray L. Wallace (1918-2002), an inveterate prankster. Shortly after Ray’s death, Michael revealed the details of the hoax, which were reported widely in the press.

Ray had a friend carve him 16-inch-long feet that he could strap on and make prints with. Wallace owned a construction company that built logging roads at the time and he set the prints around one of his bulldozers in Humboldt County. Jerry Crew, a bulldozer operator, reported the prints and The Humboldt Times ran a front-page story about “Bigfoot.” The legend was born. However, a former logger, 71-year-old John Auman, claims Wallace left the giant footprints to scare away thieves and vandals who’d been targeting his vehicles. His hoaxes didn’t begin until after he’d seen what a stir he’d created.

The news of Wallace’s 1958 hoax did not daunt Bigfoot enthusiasts such as Loren Coleman or Idaho State University anatomy professor Dr. Jeff Meldrum, who has casts of 40 to 50 big footprints. Coleman asks, “Why is the testimony of an admitted liar, now being feted by a sceptical magician as the truth, having the newspapers believe it all? The media mixing of the lies and rumours with a few facts in the Wallace story is pushing this one to the edge. This is Ray Wallace’s ultimate hoax and bitter seed.” Meldrum believes such a large number of casts couldn’t all be hoaxes. But it appears that hoaxers are not deterred from their activities by the belief that their numbers are small.

Sherpa Sen Tensing, an internationally recognised Himalayan mountain-climbing guide, who has worked with Sir Edmund Hillary among others, was returning home to Phortse, down the difficult trail to the lmja River, when he and his friends saw a Yeti approaching up the path. Sen Tensing quickly jumped into the snow behind a large boulder and lay quivering with fear.

The Yeti approached within 25 yards in glowing moonlight and stopped, before finally moving on back down the trail. The Yeti was 5.5 feet tall. Half-beast, half-man, it had a tall pointed head and hairless face, but was otherwise mostly covered with reddish brown hair.

It stood upright, but dropped to all fours when in a hurry. When Sen Tensing emerged from behind the rock, he saw clearly the well-defined footprints the Yeti had left behind in the snow.

Eleven months later, while exploring the route to Mt. Everest on the southwestern slopes of Menlung with English mountain climbers Eric Shipton and Michael Ward, Sen Tensing spotted a long trail of two sets of strange footprints he identified as those of the Yeti. They followed the tracks for over two miles until the prints disappeared. The well-known photographs of these broad, ape-like tracks show the imprint of four toes together and one toe separated out to the side.

In early April 2001, British scientists made a startling announcement. After examining the DNA in a strand of hair thought to come from a Yeti, the Asian cousin to America’s Bigfoot, scientists were unable to identify it as coming from any known animal. The long black strand of hair examined by the British scientists was found on the bark of cedar tree in the Kingdom of Bhutan.

The tall, hairy creature is believed by many locals to inhabit the forests and mountains of Bhutan, where it is called the “Migyur”. The British were led to this particular tree by Sonam Dhendup, the kingdom’s official Yeti hunter. Locals had found a mysterious piece of skin in the hollow of the cedar tree, which they think the creature might have called home.

Carefully examining the area, the British scientists found fresh footprints just a few hours old. Inside the tree, they noted claw-like scratch marks and found several strands of the hair.

Some of the hair was taken back to the UK for DNA testing. Bryan Sykes, Professor of Human Genetics at the Oxford Institute of Molecular Medicine and one of the world’s leading experts on DNA analysis examined the hair.
“We found some DNA in it,” he said, “but we don’t know what it is. It’s not a human, not a bear nor anything else we have so far been able to identify. It’s a mystery and I never thought this would end in a mystery. We have never encountered DNA that we couldn’t recognise before.
This astonishing discovery is the most recent peak of what has become a growing mountain of evidence that we share this planet with an as-yet undiscovered species - or perhaps several species - of biped primates.
The DNA test has proved that there is an unknown creature out there. What kind of creature that hair belongs to is unknown, but when one considers it along with the footprints and the eyewitness sighting, the case for a previously unknown ape or hominid is strengthened. The DNA is likely to inspire new expeditions to find the Yeti.
The interest in Bigfoot seems to have been succinctly captured in the saying of an old Sherpa, “There is a Yeti in the back of everyone’s mind; only the blessed are not haunted by it.”

The writer is an ex-Coordinator,
Methodist High School