Posted on 11/10/2006 8:04:06 AM PST by presidio9
Jeffrey Meldrum holds a PhD in anatomical sciences and is a tenured professor of anatomy at Idaho State University.
He is also one of the world's foremost authorities on Bigfoot, also known by the native name Sasquatch, the mythical smelly ape-man of the Northwest woods. And Meldrum firmly believes the lumbering, shaggy brute exists.
That makes him an outcast - a solitary, Sasquatch-like figure himself - on the 12,700-student campus, where many scientists are embarrassed by what they call Meldrum's "pseudo-academic" pursuits and have called on the university to review his work with an eye toward revoking his tenure. One physics professor, D.P. Wells, wonders whether Meldrum plans to research Santa Claus, too.
Meldrum, 48, spends most of his days in his laboratory in the Life Sciences Building, analyzing more than 200 jumbo plaster casts of what he contends are Bigfoot footprints.
For the last 10 years, he has added his scholarly sounding research to a field full of sham videos and supermarket tabloid exposes. And he is convinced he has produced a body of evidence that proves there is a Bigfoot.
"It used to be you went to a bookstore and asked for a book on Bigfoot and you'd be directed to the occult section, right between the Bermuda Triangle and UFOs," Meldrum said.
"Now you can find some in the natural-science section."
Martin Hackworth, a senior lecturer in the physics department, called Meldrum's research a "joke."
"Do I cringe when I see the (cable television) Discovery Channel and I see Idaho State University, Jeff Meldrum? Yes, I do," Hackworth said.
"He believes he's taken up the cause of people who have been shut out by the scientific community. He's lionized there."
"He's worshipped. He walks on water."
"It's embarrassing."
John Kijinski, dean of arts and sciences, said there have been "grumblings" about Meldrum's tenure but no formal request for a review.
"He's a bona fide scientist," Kijinski said.
"I think he helps this university. He provides a form of open discussion and dissenting viewpoints that may not be popular with the scientific community but that's what academics is all about."
On campus, Meldrum - himself a hulking figure, with a mop of brown hair, a bristly silver moustache and a black T-shirt with a silhouette of a hunchbacked, lurking Bigfoot - receives funny looks and the silent treatment from other scientists and is not invited to share coffee with the other science professors.
Over the summer, more than 30 professors signed a petition criticizing the university for hosting a Bigfoot symposium where Meldrum was the keynote speaker.
He pays for his research with a US$30,000 donation from a Bigfoot believer.
Still, Meldrum has a distinguished supporter in Jane Goodall, the world-famous authority on chimpanzees. Her blurb on the jacket of Meldrum's new book, "Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science," lauds him for bringing "a much-needed level of scientific analysis" to the Bigfoot debate.
"As a scientist, she's very curious and she keeps an open mind," said Goodall spokeswoman Nona Gandelman.
"She's fascinated by it."
Bigfoot is sort of the Loch Ness Monster of the Pacific Northwest. The legend dates back centuries. native folklore includes murmurs of a man-ape that roams the hidden hollows. "Sasquatch" is a Salish Indian word meaning woodland wildman.
Newspapers began recording sightings of Bigfoot in the backwoods during the 1920s. But skeptics have challenged the accounts and practical jokers have staged elaborate hoaxes, including grainy film footage of someone in a monkey suit and phoney footprints stamped into the ground with giant moulded feet.
Meldrum said it was a decade ago in Walla Walla, Wash., that he first discovered flat 38-centimetre footprints in the woods. He said he thought initially they were a hoax but noticed locked joints and a narrow arch - traits he came to believe could only belong to Bigfoot.
"That's what set the hook," Meldrum said.
"I resolved at this point, this was a question I'd get to the bottom of."
When not in the lab, he loads his Chevy Suburban with tents and forensic gear and heads for the woods of Washington state and northern California, where he has collected what he says are footprints, hair and feces from the ape-man. He tests hair samples and uses physics to produce charts that purport to show how Bigfoot would walk.
Meldrum wonders aloud how much longer he will be on the Idaho State faculty. But he said he also dreams of one day bringing back a bone or a tooth or some skin and silencing the "stuffy academics."
"Is the theory of exploration dead?" he asked.
"I'm not out to proselytize that Bigfoot exists. I place legend under scrutiny and my conclusion is, absolutely, Bigfoot exists."
ping
Crypto Ping?
"He is also one of the world's foremost authorities on Bigfoot, "
How does one become an authority on something that does not exist?
I'm an authority on Big Feet............
Correspondence course on line of course!..........
OH,I exist,I definitely exist. I am presently couped up in someones hunting cabin now surfing the net..I wish these idiots would get cable. This dial up is very slow....
.....How does one become an authority on something that does not exist?.......
Like any scientist he studies the situation, makes hypotheses and sets about proving or disproving.
He has spent a good deal of time in the field in the vast wilderness of Washington and California. He interviews locals with tales to tell. He uses his senses to examine the wild places for biological evidence that can be tested in a lab.
Mostly, he, unlike a large number on this board does not, demand certainty. He does not depend on the narcotic of faith to direct his thoughts and actions.
I think faith is all he has, he believes in something he has never seen - only told by others.
In other words, he's a nutjob.
The AP likes to report on urban myths.
"Mostly, he, unlike a large number on this board does not, demand certainty. He does not depend on the narcotic of faith to direct his thoughts and actions."
Curious. The purpose of his investigations is to approximate certainty, otherwise he wouldn't be doing it. What sustains him is indeed his faith the there is a Bigfoot. I think you have it absolutely backwards.
http://www.todaystmj4.com/_content/news/topstories/story_5279.asp
WASHINGTON COUNTY - Is "Bigfoot" on the loose in Washington County? A man working near Holy Hill early Thursday morning swears a 7-foot animal attacked his pick-up truck.
The guy didn't want to go on camera because he's afraid people will think he's crazy. His job is to clean up deer carcasses after accidents. After loading up one in the early morning hours he got in his cab and started filling out paperwork - That's when it happened.
He felt the truck shake, so he looked back and saw a giant creature. He claims it was big, wide, hairy monster stealing the deer carcass. The man hit the gas, drove off and left the "monster" and deer carcass behind.
People who live in the area can't believe this one. "I've been here 35 years I've never seen nothing anything like that," said Andy Benson.
There have been some Bigfoot sightings in Northern Wisconsin, but as far we can tell, this is the first sighting in Washington County.
Dick Liethen also lives in the area, and will never say never. "Being 65-years-old, about the time you seen it all, something else pops out. So maybe he's right! You never ever know."
Da bears!
This looks like a job for Jeffrey Meldrum, PhD
Idaho professor an authority on Bigfoot = Idaho professor an authority on NOTHING!
"Bigfoot, also known by the native name Sasquatch"
Is it true Sasquatch means "hairy mother-in-law" in some native tongue?
With in 6 months this guy will be the media darling on every morning talk show as an expert. Mark it.
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