In the late 1950s, at a logging site in Northern California, one of the operators named Jerry Crew found something very disconcerting. The crew found a series of giant 16-inch human footprints traced in the mud. Crew leader Ray Wallace was also involved in the discovery. They knew these huge footprints were unusual and had no idea who they were. They decided that "Bigfoot" would be a fitting name for whatever creature created these footprints. Crew and Wallace decided to go down to the town below their construction site to talk to a taxidermist. The taxidermist they came in contact with was Bob Titmus. Titmus didn't want any publicity, so many people don't know this part of the story. Titmus gave Crew and Wallace instructions on how to create giant print plasters. At camp, Crew made the first plaster casts of the footprints and brought them to town. The newspaper's editors took photos of Crew holding the plaster casts and they went around the world. The crew, Wallace and the rest of the construction crew said they saw more footprints and even excrement from August to November. These findings raise much controversy. This led curious individuals to a life dedicated to the search for Bigfoot. After years of discovery, there are many theories about what Bigfoot is. But the most logical explanation to this mystery is this: Big Foot is a human hybrid who has been on this earth since he was created by God and resides in wild lands around the world. It's only a matter of time before Bigfoot is discovered. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Taking a walk into the minds of scientists, "logical" people, and even our ancestors could help explain the phenomenon behind Bigfoot. It is estimated that there are 10 to 50 million species in the world, of which we have only discovered about 1.9 million. For this reason a scientist's mind would call Bigfoot a truly undiscovered species. Our ancestors from all over the world have stories to tell about such a beast. The minds of our ancestors would tell us that Bigfoot has always existed and will continue to live. As we continue to have Bigfoot sightings and discoveries, interpretations of the stories will continue to be passed down through generations of time. A "logical" person's mind would tell you that all the evidence we have gathered is related. There is evidence from all over the world. It is almost impossible, nor logical, that something can be recreated perfectly. Especially not over and over again. Bigfoot is real. At dawn many years ago, on a peak 5,800 feet above sea level in an African city, a team of wildlife researchers was gathering reports of a strange primate. This strange primate was what native hunters know as "Kipunji", scientists suspected that this animal would turn out to be imaginary. Then someone shouted "Kipunji!" and everyone turned to lay their eyes on what the biologists described as “the most bizarre ape I had ever seen” (Conniff). It was about three feet tall, with thick fur and brown hair around its black muzzle. "Curse! It must be a new species” (Conniff). It was quite rare for a large primate to be discovered in the twenty-first century in a heavily inhabited geographic region, where humans have been roaming as long as we have been humans. However, this is “a new era of discovery” (Conniff). Large, colorful and even spectacular new species seem to be popping up everywhere these days. The Smithsonian Institution hasinterviewed Dr. Richard Conniff, a field biologist, who said: “The number of species found today compares favorably to any period since the mid-1700s, that is, since the beginning of scientific classification. These new species, they write, may be strange enough to induce the same sense of wonder, amusement, and even bewilderment that extraordinary new organisms inspired during the last great age of discovery from the 15th to the 19th centuries” (Smithsonian Institution). This single story would support the explanation of: Bigfoot is on earth, residing in the desert, waiting to be discovered. The discovery of new species will be further driven by new technologies. With all these species yet to be discovered it makes sense that Bigfoot could potentially be one of them. When scientists think they have found a new species they need to make sure that the species has not already been found or described elsewhere. Some ways they do this are by visiting museums, coordinating with other specialists, studying DNA, reading magazines etc. Most of the time, scientists get to travel to exotic locations. These places are generally uncontaminated by man. Their goal is to collect samples and evidence from the habitat. They take their samples back to their laboratories and get to work along a road they don't know where it leads. They might discover something or “waste” their time looking for nothing. Once they get a lead on something like DNA, they begin their quest to find the real creature. The problem with discovering new species is money and time. An organization or person must literally dedicate their life, or part of it, to their research. According to David DeFranza of the TreeHugger Natural Science organization “Some species discoveries happen in a flash. Other times, however, the gap between the discovery in the field and the official declaration of a new species can take years, even decades. In fact, the average time, according to a new survey, is 20.7 years” (DeFranza). This would demonstrate that not yet declaring Bigfoot a species is not unusual. Follow the advice of Piers Plowman's poem, "Patience is a Virtue." Sightings, memories and folklore of a giant, hairy, man-like, ape-like creature date back nearly a thousand years. Similar stories continue to be recorded every day around the world. At this point some would consider Bigfoot to be part of folklore (that's at least one theory). Folklores are interesting because they blur the line between fiction and nonfiction. According to Dr. S. E. Schlosser, “The term folklore is generally used to refer to the traditional beliefs, myths, tales, and practices of a people that have been spread informally, usually by word of mouth” (Folklore Definitions, 2010 ). Folklore can be related to what modern times call rumors or exaggerations. The term was created to refer to something that is partially true, but not completely true. Think of the game phone where there's an original phrase whispered to the person next to you, and it keeps getting whispered down the line and when it gets to the end it's usually a completely different word that sounds similar to the original but isn't That's not really true. For this reason, folklore can contain facts but mixed with fiction. There is folklore describing the Bigfoot that we believe in today, leading to the logical explanation that Bigfoot has existed since the earth was created. He is the fact of folklore. It is the phenomenal creature that has been talked about for centuries before anyone realized that everyone was talking about the same creature. One of the oldest recorded references of Bigfoot comes from Native Americans. Specifically, the Kwakiutl. The Kwakiutl have totem poles that look likematch the description of Bigfoot. The Kwakiutl are North American Indians living in what is now British Columbia, Canada. The Kwakiutl tell stories of mythical creatures called Dsonoqua and Buk'wus. According to one website: Kwakwaka'wakw Folklore, Myths, and Traditional Indian Stories, "The Buk'wus is the wild man of the woods, he is a non-human character who lives at the edge of the forest near the ocean shore. He hides from the mouth of the streams where he attracts the souls of drowned humans, convincing them with ghost food to come and live with him. He lives in an invisible house in the woods...". There is also the Dsonoqua, who is a wild woman of the woods who represents the side dark and dangerous of the Canadian wilderness, stealer of children but bringer of wealth. She is described as large, tall, bold and walks gracefully through the forest. She is also depicted as having a very similar appearance to Bigfoot comes from Dsonoqua. The term Sasquatch was around in the 1930s, before these popular North American sightings (The Canadian Encyclopedia.) Since Bigfoot has been around for a long time, cases like this are left to a special science called cryptozoology. Cryptozoology is literally the study of proving the existence of entities from the folklore record. Now that most of the world has turned Bigfoot into folklore, it is up to cryptozoologists to prove Bigfoot's existence. Cryptozoologists call their subjects cryptids. Rachel Shea of National Geographic wrote: “A cryptid is any animal that has never been described by science, usually something very unusual…stretching the limits of what is scientifically plausible. A cryptid cannot be a single animal. If there is one, there must be many. While cryptozoologists are constantly finding evidence about what Bigfoot is and why it never existed, they are also trying to find out why Bigfoot might also be a hoax” (Shea, 2016). The evidence gathered from multiple sources is all connected in one way or another. When Crew and Wallace reported all their findings, it sparked curiosity in Titmus. Titmus and one of his colleagues then began a lifelong journey, dedicating their lives to the search for Bigfoot. In 1967, men named Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin claimed to have filmed a female Bigfoot in the same location in Northern California where the original footprints had been found earlier, 10 years ago. (Remember the Indian folklore of Dsonoqua? She was the wild woman of the forest. How coincidental is it that the Patterson-Gimlin video claims she is a woman?). Titmus went straight to the movie location where they claimed to have spotted Bigfoot. While there he found eight tracks and this convinced the investigator that the film was authentic (Green, 1997). Titmus also collected brown hairs from bushes and branches in the same area where the Patterson-Gimlin video was filmed, and from other footprint locations. At that time (1970s) there was no way to identify hair. John Green, (Titmus' friend) shared some facts in Titmus' obituary and eulogy who wrote: “Years later it became possible to identify hairs by immunological reaction. According to the eminent scientist who conducted the experiment, the hairs belonged to a higher primate and the possibilities were limited to man, gorilla or chimpanzee. But no hair corresponds exactly to these possibilities” (Green). This brought more evidence considering there are no chimpanzees or gorillas in California. Titmus's achievements were recognized in 1987 by the International Society of Cryptozoology, making him an honorary member, the first person from the United States to achieve that distinction (Coleman). According to Daegling, author of).
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