Rocky: A Terrific Bigfoot Story

In the 19th century, much horror sprung from ghost stories. In other words, what we would call folk tales today. H. P. Lovecraft specifically and with intent crafted his weird tales around real and fictitious folklore creating a novel cast of horror characters and secret books.

Miskatonic Books continues that tradition by expanding it’s antiquarian horror blog post into more esoteric frontiers. Today, we highlight The Locals, a small press book from Hancock House published in 2003 and written by Thom Powell. A high school science teacher, Powell used to use Bigfoot legends in a scoffing manner to show students the downside with pseudoscience. One problem, along the way he studied the phenomenon so much, he became a believer!

Thom Powell

Deep in the book, we read a story that could have come right out of Jack London, only it t’weren’t about wolves, it was about Bigfoot. Here is an abbreviated version of the 16 page adventure.

Rocky had went to hunt elk, and ran smack into some bigfoots. he began to notice twisted off saplings (Bigfoot territory markers), found some scat, hair, and other signs.

As is typical, they hooted, knocked sticks against trees, played mindgames with him in the shadows, and generally made him nervous enough to leave.

He contacted Thom Powell, a researcher at Bigfoot Field Research Organization, and after rehearsing the story and giving Rocky tips, Powell sent Rocky back out to find more evidence. He got more than he bargained for.

“I’m never going back there as long as I live”, he said to Thom. “I saw two with my own eyes…”, and he heard two more. On a trail, they surrounded him, but he stood his ground. This caught the bigfoots off guard, and they were not happy. “That’s when the big one stepped out … I’ve never been so scared …”

It began, this time, by laying out a big pile of apples to lure the bigfoots. They indeed, did so, but instead of approaching the apples like a bear, chimp, or other mammal, one laid on its stomach, and crawled toward the apples in order to leave no footprints. “I couldn’t believe it! I got out my camera …”.

Not a good move. The bigfoot was fixed, and could not run, and Rocky said, “Hemm no! … I didn’t take my eyes off …”. The other bigfoots made a racket, and escalated to hoots and screams. Still Rocky moved closer to get a photo, and never took his eyes away. Undeterred, Rocky moved forward. Then a nine foot bigfoot emerged from the trees. Rocky lowered the camera, looked away from the apples, glanced back, and the apple-crawling-bigfoot was gone.

Now Rocky was in trouble. He backed away, and then ran as fast as he could back to the car, and zipped back to civilization.

Would the bigfoots have killed Rocky? We have no known reports of death by Bigfoot, but why would one take a chance?

We don’t know what to make of the many stories in Powell’s book, or the hundreds of reports over the last 150 years, but we know a great story when we hear it, and this is as great a legend as there is. We also know that new species of primates are discovered all the time so maybe one day we will get the evidence we’ve always wanted.

13 September 2012: Scientists have found a new monkey species in remote central Congo – a slender, medium-sized primate—called a Lesula.

Bigfoot?

From Chewbacca the Wookie, to a chain of service markets (midwest), and even vegetables (Indiana), Bigfoot is a deeply ingrained part of our culture. We are so used to it, we have lost the roots of when it all started.

Recently two books have rocked the Bigfoot world trying to convert the elusive ape-man back into the folklore myth from which it may have sprung. While each starts with slightly different origins, each pins the blame on two men: Ivan Sanderson and Roger Patterson. More specifically everything stems from a documentary movie created by Patterson.

Many individuals and organizations have sprung up in the 21st century convinced an elusive primate lives in a loosely tribal manner in the Pacific Northwest, and are dedicated to finding all traces left of this creature – usually known as Bigfoot. While tantalizing clues and verbal reports abound, the lack of substantial evidence has been devastating to the primate theory. (Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.)

Michael McLeod’s book is thinner and somewhat more palatable, however Greg Long’s work will be briefly summarized. He sat out to determine exactly what Patterson was up to, plotted nearly every minute and every detail of Patterson’s life, and we can oversimplify the conclusion by stating that a combination of showmanship, excellent artistic ability, huge debts, and terminal cancer drove Patterson to fake a short movie clip of Bigfoot . For a brief time, Patterson’s film (circa Autumn 1967) was turned into a frightening documentary filled with high strangeness and adventure. A small group of entrepreneurs made a little profit, and a low budget fictional film The Legend of Boggy Creek (1972) assisted to cement the legend in our culture. Long’s book was published by a press that is loosely affiliated with writers holding a highly skeptical viewpoint.

Long’s book, or at least its core skepticism, has been countered by respected authorities in scientific institutions, and popularizers of the primate theory notably Loren Coleman. To say that the subject is controversial is an understatement. In the fray, numerous hoaxers have muddied the water over the years.

Young McLeod bought into the Bigfoot story, but as he matured and entered a career as a photographer, he began to have doubts. Now a seasoned journalist, he noted the remarkable folklore aspects of the creature. Having been a childhood thrill, the Patterson film held great fascination for McLeod, and spends a great deal of the book discussing it. However, he goes one step beyond Long’s theory. He reviews mythic conventions of wild men back into the early 19th century, and places on the shoulders of Ivan Sanderson much of the creation of the modern Bigfoot story through Sanderson’s popular articles beginning shortly after the climb of Mount Everest had conjured up an Abominable Snowman.

Still, he is sympathetic to these men and never accuses Sanderson or Patterson of criminal activity. He does believe that Sanderson never met a good story he would not popularize and present in its most exciting and adventurous manner. Patterson then built upon Sanderson’s reputation, as well as other great outdoors men and adventurers. Too many individuals are listed to go into any more detail, but McLeod’s book is less investigative journalism than it is an eyeopening discussion of how sociology, psychology, and folklore can come together to create powerful myths from a few bits of myth and a lot of practical jokes played upon the more gullible.

Image from the Patterson film: A Bigfoot creature.

 

Bigfoot may exist, or it may not. However, McLeod’s book at a scant 186 pages presents some strong alternative arguments that cannot easily be shrugged off.

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These skeptical books make strong arguments against Bigfoot.

Anatomy of a Beast: Obsession and Myth on the Trail of Bigfoot, Michael McLeod, University of California Press, 2009

The Making of Bigfoot, Greg Long, Prometheus Books, 2004.

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The book below makes a very powerful scientific argument in favor of Patterson’s film showing it to be a real creature, as well as presenting additional solid evidence gathered over the years.

Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science, Jeff Meldrum, BooBam Ventures, 2006. Meldrum’s credentials as a primate anthropologist are solid.

Loren Coleman has numerous books and resources discussing the validity of the primate theory.