Bigfoot

In the mid-late 1970’s there existed among the maze of alleys in London’s Soho district a bookshop with the grandly-intriguing name Dark They Were and Golden-Eyed. The name came from the title of a short story by the noted science fiction author Ray Bradbury, and signaled the specialist theme of the shop in that genre. But the shop’s range of literature also included such topics as Atlantis and cryptozoology, and it was there that I came across an American-import paperback edition of a book which has gone on to become one of the treasures of my library. The book is simply titled Bigfoot, by the investigative journalists B. Ann Slate and Alan Berry.

Yes I know: there are plenty of books about this particular cryptid on offer, so why should this one be so different? Well, one clear reason is because it is so well-written. The narrative really cracks along, and although the second half of the book slows down somewhat to take in more considered themes, the first half is at times a truly nerve-grinding white-knuckle read. So much so that the first time I read it I was sitting up until around four in the morning, both wanting desperately to know what would happen next and half-dreading to find out.

Left: Author Alan Berry and fellow Bigfoot tracker Warren Johnson seal their Sierra shelter entrance with logs – a precaution used when the creatures began to stalk them. Right: Author Ann Slate with friend. A man in a gorilla suit demonstrates the unlikelihood of a Bigfoot hoax using theatrical costumes.

And that is the clue as to why this is such a standout read: it actually succeeds in being genuinely unnerving. The circumstances of the various related encounters range from a group of unsuspecting campers in the woods who suddenly realize that they are not the only ones sharing their campfire in the darkness to a young Native American couple being driven from their newly-rented cabin in fear to three terrified student friends being chased down the road in their pickup by... well, by what, exactly?

Three students – Brian Goldojarb, Richard Engels and Willy Roermerman (left to right) – and a cardboard reconstruction of the huge figure that pursued them from their campsite, loping along after their pickup truck in Angeles National Forest, southern California, March, 1973.

If you choose to endorse them, then all the explanations are between the covers of this title, including the troubling question as to why no actual mortal remains of the creature have ever been forthcoming, even when we have an almost embarrassing abundance of the casts of its huge alleged footprints (hence the creature’s colloquial name). And if the authors’ theorizing holds good, then don’t expect such remains to come to light anytime soon – and that fortunately includes the best efforts of those irresponsible idiots who have vowed to hunt and kill a specimen as ‘unquestionable proof’.

Author Alan Berry’s own foot-long boot alongside the cast of one of many footprints he found in the snow in 1974 and 1975. 

I think that I can guess what you’re probably thinking: is my belief in such phenomena grounded in any personal experience? Oh, yes. And I’m not talking about “maybe it was just a shadow”, or “maybe it was just the wind rustling the branches of that tree”, or any other vague ‘maybe justs’. I’m talking about the kinds of truly unsettling in-your-face encounters with unknown phenomena which so etch themselves on the memory that, even decades afterwards, they can be replayed in the mind like a movie.

Timbered area on the Yakima Indian Reservation in Washington where mysterious lights have been seen and frightening Bigfoot encounters have occurred.

One thing I know for sure: I can guarantee that someone who scoffs at such things and whose reaction is a mere derisive sneer of disbelief is someone who has never been through such brushes with the unknown. A healthy skepticism can be a good thing, but ridicule directed at those sincere individuals who have encountered such phenomena is surely the result of arrogance disguised as ‘sound common sense’, because, after all, we humans are the ‘superior’ life-form on the planet and we know best. So perhaps such vigorous denial serves only to mask an uncomfortable truth: these phenomena are reminding us that we might not be as in control of things as we would prefer to imagine. So if you are in this scoffing sceptics category then, although you might disagree with me, you have no right to ridicule me, call me a liar, or whatever, just to cover up your own insecurity.

But those of you who indeed have had such experiences, whether with shadow beings, ghosts, cryptids, UFO’s or other such phenomena will, I know, recognize the distinct thumbprint of these ‘real deal’ encounters, and bless you if you do. 

HAWKWOOD

THE PATTERSON-GIMLIN FILM: This YouTube video is an interview in 2020 with Bob Gimlin. The Patterson-Gimlin film, as it has become known, is a compelling minute-long piece of film shot by Roger Patterson on October 20, 1967. He was accompanied at that time by his friend Bob Gimlin, the subject of the above interview. The film was shot in the remote woods around Bluff Creek, Northern California, and shows a biped obliquely walking away from the camera. At one point the creature turns and looks back over its shoulder directly at the two men, at which point it clearly is seen to be a female with pendulous breasts. Its gait is a distinctive loping forward, and it has a cone-like skull, a short neck, and muscle mass on its back and limbs which synchronizes with its gait. It has an estimated height of just over seven feet. The frame-adjusted black-and-white animated gif below gives a reasonably good impression of what was captured. Click to view full-size.

A MAN IN A COSTUME? A third man named Bob Heironimus later came forward and claimed that he was hired by Patterson to wear the ‘suit’, although no costume or other further evidence for a hoax has ever been forthcoming. Heironimus in interviews has not once remarked upon the striking fact that the suit, if it ever existed, was clearly of a female creature. And Bob Gimlin acknowledges that in the fever of the moment it did not register with him that the creature was female; something which only a later examination of the film established for him. But if he was helping a third man into a suit he would have known this all along. This claim of the existence of a suit by Heironimus needs to be weighed against the modest means of both Patterson and Gimlin at the time to both commission and acquire a costume of such convincing quality that we probably could only achieve such visual realism today with CGI (‘computer generated imagery’) and with the involvement of such notable motion capture character acting talents as Andy Serkis. If the Patterson-Gimlin film is what it purports to be, then over half a century later it remains the best evidence yet for the creature’s existence.

BIGFOOT, by B. Ann Slate and Alan Berry. Ace Books, 1976. All photos in this post, including their captions, are taken from this title. To be fair to any readers who might be inspired to acquire their own copy, I had better make it clear right here that as far as I know the book has never been reprinted, and you have to be lucky to pick up an occasional (and pricey) second-hand copy online. In 1976 (the year of its publication) I bought it new for just 60 pence. The online price I saw in 2012 was a copy which was being offered on Amazon for US$74.50 (€70.00). It currently is being offered on that website for US$169.99. 

SASQUATCH/BIGFOOT and the Mystery of the Wild Man: Cryptozoology and Mythology in the Pacific Northwest, by Jean-Paul Debenat, PhD, translated by Paul LeBlond, PhD. Hancock House Publishers Ltd, 2009. I include this title as it has the virtue of placing the Bigfoot phenomenon within both an anthropological, mythological, ethnic and cultural context. As this author makes clear, the Bigfoot phenomenon existed in North America long before any European settlement, and appears both in cultural artefacts and traditional stories, particularly in the Pacific Northwest; still the geographical location of many of today’s sightings. 

THE AVAILABLE FILM REMAINING: From the above title comes the further nugget of information about Roger Patterson’s film: The 16mm color film roll was just 100 feet (30.5m) long. Patterson had already used up 74 feet (22.6m) filming the surrounding scenery. When the creature appeared he had only 26 feet (7.9m) of unexposed film left. The creature is seen on just the last 953 frames before the film runs out: in terms of the film time remaining to Patterson it was a fleeting moment. Which begs the question: why, if the whole setup was an elaborate hoax, did Patterson first waste three quarters of the available footage on scenery and save only the precious remaining quarter of the entire roll to film such an exhaustively-planned subterfuge? It makes no practical sense.

Ley Lines: Patterns of the Ancient Earth

In a recent interview I heard a parapsychologist remark that the existence of ley lines was unverifiable because they could only be determined by dowsing, which method (as he claimed) being paranormal, is itself unverifiable. What the parapsychologist seemed not to be aware of is that ley lines can readily be plotted on any good [1]map, using equipment no more ‘paranormal’ than an ordinary pencil and ruler. In Europe such landscape features as megalithic stone circles, hilltop churches and other such ancient sites can be connected with each other in straight lines, often over considerable distances. Why churches? Because these often were built upon the foundations of pagan monuments which the new faith destroyed.

Ley lines can be found in many locations around the world. In our contemporary era they were first brought to light by Englishman Alfred Watkins, who published a [2]book of his findings in 1925. Watkins discovered that lines on the landscape - sometimes invisible, sometimes forming straight trackways - connected many places whose antiquity suggested that he was dealing with a body of ancient knowledge whose meaning and purpose had since been lost.

Watkins' research established that the lines went far beyond anything that might have been due to chance, and sometimes extended for hundreds of miles between stone circles, Bronze Age burial sites, and churches, hilltop and otherwise. Many Roman roads, renowned for their arrow-straightness, actually follow these tracks, and it is these roads which can provide further clues to the leys’ whereabouts.

But what purpose do these lines serve? Clearly they had significance for those who marked their presence. Ideas as to what this purpose might have been vary from ancient survey lines to connections with underground water sources. There have even been suggestions that UFO's seem to make use of them, following leys in their paths of flight.

The author Tom Graves took the [3]idea to the next level and proposed a similar purpose to the meridian lines used in the curative practice of acupuncture. This theory suggested that the stone megaliths buried upright in the earth functioned as 'needles' in the same way that acupuncture needles are said to stimulate the flow of the body's subtle energy, with the ley lines marking out the paths of energy between them. In this way, the energy of the Earth itself could be refreshed and revitalized.

While preparing this post, the inevitable question for me was: sitting at my computer here in Holland, could I actually locate and plot a ley line of my own? Could I, just by using available data from the Internet, discover a ley line at any given location in the world? I opted for several locations which I knew by reputation to be locations of alleged paranormal activity, all of them within the two neighboring states of Indiana and Ohio. Evansville in southern Indiana is home to the Willard Library, with its famed [4]ghostly Grey Lady and other assorted entities. Across the State line in Ohio, Oxford is known for the [5]Oxford Light – a disembodied luminous entity which pursues terrified drivers along a specific stretch of road at night. Nearby Wright Patterson Air Force Base just outside Dayton is notorious for its supernatural occurrences and mysterious manifestations.

Three points on a map with clear paranormal connections. But do they make a ruler-straight line? Staggeringly, they do! A line drawn from Evansville to Dayton (a distance on the ground of over two hundred miles) passes directly through the Oxford location (my map, below). And when the line is extended it passes southeast of Cleveland. Why is this significant? Because this area is a known ‘hot spot’ for various unexplained phenomena up to and including [6]UFO sightings.

Could I correlate more data? From independent sources I collected data for UFO sightings and similar aerial phenomena, and also for the distribution of Native American mounds and related sites – the New World equivalent of European megalithic monuments. Lastly, from the data base of the [7]Bigfoot Field Researchers’ Organization I added all the reported sightings of that particular cryptid across both states. Remember: all of these sets of data were gleaned from sources independent of each other. I then converted each data set to a separate layer and superimposed them upon my map. Significantly, all data sets clustered at the hot spot southeast of Cleveland – the only place on the map where this happened. And surprisingly enough, Bigfoot seems to favour the area immediately north and east of Evansville – although over the border in Ohio the hairy horror appears to have made the whole state his own.

Of course I realize that other locations of significance which involve haunt and other alleged paranormal phenomena might cluster along this line. I’m just dealing with the material that is known to me. And on the basis of such material the evidence for an Indiana-Ohio ley line is persuasive, and does tend to suggest that such phenomena seem to be ‘aware’ of a ley line’s presence, and are attracted to it, perhaps as some form of energy source which they utilise to materialise in our reality. But which reality do they call home?

Hawkwood

Notes:

[1] In Britain, the hugely-detailed Ordnance Survey maps are excellent for this purpose.

[2] Alfred Watkins: The Old Straight Track.

[3] Tom Graves: Needles of Stone.

[4] Webcams of the library’s interior are installed and can be viewed at: 
http://www.willardghost.com/index.php?content=home 
http://web.courierpress.com/libraryghost/broadcast.html

Some years ago I was involved with a group that kept an eye on these cams. Some of the stuff that the cams captured was truly bizarre, and these phenomena – and on-the-spot investigations by specific groups – have led some investigators to speculate that the Willard Library is not so much ‘haunted’ as it is a portal for other realities. Our group witnessed various anomalies, including a pair of bizarre disembodied legs wearing white sneakers that walked around often enough to be captured on camera various times, and one inexplicable something about the size of a child that used to crawl over the floor which we simply called the GCT (right) - the Grey Crawling Thing! And most - but certainly not all - of this was at night, after the library had closed its doors to visitors.

[5] There are a number of videos on YouTube uploaded by those who have experienced the Oxford Light phenomenon. Heck, you know the search terms.

[6] UFO: unidentified flying object. It’s a poor term, because it assumes an act of flying for something that might be doing something entirely different. I prefer the term ‘unidentified aerial phenomenon’, which comfortably includes such mysterious and poorly-understood (but nevertheless natural) phenomena as ball lightning. My own vivid experience in a remote region of Australia I would consider to belong to this category.

[7] The BFRO dedicatedly maintains a comprehensive data base of sightings and other reports (tracks, vocalizations, etc.) of the Bigfoot phenomenon in all U.S. states. My own stance on Bigfoot has for years unwaveringly categorized the phenomenon as at least partially, if not wholly, paranormal. http://www.bfro.net/  

Sources:

John Michell’s The New View Over Atlantis has further information about ley lines in general, as of course does the Tom Graves title mentioned above. B. Ann Slate and Alan Berry’s Bigfoot is still for me the best book ever on the cryptid, and definitely recommended for those stalwarts who remain convinced either that it (A) doesn’t exist, or (B) is simply an unknown flesh-and-blood creature.

Top picture: I stood in the middle of a bleak and freezing January field in Yorkshire, northern England, to get this shot. The winter sun had climbed as high as it was going to get, and the way in which it reflected off the ice on the frozen track was a gift. The picture of the Calanais Standing Stones, Isle Of Lewis, is adapted from macdonnellofleinster.org.

Lemuria: The Land Before Atlantis

Just over one hundred years ago, the visionary William Scott-Elliott drew a map of the world. But the unfamiliar continents on Scott-Elliott's map looked very different from those found on our own maps. What he had drawn were the mystic coastlines of Lemuria. But what was Lemuria, and where had the idea come from? 

Earlier in the 19th century society was abuzz with the then-revelutionary ideas of Charles Darwin, and when it was noted that Madagascan lemurs were as widespread as Africa and India, a reason had to be found for how they crossed the oceans. Nowadays we know that the great drift of the continents can provide much of the explanation, but with no other evidence available, the 19th century provided its own answer: there must have been a huge landmass between the oceans which later sank beneath the waves. An English zoologist suggested a name for this ill-fated land: Lemuria, after the lemurs.

But what had begun as a scientifically motivated idea drifted into other very different waters. The Russian occultist Madame Blavatsky took up the idea of the lost land, and her writings (most of which were claimed to have been written in trance) tell of seven mysterious 'root races' which existed before humans as we know them today. Not all of these root races were material beings, and the third were the Lemurians, whom she described as 'giant, ape-like beings', who had no written language, but who could communicate telepathically. After the destruction of Lemuria it was the turn of Atlantis, and as the fourth root race was the first to have material bodies, the Lemurians presumably were somewhere between the first two (named the astral and etheric) and the material Atlanteans, so presumably were able to slip between both the ethereal and the material worlds.

After Madame Blavatsky, William Scott-Elliott stepped onto the stage to carry the idea forward, but the story of Lemuria had yet another twist. In 1932 a Los Angeles reporter visiting the Mount Shasta region in northern California saw unexplained lights swirling around the mountain (my reconstruction above). A local told him that these strange lights were 'Lemurians holding ceremonials', and so the whole aura of Mount Shasta being the last refuge for these semi-visible beings took hold, and was further enhanced by fictional works that cast the location and its mysterious inhabitants as a refuge for a priestly community charged with guarding ancient wisdom.

Hawkwood

POSTSCRIPT: When I began writing this post, I had no idea that it might contain a possible connection with the Bigfoot phenomenon. But one thing is clear: at the time that she was writing (or being 'dictated' to?), Blavatsky could have had no knowledge of the later Bigfoot reports. A mysterious race of 'giant, ape-like beings', able to communicate telepathically and perhaps dematerialise at will? Several witnesses report inexplicable feelings that a sighted Bigfoot creature had gotten 'into their mind'. One witness, a veteran of several encounters with a specific individual, even described the sensation as a 'mind grab' - as unpleasant as it was unwelcome. And the idea that Bigfoot can slip in and out of our material world is also supported by the experiences of several witnesses. More questions than answers - but maybe on my first image for this post, instead of painting a mystic 'Mount Shasta' guardian being, it would have been more appropriate - and closer to Blavatsky's own description - had I shown Bigfoot! And curiously enough, northern California is replete with reports of the Bigfoot phenomenon.

Sources:

Jennifer Westwood: 'Lemuria: The Elusive Continent', in The Atlas of Mysterious Places

B. Ann Slate and Alan Berry: 'Bigfoot'. Whether you give credence to the phenomenon or not, Slate and Berry's book, as unputdownable as any thriller and at times genuinely chilling, makes for compelling reading. I first read it back in the '70's, and am gratified to learn from recent reviews that it is now regarded as a classic in its field. Alan Berry was the first researcher to record purported Bigfoot vocalizations. When on his website I listened to one of them with my headphones innocently turned to max volume, I so shocked that I involuntarily tore off my headset. Whatever made those sounds, it certainly wasn't mere human mimicry. And to forestall the obvious next question: no, it sure wasn't a bear either! An original edition is now worth around $70.oo, but reprints should still be available.