Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science 
asked by blueoasis on November 11, 2006 4:56 PM
In this landmark work on a subject too often dismissed as paranormal or disreputable, Jeffrey Meldrum gives us the first book on sasquatch to be written by a scientist with impeccable academic credentials, an objective look at the facts in a field mined with hoaxes and sensationalism. Meldrum reports on the work of a team of experts from a wide variety of fields who were assembled to examine the evidence for a large, yet undiscovered, North American primate. He reviews the long history of this mystery--which long predates the "bigfoot" flap of the late fifties--and explains all the scientific pros and cons in a clear and accessible style, amplified by over 150 illustrations. Anyone who has pondered the mysteries of human evolution will be fascinated and eager to join Dr. Meldrum in drawing their own conclusion.
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I first learned about "Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science" on November 10 of this year, when I was sitting in my car listening to NPR's "Talk of the Nation/Science Friday". They had a guy on named Jeff Meldrum, who was talking about Sasquatch sightings. He sounded very knowledgeable and intelligent -- oh, and he had a new book out. Intrigued, I sought it out at the local Borders store. It was, I think, a very good sign that it was in the "Science/Biology" section, rather than the "Paranormal" section sandwiched in between "Crop Circles" and "UFOs".
Now, most of us have probably heard tales of Sasquatch, or Bigfoot, from childhood onward. It's part of American folklore. I think subconsciously I'd always kind of associated Bigfoot sightings with ridiculously gullible people who might also claim to have seen Elvis at the local shopping mall. Steven Spielberg poked fun at this in one scene of his classic film "Close Encounters of the Third Kind".
But a funny thing happened as I dug into the book, a nice, sturdy hardcover tome suitable for reading while propped up in bed. I learned that a wide variety of people have seen signs of something big and mysterious in the woods of North America. These are experienced backwoodsmen, hunters, trackers, naturalists and primatologists. Sightings by settlers go back to the mid 1800's. Even Jane Goodall, a world-renowned export on apes, was persuaded by the evidence she'd examined. It would seem that, whatever Sasquatch may turn out to be, it's no joke.
Without repeating the entire book, I will instead list some of the big questions and observations that are made or raised therein.
o The chapter on Cryptozoology discusses various "unknown" creatures which may exist around the world. One of these is the yeti, or "abominable snowman", of the Himalayas. How similar are its footprints to those of Sasquatch?
o One useful technique for discovering unknown mammal species in remote places is to consult with indigenous peoples. They, after all, are in the best position to know where to look. So, what does Native American legend and lore, and artwork, have to say about Sasquatch?
o There have been some pretty infamous hoaxes concerning Bigfoot, particularly the ones perpetrated by Ray Wallace and his family members. Does this mean that all Sasquatch sightings are hoaxes? How would it be possible to tell real ones from fake?
o There are tantalizing fossil remains of an ancient giant ape called Gigantopithecus. Could Sasquatch turn out to be one of these? Just how hard is it for fossils to be created in places like Oregon and Washington State? How commonplace are fossils for known primate species, such as chimpanzees and gorillas?
o Casts of Sasquatch footprints, including known forgeries, are quite abundant. What does detailed analysis of the presumed "real" ones have to say about the kind of creature which made them. How similar are they to, say, bear paw prints?
o What about dermatoglyphics, the fingerprint-like ridge patterns found in some exceptional footprint casts? What do experts have to say about these?
o Wildlife photography turns out to be much more challenging than many of us think. A lot of the pictures we see in calendars and the like are actually posed, using creatures in captivity. Chimpanzees and wolverines both are notoriously difficult to film in the wild. Plus, commercial-grade videotape doesn't make for the best pictures, especially after they've been copied a few times.
o By far the most famous Bigfoot video was one taken on 16mm film in northern California in 1967, by Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin. It has long been dismissed by experts as a fake. But can modern image enhancement techniques yield useful information? Is some of the behavior evinced by the creature in the film the kind of thing people in the 1960s would have known about? Or is it perhaps something primatologists have learned about only in the past couple of decades?
o Modern computerized motion-capture techniques, like those used in movie special effects, have been used to recreate the kind of skeletal-muscular structure which would be needed to produce some well-documented sets of Sasquatch tracks. What does this evidence show?
o The holy grail of discovering a new species, other than capturing an actual live specimen, would be sequencing its DNA, perhaps from hair samples. What have DNA tests and hair sample comparisons taught experts?
o One challenge with describing unknown species: it is very easy to say that hair does NOT come from, say, moose, elk, bear or wildcats. But it is much harder to say what it IS. What can be learned by comparing the various "unknown" hair samples? Do they consistently look like they could come from a single unknown species?
o There is a principle, called Bergman's rule, which notes that related animal species tend to get larger the closer to the poles they get and the farther from the tropics. One example is bears, where the smallest are a kind found in South America, while the biggest are polar bears. Page 94 shows a graph of the sizes of Sasquatch footprints ranging from northern California to northern Saskatchewan. Is the graph consistent with Bergman's rule?
The chapters come with lots of useful diagrams and photos, including 16 pages of color photos right after page 96. The exceptionally well-written pages are filled with a wealth of information about wildlife that I never knew before. It was worth reading for that alone. Some of it can get pretty technical, to the point that I just had to skim it. Finally, there is an extensive index and bibliography in back, for those who want to do further research.
Jeff Meldum's conclusions purposefully take the middle ground between excessive skepticism on one hand and excessive credulity on the other. Clearly, scientists can be satisfied that Sasquatch really exists only if they can find something truly tangible -- a skeleton, for instance.
Capturing Sasquatch would be a major coup. However, based on various eyewitness accounts of close encounters, including by the author himself, this is likely to be a very large, dangerous creature. Also, people who claim to have literally had one in their gun sights have reported being extremely reluctant to squeeze the trigger. Native American tradition views Sasquatch as sacred, and at least one county in the U.S. actually has laws protecting them.
One thing is for sure: scientists really ought to keep looking into the matter. The impression I get is that the sightings aren't going to go away any time soon.
Should you read this book? I would encourage it. If nothing else, it is a sober, painstaking scientific analysis of available evidence by a large number of experts, in multiple disciplines. This is what science should be. It is very illuminating even if the subject should turn out to be completely bogus in the end.
Final note: There is also, it appears, a companion DVD. It looks like you have to go to their web site to order it, but I'm tempted.
Now, most of us have probably heard tales of Sasquatch, or Bigfoot, from childhood onward. It's part of American folklore. I think subconsciously I'd always kind of associated Bigfoot sightings with ridiculously gullible people who might also claim to have seen Elvis at the local shopping mall. Steven Spielberg poked fun at this in one scene of his classic film "Close Encounters of the Third Kind".
But a funny thing happened as I dug into the book, a nice, sturdy hardcover tome suitable for reading while propped up in bed. I learned that a wide variety of people have seen signs of something big and mysterious in the woods of North America. These are experienced backwoodsmen, hunters, trackers, naturalists and primatologists. Sightings by settlers go back to the mid 1800's. Even Jane Goodall, a world-renowned export on apes, was persuaded by the evidence she'd examined. It would seem that, whatever Sasquatch may turn out to be, it's no joke.
Without repeating the entire book, I will instead list some of the big questions and observations that are made or raised therein.
o The chapter on Cryptozoology discusses various "unknown" creatures which may exist around the world. One of these is the yeti, or "abominable snowman", of the Himalayas. How similar are its footprints to those of Sasquatch?
o One useful technique for discovering unknown mammal species in remote places is to consult with indigenous peoples. They, after all, are in the best position to know where to look. So, what does Native American legend and lore, and artwork, have to say about Sasquatch?
o There have been some pretty infamous hoaxes concerning Bigfoot, particularly the ones perpetrated by Ray Wallace and his family members. Does this mean that all Sasquatch sightings are hoaxes? How would it be possible to tell real ones from fake?
o There are tantalizing fossil remains of an ancient giant ape called Gigantopithecus. Could Sasquatch turn out to be one of these? Just how hard is it for fossils to be created in places like Oregon and Washington State? How commonplace are fossils for known primate species, such as chimpanzees and gorillas?
o Casts of Sasquatch footprints, including known forgeries, are quite abundant. What does detailed analysis of the presumed "real" ones have to say about the kind of creature which made them. How similar are they to, say, bear paw prints?
o What about dermatoglyphics, the fingerprint-like ridge patterns found in some exceptional footprint casts? What do experts have to say about these?
o Wildlife photography turns out to be much more challenging than many of us think. A lot of the pictures we see in calendars and the like are actually posed, using creatures in captivity. Chimpanzees and wolverines both are notoriously difficult to film in the wild. Plus, commercial-grade videotape doesn't make for the best pictures, especially after they've been copied a few times.
o By far the most famous Bigfoot video was one taken on 16mm film in northern California in 1967, by Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin. It has long been dismissed by experts as a fake. But can modern image enhancement techniques yield useful information? Is some of the behavior evinced by the creature in the film the kind of thing people in the 1960s would have known about? Or is it perhaps something primatologists have learned about only in the past couple of decades?
o Modern computerized motion-capture techniques, like those used in movie special effects, have been used to recreate the kind of skeletal-muscular structure which would be needed to produce some well-documented sets of Sasquatch tracks. What does this evidence show?
o The holy grail of discovering a new species, other than capturing an actual live specimen, would be sequencing its DNA, perhaps from hair samples. What have DNA tests and hair sample comparisons taught experts?
o One challenge with describing unknown species: it is very easy to say that hair does NOT come from, say, moose, elk, bear or wildcats. But it is much harder to say what it IS. What can be learned by comparing the various "unknown" hair samples? Do they consistently look like they could come from a single unknown species?
o There is a principle, called Bergman's rule, which notes that related animal species tend to get larger the closer to the poles they get and the farther from the tropics. One example is bears, where the smallest are a kind found in South America, while the biggest are polar bears. Page 94 shows a graph of the sizes of Sasquatch footprints ranging from northern California to northern Saskatchewan. Is the graph consistent with Bergman's rule?
The chapters come with lots of useful diagrams and photos, including 16 pages of color photos right after page 96. The exceptionally well-written pages are filled with a wealth of information about wildlife that I never knew before. It was worth reading for that alone. Some of it can get pretty technical, to the point that I just had to skim it. Finally, there is an extensive index and bibliography in back, for those who want to do further research.
Jeff Meldum's conclusions purposefully take the middle ground between excessive skepticism on one hand and excessive credulity on the other. Clearly, scientists can be satisfied that Sasquatch really exists only if they can find something truly tangible -- a skeleton, for instance.
Capturing Sasquatch would be a major coup. However, based on various eyewitness accounts of close encounters, including by the author himself, this is likely to be a very large, dangerous creature. Also, people who claim to have literally had one in their gun sights have reported being extremely reluctant to squeeze the trigger. Native American tradition views Sasquatch as sacred, and at least one county in the U.S. actually has laws protecting them.
One thing is for sure: scientists really ought to keep looking into the matter. The impression I get is that the sightings aren't going to go away any time soon.
Should you read this book? I would encourage it. If nothing else, it is a sober, painstaking scientific analysis of available evidence by a large number of experts, in multiple disciplines. This is what science should be. It is very illuminating even if the subject should turn out to be completely bogus in the end.
Final note: There is also, it appears, a companion DVD. It looks like you have to go to their web site to order it, but I'm tempted.
reviewed by costa on November 15, 2006 7:46 AM
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Over the past couple of years, I've read quite a few books on Sasquatch. Of the newer books, "Raincoast Sasquatch" by J.R. Alley was easily the best...until now. I really don't know anything about Alley and I can't say anything about his motivations, but as I read the many other recent books I kept getting this feeling that "Bigfoot is Big business" to quote Jerry Coleman. Indeed it seems that some current "researchers" compile a list of sightings and then proceed to make incredible postulations about all aspects pertinent to Sasquatch and unfortunatley, some even make sweeping generalizations about known animal behavior which are in fact completely untrue. Up until now, there appeared to be a lack of true scientific investigation on behalf of the research community and in many of the recent books there was a general request from these guys for academia to investigate the Sasquatch phenomenon. Well, thanks to Jeff and the other researchers involved, we have a good scientific book to read and enjoy. This book is by far the best of the rest. It's not chock full of sightings, it's not hinging all bets on "Patty", and it's not pursuing the UFO-Bigfoot theory. Thank God! What you do get is good material from footprint examinations by a specialist in bipedal biomechanics, dermatoglyphics, vocalization analysis, some "Patty" discussion, and some statistical analysis. The latter which I find a little problematic.
I think Fahrenbach has developed a nice, simple methodology for trying to determine some metrics for Sasquatch feet. I don't agree that his stats will necessarily remove or otherwise separate hoaxes from real feet based upon dimensions. If we consider that the ultimate purpose of a hoax is to have fun and "pull the wool over someone's face", then wouldn't we, as a hoaxer, intend to create a fake foot which will conform to known dimensions? It seems unlikely that anyone would fake a footprint 30 inches long and 5 inches wide because who would believe it? Thus, it seems more likely that a hoaxer would make 15 or 16 inch feet that are sufficiently wide as to agree with other prints. Therefore, I think Fahrenbach's data would be more convincing if he chose to include data from measurements made on fake feet which supposedly are in collections. Then, we would get a true comparison of where these fake feet lie in comparison to assumed real feet. Furthermore, I think consultation of a local soils specialist may help in constraining the predicted weight of the beast because they could determine some range for the lithostatic, effective, and hydrostatic forces necessary to compress the soil. This may only be applicable to fresh prints. Other than those minor concerns, I think this is an excellent book and a way forward for the science. Hopefully, Jeff has started an enduring investigation into the world of Sasquatch.
I think Fahrenbach has developed a nice, simple methodology for trying to determine some metrics for Sasquatch feet. I don't agree that his stats will necessarily remove or otherwise separate hoaxes from real feet based upon dimensions. If we consider that the ultimate purpose of a hoax is to have fun and "pull the wool over someone's face", then wouldn't we, as a hoaxer, intend to create a fake foot which will conform to known dimensions? It seems unlikely that anyone would fake a footprint 30 inches long and 5 inches wide because who would believe it? Thus, it seems more likely that a hoaxer would make 15 or 16 inch feet that are sufficiently wide as to agree with other prints. Therefore, I think Fahrenbach's data would be more convincing if he chose to include data from measurements made on fake feet which supposedly are in collections. Then, we would get a true comparison of where these fake feet lie in comparison to assumed real feet. Furthermore, I think consultation of a local soils specialist may help in constraining the predicted weight of the beast because they could determine some range for the lithostatic, effective, and hydrostatic forces necessary to compress the soil. This may only be applicable to fresh prints. Other than those minor concerns, I think this is an excellent book and a way forward for the science. Hopefully, Jeff has started an enduring investigation into the world of Sasquatch.
reviewed by jazzman on November 19, 2006 10:50 PM
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To list everything that is good about this book would require a recitation of virtually everything in it. This is a great book for anyone curious about, or skeptical of, the sasquatch/bigfoot mystery. It provides a clear, rational, science-based examination of the evidence that stands head and shoulders above many of the other books on the subject, and Jeff Meldrum avoids the proselytizing--both pro and con--that characterizes the work of too many other authors in this field. While it is a companion piece to the DVD of the same name, it goes far deeper in its examination of the mystery than time allowed in the show. Bravo!
reviewed by freedrink on November 25, 2006 8:45 AM