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Bigfoot: The Legend of the Abominable Snowman

This strange creature has been haunting people's nightmares for a long time.

By Rocio BecerraPublished 2 years ago 11 min read
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Bigfoot: The Legend of the Abominable Snowman
Photo by Marcus Ganahl on Unsplash

Who is Bigfoot?

Did Bigfoot exist?

Where does the myth come about?

For some time now, different cultures in places as varied as America, the Indian Ocean, and Asia have been talking about the existence of a strange animal belonging to the hominid family, which roams freely in some high-altitude forests.

He is more than two meters tall, weighs more than 100 kilos, and has a small head and big feet, thanks to which he gets his name.

Sometimes, his footprints appear in the sand or snow, showing that he is still hiding.

Such is the Bigfoot, Sasquatch, or even sometimes Yeti or Abominable Snowman, the legendary creature with the appearance of a primate.

Find out who he is and how his legend got forged.

Who is Bigfoot?

Around the 1920s, many people, especially those who watched over mountainous areas and high forests, were alerted to the appearance of mysterious and gigantic footprints.

All of them are in the snow.

The footprints were about fifty centimeters long.

And some of them had brown or black hair attached to the snow, but with some reddish touches.

The story began to circulate, and soon after came the images, a recording made during the sixties (in 1967) on celluloid film, where you can see a kind of giant monkey, almost two meters tall and with dark hair.

These images fueled the legend of the Bigfoot, as it was beginning to know in North America, where this 'specimen' was sighted.

The Yeti's first cousin

However, it is not the first being of these characteristics sighted in the mountain peaks.

In the Himalayas, they also claimed to see, much earlier, a similar being, but with lighter hair, which they knew as Yeti.

Many scientists were interested in the footprints discovered and the testimonies of those who claimed to see an upright animal, which walked on two legs, half ape, half bear, which communicated with grunts and squeaks and used to come out at night.

These characteristics are very similar to Bigfoot, only on a different continent.

That is why they are practically considered first cousins.

Scientists thought that perhaps Yeti and Bigfoot could be descendants of a hominid that existed thousands of years ago in the Asian continent, the Gigantopithecus.

It could have reached the American continent through the Bering Strait.

The characteristics of Bigfoot

No bones or fossils of this animal have ever got found.

For this reason, many scientists consider this story to be a mere legend.

However, the testimonies of cops and security of some natural sites in North America made even the FBI investigate the existence or not.

They were unable to find anything.

The photographs captured so far have been manipulated using new technologies.

According to all the investigations carried out so far, Bigfoot must be (if it exists) a descendant of the most ancestral apes.

It would live hidden in caves inaccessible to man and come out at night.

It would be very tall (between 1.86 and more than 2 meters) and have enormous and characteristic feet with five toes each.

Their hair would be reddish-brown, and they would live in the community.

The fact that no corpse appears got explained by perhaps they could bury or hide the dead.

The sounds it emits got described as similar to high-pitched squeaks or whistles or low growls, just like a bear and a gorilla, so some cryptozoologists argue that it could be a hybrid species.

That species perhaps came to America through the Bering Strait during the last glaciation, as did the ancestors of the Native American peoples and various species of animals that could mate at that time and generate their existence.

It got also believed to be related to the mythical creature called wendigo.

Sightings

Most Bigfoot sightings are nocturnal, which suggests Bigfoot is a nocturnal creature.

Some witnesses mention something Pyle refers to as a "reddish eye glow," similar to the glow in the eyes of some nocturnal animals.

Usually, solitary individuals got sighted, rarely in pairs or family groups, and sightings of males are more common than females.

However, there have been sightings in broad daylight, such as the 1974 sighting in southern Florida in the Big Cypress National Preserve marsh area, recorded in full sunlight by Dave Shealy.

One of the most controversial and criticized shreds of evidence for the alleged use of photoshop and artificial is the video captures made by Todd Standing in Sylvania Valley, an area located in British Columbia, in 2007.

The images that got observed showed two large hominids with chromatic and physiognomic divergences, which to the scientific eye show a non-existent naturalness,

Because both individuals, during the minutes of filming, do not show the visual stimuli of the environment, except for the one shown in the Video five tape, which exhibits a rather mechanical blinking.

The muscular action is small, generally unconscious, and very fast, performed in seconds.

In the other possible Sasquatch, found in Video four, the anatomy of the eyes is uniform, and the absence of the lacrimal caruncle got observed.

Even so, the fact that they are authentic specimens cannot rule out, but at the same time, the doubt remains open until more evidence can refute or verify the event.

Throughout other tapes recorded by Todd, acoustic emissions produced by a supposed group of sasquatches can hear.

Also, along with Jeffrey Meldrum, the researcher found tracks that suggest current activity and the production of teepee-shaped territory markers, quite sophisticated actions that show a complex mind.

Alleged sightings of similar creatures have occurred in various regions of North America (Florida, Arkansas, Louisiana, or North Carolina), where they go by different names: skunk ape, stink ape, Florida Bigfoot, the swamp ape, Myakka ape, swamp cabbage man.

These are often seen in swampy areas and have a pungent and unpleasant odor.

Traces and opinions

No remains of any specimens, carcasses, bones, skin, fur, hair, droppings or other physical traces have been identified as being from another known animal.

The only traces available are:

  • Footprints (several have turned out to be false).
  • A few blurred and distant photographs.
  • Recordings of questionable authenticity.
  • The observations of witnesses.

However, reliable witnesses who have seen them include police officers or sheriffs in charge of surveillance in various regions and towns in the U.S.

As the probable physical evidence is one of the most famous videos of the creature, taken in 1967 with celluloid film (impossible to alter with digital techniques that did not even exist then)

It got examined by numerous specialists over the decades without anyone proving that it is a fake.

Those who defend their existence allege that they inhabit remote areas, flee from humans, bury or hide their dead, and other similar opinions.

Detractors claim that, with thousands of sightings, the population should be large enough for no physical trace to have been found and that there are not even fossils of any species that could have generated this being.

However, some paleontologists claim that there was a species, the Gigantopithecus.

That could have been the ancestor of this type of creature.

Formal Studies

Before the Bigfoot sighting reports in Humboldt County in 1958 and a few years later, active research got limited to amateurs who took various points of view and produced papers ranging from the sensible to the absurd.

In recent years, however, scientists have taken matters into their own hands and contributed to research.

Although there is still no evidence to ensure its existence, institutions such as The Royal Society have taken the matter seriously and published the (negative) results of two samples sent to their laboratories.

In an article published in its journal, the Royal Society, the oldest scientific society in the United Kingdom, stated:

"Modern science has largely avoided this field, and advocates often complain that they have been "rejected by science." This conflicts with the basic principle that science does not reject or accept anything without examining the evidence," admitting that "numerous reports including eyewitness and footprint evidence point to the existence of huge unidentified primates in many regions of the world."

And although, so far, the results of the samples analyzed by them have been negative, they do not rule out continuing with future analyses of this type.

Tourism

There are annual conventions related to Bigfoot.

This creature plays a significant role in tourism in the northwestern United States;

For example, there is a festival called Bigfoot Daze or Sasquatch Days (a play on words because daze [deiz] is pronounced almost the same as days [deis]) in Harrison Hot Springs, British Columbia.

According to Napier:

"Bigfoot has become big business in parts of North America.

According to some researchers:

They feel that it cannot be regarded as a mere natural phenomenon that can study with the natural sciences' techniques; its influence is part of folklore."

Bigfoot in popular culture

Some examples in popular culture products:

Comic

  • Tintin in Tibet, an album of Tintin, a character created by the Belgian cartoonist Hergé,

The young journalist meets the monster in the Tibetan mountain range while looking for his friend Tchang.

Cinema

  • The Snow Creature (1954), a film directed by W. Lee Wilder
  • Ju Jin Yuki Otoko, or Half-Human, or Beast Man Snow Man (1955), film directed by Ishiro Honda
  • Man-Beast (1956), a film directed by Jerry Warren
  • The Abominable Snowman (1957), film directed by Val Guest)
  • The Abominable Snow Rabbit (1961), an animated short directed by Chuck Jones and Maurice Noble
  • Ostroznie, Yeti! (1961), film directed by Andrzej Czekalski
  • The monster of the Volcanoes series:

1. El monstruo de los volcanes (1963), film directed by Jaime Salvador

2. El terrible gigante de las nieves (1963), film directed by Jaime Salvador

  • The Zoo Robbery (1973) is a film directed by John Black and Matt McCarthy.
  • A shriek of the Mutilated (1974), a film directed by Michael Findlay
  • Yeti, il gigante del 20 secolo (1977), a film directed by Gianfranco Parolini
  • Ajooba Kudrat Ka (1991), a film directed by Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay
  • To Catch a Yeti (1995), a telefilm directed by Bob Keen.
  • Yeti: A Love Story (2006), film directed by Adam Deyoe and Eric Gosselin
  • Yeti: Curse of the Snow Demon (2008), telefilm directed by Paul Ziller
  • In the 2008 film The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, Lin, the daughter of the sorceress Zi-Yuan, has a bond of friendship with the Yetis.

These creatures help the protagonists against the Emperor's forces during their stay in the Himalayas.

  • Pryachsya (2011), a film directed by Johnny O'Reilly.
  • Abominable Christmas (2012), an animated telefilm, was directed by Chad Van De Keere.
  • Yoko (2012), film was directed by Franziska Buch.
  • Deadly Descent: Abominable Snowman (2013), telefilm directed by Marko Mäkilaakso
  • Frostbite (2013), a film directed by Bridget Machete
  • Russian Yeti: The Killer Lives (2014), telefilm directed by Leon Rawlski
  • Unbeaten Path (2016), a short film directed by John Holowach
  • Smallfoot (2018), an animated film directed by Karey Kirkpatrick and Jason Reisig, where a tribe of yetis lives isolated high in the mountains; some legends indicate the existence of a race of smallfoot, so Migo, the main character, leaves his home to look for proof of their existence.
  • The Yeti Took my Father's Wellington (2018) is a short film directed by Steve Woodier.
  • Abominable (2019) is an animated film directed by Jill Culton and Todd Wilderman.
  • Missing Link (2019), an animated film, was directed by Chris Butler.
  • Abominable (2020), the film was directed by Jamaal Burden.

Literature

  • Esaú, the great novel about the Yeti, was written by Philip Kerr.

Videogames

  • In the Metal Slug video game series, specifically Metal Slug 3, there is a sublevel consisting of an ice and snow cave infested with Yetis.
  • In SkiFree, a classic computer video game for Microsoft Windows, in the three-game modes, when going through 2000 meters, Yetis appear and try to eat the player and are extremely difficult to dodge.
  • Yetis are creatures that appear recurrently as enemies in some installments of the Final Fantasy saga as FF VI.
  • The Yeti is also a popular Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

For years fans speculated and spread rumors on the internet about the existence of this creature in the game, which supposedly inhabits the forests or Mount Chilliad, the highest mountain on the map.

However, the only way to get the monster inside the game is by installing mods on the pc version, such as the popular Misterix Mod.

  • In the game Red Dead Redemption, in the DLC Undead Nightmare appear 5 Bigfoot,

When killing them, with the last of them, you will have a conversation being the last of them (since you hunt them), he asks to end their suffering.

  • In Plants vs. Zombies, a zombie called "Zombie Yeti" can appear at night or at foggy levels.
  • In the Warcraft universe, there are enormous and voracious humanoid beasts called Wendigos, which inhabit the frozen continent of Northrend and are similar to the abominable snowman.
  • In the Devias city of Mu Online, there are two types of Yeti: the normal Yeti and its stronger version Yeti Elite.
  • The first-person shooter Battlefield 4 has easter eggs related to the Yeti myth, from footprints in some snowy terrains to bellows heard in the distance.
  • The open-world game Far Cry 4 has a DLC called Valley of the Yetis.
  • In Fortnite Season 7, a new icy area where the Yeti's cave hid got added to the map.

The said place housed many helpful resources such as supplies, items, and an Alatormenta plane.

An epic skin called 'Trog' got released. But, unfortunately, the said character is a Yeti.

  • The Darkstalkers fighting saga, based on horror characters from significant literature and folklore, has among its playable characters Sasquatch, although it is the name given to the North American Bigfoot,

By its shape and set, it corresponds to the Yeti.

Sources:

https://www.elconfidencial.com

https://es.wikipedia.org

https://www.lasexta.com

https://lanoticia.com

https://tucuentofavorito.com

https://www.esquire.com

Historical
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About the Creator

Rocio Becerra

I live in a house next to a river in the middle of the forest. I like horror stories whose main objective is to entertain, and my favorite writer is Stephen King. However, my passion is writing crime fiction.

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