Are Bigfoot and Other Such Creatures Real?

Even if you are not ultimately a believer, it’s fun to imagine that there are creatures out there that have eluded humans for centuries. Although their names vary by region, Bigfoot seems to get around.

Bigfoot

Bigfoot or Sasquatch has been sighted in the Pacific Northwest since the late 1800s. It has been described as very tall – 7 or 8 feet – and very hairy. Bigfoot seems to avoid cameras although a few poorly focused photographs do exist along with the occasional giant footprint. Some Indian nations believe that Bigfoot was a harbinger of bad times to come if changes in society were not made. The Washington state area beast best fits the classic Bigfoot ideal found in cryptozoology short stories and like the movie Bigfoot made in 1970.

Honey Island Swamp Monster

In the 1960s, two friends spotted a menacing creature with webbed feet near an abandoned-looking cabin in the middle of the Honey Island Swamp, Louisiana. The friends made eye-contact before the foul-smelling hairy behemoth ran away. Ten years later, they went back to the cabin and found evidence that someone or something had been living there: footprints and large boars that had been killed violently. Legend has it that this “Louisiana Wookie” is the product of an escaped circus chimpanzee and an alligator.

Mogollon Monster

Unlike the yellow-eyed creature from the swamp, the Mogollon monster of Arizona is reported to have wild red eyes and preys on isolated campers. This violent creature boasts an unearthly scream, stands over 7-feet tall and walks with a strange wide stride. First sighted in 1903, this smelly giant lives on through more recent sightings from the Fort Apache Indian Reservation and as the namesake of an endurance trail race held each year outside of Pine, Arizona.

Knobby

Luckily for North Carolinians, their Bigfoot-like creature, first spotted in the late 1970s, doesn’t appear to be violent. Descriptions of it vary. Some say it’s 6 or 10 feet tall. It either sports a long long grey beard or is covered in black or blonde fur. Aside from one suspicious report of a goat with a broken neck, Knobby is mostly seen rifling through trash dumps.

Skunk Ape

Deep in the Florida Everglades sits the Skunk Ape Research Headquarters, the project of a life-long Skunk Ape believer who first saw the mythical creature as a child and has been able to take several pictures and videos of them in the 40 years since. Both male and female skunk apes smell really bad (thus the name), stand 6-7 feet tall and are covered in long red or black hair. These omnivorous giants keep to themselves, mostly live in trees and apparently like lima beans. Droppings have been analyzed and casts have been made of a footprint.

Fouke Monster

Some bigfoots get their own festivals like the Fouke monster of Fouke, Arkansas, who also hogs some of best bigfoot fame by being the star of the 1970s horror film The Legend of Boggy Creek. Although the flurry of visitors to the area died down as movie-goes moved onto other scary movies, the sightings of the Fouke monster continued, including several in the past year. The creature has been described as having dark hair and an ape-like face. It apparently can run very fast. There have been reports of smaller or juvenile Fouke monsters, so there seems to be at least one breeding pair roaming around the Fouke area.

What a thrill it would be to spot a Bigfoot in the wild! What would you do? Would you be able to grab your phone fast enough to take a focused picture? Maybe not, but it sure would be fun to show that blurry image around to all your friends and describe the great hulking menacing bipedal hairy man who just happened to run right in front of you (100 yards away, of course). Just in case you see one the next time you’re in a lonely bit of woods on a moonless night, keep your camera ready!