Leave Them Alone

Spectator

By Stephen Tuttle | Dec. 7, 2024

Cryptozoologists, those who study and search for animals whose existence is disputed and cannot be substantiated, are very busy these days as we “discover” more and more unusual critters. Or at least we think we do.

Alabama, for example, has some kind of albino Bigfoot they call the White Thang. Connecticut has what they call Melon Heads that some claim are the mutant, cannibalistic progeny of escapees from a long shuttered mental institution. Alaska has the abominable snowman, sometimes called a yeti, roaming their mountains and valleys. New Jersey has a Swamp Devil, West Virginia has the Mothman, and so on. Altogether, more than two dozen states have their own terrestrial cryptids, and some are even water-based.

New York state’s Finger Lakes area has a couple of water critters: Champ or Champie in Lake Champlain who has been “sighted” 300 times over the decades, and Georgie in Lake George that was acknowledged as a hoax way back in 1904 but still generates the occasional alleged appearance.

And, of course, there is plenty of this outside the U.S. Mexico has its chupacabra and Scotland has its Loch Ness Nessie, among the better known. Scotland also has the kelpie or water horse, an especially devious shape shifter.

Closer to home, we have our own alleged terror, the dreaded Dogman. In 1887, two lumbermen working in Wexford County reported they had seen a critter with the body of a dog and the head of a man, and Dogman was born. You’d think we'd have a monopoly on Dogman given the discovery in our own backyard—plus a song and three movies on the subject. Nope; Dogman has been “spotted” in Indiana and Wisconsin, and there have been more sightings in Ohio (17) than here in Michigan (9). In fact, not to be outdone, Wisconsin has their own dogman they call the Beast of Bray Road.

Which brings us to the king, or queen, of unproven beasts, Bigfoot. There was recently a Bigfoot sighting nearby right on the shores of Lake Michigan.

The first actual report of Bigfoot, or something that came to be called Bigfoot, goes way back to 1811 when British explorer David Thompson stumbled across some large footprints near what is now Jasper, Alberta, Canada. Native traditions going back centuries speak of a large creature we would likely call Bigfoot or Sasquatch or any of the other names attributed to a large, bipedal, ape-like creature wandering around the woods and mountains.

Some people believe the monstrous New Madrid, Missouri, earthquakes of 1811 and 1812 (an initial 8.2 magnitude quake followed by a 7.4 magnitude aftershock) chased Bigfoots from hiding and dispersed them far and wide. Whatever the case, these beings have now been reported in every state but Hawai'i.

According to the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (BFRO), thousands of what they consider “credible” sightings have been made over the years. (They consider a “credible” sighting to be one in which the witness provides detailed information about the creature's appearance, size, behavior, location, and local environment.) There is also a Sasquatch Genome Project, but nothing they’ve tested has thus far proven to be from a unique species.

According to BFRO, if you want to see Bigfoot, you should head to Washington state, which leads the nation with more than 700 credible sightings and more than 2,000 total sightings. Michigan makes it into the top 10 with 225 sightings. The television series “Finding Bigfoot” filmed here and claimed the area around Houghton Lake was a Bigfoot hotspot.

There is a common thread to all these cryptid sightings, whether they be Bigfoot or any of the others. The same goes for UFOs and alleged extraterrestrial sightings. The problem here is there is never anything we could call proof that any of it actually exists.

Sasquatch, or whatever we choose to call the thing, has been seen all over the place all the time—BFRO reports sightings almost every day. Yet, miraculously, no Bigfoot has ever been hit by a car, never been accidentally or intentionally shot by a hunter, no body or carcass has ever been found, no limbs, no scat, no bones, no blood, no DNA, no fossils, and nothing to confirm the existence of this nearly ubiquitous creature.

We’ve never found any proof of the other critters, either. (Even those supposed whistleblowers who recently testified about our alleged involvement with extraterrestrial aliens and their technology had lots of anecdotal stories but zero actual evidence.)

Aside from the out-and-out scammers, people who report these things certainly believe they saw something, and it looked like Bigfoot or some other cryptid to them. But if these things really exist, some of us hope everyone just leaves them alone. Bigfoot isn’t bothering us, so let’s stop bothering Bigfoot.