Saturday, September 15, 2018

The Week in Bigfoot

I haven't posted a Bigfoot story here on Augoeides in a while, but a couple of stories have recently popped up on the Internet. First off, from Canada, a lawsuit brought by a Bigfoot hunter named Todd Standing was thrown out by a court in British Columbia.

Todd Standing tried to get the province to acknowledge that the giant, ape-like figure was "an indigenous mammal living within British Columbia". He also claimed the province infringed on his fundamental rights regarding his concern for the creature.

The province argued the civil claim lacked "an air of reality". In a recent decision, British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Kenneth Ball found no reasonable cause for the lawsuit and said the court had no power to compel the province to conduct scientific investigations of its flora and fauna.

The judge also dismissed the claim that Mr Standing's rights were being violated, stating that the province had never placed restrictions on his Bigfoot-related interests. The "non-acknowledgement of the sasquatch does not in any way prohibit or restrict the plaintiff's ability to express his thoughts, beliefs, and opinions regarding the sasquatch," the decisions states.

As much as I find the whole idea amusing, it seems to me that there was never any real standing for the case. Canada doesn't restrict anyone from being interested in the mysterious cryptid, and it's hard to see how Standing could be doing this for any reason besides publicity.

Meanwhile, in Idaho, a regional Bigfoot conference is coming up next weekend. If you're a Bigfoot fan, it sounds like this could be the place to check out.


Brandon Tennant, proprietor of sasquatchprints.com, is hosting the Pocatello Bigfoot Conference 2018 on Friday, Sept. 21, and Saturday, Sept. 22, at the Warehouse, home of the Westside Players, at 1009 S. 2nd Ave. in Pocatello.

Featured speakers are Dr. Jeff Meldrum, professor of anatomy & anthropology at Idaho State University, who wrote "Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science," and "The Sasquatch Field Guide," and Cliff Barackman of "Finding Bigfoot."

A guest appearance is planned by Beck Cook, author of "Bigfoot Lives in Idaho." On Friday the doors open at 4 p.m. and Dr. Meldrum will speak at 7 p.m. On Saturday the doors open at noon with Cliff Barackman speaking at 6 p.m. Vendors tables, book signings, and meet ’n’greets with speakers throughout.

Idaho does have its share of sightings, and as I think I've previously mentioned, I had gotten to the point where I was pretty sure no such animal could exist years ago. But then I flew out to west coast, and stared out the window of the plane for a good two hours at night and saw practically no light of any kind below. The Rockies and the Pacific Northwest are huge. At the same time Reinhold Messner made a pretty convincing argument that the Yeti, originally thought to be an ape-like creature, was almost certainly a species of bear. Statistically speaking, if you map out Bigfoot sightings, they fall almost perfectly onto the range of the black bear.

On top of all that, a lot of people now think the famous Patterson Bigfoot film was faked - but at the same time, no direct evidence of fakery like, say, a Bigfoot suit moldering in somebody's garage, has ever been found. If you look at the picture accompanying this article, it's actually super-easy to see that it's a fake. Look at the arms - they hang down to about the waist, just like a human's. The Patterson Bigfoot, on the other hand, has arms that hang almost to its knees, more like an ape. So if Patterson's video was faked, it was really well done.

So I'm not as convinced as I was when I was younger, but at the same time I'm not completely dismissive either. Something's out there, but whether it's an ape or a bear or a guy in a suit is hard to say. For all we know, the complete list of sighting includes all three.

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