Why Does Bigfoot NOT Exist?
The Sasquatch isn’t real…but why not? And is that even a question we can answer?
It’s like trying to discover why magic isn’t real, or why pigs don’t fly — the answer could quite simply be: the world doesn’t work like that. But I think Bigfoot deserves better. Dealing with this type of rhetorical cryptozoology might seem like a wild goose chase, but I want to at least get us as close as possible.
First things first, we need to define some common language. Bigfoot is a cryptid: a catch-all term used for animals and creatures where proof is “disputed or unsubstantiated,” often relegated to mythical monsters or fables…but not always. Keep in mind that the gorilla (as I wrote previously) was once considered a mythological cryptid before being “discovered” in 1869 by European naturalists.
And the gorilla isn’t alone; the list of cryptids-turned-real also once included the giant squid and the okapi, as well as grizzly-polar bear hybrids, all of which have since been discovered “officially” by science. But for a time, these animals were listed side-by-side with unverified and fabled creatures like the Yeti, unicorn, or man-eating tree. Just because something is defined as a cryptid, that does not verify that it is somehow unreal. Even one hundred years ago, our delineation between real and fake would have severely missed the mark. So where do we draw that line today? Can we verify how unlikely a cryptid species really is?
And how do we know Bigfoot is on the right side of history?
The science of studying cryptids (known as cryptozoology) is not new by any means, and in fact, a categorization system is fairly well-known in the field. Author George Eberhart has written a complete guide on the profession, and like any proper encyclopedia, it begins with the ten accepted categories of cryptids to help organize over a thousand fabled species recognized to experts. Bigfoot falls clearly into category #7:
Animals not known from the fossil record or bearing a clear relationship to known species, such as BIGFOOT and some SEA MONSTERS. — Mysterious Creatures by George Eberhart
The rest of this list is quite fascinating too, but I need to stay focused. Let’s dive into Bigfoot.
Physical description: Bulky, robust body. Height, 6–9 feet, with an average of 7 feet 10 inches. Average weight estimated at 660 pounds. Shaggy body hair, ranging from dark brown or black to light brown and gray. Color variation does not seem related to height or age. Small, pointed head. Sloping forehead. Flat face. Heavy browridge with upcurled fringe of hair. Facial hair except around nose, mouth, and ears. Deep-set eyes. Broad and flat nose. Wide mouth. Short, thick neck. Huge shoulders and chest. Females have large, hairy breasts. Arms are thick and long in proportion to height. — Mysterious Creatures by George Eberhart
Pretty impressive for an animal only observed a handful of times, and never verifiably caught on camera. Oh also, it’s not real to begin with.
Bigfoot sightings, in the modern sense, began in the late 1800s and have persisted infrequently through to present day. For context, the above gif was taken from the infamous Patterson-Gimlin film of 1967. However, indigenous fables of dozens of similar creatures in the Pacific Northwest (Sasquatch being one of them) go back much, much deeper in time.
And not just in North America. Stories of ‘wild men’ appear globally over hundreds of years, and classic literature like Beowulf or the Epic of Gilgamesh help pinpoint the evolution of this myth in centuries of popular literature. But it’s not the evidence for Bigfoot that I find fascinating; it’s the other side of the aisle that we want to look into. Is there evidence to disprove the myth? Well…that’s complicated.
Certain scientists have made a point to invalidate almost all data put forward by Bigfoot conspiracists. Footprints? Proved to be forgeries. Hair and DNA analyses? Reliably traced back to cows, horses, humans, or dogs. Not to mention the inferred data about population size: if Bigfoot were so rare, and populations so small, they’d have a major inbreeding problem.
But science doesn’t quite work this way. As put forward by the brilliant Carl Sagan (and repeated famously by Donald Rumsfeld):
“Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”
Just because we haven’t verified the existence of Bigfoot, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible — and we can look to real-life ecology for similar case studies. Even in the present day with modern technology, there’s a decent list of so-called ‘giant’ animals that are notoriously hard to track down by biologists. One in particular — the giant peccary — is currently unverified but incredibly likely to be legitimized by science in the near future. This list also includes recently-extinct species too, like the moa or the stellar sea cow, or even the Thylacine, which locals still claim to be roaming around Tasmania after being declared extinct over 80 years ago.
Is Bigfoot any different? Well a few notable naturalists (and this is 100% true) like Jane Goodall and David Attenborough actually believe that the giant ape species is plausible.
So could Bigfoot exist? Sure, it’s possible, and actually now we start to differentiate Bigfoot from other cryptids in an amazing way. I can admit that a creature like Bigfoot might be marginally plausible, if only by a modicum of a degree, but I know for certain there isn’t such a thing as a man-eating tree. Why?
This gets fun.
The key term here is phylogenetics, the evolutionary history of a species, and it’s what separates Bigfoot from other cryptids like mermaids or fairies. If we look at the fossil record, Bigfoot are actually not too distant from other hominids like ourselves, and there’s even evidence of a species called Gigantopithecus that comes shockingly close to observed Bigfoot physiology.
For cryptids like Bigfoot, there is a past and a present to its evolutionary history. It didn’t appear out of thin air. There are other cryptids that fall into this category too: the Loch Ness Monster is basically an aquatic dinosaur, and an extinct species of ancient horse had a protruding horn on its forehead, much like the unicorn. Drawing this dotted line between cryptids and real extinct species helps differentiate between what could and could not be real.
What we’ve stumbled upon here is a means to actually measure and plot the closeness that cryptids have to evolutionary history. On one end, you’ve got animals with clear lineages like Thylacines and Nessie. In the middle: Bigfoot, unicorns, or even kraken where lines are murky, but don’t present any blatant impossibility. On the far, opposite end, are cryptids that seem to break every evolutionary mold: mermaids, pixies, and man-eating trees top my list.
Although I will make a brief shout-out here to the idea of problematica — species that exist but without a known pathway. That’s an article for a different day.
But phylogeny doesn’t answer all our questions. There’s also a degree of inconspicuousness that’s critical to assessing a species plausibility as well. More simply put: could the animal stay hidden for so long. Maybe a cryptid has eluded scientists because, well, it’s just so darn perfect at staying hidden. Consider that camouflage or magic or whatever, but I won’t take anything off the table.
If we take into account the hypothetical range of a creature, and its size, and its behavior and diet and so many other factors, scientists and statisticians are able to model the frequency at which a species should be observed. A similar method called ‘spatial capture-recapture’ is what ecologists use to estimate population size in measurable species, but in reversing the order of this math, we can calculate how unlikely it is that a cryptid species would remain undiscovered for so long. I recently came across an article about the Thylacine claiming that the “odds that Tasmanian tigers are still alive are 1 in 1.6 trillion.” So you’re saying there’s a chance.
These odds are slim, but they’re still possible. We can estimate this probability for each and every cryptid species: what’s the likelihood that it would remain thus far undiscovered by science?
So now we can categorize cryptids on a new spectrum of discoverability as well, understanding that smaller or more crafty species (say a pixie or a jackalope) would be more likely to remain hidden. For others — those that are larger or confined to smaller regions — it would be implausible to remain hidden to science for so many years.
Now, finally, we get to synthesize.
What we can create is an approximate hierarchy of cryptid plausibility. I’m not going to say that Bigfoot is real, but I can tell you this: it’s more likely to be real than some of its other cryptid kin. Somewhere in between evolutionary and ecological models there’s a claim about the plausibility (not the possibility) of something mythical that is yet-undiscovered in the Pacific Northwest.
And you know what? If someone had created this same chart in the year 1850, I would hope that there would be almost a predictive element to it. Darwin could have said “AHA! Gorillas are more likely to exist than mermaids.”
Or maybe he would have been wrong — and maybe I’m wrong — and that’s actually fun too. The day science proves Bigfoot is real, or verifies that the Thylacine still exists in Tasmania, or discovers fossil evidence of mermaids…Dude I’m ready to remake this chart with new evidence in-hand. In the meantime, I’ll hold my breath for the Thylacine and (maybe) the jackalope.
The day a mothman shows up on the news I’ll eat my hat.
And that’s what’s truly interesting about cryptozoology: it’s remarkably personable. Everyone draws their own lines in the sand — their own understanding of what could exist — but my hope in writing this article is that we understand why. If you think mermaids exist, that’s your personal call, but at least cast a wide net. What’s important, as a naturalist or as a non-science-type, is honing your ‘BS radar’ so you can recognize when something is plausible and when something bends these rules beyond possibility.
And if you firmly don’t believe Bigfoot could be real, well you’re just part of the problem too. Dream bigger.
