Bigfoot

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"Bigfoot" statue at the foot of Pikes Peak near Crystal Creek Reservoir

Bigfoot ( Engl. "Puvel") is a humanoid cryptid of North American folklore of considerable size, with oversized feet and strong Fellbehaarung that in almost all mountains of the United States and Canada , especially in the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachians to have been sighted. Alleged sightings have also been reported from Texas woodlands . Bigfoot is also called Sasquatch in Canada , which in the language of the indigenous people living there stands for "very hairy person or hairy giant".

history

The Bigfoot legend can be traced back to at least the 1850s, when Indians in Northern California reported such a creature. Around 1958 the legend experienced a public renaissance.

Similar beings are also reported under different names in various areas of Asia, such as the People's Republic of China , Malaysia and India . In the media, the various beings are usually distinguished by a prefix that designates the respective country.

Some cryptozoologists consider the bigfoot, like the yeti, to be a survivor of the extinct genus Gigantopithecus . In 1985, the American anthropologist Grover Krantz tried to describe the Bigfoot as Gigantopithecus blacki . The International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature rejected this because the taxon was already taken and Krantz could not produce a holotype .

Most researchers consider Bigfoot to be a myth, but many people, both scientists and laypeople, set out to find Bigfoot. Often brown bears or grizzly bears are identified as bigfoot, which, among other things, can also move upright on their hind legs.

Sightings

Bigfoot sightings in the US and Canada

So far, no generally accepted evidence of Bigfoot's existence has been found. Sound and image recordings either clearly turned out to be forgeries or are very controversial.

The most famous is a 1967 report published by Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin 16 mm film , which is a crypto-zoological displays being that a person in an opinion by skeptics gorilla costume is.

In December 2002, Michael Wallace, the son of late lumberjack entrepreneur and Bigfoot researcher Ray L. Wallace, stated that his father had been making Bigfoot footprints with carved wooden feet since about 1958. The publication of the Wallace confessions and the photos of Michael Wallace with large wooden feet in hand met with a strong response in the American and international media. Tenor: "Bigfoot is dead!".

Bigfoot researchers claim that the often forged Bigfoot tracks are easy to distinguish from "real" ones; the shift in weight of a living being cannot be simulated by simple wooden stamps or latex feet.

But there are also supposed to be bones of the ape-men. Reports of specimens shot are also making the rounds, for example from 1549, when the carcass of a being named Ukumar ( ukumari , Quechua : "bear") was found near the Bolivian city of Caracas . According to Pedro de Cieza de León in his Chronicle of Peru ( La Crónica del Perú ), a Ukumar is said to have been caught alive near Tafi Valley .

Two men claimed in July 2008 that they had found a Bigfoot corpse in the northern forests of the American state of Georgia. As it became known on August 19th, it was just a standard Bigfoot costume, which the two had obviously frozen with fraudulent intent.

reception

The legend of Bigfoot is featured in various media, including film and television.

  • In 1987 the comedy film Harry and the Hendersons was made with John Lithgow and Melinda Dillon in the leading roles. In it, the Henderson family accidentally hits a Bigfoot on their way back from a camping trip and takes it home. The Bigfoot turns out to be quite clumsy and voracious, but also very lovable and gets the name Harry from his new family. This story was also adapted from 1991 to 1993 for a television series of the same name, in which Bruce Davison played the family man. Hairy Bigfoot was portrayed in both the film and the series by actor Kevin Peter Hall , who died of AIDS from an infected blood bank before the series ended and had to be replaced by Dawan Scott.
  • In an episode of The Simpsons ( Beware Wild Homer ), a naked and mud-covered Homer Simpson is mistakenly mistaken for Bigfoot.
  • In the Disney film Goofy - The Movie , Goofy and his son Max meet a Bigfoot who prevents them from getting out of their car.
  • In the computer game Sam & Max Hit the Road , the Bigfoot theme becomes the central theme. The mission is to bring back a Bigfoot who has escaped from a circus. In the course of the investigation, a whole Bigfoot culture is gradually uncovered.
  • In an episode of Futurama ( lust crisis on Omikron Persei 8 ) Fry goes on a search for Bigfoot, is kidnapped by aliens and on his return finds that his nose (also known as the "human horn") has been cut off with it it can be used as an aphrodisiac for aliens. Then the "lower horn" should also be cut off, but a sudden appearance of Bigfoot prevents this.
  • In the episode Bigfoot and the Spencersons of the American crime series Psych , partly shot in found footage style, the protagonists hunt for Bigfoot together with two film students in a forest in California. Ultimately, however, he turns out to be a dropout with a ghillie suit that he made himself for the hunt .
  • In the Tenacious D movie Kings of Rock - Tenacious D , Jack Black meets the Sasquatch in his intoxication caused by hallucinogenic mushrooms . He thinks Jables is his baby and they both go on an exciting journey through a colorful enchanted forest as well as a trip on the “Strawberry River”.
  • In the series Back to the Past ( The Search for Bigfoot ), Bigfoot lifts a stuck car back onto the road while Dr. Sam Beckett seen.
  • In one episode of MacGyver (Season 3, Episode 4 - The Ghost Ship ), Bigfoot almost played a leading role. MacGyver is constantly confronted with the creature, both directly and indirectly. In a direct fight with the animal, it turns out that it's just a villain in a costume. However, towards the end of the episode, Bigfoot's non-existence is questioned again when suddenly an animal roar can be heard.
  • As a result, the mountain monster of the youth book series Die Drei ??? the three detectives from Rocky Beach meet a mountain monster that comes very close to Bigfoot's description. A game hunter and a nature conservationist act as opponents, each trying to catch that creature or to save it from being captured. This is one of the few episodes in which the three question marks actually encounter an unknown being or phenomenon that is not staged by a technical trick. The monster is portrayed in the story as scary, but harmless and worth protecting.
  • The comic strip Flink by Doug TenNapel (including Earthworm Jim , Katzenkratz ) tells the story of a boy who survived a plane crash in the woods and is rescued by a bigfoot named Flink.
  • In the episode Bigfoot and Raccoons in the youth series iCarly , a Bigfoot wave is created by a cell phone video in the news. The four friends (Carly Shay, Spencer Shay, Samantha Pucket, Fredward Benson) finally decide to visit Bigfoot and drive to the Rocky Mountains in a motorhome.
  • In the American series Fact or Faked - In the footsteps of the paranormal , the episode The Beast from the Moor investigated whether Bigfoot exists. But no clear result was achieved.
  • In the music video for the song “ Triple Trouble ” by the American hip-hop band Beastie Boys , Sasquatch kidnaps the three members of the group.
  • In the episode Big Feet of the American television series Grimm , Bigfoot serves as a model for one of the supernatural beings who play the lead role in the series.
  • In the game Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare you have to track down and kill several Bigfoots in one mission. The majority of the population is led to believe that the Bigfoots are vicious, but in conversation it turns out that this is a peaceful race. If the player kills the Bigfoots, which is the Bigfoot you talk to, you wipe out the rest of the race.
  • In the 2006 film Abominable , the Bigfoot myth is taken up. The Bigfoot appears here as a malicious being and kills some people.
  • In the episode The Fast and the Furriest (season 5, episode 20) from the series Castle , Beckett and Castle find clues that a Bigfoot could be the killer.
  • In Timo Rose's foundfootage series Nature from 2015, the main character chases Bigfoot for 8 episodes.
  • In the TV documentary Die Monster-Jäger - Beasts on the Track ( Mountain Monsters ), a large part of the episodes revolve around the proof of the existence of Bigfoot. Here they are divided into individual species (such as Grassman, Yahoo, Wildman, Dustman) and searched for in forests and fields (especially in the Appalachians).
  • In the PC game "Finding Bigfoot" the protagonist goes in search of Bigfoot.
  • In the animated film Mister Link - A Furry Crazy Adventure , a lonely Sasquatch searches for his own kind and lets a British explorer take him to the Himalayas to make friends.

See also

literature

  • Harald Gebhardt, Mario Ludwig: Of dragons, yetis and vampires - on the trail of mythical animals . BLV, Munich 2005. ISBN 3-405-16679-9
  • Tal Laufer: Bigfoot . Projects Verlag, Halle 2006. ISBN 3-86634-184-9
  • Ivan T. Sanderson : Abominable Snowmen: Legend Come to Life, The Story of Sub-Humans on Five Continents from the Early Ice Age Until Today , Philadelphia / New York, 1961 ( most recent edition : Cosimo, Inc., November 1, 2008)

Web links

Commons : Bigfoot  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. See Harald Gebhardt, Mario Ludwig - Of dragons, yetis and vampires: On the trail of mythical animals, ISBN 3405166799 , p. 105.
  2. a b Carranco, Lynwood (1963): Three Legends of Northwestern California. Western Folklore 22: 179-185, p. 183.
  3. Bigfoot. New evidence. Hairs found in Indian jungle are of 'no known species' say scientists. In: The Independent . July 27, 2008, accessed August 12, 2008 .
  4. ^ Brian Regal: Entering Dubious Realms: Grover Krantz, Science, and Sasquatch. Archived from the original on March 6, 2012. In: Annals of Science . 66, No. 1, January 2009, pp. 83-102. doi : 10.1080 / 00033790802202421 . PMID 19831199 . Retrieved September 13, 2009.
  5. Bigfoot just died. In: spiegel.de. December 6, 2002, accessed May 3, 2009 .
  6. Pedro de Cieza de León: La Crónica del Perú. Ediciones Peisa, Lima 1973.
  7. DNA follows New photo of a supposedly dead Bigfoot published , oe24.at, accessed on August 14, 2008.
  8. Alleged Bigfootleiche faked ( Memento of 21 August 2008 at the Internet Archive ), cbs46.com