People hunting for Bigfoot use sophisticated techniques for collecting and validating evidence, drawing on scientific methods to try and prove its existence, research shows.
Dr Jamie Lewis of Cardiff University spent three years conducting more than 100 interviews with Bigfooters and those interested in Bigfoot. He found those seeking proof of the creature's existence draw on the esteem of science and modern technologies to add credibility to their claim that the creature exists.
Bigfooters are members of a passionate community of cryptozoologists, with many going to great lengths searching for evidence of a creature which has never been confirmed by conventional science. Together with Dr Andrew Bartlett of Sheffield University, Dr Lewis has used these interviews to explore the ways in which Bigfooters make and contest mainstream knowledge claims.
Interviewees include Dr Jane Goodall, Professor Jeff Meldrum, Professor Todd Disotell, stars of the TV programme Finding Bigfoot – Matt Moneymaker, James 'Bobo' Fay, Cliff Barackaman – stars of the TV show Expedition Bigfoot – Ronny LeBlanc and Bryce Johnson – Les Stroud, the star of Survivorman, as well as Peter Byrne who was heavily involved in early Yeti and Bigfoot expeditions during the 1950s and 1960s.
Dr Lewis, based at Cardiff University's School of Social Sciences, said: "As a sociologist of science, I'm really interested in the ways that ordinary people create knowledge, using scientific rhetoric and technologies in attempts to prove their theories. As well as drawing from scientific practices, Bigfooters use a suite of modern technologies such as drones, thermal imaging, and parabolic dishes in their investigations.
They spend weekends, weeks, and even months in the field. This work is skilful behaviour, as they need to detect, collect and analyse the merest traces, remnants and residues of the presence of an unknown-to-science animal.
Bigfoot has long been depicted as a large ape-like creature, standing up to 10ft tall,with a barrel chest covered with thick, coarse, dark hair, a relatively small, conical head, and long, powerful arms as well as the iconic large feet.
Sightings have been reported across continental North America, with the greatest concentration in the forests of the Pacific Northwest of USA and Canada. Evidence claiming to support the existence of Bigfoot ranges from witness statements, grainy photography and video, plaster casts of footprints and recordings of unexplained sounds. Research suggests that the number of North Americans who believe in Bigfoot is growing.
Dr Lewis added: "Sceptics might believe that Bigfooters are rejecting science by chasing an animal whose existence has never been proved. But what my interviews showed were the ways in which Bigfooters draw on their idea of scientific practices to piece together fragments of what they believe is tangible evidence.
"They might find what they believe is a footprint, or a disturbed areas of woodland understood to be characteristic of a Bigfoot having passed through, or hear a sound that they argue can't be explained as being that another animal. It's around these absences that many Bigfooters structure their arguments."
Though a minority of Bigfooters believe that Bigfoot is extra-terrestrial, other dimensional, or supernatural in origin, the overwhelming majority believe that Bigfoot is a biological creature which simply needs formal discovery and classification. It is this group of Bigfooters – "the Apers" – who Dr Lewis and Dr Bartlett were most interested in, as they are making claims that are, in essence, compatible with mainstream science.
Dr Lewis became interested in Bigfoot during lockdown, when time at home allowed him to watch some of the many Bigfoot 'documentaries' and 'reality' programmes. Intrigued by their approach to collecting evidence and making knowledge claims, he began contacting Bigfooters who, he found, were eager to share their experiences.
His and co-author Dr Andrew Bartlett's findings are captured in their new book, Bigfooters and Scientific Inquiry: on the borderlands of legitimate science.
Dr Bartlett, based at Sheffield University, said: "For this work, we adopted a stance that we jokingly call, 'methodological credulity', but the point behind that is serious. If we are to understand how people outside of the institutions of science attempt to collect evidence and make knowledge claims – and this applies much more widely than just to Bigfooting – we are not going to get very far if we dismiss their efforts a priori.
"In taking the time and care to understand their knowledge world and their rationality, we can see just how much their activities are not 'anti-science' but an attempt to be scientific as they see it. Some of the problems that we face in this moment – in which all kinds of knowledge claims are contested in public, by the public – is that the asocial, individualised stories that we tell about science downplay the role of communities of expertise, of the value of consensus and continuity; they promise, or perhaps demand, that each of us can engage directly with evidence and to judge things for ourselves."
