Researchers have yet to find definitive evidence proving that the Bigfoot monster truly exists on Earth.
Bigfoot, or Sasquatch, is a giant primate-like creature believed to roam North America. This mysterious being is akin to the Chupacabra or the Loch Ness Monster. There is not much evidence to suggest that Bigfoot actually exists, as many sightings lack clear photographs or descriptions of its face or shape.
Most reported sightings of Bigfoot occur in the Northwest, where the creature is tied to Indigenous legends. The term Sasquatch is derived from Sasq’ets, a word in the Halq’emeylem language used by some Indigenous peoples in southwestern British Columbia, meaning “wild man” or “hairy man.”
A photo taken in northeastern Eureka, California in 1967 claimed to be Bigfoot. (Photo: Bettmann).
In 1884, the British Colonist newspaper in Victoria, Canada published an article describing a “gorilla-like” creature in the area, sparking various wild rumors. John Green, the author of the book Sasquatch, compiled a list of 1,340 sightings from the 19th to the 20th century.
In 1958, the Humboldt Times, a local newspaper in Northern California, published a story about the discovery of mysterious giant footprints near Bluff Creek, California. In the story, they referred to the creature as “Bigfoot,” according to Smithsonian Magazine. Curiosity about Bigfoot rapidly increased in the latter half of the 20th century, following an article in True magazine published in December 1959, which recounted the 1958 discovery.
The footprints near Bluff Creek were later revealed to be a hoax by a man named Ray Wallace, according to his descendants after he passed away in 2002. Over time, Bigfoot became a familiar figure across the continent, with more than 10,000 reports of Bigfoot in the U.S. over the past 50 years. According to these accounts, Bigfoot is described as standing between 8 to 10 feet tall and covered in fur.
Most reports are based on unreliable memories. Similarly, in many cases, witnesses may be influenced by emotions and overlook or misremember critical details. With a mysterious creature like Bigfoot, the human brain can create explanations for events it cannot immediately interpret. Additionally, many people want to believe that Bigfoot exists.
The most famous video of Bigfoot is a short film shot in 1967 by Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin. Filmed at Bluff Creek, the video shows a large, hairy primate-like creature walking on two legs across an open area. The reliability of the video remains controversial, with many suggesting it could be a hoax and that the creature was a person in a costume.
With the prevalence of high-quality cameras in mobile phones, photographs have become increasingly clear, yet Bigfoot remains an exception. A reasonable explanation is that Bigfoot does not exist, and the images of the creature are merely hoaxes or misinterpretations. Some people claim to have heard Bigfoot screaming, howling, or making various other sounds. Strange audio recordings associated with Bigfoot sometimes attract media attention, but the sounds are often attributed to known animals such as foxes or coyotes.
There is no solid evidence for the existence of Bigfoot. When samples suspected to belong to Bigfoot are scientifically analyzed, experts find that they originate from common sources. For example, in 2014, a team of researchers led by the late geneticist Bryan Sykes from the University of Oxford, UK, conducted genetic analyses on 36 hair samples thought to belong to Bigfoot or the Yeti, a similar primate believed to inhabit the Himalayas. Almost all hair samples were found to come from ordinary animals such as cattle, bears, deer, and humans. However, two samples closely matched a species of polar bear from the Late Stone Age. They could belong to an unknown bear species, but not to a primate.
Genetic research provides another reason to doubt the existence of Bigfoot. A solitary creature cannot reproduce and maintain a population. For a species like Bigfoot to exist, it would need a sufficiently large population to avoid inbreeding and low genetic diversity; otherwise, it would face extinction. The existence of multiple Bigfoots would increase the likelihood of an individual being killed by hunters, struck by vehicles on highways, or dying from disease/old age, and subsequently discovered by farmers or hikers. However, researchers have yet to find any remains of Bigfoot.
While scientific evidence for the existence of Bigfoot may be scarce, a giant bipedal primate did once live on Earth. This creature was called Gigantopithecus blacki, standing about 10 feet tall and weighing up to 600 pounds, based on fossils. However, Gigantopithecus lived in Southeast Asia, not North America, and went extinct hundreds of thousands of years ago. They are also more closely related to modern orangutans than to humans or chimpanzees.
