On the trail of Bigfoot in academia and the Kentucky woods

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Footprint of alleged Bigfoot. (Photo courtesy of Jeff Muldrum)
'Here's what happens,' Charlie Raymond tells me over the phone. 'I've had a lot of people in Kentucky who had sightings many years ago but they suppressed it. They didn't tell people because they'd be ridiculed.'
Raymond is the founder of the Kentucky Bigfoot Research Organization. As KBRO's chief investigator, Raymond says he has spoken with multiple people across the state seeking to unburden themselves of what he says are 'traumatic' encounters with a creature well described in folklore, but not much accepted by science.
I'm speaking with Raymond after my curiosity was piqued by an accumulation of events. There was the reader who sent me Bigfoot 'evidence' — photos of 'footprints' in the grass. I squinted at them and struggled to buy in, but all I could make out were scatterings of dead leaves. Then there was the audio clip I received, which I was told was a Bigfoot, but which to me sounded like a warning siren.
If you have encountered what you believe to be a Bigfoot, Charlie Raymond would like to hear from you. Contact him at [e-mail].
But what really did me in was the time recently, when I was pulling my kayak out of the Owsley Fork reservoir and was startled by a man looking like Grizzly Adams who suddenly appeared and asked if I had seen the Bigfoot across the water. My head whipped around. Nothing there. That's when I thought I'd better investigate this, if only to protect my sanity.
From all accounts described by the sources I consulted for this story, Bigfoot is the generally accepted American term for a large, upright primate which generally eludes human contact, and which lives in forests. Sometimes he goes by Sasquatch, a made-up term composed early last century of words from a Northwestern indigenous tongue.
Nearly every culture on the globe has a mythology around their own version of Bigfoot, describing an upright beast with reddish-brown, black or often chestnut colored hair. Sometimes, the creature is described walking on all fours, but is mostly reported as walking upright. Some are smaller, but most top 7 feet.
Bigfoot's place in popular culture seems to have been secured in the past 15 years. The Animal Planet Network's show, 'Finding Bigfoot,' ran for seven seasons last decade, and is still available online. Notably, it has been since then that Bigfoot appears evermore frequently on tee shirts, key chains, spoof traffic crossing signs and myriad other tchotchkes.
For some, it all might be silly fun, but for those who've suffered long in silence, according to Raymond, Bigfoot's entry into the mainstream offers them a chance to finally share their story.
'Now, I have more people coming forward with old sightings because it's more acceptable,' Raymond, who has a bachelor's degree in psychology, tells me. 'It's very emotional for them.'
The psycho-emotional aspect of this cryptozoological puzzle is one of its many factors that appeal to Darby Orcutt, M.S., a faculty member at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. Orcutt teaches Science, Psi, Sasquatch and Spirits, a course he designed after having an epiphany while building a team for a DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) project at the university.
The project was to create a microchip to be inserted into the human brain in order to directly perceive messages sent to the chip.
'We were seriously talking about creating a technology for telepathy,' Orcutt tells me in a phone interview. 'But what would happen if my colleagues were to approach it as though there might be a natural mechanism for this? Would that somehow be pseudoscience, or somehow outside of the academy?'
That question led him to study what is often considered taboo in academia, including the question of whether Bigfoot is real.
'I thought the course would be a great lens to teach how science works and how science interacts with our larger culture,' Orcutt said. 'I think that there are some areas where we really have the opportunity to help give explanations to things that people are truly curious about, and potentially discover new things.'
The course teaches how to use statistical reasoning to draw conclusions, so that students can find the nuance to the more typical binary 'woo' vs. 'true' arguments so often had at the fringes, according to Orcutt. 'To my mind, we know that the phenomenon exists, the real questions I ask are how to explain it.'
'I study Sasquatch because I know the phenomenon is real,' Orcutt tells me. 'I know people report seeing something. People are finding things and attributing them to this. You wouldn't be writing this story if it weren't a phenomenon,' he reminds me. 'The real questions I ask are how to explain it.'
Orcutt credits the Bigfoot enthusiasts who apply the scientific method to their investigations, but rued the small size of the scientific Bigfoot community. So, he decided to help expand it. 'I have a lot of collaborators from inside academia too,' he excitedly notes.
'My approach is that something has to explain that phenomenon, and I want to find out what that is,' he said. 'And I am open to a wide range of possibilities.'
Funded privately — 'Nobody would give me a grant for this,' he laughs — Orcutt has started molecularly analyzing dozens of hair and other biological samples such as blood, collected by Bigfoot enthusiasts in North America over the years.
Previously, a study of 30 such biological samples from around the globe, conducted by researchers at Oxford University in the United Kingdom, found two were of unknown origin. The authors concluded they had neither proved nor disproved the existence of Bigfoot.
Orcutt is also at work analyzing what he says is academically unexamined data on Bigfoot sighting locations, collected by a citizen science group, the Bigfoot Field Research Organization. 'What are the patterns we are trying to figure out,' he says. 'The wonderful thing about data science is that it can support other analyses. It's not going to prove anything, but it can be suggestive of where we need to look further.'
So, if Bigfoot is real — what is it, a hairy human or a large ape?
To find out, I turn to Jeff Meldrum, Ph.D, a full professor of anatomy and anthropology at Idaho State University in Pocatello. As the founder and editor of the scholarly journal 'The Relic Hominoid Inquiry,' he's also considered academia's premier Bigfoot expert. 'Relic' meaning a thing that has survived from ancient times, and 'hominoid' being the family of primates that resemble humans.
His first book, 'Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science,' published in 2006, was endorsed by the legendary primatologist herself, Jane Goodall, who said his work brought a 'level of much-needed scientific analysis to the Sasquatch debate,' according to the journal's website, which features a photo of Goodall holding a copy of Meldrum's book. A second Sasquatch book, he says, is forthcoming.
Bigfoot is not the 'missing link,' for one thing, Meldrum tells me. 'It's one more branch on a bushy, bushy tree, is a better way to characterize it,' he says, speaking of the taxonomy of hominoids. 'That branch may just be on the ape side, you know, if its greatest affinities are to something like Gigantopithecus, which is most closely related to an orangutan. Such an animal could have evolved bipedalism in parallel to the earliest Hominids that gave rise to the Hominid lineage, as in the early Australopithecines.'
In plain English, Meldrum's take is that Bigfoot is most likely a type of large ape that walks on two feet. He also tells me that it is like an orangutan capable of using tools, 'but that does not a human make,' he says.
Whether Bigfoot is more ape than man is a point of contention in the field, however, according to Raymond.
'I tend to disagree a little bit with Meldrum on this,' Raymond says. 'I think they're more human-like. I've had many discussions with Meldrum about this.'
To know the answer once and for all — ape or man — wouldn't an actual body for the sake of study be nice to have, I ask my newfound Bigfoot friends.
Given how much time I have devoted to the consideration that aliens from outer space live among us and that the feds are holding out on sharing what they know, I should have anticipated Raymond's answer to my question.
'I do believe we've had some dead ones that the government possibly has, but it's a cover up,' he tells me. 'I've got some testimony on that.' He won't go into detail, but promises he will tell the whole story in August when he appears at 'Spiracy Con in Cave City in Southern Kentucky.
Meldrum, the Idaho State prof, is untroubled by the lack of bodies, and explains that since he has worked with a cartographer to map trends in Bigfoot sightings, he now has an idea of likely Bigfoot territories, which he says seem to overlap with that of black bears.
'When you're out hiking, how many bear carcasses do you trip over?' he asks. 'Not many, like none,' he answers. 'If the bears have been extirpated, if the habitat has been degraded or overdeveloped to the point there are no longer black bears … then you just won't see either one,' he says about both bears and Bigfoot, then adds, however, 'Sometimes bears do get into people's swimming pools.'
It occurs to me that maybe Bigfoot bury their dead, which would explain why no one seems able to find their bodies. Well, no one but the feds.
Madison County Bigfoot enthusiast and professional archaeologist, Gene Brock, agrees with my theory.
'It's not a strange or unheard of activity in relic Hominids,' Brock tells me over the phone from somewhere on Interstate 75. 'Neanderthals did it. Homo nadeli, they took their dead and threw them in a cave, down a pit. So, that's very likely why we don't have bodies.'
Meldrum, however, does not agree. 'It's unlikely for a presumed solitary species,' he says.
That is to say, unlike elephants, Bigfoot are not thought to travel in groups. 'Tracks and sightings are typically of solitary individuals, or presumed females with offspring,' Meldrum clarifies.
When I ask Meldrum where Bigfoot lives, as in, which states have the highest preponderance of the upright creature, he tells me it's a tricky question.
'You always have to treat that kind of generalization very tentatively because there are all these other variables,' he says. They do seem to consistently appear in bear territory, he says, but that the data are 'messy' because they occur by happenstance.
'These data aren't systematically collected by wildlife biologists that are conducting standardized surveys,' he tells me. 'These are hodgepodge encounters, and almost every credible or substantial encounter happens purely by chance.'
A lot of so-called evidence, he says, is illegitimate, fabricated by hoaxers. Plus, in what seems to me a tone of annoyance, Meldrum says, 'There have been sightings in every state except Hawaii … but the point is, something being reported and something actually existing are two different things. People also see dog men and orbs of light.'
He brings it back to the bears.
'You can use the density of the bear population, not just the distribution,' he says. Where go many black bears, there go more Bigfoot, essentially. In states like Oregon and Washington, or in British Columbia, Canada, places that have among the highest reported Bigfoot sightings, the black bear population is also higher.
'Idaho has 35,000 black bear, so that suggests a lot more area and a lot more resources to support a large bear population, and that suggests there could be more Bigfoot,' Meldrum says. 'My rule of thumb is 200 black bear for every one Sasquatch.'
Kentucky's black bear population, depending on who you ask, is real but tenuous. In casual conversation, some environmentalists have told me that bear — and mountain lions for that matter — have never not existed in the state, but that extraction companies have helped create the notion that they don't, making it easier to drill, log and mine without conservation restrictions.
Bears were declared extinct in Kentucky early last century, but since 2006, the state has acknowledged there are more than one thousand black bears living here, mostly in Eastern Kentucky.
If Meldrum's ratio is accurate, that gives the commonwealth about five Bigfoot. Raymond thinks it could be more, given the large sampling of audio, tales of encounter, and hair samples he's collected from across the state.
'It's very difficult to come up with precise factual information on a creature that supposedly does not exist,' he says, which it occurs to me, is kind of the same point Meldrum was making, but I realize this is the whole point — Bigfoot science is emergent, and still coming into its own.
Raymond tracks sightings by county, and says Anderson County in the southwestern corner of the Bluegrass region has among the highest number of sightings, including of a Bigfoot nicknamed 'Howdy' because of multiple people claiming he likes to wave hello.
Raymond also notes sightings in Shelby and Trimble counties, nearer to Louisville, and plenty near where he lives in the Red River Gorge. There are also sightings among abandoned drill sites in Lee County, he says.
In Madison County, Brock claims to have had two separate nighttime encounters with an angry Bigfoot that, on each occasion, heaved a large rock across the reservoir, aimed at where Brock stood with his sons at the boat launch. No one was hurt, according to Brock.
As for Orcutt: 'The most compelling potential evidence of Sasquatch that I have seen firsthand in the woods are two apparent trackways that to this day help keep me curious.' Those were just outside of Berea, he said.
Raymond says that in the nearly 30 years he has been collecting stories, he has yet to hear of a violent Bigfoot, but he suggests that is cold comfort for those who tell him they've crossed paths with it.
'These are face-to-face encounters, where it's terrifying,' Raymond says. 'The (person is) alone. The Bigfoot is standing eight-plus feet tall. They do look scary. And if the person runs away, sometimes the Bigfoot follows them, to escort them out of the woods and out of his territory.'
The terror drains and the peace of mind returns once these people tell their stories, according to Raymond.
'More and more of these witnesses let me videotape their testimony of their encounters. That's like a healing process for them, because it's a relief to get it off their chest,' he says. 'It's like I am a therapist.'
The more academics and enthusiasts collaborate, the sooner proof will emerge, is the fervent wish of Raymond, the investigator with the Kentucky Bigfoot Research Organization.
'Hopefully, Bigfoot will be officially recognized in my lifetime,' he says. 'I will tell everybody, 'I told you so,'' he laughs. 'I do believe the government knows about them.'
If and when the mystery is solved and Bigfoot becomes a fact, Raymond says he will dedicate his life to protecting them.
The first annual Red River Gorge Bigfoot Fest held last month was one of Raymond's contributions to the pro-am Bigfoot field, bringing top researchers like Meldrum and Cliff Barackman, a Bigfoot hunter and former co-host of Finding Bigfoot, and the general public for a day of fun and education.
'We had to turn people away, there were so many attendees,' Raymond says. 'It was a free event, so I don't have ticket sales to count, but we think it was over 10,000 people.'
Raymond also says the Bigfoot-enthused crowd was so large, it shut down the town of Stanton, and created massive traffic headaches. Next year, he says, 'We'll have better traffic control, and also fabulous guest speakers again.'
If Bigfoot is real, Brock, the Madison County archaeologist, predicts mayhem.
'There will be religious turmoil. The problem with it is that it will not follow religious beliefs, that there is another line, not just Adam and Eve. It's gonna change Creationism,' Brock philosophizes, but it's industry that will really suffer, he thinks.
'The logging industry will have to come to a grinding halt, because if you have an endangered relic hominoid living in your deciduous forest — and your non-deciduous forest, as far as that goes — then you're not going to be going in and cutting logs,' Brock says.
Meldrum, on the other hand, is pretty sanguine about it all, largely because Bigfoot are apes, not men, according to him. 'It doesn't prove evolution. All we're talking about is a gorilla that walks on its hind legs,' he tells me. 'This is not a type of person. It's not even a close relative. It is, if it is in the Hominid family, it's a very early offshoot that persisted alongside Homo sapiens.' Meldrum didn't comment on the possible impact of Bigfoot on industry.
As for Orcutt, who has the honor of conducting what might be the breakthrough Bigfoot study, 'It could indeed prove an unknown species, depending on what the results are,' he says.
As for me, I still am not sure what to conclude, but I will attest to this: next time I see a bear, I am outta there!
This story is republished from The Edge based in Berea.