Sasquatch Science / Bigfooters and Scientific Inquiry (essay and book)

[jdog]

Sociologists Andrew Bartlett and Jamie Lewis researched Bigfooters, or those who search for Bigfoot, producing a book (Bigfooters and Scientific Inquiry: On the Borderlands of Legitimate Science (2026)) and a shorter essay by Lewis in Aeon titled Sasquatch science: The hunt for Bigfoot sounds like the opposite of good science, but those pursuing the creature are often serious empiricists

How do you go about capturing a monster? The search for Bigfoot, or Sasquatch – often referred to as Bigfooting – may sound like a whimsical endeavour: an activity of tall tales and cartoonish representations. Yet if you spend time listening to what Bigfooters themselves have to say, you discover a different picture.

We did exactly that. To research our book, Bigfooters and Scientific Inquiry: On the Borderlands of Legitimate Science (2026), we conducted more than 160 interviews, mostly with classical Bigfooters, who spend time in the forests of North America, collecting evidence and, as they see it, acting responsibly, rationally and scientifically.

As sociologists of science, we began with a simple premise: whatever one thinks about whether Bigfoot actually exists as a biological creature, Bigfooting undeniably does. If Bigfooting is a community – or set of communities – that are collecting, analysing, sharing, validating and contesting evidence, then Bigfooting is a suitable object of sociological enquiry....

I stumbled across this on File770, didn't see a prior reference to it on Metabunk, and thought it was appropriate given our lengthy Is there a "UAP phenomenon" worth studying? discussion, though this topic being Bigfoot I thought it didn't quite fit the thread.

It touches on similar questions to the "are UFOs something?" debate:

Bigfooters have collected thousands of witness testimonies, cast hundreds of footprints, recorded scores of howls, and have even captured the occasional photograph or video. Of course, none of these are convincing if starting from the position that Bigfoot does not exist as a biological creature.

Bigfooters are thus faced with an evidential challenge that cannot be resolved with witness testimonies, photos, footprints or recorded sounds and groans. Implicitly and explicitly, both the general public and the scientific community make a simple request: Habeas corpus. Show the body.

 

[MapperGuy]

Show me the body. Dead or alive.

Overall I suspect it is harder for many people to take the Bigfoot community seriously because the target of their wishes walks around on the ground. UFO's are up and the air and it gives that community a good excuse for not having hardware or bodies. But no Bigfoot has ever been hit by a car or train while crossing the road or tracks, no Bigfoot has ever been found that did not run fast enough to escape a forest fire? It is easy to say you can't catch something up in the sky, but a bear sized critter walking around in the woods? Getting shot because they were mistaken for a bear? Maybe, just once?

 

[JMartJr]

Establishing a new species normally requires a type specimen. Gorillas were folklore until somebody in Africa sent a skull to somebody in he US who worked it up, characterized and defined the species and showed the critter was real. It is not somehow picking on squatchers nor searches to require they play by the established rules. And while there are names made up and attached to, say, distinctive dinosaur trackways that follow the naming convention of species, these are just for convenience in talking about one sort of tracks vs another, they are not valid species names... gotta have the specimen for that. Footprints won't suffice.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

Retread post. This was in reaction to a hoax video showing a guy in a suit skunk ape doing something or other to a tree. But skunk ape is just Big Foot misspelled.

https://www.metabunk.org/threads/mississippi-skunk-ape.12434/#post-271144

Let's think about this...

The thing is foraging by pulling bark off a tree, with no tools.
No tools have ever been found.
No constructed habitations have ever been found.

Skunk Apes live in an inhabited area. But after hundreds of years it's an unknown species. But very elusive species such as mountain lions and bobcats can be tracked, hunted and successfully killed. But no skunk ape has ever been tracked? Not even with dogs?
True Believer: But they hide!

So do mountain lions and bobcats.
True Believer: But Skunk Apes are smart!

So are chimps and gorillas, but they can be found in remote areas of Africa if one looks.
True Believer: They're smarter than chimps and gorillas.

But they make no tools or even the simplest habitations?
True Believer: They hide their tools and habitations.

That well? If they live in a constructed habitation how do they hide it that well? What about tools? They never once lose a tool, or abandon a broken one?

True Believer: They're smart enough to know that humans are bad news, so they really try.

So they're really smart... But they pull bark off trees with their bare hands? They don't practice agriculture or hunt with weapons or use fire to cook food or fashion even the simplest clothes.
True Believer: Well... yeah! They're one with nature!

So they're really smart and take super elaborate precautions against being seen, and hide their habitations and tools... and they let a random guy watch without running away.
True Believer: This one got caught by surprise.

So they can be caught by surprise, but just once in awhile?
True Believer: They get seen lots of times. My uncle used to see them all the time.

But they're super elusive, right?
True Believer: Right!

What about dead bodies?
True Believer: They hide their dead!

Oh yeah? How? Where? They bury them? They'd get dug up by scavengers or long dead bones would get dug up by construction equipment. They burn their dead? But they only use fire for this one thing and we never see a Skunk Ape cremation in progress? Come on. And Skunk Apes never get hit by cars, drown in a river and float downstream, etc., etc.?
True Believer: But my uncle saw them all the time.

Dude.

 

[jarlrmai]

I honestly don't even need a body, trail cameras are used all the time to show presence of rare creatures in remote and wild places.

Of course like with UFOs there are "flesh and bone" Bigfooters and "spiritual" Bigfooters.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

Of course like with UFOs there are "flesh and bone" Bigfooters and "spiritual" Bigfooters.

My recollection is that by 1975 or so people began arguing that Big Foot drifts in and out of other dimensions and that's why he's so elusive. No empirical evidence for Big Foot? What? We can't stop believing in Big Foot... we'll have to abandon empiricism. Problem solved.

Honest to God, I just can't identify with that.

 

[JMartJr]

Honest to God, I just can't identify with that.

It's ok, they can't identify a bigfoot...