Page 74 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - September 2021

74 Could Bigfoot Really Be Out There?

Could Bigfoot Really Be

Out There?

Continued from Page 73

Sanderson’s work caught enough people’s
attention that William Straus, a well-regarded
primate evolutionary biologist at John Hopkins
University, reviewed it for Science Magazine,
saying Sanderson’s standards for evidence are
“unbelievably low” and that the evidence is
“anything but convincing.”

Nonetheless, Strauss admits it would be foolish
and quite unscientific to say that the creatures
Sanderson describes absolutely don’t exist.

Sanderson’s book was followed by the
Patterson–Gimlin film six years later. Gimlin
says it happened so fast that he considers
himself and Roger Patterson pretty lucky that
they were able to get any footage at all of the
hairy, mythical animal lumbering along only
yards away from them.
When asked about the possibility of Sasquatch quirky anthropologist who shared her last name.
existing, Krantz was always unequivocal, saying “It originally didn’t ring any bells…he just
When he watched the footage for the first time a
that he “guaranteed” it. seemed like an eccentric weirdo.”
few days later, Gimlin was pretty pessimistic
that this would be enough to convince anyone. Family Ties But, then, she saw that he was also from Salt
“I didn’t think the film was that good. I saw it
Lake City, like her father’s family—they were
[with my two eyes] better than that,” says
Krantz’s conviction in Bigfoot didn’t help his related. As Krantz’s grandfather told her at the
Gimlin. Yet, it became a phenomenon.
academic career, though. Passed over for time, “Oh, yeah. Grover. That was my cousin.
promotions and nearly missing receiving tenure He used to come to the family picnics and
Some, like former director of the primate
at Washington State, he knew the only way he measure people’s heads with a caliper.” This
biology program at the Smithsonian Institution
would be able to convince his colleagues of this began Krantz’s own journey into the wilderness
John Napier, saw it as a well-done, elaborate
primate’s existence was by producing a body. in search of Bigfoot, which she documented for
hoax. But not everyone saw it that way,
her new podcast Wild Thing, which aired its first
including Grover Krantz.
So, Krantz was known to spend his nights in the episode on October 2, 2018.
middle of the Pacific Northwest old growth
A professor of physical anthropology at
forests with a shotgun quite literally hunting She acknowledges, much like her cousin
Washington State University and “a leading
Bigfoot. He rationalized this by saying it was the Grover, that without a body (or skeleton), it’s
authority in hominoid evolution” and primate
only way to get the scientific community to hard to convince others that this long-lost
bone structures, Krantz also believed in
believe him and that, technically, it wasn’t primate still exists in North America’s
Sasquatch. His unwavering belief came from
against the law. backwoods. “A lot of people who think Bigfoot
eyewitnesses, the creature’s gait in the
is out there, they realize…that there’s a lack of
Patterson–Gimlin film, and, most importantly,
“It has not yet been established that the evidence,” says Krantz. “The kind of real proof
the anatomical structure of found footprints. It
Sasquatch exists,” Krantz once wrote. “To pass that would actually make people sit up and take
was the dermal ridges, where sweat pores open
laws against harming sasquatches presently notice doesn’t actually exist at this point.”
on palms and soles, depicted in the prints that
makes little more sense than protecting
left him convinced that at least some were
unicorns.” But the things she’s observed during her
authentic.
research for the podcast has changed her mind
“The kind of real proof that would actually about the possibility of Bigfoot.
His working theory was that Sasquatch was part
make people sit up and take notice doesn’t
of the hominid family, the same one humans
actually exist at this point." “I went from ‘Bigfoot is a legend’ to I can’t just
shared with apes, and was a descendant of
say out of hand that Bigfoot never existed or
thought-to-be-long-extinct humongous primate
Krantz died in 2002 as a complex figure in the doesn’t exist now,” says Krantz. “I can’t fully
species that once lived in Asia appropriately
eyes of the scientific community, highly dismiss it anymore.”
named Gigantopithecus. At some point, million
respected for his work in primate evolution yet
of years ago, it had crossed the Bering Strait
mocked for his belief in Bigfoot. However, ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
when it was still a land bridge into North
during Krantz’s life and after it, the search for
America and evolved into its own species on this
Bigfoot took on a life of its own. More sightings, Matt Blitz Matt is a history, science, and travel
continent.
films, and books, some from respected writer who is always searching for the
researchers, emerged. Bigfoot documentaries mysterious and hidden. []
“Grover was eclectic. That’s a good word
captured the public’s imagination. Harry lived
describe him,” says Jeff Meldrum, author of the
with the Hendersons and entertained the masses.
book Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science, a TO LISTEN TO
Even Jane Goodall, the famed chimpanzee
professor of anatomy at Idaho State University, THE ‘X’ ZONE
expert, admits that there’s a possibility that a
and a one-time colleague of Krantz’s. “There
undiscovered large primate may exist in the BIGFOOT FILES
were many ideas that he had that were a decade
world.
or two ahead of his time and…when he pursued VISIT
some of these ideas, he would be ridiculed.”
In 2006, Laura Krantz, at the time an NPR XZONEUNIVERESE.COM
reporter based in D.C., read an article about the