Bigfoot — Cryptid Encyclopedia

Bigfoot is the most famous cryptid in the world — a towering, ape-like hominid said to roam the deep forests of North America. Standing seven to ten feet tall, covered in dark brown or reddish-brown hair, with a flat, human-like face and enormous humanoid footprints up to 24 inches long, Bigfoot has been reported by thousands of witnesses across the continent.

The modern Bigfoot era began in 1958, when giant footprints were discovered at a road construction site in Bluff Creek, California. Nine years later, Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin captured the most famous piece of cryptid evidence ever produced — a short film showing a large, bipedal creature striding through the Bluff Creek forest. The Patterson-Gimlin film has been analyzed by scientists, special effects artists, and skeptics for over half a century, and no consensus has ever been reached on whether it shows a real animal or an elaborate hoax.

What makes Bigfoot particularly compelling is the sheer volume of reports. Thousands of sightings are reported annually, from the Pacific Northwest to the Appalachian Mountains, from Florida's swamps to the Canadian Rockies. Witnesses describe an overwhelming foul odor, wood-knocking sounds, and an upright gait that no known great ape possesses.

Indigenous peoples across North America have their own names for the creature — Sasquatch (from the Halkomelem word "Sasq'ets"), Skookum, Oh-Mah, and Ts'emekwes — suggesting the legend predates European colonization by centuries.

"I maintained right to the end that the creature on the film was real." — Roger Patterson, who filmed the creature in 1967 and never recanted before his death in 1972.