I disagree. Cryptozoology isn’t taken seriously because of the constant intrusion of material like the above. What seems to be assumed here is that anything anybody says they’ve seen, even if it is explicitly supernatural and tied to one particular minority belief-system, is in some sense literally, objectively true, and can be lumped in with evidence that apparently relates to a flesh-and-blood creature that is either a clever and highly reclusive primate or a rather dim variant on homo sapiens sapiens. The telling point here is that the “elderly but otherwise lucid” primary witness is assumed to be incapable of getting anything wrong for any reason, apart from that awkward little detail about the creature having a hat on.

Well, obviously, he doesn’t wear a hat – that’s just silly. So we can throw that particular detail out of the window. Never mind that the creature being discussed here is described as a “man”, meaning “human being”, whose most significant distinguishing features are that he is “big”, “tall”, and wears a certain type of hat. I am 6′ 7″, therefore, depending on my choice of headgear, this could be a description of me. Assuming of course that I was in the habit of wandering around the USA inciting Native Americans to commit suicide. Which, by the way, I’m not.

However, in a desperate attempt to drag a creature into the category of “Bigfoot”, you illustrate the thread with a drawing of the aforementioned fellow, and then take it as read that the allegedly reliable witness was so amazed by the shape of his skull that she not only misidentified it as being some type of hat, but completely failed to notice that he was an otherwise naked 7-foot ape-man!

In terms of mainstream science, this is roughly equivalent to assuming (as Dan Brown did, but then, he was writing fiction, the sole purpose of which was to pay his bills with the minimum of effort) that because the Higgs Boson is nicknamed “the God Particle”, it must have something to do with religion; and furthermore assuming that for this reason, the almost immediate breakdown of the newest supercollider at CERN was due to the Devil’s disinclination to allow humans to isolate little bits of God Almighty in test-tubes, so what it needs is a jolly good exorcism, and then it’ll work fine. The above argument will not endear you to theoretical physicists.

So make your minds up. Is Bigfoot a magical bogeyman whose basic purpose in life is to materialise from another dimension and persuade the Dakota Sioux to commit suicide in larger numbers that they otherwise would? And without wishing to in any way belittle the horrible difficulties that many cultural minorities suffer from, I think it’s worth mentioning here that since the high suicide rates in this particular group, and many like it, are linked with a hideous combination of cultural marginalisation, grinding poverty, substance abuse problems, and serious mental health issues, possibly some of these people are not the most reliable of objective witnesses. But assuming they got it right, and assuming that this particular religious belief-system is correct, then clearly Bigfoot is an evil monster who needs to be banished by means of magic rituals involving enchanted branches. And whether he looks more like Mighty Joe Young or The Cat In The Hat really isn’t an issue – this is special secret magic stuff that’s true because somebody said so, so who cares whether or not certain details are absurd?

So let’s think about M. K. Davis and his claims. Yes, they’re absurd, and also defamatory to various people, living or dead. But what he’s actually claiming (for whatever reason) is that, on the basis of extremely shaky evidence indeed, he can prove that a big logging company killed a number of these creatures for reasons based purely on greed and then covered it up. This isn’t terribly likely to be true, especially given the quality of the evidence he puts forward to support it. Indeed, it is 99.99% safe to say that M. K. Davis is either a cynical fraud or mentally ill. But at least what he’s claiming is possible.

On that basis, the whole Bigfoot Massacre saga is vastly more plausible than this “Walking Sam” nonsense, which, even if we assume that anything vaguely improbable that takes place on the North American continent is automatically a Bigfoot manifestation so long as the creature involved is fairly tall (which is a bit like saying that anything over 6′ in height is an elephant unless it’s got windows), is quite explicitly a quasi-religious belief roughly on a par with Leprechauns. This is why, to mainstream science, anything suggested by cryptozoologists will always be dismissed out of hand. Even if you triumphantly point to bigger-than-previously accepted squids (though still nowhere near big enough to sink a ship, as depicted every single time these critters are discussed), mainstream science will always snigger and say: “Yeah, but you guys believe in fairies!” Because you do.

There are at least three different topics involved here: cryptozoology proper, which is the study of real, biologically feasible creatures that actually exist but haven’t been catalogued yet; cultural anthropology, which is equally valid but another discipline altogether; and religion or thereabouts, where proof is neither needed nor sought for, because I know it’s true and that’s all that matters. Cryptozoology will be laughed at until it figures out which of the above is its main theme. And depending on its choice, perhaps it’ll be laughed at anyway; but it needs to make a choice, because these approaches are mutually exclusive.

Think about it…