BlO—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, April 28,1984
Blgfoot and other
monsters still stalk science
WASHINGTON - The reports
started coining in to officials in
Truro, Mass., last fall. A large,
cat-like animal was killing cats
and pigs, running in front of cars,
and generally alarming the
populace of the Cape Cod com
munity.
“It’s been compared to Bigfoot,
to the Loch Ness Monster, to
everything,” says Edward A.
Oswalt, the town’s selectman
assessor and chairman of its board
of health.
“We’ve had trackers out
everywhere, and we’ve followed up
on all leads. To this day, we
haven’t found anything conclusive
to indicate there was such an
animal in the area.”
But the animal has been named
“the Beast of Truro,” and no one
has yet explained it.
Dinosaur Hunt
Mysterious creatures of this sort
are reported nearly everywhere.
Just last fall a University of
Chicago biologist went off to
central Africa to search for
Mokele-Mbembe, said to look like a
dinosaur with a long, flexible neck
and a muscular tail. So far he’s had
no luck; Mokele-Mbembe hasn’t
turned up.
The Loch Ness Monster has
North American counterparts in
“Champ” of Lake Champlain, and
in “Ogopopo,” the sea serpent of
Okanagan Lake in British
Columbia. Then there is the
Abominable Snowman of the
Himalayas, the Wildman of Hubei
in China, Yowie of Australia, and
the Soviet Union’s Chuchunaa and
Wild Man of Dagestan.
But the most famous North
American creature is Bigfoot, or
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sasquatch, as he was known to
British Columbian Indians. Like
many such creatures elsewhere,
he is described as at least 8 feet
tall, covered with hair, and
emitting a foul odor; like creatures
elsewhere, he goes back centuries
in folklore and myth.
The number of Bigfoot sightings
reported each year depends on wh
is doing the counting. The creature
has been reported in every region
of the continental United States,
though the Pacific Northwest, with
its dense forests, is its most
common “home.”
Apart from sightings, the
evidence in favor of its existence
consists of footprints, some hair
samples, a little blood and some
droppings, an occasional
photograph, and a short film
sequence shot in California in 1967.
But every piece of evidence has
proven to be controversial, leading
Grover Krantz, an anthropologist
at Washington State l/niversity, to
say that only a specimen or a
skeleton would convince other
scientists. Krantz himself is
already convinced.
Foot Not Human
“I’ve examined evidence that I
can’t explain any other way,” he
says. “I’ve analyzed the footprints,
and I can deduce that it’s not a
gigantic human foot involved. It’s
been modified exactly the way
you’d have to modify a foot for an
800-pound body in order to keep it
walking correctly.
“There’s a lot of pig-headedness
about scientists. U science has
missed an animal this big, science
would look a little funny. So better
not look for it.”
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unscramble the following letters: RAETTENA
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