Thinking about Bigfoot

Watching a show about Bigfoot on the History Channel tonight, I’m wondering why the scientific community has such a hard time looking at evidence of the “paranormal.”

I’m not trying to be a conspiracy theorist here, but after watching the documentary, I learned, the following:

• I guess there have been over 800 sighting in the Pacific Northwest, mostly around the same region around Mount St. Helens. 
• That back in 1847 the an American documented that local Native Americans wouldn’t go near the St. Helens area out of fear of a tribe of giant hairy cannibals. 
• A lot of the sightings have been by women. Now this is just speculation, but the better of the sexes doesn’t strike me as one that would try to pull off a hundred or so hoaxes.
• They did frame by frame motion capturing of an athlete to see if he could move in the same manner as what was caught on the classic 1967 film footage. He couldn’t.
• They did microscopic digital scans of the original footage and saw no evidence of zippers or any other telltale signs of a costume. In fact they saw better definition of ape like features.
• They also showed an interview with a guy that was there, who stayed out of the public until a few years ago. He seemed like he was just a cowboy that saw something he couldn’t believe. If he was part of a hoax, why would he not talk to anyone about it for 40 years?

Now I don’t know if the 1967 footage is a guy in an ape suit, of the real deal, but it makes me wonder why people are so quick to disbelieve in something that is new or outside of our perception of what is normal. Especially the scientific community which one would think should remain objective, analyze the evidence and hold all conclusions until the something is either proven or disproven.

Why the sudden fascination with Bigfoot?

This weekend I watched another History Channel documentary about planets outside our solar system. It amazed me to hear that up until 1995, when the first alien planet was detected, the search for other planets was considered within the astronomy community. In the 10+ years since, we’ve only found 200 more planets. With each new discovery the scientific community is being challenged on accepted “facts” about how planets are formed and the behavior of solar systems. 

Bigfoot… alien planets… it all depresses me. 

I fear we jump to absolute truths far too easily and incredibly too often. We forget that nothing is absolute, what we know to be “fact” is very likely to be altered, refined, redefined, or outright disproven as ancient mysticism at some point in the future. 

If we lose sight of what is really fun and exciting in life, like using our imagination, asking questions that no one else seems to be asking, and having the courage to seek out something new, then what is the point of getting up each day? 

So I hope that Bigfoot exists. I would love to live to see that day that he is discovered and that our world is rocked to our core.