[Editor’s note] Publication in February, 1968 Argosy magazine of the first photos ever taken of Bigfoot, California’s "Abominable Snowman" has raised a storm of controversy and conjecture. What most people want to know is: What proof do we have other than the films taken by Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin, that such a creature really exists? Actually, there were already in existence before the Patterson-Gimlin film two pieces of extraordinary physical evidence which certainly go a long way toward proving that there really is something out there!

We have labeled this creature "abominable snowman" strictly for reader-identification purposes. Actually, this Bigfoot or Sasquatch has no connection with the Yeti, the Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas. The Yeti, if it exists, is an ape; Bigfoot, if it exists, is a hominoid — a man-creature. But the question is, does it exist? Throughout the past several hundred years, these creatures have been reported seen from Alaska to California, in Mexico and Guatemala and even into the Andes of South America. In 1884, one of them was actually captured on the trans-Canada rail line in Frazer River Gorge. The governor of British Columbia reported the catch to the Crown. Bigfoot is no stranger to the Americas. Aside from Patterson’s and Gimlin’s fuzzy photos, what physical evidence is there to indicate that this creature, and others like it actually exist?

First of all, as noted in our previous report, we have the plaster casts of its footprints in the mud. Similar footprints have been case and reported throughout Western America for centuries. If this creature is a hoax, it’s the most impressive hoax in history.One of the most impressive pieces of evidence is a collection of what appears to be Bigfoot scat or excrement. Several examples of this, attributed to these creatures, were allegedly found on "beds," said to have been made by them. The beds themselves might be more evidence, but how can one tell?

Citizens whom I consider reliable supplied the photographs taken of three of them to me. In one case there were three witnesses, and the photographer was an Annapolis graduate and is now a deck officer in the USN. That I would lay any store at all upon these reports of "beds" is due almost wholly to the fact that all those who claim to have found them say not only are there foot tracks around them, but that there was also this stench described by almost everybody including Patterson and Gimlin who say they have been near the creatures. The beds, which are made of pine branches and ferns, are said to be matted and stinking and to be composed of layers of older material, interlarded with strata of urine and feces. They are all in the open, but in sheltered places.

The matter of scat, per se is far more definite. There have been four collections of this that I know of from North America, and I believe there have been others.

I can mention only two incidents. The first was stumbled across by the staff photographer of the then Humboldt Times of Eureka, California when he was sent up to Bluff Creek in l958 to investigate the reports of the bulldozer operators ten pushing the first access road into that area. On his way back, he stopped by a roadside creek and there he saw Bigfoot Tracks in the mud and encountered the usual appalling smell. But this time there was also an enormous pile of droppings that were still warm and when shoveled into a bucket, filled it to the brim. This specimen was not, as far as I know, analyzed scientifically.

The other case of which I have first hand knowledge is a quantity of which was shipped in a plastic container with dry ice to me in New York, for trans-shipment to Professor W. C. Osman Hill, then senior scientist at the London Zoological Society. This specimen shook up the scientist. I wish we had space to give you their report in full. It is quite amazing. The points of significance in it are as follows: In general, this fecal mass did not in any way resemble that of any known North American animal.

On the other hand, it did look humanoid, but it had some peculiar features, as if the lower bowel had a spiral twist. But above all, it was composed exclusively of vegetable matter and this as far as could be identified of local California fresh water plants. The real clincher, however was that it contained the eggs and desiccated remains of certain larvae otherwise known only in (a) some North American Indian tribal groups in the Northwest, (b) pigs imported from south China, (c) human beings in country districts in southwest China and (d) in pigs in that same area.

Do I come finally to hairs. This is really such a complicated subject that I recoil from the request to try to explain it. Therefore I must ask you to take me on trust when I tell you that science of trichology – i.e., the study of hairs – is one of the most complex of all expertise. Only mammals have true hairs, but even we have 5 completely different kinds.

What is more, the microscopic structure of hairs from the same part of the same animal may vary by season, by age, by diet and for goodness knows how many other reasons. There are only three real collections of hairs in the world, but there simply are no trichologist anymore, since the death of one Dr. F. Martin Duncan who was in charge of the collection that has been built up over the years at the London Zoo.

Luckily, he was alive to examine some of the dozen sets of specimens of hairs of alleged Bigfoot that we obtained and stated on two occasions and in writing, which I have on file, that said hairs did not match any known North American mammal, but that they would be from an unknown and very large primate. A primate, ladies and gentlemen, means lemurs, monkeys, apes and us.

This, is a way, is almost as convincing to me as the matter of the scat — though not as pertinent as that of the worm parasites. But what more can you ask? Answer: (strangely enough) blood, sweat,. tears, bone marrow, lymph, urine, scat, dandruff, external parasites like lice, plaster casts or moulages of hands, feet and mask of the face, hair specimens from all over the body and a dentist’s-type cast of both upper and lower jaws. Those are the minimal requirements.

But best of all would, of course, be a tranquilized Woods Person itself, for scientists to look at and examine. Maybe as a result of all this attentions we will see a Woods Person sooner than anyone thinks!

© Argosy Magazine

Sanderson, Ivan Terrence. (1911-1973)
Sanderson received degrees with honors in geology, zoology and botany and headed six expeditions in all parts of the world for such groups as the British museum, Cambridge and London Universities, the Linnaean Societies of London and the Chicago Natural History Museum. He was the author of many books; one, "Animal Treasures" was a Book Of The Month selection in 1937. Others include, “The Hairy Primitives of Ancient Europe” 1967," "Caribbean Treasure,"  "Animals Nobody Knows," "Living treasure," "Animal Tales," "How to Know American Mammals, "  "The Monkey Kingdom," and "Living Mammals of the World.” The Abominable Snowmen, Legend Come to Life” written in 1961 and countless articles for various publications and Argosy Magazine where he was ‘science editor.'

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