* Sasquatch Aroma / Odor / Smell / Scent

"...Only about 10% or so of sasquatch sightings are connected with a strong smell." (John Green).

On some occasions, however, the smell has been reported to be unbearable and overpowering, akin to being wrapped in "dirty diapers". There are persistent suggestions that the smell is "turned on" on demand.

An illuminating observation comes from mountain gorillas as recorded by Dian Fossey. She describes males as producing an"overpowering, gagging fear odor," either when fleeing from enemies such as poachers with dogs, or else in confrontational encounters with other males. The smell is intense at a distance of 80 feet, coincidentally accompanied by discharge of diarrheic stool, as human gorilla observers are known to have emulated when charged by a male gorilla. It can be justly surmised that Dian Fossey was used to rather intense primate aromas after months in the jungle. George Schaller describes the odor as a mixture of "sweat, manure, charred wood, and burning rubber." (...I'm not sure comparing gorillas to sasquatches is reasonable....Short)

The origin of the odor appears to be in the axillary organ, a mass of apocrine sweat glands many layers deep in the armpit. A marginal comment in a gorilla autopsy report comments on one gland smelling and the other not, an indication of neural control over the discharge (the gorilla had been shot, presumably on one side).

Any human male will be able to testify to the amazingly instant neural control of our axillary glands when, for example, he is caught red-handed in a compromising situation.

It is likely that we, as primates react particularly to primate aromas; we are rather offended by the smell of the zoo ape house, but equally intense horse or cow smells do not generate that reaction.

A sample of purported sasquatch bedding material that I smelled reminded me of preputial gland aroma (penile glands under the foreskin), a smell that would most certainly be perceived as "gagging" in any concentration.

The assorted lipids secreted by man, after some processing by surface bacteria, lead to smells that are rarely encountered in our sanitized society.

I have personally smelled two individuals with intense goat and horse aroma at a few feet distance, respectively (both female). The sense of smell of the sasquatch, in keeping with that of other higher primates, is apt to be no better than that of man unperturbed by smoking or other injuries.

The gorilla parallel consists of Dian Fossey climbing a tree with a juvenile gorilla, experimentally introduced into a troupe and rescued by her while being maltreated.

The enraged alpha male circled the tree repeatedly failing to notice Fossey's native assistant cowering in the roots of the tree and presumably "sweating bullets", without detecting him by his smell.

Repeated reports of people feeling like they are being observed, being overcome by unreasoning fear, abruptly retreating from the forest without obvious cause may conceivable be due to a hormonal component of sasquatch sweat, perceived below conscious level, although it elicits an immediate emotional response.

As such, it would be a true example of a releaser pheromone, a substance that produces a neural response in minute quantities and one that has not been experimentally demonstrated in man. Such response would be independent of any reported aroma of any sort.

Other demonstrated effects of pheromones in humans have been designated as primers, signalers and modulators (Wysocki and Preti. Facts, Fallacies, Fears and Frustrations with Human Pheromones. Anatomical Record 281A: 1201-1211 (2004).

© 1997 Dr. W. H. Fahrenbach Ph.D.

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