in the Sierra Nevada. They can actually be contacted through the Internet at their web site “Sierra Sounds,” where CDs or tapes are available.
One question frequently asked by serious Sasquatch researchers is why prominent, orthodox scientists haven’t joined their ranks in any perceptible strength. It may be argued that they have, but that the traditionalist and rather cautious academic official media are still reluctant to give much space or weight to Sasquatch research.
The well-balanced information available over the Internet via the Virtual Bigfoot Conference Site organized by Henry Franzoni suggests that part of the problem is to be found in the suspicion among a number of researchers that Bigfoot seems to possess a kind of paranormal sixth sense, and perhaps some additional ultra-human abilities. How else, one might sensibly ask, has it managed to avoid contact with Homo sapiens for so long?
Once the question of a sixth sense arises, Franzoni warns, orthodox scientists begin to shy away from delving into a phenomenon. This is probably because of the heavy bias in favour of the mechanistic philosophy of science which appears to have been a dominant influence since the seventeenth century, and the lasting impact of Rene Descartes.
Dr. Rupert Sheldrake’s profound and highly readable work entitled Why Puzzling Powers of Animals Have Been Neglected makes the point that academic biology has inherited from seventeenth century science a strong faith in reductionism — a technique for explaining complex systems in terms of smaller and simpler parts. For example, it was once believed that atoms formed the fundamental bedrock for all physical explanations, but recent subatomic research has shown that the atoms themselves can be thought of as patterns of vibrations within fields: which more or less dissolves the foundations of the old style materialistic science.
Karl Popper, the great philosopher of science, has said: “Through modern physics, materialism has transcended itself.” What seems to have revolutionized the philosophy of science as far as physics is concerned has not yet conquered the stubborn materialism that still persists in some areas of biology. As Dr. Sheldrake says, “Fields of enquiry that are inherently holistic have a low status in the hierarchy of science.”
There is, however, another biological philosophy of science known as vitalism which suggests that living organisms are truly alive, whereas mechanistic and materialistic theories regard them as merely inanimate and soulless.
Because vitalism admits the existence of unknown vital principles, its adherents tended to be open minded about the possibilities of phenomena which were not vulnerable to explanation in mechanistic terms. Vitalists were interested in studying the psychic powers of human beings and uncanny powers in animals — such as the apparent sixth sense of the Sasquatch.
A report from Union Town in Pennsylvania, published in a paper by Stan Gordon for the 1974 UFO Symposium, tells the story of a woman who was sitting at home watching television, when she heard a strange noise coming from her front porch and got up to investigate. Thinking that something dangerous might be out there, she picked up a loaded shotgun first. As she turned on the porch light and stepped out to look, she saw a creature she described as seven feet tall and covered in hair, less than two metres away. She said that it raised its arms above its head, and, thinking it was about to attack, she fired one shot into its body at point blank range. There was a flash of light and the thing simply vanished: no blood, no carcass, no sign of anything.
PARANORMAL ABILITIES
J.W. Burns worked for many years as a teacher among the indigenous Chehalis people of Harrison River, close to Harrison Hot Springs. From his Chehalis friends he heard many accounts of the Sasquatch, not as huge, ape-like semi-humans, but as a magically gifted giant race that had clothes, fire, weapons, and basic technology, and lived in villages. They also had paranormal abilities.
It may be unkind to suggest that perhaps mechanists are mechanists because they are afraid of vitalism and its implications, but it often seems as though they are. As Dr. Sheldrake argues again, for them to admit the reality of anything mysterious or mystical in life would mean abandoning their faith in the hard won certainties of science.
Some embarrassing phenomena are then either attacked or ignored, not because they are unorthodox, illogical, fallacious or ridiculous, but simply because they don’t conform to the comforting mechanistic theory which sets out to explain the universe and all it contains.
Sheldrake maintains that a broader alternative to the mechanistic theory of life has grown up in the form of a holistic or organismic philosophy of nature. The whole is more than the sum of its parts. Nature is made up of organisms not machines.
Against this more liberal philosophical-biological background, the Sasquatch and his Himalayan cousin the Yeti, have much more opportunity of emerging into the light.
An amazing encounter was reported by nineteen-year-old Lakpa Sherpani in 1974. She said that her yak herd was attacked by a short but immensely powerful yeti, which killed five of them by twisting their horns and then knocked her unconscious. The incident occurred at an altitude of approximately 4.3 kilometres in the vicinity of Mount Everest.
In 1957, Professor V.K. Leontiev was in the Caucasus Mountains near the source of the River Jurmut, when he saw strange tracks in the snow. That night he heard inexplicable sounds, and saw a weird, unknown creature the following day. He described it as over seven feet tall and very broad. The body was covered in hair and it walked upright, not touching the ground with its hands. The professor referred to it as a Kaptar, the name by which it was known locally. He examined its footprints carefully after it had gone, and described them as unlike the prints of any animal he had ever come across previously.
In July of 1924 a party of miners was attacked by a group of Sasquatch in the Mount St. Helen’s/Lewis River district in Washington State. The miners had heard strange, frightening sounds for over a week before the Sasquatch actually attacked them. They saw a weird, seven-foot-tall creature and fired at it, then ran to their cabin and barricaded themselves in. All through the night the Sasquatch hurled rocks at the cabin and attempted to break in the door — despite their massive strength, it held. Press men from the Portland Oregonian came to investigate and found giant footprints all around the miners’ cabin. After the attack, the place was renamed Ape Canyon — a name by which it is still known today.
Artist’s impression of Sasquatch or Yeti, based on witnesses’ reports.
Ivan Wally of Vancouver was driving his pickup along the Trans-Canada Highway above the River Thompson, five or six kilometres east of Lytton. It was the evening of November 20, 1969. As his vehicle climbed the hill he saw a creature ahead of him on the road. It was approximately seven feet tall; the legs looked long in proportion to the body, and Ivan guessed that it probably weighed more than 136 kilograms. The creature had short greyish-brown hair all over it. As the truck approached, the creature turned to look at it, and raised both arms.
Ivan said later that its face reminded him of a wizened old man. Something about the thing sent Ivan’s dog — which was on the seat beside him — half crazy with either fear or anger, maybe a combination of both. At that point the creature loped away on its long legs. Ivan turned around and drove back to Lytton where he reported the incident to the RCMP, who took him seriously and searched for footprints. Unfortunately, the roadside gravel was not conducive to taking impressions, and they found none.
Volumes could easily be filled with similar incidents: hundreds, perhaps thousands, of sensible, truthful and reliable witnesses from Canada, the United States, Tibet, Nepal, China, and Russia have reported sighting after sighting of strange creatures resembling very large men, covered with hair.
