Bigfoot

Bigfoot is the modern name for a reputed large, hair-covered, humanlike being said to inhabit remote North American forests. The term gained national attention in 1958 after oversized tracks were reported near Bluff Creek, California. Distinct Indigenous traditions concerning wild or forest beings long predate that episode and should not be collapsed into a single modern cryptid story.

The Humboldt Times publicized Jerry Crew’s plaster cast and the name “Bigfoot” in October 1958. In 2002, relatives of logger Ray Wallace said he had made the tracks with carved wooden feet. That admission strongly undercuts the founding incident without resolving every later report.

Popular culture ranges from threatening monster stories to the gentle family comedy Harry and the Hendersons. These characterizations are creative inventions rather than a consistent body of reported traits.

• Joshua Blu Buhs, Bigfoot: The Life and Times of a Legend, University of Chicago Press, 2009.
• David J. Daegling, Bigfoot Exposed: An Anthropologist Examines America’s Enduring Legend, AltaMira Press, 2004.