One overcast Sunday morning in 1996, Jeffrey Meldrum and his brother drove to Walla Walla, Wash., to see if they could find Paul Freeman, a man renowned in Bigfoot circles as a source of footprint casts. Meldrum—who has followed Bigfoot lore since he was a boy—had heard that Freeman was a hoaxer, “so I was very dubious,” he recalls. The brothers arrived unannounced, Meldrum says, and chatted with Freeman about his collection. Freeman said he had found tracks just that morning, but they were not good, not worth casting. The brothers wanted to see them regardless. “I thought we could use this to study the anatomy of a hoax,” Meldrum says. Instead Meldrum’s visit to a ridge in the Blue Mountains set him firmly on a quest he has been on since.
Meldrum, an associate professor of anatomy and anthropology at Idaho State University, is an expert on foot morphology and locomotion in monkeys, apes and hominids. He has studied the evolution of bipedalism and edited From Biped to Strider (Springer, 2004), a well-respected textbook. He brought his anatomical expertise to the site outside Walla Walla. The 14-inch-long prints Freeman showed him were interesting, Meldrum says, because some turned out at a 45-degree angle, suggesting that whatever made them had looked back over its shoulder. Some showed skin whorls, some were flat with distinct anatomical detail, others were of running feet—imprints of the front part of the foot only, of toes gripping the mud. Meldrum made casts and decided it would be hard to hoax the running footprints, “unless you had some device, some cable-loaded flexible toes.”
To Meldrum, the anatomy captured in those prints and the casts of others he has examined as well as still unidentified hairs, recordings of strange calls and certain witness testimonials all add up to valid evidence that warrants study. He reviews that evidence in Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science (Forge, 2006). “My book is not an attempt to convince people of the existence of Sasquatch,” the 49-year-old Meldrum says emphatically; rather it argues that “the evidence that exists fully justifies the investigation and the pursuit of this question.”
To Meldrum’s critics—including university colleagues and scientists in his own field—that same collection does not constitute valid evidence, and Meldrum’s examination of it is pseudoscientific: belief shrouded in the language of scientific rigor and analysis. “Even if you have a million pieces of evidence, if all the evidence is inconclusive, you can’t count it all up to make something conclusive,” says David J. Daegling, an anthropologist at the University of Florida who has critiqued Meldrum and the Bigfoot quest in the Skeptical Inquirer and is the author of Bigfoot Exposed (AltaMira, 2004).
Neither side can win its case without a Sasquatch specimen or fossil or without the true confessions of a fleet of perhaps fleet-footed hoaxers. In the meantime, observers watch a debate that is striking in that both sides use virtually the same language, refute each other’s interpretations with the same tone of disbelief and insist they have the identical goal: honoring the scientific method. And the question of how science on the fringe should be dealt with remains open: some observers say that Meldrum, who has been lambasted by colleagues and passed over for promotion twice, should just be left alone to do his thing; others counter that in this era of creationism, global warming denial, and widespread antiscience sentiment and scientific illiteracy, it is particularly imperative that bad science be soundly scrutinized and exposed.
Meldrum is a tall, mustached man, relaxed, friendly and gregarious. On a recent summer morning in his office—rich in Bigfoot paraphernalia—he explains that his interest in the subject arose when he was 11 and saw Roger Patterson’s now famous film of an alleged Sasquatch loping into the forest. Meldrum listed cryptozoology (the study of hidden creatures such as yeti and Nessie) as an interest on his vitae when he applied for doctoral work. But Bigfoot as an active pursuit did not emerge until he arrived at Idaho State in 1993 and was back in the Pacific Northwest, where he grew up.
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17 Comments
Add CommentThe Sasquatch flap is but one bit of evidence showing that scientists are just as capable of being wrong, and refusing to admit it, as any other group of people. Compare and contrast a creationist's objections to evolution with that of a Sasquatch skeptic some time, and not how much the two compositions resemble each other. The similarities in reasoning, logic, and in the use of language. Any field of doubt where the doubter relies upon appeals to authority, belittling the other side, and a refusal to consider readily available evidence.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisProof is not invalid simply because you refuse to accept it as being valid.
Meldrum is a genious ahead of his time. His work will shine for centuries afterwards.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMeldrum is a crackpot of the first order. He will be laughed at for the entire 15 minutes of his fame.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBlack Holes, Dark Matter, Quantum Mechanics are a few topics that brought scorn by the scientific community before they were acutally shown to exist. I don't think Dr. Meldrum is in the same catagory as those two Redneck Bafoons from Georgia who claimed to have a dead Bigfoot. Those are the idiots who are responsible for most everyone thinking the subject is a load of garbage. I think Dr. Meldrum is someone who is interested in the "Possibility" of its existance based on physical anatomical features presented in the casts. I don't think he deserves to be shunned by his colleagues because of his thories but I find that typical in people who are afraid to be original.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDr. Meldrum is a "faith-based" "pseudo-scientist" who accepts only "evidence" that tends to support his ideas. His laughable mis-interpretation of the "Skookum cast" is a good example. Comparing his claims to actual scientific advances is fallacious; he uses hoaxed/fraudulent data, and substitutes circular reasoning for proof. Meldrum is worse than your "Bafoons" because he masquerades as a scientist.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDr. Meldrum is a "faith-based" "pseudo-scientist" who accepts only "evidence" that tends to support his ideas. His laughable mis-interpretation of the "Skookum cast" is a good example. Comparing his claims to actual scientific advances is fallacious; he uses hoaxed/fraudulent data, and substitutes circular reasoning for proof. Meldrum is worse than your "Bafoons" because he masquerades as a scientist who seeks the truth; in reality, he is not a truth seeker; like the creationists and the global-warming deniers, he seeks only to validate his beliefs.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou're an idiot.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn 1971 two friends and I left the small town of PeEll, Washington. We traveled from the tiny town of Dryad thru timber land to the Pacific ocean. We left the last day of school and ended up staying the night basically in the middle of nowhere. The road that we choose to camp on was a dead-end looging road with a small turnaround at the end. The road was quite steep to this location and we could see thru the moonlight the lower area which was clearcut. We were surrounded by old growth on three sides. We slept in the bed of the truck under the canopy with one person on a raised platform and the other two on the bed of the truck surface. We had only been in our sleeping bags for about 20 minutes and had just stopped some small talk when something lifted the back of the truck up and slammed it back down two or three times. We looked out all side , back, and front windows and saw nothing. After the initial shock one of my friends got out with his .22 rifle and yelled that we were armed. Me and my other friend got out and we all looked down the road leading to where we were and could see nobody nor any vehicle. The moon was bright and the road was very visable. The three of us have never spoken about this to each other to this day but I have told my wife and kids. There is more to tell but I don't want to write a book on the comment page. I had two more incedents in the Willipa hills to go along with this. I have allways wondered what it was that night. There is much more to tell. The other two incounters were even more scary and involved. Does anyone want to listen?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm very curious to hear the other stories!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEven if you bring the evidence that's beena asked for university scientist can't be trusted anyways. I have offered to introduce a couple of anthropologists to the beast itself apparently they're to busy looking at plaster than to see the proof right in front of them
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisStupid mobile anyways I go to the same spot all the time in fact when this text was sent I'm hearing them howl. The only reason you don't have public proof is cuz science today is lazy. Oh by the way when is someone gonna calibrate a carbon dating machine. And to think I'm goin to school to join these jerks.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEven if you bring the evidence that's beena asked for university scientist can't be trusted anyways. I have offered to introduce a couple of anthropologists to the beast itself apparently they're to busy looking at plaster than to see the proof right in front of them
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisto: Fingers1973, You should set up a free blog, post your stories there and com back here and share your link to it. Also go to http://home.clara.net/rfthomas/bf_classics.html and/or the BFRO site to see if they would like to post your stories. Also I would like to just express how much I admire Dr. Meldrum for having the curiosity and courage so far exhibited. I believe! -Todd C Homer.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisto: Fingers1973, You should set up a free blog, post your stories there and com back here and share your link to it. Also go to http://home.clara.net/rfthomas/bf_classics.html and/or the BFRO site to see if they would like to post your stories. Also I would like to just express how much I admire Dr. Meldrum for having the curiosity and courage so far exhibited. I believe! -Todd C Homer.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe claim --
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Black Holes, Dark Matter, Quantum Mechanics are a few topics that brought scorn by the scientific community
before they were acutally (sic) shown to exist."
is seriously incorrect.
1. Dark matter has never been observed.
2. Black holes are unobservable by definition, and
3. Quantum mechanics is only an interpretation -
not an observation as was asserted.
References:
ScienceBasedCosmology.com/glossary.htm
http://kicp.uchicago.edu/research/cosmology_glossary.html#A
http://cosmology.berkeley.edu/Education/IUP/GlossaryA_E.htm
Anyone.....scientist or not, should be ENCOURAGED to press the limits and stretch the boundries in any area of research or interest.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhere would we be without the "pioneers" in ALL fields of research !!
If you want to look at one specific field of study with more "evidence" then could ever be seriously studied in one persons life time, look at Egyptology.
What we are "sure of" has changed dramatically since Howard Carter unearthed Tut's tomb, and the controversy still rages over many (if not most) conclusions (i.e. the date & Pharaoh attributed to the Sphinx).
I applaud Dr. Meldrum's courage and tenacity and am fondly looking forward to the day he and, his research, is vindicated !!
In closing I offer this challenge......find one, just one, Native American culture devoid of belief in this creature ("Kecleh-Kudleh" meaning "hairy man" in my native Cherokee) Sasquatch or Bigfoot to most others.
How naive we are to stack our limited 250 year experience of destroying their (stolen) land, up against their thousands of years experience existing in harmony with it.
Yes, Please.
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