04x15 - The Legend of Bigfoot

[bunniefuu]

Tonight, the most elusive beast

in North America.

Bigfoot might be the most widely

spotted cryptid in history.

This is not

something that's limited

to just one region,

or even just one continent.

This is something that is

reported all over the world.

Despite thousands of sightings,

this mysterious animal

remains unidentified.

Top scientists are at a loss.

They can't find any match

to any known species.

Now, we explore the top theories

surrounding

this cryptic creature.

How did these two cowboys

pull off the greatest thing

in creature feature history?

It is possible

that some of these

could be wild humans.

There was a creature that

was thought to have gone extinct

that did match this description.

Does Bigfoot exist?

And if so, what is it,

and where is it?

September 1958,

Humboldt County, California,

lumber worker Jerry Crew

is operating a bulldozer

when he spots something strange

in the woods.

Maybe 20 feet away from where

he's working, he sees these

large human-like footprints

pressed deep into the mud.

And he mentions it

to his supervisor,

a man named

Wilbur Shorty Wallace.

Upon closer examination,

the prints are 16 inches across,

much too big to be human.

It's unlike anything

he's ever seen before.

Could it be an animal print?

Sure.

But if it is,

it's strangely human,

but much larger.

Initially,

Jerry suspects a coworker

is playing a prank on him.

Let's be real,

you're working in a remote area

with a bunch of guys,

it's a brotherhood.

We play pranks on each other,

it's just what we do.

Shorty Wallace's brother

Ray Wallace

is a complete prankster.

So, when Jerry

sees these prints,

he's assuming that the guys

are pulling his leg.

But soon,

other strange accounts surface.

At a job site the year before,

a 450-pound fuel drum

went missing.

It was found nearby in a gully,

but it had these giant

human-like footprints nearby.

This is not something that

an average-sized human being

could move on their own at all.

People also see a 700-pound tire

is magically moved

over to a ditch.

And what is around it?

Tracks.

Given the size

of the footprints,

the loggers come up with

a nickname for the creature

Bigfoot.

There are lots of

logging operations in the area,

and workers on other sites

catch wind of this Bigfoot.

For many of them,

this strikes a chord.

A number of them

who have been working

out in these woods

have reported the sensation

of feeling like

they've been watched,

that there is some

sort of intelligence

that is observing them

as they work.

It's not long

before these accounts

attract local media attention.

The story of Bigfoot

makes its way

to the Humboldt Times newspaper

in the form of a letter

that lands on the desk

of writer Andrew Genzoli.

Like Jerry Crew,

Genzoli assumes at first

that the letter is from

some crackpot.

But on September 21st, 1958,

he has a column to finish,

so he mentions it

towards the end

just as a bit of a joke,

like, "Hey, guess what",

"Humboldt County has its very

own abominable snowman.

They call it Bigfoot."

Once people see this story,

it catches on like wildfire.

People are intrigued by this.

It ties in with

their own experiences.

They've heard rumors that fall

right into line

with what's being reported.

It only makes sense

at this point

that Genzoli

is going to follow up.

So, he sets out to follow up

with Crew

to talk to the other lumberjacks

to find out

what's going on here.

What Genzoli ultimately

found out

when he did some more research

is that the idea of Bigfoot

itself,

of a large creature

with large footprints,

was not new, and in fact,

was part of the folklore

of Native American tribes

for some time.

There are reports

of unusual footprints

and sightings here dating back

throughout the 1800s.

In 1850, a prospector was mining

on the side of Mount Shasta,

and he had what could be said

as one of the first interactions

with Bigfoot, when a large

hairy hominid

came out of the woods

and smashed his sluice,

and then went back in the woods,

as if to say,

"Get the hell

off my mountain."

Because of all of the stories

coming in,

all of the engagement

from readership,

the Humboldt Times ends up

publishing an entire series

of stories about this creature

called Bigfoot.

This causes a huge stir,

and this story goes national.

Within weeks, the name "Bigfoot"

is known across America.

With all this attention,

there is a mad rush

to investigate.

And so, the L.A. Times,

the New York Times,

they all show up because

they want a piece of Bigfoot.

The whole country

is buzzing about this.

We see an immediate divide

between believers

and non-believers,

and skeptics and die-hards.

Everyone has an opinion.

A popular TV show

offers a $1,000 prize

to anyone who will come forward

and admit to perpetrating

this hoax.

And no one steps up

to claim the money.

In fact, new evidence emerges.

So, on October 17th, 1958,

a gentleman named George Smith

is driving through

Humboldt County,

and he has to slam on his brakes

as this large hairy beast

crosses the road

in front of him.

He described it as being

at least eight feet in height.

It stood upright and walked,

and it appeared shaggy

like it was wearing

a bearskin coat.

Could this be the same beast

that's been leaving behind

all these footprints?

Or is Smith

just making this story up

to get his 15 minutes of fame?

Despite the fact that we don't

end up with any proof

either way,

Bigfoot becomes engrained

in our nation's

collective psyche.

People are actually

making trips,

making pilgrimages

what folklorists

would call legend trips

to Humboldt County

to look for Bigfoot themselves.

For years, unsubstantiated

reports of sightings

continue pretty regularly.

More oversized Bigfoot tracks

are found,

some trails stretching on

for several miles.

This is not something

that's limited

to just one region

or even just one continent.

This is something

that is reported

in firsthand

and secondhand accounts

all over the world.

But as time goes on,

the mystery begins to take on

a slightly different tone.

Tales of Bigfoot encounters

grow more outlandish

and increasingly suspicious.

People started

to claim everything

from Bigfoot kidnapped them,

to they've seen Bigfoot

reading a newspaper

on a flying saucer.

They saw Bigfoot at 7-Eleven.

The vast majority

of these later Bigfoot stories

are clearly made up.

Bigfoot almost becomes a joke.

People do not take this

seriously.

This is not treated

as a scientific finding.

It's something that's

largely considered to be untrue.

It's a shame, really,

because there are people

who really saw something,

and they really want answers.

There are proven

scientific methods

that could possibly find

those answers.

Once everybody thinks

Bigfoot is made up though,

they stop taking

the search seriously.

Still, it's worth pointing out,

as silly as things get,

that original Humboldt Times

story from 1958

is never officially debunked.

That is, until 2002.

In November of 2002,

Jerry Crew's coworker

Ray Wallace passed away.

Soon after his death,

Wallace's children come forward

to reveal their father

orchestrated the whole thing

back in the 1950s

and kept quiet about it

all these years.

On his deathbed,

Wallace has told his children

the whole story.

Ray Wallace comes up

with the idea,

and he enlists the help of

his brother Shorty, obviously.

And then they also get

their nephew

Mack McKinley in on it as well.

He and his brother

and his nephew

would strap

essentially wooden flip flops

onto their feet and walk around,

creating these large footprints.

Wallace's kids even have

a pair of the shoes

their dad used

to make the famous footprints.

Wallace was a prankster,

and according to his children,

his original goal

was simply to scare

his friend Jerry.

But when the story blows up,

rather than enjoying

his "gotcha" moment,

he decides to double down

and keep the ruse

going for decades.

Wallace's efforts aren't limited

to fake footprints.

On his property, Ray Wallace

keeps a number of bison,

and he uses their fur

and their droppings

to custom craft

hair and stool samples

that he leaves in the woods

for Bigfoot hunters to find.

Based on Wallace's

hoax confirmation,

for a lot of people, that's it.

It should be case closed,

we figured it out,

this guy made something up.

But what about

the other sightings?

It is impossible for Ray,

and Shorty, and Mack

to be responsible

for all Bigfoot sightings,

experiences, interactions

in the entire world.

And Wallace never dressed up

as an eight-foot-tall creature

and walked around at night.

What does that say for people

who actually spotted an animal,

and not just footprints or hair?

And what about the many

sightings

that take place before

Wallace is ever born?

Has there been a century-long

series of hoaxers,

or are people really

seeing something out there?

While Wallace

clearly played an important role

in the gestation

of the Bigfoot myth,

he is certainly not

the cause of it

or the entire

explanation for it.

There have been over

5,000 documented sightings.

There's no way one guy

could be responsible

for all of that.

I believe Ray Wallace

accidentally shined a light

onto a legend

of a very real creature.

The irony is that

Ray Wallace's fake footprints

may ultimately lead us

to the truth.

1967, Bluff Creek, California,

11 years after news

spreads nationwide

of a creature called Bigfoot,

two outdoorsmen head off

to hunt the beast

along the Klamath River.

In the summer of 1967,

Roger Patterson,

who's become fascinated

with the legend of Bigfoot,

is filming

a sort of pseudo-documentary

on the subject, when he bumps

into his old friend Bob Gimlin

at a gas station.

He tells Gimlin about his film,

and that he's heading

to check out

some unidentified footprints

found in

the Northern California area.

Gimlin agrees to go with him.

So, Patterson and Gimlin

are about halfway

through their journey

when they're approaching

a river,

and something spooks

Patterson's horse.

He ends up falling off

the horse,

but when he sees what it was

that his horse saw,

he pulls out his camera

and begins filming.

The filmed encounter

lasts 59 1/2 seconds.

To Patterson and Gimlin,

it feels like an hour.

Something emerges

from the brush

an enormous animal

Patterson and Gimlin

have never seen before.

They think it might be Bigfoot.

Once they surprise

the creature, it starts walking

quickly away from them,

and they manage to follow it

for quite some time

before they lost sight of it

in the woods.

Patterson and Gimlin then

hurry back to their campsite

to grab some plaster.

They know they're going to need

as much proof as possible,

so they take casts of the prints

left behind by the beast.

That night,

the 16-millimeter film

is developed.

What the film shows us

is a massive bipedal creature.

It's maybe six and a half,

seven feet tall.

It's covered head to toe

in this sort of

silvery brown fur

that reflects the sunlight,

and it's walking

with this loping sort of gait

through the landscape.

Compared to previous

descriptions,

it's slightly smaller,

with wider hips

and a rounder silhouette.

It also appears

to have mammary glands.

Gimlin and Patterson theorize

that they're looking

at a female Bigfoot.

They nickname her Patty,

after Roger Patterson.

Though the pair

are convinced by what they saw,

many dismiss the film as a hoax.

The Patterson-Gimlin

footage has been scrutinized

since it came out.

Everyone's had a chance

to look at it,

try to break it down,

try to explain

why it would be fake or not,

and to this day, you know,

you have people on both sides,

real or fake, but nobody

can disprove it. Nobody.

1967 is the same year

that the movie

"Planet of the Apes"

is released.

This is the height of big-budget

Hollywood special effects

back then.

If anything,

the Patterson-Gimlin footage

looks more realistic

than the ape suits

we see in that movie.

You're talking about, you know,

two guys

in the backwoods of Humboldt.

They didn't have deep pockets

to build something like this.

So, how did these two cowboys

pull off the greatest thing

in creature feature history?

And the thing is,

is they didn't.

There are no visible seams,

no zippers, no buttons.

It's not baggy.

You can actually see

the creature's musculature

moving under its skin.

Even special effects experts

can't explain that.

But if this film

of Bigfoot is real,

what type of creature

might it be?

There have been several attempts

to classify the animal

seen in Patterson

and Gimlin's film.

It's analyzed by Stanford

scientists Jessica Rose

and James Gamble in 1994,

and they're experts

in physiology and movement.

They analyze

the creature's gait,

and can't find any match

to known species.

They concluded

that this is not a gait

or a movement

that could be replicated

by a person in a costume.

The relationship of bones,

to musculature,

to skin and hair,

is a unique thing

for different animals, and it

really wouldn't be possible

for a human being to fake

this type of difference

in gait and movement.

In 1999, a pair of professors

from the University of Florida's

anthropology department

also analyzed the film.

And in 2009, the film

is broken down

frame by frame

by an anthropologist

from the New York

Museum of Natural History.

As for what type

of animal this is,

they have no idea.

These top scientists

are at a loss.

It's possible

that Patterson and Gimlin

have discovered

an entirely new species.

There are many

examples of creatures

that at first seemed mythical,

or their description

seemed hard to believe,

such as the Komodo dragon,

a giant lizard

that would eat sheep whole.

The narwhal, a whale

with a horn on its head

like a unicorn.

The pelican

an incredibly common bird

in contemporary life,

was at one time

thought to be

a mythological creature

back in the Middle Ages.

How about this?

The giant squid.

For millennia, since at least

the days of Aristotle

in the fourth century B.C.,

sailors would swear up and down

that they saw these massive

20-foot-long-plus squid

while out at sea.

There are thousands

of depictions and stories

of people who claim

to have seen the giant squid,

and yet still, it was considered

a mythological creature.

It's another in a long line

of fanciful tales

of make-believe sea monsters

like the Kraken.

Squids just don't get that big.

There's no evidence.

Until one day, there is.

Throughout the 19th century,

small pieces and remains

of giant squid

would periodically wash up

on the world's beaches.

And these would convince

some scientists

of the giant squid's existence,

but others kept on denying it.

They'd say that until

we find a living one,

it's simply not proven.

It wasn't until

a fishing trawler caught one

in 2004 that we realize

that squids

of this size actually exist.

They catch a nearly

30-foot-long giant squid

that's later named Archie.

It's been preserved by London's

Natural History Museum,

and can still be viewed today

proof positive of a giant squid.

So, hopefully one day Bigfoot

can join the giant squid

as a proven animal,

but it could be tough.

A lot of people like to believe

that all of life

has been discovered,

when it's quite the opposite.

Over 80% of life on this planet

is undiscovered.

So, absolutely,

a Bigfoot species

could be out there.

Ever since

large mysterious footprints

were first reported in Oregon

in the 1950s,

there has been no shortage

of Bigfoot sightings.

Institutions like the Bigfoot

Field Researchers Organization

have been cataloging accounts

since the 1990s.

Even today,

they're reporting sightings

at a rate of four or more

per month

across the U.S. and Canada.

But in 2007, one in particular

makes headlines.

In the Allegheny National

Forest in Pennsylvania,

there is a new piece

of information that comes out

that's very intriguing.

We get what could be

the most compelling set

of Bigfoot images

we've seen in 40 years.

One evening

at about 10:02 p.m.

a motion-activated trail camera

captured several bear cubs

foraging for food.

After that,

you have another picture

that really, like,

catch your attention.

Something else comes into frame

and is actually standing

I like to call it

downward-facing dog position.

And the way that

it is smelling the ground

is exactly how primates do it.

And this comes to be known

as the Jacobs Bigfoot,

after the camera's owner

who set it up in the woods

to help him track deer.

It seems that the situation

provides a pretty stark contrast

between what are clearly bears

and what is clearly not.

It's fairly obvious when

you compare the first photo

of the Jacobs Bigfoot

with one of the bear cubs

taken in the same spot.

They're in the same pose,

but their anatomy

is completely different.

The following week,

the state of Pennsylvania's

Game Commission

offers an explanation.

Sorry for all the Bigfooters

out there, believers,

but the Game Commission come out

to check out the area,

and their response is that

it is simply a bear with mange.

Scientists love to cite

Occam's Razor

the concept that

the simplest solution

to a problem is often

the best and most likely.

If you're in Texas

and you hear hoofbeats,

you should probably think horses

and not zebras,

because horses

are the more common animal.

Well, bears are super common.

Let's consider

Ursus Americanus

the American black bear.

What we know about this bear

lines up really well with

the reported characteristics

of Bigfoot its size,

its shape, its coloring.

It seems like a very likely

explanation

for the Bigfoot legend.

When they stand

on their hind legs,

black bears can reach up to

six or seven feet in height,

which is similar in height to

many reported Bigfoot sightings.

Seen from far away,

from the right angle,

at the right moment,

when it's standing up,

when it's moving bipedally,

it would be easy to mistake

a black bear for Bigfoot.

The vast range of black bears

could also support this.

Black bears live

in the Pacific Northwest,

the Northern Midwest,

and the Rocky Mountain region,

Alaska, and the northeast

from Maine

all the way down to Georgia.

All of these places

have had Bigfoot sightings.

If we add in

other species of bears

besides Ursus Americanus,

we have the potential

for Bigfoot or bear sightings

all over the United States.

In 2014, Oxford University

genetics professor Bryan Sykes

further tests this theory.

What Dr. Sykes did

which was unique,

was instead of simply looking

at sightings reports,

or photos, or tapes of Bigfoot,

of vocalizations,

Sykes actually

as a genetics professor

wanted to look at DNA samples,

and he requested

Bigfoot investigators

from all across the world

to send him their best examples

of Bigfoot DNA.

Sykes collects 30 samples

of purported Bigfoot hair,

sent in from a wide variety

of sources,

from hardcore cryptozoologists,

to amateur Bigfoot hunters,

to roadside oddity museums.

And what he finds

is really telling.

Almost all of them

come from known animals.

They come from bears,

they come from horses,

some of them even come

from humans.

But there's one sample

that isn't accounted for.

Remember the theory that Bigfoot

is an unknown species?

Well, incredibly,

Sykes' DNA analysis

of one sample actually does

reveal the existence

of a previously unknown species.

But it's not an unknown ape,

it's an unknown bear.

What we see is a hybrid

between a brown bear

and a distant cousin

of the polar bear

that was thought to have gone

extinct a long time ago.

While Sykes believes

this bear species

may have given rise

to the Bigfoot legend,

some other scientists

aren't convinced.

Remember, Sykes' sample pool

is just 30 specimens.

Are all the Bigfoots out there

just ordinary

run-of-the-mill creatures?

We've still got a long way to go

to figure that out.

Despite many long years of

searching for proof it exists,

the legendary creature

known as Bigfoot

remains more myth than fact.

Then, a chance encounter in 1974

convinces one man that

he's finally solved the mystery.

It is undeniable

that the real heart

of Bigfoot sightings have been

in the Pacific Northwest

of the United States.

So, that's California, Oregon,

Washington that's where

the highest percentage

of sightings have been reported.

But there have been

alleged sightings

of a creature like Bigfoot

in other places,

most notably Southern Florida.

In 1974, Dave Shealy

is 10 years old,

and him and his brother

are walking

across the Everglades,

and they have an encounter.

Dave is too short

to see over the grass,

so his brother picks him up,

lifts him over his head,

and there he sees it

100 yards away.

And what he ends up seeing

is a creature that he describes

as large, hulking,

walking on two legs, and hairy

exactly how we see Bigfoot being

described in other regions.

But Shealy knows it

by a different name.

This is something that

he's heard stories about

his entire life.

He knows that what

he's seeing in front of him

is the Florida skunk ape.

We already know that Bigfoot

has been given

multiple names

in multiple places.

Sasquatch is probably

its second most famous moniker.

Some call it a yeti.

In regions prone

to winter weather,

it's been called

the abominable snowman.

But fewer people have heard

of the skunk ape,

which is particular to this

one unique swampy area.

The skunk ape is

described in a way very similar

to your common Bigfoot sighting.

It's supposed to be about seven

to eight feet tall,

although it's more common

for the skunk ape to be

slightly smaller.

Perhaps it might

be a subspecies of Bigfoot.

The coloring of the hair

is different.

Some of the behavioral

characteristics are different.

But there is one key difference

that gives the creature

its name.

The skunk ape has

a distinct unpleasant odor.

It's been compared

to a wide array of foul smells

wet dog, hot garbage,

boiled cabbage, rotten eggs

hence the name skunk ape.

Maybe it's the heat,

maybe it's the muggy

wet conditions,

or maybe nobody anywhere else

has gotten close enough

to Bigfoot to actually smell it.

Maybe they all smell this way.

Stories of a human-like beast

with an unmistakable stench

have long been part

of local lore.

The native peoples of Florida,

the Seminole,

the Miccosukee people

have stories of a creature

described very similar

to what is now called

the skunk ape.

These legends of the skunk ape

go back to the times

of Spanish colonization.

You know, we're talking

16th century.

Then, throughout

the early 20th century,

we get isolated reports

from hunters and hikers

about strange hairy

two-legged creatures

spotted in the Everglades.

Surprisingly, not much research

is done at that time.

And the story really takes off

in the 1970s in Florida,

and we start to see

many more encounters.

More intriguing,

these alleged sightings

increasingly come

from larger groups

sharing the same story.

In fact, in 1997,

an entire tour bus of 40 people

all see the strange creature

simultaneously

on the side of the road

in broad daylight.

Before long,

we start hearing reports

of encounters in the highly

populated Broward County

things like skunk apes

breaking into people's homes,

or even stalking pedestrians

on the street.

Accounts become so frequent,

the state government

takes action.

In 1977, the Florida legislature

introduces a bill

to try and protect

the skunk ape and the public.

The bill includes

specific language,

making it illegal

to take, possess, harm,

or molest any sort of humanoid

or anthropoid creature.

The bill doesn't pass,

but it does add

a certain legitimacy to the idea

that skunk apes are real.

One man

who doesn't need convincing

Dave Shealy.

In 1994, Shealy opens

the Skunk Ape

Research Headquarters

in Ochopee, Florida.

The Skunk Ape

Research Headquarters

might at first appear

like a tourist attraction.

It has a gift shop.

But in fact, Shealy claims

that those sales

help subsidize serious research

into the creature.

Primarily, it's a hub

for legitimate

paranormal investigators

to share information

and gather resources,

and it's helped spawn

some major breakthroughs,

including by Shealy himself.

After a lengthy

stakeout in 2000,

Shealy manages to capture video

of what he claims

is a skunk ape in the wild.

We can see the creature

moving through tall grass,

walking in what seems

to be maybe ankle-deep water,

until it notices

that it's being filmed,

and suddenly takes off.

The thing with David's video,

is you take the still-frame

sh*t of it,

people think, yeah,

you're looking

at maybe a teenager Bigfoot,

or what we call in Florida

a skunk ape.

But then, you watch

the actual live video,

and for some of us,

it kinda looks

like you could have thrown

someone in a suit

and just had them

run through the grass.

In 2014, a Smithsonian

Magazine journalist

named Joseph Stromberg

decides to get

to the bottom of this.

Shealy told the journalist

that he believes skunk apes

are drawn

to the particular area

that they were investigating

because of the calls

of other primates.

He had been following

two skunk ape tracks,

and they led him straight

to this barbed-wire fence

in the middle of nowhere

that he described

as being some sort

of secretive or mysterious

primate breeding ground

right there in the middle

of Florida.

Stromberg was

skeptical about this story,

but in fact confirmed

that such a company did exist.

Is in fact a company

called

Primate Products Incorporated

located in Immokalee, Florida,

where primates are bred.

This leads Stromberg

to speculate

that perhaps

some of these animals got loose.

When Hurricane

Andrew hit Florida in 1992,

there was extensive damage

to Primate Products,

and they believe

over 6,000 primates

may have escaped into the wild.

In addition,

Stromberg turns up other reports

of people acquiring exotic pets

and then releasing them

into the wild

once they are too strong

or too powerful

to be cute anymore.

So, chimpanzees as pets

are a common animal

that gets released in this way

and adds to that population

of very unexpected primates

living in Florida.

A report from the

Sarasota Sheriff's Department

may offer further proof.

In 2000, a person

who had claimed

that there was disturbances

around their property

by an unknown critter

eventually get a picture of it,

and they wrote a letter

as to what happened.

And they send it

to law enforcement.

Two experts examine the photo

and make a surprising discovery.

They determine that based

on the creature's appearance,

the scale of its features,

the distance between different

parts of its body,

that it is, in fact,

an orangutan.

Not a creature

that we would expect to see

in a Florida backyard,

but not a skunk ape.

Stromberg concluded that people

who report the skunk ape

are sincere,

but may not be seeing

what Shealy claims they are.

Certainly, some people

who see Bigfoot

are in fact

misidentifying a monkey

that someone has released.

Since the 1950s,

most Bigfoot eyewitnesses

describe the creature

as a hybrid

between an ape and a human.

There's a debate

in the Bigfoot community

about what Bigfoot actually is.

Some believe that Bigfoot

is more of a stray animal.

I think the ideal answer

would be

that there's probably

an unknown primate there.

But scientists

are very skeptical

about the possibility

that the United States

could support an undiscovered

species of ape.

But it is possible

that some of these

could be wild humans.

There have been reports

throughout history of wild men,

human beings, but who are living

in a feral state

not in cities, not in

any sort of civilized way

living like an animal.

So, in South Central Texas

in the 1830s

we have the story

of the Wild Man of Navidad.

People were seeing

what they were describing

as something

that was Bigfoot-like,

covered in fur head to toe,

acting like an animal,

but with human qualities,

and that sparked

everyone's interest.

The descriptions

line up perfectly

with later sightings of Bigfoot.

In some ways, this is almost

the first Bigfoot legend,

but just going by

a different name.

The Wild Man

of Navidad was stealing piglets

and chickens, was leaving

footprints all over the area,

was breaking into homes

but only stealing food,

never valuables.

For over a decade,

the Wild Man of the Navidad

remains at large.

At one point, people looking

for the wild man

even found a shelter

in the woods

and conducted a stakeout.

But if that was where

the creature lived,

it never returned.

It was something

nobody could get near,

and it had people interested

and also worried.

So, in 1850, they ended up

getting a posse together

to try and round up

this wild man.

And upon investigating,

they found out that

it wasn't a creature,

but it was in fact a person.

This particular wild man

was an African sl*ve

brought over

that escaped immediately

and ran into the woods,

and was able on his wit

and abilities alone

to survive for like 15 years

before being captured.

Could such wild humans

account for more

supposed Bigfoot encounters?

One story about a purported

feral human

came out of Arkansas in 1892,

when there were stories

of what appeared to be a boy

running with a pack of wolves.

I mean, this is Mowgli

from "The Jungle Book,"

taken in by wolves

and then raised,

and survived long enough

in the wild as a wolf cub

before finally being captured

by humans

and brought back

to be rehabilitated.

Stories of feral humans

have a lot of similarities

to stories of Bigfoot.

The creatures are usually

reported as hairy,

living in the woods,

leaving footprints,

stealing items.

The main difference

is that in these cases,

the culprit, the wild person,

is discovered.

Is it possible

that modern Bigfoot sightings

could also be of humans

rather than of animals?

In the 1970s and 1980s,

there's a dramatic rise

in homelessness

in the Pacific Northwest,

especially among veterans.

And around this time,

there's also a noticeable uptick

of possible Bigfoot sightings

around Washington state,

and a theory begins to emerge.

We have returning veterans

from the Vietnam w*r,

many of whom

were struggling with PTSD

and other societal issues,

choosing to isolate themselves,

or being forced into

homelessness,

living on the edges of society,

and perhaps appearing

as these wild men.

To me, the story that epitomizes

humans mistaken for Bigfoot

happens in Western

North Carolina in 2017.

A self-identified shaman

is conducting some rituals

in the woods

while wearing

his ceremonial garb,

which is made of fur

covering his entire body

from head to toe,

including his face.

As a result of this,

the Greenville Police Department

started getting

report after report

of people saying that

they saw a creature

covered head to toe in fur

moving about in the woods.

The police had to take this

seriously.

One concern that

law enforcement has had

across the country,

is if people are out

hunting for Bigfoot,

it is possible

they will mistake a human

for a Bigfoot, and take a sh*t.

This brings us back to that

idea of Occam's Razor.

What is the simplest explanation

for all of these sightings?

We do have an incredibly common

bipedal hominid

walking around

all over the place,

and that's us people.

Bigfoot has been compared

with many modern animals

over the years,

most notably various species

of primates.

It looks very much

like an orangutan

or something of that nature.

Some of the things these

people are seeing in the woods

are legitimately

a silverback gorilla

or a chimpanzee.

Then on top of that,

you have wealthy people

that buy these pets,

and they just kinda

lackadaisically keep 'em,

and they escape.

But many experts believe

this doesn't fully explain

Bigfoot.

Escaped monkeys typically

don't grow

as large as Bigfoot

is purported to be.

There is no modern-day species

that really matches with

the description of Bigfoot.

But scientists are quick

to point out that

in the not-so-distant past,

there was a creature

thought to be extinct

that did match this description.

Remains have been

discovered of a creature

that most resembles Bigfoot,

and that is the species

called Gigantopithecus.

Gigantopithecus is a primate

from the Pleistocene Era.

It was believed

to have gone extinct

about 300,000 years ago.

An ancestor

of modern-day orangutans,

Gigantopithecus is thought

to be the largest primate

to ever live on Earth.

Gigantopithecus was enormous.

Its teeth were of such

proportion

that we estimate its body mass

to be on the order of, oh,

800 to 1,200 pounds.

We're talking

about a 10-foot animal.

And when people describe

seeing Bigfoot,

the sheer mass and size of it

leads some people

to believe that Gigantopithecus,

or a relic version of it

is Bigfoot.

Maybe it's evolved to be

a little bit smaller,

a little bit more nimble,

or we're just not seeing

the big boys,

and all we're seeing

are the females.

In the early 1980s,

American anthropologist

Grover Krantz

becomes one of the biggest

proponents

of the theory that

Gigantopithecus

could perhaps be a candidate

for Bigfoot.

Considering this theory,

two problems

stand out immediately.

One is that Gigantopithecus

was thought

to be almost entirely exclusive

to Asia.

And the second problem,

of course, is that it's extinct.

As far as where

Gigantopithecus lives,

Krantz believes

that a land bridge

formed across the Bering Strait

that allowed Gigantopithecus

to cross over

to the North American continent

during the Ice Age

in search of better food

and warmer climates.

As for their extinction,

he believes it never happened.

Scientists believe

that given the vastness

of the ocean and the wilderness,

that there are numerous other

seemingly extinct species

that we may find

in fact still exist.

Let's take the pygmy tarsier

and the Kashmir musk deer.

These are two animals

that were supposedly extinct

that we have found are not.

What's amazing

is that there was a giant fish,

a coelacanth that existed

60 million years ago

and was thought

to be long extinct,

until we caught one in 1938

off the coast of South Africa.

And there's not just

one of them.

A whole community of them

was found to still exist.

So, clearly,

our best understandings

of just how extinct

an extinct creature might be

can be wrong.

Gigantopithecus may

not be the only extinct primate

that could fit the bill.

Bigfoot researcher John Napier

actually believed that Bigfoot

might be a different form

of seemingly extinct ape

called Paranthropus.

They're large,

really big heads, big frames,

and really fit the look

of when people describe

their experiences with Bigfoot,

what Bigfoot looks like.

See, with Gigantopithecus,

it was so massive,

we really can't be sure

that it even walked on two legs.

But Paranthropus

did strut its stuff.

This theory,

the idea that a species

assumed to be extinct

is not in fact extinct

is now the favorite explanation

of the Bigfoot

Field Researchers Organization.

It is possible

perhaps that at some point,

one or more of these species

came over the land bridge

to North America

where their descendants

have remained undetected,

but occasionally sighted.

Bigfoot might be

the most widely spotted cryptid

in history.

Hopefully, someday we'll finally

get close enough to identify it.

And when we do,

the scientific community

may be in for quite a shock.

Currently, there are more than

20 Bigfoot research associations

in the U.S. alone,

and dozens more worldwide.

Perhaps one day,

we'll finally be able

to identify this elusive

creature.

Until then, many Bigfoot hunters

are only too willing to search.

I'm Laurence Fishburne.

Thank you for watching

"History's Greatest Mysteries."