Archive for Thursday 1st May 2003 - The new wave of monsters

Science is meant to explain mysteries. But often it creates more mysteries than it solves. Look at crypto-zoology, the study of monsters and unknown creatures. One of its main subjects is the Yeti or Bigfoot - the large, hairy, ape-like being that haunts the mountain wildernesses of Asia and North America.

These things are just fantasies or folklore. That is the scientific view. But it does not explain why monsters keep appearing, sometimes leaving footprints and other traces. Since the 1920s, when explorers first reported strange creatures in the lonely mountains, there have been literally thousands of sightings. In the United States alone, more than 500 are recorded each year. 2002 was a peak year for Bigfoot sightings in America. Most of them took place in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, but there were others throughout the country. The media paid no attention to the phenomenon - until a professor of psychology, hiking with his family, saw a tall, hairy monster in the Oregon woods. He heard its grunts and smelt its disgusting odour. There is no real mystery about these apparitions. The American Indians and other native people have always known them. You will never catch one, they say, because they are not flesh-and-blood animals, but more like phantoms or demons. Their appearance is ominous. It warns of troubles to come. That, I think, is a better explanation for Bigfoot than science will ever come up with. It means, of course, that you have to accept the reality of spirits.

John Michell

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