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Bigfoot Exposed: An Anthropologist Examines America's Enduring Legend

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I am very glad I purchased this book and I think you will be too. There are not too many skeptical view points out there that come across as intelligent, well written and up to date with their facts. Bigfoot Exposed should be included on the shelves with other classic volumes of the phenomena like that of John Green and Grover Krantz. It finally puts into print and in one place the hard issues that skeptics have had with the subject. Daegling dissects the Bigfoot enigma into its component parts, stating that they in fact don't necessarily belong together; it's time to take a different view of things.

For this anthropologist, tracks and casts should not be used to corroborate eyewitness reports of them being made. Film, hair, sounds and scat should be separate as well. Even, what the skeptics call, the "advocates" star event, the Patterson/Gimlin film, should be separated from the tracks attributed to it and the eyewitness testimony from both Roger and Bob. Each component can then be analyzed on its own.

He quotes mostly from actual Bigfoot researchers, versus the skeptical camp, usually using their own words and thoughts to make his counterpoints. I much prefer this method to get both talking the same thing. Too many times have we seen people arguing a point only to later find out they were talking about different things. Sure, someone who is very familiar with the subject doesn't have too much of a problem understanding where each is coming from but others less familiar don't understand the finer details each use in their arguments.

This is not as dry a read as Big Footprints by Grover Krantz but it isn't as technical either. Unfortunately, I am of the advocate camp and this book attempts to show that there just isn't any good evidence to support the existence of Bigfoot, in fact most of the evidence, in the authors mind, points toward misidentification and hoaxing. After reading the entire book and admiring the work for what it is (an honest attempt to explain the other side of the coin), I can't help but think that there is truth in the saying that seldom do the parts equal the whole. Explaining the mystery through a combination of human fabrication and common enough spoor of known animals and other inanimate objects seems quite convoluted as presented in this book. Taking a piece here and there from various events, showing some inconsistencies and then trying to recombine those, makes for a pretty fantastic piece of theory, but in this scientist's opinion, not as fantastic as an 8 foot tall, bipedal ape living in North America.

Counter-arguments to his work are going to have to address some interesting items. The author is claiming that most of the evidence is easily attributable to hoaxing of some type; he even identifies the possible people involved. But I don't think he knows that advocates of the creature's existence have tried to get more quantitative information from these individuals. I personally have contacted the Wallace family so as to come to their home and document all the evidence of their father's fake track making so we could take out stuff he may have fabricated, only to be turned away because of a movie deal. Others have asked for data surrounding Bob Herionomus such as stride length, pictures of him inside a costume and arm/leg lengths... alas, another movie or TV deal going on there as well. It seems that the admitted hoaxers only want to associate themselves and cherished work with the skeptical side. I guess it would seem that they would believe them more then people who go looking for the giant hairy monster.

I will have to take exception though, I guess because I was involved with it from the start, with him using some one identified as being dubious, possibly fabricating pictures, tracks and casts, but then using this same person to substantiate claims of misidentification with the Skookum cast and actual hoaxing with the Patterson/Gimlin film. Sometimes the tone in the book is very harsh on the researchers versus the one's who he claims have been perpetrating this hoax. He does this with Wallace, Ray Picken and Rant Mullen... all people who have claimed (in one way or another) that they have faked tracks with carved wooden feet and fooled a lot of people since 1958. To be fair though, he didn't do this with Paul Freeman.

Bigfoot researchers need to have access to these admitted hoaxers and the skeptics need to have access to the best evidence available. From reading the book, I can pretty much tell that the author has only been able to view the P/G film on video (which skips frames in the process of converting the film to video, odd/even) and the 12 non-contiguous publicized cibachrome prints made by Bruce Bonney from the film. He really should have made an effort to see evidence first hand instead of watching TV programs or talking with like minded people (Dennet, Perez, Radford for example).

One last thing, 5% of the German airforce has the same chest size as the creature portrayed in the film? My understanding is that the measurements found in the Anthropometry Sourcebook are taken from the center of the arm pit to the center of the arm pit, using a tape measure. This is the interscye dimension, a measurement along the contour of the body. The author takes great pains to show the readers that not much in the form of measurements can be ascertained with the P/G film so why would he use this type of measurement when anything measured off the two dimensional images would be of a flat pattern type? That is exactly what Grover Krantz measured though, the two dimensional aspect of the creature in the film.

I also wonder how the RAF during WWII was able to determine subject size with aerial photography only knowing three things? Distance to the subject, focal length of the lens and the subject height as measured on the film. Seemed to work then.

Daegling is a rarity among debunkers in that he respects those who hold to opinions he does not share, and has managed to put together a work that lacks the condescension typical of most debunking books. As such, I think he deserves to be applauded for the reasonable and even, at points, sympathetic hearing he gives the entire controversy. Skeptics of all stripes could learn alot from him.

As far as the book itself is concerned, I found it extremely interesting and thought-provoking, even though most of the arguments he makes have been put forth many times before. As someone who has written on the Patterson Film myself (Fate magazine, March, 2003) I was most interested in his appraisal of that footage, which is the part of the book I found most convoluted. The idea that the subject in the film has been estimated to range in height from just over six feet to almost seven-and-a-half feet (an 18" variance) remains a mystery to me, especially considering the follow-up work that was done in the weeks and months following the Patterson sighting and the availability of measurable landmarks the creature could be compared to evident in the footage and still in existence today. I could accept a few inches of variance, but a foot-and-a-half? Surely science can be a little more precise than that. Additionally, Daegling correctly maintains that the Groucho Marx/Bigfoot walk could be mimicked by a human, but he fails to answer the question of why a guy in a suit would do such a thing. It's a clearly difficult and unnatural movement to attempt, so why would an alleged prankster feel compelled to try it? Most of the objections he makes, however, were sound, and he did a good job of challenging the late Grover Krantz in terms of his scientific methodology and assumptions. I would have loved to have seen a debate between these two. It surely would have been worth the price of admission!

In the end, I came away from the book feeling a little more skeptical about Bigfoot enthusiasts, though my faith in the existence of the big fella remains intact. Daegling simply uses the most effective method of debunking available: sympathetic disbelief. Like a good defense attorney who only needs to challenge a few pieces of the evidence and cast doubt upon the integrity and reliability of a few key witnesses to sway a jury towards acquittal, he manages to put just enough doubt into the mind of the Bigfoot aficionado without actually disproving the theory to do some real damage. I suspect, however, he will not quite dissuade the truly convinced, though he does come close. A good read that no one interested in the subject of Bigfoot in particular and crytozoology in general should be without.

I agree with Rick Noll's assessment that this is the best skeptical book written concerning whether or not another upright primate exists in the world. Daegling, for the most part, does an admirable job of taking famous pieces of Bigfoot evidence and providing possible alternative explanations for them. However, his basic claim that there's no incontrovertible evidence to show that such a creature exists, is one that many within the field of Bigfoot research already share.

It's clear, at least from the book, that he feels that any continued serious field research is not scientifically warranted. This is, also obviously, where he differs with most believers.

For me, one of the most intriguing claims in the book is
that, in regards to possible Bigfoot hair samples, Daegling states "...there was a time in the past when investigators did not have the tools to make a diagnosis of "unknown species" that was credible. That time is past. When Fahrenbach (Bigfoot researcher) says that a useful length of DNA for determining the phylogenic status of a sample has been difficult to come by, we can fairly demand to know what went wrong". Would be interesting to hear any rebuttals to this claim.

I would have liked to have read his thoughts on Jane Goodall's belief that Sasquatches are most probably real as well as some ruminations concerning the vastness of the Pacific Northwest forests which, some would say, could very well hide a relatively small, spread-out population of mountain gorilla-like creatures...yes, even though no bone or body part evidence has so far come forth. Also, it would have been nice for him to discuss the moments in the history of science where longtold stories of supposedly mythical creatures were eventually backed up by actual discoveries (Panda, mountain gorilla, etc.)

His theory that the whole of Bigfoot evidence (eyewitness testimony, footprints, unusual screams, etc.) can be explained, in lieu of hard physical evidence, by misperception and hoaxing (fueled, at least partly, by Bigfoot representing an archetypal guardian of the forest) is correct. It CAN be explained that way. It just doesn't mean that it's necessarily the one and only explanation.

Overall, a must buy for anyone serious about the phenomenon.

"Bigfoot Exposed" is the best skeptical book that I've read on the Bigfoot legend. Daegling reviews the evidence in calm, well written prose--he does not personalize the debate and seems to have a sincere respect for the Bigfoot "advocates" with whom he plainly but respectfully disagrees.

Bigfoot believers will not like Daegling's conclusions, but he gives the legend a fair shake. He takes the mystery seriously and analyzes it carefully, posing some reasonable questions: If Bigfoot is a real animal, why have we found no bodies or bones for scientists to study? Where are the fossils that show when such a large animal arrived or evolved in North America? How can a breeding population of 1,000 pound primates live on the well-populated West Coast of the United States without occasionally (or even frequently) being killed by a hunter or struck by an automobile? If we have a true scientific understanding of the animal's footprints, why can't we reliably distinguish known fakes from the real thing? (Even Bigfoot expert Gordon Krantz was taken in by a cleverly hoaxed print.) If the Patterson film is so convincing, why do so many people have good reasons to doubt it--and, if there's a breeding popultion of large animals amid a human population well equipped with camcorders and picture phones, why haven't we gathered much more and much better photographic evidence in the last 40 years?

It's possible, of course, that there will ultimately be good answers to these questions and that Bigfoot will turn out to be real. Daegling's book simply explains why that's not the way to bet.

Another good book in this genre of "taking the Bigfoot legend seriously but not becoming a convinced believer," is Robert Michael Pyle's "Where Bigfoot Walks: Crossing the Dark Divide," which describes the search for Bigfoot and Pyle's own experiences hiking and camping in Bigfoot country.

Daegling provides a well-written look from the skeptics point of view at the Bigfoot phenomenon. Unlike some books by advocates, he gives quite a bit of coverage to the opposite point of view. He provides all the reasons why advocates say the evidence is real, then tries to tear it down. He mostly succeeds...mostly. Some of his explinations for how the Patterson film could have been faked are harder to believe than the thought that a real creature could be roaming our woods without detection. Read this together with Dr. Jeff Meldrum's "Bigfoot: The Legend Meets Science" and you'll have the closest thing to a debate on the subject as you can get. Meldrum takes the opposite view, saying the evidence is simply too detailed to be fake. Both of these men are anthropologists with many credentials, so you can't simply dismiss one or the other. Daegling is the better writer, while Meldrum has done more hands-on research. Both are great books that should be read by anyone interested in the subject.

the author takes a very even handed and balanced approach to the evidence on this subject matter. Unlike other books which use an outright derisive tone in attempting to squash the bigfoot evidence, this author approaches each piece of 'proof' for bigfoot's existience with respect and a serious eye. Refreshingly, he is also not above admitting to the occasional quandry he finds in some evidence he confronts that cannot be easily explained away.

The author is a very intelligent, thurough and hands-on investigator. Not an arm-chair critic like others who have undertaken this task. This guy is not above rolling his sleeves up and hitting both the lab and field to test evidence.

My only two problems with this book is that sometimes, like when explaining gait and footprints, he comes on a bit too heavy with the scientific jargon and phrases. That kind of bogs down the rythym of his otherwise crisp and easy to follow writing. I wish he could have found a way to dumb down those sections for the average dope like me to follow. Quite frankly, during those sections I was rather lost.

Also, unlike the other evidence he confronted and either disproved or cast great doubt upon, the Patterson Film (great chapter by the way) withstood his inspection. I get the feeling that this one piece of evidence is troubling to him. The muscle movement in the enhanced footage seems to present a problem to him and he explains that away as perhaps water bags being placed beneath the suit or fur glued onto tight longjohns. Personally, I found that a stretch and a far-fetched scenario.

The author makes what I felt was a great point about the bigfoot legend probably not being what it is today if not for the Patterson footage. I agree with him. But I also feel this is the only evidence that survived his expose' even if he was able to taint it somewhat.

Seems to me that this author didn't set out to shatter the existing evidence but rather his intent was to dissect the strongest cases and prove that each one 'could have' been faked. He did a fine job with the exception of the Patterson Film in which case I feel he raised more questions as opposed to answering them.---A very good read. Best bigfoot book to date.

By far, this is the best book available on the skeptical approach to Bigfoot. It is systematic and reasoned-if not always reasonable.

Just to take one very simple example, those who support or pursue research where the base hypothesis is that Bigfoot is primarily a zoological entity are termed "advocates." The term itself is benign. However, those who espouse that Bigfoot is primarily a cultural myth are termed "skeptics." What is implied is that advocates are not skeptically inclined. One need look no further than Rene Dahinden to realize there is little truth to that.

I actually think the persons traditionally seen as skeptics can be divided into two groups. "Agnostics" are noncommittal regarding the physical nature of the phenomenon, do not pursue zoological Bigfoot research themselves, and are ambivalent about the available evidence. I would coin the term "acryptics" for those who deny there is any undocumented North American ape, diminish the worth of available evidence, and portray advocates as gullible wishful thinkers.

Daegling positions himself as an agnostic, but he does at times exhibit strong acryptic leanings. I respect the agnostic stance, as the position is one of strict empiricism. He never denies that there is a living species, although he does not find the hypothesis to be a parsimonious one.

Daegling's focus on the semiotic value of Bigfoot as a cultural myth does not exclude a physical form for the creature, which he admits himself. A zoological and a sociopsychological existence can go hand in hand. His analysis of the pros and cons of natural history arguments for Bigfoot strongly challenges advocates, but it is balanced in terms of its conclusion. Daegling acknowledges that Bigfoot's existence cannot be refuted on the basis of ecological and biological principles alone.

The problem is that Daegling denounces all of the available evidence as fabricated, tainted, or worthless. Some of the scrutiny of evidence is done with fairness and thoroughness, such as when addressing the case of the Minnesota Iceman and pre-1958 historical accounts. However, very few contemporary advocates would elevate those tales to a "greatest hits" list in terms of evidence, if they are considered genuine at all. In all likelihood, the pre-1958 accounts are brought forth by Daegling to examine their mythological elements as they compare to current accounts. The story of the Iceman just serves to illustrate the duping of two advocate scientists. Therein is the value of the tales, at least to the author.

Evidence that is considered more seriously by current researchers is unfortunately assessed with assumption, misinformation, and derision. The portions regarding the Skookum cast, Ray Wallace, and eyewitness testimony are particularly misleading and omit some important details that are none too difficult to unearth. An informed advocate response to the chapters regarding evidence is essential. Special focus should be given to answering charges against the evidentiary value of the Patterson film and track casts.

Daegling's dismissal of Jimmy Chilcutt's dermal ridge findings as "irrelevant" is simply astounding. If a feature can be observed in a track cast that would support is authenticity, then it can be duplicated convincingly with a modest amount of human ingenuity and a prankster's inclination. No special knowledge is required. Any other position is considered to be hubris flowing from misplaced confidence in one's professional credentials and specialist training. The advocates are told they are underestimating the ability of hoaxers and overestimating the difficulty of hoaxing.

I do recommend that informed advocates read this book, as there is material that can be gleaned from Daegling's work in order to police our own affairs. The chapter on scholarship and pseudoscience is especially important if advocate researchers desire this enterprise to be more than nominally scientific. A good deal of contempt is directed towards credentialed and professional researchers of the phenomenon, more so than even the known hoaxers. The identical legitimate points could have been made in the chapter without the scornful attitude.

Let me be clear. The burden of proof for demonstrating that an uncatalogued animal is the source of this phenomenon lies squarely in the advocate camp. That burden has not yet been satisfied. Daegling could do better, but, more importantly, so could we.

Okay, so this is a little longer review than I originally intended but bear with me:

David Daegling presents us with a much more intelligent approach to arguing the skeptic view on Bigfoot existence then Greg Long did in his book. While Long was stretching his limits on what counted on 'proof' of a Patterson film hoax, Daegling provides some decent arguments on Bigfoot non-existence in general. While Daegling presents a much more informed look, it's also not convincing. He opts to label 'believers' with the term of "Advocates", kind of a degrading word in itself saying that 'believers' are allowing themselves to be duped.

First he presents a "continuity test" regarding lack of any fossil evidence thus the creatures don't exist. A stalwart argument for the skeptic but faulty in its own right, because if that were the case, many other common animals don't exist either - due to lack of a fossil record. He questions the ability for the creatures to remain fairly undetected outside eyewitnesses. Well the remainder of the Yahi tribe lived on the outskirts of a California town for nearly 40 years and remained undetected, and these people used housing and fire. He dismisses the Jacko capture at Yale, BC as an escaped circus ape. A shaky argument in either case, pro or con bigfoot. Daegling dismisses the Ostman kidnapping and the Roe description because they are too similar and were brought to public attention near the same time, dismissing it as too coincidental.

Daegling puts a lot of stock in the words of track and film fakers such as Wallace, Marx, and Freeman, allowing that because they claimed fakery that thus everything they may have been involved in had to be faked. The Jerry Crew tracks at a Wallace work site in Bluff Creek is dismissed because Wallace supposedly used an elaborate pulley and weight system through the trees to lay them overnight, that in itself is just as unbelievable as an actual creature. The time just doesn't seem sufficient to have used such an undetectable pulley system overnight. This doesn't account for purported changes in shape and track dispersal in the same line of tracks either.

Daegling's main argument is focused on the simplistic view that just because tracks, evidence, and film of bigfoot can be faked by humans then it must all be faked. Because evidence could have been faked by a someone that was deceptive enough, he states is a certainty the creatures don't exist. He also puts alot of 'circumstantial' stock in Danny Perez and the often overlooked sour grapes person of Cliff Crook. He dwells on the infighting of early expeditions between the Big 4 (Byrne, Green, Dahinden, and later Krantz). He likes to focus on bad eggs like Marx and Freeman, known hoaxers and largely discreditted by anyone in bigfoot research.

The author pretty much dismisses all eye witness testimony on the simple statement that unlike law and courts, science can't use testimony as proof of something, an admittedly valid response in the case of experiments and lab/field testing. Also, like many skeptics, he says eyewitnesses are hallucinating, misinterpreting what they see, or outright lying. Daegling also seems to be on a personal crusade to discredit anything put forth by Krantz and Meldrum, and pretty much blows off anything John Green has to say. He quotes Green in saying that Green accepts bigfoots because all other possibilities (total hoaxing/fakery, hallucinating, lying witnesses) are beyond reason. Again, admittedly a fair argument, but then Daegling's arguments are the exact same thing only in reverse saying that because a human COULD fake all the stuff then it must not be real.

He becomes contradictary in discussing the Patterson film in Chapter 5, talking of bagginess to a costume then goes on to says musculature movement could be evident by someone wearing a skintight, size-too-small long johns with hair attached. If it's skin tight, how is it baggy? If it's skin tight, how does he explain the bulkiness of the subject in the film? He attacks the sagittal crest evident on the subject saying the obviously female creature shouldn't have a crest because female gorillas don't. Actually they do, it's just seldomly as pronounced and we aren't talking about gorillas anyways. Overall, Daegling questions the measurements (as anyone should) but then unconvincingly downplays the subject of the film itself in concerns of odd arm length, musculature, and fluidity of movement (claiming it's simply a Groucho Marx walk).

Okay, that was a bit longer than even I expected to make it. Condensed version: Daegling supplies the reader with some intelligent and thought provoking arguments but also remains inconsistent within his own arguments and statements. This is a worthwhile book for skeptic and 'believer/advocate' alike. It is so much better than the farce Long put forth. I recommend it to both skeptic and believer.

This book, while a great improvement over Greg Long's The Making of Bigfoot,is still a damning expose' of Bigfoot research full of suppositions and speculations, but very little facts. Daegling certainly had good intentions in mind to try to debunk Bigfoot as a phenomenon, but he spent too much time in suppositions and speculations and not enough time stating facts. For instance, he misrepresents the late Grover Krantz by saying that he did not endorse the "Skookum Cast", a 2/3 body impression of what may be a Bigfoot, but I saw an interview with Krantz in which he said it looked to him like a Sasquatch had been thrashing around on the ground. Daegling takes the word of two Bigfoot researchers who have never seen the cast that it's of an elk. Daegling also buys into the Ray Wallace nonsense hook, line and sinker, as well as praising known hoaxers like Ray Pickens, Rant Mullens and Paul Freeman. He seems to imply that Bigfoot researchers are wasting their time looking for something that may not exist (in his mind) and the book loses its objectivity there. He gives what are seemingly plausible solutions to things like tracks, the Patterson/Gimlin film, hair samples and fecal matter, but his bias comes through when reporting these things, which is unfortunate. He seems to imply that Krantz and Dr. Jeff Meldrum (his old college roommate) were gullible enough to but into the Bossburg "Cripple-Foot" tracks, and also some of tracks found by Freeman which may or may not contain dermal ridges. In short, Daegling's book fails to really make the case for the skeptics that Bigfoot is not real. Still, I would recommend this book over Long's even if with reservations.

No need to pay much attention to this book. There are parts of it that are worth reading, but mostly peripheral to the main issue. The book cover appears to promise skilled dissection by a qualified scientist that disposes of all evidence that sasquatch are real animals, but in that regard the book contains nothing at all.
Leaving out "could be" material like old newspaper stories, Indian traditions, unidentified sounds, smells and hair, mysteriously thrown rocks, and so on, there are three lines of evidence that Dr. Daegling has to explain away: hundreds of casts and photos of footprints; thousands of eye-witness accounts, and one remarkable movie.
As to the footprints, Dr. Daegling has read about them, but there is no indication that he has studied them. Since he is sure that there can be no such animal and that the footprints can easily be faked, he has seen no need to, even when he planned to write about them in a book. What has been reported by the people who actually have investigated such footprints has to be mistaken, because if it were correct tall tale tellers likes Ray Wallace and Rant Mullens could not have made them, and they have "revealed" that they did.
Eye witnesses? Dr.Daegling goes on at length about the fallibility of human memory. A lot of truth in that, but if its memories were as completely useless as he suggests the human species could never have survived, let alone written books. He has read witnesses' stories, but since there is no such animal and memories are so fallible he has seen no need to talk to any, even when he planned to write a book dismissing all of them as dupes and liars and hallucinators.
Paradoxically, one witness who happened to be a friend of his does seem to have made quite an impression on him, even though hers was a partial on-a-dark-road sighting. He stresses that this lone interview happened to him "not by design," and considering his reaction it seems likely that avoiding talking to people with clear and detailed sightings to describe was absolutely necessary for him to be able to write his book.
It is different regarding the Patterson movie. He has indeed spent time and sought assistance in studying that. Not to prove that it is a hoax, which isn't necessary since there is no such animal, just to try to disprove evidence that what it shows can't be a man in a suit.
Throughout the book there are enough factual errors and ill-founded assumptions to thoroughly mislead anyone who has no other source of information on this subject, but they are too numerous to deal with here.

John Green