Customer Reviews

Bigfoot: Opposing Viewpoints (Great Mysteries)

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I used this book for a huge end-of-the-year report in 8th grade. It is VERY interesting, and I found out facts that I never knew about Bigfoot and the Yeti. It describes in great detail various stories, supporting facts and, yes, opposing veiwpoints. Norma Gaffron does an excellent job of combining fact with fun. A must-have for anybody doing a report or presentation on Bigfoot or the Yeti.

Greenhaven Press has a "Great Mysteries: Opposing Viewpoints" series. This edition is on Bigfoot, where varying opinions abound. Author Norma Gaffron tries to give a balanced perspective as she "explores the theories of disagreeing experts as they debate the nature of these remarkable creatures."

Bigfoot contains quite a bit of information on "the nature of these remarkable creatures," but you won't find a lot on the opposing viewpoint that they don't exist. Aside from this lack of balance, I enjoyed reading this volume. There are a number of great photographs of early Bigfoot hunters.

Here are a few concerns or highlights:

"Bigfoot country in the Northwestern United States and Canada is rugged country" (p. 23). In general, large predators are in this country because they've been eradicated in their preferred habitats, where the food is. On a related note, "This creature they call the yeti lives up where the air is thin and cold and the snow never melts" (p. 42). What do they eat? Again, predators are rare in these extreme habitats because there is no food. If they are here and nowhere else, they've been eradicated from areas where the hunting is easier. And if they've been eradicated, why are there no records of their capture and removal?

"[Bigfoot explorer] Peter Byrne thinks that because so many people in widely separated places and times describe essentially the same creature, their stories are all the more believable" (p. 85). But stories about UFOs and aliens are very similar (and seemingly related to the stories and movies of the time). Does this make them more believable? [note discussion of Bigfoot as a extraterrestrial visitor, p. 91-92).]

"The absence of bone or fossil evidence is frustrating. Without it there is no proof" (p. 89). I agree.

"Richard Beeson of the University of Idaho is sure there is no cause for worry. He has analyzed Sasquatch literature and studies human behavior. He thinks some of the people who report sightings are lying. The rest have been influenced by their own fears into thinking they saw something that doesn't exist. Beeson concludes: 'What the Sasquatch represents, I believe, is a modern form of myth and we are privileged to be able to see it in the making" (p. 96).

This volume is written for young adults, and was published in 1989. If published in 2009 (twenty years later), how would it be different? The old stories would be the same. The "absence of bone or fossil evidence" is still a problem (add the lack of DNA evidence in this CSI world).

Well, I believed in Tarzan for the longest time as a kid, or at least wished he was real!