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16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
2 stars and that's being generous, February 9, 2004
If you have a small interest in the phenomenon of bigfoot, this is most likely the book for you. If you have any greater interest the subject, this book could added to your collection but overall, it's mediocre at best and pretty bland. The book nearly kills itself if you take a look at the references to the near 400 sightings the author cites. Of the 399 sightings that Rife collects, nearly half (about 175) of them are from "internet postings" so who knows how valid they may be. He also gleams subject matter from magazines like Fate and Saga and numerous UFO magazines. He continues on by snipping from other peoples work. The author doesn't offer any personal thoughts and the inclusion of the stories lacks any luster to them as he glazes over the purported occurances. Rife makes no claims to actually validating any of the stories, meaning he apparently just gleamed them off of websites with no apparent research or interviews with the actual "witnesses". Rife pretty much follows a systematic and rather boring format throughout the book by basically covering every state in America and giving 3-8 occurrences for each state. The books text is only 183 pages cover 399 sightings ... do the math. A vast majority of the recountings are barely five sentences long and are often a simple three line paragraph. The book has no apparent research, interviews, or in depth interest in the matter of bigfoots. The stories seem to central on three encounter types: the 'peeping tom' bigfoot, 'car bouncing' sasquatch, and the 'roadside runaway' creatures. Sadly, throughout the book, Rife seems to focus on very aggressive and hostile bigfoots that charge, attack, and menace people. There are an awful lot of stories ending with the 'victims' taking potshots at the creatures with their guns. The sasquatches throughout the book vary little in description, almost like the author used the words "black brown hairy manlike ape seven feet tall" in a search engine and then gathered up the hits. There's just too many Internet posting reference stories in here to make this a valid book for any type of research. There's no original thought and the stories lack credibility. Virtually anyone (even you) could have "written" this book if you had access to a computer by using a search engine for bigfoot stories. Rife is also extremely careful not to mention any names even though any bigfoot enthusiast will easily recognize numerous stories... maybe he was avoiding some copyright or permission to use someone's name. Overall, if you want a lot of simple encounter stories that may or may not be true, then get the book. If you want something on which to base an in depth thought provoking research, skip it. You definitely don't want to use this book as a basis for any type of research paper, as a many of the reports are internet postings. Good for your bigfoot book collection, not good for any stimulating reading. Sorry for the beating I gave you Mr. Rife
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