Not Your Typical Bigfoot Movie

I think Bigfoot is blurry, that's the problem. It's not the photographer's fault. Bigfoot is blurry, and that's extra scary to me. There's a large, out-of-focus monster roaming the countryside. Look out, he's fuzzy, let's get out of here. – Comedian Mitch Hedberg

If there is a heaven, Pastor Sanderson has a special place there, because he deserved combat pay for putting up with me in confirmation. At the time, there was a picture being passed around (this is pre-Internet days), that showed storm clouds rolling in over a large bay or lake. The story with the picture was that it was taken mere seconds before lighting struck the water, killing the son of the photographer who was swimming a few feet from the boat. In the clouds is what appeared to be a man with a beard, his arms out-stretched like a father welcoming a child. With solemn tones, Pastor Sanderson told us the story of the death of this youngster. Our eighth grade eyes lit up as we all saw the figure in the clouds. Finally, the photo got to my hands and I exclaimed, “That is so cool. When I die I hope a giant Lynyrd Skynyrd appears in the clouds to take me to heaven. Let’s just say, it was not the right thing to say at that moment.

It is called pareidolia. It is why we can see Mary on a burnt piece of toast, Jesus on a tortilla or on a dog’s backside, Mother Teresa in a cinnamon bun, a face in the Cydonia region of Mars, or a non-existent shooter on the grassy knoll of Dealey Plaza in Dallas. It also explains almost every sighting (except the frauds) of the Loch Ness Monster, little green space aliens, angels, ghosts, and almost every goofy creature we would like to believe exists. It is also why we can enjoy cartoons like South Park, read comics, or see a face in a circle with a few lines inside of it. Our brains are hardwired to look for familiar patterns in the unfamiliar, to construct familiar images and sounds from otherwise senseless information. (Electronic voice phenomenon (EVP) is another example. For people old enough to remember, rock bands were supposed to have left hidden messages if you played their songs backward. The Beatles “death of Paul” hysteria is the most famous example.) We all have had it happen. You are walking through a darkened room, then out of the corner of your eye, you think you see something that causes your heart to skip a beat, causing you to jump out of your skin. You are lying in bed surrounded by the white noise of existence and suddenly the house creaks. Is someone in the house? Pareidolia is present in the childhood game of staring at clouds and seeing all kinds of objects in them. It is an evolutionary hangover from our days when we were not at the top of the food chain or had to worry about other tribes or individuals killing us. It is a survival mechanism. It is better to run away from, or see a thousand imagery predators, than become lunch for a real one.

If you want to understand the history of Bigfoot or any other cryptozoological creature, pareidolia is the key. When I was in fifth grade, my schoolteacher showed Leonard Nimoy’s “In Search Of” series and one of the episodes dealt with Bigfoot, Sasquatch, Almas, Hibagon, Yowie, Fear Liath, or the Yeti, call it what you want, there are huge ape men out there. Nimoy’s show details the Pacific Northwest Native American stories of this giant peaceful creature and proposed that Bigfoot might have crossed the land bridge at the same time as the Indians and might be an evolutionary ancestor of Gigantopithecus. My young skull of mush spun with eyewitness reports of this large hairy beast from across the United States, including a report for 1924 when some miners were attacked by a band of these wild men. If eyewitness testimony was not enough, the program produced a photograph taken at Bluff Creek, California by Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin that could not possibly have been faked. (Many years later, a friend of Patterson’s named Bob Heironimus confessed that he was the gentleman in the ape costume.)

With my head spinning as I got home from school, I packed up some cherry pie filling (because if I liked cherry pie filling Bigfoot must too), some rope, a golf club, and some other needed supplies and headed off into the woods behind my house. My faithful dog, Tinga, at my side, I was going to get myself a Bigfoot. There were a few worries about whether my mom would let the enormous animal share our abode, especially because of their strong smell. She could be unreasonable that way. I climbed several trees, crossed the river a few times, and then Tinga and I enjoyed the cherry pie filling on a much needed break. After three hours of trouncing around, two things occurred to me. First, “Happy Days” was going to start pretty soon. Second, if these mammoth apes did exist, someone would have found a bone or a body of one of these bad boys by now. Maybe even killed or captured one by now. Something, anything, more than some blurry, out of focus photos and a few foot tracks that looked like someone made them in wood shop class. This was for the birds.

What I figured out at eleven, Dallas Gilbert and Wayne Burton, two blue collar, older gentlemen from the Applachian area of Ohio, still have not figured out. Looking like they would be perfectly at home in a smoky tavern, they are Bigfoot hunters. Armed with a video camera, they believe they have spotted the creatures hundreds, maybe thousands of times, even developing a kind of Sasquatch call to attract the animals. After filming for hours, they return home and spend the next few weeks looking at their footage frame by frame on the computer. What do you know, some times in the shadows, they find themselves a Bigfoot, or two or three or however many they need to make the shadow make sense to them. That hairy bastard can be found underneath trees and in bushes all over the place. (Dallas and Wayne have a website if you want to look at some of these photos.) Strangely, when I look at the same photos, all I see in the shadows, is a shadow. After decades of doing this type of activity, a person would think that they would have better photos of the creature that hung out with Wildboy in that awful 1970s Saturday morning television show.

Much like the great documentary American Movie, the most interesting part of this movie is the protagonists themselves. Dallas and Wayne are, how do I put this, a little off, one clown short of a circus, a couple of characters. If you have ever spent any time in a small town, you know about guys like these two. Dallas is uber-religious, collects Jesus art, believes he has a magic healing touch and lives in a house that looks like he has never seen a yard sale he did not like. Wayne has some serious problems with anger and alcohol and believes that he is a failure and often a burden to Dallas. Director Jay Delaney would have made a much better documentary if he would have spent more time documenting the character quirks of these two and how these attributes might have led them to spending copious amounts of time chasing after a mythical animal in the woods and swamps of the area. A viewer finds them nuts, but cannot help but like them. There are some surprises, like an Internet radio interview that goes wrong, but in the end it is really a character study.

A breeding population for Bigfoots to exist would have to be huge, that means that there should be numerous bones, bodies, and signs out there. So far, all we seem to have are some blurry photos and footprints that could be faked. There is something in us that wants these exotic creatures to roam our nation. The truth is, the most exotic creatures out there are guys like Dallas and Wayne.

Verdict: A decent documentary