Bigfoot: man or beast?

Most of you probably don't remember the 2 hour Six Million Dollar Man episode involving Bigfoot, aliens, and cybernauts. Regardless, teenagers of the 70s were riveted for two Sundays straight as Steve Austin (not the "Stone Cold" wrestler but rather the fictitious asronaut of the TV series) went into a forest Native Americans still claimed held the legendary "Sasquatch."

While Bigfoot in the famous series turned out to be a cybernetic creature built by aliens to ward off curious humans, the real world has no real answer to Bigfoot's actual lineage. For that matter, many still question whether or not Bigfoot truly exists. As far as this article goes, we'll just toss aside talk that our large furry friend doesn't exist and dig into fun speculation as to what might be his true origins.

Sasquatch
According the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, who claim to be, "The only scientific organization probing the bigfoot / sasquatch mystery," most Native American tribes consider Bigfoot to be a real, living creature which bridges the gulf between humans and animals: our "great elder brother."

This doesn't mean that Bigfoot was necessarily considered a nice guy. The eastern Algonkian tribes call Bigfoot, "Windigo: the human who is transformed into a cannibalistic monster by tasting human flesh in time of starvation."

Yeti
Yeti, who is famed to live in the Himalayas (the highest mountains in the world), is Asia's version of Bigfoot. The word means "magical creature" and accounts of Yeti roaming about the world's highest mountains bear many similarities to North American sightings of Bigfoot. While Yeti is often portrayed as a white "Abomidable Snowman," actual accounts generally describe him as being covered in either red or black hair.

Gigantopithecus blacki
For centuries, Chinese merchants have sold "dragon's teeth" and bones for their famed medicinal uses. These teeth and bones are actually ancient fossils and some of these fossils come from a prehistoric hominid. Gigantopithecus blacki was 10 feet tall and weighed 1,200 pounds. He co-existed with Homo Erectus in Asia. He could have crossed the Bering Land Bridge, the same way humans are thought to have, and entered the Americas. He could have climbed into the Himalayas to avoid humans in Asia.

Whether Bigfoot exists in the real world or only in our imaginations, perhaps an old Sherpa of the Himalayas put it best: "There is a yeti in the back of everyone's mind; only the blessed are not haunted by it."

--chupa