Idaho Professor to Survey Pacific Northwest for the Big Foot
ByAll sitcom fans are aware of Marshall Eriksen's fascination with Big Foot and Lochness Monster from the popular series 'How I Met Your Mother.' Though these creatures are largely believed to be a part of the cultural narrative of indigenous peoples of their native region, many like Marshall, hold on to the possibility that they may be real, until proved otherwise.
An Idaho State University professor who shares similar view as the HIMYM character, will soon embark on a journey to locate 'Big Foot' among the dense forests of Pacific Northwest as well as northern tiers of California and Utah.
Jeffrey Meldrum, an anatomy and anthropology professor has always been ridiculed by some peers for his research on the 'Big Foot,' which is widely disputed by mainstream science. But, now with university approving his unusual proposal of locating it, he is seeking to raise $300,000-plus in private donations to build the remote-controlled dirigible, equip it with a thermal-imaging camera and send it aloft in hopes of catching an aerial glimpse of Bigfoot, also known as sasquatch.
Meldrum who has authored a book named "Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science," said this undertaking represents a giant leap in the quest for an animal he believes may have descended from a giant ape that once inhabited Asia and crossed the Bering land bridge to North America.
The project is named 'The Falcon Project' and Meldrum will be accompanied by William Barnes, a Utah man who said he encountered Bigfoot in 1997 in northern California.
The mainstream science has shunned the idea that such a creature exists. They believe Bigfoot as a phenomenon borne of myth and perpetuated by a mix of fakery and misidentification of real animals. They contend that science demands a high standard of evidence that has not been achieved in the case of sasquatch.
Till date, no fossil or any kind of pre-historic evidence has delivered the proof to validate the creature's existence.
As William Willard, professor emeritus of cultural anthropology at Washington State University points out, indigenous peoples from Asia to North America possess this kind of lore about colossal creatures akin to apes that live in extreme alpine environments, shun contact with humans and are variously identified as the yeti, Bigfoot, the wild man or mountain man.
Due to similarity between the narratives, it may very well be just a figment of people's imagination living in the mountain regions. But, Meldrum and team are hell-bent on proving its existence despite mainstream science scholars' discouragement.