Searching for Sasquatch
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SEARCHING FOR SASQUATCH 9780230111479_01_prexii.indd i 1/16/2011 5:40:31 PM PALGRAVE STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY James Rodger Fleming (Colby College) and Roger D. Launius (National Air and Space Museum), Series Editors This series presents original, high-quality, and accessible works at the cut- ting edge of scholarship within the history of science and technology. Books in the series aim to disseminate new knowledge and new perspectives about the history of science and technology, enhance and extend education, foster public understanding, and enrich cultural life. Collectively, these books will break down conventional lines of demarcation by incorporating historical perspectives into issues of current and ongoing concern, offering interna- tional and global perspectives on a variety of issues, and bridging the gap between historians and practicing scientists. In this way they advance schol- arly conversation within and across traditional disciplines but also to help define new areas of intellectual endeavor. Published by Palgrave Macmillan: Continental Defense in the Eisenhower Era: Nuclear Antiaircraft Arms and the Cold War By Christopher J. Bright Confronting the Climate: British Airs and the Making of Environmental Medicine By Vladimir Janković Globalizing Polar Science: Reconsidering the International Polar and Geophysical Years Edited by Roger D. Launius, James Rodger Fleming, and David H. DeVorkin Eugenics and the Nature-Nurture Debate in the Twentieth Century By Aaron Gillette John F. Kennedy and the Race to the Moon By John M. Logsdon A Vision of Modern Science: John Tyndall and the Role of the Scientist in Victorian Culture By Ursula DeYoung Searching for Sasquatch: Crackpots, Eggheads, and Cryptozoology By Brian Regal 9780230111479_01_prexii.indd ii 1/16/2011 5:40:31 PM Searching for Sasquatch Crackpots, Eggheads, and Cryptozoology Brian Regal 9780230111479_01_prexii.indd iii 1/16/2011 5:40:31 PM SEARCHING FOR SASQUATCH Copyright © Brian Regal, 2011. All rights reserved. First published in 2011 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN: 978–0–230–11147–9 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Regal, Brian. Searching for sasquatch : crackpots, eggheads, and cryptozoology / by Brian Regal. p. cm.—(Palgrave studies in the history of science and technology) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978–0–230–11147–9 (alk. paper) 1. Sasquatch. 2. Monsters. 3. Cryptozoology. 4. Tracking and trailing. I. Title. QL89.2.S2R44 2011 001.944—dc22 2010036009 A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: March 2011 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America. 9780230111479_01_prexii.indd iv 1/16/2011 5:40:31 PM Contents A Note About the Cover Image vii Acknowledgments ix List of Abbreviations xi Introduction Chasing Monsters 1 Chapter 1 Crackpots and Eggheads 7 Chapter 2 The Snowmen 31 Chapter 3 Bigfoot, the Anti-Krantz, and the Iceman 55 Chapter 4 The Life of Grover Krantz 81 Chapter 5 Suits and Ladders 105 Chapter 6 The Problems of Evidence 131 Chapter 7 A Life with Monsters 157 Notes on Sources and Monster Historiography 187 Chronology 191 Notes 195 Bibliography 225 Index 241 9780230111479_01_prexii.indd v 1/16/2011 5:40:32 PM 9780230111479_01_prexii.indd vi 1/16/2011 5:40:32 PM A Note About the Cover Image This image of a smiling, seeming Sasquatch is from the cover of Bickerstaff’s Boston Almanac for 1785. The image is actually a crude copy of the famous illustration of a chimpanzee from Edward Tyson’s pioneering work of primate morphology Anatomy of the Pygmie (1699). It is likely the first printed image of a primate published in North America, and may have contributed to popular conceptions about what a Sasquatch looks like. 9780230111479_01_prexii.indd vii 1/16/2011 5:40:32 PM 9780230111479_01_prexii.indd viii 1/16/2011 5:40:32 PM Acknowledgments I would like to thank the following people for giving me their time and comments most graciously despite the misgivings of some in the monster cognoscenti about how I was going to treat the field. Robert Ackerman, John Bodley, Loren Coleman, Joe Davis, Jonathan Downes, Gregory Forth, Richard Freeman, John Schoenherr, Rick Sprague, Alice Walters, and Milford Wolpoff supplied files and shared insights into monster hunting. Some gave me fascinating anecdotes recorded nowhere before now, but in their personal experiences. Thanks to Eric Altman, Raymond Rosa, Bob Schmalzbach, and all the Bigfooters who took the time to fill out my surveys. Archivists and librarians across North America and the United Kingdom, par- ticularly at the National Anthropological Archive of the Smithsonian Institution, the American Museum of Natural History, the American Philosophical Society, the British Museum, Natural History, the special collections library of University College London, and others showed endless patience in helping me root out obscure papers’ collec- tions and primary source materials. Garland Allan, Peter Bowler, and Joe Cain showed me great friendship and this project moral support and encouragement: support that, had it not been given, may have led me to abandon it. I presented a number of the ideas put forward in this book as papers at meetings of the History of Science Society, British Society for the History of Science, and as a guest speaker at the Grant Museum’s Darwin Theater Lecture Series, London, between 2007 and 2009. Each time, audience members made thoughtful cri- tiques and suggestions for further study and showed great enthusiasm for the subject and my project. A number of the people listed here, including Alice Wyman, Christopher Bellitto, and Henry Nicholls, read all or part of the work and made suggestions for improvement and clarity (though in the end I take full responsibility for any factual mistakes). Thanks to the blind reviewers for their insightful and use- ful critiques, which enhanced the manuscript. Thanks to the staff at 9780230111479_01_prexii.indd ix 1/16/2011 5:40:32 PM x ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Palgrave, including copy editor Stuart A.P. Murray, and to Palgrave Studies in the History of Science and Technology series editors Roger Launius of the Smithsonian and James Rodger Fleming of Colby College for their early enthusiasm. Thanks to Kean University’s Department of History Chair Sue- Ellen Gronewold and faculty whose friendship and collegiality helped more than they could know. Thanks to Maria Perez of the faculty development office for so much. The university administration and the Kean Foundation gave me support through a Presidential Research Initiative award for travel and research, and for allowing faculty members avenues for producing research and scholarship and for sharing that research with colleagues and students. This project would not have been possible without it. Finally, and always, thanks to Lisa Nocks. You know. 9780230111479_01_prexii.indd x 1/16/2011 5:40:32 PM Abbreviations ABSM Abominable Snowman AMNH American Museum of Natural History APS American Philosophical Society BFRO Bigfoot Research Organization CCNAA Carleton Coon papers National Anthropological Archive GSK Grover Sanders Krantz ISC International Society of Cryptozoology NAA National Anthropological Archive SMITH Smithsonian Institution UCL University College London, Special Collections Library WSU Washington State University 9780230111479_01_prexii.indd xi 1/16/2011 5:40:32 PM 9780230111479_01_prexii.indd xii 1/16/2011 5:40:32 PM Introduction Chasing Monsters I know, Watson, that you share my love of all that is bizarre and outside the conventions and humdrum routine of everyday life. Sherlock Holmes, 1891 This story tells of dreams that do not come true. It is a story about spending one’s life pursuing something and never catching it. It is a story about chasing monsters. These monsters are apish and disturb- ingly like us. They have stalked the dark parts of the human psyche, as well as forests, for millennia. If they are real, they are older than we are, yet they leave behind only footprints and questions. They have appeared around the world and by various names, including Yeti, Almasti, Sasquatch, Hibagon, Windigo, Agogwe, Orang-Pendek, Bigfoot, and many others. Like shadows in the rain, these hard to explain animals are said to show up in places and in forms conven- tional wisdom says they should not. Some believe them real animals, while others scoff at them as so much foolishness. They can be col- lectively known as manlike monsters, mystery apes, or anomalous primates. The story, however, concerns more than just the startling and controversial nature of monsters and monster hunting in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, but the more important relationship between the academic scientists and amateur naturalists who hunt them, and the historiography of unusual scientif ic evidence. This discourse exists outside of whether Bigfoot is