“TWO CENTS” ONCE CONTRIBUTED BY RUSSIAN HOMINOLOGISTS ON ANALYSIS OF BIGFOOT EVIDENCE
As I recall, 1976 brought high hopes to me. In connection with the article, “Neanderthal vs. Paranthropus” (Current Anthropology, June 1976), Dr. Marjorie Halpin, of Museum of Anthropology, the University of British Columbia, wrote us: “I am most excited that the range of phenomena which you consider overlaps significantly with that I hope to explore in a conference. . . , “ “It is true that in the past North American anthropologists have refused to take Sasquatch and similar phenomena seriously. This seems to be changing. . . ,” “This seems to be an idea or topic whose time has come. I very much hope that you will be able to share in its exploration with us.”
The conference, “Anthropology of the Unknown: Sasquatch and Similar Phenomena,” was to be the first academic conference of this kind and took two years to secure funds and be prepared. It was held May 10-13, 1978, at the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver.
Seven years earlier, in December 1971, Rene Dahinden, of British Columbia, brought us in Moscow “a sackful of wonderful gifts: photographs and plaster casts of Sasquatch footprints, taperecorded interviews of Patterson, Gimlin, Ostman, and other eyewitnesses, several copies of John Green’s books, documentaries of Dahinden’s own search for Bigfoot, and above all, the Patterson-Gimlin film.” Rene asked us to study that evidence, the Bigfoot footage in particular, in order to verify its authenticity.
The task was tackled by Igor Bourtsev, myself, Alexandra Bourtseva, Dmitri Donskoy, and Nikita Lavinsky. The initial results of our investigations were written up by me in a paper, “Preliminary Notes on the Materials of American Hominologists,” and published in part in the book Sasquatch, 1973, by Don Hunter with Rene Dahinden.
The long report I composed and penned for the Vancouver Conference was titled “Analysis of the Patterson-Gimlin Film and Some Footprints Ascribed to the Sasquatch: Why We Find Them Authentic.” As authors (or co-authors) of the report were registered the names of Dmitri Bayanov, Igor Bourtsev, and Rene Dahinden. The latter as a sign of our gratitude for providing us with all that evidence, and because Rene demanded that our findings could not be revealed without his permission. His name on the report satisfied him.
Besides the report, I came up with the following proposal to the fellow-hominologists assembled in Vancouver:
In my view the first Sasquatch Conference will fulfill its mission if it results in something even more important and vitally needed: a permanent international body to cope with our problem. I see no other way for us to make real progress. What needs to be realized is that it is not just a question of obtaining decisive evidence but rather of creating a standard framework and normal conditions for the processing of the already existing and newly coming information, as is the case with all established sciences. (...)
What is needed for a science to exist?—a collection of relevant and potentially important facts, for one; a number of researchers interested in these facts, for two; a theory, or theories, to evaluate these facts, for three; and an organization to coordinate and finance the research efforts, for four. We are already in business as regards the first three conditions, but are glaringly lacking and handicapped as regards condition number four. This creates a kind of negative feedback and a steady state of stalemate in the overall situation, which can last indefinitely unless we opt to play differently. (...)
To get established and recognized by the “establishment” it is necessary to set up yet another establishment, one of our own. Since there may not be enough clout for the venture on a national basis, it has to be tried on an international one.
Hence the idea of a World Hominological Organization. Purposes: To prove beyond doubt the existence of relict hominoids; to protect their populations; to study these creatures by humane methods; to collect, translate, and exchange information on the subject the world over. (...) In short, let’s get organized and spend our energy on something more creative than arguments with the uninformed:
Hominologists of all lands, unite
To show humankind what is true and right.”
The Soviet authorities did not permit Igor Bourtsev and me to attend the conference. Our report was presented in absentia by Marjorie Halpin herself, who called it “a wonderful conference paper.” The audience applauded it, and newspapers in Vancouver, Seattle and San Francisco reported about it in articles headed “Ah Yes, Comrades, There Is A Bigfoot,” “Sasquatch Film Is Authentic Russians Claim,” “Soviet Scientists Say Bigfoot Is As Real As The World Is Round.” Grover Krantz wrote me: “Halpin said a book of all conference papers should be out in less than a year.” But some time later I received a letter from Dr. Roderick Sprague of the University of Idaho, saying:
I sincerely hope that the conference papers are published because many of us in the academic world have already received a great deal of abuse for our participation. We would hate to see our efforts not resulting in some tangible object.
I had information that Marjorie Halpin said she never realized what she was getting into when she “started all this.”
The volume resulting from the Vancouver Conference, Manlike Monsters On Trial, was published in 1980, offering fine plates from the frames of the Patterson-Gimlin film, but not a word about our report which had to be illustrated with these very frames. Absent also in the volume were the papers by Dr. Grover Krantz, Dr. Vladimir Markotic, Dr.Roderick Sprague, Dr. Marie-Jeanne Koffmann, and some others. So 1980 brought us a major fiasco, giving to understand what formidable, largely hidden “tectonic” forces opposed and subverted our research. It became clear that my proposal of A World Hominological Organization was nothing but pipe dreams. Still such a body is a sine qua non of progress. Today, 30 years later, this still remains priority number one. Regrettably, our Moscow Center of Hominology, devoid of funding, is unable to play this role.
In 1984, important parts of our report did see the light of day in the book, The Sasquatch and Other Unknown Hominoids, published by Vladimir Markotic and edited by him and Grover Krantz. The volume included also the other papers rejected by the Vancouver Conference organizers. Without asking us, the editors divided the shorter version of our report and published the text as two separate articles, which is regrettable because this violated the methodology I used in the paper.
Rene Dahinden was against Markotic’s initiative and publication, but we ignored his ban and protests. Still Marcotic did not dare illustrate our articles for fear of Dahinden’s possible court action concerning copyright. The whole sad story of our old contribution to bigfootery is offered in full detail in America’s Bigfoot: Fact, Not Fiction. U.S. Evidence Verified in Russia (Cryptologos Publishers, Moscow, 1997). But written for the general reader, the book lacks most of the biological and technical details of our analyses. As the Markotic book is little known among Bigfoot investigators, Chris Murphy repruduced at my request our two articles contained in the book (my thanks to him!) and they are available below, together with the illustrations reproduced from America’s Bigfoot. . . I offer them here because the evidence we discuss, the 1967 Documentary in particular, has not been given its due yet. In this connection, I regard the disrespectful, suspicious and slanderous treatment of Robert Gimlin and the late Roger Patterson as gross violation of human rights in America.
It is noteworthy that our report at the Vancouver Conference was the only one analyzing and verifying the Patterson-Gimlin documentary. According to Dr. Roderick Sprague, “It is by far the best and most thorough discussion of this classic film” (Cryptozology, Vol.5, 1986, p. 105). Russian hominologists were the first to authenticate the film and publicly declare Bigfoot definitely real. If you ask what made us, or at least myself, a foreigner to America, so confident and affirmative regarding a most controversial subject in that country, my answer is this:
I am a student of Boris Porshnev, who proclaimed “a scientific revolution in primatology.” Following him, I recognize the great philosophical and educational importance of paleoanthropology, and at the same time regard its record as very spotty, superficial and speculative. Anthropogenesis is still full of unknowns. Considering the young evolutionary age of Homo sapiens, the survival of presapiens hominids seems theoretically very probable. The abundant historical and modern evidence to this effect turns theoretical probability into practical fact. So relict hominoids (actually hominids) are a stark reality of the modern world. They were unknown to science because there was no science to know them.
Having learned Porshnev’s works and views, and having interviewed witnesses in the Caucasus, I became convinced of the existence of relict hominids, and it was with this conviction that I studied the presumed Bigfoot evidence provided by our North American colleagues. I found it very similar to the evidence we have in the Old World. North American evidence testified to the existence of non-sapiens hominids, NOT apes, in that continent. And when I saw that the three kinds of evidence—eyewitness sightings, footprints, and the Patterson-Gimlin film—were perfectly matching, and in addition correlated with certain paleoanthropological data, I had no shade of a doubt left that the evidence we studied was genuine and Bigfoot is real. It became clear to me then that we must analyze and present these three kinds of evidence in a package, in one paper, showing and explaining their interconnections. This makes positive conclusions logically inescapable. Such is the difference of my approach and methodology from those of my overseas colleagues.
As I wrote in 2003 to The Sunday Denver Post, “Wild hairy hominids do exist on earth today, and on the agenda is not their discovery but general recognition of their re-discovery in the 20th century.” I say re-discovery because these beings were known to ancient and medieval naturalists. So we have to recall and remember important lessons in the history of science. The fact of earth’s movement around the sun and rotation was proclaimed in the ancient world, then rediscovered and proved by Copernicus and Galileo in the end of the Middle Ages. Did they demonstrate the earth’s rotation? No, they couldn’t. They proved it by logical means, and it took a couple of centuries for most academics to accept that logic. After the Copernican revolution came the Darwinian. Did Darwin demonstrate evolution. No, he couldn’t. He proved it by logical means, and it took a long time for most biologists to accept his logic and the fact of evolution.
Logic is Queen of Science, obeyed and recognized by all sciences. Logic is their common treasure. Then what separates and differentiates sciences? They are separated and differentiated by their subject matter and methodology. This means that in every science logic works in accordance with each science’s subject-matter and methodology. In physics it works in accordance with physical reality; in biology in accordance with biological reality. Now, hominology has its own specifics, its own subject-matter and inevitably its own methodology. The latter cannot be the same as in zoology or exactly the same as in cultural anthropology dealing with Homo sapiens. Hominology is a multidisciplinary field of study, and contributions to it by zoologists, anthropologists, paleoanthropologists, linguists, physicians, etc., are very necessary and most welcome. But the mentor tone by zoologists and paleoanthropologists — their demands for a body or bones as the only condition of the discovery’s proof and recognition—are not acceptable, for hominology is not their “turf.” My North American colleagues have wasted too much time trying to meet the demands of academic nonhominologists. Yes, we badly need acceptance and recognition by the mainstream, but without compromising our rules and principles. To win over open-minded and uninformed or misinformed skeptics, we should pay attention to those who are willing to listen and learn, and ignore or expose the vociferous close-minded ones properly dubbed scoftics.
So help yourself in the below to one of the logical, and thus strictly scientific, proofs of Bigfoot’s reality presented by Russian hominologists in the 20th century—and find more proof in fine books by North American authors, from John Green and Grover Krantz to Chris Murphy and Jeff Meldrum. Bring about one more revolution in science.
Finally, let me remark that when you read in the articles a quotation followed by the words “(Hunter and Dahinden 1973: 173),” the quoted words belong to me, not Hunter and Dahinden. The editors did not make this clear.
Dmitri Bayanov
International Center of Hominology
Russia
September 2008
ARTICLES FROM THE SASQUATCH AND OTHER
UNKNOWN HOMINOIDS
Edited by Vladimir Markotic; Grover Krantz, Associated Editor
Part1 ¾ Eyewitness reports and footprints: an analysis of sasquatch data. By Dmitri Bayanov, Igor Bourtsev, Rene Dahinden.
The second part is divided into three sections by technical reasons.
Part2a , Part2b ,and Part2c ¾ Analysis of the Patterson-Gimlin film, why we find it authentic. By Dmitri Bayanov, Igor Bourtsev, Rene Dahinden.