Searching for Sasquatch: Crackpots, Eggheads, and Cryptozoology

263 Pages·2011·3.43 MB·English

by  Brian Regal

SEARCHING FOR SASQUATCH
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PALGRAVE STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF
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Searching for Sasquatch: Crackpots, Eggheads, and Cryptozoology
By Brian Regal
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Searching for Sasquatch
Crackpots, Eggheads, and
Cryptozoology
Brian Regal
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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.
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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.
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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
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A Note About the Cover Image
T
his 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.
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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
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