BIGFOOT

I'm sure there are those who do not realize that The Wall Street Journal publishes a great weekend edition. I've been subscribing to WSJ now for many years, and it's not because of financial reporting. I don't have enough money to invest that I would need their guidance. It's the other things in the paper that I gravitate to.

They do a great job on obituaries. Obituaries you say? Yes! In their Saturday/Sunday edition they do a full page, generally of two individuals who have passed away who have gained merit in some field of endeavor.

The New York Times of course does this, but rarely do the NYT and the WSJ highlight the same person. This week's edition is no exception. We are treated to an obit I'm not seeing in the NYT. The other so-far omitted obit is for Jeffrey Meldrum, seen above. Jeffrey gets the featured treatment and the most space and largest photos. The online story, as usual, has more great photos. And what is Mr. Meldrum famous for? Bigfoot!  

Oh jeez. A wack-a-do? Someone the late great Robert Mc.G. Thomas would have found and written about? Somebody like The Goat Man? No. Mr. Meldrum was a serious scientist who wrote a book on Bigfoot, "Sasquatch: Legends Meet Science," praised by none other than the late Jane Goodall, who believed in the existence of the fellow.

Mr. Meldrum, 1958-2025, passed away from a brain tumor. He was no crackpot. He approached his pursuit of Bigfoot with scientific rigor. He was an academic with a Ph.D. in anatomical sciences (it's a thing) from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1989. He had many teaching jobs around the country and at last settled in Pocatello, Idaho at the University of Idaho. He himself was from Eugene, Oregon, and as a child was fascinated by the now famous home movie of hairy Bigfoot striding upright along a river bed swinging his arms and disappearing into the forest.

The film was seen as absolute proof of the existence of Bigfoot—at least until it was debunked as a  hoax. The 1967 film known as the Patterson-Gimlin was taken by two ranchers at Happy Camp, California. You have to ask yourself why the ranchers didn't try and follow Bigfoot into the forest and at least see where he lived? Why? Because Bigfoot was a third rancher himself, that's why.

The legend of Bigfoot has been around so long that you reasonably have to then believe that he has at least reproduced by now. If he's continually seen, then Little Bigfoots are growing up and taking the place of the old man, or woman.

And where's Mrs. Bigfoot? If reproduction has occurred, than there has to be a female somewhere, no? And where does this cohort of creatures live? Well, that's the fun, isn't it? The unknown.

Mr. Meldrum was the go-to guy for Bigfoot research. He held presentations, as seen with him making a presentation at the North American Bigfoot Conference in 2023. (Yes, it is apparently a real thing.)

Mr. Meldrum had some 300 impressions of footprints, complete with anatomical analysis about why the impressions represented that of a humanoid based on the stress of the foot's parts:

"...noted that those footprints were clearly different from human prints, but all similar to each other. They shared a very distinct morphology of the forefoot, and a conspicuous flexibility in the middle, common in apes. There are expansion cracks, as you can see, as that substrate has heaved up to relieve pressure that has concentrated under the forefoot during the latter part of the stance." An analysis not from your run-of-mill nut job.

I like to think there's a Sasquatch out there. It would be exciting, even to discover a skeleton that can be attributed to such a creature.

My oldest daughter Nancy thinks there's a Sasquatch, but wonders, like me, there has to have been some propagation of the species since the legend has been going on for so long.

I list one thing I'd like to see proven before I pass on: life on another planet. Not some one-celled creatures found in moisture on Mars, but fully sentient beings who can guide those U.F.O.s (Now U.A.P.s; Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena. Definitely afuture Jeopardy clue if it hasn't already been used.) that are thought to be seen. Then maybe proof of Sasquatch.

My wife and I have now lived longer than my parents, and are close to living longer than her parents, but realistically, there isn't a lot of time left for these momentous discoveries to be made in our lifetimes.

It is possible these discoveries with be made in the lifetimes of our children, or maybe our grandchildren. If that's the case, I like to think someone will stop by the cemetery and tell us the news, and that Mr. Meldrum was holding casts of footprints that really belonged to Sasquatch, and not impressions from Shaquille O'Neal's bare feet on a nature hike.

Only time will tell.

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