Are Bigfoot Witnesses Really Seeing Reptoids?

Loren Coleman ©2012

This is not going where you think it is. I have not joined the Icke fringe, seriously.

Back in 2006, I discussed "The Evolution of Cryptozoology Drawings." I found that initial eyewitnesses’ attempts to capture what they saw did change through the artwork created by later illustrators, some with their own agendas, and sometimes through the retellings of the witnesses. I spoke on this issue at the original Texas Bigfoot group’s early 2005 conference and at the Bates College’s cryptozoology symposium held in October 2005 in Lewiston, Maine. It may be appropriate now to look at another issue in a related realm. First, two questions: What if eyewitnesses who are describing Bigfoot are not actually seeing what they think they are? Do we know what happens in a Sasquatch encounter is correctly be referenced for us via the human eyewitnesses?

   

The example of the Pascagoula Critters, which, by definition, are part of ufology might not seem like a good place to start talking about the eyewitness testimony of Bigfoot witnesses. But there are lessons to be learned here, and perhaps it is time for Sasquatch investigators to look for some comparable data to inform our cryptid pursuits. Physical evidence is important, but then so too is the tricky world of firsthand encounter (eyewitness) sighting data, as well. Regarding the Pascagoula case, University of California professor James Harder investigated the story, as did Dr. J. Allen Hynek, who represented the U.S. Air Force. Harder and Hynek worked together on the case. First they interviewed the two fishermen eyewitnesses, Calvin Parker, 19, and Charles Hickson, 42, together. Harder tried to do regressive hypnosis on Hickson, but the alleged abductee was so frightened that the hypnosis was stopped. Both of the witnesses, however, took polygraph tests, and both passed without a problem. Harder and Hynek both believed that the two tormented men were telling the truth. What occurred with the depiction of the Pascagoula entities leads to similar insights as what I described in "The Evolution of Cryptozoology Drawings" for the changing view of Momo (the Missouri Monster).  For the Pascagoula experience, from the supposedly "based on the eyewitness" drawings to their morphing into popular cultural comic books, shiny figurines, and one-of-a-kind art, the evolution of these "critters" is somewhat predictable.

 From the Air Force's investigations' images...  

 ...to the following comic book graphic of the event which does demonstrate that some leaps are big ones.

    

What were eyewitnesses really seeing? Will we ever know?

   

 What did the eyewitnesses experience? Various artists have similar but different views.  

 Harry Trumbore's drawing is generally regarded as bringing together many of the elements of the eyewitness descriptions and other artists' interpretations. Trumbore's image below was first carried in Patrick Huyghe's 1996 edition of The Field Guide to Extraterrestrials.

   

 Then there are the 3-D figurines...

   

But something else is going on too. In Patrick Huyghe's The Field Guide to Extraterrestrials there is an investigative incident that needs to be reviewed and reflected upon. Richard J. Boylan, Ph. D. is a behavioral scientist, anthropologist, and certified clinical hypnotherapist. He has been involved in hypnotizing ufo abductees. What he found is worth pondering. On page 131, Huyghe writes of how an eyewitness under hypnosis told "Richard Boylan that she had encountered a 'spaceman.' When he invited her to look closely at the face of the 'human' spaceman, she replied, 'Oh my! It's not human after all. It's one of those Grays.' But when he suggested that she look closely at the face of the Gray, she realized that the Gray was actually a reptoid."

   

 Wetzel’s “It” by Bill Rebsamen from Mysterious America (page 273). 

Now, I am not here to dwell on reptilians or aliens or ufonauts. My concern is with eyewitnesses. What are they seeing, and when they see Bigfoot, are they so scared or in shock or in trance that they are telling us what we want to hear? Or what culturally they "think" a Bigfoot looks like? What would occur if Sasquatch encounters were examined more deeply by hypnotizing the eyewitnesses? 

What happened to the use of hypnosis in earlier Bigfoot investigations? Should we even broach this critical forensic difference between ufological and cryptozoological eyewitness stories? Within murder investigations, criminal reconstructions, and, yes, ufological and abduction research, the frequent use of the technique of hypnosis appears to have become divorced from the examination of Bigfoot eyewitnesses. Why? We aren't sure why this occurred. Indeed, considering that even in homicidal and violent crime cases where court admissibility of evidence obtained through this method is not regarded too highly, it is in the data gathering phrase of the investigation where there is great reliance on hypnosis to collect the details of the cases. Bigfoot researchers, in the 1970s, experimented with hypnosis, but not in any well-crafted fashion. What would Bigfoot researchers find behind the sightings of large hairy creatures if they used hypnosis more? More details, more psychology, more hidden messages, or nothing? Are we even asking the right questions?