SHOW ME THE BODY
IN JANUARY 2003, the world lost the creators of two of its most celebrated bio-hoaxes in modern times: Douglas Herrick, father of the risibly ridiculous jackalope (half jack rabbit, half antelope), and Raymond L. Wallace, godfather of the less absurd and more widely believed Bigfoot. The jackalope enjoins laughter in response to such peripheral hokum as hunting licenses sold only to those whose IQs range between 50 and 72, bottles of the rare but rich jackalope milk, and additional evolutionary hybrids like the jackapanda. Bigfoot, though, while occasionally eliciting an acerbic snicker, enjoys greater plausibility for a simple evolutionary reason: large, hirsute apes presently roam the forests of Africa, and at least one species of a giant ape—Gigantopithecus—flourished several hundred thousand years ago alongside our early human ancestors. Footprints in the mud really did mean that another bipedal primate was lurking about.
Is it possible that a real Bigfoot lives despite the confession by Wallace’s family, after his death, that the tracks found by one of his employees were just a practical joke by a fun-loving prankster—a guy in an ape suit? Certainly. After all, although proponents of Bigfoot do not dispute the evidence that Wallace tromped around in strap-on Shaq-o-size wooden feet, they correctly note that tales of the giant Yeti living in the Himalayas and Native American lore about Sasquatch wandering around the Pacific Northwest emerged long before Wallace pulled his prank in 1958.
Throughout much of the twentieth century, it was entirely reasonable to speculate about and search for Bigfoot, as it was to look for the monsters of Loch Ness and other lakes and to investigate the visits to Earth by extraterrestrials. Science traffics in the soluble, so while jackalopes do not warrant our limited exploratory resources, for a time these other creatures did.
The study of animals whose existence has yet to be proved is known as “cryptozoology,” a term coined in the late 1950s by the Belgian zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans. Cryptids, or hidden animals, begin life as muddy footprints, blurry photographs, grainy videos, and anecdotes about strange things that go bump in the night. Cryptids come in many forms, including the aforementioned giant pongid and lake monsters, as well as sea serpents, giant octopi, snakes, birds, and even living dinosaurs (the most famous being Mokele Mbembe, purportedly slogging through the rivers and lakes of the Congo Basin in Central and West Africa).
The reason that cryptids merit our attention is that there have been enough discoveries of previously unknown animals by scientists based on local anecdotes and folklore that we cannot dismiss all claims a priori. The most famous examples include the gorilla in 1847 (and the mountain gorilla in 1902), the giant panda in 1869, the okapi (a short-necked relative of the giraffe) in 1901, the Komodo dragon in 1912, the bonobo (or pygmy chimpanzee) in 1929, the megamouth shark in 1976, the giant gecko in 1984, the beaked whale in 1991, and the spindlehorn ox from Vietnam in 1992. Cryptozoologists are especially proud of the catch in 1938 of a coelacanth, an archaic-looking fish believed by zoologists to have gone extinct in the Cretaceous period, as if to say “See, Bigfoot really is out there, and we just have to keep looking.”
Although discoveries of new species of bugs and bacteria are routinely published in the annals of biology, the gorilla, beaked whale, and other examples are startling because of their recentness, size, and commonality to the famous Bigfoot, Nessie, Mokele Mbembe, and other cryptids. But all of them have one thing in common—a body! In order to name a new species, taxonomists must have a type specimen—a holotype—from which a detailed description can be made, photographs taken, models cast, and a professional scientific analysis published.
Anecdotes are a good place to begin an investigation, but anecdotes by themselves do not constitute a new species. In fact, in the words of the social scientist Frank J. Sulloway—words that should be elevated to a maxim: “Anecdotes do not make a science. Ten anecdotes are no better than one, and a hundred anecdotes are no better than ten.”
I employ Sulloway’s maxim every time I encounter Bigfoot hunters, Loch Ness seekers, or alien abductees. Their anecdotal tales make for gripping narratives, but they do not make for sound science. After a century of searching for these chimerical creatures, until a body is produced skepticism is the appropriate response. So whenever someone regales you with such stories, I recommend the following rejoinder: “That’s nice. Show me the body.”
In Abominable Science! Origins of the Yeti, Nessie, and Other Famous Cryptids, two of today’s leading skeptical thinkers have teamed up to produce a marvelous history and science of all matters cryptozoological. Daniel Loxton—editor, writer, and illustrator of Junior Skeptic; regular contributor of investigative pieces to Skeptic and other skeptical publications; and author of books and articles on many of the elusive creatures that fascinated our ancestors and compel our attention—offers new insights that I have not encountered before in the skeptical literature. Donald Prothero—trained in paleontology, biology, and geology, and writer of crystal-clear scientific prose readable by anyone with just a modicum of curiosity—brings to the field fresh ideas on how to think about these storied creatures, which may or may not exist, and illuminates how scientists think about such matters.
Together, Loxton and Prothero have written what may well be the most important work to date on cryptozoology, taking its rightful place in the annals of skeptical literature in particular and scientific literature in general. Abominable Science! is the defining work on cryptozoology of our generation.
MICHAEL SHERMER