above image: a sculpture of a Bigfoot and child, China

Bigfoot, the original cryptid, Fact or Fiction.

     You don’t have to be a fan of the Mysterious and Unexplained to know who Bigfoot is, although you may know him/her as Yeti, sasquatch, Yeren, Yowie, Mande Barung, Orang Pendek, Skunk Ape or anyof the other monikers this elusive hairy beast has been called. The fact is that just about every culture in the world has Bigfoot of some sort and I believe I know why. I am going to give you my theory at the end of this post, first I want to share a famous sighting and compare the descriptions.

I have been fascinated with Bigfoot ever since I was a very young boy. My Grandpa would take my Brother and I fishing every weekend morning back then, from the age of 4 until about ten or eleven we spent weekends and summers with my Grandpa in the woods of Northern Wisconsin learning how to fish, hunt, survive and appreciate nature. Many times on our trips through the woods we would study the footprints of various wildlife we found, Grandpa would explain what it was, where it probably had a home and how to successfully track and hunt one if necessary. One particular morning we came across some larger prints that looked like a human print with no shoes on. My Grandpa bent down looked at the track and then at my brother and I with a serious look in his eyes. He spoke with a whisper, “This is a Sasquatch print. They are very large and hairy human like creatures, My Grandfather used to hunt them in the mountains of Oregon before we moved to Wisconsin. They are very dangerous but often stay far a way from humans. I’ve never seen prints from one around here before.” He stood up and continued walking toward our fishing hole. My brother and I had our gazes firmly fixated on the footprint next to us, both too afraid to even move, thinking a large hairy man like monster may be watching our every move. Realizing he may have scared us beyond fishing he turned around and laughed, I’m kidding you two, it’s just some guy coming from the swimming hole, now let’s go.” My brother and I were happy with that explanation and we left the scene to continue our fishing. I never knew whether Grandpa was pulling our legs that entire time or if we really had stumbled across a Bigfoot print, I suppose it wasn’t really him but that day had done all it needed to pique my interest in Sasquatch.  I would imagine that from the time I was five or six until my teenage years I had amassed dozens of books on the subject and would often go Bigfoot hunting whenever I had the chance. I never found one or another print but it didn’t stop my curiosity. When the Internet became an accessible commodity for me I went Ape-shit (sorry I have to pun though) about all the new information on my favorite legendary creature. I’ve watched every video that hasn’t been easily debunked, I’ve struggled through TV shows with crazy people convinced they would find and speak with a Bigfoot and I’ve even attended a lecture by a renowned Bigfoot hunter back in the early 2000’s. I was obsessed for quite a while. My Bigfoot fever had subsided quite a bit since those days but the subject still fascinates me and it was only after spending years studying ancient human species other than Homo sapiens that I came across my theory. Again I just want to show an example of what people have described when encountering them and then I will share my ground-breaking theory.

I chose just a couple of sightings to highlight here and there really was no criteria other than a good look at the hairy Humanoid or its way of life.

Albert Ostman, 1924, Toba Inlet, British Columbia.

Mr. Ostamn who was a logger and construction worker decided to take some time off and head for Toba Inlet in search of a lost gold mine. On the way to the location an old Native American boatman told him of huge hairy beings, big people, who lived on the island in the mountains near the mines supposed location. Mr. Ostman hiked inland for almost a week before finding a suitable camping spot near the mines last known location. He started realizing that his food and camp were being messed with when he was sleeping and assuming it was racoons or maybe a bear he decided to stay awake one night while hiding in his sleeping bag. Well that night the things came back and before he even knew what was going on Mr. Ostamn was picked up bag and all and carried away. He couldn’t get to his knife to cut himself out so he waited. He was carried for hours before he was finally deposited on the ground.  He waited in the bag for a while listening to what he described as a strange kind of chatter he could not understand, finally he slipped out of his bag and found himself in the corner of a cave. He could make out the forms of four people, wearing no clothes and covered with hair. As it got lighter he could see that he was in a valley surrounded by mountains and the hairy things seemed to be a family. An old man, old lady and two young ones, a boy and a girl. They made no attempts to hurt him but they seemed intent on keeping him around. He described the young one as between 11-18 years old standing about 7 feet tall and weighing about 300 pounds, he had wide jaws, a narrow forehead that slanted upward around at the back about four or five inches higher than the forehead. The hair on their heads were about 6 inches long while their body hair was shorter and thicker in places. The women’s hair was longer on their heads. The older female was between 40-70, 7 feet tall and about 500-600 pounds. She had very wide hips and a goose like walk. The older man’s eyeteeth were longer than any of the other beasts but not quite fangs. He was nearly 8 feet tall, his hands were wide, the palms long and broad. His fingers were short in proportion to the rest of his hand. His fingernails were like chisels. The only place they had no hair was the insides of their hands and the soles of their feet.

After six days Albert Ostman decided that he had enough. Choosing his moment wisely he fired his rifle, which startled the Sasquatch family enough to let him escape. Curiously Ostman didn’t even tell his story for many years fearing that he might be disbelieved.

 There are thousands upon thousands of stories but I chose Mr. Ostman’s because it gives my theory more credence. It is very simple, I believe that Sasquatch, Bigfoot or whatever you want to call them are actually the last remnants of our ancient ancestor, Homo Neanderthalis, or Neanderthal for short. Neanderthals had lived in Europe and Asia for 500,000 years or more before homo Sapiens entered the picture. Common thought is that Neanderthals were wiped out about 30,000 years ago by climate change, low birth rate and Sapiens interaction but I disagree. Who’s to say that small pockets of Neanderthals packed up and headed into the deep mountains and forests of Asia, Europe and even North America. They had spent almost a half a million years evolving to adapt to Ice Age Europe/Asia so why couldn’t they have adapted themselves even more? When they realized that they were being pushed out by the new human species they chose to flee into harsher and harsher climates. Even if they didn’t start ‘hiding” in the harshest environments until 30-40,000 years ago it would have given them and evolution enough time to help them adapt. They were already barrel chested, larger humans with sloping and slanted foreheads. They would have had tens of thousands of years to become invisible, spending all of those generations hiding from the humans that drove out their ancestors. They would have figured out how to avoid us at all costs unless absolute necessity calls for interaction. There are records of Neanderthal burying their dead and also cannibalizing them so that could easily explain the lack of bones ever found. If you’ve spent tens of thousands of years hiding and being invisible you get really good at it, especially if you are a human species with a brain larger than even Homo Sapiens.  

In conclusion, I absolutely believe that a Bigfoot/sasquatch creature does exist except it isn’t some strange long forgotten monster ape. No these creatures are an intelligent human species that could either be Neanderthals or were evolved from the last surviving Neanderthals who took to the deep forests and mountains to hide and eek out a living.  One patch of hair, one little toe bone or even a pile of Bigfoot scat could have all the genetic information to support or deny this theory. It is a tad frustrating to think that’s all we’d need to figure this out. It is also sad to think if we ever did find a family of Bigfoot how we as a modern society would react to them. They’d be captured experimented on and paraded around like zoo animals when in fact they may just be an older species of humans. Just think what would have happened had homo Sapiens and not Neanderthal went extinct.  Would tall hairy humanoids be chasing the elusive tiny hairless humans and wondering if they really existed?

Have a great day and as always………………PEACE!!!!!!

above image: Artist recreation of one of the oldest Neanderthal skulls ever found. Looks a bit like Bigfoot, right?

 above image: Voodoo witch doctor, Haiti.

Mind over matter & the power of believing: hexes, curses, zombies, bone pointing, black magic, etc. the power of suggestion.

     A few posts back I did a piece on the art of Bone Pointing, an Aboriginal form of execution involving a magically charged bone and the power of suggestion, and it got me thinking about how powerful the human brain is and how susceptible to suggestion we as a species are. There are thousands of examples of healthy people turning sick and eventually dying because of a hex, curse or spell has been placed upon them. These texts from as far back as ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia deal with the subject of people dying from a certain curse or spell. It still exists in modern times in places like Haiti, Australia and Africa.  I can recall watching the movie A Serpent and the Rainbow, in sociology class in High school. It is all about the modern practice of turning people into zombies in Haiti. It’s a decent movie and I recommend it to anyone interested in that kind of stuff. George Romero, the legendary Zombie movie Master got his ideas of what the living dead would look and act like from stories of Haitian zombies.

There are a plethora of different ways to declare or cast the curse, hex or spell on someone. It could be done by making an effigy of the person and poking it with psychically charged needles or pins or burning it. Wax, wood, clay, cloth and straw have all been recipes for making an effigy. Hair and fingernails were used to ritually hex an individual while chanting and singing can declare a curse. Stones and weapons, such as the aboriginal Bone pointers, were charged with psychic energy while magical herbs and powders were used to cast dark spells over unsuspecting individuals. The point is no matter how they were cast or placed the majority of the people effected by them fully believed it to be happening. How is this possible? How did someone who was the victim of bone pointing actually die? Was it fear or did the power of suggestion will his brain to just stop? Are humans really capable of killing with our mind or a suggestion? The answer is yes as we have seen throughout the ages but the real question is how could our brains be wired this way? How can a small group or sometimes just one strong willed person have such influence over many weak minded people? Think of any organized religion and you will see what I am talking about. Think of a person like Jim Jones and the Jamestown Massacre? That man convinced hundreds of people to drink the Kool Aid. How is it possible that we can be so inclined to suggestion? The case of real people being turned into zombies in Haiti has been attributed to the cocktail of herbs and ingredients the Voodoo priestess uses on her subject and most of the herbs are mind altering. Bone Pointing, or any other phenomenon using charged weapons could be the result of the targeted individuals strict adherence to the rituals and laws of his people. In other words if he grew up believing bone pointing to be real, heard stories, may have even seen it happen then he is going to strongly believe it is real since it is all he has known. When the ritual was preformed on the same man he would die, within days or weeks, most likely from starvation or dehydration since the entire tribe reacted to him as if he were already dead. When everyone you ever knew and relied upon for survival turned their backs on you, you were already dead. No one could survive on their own for that long, so after the elements or starvation killed the man the tribe would attribute it to the ritual. It was a great fear tactic and kept most people honest and well behaved. If enough people believe in something or if someone is so immersed into a certain way of thinking I absolutely believe their brains are wired to adapt to that way of life and behavior. I doubt anyone would die from a bone pointing ritual anymore since it an almost forgotten part of aboriginal life, they have been systematically assimilated into Western culture and thought, often giving up their ancient beliefs and rituals by force, thus losing that cultural connection that would have been necessary to “charge” the bone. In cases like Haiti and other places that still practice Voodoo, Hoodoo or any other ancient African or Caribbean culture, the incorporation of psychedelic herbs and beverages make believing much easier. They still zombify, curse and hex people and people still believe it because they have held onto their ancient beliefs or rediscovered them, again the psychotropic herbs and ingredients do play a huge part of their rituals since they directly impact the brain and its behavior.

In conclusion, I do believe the human brain is capable of much more than we are taught. Scientists and Doctors know very little when it comes to our most important organ and who knows what they might discover when we can start unlocking its secrets. I do also strongly believe that some humans are born with stronger brain waves? (uncertain how to word it, I don’t mean smarter, I mean connected differently, not so susceptible to manipulation as the general population. I’m sure there is a scientific term but I’ll just leave it like this) which make them more charismatic and easier to control the minds of others. Mass hysteria and mass illusion have been recorded since the beginning of written history, the Salem Witch trials is a very famous example and a topic for a different post for sure! Anyhow, I could have written a whole book on this subject and feel almost guilty leaving it this post so short and inconclusive but I am working under time restrictions plus this gives me many more posts on the subject for the future. I do strongly consider doing some research on ancient rituals like bone pointing and I strongly recommend watching The Serpent and the Rainbow if you haven’t already or if it’s been a while. It is a fascinating and mostly factual account of actual zombification in the Caribbean. Well until next time have a great day and as always……………….PEACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

above images: ingredients fro zombie powder, Voodoo.

 

Deadly Double: A World War II mystery

     As I have stated in a few earlier posts, I am a huge fan of History, especially WWII. I have read hundreds of books on World War II and can say with all honesty that I could and would debate ANY WWII historian on any part of the war and come out on top or at least equal. I don’t usually boost my low self esteem but when it comes to two topics or ages of History (WWII and Ancient Egypt) I would consider myself an expert. I am bringing this fact up because over the next few posts, with the exception of the ancient humans series, I will be bringing you stories, mysteries and even possible Mandela Effects that pertain to one of those two eras. With that said I want to bring you a little known mystery or perhaps coincidence that occurred just before WWII started. I will tell the story the best I can and then leave it up to you the reader to decide whether it was a coincidence or a message. Intrigued? Well here you go:

     On 22 November 1941- 16 days before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor- The New Yorker ran two advertisements for a new dice game called the Deadly Double.  One of the ads carried the headline ACHTUNG. WARNING. ALERTE! At the foot of the column were the words THE DEADLY DOUBLE, and beneath those words were a double headed heraldic eagle (much like the German crest) with a shield on its breast bearing a double cross. The other ad showed two dice, one black and the other white, each with three sides visible. On the faces of the white die were the numbers 12 and 24 and the double cross sign; on the black die were the numbers 0, 5, and 7. Above the dice were the headline words ACHTUNG. WARNING. ALERTE! Once more.

After the attacks on Pearl harbor on 7 December 1941 there was much speculation that the advertisements had been placed by Axis powers to alert their agents about the attack and to prepare. The numbers 12 and 7 could refer to the month and day of the attack, the numbers 5 and 0 coincided with the time of the attack, and the XX, or Roman numeral 20, could have stood for the approximate latitude of the target; the significance of 24 was never discovered but I have a few theories on that. The suspicions were so strong and the coincidence so uncanny that the FBI actually visited the people who placed the ad, Mr. and Mrs. Roger Craig. The investigation into the Craigs turned up nothing. The game of Deadly Double was legitimate and was being sold by several New York department stores in 1941. The government’s suspicions of the game and its creators wasn’t even disclosed until 1967 when a retired Naval intelligence officer, Ladislas Farago, revealed the story in the press release for his book The Broken Seal. Interviewed a short time after Roger Craig’s widow said that any connection between the Pearl Harbor attack and the ads were pure coincidence. (Scientific American, 227:111-12, October 1972)

I am posting the original ads as well so you guys can take a look and deciede for yourself. My personal opinion is that it probably WAS a secret code to Axis agents and it is entirely possible they did it without the Craigs’ knowledge. The Nazi’s had a very extensive and very capable intelligence service and they had numerous agents and sympathizers in the United States that could have made getting these ads out. The numbers are too coincidental as well, the chances of those numbers being on the faces of the dice as random are too high. Somebody with prior knowledge of the Pearl Harbor attacks made this ad and had it distributed. The Nazi’s were crafty enough to hide such a complex code right out in the open for their undercover agents to find. I would really like to see the actual game so I could investigate the numbers and what the double XX’s might mean in the game. I will have to see if they exist somewhere.

I hope you enjoyed this little WWII mystery and I am curious as to what you the readers think about this. Is it just a random coincidence or was it a complex Nazi code?

Have a great day and as always..............PEACE!

 PS: after an exhaustive search online, I found the game on Etsy, one copy of it and it sold for $20. I will find one for myself.