Today in Bigfoot History | JAN 08 | Circus Train Wreck Blamed for Wildman Sightings

Recreation of Bigfoot escaping a train wreck

Today in 1905 The Washington Post published an article regarding the sighting of a "wildman".

The "wildman" was described with all the Bigfoot characteristics we have become familiar with.

The story continues to speculate that the wild man may have escaped from a traveling circus during a train wreck. You would be surprised how often "a wild animal escaped from the circus" is used to explain a Bigfoot sighting.  In the book Historical Bigfoot by Chad Arment there are at least 24 counts in as many papers suggesting circus train wrecks as the origin of the escaped "wildman". Here is a quote from the Jan 8th 1905 event.

Several persons give it as their opinion that this creature is a wild animal of some kind that made its escape from the Robinson & Franklin circus that was touring this peninsula a number of years ago. The circus train met with a railroad wreck, and several wild animals were freed from their cages, many of these beasts were captured, and others were shot, and while others were never seen by the circus people again.

The source of all of this can be read online at Google books. The Historical Bigfoot, by Chad Arment, which covers sightings of Wild Men, Gorillas, Yahoos, and What-Is-It's, from the early 1800s to the 1940s. Before the term "Bigfoot" was coined to signify an unknown species of North American primate, sightings of towering bipedal apes were reported throughout the continent, and were called by a variety of names. This book compiles and sorts the most significant sightings, but also provides a look at hoaxes, mis-identifications, and the influential perspective of newspaper editors as they dealt with reports of a strange hairy manlike ape.

Today in Bigfoot History | JAN 07 | First Documented Mystery Footprint

Postage stamp commemorating David Thompson's Life and reputation as a mapmaker

Today in 1811, marks the first recorded account of an overly large foot print in North America by a non-native person. The honor goes to David Thompson, a British-Canadian fur trader, surveyor, and map-maker, who was known for keeping detailed records. On January 7th, 1811, Mr. Thompson found curious animal tracks in the snow near Jasper, Alberta. He described the tracks as 14 inch long footprints (see T.C. Elliott, "Journal of David Thompson", Oregon Historical Quarterly, 15 March-June 1914) Some years later, a book of Thompson's, David Thompson's Narrative of His Explorations of Western America, based on his journal, was published. In it he says:

I now recur to what I have already noticed in the early part of last winter, when proceeding up the Athabasca River to cross the mountains, in company with.... Men and four hunters, on one of the channels of the River we came to the track of a large animal, which measured fourteen inches in length by eight inches in breadth by a tape line. As snow was about six inches in depth the track was well defined, and we could see it for a full hundred yards from us, this animal was proceeding from north to south. We did not attempt to follow it, we had not time for it, and the Hunters, eager as they are to follow and shoot every animal, made no attempt to follow this beast, for what could the balls of our fowling guns do against such an animal? Report from old times had made the head branches of this River, and the Mountains in the vicinity the abode of one, or more, very large animals, to which I never appeared to give credence; for these reports appeared to arise from that fondness for the marvelous so common to mankind: but the sight of the track of that large a beast staggered me, and I often thought of it, yet never could bring myself to believe such an animal existed, but thought it might be the track of some Monster Bear.

For all you rational, critical thinkers who took Santa Claus away from us at 6yrs old. Yes, we know snow melt distorts prints and we don't know how long the tracks were laid before they were discovered. We are also aware that 8 inches is rather wide for a 14 inch print. Prints 8 inches wide are usually at least 17-18 inches in length. So even with the obligatory caveats listed in the previous sentences, we still love adopting David Thompson's mystery creature into the Bigfoot lore. After all, we are the same blog that thinks historically, werewolves are potentially misidentified Bigfoots.

Today in Bigfoot History | JAN 06 | Meldrum Backs Freeman

Photoshopped picture of Jeff Meldrum holding a Paul Freeman cast

“So the thought occurred to me: Well, if [Paul Freeman] is responsible for this [Bigfoot] hoax, why would he portray it so incorrectly on the chance I would read it differently?” -- Dr. Jeff Meldrum

Today in 1997 according to the book, Bigfoot Exposed, Dr. Jeff Meldrum stakes much of his academic reputation on the Paul Freeman trackway. This trackway was a series of  Bigfoot tracks from the Blue Mountains near Walla Walla, Washington. He wrote his support on a posting to the Internet Virtual Bigfoot Conference, an online (email-based) Bigfoot research community.

This was a pretty big deal since at the time Dr. Jeff Meldrum was member of the Biological Sciences faculty at Idaho State University and Grover Krantz’s professional heir-apparent in the field of anthropology. Currently as of 2013, Meldrum is a full professor. Krantz was the first university professor to publicly support and research the possibility of Bigfoot's existence.

If you have ever heard Dr. Meldrum speak, you may be fortunate enough to hear how he first met paul Freeman and the circumstances of thier meeting. In our previous post, "Dr. Jeff Meldrum Compelled by Freeman Tracks" you can read Dr. meldrum retell the story, below is a short excerpt from that post:

Meldrum began following the tracks, far beyond where Freeman’s boot tracks ended, and found additional sets of footprints coming and going. Whatever had made the tracks had apparently come down the Mill Creek drainage, using the brush along an empty irrigation ditch as cover, possibly to raid the apple and plum orchards further below.

“At that point it was clear Paul had read the whole circumstance completely backward,” Meldrum says. “So the thought occurred to me: Well, if he’s responsible for this hoax, why would he portray it so incorrectly on the chance I would read it differently?”

The point is, Dr. Meldrum found enough interesting about the trackway himself, that he was compelled independently what he had observed himself. But let’s back up and discuss Paul Freeman a bit.

Paul freeman is described in an AP article.

Freeman, 45, does not seem the type to spook easily. He is beefy, bearded and, at 6-foot-4 and 265 pounds, approaches Sasquatch proportions himself. He's a meat-cutter by trade; an outdoorsman and hunter by nature.

Apparently he put down the butchers knife and started to search for bigfoot. Before his death he had claimed to see Bigfoot himself 4 times and has collected more cast, most of them with dermal ridges, more than any other Bigfoot hunter. This brings us back to Meldrum. Meldrum not only staked his good name but also put his money where his mouth is, he ended up buying Freeman’s collection for a sum of nearly $2000 dollars. 

Dr. Meldrum was quoted by the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin, "I’d been given an earful by people about Paul’s reputation, and it was bad. I went into it very skeptical."

You can read Meldrum's initial reaction to the prints at our post, Dr. Jeff Meldrum Compelled by Freeman Tracks. You can get further details at Cliff Barackman's Cast Database.