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Media Article # 333
Sunday, May 4, 2003 Bigfoot lives -- despite what we said a few months agoBy Editorial Eureka Times-Standard
It was not long after the family of prankster and road builder Ray Wallace announced that Wallace had faked the original footprints of a giant hominid at Bluff Creek that the Times-Standard proclaimed that Bigfoot is dead. Ours wasnt the only paper. Several of Wallace's friends and acquaintances swore all along that he was behind Bigfoot. Wallace's family produced the carved feet that made the prints. It all seemed to add up to a big hoax, the first of many related to the creature.
But if you were a believer, none of it added up. The carved feet couldn't have made the prints, they say, and they may be right. They can present a pile of evidence they say proves the beast lives. These folks are no different than the Bigfoot skeptics, who treat Sasquatch-related information with the same disdain as believers treat the outright dismissal of the creatures existence.
But if Bigfoot -- real or imaginary -- is dead you wouldn't know it by reading newspapers. It seems that Wallace's alleged confession only served to cast the sasquatch back onto center stage. Now, Jane Goodall is showing up to be the lead speaker at a Bigfoot conference in Willow Creek in September. Some pretty hifalutin scientists are showing up to put their two cents in. Russian hominid experts are flying in too, for goodness sake. Its proponents hope the conference will serve to drum up support for Bigfoot research and provide a financial backbone with which to launch a big search.
Willow Creek has become more and more associated with Bigfoot. Stretches of highway and companies are named after the critter. And Willow Creek is proof positive that it really doesn't matter whether Bigfoot is really out there. Skeptics and believers alike still see it as the Bigfoot center of the universe. This conference is likely only to solidify that notion.
Skeptics cajoled into complacency by Wallace's announcement fail to recognize the nature of the elusive beast, myth or reality that it may be. News of his death may be greatly exaggerated. In fact, news of his death only served to revive the legend.
We stand corrected: Bigfoot lives. Bibliographical Information:Editorial (which editor not specified).
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