Art by Thomas Finley
What can we learn from the face of Bigfoot? Well, most witnesses will tell you, we will see a soul, a fellow intelligent being, another caretaker on planet earth.
Let's look at some witness sketches and get a general concensus. Then, let's compare them with other known ancient forms of humans.
sketch by Sybilla Irwin
sketch by Sybilla Irwin
sketch by late forensic artist, Harvey Pratt
We can use Patty (above) as a comparison, as it is widely accepted this was a genuine capture on film in 1967 by Roger Patterson.
There are common misconceptions passed around by people who either don't believe such a clear film could be taken of a Bigfoot or who simply don't want to believe they exist, but a simple objective analysis of the body proportions and movements tell much.
I witnessed a Bigfoot in the Sierras in the mid 80s, before internet and when no one was talking about Bigfoot. The only thing I knew was the Patterson film shown before a movie in the theater and I had two assumptions - that it was an ape and that it was only in Washington, as that was the only state I had heard referenced, and had no idea the Patterson film was done in California.
Hiking from 8000 feet to 11,000 feet to Baboon Lake, I was with my engineer husband and his engineer friends from Hughes Aircraft (all working on satellites and all of them agnotic/atheist who didn't believe in anything). After a tortuous bunch of steep switchbacks, we took a break. It was May and waterfalls were pouring from hillsides with snow melt.
I took my sketch pad and walked over to a ledge and looked across a hillside, surveying the woods when my eyes stopped at a clearing that was about 20 feet wide on the steep hillside. Something dark was bunched over to the right of the clearing, like a creature bent over or sitting. I thought maybe it would be a bear.
The black thing unfolded to an impressive height, as best I could tell by the trees nearby. It was dark all over and its head looked thrusted forward. As an artist who study human form for many years, I was confused by a few things - it was not dressed, but covered in dark hair, it seemed, and as well the proportions were all wrong. The butt and thighs were very powerful, but the legs were perhaps a third of its height, whereas ours is almost half. The body was long, the arms were very long as they hung down the long body as they swung and grazed the thighs. It was massively built, in profile, stepping over a stony very steep ledge with long strides not even looking down. I had just stared at my feet the past 500 foot climb.
As the being stepped into a patch of sunlight, the hair was illuminated as a beautiful auburn. My instinct was weird, I stepped back into the shade of a tree to hide, as if I shouldn't be witnessing this being minding its own business. It cleared the clearing in only a few strides, disappearing into the inky black forest.
My first thoughts were - that's NOT an ape! And, what's it doing in California?
I looked back at the group sitting on a fallen tree and snacking and chattering, and considered telling them, but what would I say? I saw it, but it's gone? I knew my husband and he didn't like talk of anything supernatural or unknown and in front of his work friends, he'd be utterly embarrassed. I couldn't prove what I saw, but I didn't want to be the pariah as we hiked to 11,000 feet to camp. So, I stayed quiet.
Lake Sabrina
We stopped for lunch at the last lake before reaching Baboon Lake (oddly, John Muir wilderness had many things named in honor of Darwin. I wonder why???) I sat there sketching the water and the trees, but my mind was mulling over this find.
I had been agonizing over meeting up with bears the whole time. At base camp, the forest service had a bulletin board showing pictures of what bears do to camps and parked cars.
The first night down below, my husband and I slept in a tent, but the others slept in the open. During the night, I heard one of the campers mumble, "oh no. It's a bear, go away. Shoo! Stop staring at me." I trembled in the tent. The next morning, the camper said he was semi awake when a bear stood over him watching him, turned and walked away.
Turned and walked away....
As I prepared to take the final hike to 11,000 feet, I looked around the dwindling trees and open areas as we ascended to the glacial lake. My thought was this - I'm glad it's out there because it could protect us from bears.
Since that time, I have been intrigued by Bigfoot.
How do they do it? Who are they? What is their purpose? What do they think of us?
I've had other encounters, mostly in West Virginia, finding evidence on the Mogollon Rim in Arizona, but I never got a face to face. Now that I am relocated in Georgia, I will be doing some extensive studies so I can finally sketch a face. I once did a painting I called "Adahy" of what I thought a face might look like. The one I saw was in profile and at some distance.
I sat down finally, decades later, and attempted to sketch what I saw when the light hit the Bigfoot and I saw that it was auburn.
What can we learn from witness sketches? We can find commonalities. The one thing I notice about them is the features that are consistent and exaggerated are the ones that make a person burn it into their mind, like the one I saw left me puzzled by the body proportions.
That Patty film? If a person tried to wear that suit their body wouldn't be long enough, their head would be in the chest of the costume, the hands would never reach into the lengths they do. Nothing about that could fit onto a human being, costume-wise, especially in 1967.
What we see above - commonalities
Strong brow ridge: Considered an archaic feature. The purpose of this evolutionary-wise is often debated as to whether it allows for the eye large sockets and brain cases and the other hypothesis is that it had to do with the biting/chewing mechanism and the muscles that support the jaw.
Broad nose: Generally this is a feature of those in more humid warm climates as the narrow-nostrils of the northern adaptation helped to warm the cold air better.
Hair Distribution human-like: The faces aren't as hairy as the body, but more like the pattern of human male facial hair. The reason our present-day humans have finer hair over the body might have more to do with thermodynamics. We moved indoors, we sewed clothing, we moved into warmer climates, we simply didn't need it like a feral people would.
Some witnesses describe a bluish gray skin.
I have a hypothesis on this: If they can handle barefeet and winters without frostbite, they must not have surface capillaries that can freeze. Keratonized oily skin would protect them from heat and cold, as well as things like Yellow Fever (mosquito bites), but it would also mean they wouldn't have the pink flush look that our skin has as it's not being fed by surface capillaries.
Large eyes: This one I could explain in evolutionary terms. They found that Neanderthal had large eyes because of northern mountainous low-light levels and lengthy periods of time with less sunlight. This might explain features like the "glowing eyes" Bigfoot is reported to have at night and the fact they move about at night easily.
If we add those eyes to other features, like a long body, strong lower body, long arms, you have a mountain climbing, boulder grabbing being that can tear up a hillside climbing up easily using the reaching arms, long bodies, and powerful lower bodies with large feet to grab hold of rocky surfaces. Witnesses often report how fast they got up a hillside.
More and more, it seems that if we look in an adaptation way, these beings were made for mountainous northern terrains.
I can vouch for the body proportions reminding me of Neanderthal, although the height is obviously not the same, but I do know if you mix two fairly disparate breeding populations of any creatures, you get something much larger, like the liger created by mating a male lion and a female lion. The other possibility that I brought up in a post about the evolution of Bigfoot is the Denisovan people of tens of thousands of years ago. LINK HERE.
Strong jaw: Before the time of agriculture, hunter gatherer humans had strong jaws. Bigfoot live a feral life, so the changes in physiology that came with agriculture do not exist for them. This is why researchers often refer to them as archaic features.
So, let's say that everyone who claims to witness a Bigfoot was lying, that the Patterson film was a hoax, then why is it that the very features they give in great detail make sense for a feral people living where they are living in mountains and woodlands?
Everything about them screams - perfectly designed for their lifestyle. Had we not advanced into agriculture and breeding in closed communities, sewing clothing, and building shelters, we might have remained in similar form.
So, are we looking at the face of an ancestor?
Let's take a look at artist renditions of Neanderthal -
How about the ancient Denisovans?
LINK: “They were very tall!” says Ben Marwick, an archaeologist at the University of Washington who was not involved with the research. “Previously we knew that Denisovans had big brains from the skull and teeth finds, and now we know they had big bodies also.”
If you check out my hypothesis on Bigfoot's ancestry being Denisovans, you will see all the reasons I lined up including where Denisovans DNA shows up in human populations correlating with present-day Bigfoot equivalents being seen. The DNA traits in those with the DNA show an adaptive high elevation people who are powerful and weather adaptive.
If this is the case, we are related. The high altitude people of Tibet, able to carry twice their weight with little metabolic struggle, high altitude thin air adaptive, the Inuit having weather adjusting capabilities, and aborigines with hairy faces may be throw-backs to this relative.
The only thing none of these sketches portrays are the usual or "woo" qualities of Bigfoot, from strange forest lights, disappearing midstep, mindspeak claims, and glowing eyes. What qualities did the ancients have that we have lost? Well, let's take al look at ancient astronomical alignments, megalithic structures, mound cultures, and more.
As I get deeper into my research in Georgia, I will be sharing my finds.
I don't want to prove Bigfoot, I already know they exist. I don't want to capture one and forever ruin their fragile existence. Their very ability to tolerate our presence in their forests shows a great respect for living side by side. I aim to return that favor.
Thoughtful openness and interaction is ideal. We are learning more and more every day the importance of consciousness. How do they evade us? Because they utilize qualities of consciousness that is outside of the individual and spreads out to evaluate an area. We may have it in subtle unconscious ways, like feeling someone watching you, turning and finding someone is watching you.
What I would like to do, for those who have not encountered their presence, is to show a thoughtful, highly intelligent, paralleling being, that has reverence for their homeland and compassion for our weaknesses. After all, they don't need cars, hammers, grocery stores, eyeglasses, or insulin. They probably look upon us as small, and vulnerable. In fact, that they don't go after us for camping, hunting, and riding ATVs in their living rooms, says that they are thoughtful guardians.
Who are the Bigfoot? ...people.