A hefty figure emerges from the shadows of the forest, only to fall back into the canopy of trees.
It’s a scene that’s been caught out of the corner of one’s eye by a thousand people, but no one has come close to looking into the face of a yeti or Bigfoot. If one meets the gaze of a mythical creature, one may be surprised by what one discovers by looking at it.
A data scientist named Flo Foxon showed that the majority of Bigfoot sightings in the United States and Canada were likely black bears wading on their hind legs.
american black bearsamerican bear) usually walk on all fours, but stand on their hind legs if that means they get a clearer view or a stronger smell of something interesting. And from this position, they can appear supernaturally human-like, albeit quite hairy.
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This is not the first time scientists have proposed black bears as an explanation for the Bigfoot phenomenon.
In 2005, one scientist compared the estimated black bear population to reports of Bigfoot sightings in the northwest corner of the United States. However, he came to the conclusion that other animal species, and not the American black bear, were responsible for the appearance of this mythical creature.
But in 2009, another paper based in the same region showed a high degree of overlap between black bear populations and Bigfoot spots.
Foxon has now expanded on previous results by extending the analysis to all locations in the US and Canada where black bears and humans live near each other.
The data he used to observe Bigfoot came from the Bigfoot Field Investigators Organization, which maintains a geographic database of eyewitness accounts, mostly dating back to the twentieth century.
Foxon then compared this information with local data on black bear density and distribution, as well as population density. He says this is an improvement over the simplified projections used in previous articles.
According to Foxon’s rigorous regression model, which shows whether changes observed in one variable are associated with changes in another, Bigfoot sightings are largely attributable to misidentified black bears.
In areas with more black bears and humans, more people see Bigfoot, and this is especially true in the Pacific Northwest.
On the other hand, in Texas and Florida, black bears are not as common, despite the fact that Bigfoot is common in these two states.
“It’s notable that Bigfoot has been seen in states where there are no known black bear breeding populations,” Foxon acknowledges.
“While this could be interpreted as evidence of the existence of an unknown hominid in North America, it is also due to, among other things, the misidentification of other animals (including humans).”
Big foot? These footage was filmed on 10/24/13 by Josh Highcliffe.
9 miles west of Tunica, Mississippi while hunting on their property.
When he got up, he ran away out of fear. It has been called one of the best Bigfoot videos ever made. What do you think? #paranormal #creepy pic.twitter.com/ifv4e9dhlL— Insomnia Society (@insomsociety) January 10, 2023
In general, however, states like Texas and Florida are exceptions to the rule. On average, Foxon found that for every 900 black bears in a given US state or province of Canada, there is one Bigfoot sighting.
In other parts of the world, bears can also trick people into seeing mythical hominins.
In the mountains of Asia, for example, it is likely that the yeti is actually just an Asian black bear, a Himalayan brown bear, or a snow-covered Tibetan brown bear.
Physical evidence of the existence of the yeti collected in the past, such as teeth and hair, has always been found to belong to another known animal, and usually it was a bear.
“In conclusion,” writes Foxon, “if there is Bigfoot there, it could be a lot of bears.”
The study was published in bioRxiv.
