Book Review: The Secret History of Bigfoot by John O’Connor

Author: John O’Connor
Title: The Secret History of Bigfoot
Narrator: Matt Godfrey
Publication Info: Tantor Media, 2024
Summary/Review:

When my son was younger, he began an interest in cryptozoology by watching the cable TV show “Finding Bigfoot.”  The show was both entertaining and absurd, as they never actually found a Sasquatch despite the title.  I created my own conspiracy theory that the cast were actually people who just really loved backwoods camping and scammed Animal Planet to pay for all their equipment.

Of course, there are lots of people who believe Bigfoot is real and the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization exists to support their attempts to find evidence to prove the existence of this species.  Author John O’Connor spends time with this people on Squatching expeditions and notes that they are generally good and companionable people despite their unorthodox beliefs.  In fact, O’Connor does a good job of making sure that his book does not tease or exploit the Bigfoot believers.

Instead O’Connor focuses on various issues that contribute to the belief in Bigfoot.  He relates the history of the Bigfoot phenomenon and how it relates to other benign obsessions like UFOs and more dangerous conspiracy theories that have gained currency with the supporters of Donald Trump and Qanon.  Psychological studies that show the flaws of crime witness reports and memory shed some light on why people may believe they’ve spotted a Bigfoot.  O’Connor researches legends of Native Americans regarding Bigfoot-like creatures, but also notes that the Bigfoot phenomenon reflects the fears that white Americans have of nature.  The ideas of leaving civilization behind for the wilderness and solitude are reflected upon by the likes of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Thomas Merton.  O’Connor also tells the parallel story of the birding community of how some people who look for the ivory-billed woodpecker, believed to be extinct since the 1940s, are met with ridicule but persist in their search.

I like how O’Connor approaches the topic from so many different angles.  I also like that O’Connor makes his dislike for IPAs and the Yankees known, and just how he integrates his personality into the book.  We may never find Bigfoot, but you can find out a lot about humanity and the enduring popularity of myth by reading this book.

Recommended books:

• Wild Ones: A Sometimes Dismaying, Weirdly Reassuring Story About Looking at People Looking at Animals in America by Jon Mooallem
• Where the Wild Things Were: Life, Death, and Ecological Wreckage in a Land of Vanishing Predators by William Stolzenburg
• The Thoreau You Don’t Know: What the Prophet of Environmentalism Really Meant by Robert Sullivan
• Woolly: The True Story of the Quest to Revive One of History’s Most Iconic Extinct Creatures by Ben Mezrich
• Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War by Tony Horwitz

Rating: ****

90 Movies in 90 Days: The Final Exit of the Disciples of Ascensia (2019)

Every day until March 31, 2024 I will be watching and reviewing a movie that is 90 minutes or less.

Title: The Final Exit of the Disciples of Ascensia
Release Date: June 1, 2019
Director: Jonni Peppers
Production Company: CalArts
Summary/Review:

A woman with no direction in her life is invited to join a cult built on the belief that they are descendants of aliens who will “ascend” when they return.  Given the new name Celisse (Haein Michelle Heo) by the cult’s leader Ascensia (Charlotte Pryce), she finds connection and community for the first time.  But her new friend Mira (Jenna Caravello) has doubts that come to the surface when the time of ascension arrives.  The animated film is made in a variety of cut-out styles by various artists and is surreal and hard to follow at times, but also very intimate and thoughtful.

Rating: ***1/2