Why is it so hard to find Bigfoot? We could say, “Because there’s no such thing as Bigfoot!” and call it a day but that’s not fair to Bigfoot. Give Bigfoot some credit. He’s lasted centuries without getting caught, killed, or filmed with a high definition camera on a tripod. So without getting into the real/not real debate, let’s assume Bigfoot exists and move on (either to the next post or the rest of this post, depending upon your personal disposition).
Maybe You’re In The Wrong Place
Looking purely at reported sightings, we’ll notice that most take place in states containing vast amounts of wilderness or otherwise unpopulated areas. States with over 100 “credible sightings and related reports,” according to the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, include California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, and Washington. Washington and California each have over 400, with Oregon coming in a distant third place with 223. Zero sightings in Hawaii, by the way.
I live in Massachusetts, a state with 15 sightings. Odds of me seeing Bigfoot here are not good. Not good at all. I grew up in Minnesota, which has 45 sightings. Again, not good. I went to college in Washington and, for the purposes of this article, probably should have stayed out there since it’s statistically the state with the best chance of seeing Bigfoot.
But those are just numbers. Who knows how many sightings go unreported each year? So while you may be in the wrong place, let’s not put too much emphasis on reported sightings.
Consider The Possibility That Humans Are Scary
Why in the world would Bigfoot want anything to do with us? What’s so great about humans from an animal’s perspective? When humans and animals intersect in heavily wooded areas, it almost invariably ends up with some sort of projectile being launched toward the animal–usually a bullet or an arrow.
We’ll discuss the relative intelligence of Bigfoot in the next section, but assuming that Bigfoot is at least as intelligent as some sort of primate, it stands to reason that if a primate’s basic understanding of humans is that they make animals stop living, the primate will stay away from humans.
And even without a basic understanding of humans or what humans represent, most animals probably understand humans aren’t a part of normal, everyday animal life. So when an animal senses a human (which most animals can do from pretty far away), it generally goes in the other direction. There’s a reason even the best deer hunters sometimes come back from a day of hunting without shooting a single deer.
