By KAITLYN HERMAN

The Mirror reporter

Whether you call it The Grassman, Yowie, Snow Yeti or Sasquatch, we all know it as Bigfoot. The existence of Bigfoot has been debated for thousands of years and is still today. Due to the constant debate, the age old question is still left up in the air, “Is Bigfoot real?”

So, what is Bigfoot? Bigfoot is usually described as a large, hairy, bipedal humanoid that originated in old American folklore. Bigfoot sightings peaked during the 1970s, around the time the hit film The Legend of Boggy Creek was released. The film is a 1972 horror docudrama about a Bigfoot-type creature that has been seen in and around Fouke, Arkansas since the 1950s. Despite the fact that over 5,000 Bigfoot sightings are made every year worldwide, scientists discount the existence of Bigfoot and consider it to be a combination of folklore, misidentification, and hoax, rather than a living animal.

The reason many discredit Bigfoot as a living creature is due to the lack of physical evidence after centuries of investigation. There has never been any real biological evidence, like bodies, bones, skin, hairs or DNA, found. There has never been a single piece of evidence to prove Bigfoot is living. To have an animal of this caliber, there also needs to be a significant population of hundreds of individuals to reproduce. There should be many Bigfoot creatures running free in the wild, and we have never had a single credited sighting. Bigfoot is labeled as a primate, who would generally flourish in tropical and subtropical locations like South America, equatorial Africa and southeast Asia. It is not a likely place to find an unknown hominid in the United States. In this case, science overrules sightings, but there are still millions out there who credit Bigfoot as a living being.

Popular television shows like Finding Bigfoot and Killing Bigfoot credit this creature as a living humanoid. In this case, sightings overrule science. Over 5,000 sightings occurred worldwide, some of which are captured on video and are placed on Youtube. The most famous Bigfoot sighting was The Patterson–Gimlin film. It is an American short motion picture of an unidentified subject which some have said is Bigfoot. The footage was shot in 1967 in Northern California and has since been subjected to many attempts to authenticate or debunk it. Many credit this film for starting the Bigfoot sighting era. Many footprints, hair samples and wood scratches from Bigfoot have been found, as well as many Bigfoot screams have been heard. But many say these are fake and are other forms other animals. Despite the lack of evidence, there are many followers involved in the Bigfoot cult, who are very faithful to finding and searching for it.

For me personally, I believe in Bigfoot. I have never seen it, or heard it or found anything, but the television shows really intrigue me. I won’t say he’s not real because I have never found anything to disprove that he is not, just like ghosts or aliens. Bigfoot is just one of those silly things that you can’t help but wish and just believe is true. I hope to one day find Bigfoot for myself, but for now, I just have to keep believing.