By Tim Binnall
An intriguing new statistical study suggests that Sasquatch sightings in North America may actually just be encounters with misidentified black bears. The thought-provoking findings come by way of data analyst Floe Foxon, who made headlines last month with a similar project wherein he seemingly disproved the hypothesis that the Loch Ness Monster is an eel. Turning his attention towards Bigfoot, he revisited a longstanding theory which suggests that the famed cryptid is merely a black bear and found that, in this case, the data would seem to strengthen the case for the somewhat dispiriting explanation.
In examining the proverbial 'black bear hypothesis,' Foxon collected four key data points: Sasquatch sightings by way of the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, the black bear population in states and Canadian provinces where the creature is known to live, their respective land areas, and the estimated number of people living in those places. Putting all of this information into mathematical models, he observed that "a significant positive association was found between Sasquatch sightings and black bears." The study ultimately argued that, "on average," there should be one Bigfoot sighting for every 900 black bears "in a given state or province."
That said, Foxon conceded that although the correlation between suspected Bigfoot encounters and bears is particularly strong in the Pacific Northwest, this specific misidentification theory cannot necessarily be applied to North America as a whole. This is because, he noted, "Sasquatch sightings have been reported in states with no known breeding black bear population." In those instances, he posited that, "among other possibilities," the perceived cryptid encounters were likely misidentifications of prosaic animals or humans in the form of the "homeless populations and hunters." What do you make of Foxon's analysis? Do you believe Bigfoot is merely a black bear or is the study simply a case of fuzzy math? Weigh in with your thoughts at the C2C Facebook page.