California bill aims to recognize Bigfoot as state’s official cryptid
One small step for man, and an even smaller step for Bigfoot.
A new bill in California’s state legislature seeks to recognize the elusive Bigfoot as the state’s official cryptid.
The legislation, proposed by Assemblymember Chris Roger, would designate Bigfoot as an official mascot of the Golden State — which has been a hotbed of sasquatch sightings since the late 1950s, according to SFGate.
Cryptid is a term used for mythical creatures that are known through folklore but which have not been definitively proven to exist
Other examples of cryptids, which are often regional in nature, include the New Jersey Devil, West Virginia’s Mothman, and La chupacabra in Mexico.
Rogers represents Del Norte, Humboldt, Mendocino, Sonoma and Trinity counties in northern California, a region long considered “Sasquatch territory.”
The term Bigfoot was coined by a California newspaper article that appeared in the Humboldt Times in 1958, reporting on loggers who discovered mysteriously large, 16-inch human-like footprints in the vicinity of Bluff Creek in a dense Douglas fir forest.
One witness made a plaster cast of the footprint and submitted it as evidence to the Humboldt Times.
From there, locals told tales of massive forest dwellers roaming the Sierra Nevada and other mountain ranges surrounding the northern Central Valley, and the sasquatch eventually made its way into mainstream popular culture.
The most famous alleged footage of Bigfoot was captured while walking through the redwoods forest in 1967 at Six Rivers National Forest, just miles away from Willow Creek, the most Bigfoot-obsessed town in America.
Willow Creek is home to a Bigfoot restaurant, a Bigfoot golf course, and a Bigfoot museum.
Last year, two Bigfoot hunters in Washington state died while searching the wilderness of Gifford Pinchot National Forest for the mythical creature.
Officials from the Skamania County Sheriff’s Office say the two underprepared Oregon ‘squatchers’ died of exposure amid the harsh weather conditions.
Though the Pacific Northwest is considered Bigfoot’s preferred biome, folks in Fairfield County, Conn. claimed on Oct. 17, 2023, to have heard a harrowing howls from over a mile away that sent local dogs into a frenzy.
Those disturbing yelps each went on for 10 seconds, and the entire episode lasted for more than 10 minutes.
Last October, a video claiming to have captured a Bigfoot in the Parallel Forest in Oklahoma went viral on TikTok with some saying it is the best evidence to date of the camera shy critter.
