Author: David J. Daegling
Review by Henry M.
Interesting book, but Daegling misses the point
This book, while a great improvement over Greg Long's The Making of Bigfoot,is still a damning expose' of Bigfoot research full of suppositions and speculations, but very little facts. Daegling certainly had good intentions in mind to try to debunk Bigfoot as a phenomenon, but he spent too much time in suppositions and speculations and not enough time stating facts. For instance, he misrepresents the late Grover Krantz by saying that he did not endorse the "Skookum Cast", a 2/3 body impression of what may be a Bigfoot, but I saw an interview with Krantz in which he said it looked to him like a Sasquatch had been thrashing around on the ground. Daegling takes the word of two Bigfoot researchers who have never seen the cast that it's of an elk. Daegling also buys into the Ray Wallace nonsense hook, line and sinker, as well as praising known hoaxers like Ray Pickens, Rant Mullens and Paul Freeman. He seems to imply that Bigfoot researchers are wasting their time looking for something that may not exist (in his mind) and the book loses its objectivity there. He gives what are seemingly plausible solutions to things like tracks, the Patterson/Gimlin film, hair samples and fecal matter, but his bias comes through when reporting these things, whcih is unfortunate. He seems to imply that Krantz and Dr. Jeff Meldrum (his old college roommate) were gullible enough to but into the Bossburg "Cripple-Foot" tracks, and also some of tracks found by Freeman which may or may not contain dermal ridges. In short, Daegling's book fails to really make the case for the skeptics that Bigfoot is not real. Still, I would recommend this book over Long's even if with reservations.