In 1901 a newspaper in British Columbia carried a story about the sighting of a “monkey man”by a Vancouver Island lumberman. Various similar stories followed: a “Yellow Top” apelike creature in Ontario, a killing of a seven-foot hairy creature in Newfoundland, and so on. In 1958 the term now in common usage, “Bigfoot,” appeared in conjunction with a sighting (widely considered a hoax) of giant tracks in northern California.

Hairy bipeds are generally taller than humans although they are humanoid, have a thick dark or yellowish fur, and glowing eyes that appear red, green, or yellowish. It is perhaps this last characteristic that has fueled discussion about the link between Bigfoot and UFOs. Hundreds of such combined sightings have been reported in the Pacific Northwest well into the 1990s. One of the most notable accounts comes from Uniontown, where on October 25, 1973, a young man and two boys saw a UFO land and, upon hearing screaming sounds, focused their attention on two apelike creatures with glowing eyes. As is often the case, one of the witnesses claims to have shot one of the creatures multiple times, certainly injuring it. But upon further investigation the creatures were not to be found, and the UFO quickly vanished.

The witnesses and an officer who had responded to their call did walk the area and reported a sulfurlike smell and the nagging feeling that they were being watched or followed by an invisible entity. In another account, two hikers in the Anza Borrego Desert in Southern California reported waking in the middle of the night to the sound of an explosion. Their investigation over the top of a nearby ridge revealed the adjacent valley to be full of entities with glowing red eyes marching along as a red, circular flying saucer hovered above. Perhaps the strangest of experiential claims comes from a trio that had purchased a ranch in a remote area of Colorado. Repeatedly, alone or in groups, they would see a tall, furry creature on the ranch, sometimes shooting at it. They found footprints, strands of hair, mutilated cattle, and in one instance a black box on the ground beneath a bright light in nearby trees.

Two creatures, this time blond and wearing tight-fitting “flight suits,” suddenly appeared in the light and warned one of the ranchers away from the box, then apologized for the inconvenience they had caused. The would-be ranchers moved back to Denver shortly afterward. It may be that reports of Bigfoot are greatly exaggerated. Nevertheless, the preponderance of reports and the accompanying dearth of physical evidence has led Dr. Scott Rugo to speculate that UFOs and Bigfoot, among others, are merely “psychic projections.”