Bigfoot: It's an old newspaper, so must be true!

[Gatofeo]

I was born and raised in Washington state. In 1967 or 68, I remember going with my parents to the old Coliseum in Spokane to hear Roger Paterson give his spiel on the famous film he took of a female Bigfoot.
Quite disappointing. He and others spoke for well over an hour, showed the film twice very quickly, and then it was "Thank you. Good night!"
Had a sour taste for that charlatan, since.
Since that famous film, others have claimed to find reference to Bigfoot sightings in old newspapers and publications. Trouble is, the original source is almost never cited. Almost always it's, "an old newspaper from 1893" or "The Wenatchee World" without a publication date and page.
And where do writers and others find these "sources?" In other Bigfoot books!
Too many writers, documentarians, enthusiasts, etc. forget that in the 19th century and up to the 1930s, it wasn't uncommon for newspapers -- especially those with small circulation -- to make up wild stories. Mark Twain did as a reporter in Nevada and California in the1860s and 1870s. He called them, "whoppers."
Wild stories not only lured readers to buy your newspaper, but they also got picked up by competing papers, who embellished them even more!
Yet, folks today believe these old papers, convinced that they are reliable. If you think the newspapers of today are suspect, you'd be aghast at what passed for truth and fairness 100 or more years ago.
And this is where we get vintage stories of Bigfoot, Ogopogo, mysterious airships long before there were aircraft (and even after), mermaids, UFOs that change course (so meteors are ruled out),  green children, Devil footprints across the snow, and a host of other wild tales.
Yes, the inexplicable exists, but certainly not as often as the old newspapers report it. "Whoppers" were common then, and are perpetuated today.

[mannyrock]

   Another thing that people today don't seem to know or understand, is that during the 19th century, when there was no radio or television, and vast numbers of people could not read, the telling of Tall Tales (outright lies about outdoor adventures and events) was regarded as a normal, entertaining past time, even an art form.


 


   Davy Crockett, Abe Lincoln, and Mark Twain were masters of this craft, and bragged about it.  Davy Crockett told tall tales on the floors of Congress, and Mark Twain made a living by touring around the country and telling them from the stage.




   People back then knew and understood that they were totally false stories, but loved the tales as a pure form of entertainment.  Often, a hunting tale ended with the pronouncement that, "And then the bear killed me!"




  This storytelling reigned supreme in a time when novels were few and far between and vast numbers of Americans could not read or write.




  (The last vestige of this folk art survived up through the 1980s, with people like Jerry Clower of Yazoo,  Mississippi, telling humorous fake stories from the stage.) 




  The difference was, that the listeners back then knew that the stories were totally false.    Often the tales were were preserved in dime novels and local newspapers, and even by word of mouth, and when people read or hear about them over 100 years later, they assume that they are true.    What fools!




Mannyrock