That Big Foot...

The internets are abuzz today about a large, decomposing foot found by two boys in Massachusetts last month. Why this is breaking now, I do not know. Let’s take a look at this claimed “Bigfoot” foot.

My first reaction to the photo is “It’s a bear’s foot”. I am a hunter and outdoorsman and have spent a lot of time tromping around trails, mostly in the southeast US. I’ve come across, or have seen quite few dead animals, decomposing animals, and skeletal remnants of animals. This looks to me like a bear’s foot. Bears have surprisingly human-like appendages, allowing for size and proportion differences.

Here are some of the articles that have floated across the interwebs.

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  Huffington Post

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  International Science Times

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  The Mirror

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  Discovery

The Discovery article, by skeptic Benjamin Radford, is by far the best of the lot. I encourage you to give it a read. Mr. Radford does a fantastic job deconstructing this story. He cites several cases in the history where bear paws were mistaken for human hands.

Bear paws have a bone structure which is quite similar to humans, especially when the flesh is gone (or in the process of decomposing) and one is simply viewing the bones in isolation. Here are two photos, you can find more, which help illustrate the point: Bear, Human. When looking at these, picture the fingers missing or cut short and the similarities are more obvious. Or consider that the wrist bones may not be present.

I expect that once a good examination is done on the tissues, the decomposing big foot will be found to be a bear’s paw.

Be well!