Interview with a Bigfoot Hunter

by Daniel Perez from Fate Magazine, February 1998 John Green looks back at 40 years on the track of Sasquatch In the annals of Bigfoot research and investigation, few people remain as steadfast in the pursuit as John Green, one of the true pioneers in the field. Green has been tracking Bigfoot for 40 years. In 1961, the late Ivan T. Sanderson described him as indefatigable, and Green, who turns 71 this month, shows no sign of letting up. The British Columbia native has written such classics as On The Track of The Sasquatch (1968), Year of The Sasquatch (1970), The Sasquatch File (1973), and the definitive Sasquatch: The Apes Among Us (1978). The six-foot-plus, slender Green has been at the scene of the classic Bigfoot events: the Patterson-Gimlin film, the Glen Thomas incidents, the Ruby Creek sighting, and the Albert Ostman abduction. One of his major career findings is that Bigfoot reports occur in areas where there is more than 20 inches of rain per year. Lately Green has been involved in computerizing his massive files, and he recently returned from a research trip to Russia. Bigfoot hunters hope his completed database will provide important clues about Bigfoot's existence. Fate: Forty years ago "Bigfoot" had not yet been heard of, even in California, and "Sasquatch" was a British Columbia phenomenon. What was it presumed to be? Green: The picture presented to the non-Indian community was of giant Indians wearing breech clouts, hairy only in that they had long hair on their heads; a wild tribe who had a language, lived in villages, and communicated with signal fires. The Indians knew what they really looked like, but did consider them to be human. Fate: When you began investigating, what did you learn? Green: It very quickly became clear that first-person descriptions didn't match the popular concept. Witnesses told of creatures completely covered with short hair and looking more like erect apes than people. There was no mention of clothing, fire, or villages. Observations of behavior accumulated more slowly, but were equally consistent. The added up to a creature that depended on physical abilities, not mental ones: They used no tools, had no language and no home, didn't form groups, and generally lived the same lives as bears. Fate: What do you think is up and coming in the field of Sasquatch research? Green: I hope DNA techniques will soon be able to establish if hair is from an unknown higher primate, and with camcorders so common someone should get a good video of a Sasquatch before long. But for a decisive conclusion someone has to get a Sasquatch, or part of one, which almost certainly depends on chance. A Sasquatch should have been collected by now. I have no explanation why that hasn't happened. Fate: What might humans learn by collecting a Sasquatch? Green: The study of another higher primate that has adapted to bipedal locomotion is bound to add a lot to human knowledge. It should also be useful to research the reasons our branch of the primate family was so insistent that this other branch must not exist. Fate: Would you shoot one? Green: I don't know, I don't hunt anything...But there is no hope of protecting their habitat without first proving that they exist, and science has made it very clear that only physical remains will do that. Fate: What is your computer study telling you? Green: I don't think any computer study will enable anyone to make an appointment with a Sasquatch, as some claim. What my work does is give a quick access to the massive amount of information in my files so that I can answer questions and check theories against what has actually been reported.
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