Searching For Sasquatch: Crackpots, Eggheads, and Cryptozoology By Brian Regal.
“Searching For Sasquatch: Crackpots, Eggheads, and Cryptozoology” by Brian Regal is not the typical Cryptozoological romp through pseudoscience and history. The text seeks to highlight the history of the men who pioneered the field of studying upright hominids that may, or more likely, may not exist. Regal also endeavors to place these men into context, taking into account their life experience, interactions with each other, and the events in their time that influenced them. What results, is a fascinating study of the history of bigfoot studies, primarily when in its infancy from the 1950s-1970s, but bleeds into the modern period as well. More interesting than the creature, is the men who studied it and the world they inhabited, and Regal uses not only his skills as a degreed historian (he holds a PhD and is an Associate Professor for the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine at Kean University) but also a certain amount of wit and life experience to the text that makes it a much easier and more enjoyable read, even for the layman rather than the academic.
Regal opens his text with discussions on the devotees of upright hominid studies, deeming them Crackpots and eggheads. The Eggheads are the academics, and the crackpots are the amateurs, The thing is that few individuals seem to fall squarely into any single category, often with men like Grover Krantz, leaning heavily towards the academic (being an egghead) sometimes exhibits the traits of the crackpots as well. Regal really gets his hands dirty discussing some of the problems in the Cryptozoology world, mainly the distrust of the “Eggheads” and academic people in general by the often amateur Cryptozoologists. Regal’s training as a historian shines in this portion of the text, he places Cryptozoologists in relation to a more romantic past where amateur scientists, colonialism and adventure went hand in hand.
Perhaps my favorite portion of the text is when Regal examines the “Snowman” or the “Abominable Snowman” and “Yeti” of Nepal, placing the creature at the center of a scientific Cold War race between East and West including spies and elements that belong more in an episode of Johnny Quest (or the Venture Brothers for that matter)! In fact, the Cold War, and Soviet vs. US thread is one that Regal tugs on continuously, making for some fascinating reading about Soviet theories of evolution and how state-sponsored studies of Bigfoot-like creatures fit into those theories. The result is an entertaining and enlightening look at the earliest stories that very well may have encouraged and planted the seed for the Bigfoot mystery in the United States.
In any case, Brian Regal’s “Searching for Sasquatch” provides a fascinating academic look at the history of the study of bigfoot, and places it into historical context in a way that only a historian can. I highly recommend it for anyone even remotely interested in bigfoot, cryptozoology, and the people who devote themselves to those studies.
Brian Regal is an Assistant Professor at Kean University and the author of several books including “Searching for Sasquatch, Crackpots, Eggheads and Cryptozoology” and more recently “The Secret History of the Jersey Devil.”
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