Hominid (3 page)

CHAPTER 5

San Diego, California

B
ut I’m betting he’ll let you know sooner rather than later.
Madge’s words had been a constant fixture in the back of Tess’s mind for the whole plane ride to San Diego and all through the night. Now, as she walked across the University of San Diego’s campus, she couldn’t help but focus on them. Was Madge right? Was that possible?

Tess shook her head. Bigfoot was an animal. She shouldn’t attribute higher thought processes to it. That’s where people stepped over the line from scientist to fan girl. And she planned on staying on the side of science.

In the distance, a giant welcome banner was strung across the brick and cement front of Meyers Hall: “The Seventh Annual Cryptology Conference.” Tess smiled at the sight. It was pretty amazing that the university was allowing it be held here. Due to its somewhat tainted reputation, cryptozoology was not a specialty that had its own department. In fact, it rarely received even a modicum of respect. Most people used the term cryptozoology interchangeably with pseudoscience.

But it was so much more. Cryptozoologists studied the animals that
could
be, those that were rumored to exist. And in recent years, several success stories had helped to bolster the field’s reputation. The most recent find involved the Bili ape in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

For years, the people of Congo spoke of giant chimpanzees that ate lions, fished, and howled at the moon. In fact, the animal was called “lion killer” by the native people. Of course, traditional scientists attributed the rumors to a highly imaginative indigenous group whose bedtime stories had gotten a little out of hand. Besides, the descriptions seemed to more closely match a gorilla than a chimp. It was said that it lived in nests on the ground, rather than in the trees; that it was not aggressive toward humans; that it walked on two feet for longer distances than is typical for a chimp; and that it grew to as large as six and half feet tall. All in all, it was too incredible to be real, at least for the Western world.

Still, in 1996, when word of the giant chimps got out, researchers descended on Congo. Although scat, hair, and other evidence was found, it wasn’t until 2005 that the chimps were actually seen by a Westerner. Primatologist Shelly Williams was in the Congo, searching for the creatures, when a group of four of them emerged from the trees, charging at her. They were at least five feet tall, with wide flat faces, a pronounced brow, and gray fur. Yet when they noticed Williams’s face, they stopped their charge and walked away.

This lack of aggression toward humans was repeated in other encounters, including those of Cleve Hicks of the University of Amsterdam, who spent eighteen months observing the creatures following the Williamses’ encounter. He, too, found that they had no fear of humans, but rather seemed to recognize humans as a cousin of sorts. Which, in a sense, they were. Most primatologists classified the species as something in between a gorilla and a chimp. Some even suspected they were a missing link between humans and chimps.

But whatever they were, their discovery was a boon to the public image of cryptozoology.

A giant chimp that lived hidden in the forest for ages
, Tess thought
.
Just like the giant ape that lives in North America.

The parallels were there. In Congo, there had been rumors about the existence of the Bili apes for years, but the stories were dismissed as nothing more than tall tales told by the natives—until the Bili ape was found. Similarly, Native Americans had told tales of their large brother in the woods for literally hundreds of years.

And it wasn’t only Native Americans, either; one of the earliest recorded encounters with the wild, hairy men of North America was documented by Leif Ericson. In his journal, he wrote about seeing huge hairy men with dark eyes after he landed in Newfoundland around 1000 CE. The huge creatures, he said, towered over the Vikings, emitted a rank odor, and had a terrifying shriek.

Yet despite centuries of sightings—and a commonality in the descriptions of the creature, from very different native groups across the continent—bigfoot was still written off as a fairy tale.

One of the biggest barriers to widespread belief in bigfoot, Tess suspected, was bigfoot’s bipedal nature. For generations, humans had felt smug in the knowledge that we were the only truly bipedal primate. Oh, sure, apes or chimps could stumble along for a few steps, but they were not two-legged creatures. Most of their travel was done on four limbs. And this faith in human exceptionalism created an unconscious bias against the idea that we might share our bipedalism with any other primate.

Recently, however, Tess had seen changes in the field that seemed to indicate that people, and scientists in particular, might be growing more receptive to the idea of bigfoot. For one thing, a greater understanding of the diversity in the history of primates had led to more openness about the possibility of humans having a more extensive family tree.

For another, discoveries had demonstrated that bipedalism had developed independently in multiple parts of the world—and that it was
not
a strictly human trait. But perhaps most importantly, scientists coming into the field today had grown up with bigfoot. Every kid in America had heard the story by the age of eight, and that alone predisposed them to adopting a more open-minded approach.

Tess hiked her messenger bag a little higher up on her shoulder. She was pleased that science might be more open to the possibility of bigfoot, but she knew that without a grant,
she
would not be a part of furthering the field. And to get that grant, she needed to work her magic at this conference. Here she would find more people interested in the field than she could find in any other one place—which meant this was where she needed to be.

And it wouldn’t hurt to give a phenomenal presentation.

So here’s hoping
.

Tess climbed the cement steps of Meyers Hall and pushed through the heavy doors. The large atrium was packed. Students eagerly chatted in groups. Older students, or more likely the public, wandered through as well, occasionally stopping to chat with one another. The sound of the milling crowd rose up toward the arched ceiling, which only seemed to enhance the noise below.

All told, there were easily two hundred people milling in the foyer or making their way through to the seminar rooms. And that didn’t include the hundreds of others who were already seated in the dozens of presentation rooms.

Tess stepped to the side of the room, trying to calm her heartbeat. She’d had this problem often lately. Spending so much time in the quiet and with very few people tended to result in her having a small panic attack when she was assaulted with a large group of people.

Taking a calming breath, Tess watched as the lines for registration began to dwindle. After a few minutes, she composed her face and walked up to one of the registration hosts as they finished up with the last person in their line.

The young blonde co-ed smiled as Tess approached. “Name?”

“Dr. Tess Brannick.”

The young woman turned to the bins lining the wall behind her. She made her way to one of them and pulled out a folder. Opening it as she walked back, she stopped, her eyes growing large. “You’re the bigfoot expert!”

Tess was taken aback by the woman’s enthusiasm. “Um, yes.”

“I
so
want to see your session! I’m hoping someone will cover my shift so I can go. I read your blog, too. I really love it.”

“Well, thanks. I appreciate that.” Tess was always surprised when someone recognized her. She’d started doing the blog as a way to share what she was learning and generate some interest. But she knew that really, it was just her sitting in a room typing on her computer. She was always surprised when she learned people were actually reading it.

The young woman handed over the file. “This is all your information. Good luck with the presentation.”

“Thanks. I hope I see you there.” Tess took the file and stepped away.

“Well, I see you have a fan.”

Tess turned to the tall, gray-haired man with the matching beard standing behind her. She grinned. “Dr. Sloane. I was hoping I’d see you.”

He smiled warmly and offered his hand. “Jeff. You’re done with school. We’re colleagues now.”

“Okay, Jeff.” She knew he was right, but it was hard to shift gears from “Dr. Sloane” to “Jeff.” He’d been Dr. Sloane to her for five years.

They fell in step together, heading to the main conference room. “So, I see you’re presenting,” Jeff said.

“Will you be attending?”

“I wouldn’t miss my star student in action.”

Tess studied his face. “Really?”

He sighed. “Tess, you know I wish you had chosen another area of study. You have an incredible brain, and you could do a lot. But bigfoot? It’s a mocked field. No one takes it seriously. You have a promising future. I just don’t want it derailed before it even begins.”

“I appreciate your concern. But I need to do this. And you know as well as I that animals are being discovered every year that we’ve never heard of, heard of only through legend, or thought were extinct.”

“But those animals are a lot smaller than an eight to ten foot ape weighing over a thousand pounds.”

“The Bili ape is pretty big.”

He sighed. “True. But that’s just one.”

“Dr. Sloane—”

He raised an eyebrow.

“I mean, Jeff. I do appreciate you looking out for me. But I promised myself that I would give this a shot. This is what I went to school for—all those degrees were so I could bring science to this search. And that’s what I intend to do.”

“I know. And part of me envies your ability to break new ground. I mean, if you’re successful, it will not only change the field, it will change the world.”

Tess felt the little trickle of fear at the back of her mind that always appeared when she thought of the ramifications of her research. She wanted to prove bigfoot existed, but she tried not to think too much about what would happen after she’d succeeded. Right now, she simply needed to keep herself focused on the work.

“But Tess,” Jeff continued, “if you don’t find anything or prove anything, your degrees won’t help you. You may never be able to work in this field again. Your reputation will be irreparably damaged.”

Tess knew he was right. It was okay to go out on a limb in science, but if you did, you had to be successful, or you risked cutting the limb out from underneath you. “I know. So let’s just hope I find something.”

CHAPTER 6

T
ess felt the energy of the crowd. She was almost finished with her presentation, and so far, it had gone incredibly well. Now all she had left to do she was at the question-and-answer portion, which she always enjoyed.

The room was packed. The crowd consisted mainly of college students from the university, but she also saw some of the regulars—the folks who attended almost all conferences involving bigfoot. And right now, everyone seemed to have a question or want to make a comment. Tess couldn’t have asked for a better response.

She called on a student in the second row. With a crooked smile, he asked simply, “New Jersey? Seriously?”

Tess gestured to the map on the screen behind her—a map of North America with dots indicating the locations of bigfoot sightings. There had been sightings all over the US. The biggest clusters were in the Pacific Northwest and New England, but there were also plenty of sightings in the Midwest and down south in Texas and Florida.

Tess grinned. “Well, not in downtown Trenton—but in the more remote areas of Sussex County. In fact, back in the nineteen-seventies and eighties there was a rash of sightings of a giant animal, eight feet tall with red eyes, in those more remote areas. It was called the Big Red Eye. Arms hanging by its knees, horrible stench.”

“That’s not possible,” someone called out.

“You have to remember,” Tess said, “Jersey is not all smokestacks and factories. The Appalachian Trail cuts through it. There’s a substantial area for a large animal to survive, and more importantly, to go undetected.”

About a dozen hands flew in the air. “Third row from the back in the red shirt,” Tess said.

A man stood. He had a long beard and a t-shirt that read “Eat at Frank’s.” Tess prepared herself for a probably sensational question.

“Do you think the bigfoot are the same beings mentioned in the tales of Merlin and the troglodytes?”

Tess struggled not to laugh.
That’s what I get for judging based on appearances
. She saw a lot of confused faces and knew she had to back up and fill them in. “I’m sure most of you have heard of Merlin—the ancient Celtic magician. What some of you may not know is that Merlin was said to have lived with a group of wild, hairy men in caves. Those men were called troglodytes.

“What’s really interesting, at least to me, is that in 1735, Carl Linnaeus wrote the first codex on all the animals in the world—he called it the
Systema Naturea,
and it included nine thousand species—and in it, he said there were two types of humans: man and the troglodytes.

“Reports from more modern times say that bigfoot does indeed make use of caves and tunnels to keep away from humans. So yes, I do think it’s possible that the troglodytes could very well have been another group of bigfoot.”

Hands went up again, and Tess called on a woman in her thirties. “Yes?”

“So what do you think Bigfoot is?”

Tess studied the crowd while carefully weighing her answer. As a scientist, her job was to follow the data and let it determine her answer—yet she also knew that that particular answer would not go over well with the crowd.

“Right now there are two schools of thought,” she said. “One holds that bigfoot is an animal, a giant ape, possibly one that has existed hidden from mankind for thousands of years. The other holds that bigfoot is actually a man, a primitive man, who for whatever reason has not developed like the rest of us.”

“A man, like
Homo sapiens
?”

Tess shook her head. “No. Over twenty different types of hominids have been found in our past. We are related to them, but there
are
distinct differences. It is believed that bigfoot may be one of these cousins of
Homo sapiens
.”

“But what do
you
believe?” the woman pressed.

“I believe it is most likely an ape, a giant ape.”

“Apes are not ten feet tall,” someone called out.

Tess smiled good-naturedly. “Well, maybe not now, but they were in the past. There was a giant ape named
Gigantopithecus
who is believed to have gone extinct one hundred thousand years ago. It was at least ten feet tall and weighed in at over one thousand pounds. Due to its size, scholars believe it made nests on the ground, like the Bili ape. At first, it, too, was considered merely a legend. That was before a molar of the giant primate was found in 1938. And soon, more jawbones and teeth were found all across Asia.”

“So you really think bigfoot’s a giant ape?” the woman asked.

“I
suspect
that is the truth. But hopefully, in the next year, I’ll be able to prove it.”