50 Popular Beliefs That People Think Are True Part 11

GO DEEPER...

f.a.gan, Brian. In the Beginning: An Introduction to Archaeology. New York: Prentice Hall, 2008.

f.a.gan, Brian. People of the Earth: An Introduction to World PreHistory. New York: Prentice Hall, 2009.

Perring, Stefania, and Dominic Perring. Then and Now: The Wonders of the Ancient World Brought to Life in Vivid See-Through Reproductions. New York: MacMillan, 1991.

An old joke tells of a pilgrim's response to seeing a second head of John the Baptist. When he asked how this could be, he was told, "The other one was from when he was a boy."

-Joe Nickell, Relics of the Christ Having successfully weaved my way through a maze of tacky gift shops, heavily armed soldiers, and parading pilgrims in Jerusalem's Old City, I finally arrived at the entrance of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This is the specific spot where many Christians claim Jesus was crucified. A confusing jumble of a church owned and operated by rival denominations has grown up around it over the centuries. It's fascinating and filled with intrigue, to say the least. Barely a couple of feet inside, I noticed odd behavior. A woman kneeling before a slab of brown stone sways rhythmically from side to side. Her eyes widen and seem to glow intensely. Then she shuts them tight as her hands slowly move across the brown stone as if it is precious and powerful. I learn that it is just that, thanks to a grinning pilgrim who explains to me that this is the Stone of Unction. Also called the Stone of Anointing, it's supposed to be the rock upon which the body of Jesus was laid after his execution and prepared for burial. Never mind that this couldn't possibly be true because this stone was placed here in the 1800s; it's still an important relic nonetheless. The woman before me is obviously convinced that it contains divine power, and she wants some of it. She continues to methodically sweep her hands across the surface. Then she rubs her palms on her arms, neck, and face. Amazingly, the woman is "bathing" in the stone, apparently trying to apply its magic to her skin. I'm transfixed by the scene. I don't believe there is anything supernatural going on, of course, but I do recognize a bizarre beauty of some kind within this woman's joy and pa.s.sion. Magic or not, she seems close to being overwhelmed with emotion. Such is the power of religious relics.

Further on in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, I discover a man creating sacred relics right before my eyes. With a handful of rosary beads, he crawls up to the precise rock upon which Jesus died on the cross. He then rubs the rosaries against the surface, one at a time. With the supposed magical transference complete, the man crawls back out from the altar and bags his beads. All around me, people pray, weep, and smile. Many of them touch and kiss various adornments and even the walls inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Clearly there is a common desire to make contact with something, anything, Jesus or other great holy figures have touched. The believers seem to seek a physical chain of connection, a step up perhaps from the invisible and formless faith that fails to fully satisfy.

Christians are not alone in their attraction to relics. During a visit to the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, Syria, a guide told me that the head of John the Baptist was safely inside a shrine within the compound. I couldn't see it, but he was certain that it's there. Interestingly, a few other places around the world claim to have the same head. A good portion of the Prophet Mohammed's beard and a single tooth are on display at the Topkapi Palace Museum in Istanbul, Turkey. And on a bitterly cold February day in 2011, thousands of Muslims turned out in Srinagar, Kashmir, in the hopes of catching a glimpse of a single hair from Mohammed's beard that was briefly displayed outside the shrine that houses it.1 A temple in Kandy, Sri Lanka, claims to have a tooth from the Buddha. They say it is the only remnant of his body in existence. But I visited Lingguang Temple in China, where I was told by locals that a Buddha tooth is kept as well. I chatted with some sort of a holy man while photographing the beautiful Bodnath Stupa (Buddhist temple) in Kathmandu, Nepal. The man told me that one of the Buddha's leg bones is inside the temple and it has "great power."

After encountering and hearing about so many of them around the world, I developed an interest in religious relics and the power they can hold over some believers. I'm amazed by how wide open the field of relic veneration is. A relic can be virtually anything tangible that is connected with a person or supernatural being considered important to a particular religion. The key word is "anything." Relics range from a nail used to crucify Jesus to the toenail clipping of a saint. And, much like the sports memorabilia market is today, the religious relics market has been flooded with fakes. But few seem to care about authenticity when it comes to these objects. The truth, it seems, is less important than the claim.

Religious relics often are seen as much more than mere souvenirs or trophies. Relic believers claim that they have special powers, such as the ability to heal the sick or bring good fortune. They can also be profitable, which explains how different locations end up with the head of the same person or how several femur bones of the same saint can be housed in various churches. The desire to possess things that have some direct a.s.sociation with beloved figures is alive and well today and extends beyond religion. Collectors have purchased used gum chewed by Britney Spears, Cher's bra, and Ty Cobb's dentures. While I would like to think I'm above such silliness, in truth I am not. Over the years I've been fortunate enough to interview many historic figures, great scientists, and famous athletes. I often came away from those encounters with autographed photos. I've acc.u.mulated a large collection that is probably worth a lot of money. But I can't imagine ever selling them. Even though I recognize that they are just photos with names scribbled on them, they have had some form of "magic" breathed into them by people I admire and are therefore special to me.

Although the practice predates Christianity, relics connected to Jesus and the Gospels became popular in Europe during the fourth century. According to Joe Nickell, author of the fascinating book Relics of the Christ, remains and objects linked to martyrs and saints quickly became a very important and profitable activity. The l.u.s.t for these objects drove people to open up the tombs of martyrs in order to mine them for relics. Nickell explains that relics came to be viewed as the necessary link between tombs and altars. "By 767, the cult of saints had become entrenched," Nickell writes, "and the Council of Nicaea declared that all church altars must contain an altar stone that held a saint's relics. To this day, the Catholic Church's Code of Canon Law defines an altar as a 'tomb containing the relics of a saint.' The practice of placing a relic in each church altar continued until 1969."2 The catalog of relics that earned some degree of credibility and made their way into churches is astonis.h.i.+ng. There seems to have been no limit to the resourcefulness, or imagination, of the people who traded in them. Here is a sampling: Pieces of the Ten Commandments stone tablets; a flask of the Virgin Mary's breast milk; a piece of stone that her breast milk dripped on; Mary's hair; the loincloth of Jesus; Jesus' baby clothes; Moses's staff; the skulls of the "three wise men"; Jesus' crib; Jesus' foreskin (at least six of them!); hay from the manger Jesus was born in; Jesus' baby teeth; Jesus' umbilical cord; feathers from the angel Gabriel's wings; the Shroud of Turin and many more cloths with the same claim; Mary's burial shroud; a chair an apparition of the Virgin Mary once sat in; a tear Jesus shed at the tomb of Lazarus (how was it collected?); the tail of the a.s.s he rode into Jerusalem on; the basin Jesus used to wash the feet of his disciples; thorns from the "crown of thorns" Jesus was forced to wear; the spear a Roman soldier stabbed Jesus with; chains used to imprison Saint Peter; vials of Saint Peter's tears and some of his toenail clippings; the blood of numerous saints; nails used to crucify Jesus; fragments of the "true cross" Jesus was crucified on; and one of doubting Thomas's fingers.3 The collecting, selling, and displaying of religious relics became so rampant in the fifth century that even Saint Augustine became fed up with it, leading him to write about his disgust for "hypocrites in the garb of monks for hawking about of the limbs of martyrs, if indeed [they are] of martyrs."4 "As investigation after investigation has shown, not a single, reliably authenticated relic of Jesus exists," declares relic researcher Nickell. "The profoundness of this lack is matched by the astonis.h.i.+ng number of relics attributed to him."5 ONE MAN'S RELIGIOUS RELIC IS ANOTHER MAN'S MOVIE PROP.

Once again, I find myself feeling sympathetic toward those who are drawn in by things that don't seem likely to be real or true. A minimal amount of skepticism and critical thinking should be able to deflate claims of relics possessing powers or even being authentic in the first place. But maybe most relic believers just don't want to know. They like believing, so they do.

It came to me while I was looking at the display case containing the leather pants of rock G.o.d Jim Morrison. I was waiting for my lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe on Hollywood Boulevard, of all places, when my thoughts wandered to medieval peasants, modern-day believers, and religious relics. I thought to myself, who cares? So long as one is not wasting needed money or putting health at risk by trusting in some beard hair or toe bone, then have fun. I love the Terminator films and would love to keep an authentic prop used in one of the movies in my house, say a T-800 skull or maybe even a T-600 endoskeleton. It's childish, of course, but it would be great to have a tangible piece of something bigger than life and "magical" close by-not much different from the lure of religious relics, really. The key difference, however, is that I wouldn't pay more than I could afford for a relic or be sloppy enough in my thinking to imagine that it could give me luck or cure me when ill.

GO DEEPER...

McCrone, Walter C. Judgment Day for the Shroud of Turin. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1999.

Nickell, Joe. Relics of the Christ. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2007.

G.o.d cannot bless you until you put something into His hand.

-Rev. Benny Hinn Pray over your seed and expect an abundant harvest. Know that your seed is being sown into good ground and will be used to teach the Word with simplicity and understanding throughout the world. G.o.d bless you for being obedient!

-Rev. Creflo A. Dollar, Dollar Ministries Back in the 1980s, after Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker lost their $129 million ministry because of financial fraud and a s.e.xual scandal, I a.s.sumed the end of the televangelist phenomenon was near.1 Then I guessed its final days were here when Rev. Oral Roberts announced that G.o.d would kill him if people didn't donate $8 million to him by the end of the month.2 And I was certain it was doomed when staunch moral crusader Jimmy Swaggart was caught meeting prost.i.tutes in hotel rooms.3 Much to my surprise, however, the era of big-money televangelists never ended. No matter what happens, they keep begging and people keep giving. If one TV preacher should go down for good, several more are waiting to fill his $5,000 shoes. Nothing seems capable of stopping this gravy train, not exposure of their hypocrisy, s.e.xual scandals, fraudulent miracle claims, enormous incomes, not even decadent lifestyles that would make King Louis XIV blush. It really is an amazing phenomenon. Men with a little charisma and a lot of nerve have created a unique global industry that weaves together television, religion, capitalism, charity, show biz, and astonis.h.i.+ng greed. Many of these preachers may seem like harmless buffoons but the good ones are not dumb. They skillfully exploit thousands of years of religious tradition to rake in tens of millions of dollars, much of it from people who probably need to hold onto their money more than most. I have a sad memory of one of the older cleaning ladies who worked in my university dorm telling me that I should give money to Jimmy Swaggart like she does. When I gently suggested to the sweet woman, whom I grew to care about, that a TV star who lives in a mansion and flies around in his own jet probably can do without donations from a custodial worker and a struggling college student, she scoffed and explained that Swaggart only "holds the money for G.o.d."

G.o.d'S CAN'T-MISS INVESTMENT PLAN.

I attended a Benny Hinn "Miracle Crusade" event and paid close attention during donation time. Hinn hammered the live audience of approximately six thousand people on the need to give him money-and lots of it. He warned them that "G.o.d knows" precisely how much they can afford to give-a brilliant tactic to put the cheapskates on notice. He also promised the crowd that paying him now would pay off for them later. "The more you sow, the more you will reap," Hinn said.

This is known as "prosperity theology" or the "prosperity Gospel," and it really does pay off handsomely, at least for the televangelists if no one else. Hinn said his ministry needed the money in order to do "G.o.d's work" all over the world. "When you give, it doesn't go to me," Hinn said. "All of it goes to my ministry. I do this for free. Check me out. Go ahead, check me out. All the money goes to the work of G.o.d, to get the Gospel out."

Hinn keeps his tax-free personal and ministry finances private so who knows how to sort out his minister's salary, book royalties, and donation money? What is clear based on his visible lifestyle, however, is that the reverend does pretty well for himself.

There is no denying that Hinn is a master on stage. His facial expressions, charming banter, faux humility, and rhythmic speech in dramatic moments play to the crowd perfectly. Multiple television cameras capture every step and every word. He instructs the believers to hold their donations up high while waiting for the ushers to collect them. This is another brilliant move because it publicly exposes anyone who is not prepared to give money and probably pressures them to reconsider. I think I was the only one in the crowd with my arms down.

"If you have problems, if you want to get out of debt, then give tonight. G.o.d said: 'Give and it shall be given unto you.' G.o.d cannot bless you until you put something into His hand. Don't just give," he added, "sow! Sow, so that you can reap a mighty harvest."

A small army of donation collectors fanned out into the crowd. No mere collection "plates" for this event, however. The men carried what appeared to be large plastic garbage cans-and the believers filled them up in short time. Some collectors were equipped with credit card scanners. Many people prayed aloud as music played during the procedure. The men loaded the treasure into a caravan of vans and SUVs that promptly sped away to the nearby airport where, I was told by a police officer friend, Hinn had a private jet waiting. The collection procedure was efficient and precise, more like a well-executed military operation than the pa.s.sing-of-the-plate routine one sees in small churches.

HAVE THEY NO SHAME?.

Benny Hinn won't reveal what his ministry takes in from donations, but it is estimated to be as high as $100 million per year. He told ABC News that his personal salary is "over half a million."4 Details of his salary and personal wealth have never been publicly confirmed by a credible independent source, however. For many churches it is common for "the ministry" to pay for a pastor's house, car, and other living expenses in addition to a salary, so Hinn may be able to simply bank that big income. What is known is that Hinn dresses, drives, and flies like a very wealthy man. In 1997, he was a guest on the Larry King Show and a caller asked him why he takes so much money when Jesus never took any. "Jesus didn't have a TV show to run," Hinn answered.

In 2011, I saw a small-time preacher on TV who may have stooped lower than any of his colleagues ever have-and that's saying a lot: "You must give to the Lord," the preacher declared. "Give as much as you can, no matter what your situation is. The worse off you are, the more important it is for you to give. He will reward you. Even if you are homeless, you have to give something."

Even if you are homeless? How do these preachers who squeeze money out of poor people sleep at night? Yes, I know: in very nice beds with silk sheets that cost more than my car. Most amazing of all is how so many of these moneymakers are caught red-handed in money and s.e.x scandals only to resume their careers as soon as the smoke clears. One could not be busted and hung out to dry much better than Rev. Peter Popoff was, for example. In the 1980s, prominent magician and skeptic James Randi exposed him for using a wireless device to receive personal information about people in the audience staff members had previously interviewed so that he could impress them by claiming G.o.d told him about them. Popoff confessed to the scam and soon after filed bankruptcy. So, where is he today? Cowering in shame in some cave somewhere? Working the night s.h.i.+ft at a Waffle House on some lonely highway? No, he's back on television, of course. Popoff is "healing" people and begging for money because G.o.d always needs a little more cash to get by. His ministry reportedly brings in more than $20 million per year.5 Currently his infomercial-style programs air in early morning slots on BET (Black Entertainment Television).

Randi makes his disgust for these people obvious. "A thing like astrology is just a slow drain on the economy," he said. "It makes the astrologers quietly and rather un.o.btrusively rich over a long period of time. The medical quackery and the faith-healing racket that is out there now make a very large amount of money. People who do this, like Benny Hinn, are multimillionaires many, many times over. They just have so much money pouring in every minute of every day that I'm sure they can't even keep track of it."6 My humble advice to people who think televangelists are G.o.d's appointed treasurers is this: please don't give your hard-earned money to anyone who is wearing a pair of shoes that cost more than your entire wardrobe. These preachers speak of sacrifice and digging deep to give money, but where is their financial sacrifice? Why aren't they "giving all they can," living in tiny houses, and making do with just one car?

If you are deeply religious and have an irresistible urge or sense of obligation to "spread the Gospel to all corners of the Earth," then why not do it yourself? Cut out these millionaire middlemen and keep your money. Why should your money support their luxurious lifestyles? And ignore their whining about needing help to pay the bills for satellite television ministries. This is the computer age; television is so twentieth century. If you absolutely must, then use the Internet to push your religious beliefs on others all by yourself. Why finance TV preachers? Why rely on them? You can preach too. These days anyone can convert people in faraway places via Facebook, Mys.p.a.ce, e-mail, and chat rooms. You don't need TV preachers.

Here's an even better idea: take whatever money you were going to send to a television preacher so that he can buy his tenth Rolex watch or whatever and send it to UNICEF instead. UNICEF directly saves lives and improves the living conditions of children and mothers in the poorest countries every day. How can it be wrong to give them your few dollars over some guy who slurps caviar in a Gulfstream jet? If the G.o.d you wors.h.i.+p has a problem with choosing UNICEF over a TV preacher, then maybe it's time to shop around for another G.o.d.

GO DEEPER...

Martz, Larry. Ministry of Greed: The Inside Story of the Televangelists and Their Holy Wars. Frederick, MD: Grove PR, 1988.

Randi, James. The Faith Healers. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1989.

Wilson, Bill. How to Get Rich as a Televangelist or Faith Healer. Boulder, CO: Paladin Press, 2008.

Human history of the past millennium is a halting march away from superst.i.tion toward knowledge. We are still far from our goal, but our species is young.

-Hank Davis, Caveman Logic Science is all well and good, but when you get firsthand information from a ghost, it doesn't get much better than that.

-James Van Praagh, Ghosts among Us "Ghosts are real. I know it because of something that happened to me," he said. "I know what I experienced." My friend of many years was intelligent, sober, and-as far as I could tell-completely sincere. I believe that he really did experience "something" but wasn't sure if it justified jumping to the conclusion that ghosts are real. I pushed for more details, but the apparition apparently was a deceased parent or someone close and he was uncomfortable talking about it further. That's understandable, so I backed off. That conversation always comes to mind when I discuss ghosts. The subject can seem silly with the goofy ghost-hunter television shows and the complete absence of good evidence, but I try to tread lightly and be respectful when dealing with true believers in case they connect ghost belief to people they knew. I had another similar encounter with a woman who believed in ghosts, reincarnation, heaven, and seemingly every other afterlife claim. She explained that she had to believe death was not the end because it was the only way she would ever see her deceased father again. Again, I eased off and did more listening than lecturing. Being respectful of people who have deep feelings tied up with ghost belief does not mean, however, that we should leave this claim unchallenged.

The number of people who believe in ghosts is significant. In the United States, 42 percent of the adult population think that ghosts are real.1 In Great Britain, 40 percent of adults believe that houses can be haunted by ghosts.2 One study found that women (20 percent) are more likely to say they had an experience with a ghost than men (16 percent). And a person with a college degree is significantly less likely to report such an encounter than someone with a high school education or less (13 percent versus 21 percent).3 These statistics could be much higher, of course, if the definition of ghost was not left for survey subjects to determine for themselves. For example, billions of Christians, Muslims, and Hindus believe that something called the soul leaves the body at death. Because definitions are so loose, soul could be thought of as the same thing as a ghost. If so, that would raise the number of ghost believers dramatically. Further confusing the true number of ghosts believers is the reluctance I have observed by some religious people to admit that they believe in ghosts when they do. I have also seen this with astrology. Some religious people feel that ghosts or astrology are "of the devil" and are dangerous forces that one should not a.s.sociate with. So in confusing "believe in" with "follow" or "partic.i.p.ate in," they claim not to believe when they do. In any case, my travels and experiences with people around the world convinced me that ghost belief is extremely common. I would estimate the ratio of believers to be higher than 90 percent in some societies that I have visited. Globally, I would guess ghost belief to be at least 80 percent. I found belief to be distributed widely within societies as well. In the Caribbean, for example, it is common for highly educated professionals such as doctors, lawyers, and accountants to believe in ghosts, or "duppies" as they are called there. The important question is, why? Why do so many people still believe in ghosts?

Anthropologists suggest the possibility that the dreams of prehistoric and ancient peoples may have been the catalyst for ghost belief as well as more complex notions of an afterlife, G.o.ds, and religion. We could never know this for sure, but it is easy to imagine how big an impression a vivid dream about a dead friend or family member might make on a prehistoric person who did not know that dreams are a natural brain process. What if you were part of a small hunting and gathering clan twenty thousand years ago? Your lover dies but a week later "visits" you in a dream in which you make love to each other. Imagine the powerful impact such an experience likely would have on you. You easily might conclude that she is still alive, in some form, somewhere. Ghost belief might have begun in just that way. It would then be reinforced culturally by teaching it as fact to children, generation after generation.

Perhaps the most common flaw with claims about seeing, hearing, or sensing ghosts is that an encounter with something that can't be identified means it is just that-unidentified. This is the same mistake that mars so many UFO claims. It is not sensible to see something weird in the sky and conclude that it must be an alien s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p just because you are not able to identify it. It's no different with ghost encounters. If you see, hear, or sense something strange in your bedroom or in a foggy graveyard at midnight, it's not justifiable to jump to the extraordinary conclusion that it must be a supernatural being. Maybe it's something unusual but still natural. Maybe there is an elusive but simple explanation, like a racc.o.o.n pa.s.sing by in the weeds or reflected light off of a bottle. Now, if you see Blackbeard the pirate or Lizzie Borden hovering before you clearly and in great detail, that's different. However, there are possible natural explanations for these encounters too.

VISIONS OF THINGS NOT REAL.

I occasionally do things that seem normal to me but not to others. I get away with it because I have an understanding wife and my kids don't know any better. A few years ago, for example, I went on a vision quest. It seemed like a fun thing to do after I had read something about this traditional practice common to many tribal cultures. I decided to skip the customary starvation, dehydration, and hallucinogenic drug consumption that are central to many vision quests. Apart from those details, however, it would be authentic. I selected a small uninhabited island in the Caribbean to live on for four days by myself. It was a wonderful experience, a beautiful break from the noise and clutter of civilization. There was nothing strange about it-at least until my spirit guide visited me one night.

I awoke confused. I felt alert and jittery but didn't understand why. Suddenly something tugged at my foot, maybe bit or clawed it. I looked down and aimed my flashlight. Staring into my beady little eyes were the large bulging eyes of a rat. It was ma.s.sive, very well fed. But on what? I wondered. Coconuts? Human toes? I retracted my feet immediately and checked for wounds. I was fine. But the rat lingered. I s.h.i.+ned the light on it and time slowed. It wasn't aggressive or afraid. Neither was I. Maybe it was my imagination, but the little beast had charisma. I liked it. This was no confrontation between a master of the Earth and a lowly human on a vision quest. It was just two mammals sharing a special moment. Eventually it exited out the hole it made and walked away. I went back to sleep-with my shoes on.

In the morning it occurred to me this rat encounter was the big moment, the peak experience of my vision quest. The primary purpose of a vision quest, according to some cultures, is to facilitate a visit from your "spirit guide," usually in the form of an animal who would pa.s.s on some wisdom or give direction and suggest a purpose for your life. I have no doubt that if I had been half-starved or on some potent drugs the rat would have had even more meaning to me. It probably would have talked to me and told me to write my mother more often or something like that. At the very least, if I had been a devout believer in ghosts and spirits, it probably would have felt "obvious" to me that it was much more than a mere rat. That experience stands out to me as precisely the sort of weird event that someone could easily have misinterpreted and injected with unwarranted supernatural meaning.

When thinking about claims of ghost encounters it makes sense to consider the ma.s.sive distortions of reality that a healthy human mind is capable of producing. Most of what we see and remember are not perfect current images of reality or perfect replays of what actually happened. Our minds construct what we see and remember. We "see" only a relatively small percentage of what our eyes look at. The rest is made up or a.s.sumed by the mind. Our memories are edited and summarized-without our conscious consent. All this is not as crazy as it may seem because it allows us to function more efficiently in the world. Imagine if we had to constantly concentrate on each and every detail to determine if the ground is solid in front of us while we are walking on a sidewalk, or carefully look to see if a pride of lions is at a bus stop as we walk by, for example. Our brains make many a.s.sumptions so we can get things done. Sometimes this can get us in trouble-if it turns out there is a big hole up ahead or lions really are waiting to attack us-but usually we're OK. "If you tried to a.n.a.lyze every little thing that's happening to you, you wouldn't make it across the room when you get out of bed in the morning," says psychologist and former magician Richard Wiseman. "Optical illusions reflect our sophistication, not our idiocy. Without them we wouldn't be where we are today because we wouldn't have made so many correct a.s.sumptions. You're an effective information processor for making those a.s.sumptions."4 We also have to remember that hallucinations are not limited to seeing things that are not there. They also include hearing nonexistent sounds and even "feeling" physical contact with something that isn't really there to touch you. We can also easily misinterpret real input, say a gust of wind and a weird shadow for a ghost. I recently walked up an escalator that was out of service and stationary. After a few steps my mind-body coordination faltered and I had to grab the hand rail for stability. My mind a.s.sumed that the steps were moving as usual and kept instructing my legs and feet to react as if they were. It vanished when I became aware of it but then returned when I let down my guard again, just seconds later.

As bizarre as various illusions and confusions over what's really happening and not happening may seem, they are common, according to scientists.5 In fact, the inability to experience illusions may be a symptom of mental illness.6 Knowing this, it is clear that ghost encounters should be expected for a species with minds that operate the way ours do. This is why I'm patient and understanding with people who claim to have made contact with a ghost. Most likely they only experienced a normal human reaction to unusual thoughts, a waking dream, or real environmental conditions that were misinterpreted. It could happen to almost any of us given the right circ.u.mstances.

HAUNTED HOUSES.

"I won't go in that bedroom ever again," the friendly middle-aged woman says to me. "I'll never forget it. I was terrified."

She is referring to an incident she claims occurred in the Whaley House in Old Town, San Diego. The historic building is a well-maintained "Greek revival mansion" built in 1857 by a successful businessman named Thomas Whaley. Today it's a historic site and minor tourist attraction. It's promoted as "America's most haunted house," although I question how such a thing could be measured and ranked.

"All the sudden I was freezing cold," the woman continues. "I mean, I was absolutely freezing cold. I was so scared; I remember closing my eyes and then I knew he was there. I knew there was a man in the room with me."

The man, she explains, was the ghost of Thomas Whaley, dead since 1890. She knew it was him, she says, because she could "sense his presence."

"I was still freezing cold and then I just knew he was going to pa.s.s right through me. I was so scared that I couldn't move, even though I knew something was about to happen. And then something went through my hair. I felt it touch my hair. You would never believe how it felt. It was pure death."

"There is definitely a presence in that house," she added. "The family is there. I think they are attached to the house. You feel a presence. They don't seem to ever leave."

After hearing a story like that, I couldn't resist visiting the Whaley House myself. And when I did, I was surprised to discover that even a devout skeptic like me can "feel a presence."

From the sidewalk, the Whaley House looks like a well-maintained nineteenth-century house, interesting enough for historic reasons. The red brick and clean, white wood tr.i.m.m.i.n.g are beautiful; and thick, square porch columns give it the look of cla.s.sical power. From the outside, there is nothing to suggest that there is anything scary or evil inside. None of the traditional haunted house stereotypes are visible. No cobwebs in the windows, no broken-down shutters, and no creepy tombstones in the front yard. As far as old buildings go, it could not look less haunted. Inside, however, is a different story.

The rooms inside the Whaley House are very well maintained and filled with artifacts appropriate to the time period. A large downstairs room once served as San Diego's courthouse. A portion of the house was once a general store, as well. As I continue to explore the first floor, I listen in on two women talking.

"I'm sure I heard something," said one woman. "It was a like a voice. Did you hear it?"

"No," the other replied. "What did it say?"

"I don't know. Do you think there is a vortex here?"

For some reason I don't feel the need to hear any more of their conversation and move on.

Upstairs now, I peer into one of the bedrooms. It's fascinating, filled with detail. I see a hairbrush, books, a quill pen, and so on. The current operators of the Whaley House have done a very good job of capturing and presenting the look and feel of how mid-nineteenth-century life in California was for a wealthy businessman and his family. Further along, I found a child's bedroom that was even more interesting. A painting of a young child hangs on the wall. A miniature china tea set on the dresser is supposed to be authentic to the house, once played with by the Whaley children. The room stirs my imagination and emotions. I can easily imagine the children playing on the floor. An old doll is perched on a small rocking chair. Cute at first glance, she becomes increasingly creepy the longer I hang around. Her little black doll eyes seem to stare directly at me and suddenly I realize the makings of a supernatural horror film are all around me.

Alone on the second floor of the house, I too "sense a presence." It's not a ghost (or the doll) and I'm not scared, but I have allowed my mind to run free and it's pulled me back several decades to when the house was inhabited by an 1860s family. I don't literally see or hear them, of course, but in my imagination I do. It doesn't always happen, but I have experienced this flash of heightened imagination while visiting ancient and historic sites around the world. It's a great experience when the distant past comes alive in your mind. I highly recommend it. The more you research the particular event, place, and people, the better the high. I've had special "mental reenactment moments" in places as diverse as the Palace de Versailles in France and a jungle in Papua New Guinea where j.a.panese and Allied soldiers butchered one another during World War II.

Reflecting on my imaginary animation of long-dead people, I wonder how much more powerful some of such moments might have felt if I had believed in ghosts. Had I been predisposed to expect a visit from a ghost, it's not difficult to imagine my emotions getting the best of me and being swept away during my brief "moment" in the Whaley House. For example, what if I believed in ghosts, experienced that brief imaginative flashback while looking in the child's room-and then, at that very moment, something unusual happened? What if a gust of wind blew a window open? What if the old building's walls or a floorboard creaked somewhere near me? What if a flash of reflected sunlight from a pa.s.sing car or plane outside briefly illuminated the dark hallway? None of these things should be interpreted as ghost encounters or paranormal events. But a believer who is in the moment might feel differently.

Some of the rooms in Whaley House are blocked off by clear plastic walls in the doorways, presumably to protect the rooms from being disturbed by visitors. I immediately recognize the potential for taking "ghost photographs." Anytime you attempt to shoot photos through, or even near, a gla.s.s or plastic surface there is the possibility of a light flare that may be interpreted by some as a ghostly image. Using a flash in these situations increases the chances. It's completely natural, nothing more than light being reflected in unusual ways. I can't resist trying my luck, and in less than five minutes I have a few very good "ghost photos." Some show spherical "orbs," as ghost hunters like to call them. One photo shows a long white smoky blob "hovering" high above Thomas Whaley's bed. I wonder how many visitors per year take photos of this bedroom, only to check them later and shriek with delight/horror upon seeing the "ghost" they photographed. Apparently many do, as I discover when leaving the house. Near the exit is a photo alb.u.m filled with photographs taken by visitors to the house. Photo after photo show reflected light "orbs."

Interpretation of sights and sounds is, of course, the key to the haunted houses phenomenon. Most incidents probably are mysterious noises or brief sightings of unidentified objects. None of these should be considered evidence of a ghost haunting because "unidentified" means "unidentified." If I'm spending the night in a cheap hotel in the middle of nowhere and hear a weird noise outside my door that I am unable to identify, I can't sensibly conclude that a ghost is making the sound. It could just as easily be aliens coming to abduct me, or a serial killer coming to carve me up, or maybe it's Playboy's Playmate of the Year sneaking in to place a mint on my pillow. The point is, if I don't know what I have seen or heard, I shouldn't pretend to know that it's a ghost.

Nonetheless, many people do translate the unknown into the known by attributing strange noises to ghosts. John, a longtime and close friend of mine who lives in England, recalls a terrifying night he spent on vacation with his family during his childhood. He says he heard "the most unusual noises, with doors opening for no reason, and the sound of footsteps outside when there was no one there."

"I was so wet through with sweat caused by the anxiety that my parents were convinced I had wet the bed," he recalled. "It was a bit like after a normal Sat.u.r.day night out on the beer these days."

Belief in haunted houses is one of the most common nonreligious paranormal beliefs in both the United States and the United Kingdom. A Gallup poll found that 40 percent of Brits and 37 percent of Americans believe that houses can be haunted. In Canada, 28 percent believe it.7 According to that same Gallup study, belief in haunted houses by Americans is second only to belief in extrasensory perception, or ESP (41 percent) among nonreligious paranormal beliefs. For haunted houses to beat out belief in mediums (people who talk to the dead and claim to hear back from them), astrology, reincarnation, and witches indicates that something about scary and unusual things inside of houses is very compelling to many people. Perhaps the reason that it resonates with so many people is that it hits so close to home-after all, it's potentially in the home. For many Americans, in fact, belief in haunted houses is personal, as one-fifth say they have either lived in or visited one.8 This belief is found in people of all income and education levels. Consider Tia, a Princeton graduate with a very impressive resume and job to match. She once lived in a house she believes was haunted. "The house was detached, at the end of a cul-de-sac," she explained. "There was no other house on one side, and on the other side, our neighbors were many feet away. Still, we could often hear people walking up and down the steps in our home. My mom always explained it [by] saying we could hear our neighbors going up and down their stairs. As a kid, I accepted that explanation. But now, looking back, I realize that was impossible! I got so freaked out one day, I remember, hearing the sounds of walking around upstairs when I was the only one home that I ran out of the house and sat on the porch until someone else got home. It was definitely a freaky experience."

Longtime paranormal investigator Joe Nickell has poked about in far more haunted houses than most. To date he hasn't found any ghosts, however. "Once the idea that a place is haunted takes root, almost any unknown noise, mechanical glitch, or other odd occurrence can become added 'evidence' of ghostly shenanigans, at least to susceptible people," Nickell writes in his book The Mystery Chronicles. "They often cite unexplainable phenomena, but they really mean unexplained, a condition that does not in any way imply or necessitate the supernatural. To suggest that it does is to engage in a logical fallacy called arguing from ignorance-the stock in trade of credulous paranormalists and outright mystery-mongering writers."9 There are many down-to-earth, natural explanations available for what may cause mysterious and creepy noises in a house. I know from experience, however, that the simpler explanations are not always satisfying or rea.s.suring in every case. During my college days I lived in a large, old two-story house for about six months or so. Many times I was home alone studying upstairs and would hear creaking sounds as if someone were walking around on the wooden floor downstairs or in the hallway. But when I went go to see who was there, I would find the house empty. It happened so often that I learned to ignore it. My higher functioning brain reasoned that it was nothing, just the normal sounds old, drafty houses make. My reptilian brain, however, wasn't convinced. Almost every time I heard another creak or moan, I glanced up from my studies to check the doorway, as if to prepare for a showdown with the Headless Horseman or whomever. I knew there was nothing there, but some reflex within made me react anyway. Sometimes I felt uneasy, if not a twinge of fear. Whenever I encounter people who have had frightening experiences in "haunted" houses, I remember that I too was once scared by a few unidentified silly sounds. It keeps me humble.

GO DEEPER...

Nickell, Joe. The Mystery Chronicles: More Real-Life X-Files. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2004.

The sleep of reason produces monsters.

-t.i.tle of an etching by Francisco Goya The story we're being asked to believe is that thousands of giant, hairy, mysterious creatures are constantly eluding capture and discovery and have for a century or more. At some point, a Bigfoot's luck must run out: one out of the thousands must wander onto a freeway and get killed by a car, or get shot by a hunter, or die of natural causes and be discovered by a hiker. Each pa.s.sing week and month and year and decade that go by without definite proof of the existence of Bigfoot make its existence less and less likely.

-Benjamin Radford,

Committee for Skeptical Inquiry

The pilot closes the hatch and suddenly the research submersible feels small, very small. After bobbing about on the surface for a while, we finally submerge and begin the journey. It's a three-person vehicle and only the two of us are aboard but, the s.p.a.ce available seems to shrink with every minute of our descent. Good thing I'm not claustrophobic. I'm not apprehensive about making this one-thousand-foot plunge into the Caribbean Sea, but I can't help wondering what happens if the power fails or if a colossal squid tries to eat us. The view through the curved observation window in front of me is weird to say the least. I can't see anything but dark nothingness and now the surface is out of sight. After falling for several minutes, the pilot turns on powerful external lights. A surprising abundance of tiny but visible life is illuminated as we drop deeper. So much, in fact, that it seems like the water itself is alive. I'm reminded of the late Jacques Cousteau, one of my childhood heroes. He described seawater as the "broth of life." Now I'm seeing precisely what he meant. I'm an experienced diver with numerous 130-foot dives, some of them at night, but this is different. While not scary, it is thrilling-definitely no typical Caribbean afternoon for me. I'm excited to think about all the tons of water over my head and all the mysteries out there in the deep somewhere. I wish we were going thirty-five thousand feet down instead of just one thousand.

Below seven hundred feet, the environment becomes significantly different from the coral ecosystems I'm used to diving in. The bottom comes into view. It's relatively barren and gray, like a submerged moonscape. This may not be beauty in the traditional sense, but it's impressive in its own way. Apart from the "snow flurries" of plankton and diatoms, there is no life that I can see.

The pilot kills the lights and slowly moves forward to another position. When he turns them back on, three magnificent creatures are illuminated right in front of the submersible. He draws in close. They are crinoids-big ones. Imagine a giant underwater sunflower that is actually an animal, that's what they look like. They are gorgeous. They take on a golden glow in our lights. Swaying back and forth in a gentle current, they feed by filtering out organisms that swim or drift by. Crinoids flourished in the oceans hundreds of millions of years ago and were once thought to be extinct. But here they are, alive and well, right in front of my face. I'm thrilled to see these creature up close. It's like looking back in time five hundred million years.

There was a time, back in the nineteenth century, when very smart people were convinced that the deep was a lifeless zone, nothing of interest. We know better than that now, of course, but we still understand relatively little as thousands of seamounts, canyons, and vast abyssal plains remain very much unexplored. Even my own experience interviewing scientists and explorers is telling: I've managed to talk with nine men who have been to the Moon but only one, Don Walsh, who has been to the bottom of our deepest ocean. Isn't it odd that twelve people have walked on the Moon and more than five hundred have traveled to s.p.a.ce, while only two men to date have visited the deepest point in the ocean?

Whenever Bigfoot and other "cryptids" are discussed, I can't help recalling those beautiful crinoids I saw in the Caribbean Sea and the excitement I felt while thinking about the life waiting in the deep to surprise us. Strange, hard-to-find animals do turn out to be real. They exist. It is not necessarily crazy to believe in weird creatures and monsters because we have in fact found many of them over the years. While I don't believe it's likely that plesiosaurs evaded extinction and currently are roaming the depths of a Scottish lake or that giant primates are running around in the Pacific Northwest, I am certain that many fascinating creatures are still out there somewhere awaiting discovery. This is not even controversial. No sensible scientist believes everything has been found. There is so much unknown life right now, in fact, that the challenge of finding and naming these unknown species is immense. A 2011 article in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution estimated that it would cost US$263 billion to scientifically discover and describe the entire animal kingdom. If such a feat is even possible, I suspect that it would cost much more than that. Some habitats are incredibly challenging, perhaps impossible, to adequately study with current technology. Another reason for the high price tag is because there is so much work left to be done. The report states that only some 1.4 million of an estimated 6.8 million species are currently known to science.1 A 2011 life census estimated that 86 percent of all land species and 91 percent of marine species have yet to be discovered and catalogued by scientists.2 But even those figures are misleading about how little we know because they do not include viruses and bacteria. Considering all we have achieved technologically and how much we have learned about the universe, our ignorance about life right here on our own planet is stunning.

I confess to having a soft spot in my heart for cryptozoology, the "science" of hidden or undiscovered animals. The problem with cryptozoology, however, is that it's not just about "unknown animals." Cryptozoology centers on claims of large animals that are wrapped up in myths and legend or are at least spectacular animals, such as dragons or dinosaurs, that science does not validate the existence of or has declared to be extinct long ago. Is it possible that some of these sorts of creatures are real? Yes! Of course it's possible that big flesh-and-blood animals are lurking about in a thick jungle somewhere or down in the ocean depths. That possibility, however, does not justify tossing out the tried-and-true methods of science and skepticism. Cryptozoology could have been a legitimate branch of zoology if only it hadn't pitched its tent over in the pseudoscience neighborhood where anecdotes are considered evidence and possibilities pa.s.s for certainties.

My advice to cryptozoologists is to redefine yourselves and change course. Embrace science and appreciate how it produces results and eliminates false claims. Let go of the fixations with folklore and size. Every fascinating species awaiting discovery doesn't have to come with years of campfire tales hyping it up. Every fascinating species awaiting discovery doesn't have to be a giant either. A few years ago a team of scientists went into the crater of just one extinct volcano in Papua New Guinea and emerged with more than forty species new to science. I have trekked in Papua New Guinea and, given the outrageously rich biodiversity there, I have no doubt that I saw at least a few unnamed species without realizing it. This is the world we still live in. It's exciting to realize that there is so much yet to learn about whom we share this planet with. Who needs empty myths when we have so much reality before us?

Oceans cover some 70 percent of our planet yet are still some 95 percent unexplored. Marine biologists can scarcely dip a net into the ocean without discovering new life-forms. Yes, it is possible that there are some very large marine species still unknown to us, but what is absolutely certain is that millions of smaller unknown species are out there beneath the waves. The decade-long Census of Marine Life estimates that approximately 250,000 ocean species are known today with anywhere from a few million to hundreds of millions left to be discovered. But it's not just numbers that are exciting. The bizarre and stunning creatures that scientists are now finding and photographing in the deepest realms seem more like extraterrestrials than the life we are familiar with. To see what I mean, please find a copy of Claire Nouvian's photo-book, The Deep: The Extraordinary Creatures of the Deep, and explore the beautiful and bizarre collection of exotic sea life it shows. With real animals as freakish and mysterious as these, who has time to think about the Kraken?

Bio-pioneer Craig Venter conducted an ocean research voyage in 2003 that turned up nearly two thousand previously unknown species of ocean bacteria and viruses. The truth is, n.o.body really has a clue how many strange and surprising life-forms await discovery in the deepest waters. Even more tantalizing is the life that is thriving beneath the seafloor. That's right, underneath the bottom of the oceans there is a vast ecosystem of microbes that live without oxygen in total darkness. It is believed that they may account for as much as a third of all life on Earth! And these little creatures produce incredibly huge amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Scientists believe that leakage of this gas from beneath the seafloor in the past caused rapid changes in the planet's climate. If even a small portion of it escaped at once today, we might be hit with tsunamis, ma.s.s extinctions, and greatly accelerated global warming.3 If you find the search for new life intriguing, then this is the right planet for you. But we don't even have to venture into thick rainforests or board submersibles at sea to find exotic life. It's much closer to home.

We only need to look at our own bodies to discover mysterious monsters and amazing creatures-if one can agree that such things sometimes come in very small packages. In case you didn't know, you are a minority in your own skin. You are a walking ecosystem of immense complexity and diversity. So much so, that the s.p.a.ce occupied by your body is less "you" and more "other creatures." By this I mean that some ten trillion cells are "yours" in the sense that they contain your DNA, but there are more than one hundred trillion parasites, predators, freeloaders, and helpful cohabitants that live on you and inside of you. Think about what this means: you are 90 percent other life-forms. A 2011 North Carolina State University study on belly b.u.t.ton biodiversity found some 1,400 different species of bacteria living in the navels of ninety-five people; 662 of them were previously unknown to science. So, anyone who really wants to find new life-forms ought to give up cryptozoology and try navel-gazing instead. If you have a yearning to find monsters, don't worry, they already found you.

One of my favorite little creatures is the tardigrade (also known as the water bear). It doesn't live on us or in our belly b.u.t.tons, thankfully, but I'm sure it could if it wanted to. These microscopic juggernauts make Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster seem wimpy by comparison. The tough tardigrade is known to be able to survive the following: no water for 120 years; s.p.a.ce (some tardigrades survived in the vacuum of s.p.a.ce on a satellite for ten days); pressure more than five times greater than the deepest ocean; freezing to near absolute zero; and levels of gamma radiation that kill most other life-forms. Then there is the Nematode worm that lives pretty much wherever it needs to: oceans, mountains, deserts, or even a mile underground. This species is so tough that some nematodes survived the high-alt.i.tude disintegration of the Columbia s.p.a.ce shuttle in 2003. (They had been aboard for an experiment.) There is an entire group of life-forms called thermophiles that live in boiling water. Yes, if strange creatures and monsters are what you seek, be a.s.sured that they are all around us. We have no need for imaginary ones.

Although no Bigfoot or Loch Ness monster bodies have turned up yet, some big creatures have been discovered in recent times. The Komodo Dragon, giant squid, and coelacanth were all new finds to mainstream science. The saola, a relative of the cow, is a large mammal that lives in the dense rainforests of Vietnam and Laos. It can weigh more than 150 pounds, but no scientist had verified its existence until 1992. It may surprise some readers to know that the mountain gorilla eluded scientific confirmation until the twentieth century. The megamouth shark can grow to nearly twenty feet long and more than 2,500 pounds. But it wasn't known to science until 1976. It's not unreasonable to believe that nature might have a few more big surprises left for us. However, that belief alone doesn't make one a cryptozoologist. That requires something more.

Why isn't cryptozoology a widely accepted and respected scientific discipline like primatology, entomology, herpetology, microbiology, or zoology? One can't earn a degree in cryptozoology from universities. It's not even consistently defined. For some it's the scientific pursuit of unknown animals, not fundamentally different from what a traditional scientist does when she or he goes to do fieldwork on a remote Pacific island and hopes to find new bird, insect, or frog species. However, most casual fans and committed cryptozoologists alike probably would describe their field as the study and pursuit of legendary large animals only. I don't want to overgeneralize because I know there are different kinds of believers for every belief. There are some who merely let intrigue and hope carry them to the edge of science and no more than a step or two beyond. Then there are those who see dragons behind every tree. Nonetheless, cryptozoology has a severe image problem. Books on the Loch Ness monster at my local bookstores, for example, are not shelved with books on whales and sea turtles. They are placed with books about vampires and haunted houses. This might be insulting to some cryptozoology enthusiasts, but a quick glance at the content of most of these books reveals that they are shelved exactly where they should be. While I can sympathize to a point with someone who says he wants the search for famous large animals to be legitimate science, the truth is that such efforts are rarely discussed or conducted in a scientific manner. Therefore-until someone presents powerful evidence or produces the body of Bigfoot or Nessie-it won't be respected. And so long as cryptozoology in general is not conducted as a science, it won't qualify as science.

MANY FOOTPRINTS, BUT NO FEET TO FILL THEM.

The biggest star of cryptozoology these days is probably Bigfoot, also known as Sasquatch. For a species that probably doesn't exist, Bigfoot has shown remarkable longevity. Somehow, say believers, a ma.s.sive bipedal ape has eluded discovery in North America. In 2011-decades after Bigfoot belief soared in the 1960s and 1970s and footprints turned up all over the Northwest-the Animal Planet TV channel is airing Finding Bigfoot. (Spoiler alert: they don't find Bigfoot.) The National Geographic Channel's Mysterious Science series included an episode about Bigfoot in which skeptics and believers presented their case. (Bigfoot didn't turn up here either.) Books that are skeptical of Bigfoot claims are far outnumbered by books promoting the belief. Millions of Americans are convinced that Bigfoot really is lurking in the shadows of American forests and swamps. A 2006 Baylor study found that 16 percent of Americans believe that Bigfoot "absolutely" or "probably" exists.4 Professor emeritus of physical anthropology Curtis Wienker doubts Bigfoot is real and somehow managed to escape confirmation all these years. "I think it is virtually impossible," Wienker said. "Recall that almost all alleged sightings of such beasts are at night and virtually all higher primates are diurnal [active in daytime]. In recent years in remote Amazonia, a much less populated region than the Pacific Northwest, a few undiscovered species of primates have been discovered, but they are all South American monkeys related to previously known species. All of them are a branch of primates not closely related to modern humans and apes, and all are very small. Furthermore, the mythical creatures of Bigfoot, Yeti, and the 'swamp ape' are all described as bipedal, and physical anthropology data all suggest that h.o.m.o sapiens is the only habitual biped among the perhaps two hundred species of living primates. There is not one shred of scientific evidence, not one datum, to support the existence of such beasts. Period."5 The absence of good evidence is problematic for Bigfoot believers, to say the least. There may be nothing wrong with having an open mind about the possibility of Bigfoot being real, but it certainly is no justification to confidently claim that the creature's existence is probable or definite, as many do. All we have to date are eyewitness accounts, poor-quality photos and videos, inconclusive hair samples, and footprints. The oversized footprints might have been impressive evidence if not for the fact that footprints have been faked so often that they have no credibility whatsoever. The first to do it seems to have been a man named Ray Wallace who worked in road construction in the Pacific Northwest. After his death, Wallace's son went on record saying that his father was a dedicated prankster who possessed large carved wooden feet that he used to make Bigfoot trails in the dirt. "Ray L. Wallace was Bigfoot. The reality is, Bigfoot just died," declared Michael Wallace after his father pa.s.sed away in 2002.6 According to Michael, Ray first made fake prints at a Northern California logging camp in 1958. "This wasn't a well-planned plot or anything," Michael told the New York Times. "It's weird because it was just a joke, and then it took on such a life of its own that even now, we can't stop it."7 Anthropologist Cameron M. Smith lives in Oregon, so he's practically neighbors with Bigfoot. "It seems very unlikely that large primates here in the Pacific Northwest could go undetected for so long," Smith explained.8 "Every species has a minimum viable population, a genetic barrier that it can't dip below if it will maintain genetic health. If Bigfoot reproduction is anything like, say, another giant primate, gorilla or human, then the MVP [minimum viable population] can't be below approximately five hundred individuals. So, how much foraging territory do, say, five hundred Bigfoot creatures require, considering the resources of the Pacific Northwest forests, and their daily caloric, water, and nutrient requirements, which could perhaps be modeled on similarly large primates. I don't know, but interesting to think about!"

Smith believes the best evidence we could hope to find would be DNA rather than bone.

"The techniques for understanding life-forms on the DNA level are advancing every day," Smith said. "If Bigfoot is bipedal, which everyone seems to say, its femur or other skeletal material could be significantly similar to humans or other hominids. So any bones could be fakes-just really large bones of a giant human or Gigantopithecus [an extinct primate that lived in Asia]. Though Gigantopithecus would be fossilized. However, one might say it is a fossilized, ancient Bigfoot bone! The bones alone wouldn't do it for me. I'd want the DNA and we now have DNA studies well into the twenty-thouand-plus-years-ago range, so even old Bigfoot bones would be OK. Hair or other tissue would work. At Paisley Cave, Oregon, researchers recently extracted human DNA from coprolites [dried feces] that were over fourteen thousand years old. So that might be a source if hair or other tissues could not be found."

My suggestion to cryptozoology fans has always been to keep the pa.s.sion for exploration and discovery but abandon the faith-without-evidence position. If one is drawn to the idea of unknown creatures living in secluded valleys, rainforests, or in the ocean depths, then become an amateur or professional scientist and do real science. New species of animals are being discovered all the time. Most of the new species being discovered may not qualify as monsters worthy of headlines but this is very important work, nonetheless. Researchers are fles.h.i.+ng out the details of our home. Doesn't it make sense that we should have as complete a picture as possible of the planet we live on? It's also thrilling to find new life. Imagine the excitement of laying eyes on a creature unknown to science. I don't have to imagine. I once felt that thrill-though it didn't last.