Ear: Goodall

Does Bigfoot exist? Well, Jane Goodall, who probably knows more about primates than anyone alive, has finally voiced an opinion. She is shown in an image adapted from The Jane Goodall Institute South Africa Facebook page.

Asked recently by GQ if she would rule out the existence of Bigfoot, Goodall said no, “for various reasons.”

“I was in Ecuador,” she elaborated. “We’d flown for two solid hours over unbroken forest in a small plane, and we visited four tiny little communities … they communicate with each other by … hunters (who) carry the news from one village to another, and letters and things like that.

“So I had an interpreter, and I said to him, ‘When you next meet one of these hunters, could you ask if they’ve ever seen a monkey without a tail?’

“Three of the hunters came back and said, ‘Oh yes. We’ve seen monkeys without tails. They walk upright and they’re about six foot tall’ … This was an interpreter from the village. He knew nothing about Bigfoot, nothing at all.

“Every single country has its version … So I don’t know if it’s perhaps a myth that stems from maybe the last of the Neanderthals. But then, is the last of the Neanderthals still living in these remote forests? I don’t know.

“But I’m not going to say (Bigfoot) doesn’t exist, and I’m not going to say people who believe in it are stupid.”