(Originally posted on LiveJournal)
I’ve mentioned before the search threads that bring people to my website. It’s interesting to look at them, and hey! it occasionally gives me something to talk about on LiveJournal and my blogs.
I decided to go for something off-beat this time.
Almost every month there’s at least one search thread that has brought someone to my site that involves The X-Files and the various names for Bigfoot. The reason I gets hits for that search thread is that I posted a PDF of an X-Files spec script I did a long time ago that used the Sasquatch. (You can find the intro page for the script here )
The introduction page gives a brief explanation of why I used that subject for the script. But looking at the search elements that brought people to it woke some nostalgia in me.
First off, it’s rather funny, the spellings that people use. There is the straightforward “Bigfoot”. Then, there was the person who spelled it “Saquash”. I amused myself wondering if that was a new type of monster squash. But my favorite was “Satwsqatch”. I’m not even sure how one would pronounce that.
Back in my youth, like many others of that age, I went through a bout of being interested in cryptozoology and cryptoscience (or pseudoscience). I’m not sure that it was a matter of believing that the oddities I read about actually existed. But they were fun to read about. And I think in the back of my head, I was also considering them as fodder for possible stories I might write.
So, when I sat down to write an X-Files spec, Sasquatch felt like a natural possibility. I amused myself about speculating on the nature of the creature. I decided that if Sasquatch (and their various cousins, including the Yeti) “were real” and had indeed managed to avoid being encountered by humans (for the most part), they had to have a degree of intelligence. They wouldn’t be without reasoning capabilities, for they would have to figure out ways to avoid detection. This would also mean that they would need to have a close family life, since abandoned offspring do not figure in the folklore of Bigfoot. So if a Sasquatch child was accidentally killed, I figured the parents would take vengence, and also reclaim the body – because they were careful to leave no evidence (if they could help it).
It amused me to put Mulder in a battle of wits against a Sasquatch – and have Mulder lose.
Are these giant humanoids real? I grew up reading science fiction and like to think that I keep an open mind about the possibilities of this universe. But seriously, is it realistically possible that a creature of that size would be able to avoid detection for so long? We know for a certainty that bears roam the wild. Or even (in the realm of giant creatures), that giant boars exist (I saw photos of a huge one killed in the American South a few years ago – making me realize that MacDatho’s Pig of Irish legend, and the Calydonian Boar might not be quite as fanciful as I first thought). These real large creatures leave traces. Sasquatch, not so much. So I end up disinclined to believe they exist. But I’m not totally dismissive.
As I say in the intro to the script, Sasquatch was so obvious a subject for The X-Files, that they never really did an episode with one. The closest they came was the one about the Jersey Devil, and that they placed in a near-urban setting, making it even more off-beat. It was one of the strengths of the show that they tried to avoid the absolutely obvious subjects. But apparently, even after all this time since the show’s end, some people still think there should have been an episode about the Sasquatch.
Comments
kylecassidy – Jul. 10th, 2009
i think there should have been an episode about sasquatch. for shizzle. lamentably, i’ve rented every movie netflix has with either “bigfoot” or “sasquatch” in the title (barring the ones about the monster truck). they’re near universally awful. an x-files episode would have rocked.
scribblerworks – Jul. 10th, 2009
Indeed. I had fun writing that script, and remain fond of it.
kylecassidy – Jul. 10th, 2009
i’m reading it right now and it’s very good! great job capturing them — and with the “no kidding” and “like” — it has excellent running gags.
