In the middle of August 2008 Matt Whitton, Rick Dyer, and “professional Bigfoot hunter” Tom Biscardi claimed to have found what so many had sought after: the body of a real Bigfoot. FOX News picked up the story, DNA tests were performed, and a grand unveiling was planned, but, as ever, it all was a hoax. There was still no definitive proof that Sasquatch, Bigfoot, the Skunk Ape, Skookum, or a long lost “missing link” by any other name ever existed.

Last summer’s brief frenzy over Bigfoot was hardly unique. As author Joshua Blu Buhs illustrates in his new book, Bigfoot: The Life and Times of a Legend, there has been a long history of hoaxes and