Learning About a Myth

When I first began the fifth grade, I started to have a fascination with cryptids and mythical creatures for some reason. As my curiosity grew, I started to become more interested in a single creature instead of all of them, which was bigfoot. Throughout my 5th grade year, I began to research information about the creature, whether it was from websites online or books from the library, whatever I could find. I would read stories about people who supposedly encountered the beast, and how hoaxers would trick others into pretending there has been activity an area. I looked at pictures, videos, and documentaries, anything about the mysterious bigfoot. During this same year that I started obsessing over the creature, a tv show called Finding Bigfoot, which was about 4 people who tried to prove the existence of bigfoot on their show. At the time, this show coming out was the best coincidence that had ever happened to me because what are the odds that a TV show about bigfoot would come out at the same time, I decided to become obsessed with them. While still in the fifth grade, my teacher told us that we would have to be writing a report on an animal of our choosing. When I heard this, I went to straight to the teacher’s desk and convinced her to let me write about bigfoot. When she said I could, I was surprised but happy. Although I had researched information about them before, I continued to look for more. I looked for what their diet could have been their habitat, hair color, anything I could find. After my fifth grade year was over, I went into middle school, still wanting to learn more about bigfoot. When middle school arrived, I was still obsessing over the legendary creature. My knowledge on bigfoot was becoming greater, and I was still excited by the idea of learning. During my middle school years, I started to collect items about bigfoot. I would get shirts, wall stickers, signs, books, clocks, and even Christmas ornaments. Throughout middle school, people started to learn that I was obsessed with bigfoot and believed in them a lot. Sometimes they tried to argue that they did not exist, and that there was no proof of them existing, and I would have to always argue back of course. When people began to ask me questions about bigfoot, some of them would argue that there was no proof of their existence at all. I would always explain how there are untampered videos and pictures all over the place, and not all of them are fake. Or how there are samples of hair that have been tested, and they have been proven to belong to an unknown species of ape. The question that always annoyed me the most was when someone asked “how can bigfoot always be everywhere at once?”. This annoyed me because there is more than just one, and they are all around the world. In my mind at the time, this was common sense and everyone should know this; bigfoot was a species of an unidentified ape, which seemed like a realistic possibility to me. But not everyone was obsessed with bigfoot like I was. As middle school ended and high school began, I started losing interest in bigfoot. I slowly began to get take down and get rid of my bigfoot items, moving on entirely. But for the longest time, bigfoot was the one thing I could never stop being interested in or learning about.

Photo on Foter.com