By Tim Binnall
2024 was another banner year for Bigfoot with the legendary cryptid leaving a fittingly oversized imprint on the world of weird news. Along with the usual sightings and possible photos or videos of the elusive creature, Sasquatch continued to serve as something of a pop culture icon enlisted for all manner of roles from school mascot to 'spokescryptid' for waste management. As so often happens each year, Bigfoot was also at the center of more than a few bizarre moments, including a murder trial, that bordered on the unfathomable.
Alas, the 'best' Bigfoot video of 2024 ultimately turned out to be one that wasn't: a fantastic piece of footage that seemingly provided a close-up look at the creature resting against a tree. After going viral and spawning worldwide headlines, the footage was revealed to have been a clever marketing stunt by an Oklahoma smokeshop. Less dispiriting documentation this past year came in the form of photographs possibly showing the famed cryptid. Specifically, there were trail cam images from North Carolina, Indiana, and New Mexico as well as cell phone pictures from two separate witnesses on Navajo Nation.
Though lacking in evidence, some noteworthy eyewitness sightings from the past year included reports from a rattled truck driver in Illinois and a South Carolina cop who stumbled upon the creature while hunting. That said, not all suspected Sasquatch encounters turned out to be on the level as a series of incidents in Virginia wound up being a prankster in a suit, and a cross-country runner was mistaken for Bigfoot by bewildered witnesses in Washington state. Meanwhile, possible prints from the cryptid were found in New York and Britain.
Bigfoot's place as the preeminent cryptozoological 'celebrity' was made all the more apparent in 2024. Sasquatch was featured on a scratch ticket in Oregon, celebrated with a massive statue in Ohio, and enlisted to help raise awareness about recycling in Georgia. Meanwhile, a town in Pennsylvania embraced the cryptid in the hopes of improving tourism, and a historical marker (seen above) commemorating the creature's place in local lore was unveiled in an upstate New York village. As if all that were not enough, public schools in Florida and Virginia adopted the creature as their mascot as did a city in Wisconsin, and the new NHL team in Salt Lake City indicated that they may ultimately be called the Utah Yeti.
Among the stranger Sasquatch stories this past year was an odd incident wherein an aspiring Bigfoot hunter called a Washington State sheriff's office to ask about the legalities of shooting the creature. A school in Ohio went into lockdown after a misguided prankster in a Bigfoot costume was spotted roaming around outside the building. In Oklahoma, a man was tried for murder after he strangled his friend to death out of fear that he had summoned the monstrous cryptid to eat him. The wild affair saw the accused killer stick to his surreal Sasquatch story while testifying in his own defense and, after being found guilty, a fiery hearing culminated with the man being given a life sentence for what came to be known as the Sasquatch summoning murder.