Jane Goodall on Bigfoot: "I'm not going to say it doesn't exist"


The great primatologist and conservationist Jane Goodall, 87, has just launched a new initiative called Trees for Jane to restore the world's forests and help stop climate change. For years, Jane has spoken publicly about the possibility that there may be undiscovered primates hiding in remote locations around the globe. In a new GQ interview, she responds to a question about the existence of Bigfoot:

I have a silly question, if you'll indulge me, and I'm sure you know where this is going. You've said you're not ruling out that Bigfoot exists.

For various reasons. And I'll tell you one, my most striking one. I was in Ecuador. We'd flown for two solid hours over unbroken forest in a small plane and we visited four tiny little communities. 30 to 50 people, no roads, and they communicate with each other by means of like in the old days—it was the town crier, but these are hunters actually, and they 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."

Oh wow.

Now this was an interpreter from the village. He knew nothing about Bigfoot, nothing at all. Every single country has its version. Yeti, Yowie in Australia, Wild Man in China. 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 it doesn't exist and I'm not going to say people who believe in it are stupid.