Do You Believe The "jacko" Story?

[Guest]

Really great conversations here and has given me a whole new thought process regarding the tale both for and against!

[Guest FuriousGeorge]

If the date on paper is 1884 and the article is dated 1882, why was it bumped for 2 years? Was there bigger news in 1882 or no news in 1884?

[Guest]

From what I've heard, July 4th, thanks to the British influence in the 1800's, was often used as April 1st is here in the states. So why an article would come out on July 4th that seems a bit preposterous...seems to hit the mark.

[Guest Bullfrog]

No offense intended, but I'm a tad surprised that the posters on this topic (excluding Drew) don't seem to realize that the "Jacko" story has been dismissed (if not debunked) by prominent Bigfoot advocates. To quote Loren Coleman's conclusion: "Unfortunately, a whole new generation of hominologists, Saquatch searchers, and Bigfoot researchers are growing up thinking that the Jacko story is an ironclad cornerstone of the field, a foundation piece of history proving that Sasquatch are real. But in reality Jacko seems to be a local rumor brought to the level of a news story that eventually evolved into a modern fable."

(BIGFOOT! The True Story of Apes in America; page 42).

If one presumes for the sake of argument that Jacko is made up, we are still left with the very interesting phenomenon of people making up ape-men stories as far back as the 1800s with common traits we would assign to bigfoot today. In the era before "bigfoot" existed as an American legend, what is inspiring these ape-man stories from all over North America that describe a creature that matches the description of bigfoot? If its all fake, that's a major phenomenon worthy of study itself.

Huntster, I get that Yale is remote and was a lot more so in the 1880s. I'm just very skeptical that something as amazing as a captive, hairy man-beast - apparently held for some time and seen by many people - went unphotographed. Heck, is there even a "drawing from life"? I'm sure they had paper, charcoal, and somebody who could render a decent portrait in the 1880s.

Would this have necessarily been as big a deal in the 1880s as it is today? It would be a big deal to us today because "bigfoot" exists in the popular lexicon of mythical animals. If this is an era before bigfoot was sensationalized, why would Jacko's captors necessarily view it as anything but an out-of-place animal? Would non-scientists of that era known the difference between a chimp and a gorilla, or that no living ape was bipedal? Isn't it true that for most of known history naturalists presumed bipedal locomotion on living apes?

[Guest]

Don't blink or you will not see Yale when you drive by!

[Guest]

I stumbled on this news article on Cryptomundo and I have to raise the question. Is the Jacko story just another sensational news report by the Victoria Daily Colonist? Judge for yourself! Also check out the date the article was written! http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/cowichan-1885/

Edited November 29, 2010 by kokanee

[Guest Crowlogic]

I don't believe the story. Should be at least a drawing and likely a photograph. So the creature died at sea and nobody preserved the body? Hell this was the heyday of the natural sciences studying everything and anything with a passion. If it was going to London rest assured that the British scientific community was lining up around the block to study it. Jacko would have been bought and paid for and however and whatever condition he was in on arrival be it dead or alive he would have been received.

[Huntster]

So the creature died at sea and nobody preserved the body?

There is a reason for the long "tradition" of burial at sea.

Hell this was the heyday of the natural sciences studying everything and anything with a passion. If it was going to London rest assured that the British scientific community was lining up around the block to study it. Jacko would have been bought and paid for and however and whatever condition he was in on arrival be it dead or alive he would have been received.

It was just another gorilla, remember? How were these people to know that, over a century later, a bunch of folks who think they know everything would be arguing on a "telegraph line" about the creature?

[Guest]

Things that make you go hmmm!

[Guest]

It was just another gorilla, remember? How were these people to know that, over a century later, a bunch of folks who think they know everything would be arguing on a "telegraph line" about the creature?

Pish-posh. Even if it had been a gorilla or chimp that had somehow made its way to British Columbia, THAT would have been a marvel to behold for the people of that time and place, and someone would have photographed, or for crying out loud, at least sketched it.

[Huntster]

Huntster, on 29 November 2010 - 10:34 AM, said:

It was just another gorilla, remember? How were these people to know that, over a century later, a bunch of folks who think they know everything would be arguing on a "telegraph line" about the creature?

Pish-posh. Even if it had been a gorilla or chimp that had somehow made its way to British Columbia, THAT would have been a marvel to behold for the people of that time and place, and someone would have photographed, or for crying out loud, at least sketched it.

1) You have no evidence and cannot prove that the creature was not photographed or sketched.

2) It may not have been photographed or sketched because of the wishes of the "owner" (whoever that was)

3) If it had been photograped or sketched and such "evidence" would have survived today with the newspaper account, what good would have done? Would you then be convinced?

Please. The lack of a sketch or photo doesn't mean squat **** to you. It's just another denial point.

Edited November 30, 2010 by Huntster

[Guest Bullfrog]

Anyone know the history of this sketch?

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.bigfoot-lives.com/assets/images/jacko.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.bigfoot-lives.com/html/historic_bigfoot_cases.html&h=513&w=392&sz=89&tbnid=a8yvGEKr6Y1u8M:&tbnh=131&tbnw=100&prev=/images%3Fq%3Djacko%2Bbigfoot&zoom=1&q=jacko+bigfoot&hl=en&usg=__Ese49WHYw6KvTwWWqyvaCHZIOM0=&sa=X&ei=c7f1TKSoC4-csQPbu8XACw&sqi=2&ved=0CB4Q9QEwAQ

I've seen it in association with Jacko, but I cannot find where it originated from.

[Guest Bullfrog]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photojournalism

According to the wikipedia article flashpowder wasn't developed until 1887. Without flashpowder, it would have been very difficult to pose a live, wild, man-sized ape in an outdoor setting to get a picture. Also, most photos of that era had to be printed with engravings. I notice that none of the copies of the newspapers we have reporting on Jacko have any pictures in them of anything (at least on the scanned pages we have). I doubt Victoria B.C. of the early 1880s was on the cutting edge of photojournalism. It seems unlikely that their paper would make engravings to print the picture of what they regarded as simply a curious animal.

Pish-posh. Even if it had been a gorilla or chimp that had somehow made its way to British Columbia, THAT would have been a marvel to behold for the people of that time and place, and someone would have photographed, or for crying out loud, at least sketched it.

I think you are presuming a 20-21st century knowledge of or interest in living great apes on a 19th century backwater frontier culture.

There's reason to doubt the Jacko story based on the allegation that several eyewitnesses went to see the creature only to find nothing was there. But a lack of a photograph, from this era in this place, doesn't seem like strong medicine to me as to whether Jacko was real.

[Guest]

Y'all underestimate the colonial era fascination with natural curiosities - this pursuit of natural history probably reached its zenith in the latter 19th Century. People would have been interested. People in Yale; people outside of Yale. As for photographs, there seem to have been plenty taken during the 1860s, why so hard to accept the likelihood of photography in the 1880s?

While a photograph might do it, a period drawing would not convince me that Jacko was literally real. But it might at least convince me that there was more to the story than something completely fabricated by the newspaper.

[Guest Spazmo]

Y'all underestimate the colonial era fascination with natural curiosities - this pursuit of natural history probably reached its zenith in the latter 19th Century. People would have been interested. People in Yale; people outside of Yale. As for photographs, there seem to have been plenty taken during the 1860s, why so hard to accept the likelihood of photography in the 1880s?

While a photograph might do it, a period drawing would not convince me that Jacko was literally real. But it might at least convince me that there was more to the story than something completely fabricated by the newspaper.

I think the issue isn't so much "why so hard to accept the likelihood of photography in the 1880's" as much as it is "hard to accept that this event (or any other of the time) was likely to have been photographed." In other words, yes there was photography then, but no, not everything (or even most things) got photographed. But the rest of your point is correct in that it is just as possible (possibly more so) that this was a newspaper stunt.

This is another account that will always be impossible to prove either way. It's a great story, one that I enjoy. But there's just no way to determine if it carries any weight historically, unfortunately.