The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary has this to say about “belief.”

Main Entry: be·lief
Function: noun: “a degree of conviction of the truth of something esp. based on a consideration or examination of the evidence”

Without trying to go all religious here, many of you may remember a story from the New Testament in which a man comes to Jesus and utters these significant words: “Lord, I believe. Help thou, my unbelief.”

I would guess that nearly everyone who reads this essay might say that he or she believes there is such a creature we affectionately call bigfoot or sasquatch. As Merriam-Webster puts it, the “degree of conviction” we each possess is where we likely differ, in other words, our level of “unbelief.”

In the fall of 2005, I was fortunate to be interviewed for both print and electronic media articles. The reporter and I got into the question about “belief” during one of those newspaper interviews. Fortunately for me, I had already thought this through enough to really understand and know what I believe. What wound up being printed in that newspaper article basically went like this:

You can break down where a person stands on belief into four distinctly different levels.

1. Does not believe any such creature exists.
2. Believes it is “possible” they do exist, but not sure that they do.
3. Believes they certainly do, but can provide no proof, so can only offer opinion.
4. Not only believes they do, but knows they do, having had a first hand sighting encounter.

Now, some of you here are “Level 4 believers,” and how I sincerely envy you. I really do. You have left the realm of belief to a place where “a degree of conviction of the truth” has become knowledge of the truth. That, I believe, is why we are all here in the first place.

It is not enough for me to know sasquatch exists, simply because my son and a couple friends had a nighttime encounter in October of 2003. I know what happened that night. I know how he and his friends acted the night they saw a creature. I know the things I have heard, smelled and seen as evidence of some unknown presence at our family’s farm. I know that I have read endless reports of other peoples encounters, many including a visual sighting. However, for all I can say I know, I still cannot sit here with intellectual honesty and tell you that I know sasquatch exists, because I have not seen one with my own eyes. That is the biggest problem you—well most of you—and I both share.

As a “Level 3 believer,” I firmly believe sasquatch exists. In fact, I find it completely unbelievable that in the light of thousands and thousands of firsthand eyewitness reports, scattered over hundreds of years, that anyone could not at least believe that these creatures exist. However, therein lies the heart of the matter.

As human beings, we all have subtle and critical differences in how we process the information we acquire. This even applies to things we often refer to as “truth.” You and I could witness an event and correctly retell a series of actions identically, but the significance of those events and the biases we possess will often result in coming to completely different conclusions, despite having the same pieces of information. This is the wall we’re up against in the arena of sasquatch research.

You and I both believe they exist. We have seen a large number of reports and read nearly everything out there that has any sense of credibility. We have formed opinions and ideas about something that most of us have never even seen. We speculate on what it must surely be, and what we would do if we ever came face-to-face with one. Moreover, those ideas are so wide and far ranging that we often wind up doing battle with each other over something we have never seen or can prove has any connection to those popularly held beliefs. Can you believe that?

I cannot imagine why anyone who is involved with sasquatch research would do so if they’re at that first level of no belief. I suppose there are some researchers and investigators out there who do not believe at all, and that’s fine. However, why waste your time trying to prove something does not exist, when the burden of proof is on those of us who do?

Maybe “those” Level 1’ers are really closet Level 2’ers?

Oh great! Now we have a completely new level to insert in there somewhere. I don’t “be-lieve” it.