LETTERS

Protecting Bigfoot

Regarding ‘Hunting Bigfoot’, in “Creatures on the Loose” [FT405:26]: adopting Justin Humphrey’s position on the reality of Bigfoot, surely one would be required to establish its nature before designating it a suitable subject for the huntsman. If it is a remnant of an ancient Homo (no jokes, please) species, then surely it must be off-limits. If it is anything else, such as an unknown or hybrid bear or primate, then I firmly believe it should still be off-limits. I have read about Victorian explorers sighting rare animals and promptly shooting them. I’m not sure how much truth there is in these accounts, but I feel the last thing we should be doing is resurrecting this behaviour. As it says in the limerick ‘The Bigfoot Hunter’ (wot I wrote):

A creature came out of the mist,
And he grabbed me quite hard by the wrist.
He said, “Listen to me:
I will let you go free,
If you say that we just don’t exist.”

• I enjoyed ‘Don’t Forget The Y-Files’ by Jenny Randles [FT405:29] and her point that investigators “have a duty of care” to the witnesses. This prompts me to make a point about the supposedly dismissive comments sometimes attributed to experts. For example, sometimes an astronomer will suggest the aerial wotnot could have been the planet Venus, or a meteorologist will suggest a weather phenomenon, whereas the witness’s description would appear to discount this. The point is that if you consult an expert, you are asking for an answer based on their area of expertise, so it seems somewhat unfair to denigrate them. We should have a duty of care to the experts, too.

Dave Miles

By email

Plath and Ouija

Re the feature on a poem derived from Ouija board sessions []: Sylvia Plath was a Ouija fan. In the Notes section of the Faber and Faber , there is “Dialogue over a Ouija Board: A verse Dialogue”. This was never intended for public consumption