Where the Footprints End:
High Strangeness and the Bigfoot Phenomenon
Volume 1 - Folklore
Dark Holler Arts (2020)
Eyewitnesses, investigators, and cryptozoologists worldwide contend ample evidence exists supporting the survival of large, hairy, apelike creatures alongside mankind today, lurking in the wilderness. By all appearances, these beings appear wholly natural, interacting with their surroundings and leaving behind hair, blood, droppings, and, of course, footprints.
Yet despite their apparently physical nature, bigfoot and its hairy hominid kin consistently appear mired in High Strangeness—the peculiar, ineffable, and nonsensical absurdities so often encountered in paranormal phenomena.
Some sightings seem more consistent with mythology than biology. Bigfoot often present supernatual attributes, like luminescent eyes or the ability to pass, ghostlike, through structures. Anomalous lights are regulalry seen in areas of frequent sasquatch activity. Footprints persistently, if rarely, display odd numbered toes, and—most bafflingly—bigfoot trackways suddenly terminate in the middle of open, untouched terrain.
In Volume 1 of Where the Footprints End: High Strangeness and the Bigfoot Phenomenon, authors Joshua Cutchin and Timothy Renner carefully examine not only the intersection of hairy apemen with global folklore—of poltergeists, faeries, extraterrestrials, magic, witches, ghosts, and archetypal women-in-white—but also question the fundamental assumptions underlying contemporary cryptozoological beliefs surrounding bigfoot.
Available from Dark Holler Arts
One of Loren Coleman's
"Top 20 Cryptozoology Books of 2020"
To directly purchase an autographed copy, click here.
PRAISE FOR WHERE THE FOOTPRINTS END - VOLUME 1:
"Magnificent... In paranormal literature especially, responsible scholarly circumspection is always warranted and is here exceedingly met... The text is authoritative while approachable, their research exhaustive but not exhausting. Together these two volumes should stand as the go-to texts for anyone interested in the more esoteric aspects of the bigfoot phenomenon. Essential."
​
— Eric Hoffmann, Fortean Times
​
"Impressively, even exhaustively researched, Where the Footprints End should give all students of the anomalous serious pause for thought. By documenting both the high strangeness that surrounds Bigfoot sightings, and the deep folklore in which they are embedded, Cutchin and Renner so far broaden the context of Bigfoot encounters that it is no longer possible to credit any single theory or literalistic interpretation concerning their nature. Indeed, we begin to suspect that the reality of Bigfoot is less a problem to be solved than a mystery to dissolve our view of reality itself. Here at last is the book that dear old Bigfoot deserves."
​
— Patrick Harpur, author of Daimonic Reality
​
"This book poses a danger to the foundations of cryptozoology. While mainstream Bigfoot investigators would have you believe that people are around the world are merely encountering a lost ape, Cutchin and Renner dig into the details they've swept under the rug, excavating countless Bigfoot reports involving glowing orbs, telepathic communication, and paranormal phenomena that have more in common with tales of ancient gods and alien abductions than they do with primatology. Meticulously researched and backed up with a treasure trove of footnotes, Where the Footprints End is poised to do for Bigfoot what Passport to Magonia did for UFOs."
​
— Greg Newkirk, director of The Traveling Museum of the Paranormal & the Occult
and executive producer and star of Hellier
"For many Sasquatch-seekers, the supernatural Bigfoot is the equivalent of the elephant in the room. But, not for Joshua and Timothy... For me, the most important thing about Where the Footprints End is the fact that its authors do make a fascinating case for their theory. There is no 'filler' here. The book is written in a coherent, careful fashion; it’s definitely not a sensational, over-the-top story for the tabloids at the local store. Rather, the book is filled with not just reports of Bigfoot and high-strangeness, but also with a great deal of history, well-thought-out theories, and an excellent appreciation and understanding of how folklore and reality can blend together in incredible ways... My hope, though, is that everyone who has an interest in the Bigfoot debate will read Where the Footprints End, and will dispatch that elephant in the room to pastures new and faraway, and come together. I really think this book has the potential to do that."
​
— Nick Redfern, author of The Bigfoot Book: The Encyclopedia of Sasquatch, Yeti and Cryptid Primates
​
"… what Josh and Tim are accomplishing with their book: it’s putting the range of phenomena umbrella-ed under ‘Bigfoot’ in dialogue with parapsychology and mythology and witch lore and spirit encounters and so on… It’s a fascinating catalogue of just how strange your cosmos can actually get when it wants to on the one level—and it’s a good read for that—but it will hopefully also assist in further comparative efforts across the various High Strange disciplines… definitely check it out.”
​
— Gordon White, author of Star.Ships and podcaster at Rune Soup
"Books like the aforementioned are an integral piece of the puzzle if we ever wish to get to the bottom of what is really taking place on this strange planet of ours, and perhaps what Vallee did for the UFO phenomenon, Cutchin & Renner could do for the Bigfoot Phenomenon. Overall Rating 4 Bigfeet out of 5!"
​
— Bryce Johnson, Bigfoot Collector's Club and Travel Channel's Expedition Bigfoot
​
"... this is not your typical book on the Bigfoot phenomenon. It’s simply not from the standard cryptozoological school of thought or presentation that attempts to establish the physical, biological 'missing link' presence of a kind of 'hairy apeman” out there on the global landscape, although the authors aren’t denying that such a creature could exist... What these two authors have done in this cryptozoological setting compares with what Jacques Vallee did with the publication in 1969 of his book Passport to Magonia, comparing faerie folklore with modern UFO entity encounters... This is a very well-written and thought-provoking volume that bears profound implications for this area of inquiry."
— Brent Raynes, editor of Alternate Perceptions magazine and author of John A. Keel: The Man, The Myths, and the Ongoing Mysteries
​
​
"Those familiar with Renner and Cutchin can expect the same careful research and deliberate thoughtfulness seen throughout their other works. Both authors take care to present only what is known—namely that the similarities between certain aspects of bigfoot reports and other anomalous phenomena are not only present, but striking—never straying into the dogmatic thinking which all-too-often haunts every aspect of fortean research… In true fortean fashion, this work isn’t about disallowing anyone’s hypothesis, but rather, asking the cryptozoological community to examine them all."
​
— Tobias & Emily Wayland, The Singular Fortean Society
​
​
"Where the Footprints End is eye-opening and just as important a book to the discussion of Sasquatch as Passport to Magonia is to the discussion of UFOs... I can’t wait for [Volume II] to come out. I want to know what other fascinating material these two have up their sleeves... John Keel would have liked this book. He’d probably have read it and shaken his head and laughed saying, 'I told you so.'"
​
— Barbara Fisher, Six Degrees of John Keel
​
"If you’re interested in Bigfoot, aliens/UFOs, and the history behind the beliefs we have about them today, this book is for you. Truly, it is really interesting to read about some of the data and theories being ignored by modern-day Bigfoot hunters."
​
— Alex Matsuo, The Spooky Stuff with Alex Matsuo