Is Bigfoot living in Britain? Despite being associated with the vast woodlands of the North West United States, there have been increasing numbers of reports of large hairy hominids abroad in the UK – and not just in remote woodlands and forests. “I was sat watching the TV one evening during the first lockdown and I just couldn’t get the feeling that I was being watched,” recalls Odette Wandler, a self-employed trout stretcher from Staines. “I looked up and there were these glowing eyes peering through the living room window! I leapt up from the sofa and ran to the back door to confront what I thought was a regular peeping Tom, but when I threw the door open, I saw this huge hairy shape lumbering away from the window – it was clearly Bigfoot, or a very close cousin!” The beast didn’t immediately retreat from the garden of Wandler’s terraced house, allowing her a good look at the creature. “When I ran outside, the bugger was still there, apparently taking a piss behind the raspberry canes,” she says. “He was definitely humanoid, over six feet tall, apparently naked and covered in thick, matted fur.” The creature finally left Wandler’s property after she chased it with a broom. “He just crashed through the wooden fence at the end of the garden and ran off,” Wandler claims. “The last I saw of him, he was running down the back alley, weaving in between the bins.”

Wandler’s sighting of the elusive hominid has stirred excitement in the world of British cryptozoology, not so much because of the beast’s appearance in the UK but because it occurred in an urban area. “This is one of an increasing number of such urban Bigfoot visitations,” declares Harold Hemp, East Berkshire’s top cryptozoologist. “Bigfoot is a creature of the woodlands and wilderness, yet more and more sightings seem to be in built up areas – particularly since lockdown.” Indeed, Hemp has recently been investigating another local Bigfoot sighting, this time in Earley, Reading. “Again, it was during lockdown, last June – a pair of girls were sunbathing in their back garden, when they felt they were being watched,” he explains. “They also became aware of what sounded like heavy breathing and low moaning coming from the shrubbery at the back of the garden. Naturally, they assumed that it was a neighbour spying on them, but when they turned a garden hose on the shrubbery, this huge hairy man-shaped thing crashed out of it and climbed over the fence to escape!” One of the girls involved spoke to the Earley Paranormal Times about the encounter. “It was all that heavy breathing and moaning which was most disturbing,” she told the publication. “I’d swear that the bastard was masturbating as he watched us rub sun cream onto our bodies.”

Other experts believe that this latest spate of British Bigfoot sightings is far from unusual. “Sightings of Bigfoot-like creatures in the UK have a rich history,” says top Fortean investigator Arnold Pox. “While not as well known as those ubiquitous ‘big cats’ that supposedly stalk the British countryside, there nevertheless have been numerous alleged sightings of a hairy ape-man type creature known variously as The Shug-Monkey, the Beast of Bolam, the Big Grey Man, the Man-Monkey, and the Wild Man of Orfor, depending upon the locale. These locales range from Cornwall to the Scottish Highlands.” Pox also believes that urban sightings of Bigfoot have precedence. “Of course, one of the objections to idea of such a creature existing, undetected, in the UK is the country’s lack of any equivalent to the vast forests of the North West US, or even the mountain ranges of Tibet, where its cousin the Yeti supposedly resides,” he muses. “Yet, the fact that modern Britain is increasingly urbanised doesn’t seem to bother the British Bigfoot, which has been spotted in the likes of Kent and Sussex, both pretty densely populated counties – and now he has turned up in Staines and Reading.”

But what is driving this British Bigfoot out his natural environment of remote woodlands into towns and cities? Harold Hemp believes that it could be down to these natural environments shrinking, as urban sprawl increases and more land goes under the plough. “It is the same with much of our wildlife,” he ponders. “Nowadays you are just as likely to find foxes rummaging through your dustbin in the town for food as you are to find them raiding chicken coops on rural farms. It is clearly the same with Bigfoot – I’ve no doubt that he has been straying into gardens as he hunts for food in bins.” Pox, however, has a somewhat different take on the situation. “We mustn’t ignore the common thread in these latests sightings: not only did they took place during lockdown, but both involved nudity,” he explains. “Miss Wandler is a naturist and habitually wanders around her house in a state of undress, while the two sunbathing girls were topless. In both cases bared female breasts were on display and Bigfoot is a known voyeur.” It is the search for more opportunities to ogle women’s breasts which, Pox contends, has brought Bigfoot into Britain’s towns and cities. “Look, just about every Bigfoot movie I’ve seen features buxom female teenagers hiking in US forests and taking their tops off. As far as I can make out, it is the sight of naked female breasts that attracts Bigfoot – it is the only time they attack and they always go for the exposed knockers,” he says. “Let’s face it, in drizzly, overcast Britain, there is no way that local woman are going to be getting their norks out in the woods on a regular basis. Not only that, but this year lockdown has reduced the possibility of seeing naked knockers in the woods even more – but with everyone stuck at home, there has been a prevalence of them in urban areas.”

Other experts have dismissed the Bigfoot reports altogether, insisting that they have far more mundane explanations. “The same objections that undermine the existence of those alleged big cats apply to Bigfoot – a lack of a suitable food supply, for one,” opines noted sceptic Bob Mincer, senior lecturer in Wall Paper Studies at the East Grinstead Craft Institute, “If there really were these large predators wandering around the British countryside, then I’m pretty sure that we’d have regular reports of farmers losing large numbers of livestock. It is the same with Bigfoot – there is no way that a breeding population of these hominid could possibly exist undetected on an island as populous as Britain.” Mincer believes that most British Bigfoot sightings are the result of the overactive imaginations of Britons who found themselves with too much time on their hands during lockdown. “Personally, I suspect that British Bigfoot sightings have a lot to do with too many childhood readings of Stig of the Dump,” he muses. “That and an increasing number of hairy homeless people being forced to live in the woods as a result of austerity over the past ten years, desperate for food and sexual stimulation.”