"I understand the fascination with Bigfoot," says filmmaker Marq Evans, whose documentary Capturing Bigfoot drew rave reviews at the SXSW Film & TV Festival last month. "It's a mystery. Everybody loves a mystery. Although to some people, it's not a mystery. They've seen it; it's proven. And there's nothing that you can tell them to say otherwise."
It was the image that launched a cultural icon. In 1967, in the Northern California woods, a 7-foot-tall, ape-like creature covered in black fur and walking upright was captured on camera, at one point turning around to look straight down the lens. The image is endlessly copied in popular culture-it's even become an emoji. But what was it? A hoax? A bear? Or a real-life example of a mysterious species called the Bigfoot?
A strange urban legend that continues to captivate some religious communities has connected the Bible's first murderer to the mythical creature Bigfoot. Over the years, some members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, better known as the Mormons, have shared an unsubstantiated story linking Bigfoot to Cain, the eldest son of Adam and Eve. The decades-old theory has claimed Bigfoot is actually Cain, who was doomed to roam the earth forever as a hairy, mysterious creature after receiving a biblical curse.