Word has gotten around on the Internet that Dr. Jeff Meldrum has passed away, after a long struggle with brain cancer.
Dr. Meldrum was professor of anatomy and anthropology at Idaho State University. He attained global notoriety when he stepped his toes in the murky waters of ‘Cryptozoology’—the study of undiscovered, mythical or assumed-extinct creatures—and joined ranks with the Ivan T. Sanderson, Grover Krantz, Jane Goodall, and the rest of a small cadre of academics who take the existence of a group of giant primates roaming the Pacific Northwest (a.k.a. Bigfoot or Sasquatch) seriously.
As a scientific authority in bipedal locomotion, Meldrum took a forensic approach when analyzing the evidence gathered by Bigfoot hunters—mainly in the form of casts obtained from the alleged footprints left the by the roaming beast—bringing scholarly legitimacy into a field disregarded by his peers, and the public at large.
To Meldrum, the features his expert eyes noticed in some of these prints—dermal ridges, locked joints, etc—were too complex to have been forged by lay pranksters and attention seekers; therefore, he concluded, they must have been left by a living being. A conclusion that turned him into a sort of pariah in academic circles.
“There was actually this little moment where this angel sits on my shoulder and says, ‘Do you really want to go down this path?’ and the devil on the other shoulder says, ‘How could you not?’”
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Aside from writing half a dozen books like Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science, Meldrum appeared on numerous TV shows and documentaries. He even appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast eleven years ago, back when the future podcasting superstar was starring the TV show Joe Rogan Questions Everything (my how times have changed, haven’t they?). In that interview, Meldrum explained to Joe his idea of surveilling Bigfoot’s purported habitat with dirigible drones; an experiment that sadly never managed to get off the ground.
Meldrum devoted his life and career exploring the fringes of knowledge, without losing his footing on proper scientific methodology—which makes him a hero to The Daily Grail.
Descanse en Paz.
