The elusive and mysterious sasquatch might have the power to temporarily freeze anyone who spots it in the woods.
Bigfoot witness and subsequent researcher Matt Pruitt believes wildmen can panic people into temporary paralysis.
Speaking on Andy McGrath's Beastly Theories podcast, Matt who claims to have been chased by Sasquatch on a camping trip, explains how the monster stops witnesses in their tracks.
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Matt points to mankind's evolution from prey animals who would react to threats by going completely still, something known as tonic immobility.
He told Andy: "Our smallest ancestors, the little rodent-sized primates that lived primarily in trees, they were hunted by mostly snakes, cats and birds, all of which hunt by motion.
"And so the animals which remain motionless in their presence survived, you know the freezing response. Tonic immobility."
Matt continued to say that theories on how sasquatch has such an effect on people, have chopped and changed over the years from spiritual energy to telepathy.
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"One of the things people believe about sasquatch is that they somehow have the power to incapacitate you," he said. "It was previously thought to be some kind of spiritual energy or thought to be telepathy and now they catch onto the idea of infrasound because infrasound is a real, natural phenomenon.
"And they use that as an explanatory mechanism to describe the same effect. It sounds more sciencey so people couch it under that."
Matt believes that when humans have 'frozen' in front of Sasquatch it has not been anything to do with the beast's power, rather our own brains being triggered by a perceived threat.
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He said: "What's really occurring here is that you have this involuntary response, it's involuntary you can't overpower it.
"These involuntary, automated mechanisms are way more sophisticated and selected for than your rational mind and your reasoning.
"So it's no wonder that people thought this animal could something to you that you were powerless against."
Andy replied: "It's like a bypass for your brain, like a trip switch."
It is this argument that makes the pair empathetic to people who claim to have seen the likes of Bigfoot because regardless of what they saw, their reaction is every much real.
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Matt added: "And it's those very things that I think people so often are like, 'this witness described being paralysed by a sasquatch at a distance, hogwash, throw it out'
"No they're describing something that was experientially accurate or phenomenologically accurate they just don't understand the mechanism so we should offer more charitable takes.
"Just in general interpreting testimonies is so difficult for that reason because there's so many different factors that go into that and it's easy to dismiss a lot of those things when they don't necessarily align with our preconceptions."
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