Impossible Visits

The recent earth-shaking announcement by Melba Ketchum that Sasquatch DNA has finally been sequenced emerges from a years-long study of hair, blood and tissue samples obtained at various "habituation sites"-places with which members of this primate species have become familiar.

Until very recently, our only publicly shared knowledge of Sasquatch came through reports of chance encounters and fleeting glimpses by eyewitnesses, as well as the rare piece of video or film footage. Yet meanwhile, throughout North America, certain people have been patiently and privately building a much more nuanced, long-term understanding, seeking-in the great and humane tradition of Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey-to learn from this evasive, shrewd and tricky hominid race.

Now, Impossible Visits fills in this background story-the groundbreaking work of ordinary (and unsung) human beings who have experienced and fostered, sometimes for decades, consistent Sasquatch visitations to their homes and properties. This species has survived alongside Homo sapiens, down through the eons, thanks to enormous stealth, maintaining a necessary margin of physical distance. The "habituators" have succeeded, not in bridging this distance, but in establishing a rapport that allows for the regular exchange of food and gifts, and even occasional clear daylight sightings.

One by one, and in concert, these accounts will help to assemble a solid, highly textured infrastructure of knowledge against the day when a specimen body is "harvested"-as nearly transpired in the 2010 "Sierra Kills" incident. At this time, the media will attempt to spike ratings by provoking hysteria among the general public: It's "Rise of the Planet of the Apes"...FOR REAL!

But dead giants tell no tales, so the key will be for a variety of level-headed sources to exist, where all accumulated insight can reveal the intelligence and civility of our zoological cousin, helping to erect a legal barrier between Sasquatch and its would-be trophy hunters.

Impossible Visits is the only book to open windows onto multiple habituation sites, to show-through rich, first-person testimonials and the author's own field notes-the nature and behavior of these fringe-dwelling neighbors.

Christopher Noel lives with his daughter in Vermont, where he runs the artists' colony Tall Rock Retreat (TallRockRetreat.com). He is the author of five books of fiction and nonfiction, including the acclaimed memoir, In The Unlikely Event of a Water Landing: A Geography of Grief. He is a freelance editor and writing coach (ChristopherNoel.info) and is currently editing an anthology, Speaking of Sasquatch: Writers Respond to the New Natural Order; you can submit work for consideration at ImpossibleVisits.com