Reported sightings of Bigfoot, a legendary apelike creature, have abounded for decades but no hard evidence of the creature's existence has been found.
Joshua Stevens, a doctoral candidate at Pennsylvania State University, used data compiled by the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organisation (BFRO), which tries to document "the presence of an animal, probably a primate, that exists today in very low population densities," according to the group's website.
Stevens converted the BFRO data and, using geographic-information software, plotted 3,313 data points showing where people have claimed to see Bigfoot also known as Sasquatch, 'LiveScience' reported.
"There are distinct regions where sightings are incredibly common, despite a very sparse population. On the other hand, in some of the most densely populated areas, Sasquatch sightings are exceedingly rare. The terrain and habitat likely play a major role in the distribution of reports," Stevens said.
The map, which uses reports from 1921 to 2012, shows a plethora of supposed sightings in the Pacific Northwest, the Ohio River Valley, central Florida, the Sierra Nevada mountain range and the Mississippi River Valley.
Stevens' analysis also includes a chronological timeline showing a rise in reported sightings in the late 1970s. Another spike in reported Bigfoot sightings occurred between 2000 and 2009.
