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I'll go one more Mark, it's not just "believers" they try to "educate" but witnesses too. These people endlessly are basically calling me and others liars/mentally ill/deluded etc, daily, and that's not good and that gets to me. I'm glad i've mellowed in my old age or else i'd have been banned long ago given the stuff that gets spewed out by these people over, and over, and over, and over again. They can't accept that some people have seen these things, continually tell them that they're wrong both directly and indirectly, slip in endless sarcastic remarks on a forum dedicated to the very subject and yet they're the one's who talk about cultish behaviour. It's mad.

So nothing specific just your feelings and opinion. Shoot- I was looking for something objective.

I'm going to just start posting actionable ideas to this thread. Contributions from others would be most welcome. Idea # 1 was to organize local groups like Hackerspaces. They're basically clubs that are loosely connected using a central legally structured Nonprofit "head office" (which is actually how the NFL works) and member dues are paid and used to lease local meeting places + buy equipment usable by all members. Local Groups and collectives of nearby groups can pool their resources to pay for training by experts and to pay for ongoing field activities or even to manage habituation areas if that is what the group decides upon. The structure of the group is up to the group itself, but something fairly democratic that discourages political games and promotes scientific rigor would probably work best. Idea #2: Training and Standard Operating Procedures. http://keepingtrack.org/wildlife-monitoring-programs is a good place to start. An NRA safety course and a tracking course should probably also be required - even if members don't intend to "Shoot1", that course would make them safer around members who do. Training could be provided by commercial courses/seminars, consultants or highly skilled group members. An organized workshop / camping trip to teach basic outdoor skills might be in order, and large scale / nationwide group-buys of commonly used items / standardized packing lists could be made to equip members with the essentials (tents, sleeping bags, etc.) Actually purchases could be organized in such a way that they fund the head office (through an online affiliate store).

Overall, I see the point you are trying to make, albeit a rather dull one. But I must ask, in the realm of scientific inquiry, does testing 30 samples, collected from random folks from the public (not sure of where you got the impression all of the samples came with a chain of custody), constitute a serious investigation of the topic?

It reinforces my opinion that current research practices, unfortunately, just don't cut it and a complete overhaul with what is done in the field needs to be considered. And I have every respect for anyone who attempts to get dirty in the field looking for evidence of this animals existence, but current methods just aren't good enough. And I will bite on this one. Remember, what I saw was not a bear, not a Gorilla, not any known animal or not a man and all I'm left with is thousands of sightings describing the same thing that I saw. That's all I'm left with and the only conclusion I can personally make, what I saw is the same as what is written about in thousands of sighting reports in North America. Just because a Professor tested x amount of samples with no positive results in any doesn't change my personal opinion that this animal exists one little iota. If I had other options regarding what I saw that day I'd be all ears, but I don't have any.