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Do you honestly find it impossible that the people making later reports have simply read the earlier reports? I'm not saying that that HAS happened, but it seems obtuse in the extreme to deny that it could have. Of course, many have admitted to their reports being hoaxes. Equally obviously, we only continue to talk about the ones where people haven't. " It's also circular to argue that all reports must be from people lying and making mistakes, " I am not arguing that. I'm saying that you can't argue either way, as Bigfoot either exists, or it doesn't. Both these cases could produce the spread of reports we see.

A reports stands or falls on the credibility of the witness. Therefore all anonymous reports can be dismissed. However difficult you believe it is to read other reports and come up with something consistent to them (and it really isn't that difficult) then the 'better' reports are simply the ones that have done a better job of this.Some are bound to do a better job than others. Remember also when talking about statistics that reports do not come from a random sample of people. They come from the following : 1. People who are willing to make up stories about seeing Bigfoot 2. People who are prone to misidentify other things as Bigfoot 3. People who have actually seen Bigfoot. It is my belief that there are easily enough people in America falling into 1 and 2, that we don't need to postulate a 3 in order to arrive at the number of sighting reports we have. If Bigfoot exists, then we will have a group 3, but you cannot use the claimed existence of a group 3 as evidence for Bigfoot's existence. That's circular.

In the 1800s, where you could round up a posse and shoot wild beasts and cattle rustlers, many towns/areas tried to do exactly that Some more recent reports include admissions that the witness shot at the bigfoot - a bit astounding given that "I thought I was shooting at bigfoot" is unlikely to be a viable defense to manslaughter or negligent homicide Both historical and more recent reports include witnesses who lined up a shot but wouldn't (couldn't?) pull the trigger because they could not clearly rule out that the target was a human being - not likely to have that problem w/buffalo, elephants, rhinos, etc. A few reports include the witness's observation that they knew that their weapon was the wrong weapon and that they expected to die or made a (rational?) decision that not shooting (the wrong weapon) was the best course of action. As a whole, not sure I'd characterize all of this as an odd reluctance to put one down.... regards...

Dmaker, Using, for the sake of argument, the example of the prolonged, unobstructed viewing of an animal moving swiftly through difficult terrain (deep snow covered by ice) that slows humans down to a slog, and which ends with the animal that looks a lot like a large, upright primate w/in spittin' distance of the witness - who has a weapon, but rationally decides that, "nope, I need a bigger weapon and I'm not gonna' shoot this thing and tick it off" - leaves us with the following possibilities: The person saw a large, upright ape - it's possible Misidentification - seems to be ruled out by the prolonged, and ultimately close-up, viewing of the critter Hoax (played on an unsuspecting victim) - seems to be ruled out by the difficult terrain that limits a human's ability to run rapidly and the relatively poor decision of pulling a hoax on a person armed with a weapon (and who is not in on the hoax) Hallucination (an unknowing falsehood) - I'm not a psychologist but that's either a heckuva hallucination or I want some of what he's smoking; I'll grant that its possible for a limited number of people to experience such explicit hallucinations w/o realizing that its not real, but I it seems unlikely that there are enough such individuals to account for the numerous reports Hoax (by perpetrator) or flat out lie - I'm sure that there are reports/"evidence" that are knowing and deliberate lies (or knowing and deliberate decisions to ignore the more plausible explanation, i.e., an elk wallow held out as bigfoot eating fruit Roman style) but.... Lies are easy to tell the first time but difficult to maintain. I would love for a psychologist who has clinical experience (and the requisite knowledge of professional studies) to weigh in on this as I only have anectdotal information, old age, and experience to draw on. I would probably end up typing for an hour (or more), but I'll just leave it at two points. First, its equally illogical to dismiss an account as a lie, without more, as it is to accept every account as truthful, without more. Second, the easiest lie to get away with is a simple lie told by a single person. When a lot of people are trying to tell a lie to support each other's lies (w/o coordinating their stories), the lie has to revolve around the easiest points to remember & synchronize. While I'm new to this particular rodeo (bigfootery), that's not what appears to be happening. Don't expect to convert you, but I'll put out that there's probable cause that bigfoot exists - that is, a reasonable man, considering all the available evidence, could conclude that bigfoot exists. Another reasonable man, considering the same evidence, might conclude differently, but that does not necessarily mean that either has made an objectively wrong decision with the information available at that time.... Cheers, (edited twice to try and clean up the columns and make it readable)