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This has become a matter of great interest to my friends in Ladakh who specialize in the conservation of snow leopard. There is some hope the extreme UV radiation at their altitude (10,000' to 15,000' in winter) limits the viral spread.

Both of these theories seem sound, given that I did some swaying on a hike a long time ago, both to improve my vision of an object and to calm my nerves. No bs, there I was (if I may digress, that's how many veterans start their war stories; the difference between a war story and a fairy tale is that the latter starts with "once upon a time"). So, no bs, there I was at the end of a long (12 miles) hike through the Black Rock state forest in the lower Hudson Valley. https://www.blackrockforest.org/. Like most parks there are a lot of short, heavily trafficked trails for the tourists and longer ones which the locals know - mine was longer because I started from my house and hiked 2-3 miles just to get to the park. I'm on the return trip when I casually look to my right and about 75-100 yards away in the woods is ... A freaking African lion, female I presume, because there is no huge mane. But I can clearly see the beautiful tawny yellow-brown fur of the head and ears peaking up just above some brush looking at me. I stop dead in my tracks facing the lion. I stare at the lion. The lion stares at me. I'm telling myself that there is no way an African lion is in the woods of rural, nearly suburban, southern New York. But I can see it. But I know that it can't be an African lion. So I started shifting my position to the left and right, trying to get a better view. (I didn't want to make any sudden moves and startle it or invite it over for dinner.) Meanwhile, I'm using the time to collect my wits (not many, I know), but all I am still seeing is a lion. But the lion isn't moving. So I take one or two small sidesteps and/or blink and I am suddenly looking at ... the butt end of a recently sawed down tree. I had looked at from just the right angle to hide the trunk of the tree, the stump was covered by shrubs and brush, and the downed crown of the tree blended into the background brush. The trunk wasn't perfectly circular, so I "saw" ears and there were some defects in the wood that I perceived as "eyes." I cursed and laughed at myself the whole way home, thankful that I had worn my brown pants (I'll put the full joke in the Tar Pit). On another walk in town, I saw a 10-12' foot tall extremely skinny person walking toward me. I knew he had to be really tall because the speed limit sign behind him only reached to just under his armpit. As we walked closer together, the angle of my vision changed, the speed limit sign disappeared behind the dip in the road which I knew was there, and he was just a regular guy again. No swaying that time, but I certainly slowed up just a minute when I first say this "alien."

I have not read many but the "Impossible Visits" book is really good in my opinion. The next few books are basically copies of it with maybe a little more info. He later fell for the Rick Dyer shooting bigfoot hoax and put it in a book. I certainly skipped that one. I still like a lot of his ideas. You can find his videos online here https://www.youtube.com/@impossiblevisits/videos Just be aware that you'll also find woo here. I'm good with that, but I know some are not. People should not ignore all the content just because they may not believe some of it. I sort of think he may be a member of this forum, but have not seen him post anything for a very long time.

Don't know if anyone has ever read the books by Christopher Noel, "Sasquatch and Autism: 12 parallels", but he brings up some pretty interesting similarities between autistic savants and sasquatch.

@wiiawiwb Generally speaking, it would indeed not difficult to distinguish these if that was what you were intending to do. However, in practice: 1) If DNA is sufficiently degraded, it can indeed become very difficult if not impossible to distinguish closely related species (e.g., you might be able to tell that a sequence is from Hominidae ("great apes") but not which one). 2) For cost and efficiency, scientists often use less discriminating tests and analytical short cuts. Since in North America, only Homo sapiens are the only known (native) Hominidae (and since there are so many of us everywhere), findings of Hominidae sequences would be assumed to be human; no one would typically bother to look more deeply.

Let me start by saying I know almost nothing as it relates to DNA processing and results. Having said that, why is it nearly impossible to distinguish near human from degraded human? If a DNA sample was determined to be 99% human, why would the issue of degraded come into play? For example, I think chimps share ~98.5% similar DNA with humans but we don't call that result degraded.

Not sure what the swaying or rocking is. My guess is nervousness as it sees us and knows we're in its midst. Myself an a sasquatching buddy were once at a secluded pond for an overnight adventure. I glassed the pond with a flashlight (Tiablo A-9 with an aspheric lens) and at one end saw red eyeshine watching me. The eyes were swaying back and forth for a minute or two. The distance of the sway was far too wide to be an owl, which doesn't display that behavior to begin with. The next year, we did an overnight bringing another sasquatch enthusiast with us to the same pond. Quite surprisingly, we had red eyeshine looking at us and moving about at the same end of the pond. That was the last time the newly-minted sasquatching friend ever stayed in the woods overnight. He was frightened all evening saying he knew he shouldn't have come. Haha.

I'm uncomfortable with the autism analogy. Along the history of more or less scientific bigfootery there has been a constant effort to prove ourselves different and superior to them. It demonstrates an inner bigotry and a subconscious need to prove our superiority, not merely notice differences of tool use, fire use, and so on based on differences in need. Visceral squirm. MIB

Swaying could be consistent with the autistic personality theory re: sasquatch too, can be one of the traits of autism. Not rocking or stimming necessarily but possibly a self-soothing mechanism to alleviate anxiety if there is a recognized human approach, incident or encounter. The night of my sighting I could make out the glide, don't remember swaying but nervous head movements back and forth seen.