Description Of "bigfoot"

[Guest parnassus]

who is John Green? does he know anything about bigfoot claims? hmmmmm...

Chapter title: Twice as big as a man, from Bigfoot: On the track of the Sasquatch.

Eight feet seems to be about right for a monster. It's big enough to be impressive but not so big as to cause much controversy. A gorilla with manlike legs could be that tall. A few men have been even taller. Science rejects the idea that there is such a thing as a Sasquatch at all, but doesn't raise much objection to an eight-footer as a structural possibility.

It would be comfortable, therefore, if one could assume that a full-grown Sasquatch is eight feet tall and leave it at that. For years that's about what has been done. From time to time someone will claim to have seen something that was 10 feet tall, or 12, or 14, but everyone just assumes that they are mistaken....Guesses usually run between 400 and 800 pounds, or even as low as 300. .....there are two recent reports in which people have given estimates of heights well in excess of 10 feet, and in each case more than one person was involved and they had both the time and the means to work out what amounts to a measurement rather than a guess..."a stone's throw away." They scaled it against the trees where it was standing and decided that it was twice the height of a man. One thought it was from 10 to 12 feet tall, the other 12 to 14....in 1968...20 miles west of Nordegg, Alberta...the number of men watching the creature increased to five. ....two of the men went over to the place where the thing had been, while the others watched from below. ..had noted its height in relation to trees in the bsckground...men in the same place appeared only about one third as high....they decided that it must have been at least 12 feet high, probably 15 feet.....I went to the site a week after the creature was seen and looked the area over as well as talking to the men...this should leave little margin for errors in the comparison. If the thing looked to be three times as high as the men against the trees, then that's how high it was...covered the distance [about 3/4 mile] in less than two minutes.[probably around 30 mph.]

But what does this John Green guy know about bigfoot reports and the consensus Bigfoot, eh Bill? By the way, Bill, I would just suggest that you not get so...well... excited about me and what I post. Not that I care one way or the other except that it sets a bad example. Then the whole thread goes to pot. Posts get cut, thread get closed, you know.....I guess you think that I have wronged you in some way. Again, plz respond to my PM. I hate to just bring this discussion into the forum but since you won't respond to PMs what choice do I have?

[Bill]

parnassus:

Thank you for your contribution.

I've reached a point where i'll let each viewer of this topic make up their own mind as to what issues and ideas are worthy of their time.

I've argued as much as i can. and said all I feel I need to say.

Best regards,

Bill

[Guest Jodie]

So this really wasn't about describing bigfoot was it?

[Guest RedRatSnake]

Sometimes i think this whole subject is it's own monster.

Tim ~

[Guest Blackdog]

So this really wasn't about describing bigfoot was it?

No it wasn't.

[Guest HucksterFoot]

Interesting topic. Which leads me to ask; why wouldn't what is presumably a very closely related species to modern humans also share the one trait that we seem to express better than almost any other: morphological diversity.

As for the 9 types, or species (species being a definition that to a significant degree depends on the use to which it is being applied) of sasquatch, just as it was with C.Hart Merriam,the world's greatest authority on Ursus Arctos just a few decades ago, who fully believed that there were something like 30 different species of brown bear in North America alone, we can either be splitters or clumpers. I prefer to be curious about them and am open to their being numerous adaptations but not necessarily adaptations that make one population so distinct it is beyond genetic crossing. Cheers.

One has to just imagine, and I mean quite literally. :]

As for the bolded part:

Maybe we have some ring species going on with the California Bigfoot. Anyways, there is some big gaps to fill when it comes to Bigfoot species and any possible Bigfoot speciation - Bigfoot that move, evolve geographically separated. :]

Edited to add: Extra oomph and emphasis to the gap part.

Edited December 13, 2011 by HucksterFoot

[Bill]

This discussion took a curious turn with a particular emphasis on the issue of a straw man falicy, and my suggestion paranassus may be offering such an argumentative trick in his post that I quoted in the OP and repeat here, from his Post 774 of the "Ketchum Report" thread in General Discussions.

In that OP, I quoted parnassus and suggested some straw man falicy might be occurring with the following quote of his:

"*9 feet tall, 500 lbs, runs 30 mph on two legs or 4, glowing eyes, conical head, covered with hair, non opposable thumbs, no fire or tools, midtarsal break, 4-6 toes, strangely shaped feet, no neck, no clothes, no shelters, non modern human proportions, etc

The discussion seemed to diverge into some indignation that I was inappropriate in suggesting a fellow member might use such a tactic. Where on earth did I get such an idea? Who could have put that thought into my head?

Well, parnassus himself can be credited with inspiring my concern, because he is perhaps the most persistent user of that phrase in it's variations, and levels the accusation or suspicion against fellow forum members with intriguing regularity.

So just for the record, I thought it may be appropriate to show one and all how often parnassus has used the phrase just in the earlier posts of that Ketchum thread, before I noted his quote and thought he may be doing so. I wouldn't even attempt to catalogue how often he's used the phrase in other forum activity.

All the below are exact quotes from postings by parnassus, with post number cited for reference.

post 76

parnassus said: "Oh, and your not even thinly veiled straw man is probably not appreciated by Dr. Ketchum"

Post 305

parnassus said: "Now, let the mind-reading, deducting, grudge-bearing, starw men and red-herrings continue"

Post 528

parnassus said: "That's just another straw man."

Post 543

parnassus said: ""Now you can go ahead and resume your strawmanning and scatological references and dreams of 33% chimp"

Post 768

parnassus said: "And spare us the straw man stuff where you make up words."

It seems any indignation of my using the phrase in appraising the actions of parnassus is curiously absent when he uses the phrase in regard to the postings of others here.

Just thought the issue should be brought into focus, so we can see who has the greater propensity to claim others are using that argumentative tactic.

Curious too, that a man who so readily accuses others of the tactic is himself so apparently insensed if someone thinks he is doing so.

Jodie brought up a fair question about the intent of the OP, and I will concede that I was in error in setting up an OP with two potentially different issues. I hoped it would go toward the positive, but it did not. My mistake for writing the OP as I did. Please accept my apology. I will try to structure any future thread openings on one focused topic and less potential to diverge in a way unintended.

Bill

[Guest]

Makes me wonder what the moderator edited out.

A fair question IMO. The only edited content was the following phrase...

You must be hopeless.

Nothing nefarious. Still, as written and in perceptual context, it presented a form of name-calling and was a bit too personal with the word *You* being included.

Perfectly acceptable posit if worded more carefully.

[HOLDMYBEER]

Can we just put a match to this straw man debate and get on with the topic? I really don't care what Parn thinks a bigfoot looks like since he has never seen one. I took his remark in the other thread to be tongue in cheek for the sake of making a point.

This is the description of Bigfoot that my Dad had from his sighting. The eyes were like dog eyes, no whites, black skin under black hair( not fur). Hair pattern was like a male human's just heavier. No mention of this creature being excessively tall, or any description of the feet, but it was on all fours in front of him. He did say the fingers were a good bit shorter than the palms, and fatter than ours. The creature was not on knuckles but had it's hands splayed out on the ground when down on fours in front of him. He never mentioned seeing ears, or anything different about the teeth. He always said it looked like a naked hairy black man, and never referred to it as an ape.

Jodie,

Can you tell where his sighting occurred and approximate date?

Thank you

[Guest Jodie]

It was in Jones County, Mississippi, near a river. The farm was sold before I was born but had been in the family for over 100 years. I do not know the exact location of the old farm but figured I would contact the historical society at some point to see if they have any info or access to court house records that may survive. My Dad's encounter happened when he was 10 years old, so that would have been about 1942-43.

[Guest]

Still wondering why everyone keeps talking about this guy on a Bigfoot message board?

Edited December 13, 2011 by PacNWSquatcher

[Guest]

As I watch the anticipation of the release of the Ketchum Report and what may be revealed or claimed by the dna studies, I see that often people who expect the report to reveal nothing new or have nothing substantially supportive of something we like to call "Bigfoot" as existing, said people like to make somewhat fanciful descriptions of Bigfoot which (like a straw man argument) are exhaggerated to easily be defeated as illogical.

For example, member parnassus wrote in the Ketchum Report thread, post #774, a description of bigfoot as follows:

*9 feet tall, 500 lbs, runs 30 mph on two legs or 4, glowing eyes, conical head, covered with hair, non opposable thumbs, no fire or tools, midtarsal break, 4-6 toes, strangely shaped feet, no neck, no clothes, no shelters, non modern human proportions, etc"

I have seen others as well speculate about how the DNA results may contridict the bigfoot descriptions or definitions of longstanding advocates the entity is real, such as the ape vs/human description.

But it seems that the people so intent on belittling the concept of Bigfoot like to embellish the description of bigfoot with a multitude of descriptive terms culled from the entire range of witness or researcher descriptions, all balled up into one super defintion that becomes utterly fanciful.

There also seems to be a tendency to attribute this super-fanciful definition to be subscribed by all who think there may be something real out there.

Over the four years I've been active on the BFF board (V1 and v2), I've actually seen a rich diversity in individual people's expectations or definitions of what they think this thing may be (if indeed proven to exist), and that doubters of the entity seem to ignore actual definitions provided by real proponents and instead invent the super-fanciful definitions precisely because they can then more easily ridicule the definition and in turn ridicule people who simply hold some support for the prospect such entities exist.

So maybe instead of people intent of ridiculing the prospect of Bigfoot existing, by inventing their super-fanciful definitions of what it is, we ho thing there's something real out there may go on record as defining what we actually think such an entity may be (if found and validated as biologically real).

I will be glad to go first.

My expectation is based entirely on the PGF film's subject, since that is the only case I've studied with some degree of thoroughness:

Bill Munns speculative description: "I would expect the revealed entity to be more humanistic than any affinity to the known great apes (Chimp, Gorilla, Orang) or to any fossil apes (Gigantopithecus). I base this on both it's body proportions and locomotion as seen in the film. I would expect it's skull to have some morphological similarity to the OH5 Boisei group of hominid. I would expect it's legs to have affinity to the Neanderthal crural index proportions. I would expect it to have normally 5 toes configured closer to the human foot that any opposable big toe like the great apes demonstrate. I have no opinion on a mid-tarsal break. I would expect it's size (as a species average) to be greater than human average, with similar range of varying potential (so if humans can grow to nearly 9' tall, this entiiy may also, in some exceptional examples), but the norm I would expect to be of lesser height. The heavy fur I would intrepret as an adaptation to a more cold northern climate and ecological niche, and more northern variations of a group of species would tend to show the more northern adapted ones as larger in average size, so I'd expect a species norn average as larger than human (but no estimation of how much larger, due to insufficient data).

I would not make any judgment on behavior, culture, speech capability (but certainly expect capacity for vocalization, because physical production of audible sounds from the throat is fairly common to animals)."

That's basically as much as I would venture to expect, if such an entity were to be proven to exist.

But this description: "*9 feet tall, 500 lbs, runs 30 mph on two legs or 4, glowing eyes, conical head, covered with hair, non opposable thumbs, no fire or tools, midtarsal break, 4-6 toes, strangely shaped feet, no neck, no clothes, no shelters, non modern human proportions, etc" I would regard as a straw man invention, and certainly would never endorse.

I would be curious to know what others here actually expect such a suspected entity to be, as much as you can confidently explain your expectation of an anatomical description.

Bill

I am leaning towards australopithicine in general conformation. I don't know if that makes them hominids or what but bigfoot doesn't seem to have the major defining traits of the genus Homo. Enlarged brain and cranium or tool manufacture and use. Their hairiness would seem to be a biological adaptation to the elements that is not seen in primitive human societies like the aboriginal tasmanians or tierra del fuegians.

Bigfoots would probably have diverged from the human family tree ~three million years ago and would have continued to evolve separately from us. We should expect them to be as distantly related to chimpanzees as we are because our common ancestors separated after we had separated from the ancestors of chimpanzees. Some bigfoot genes may more closely resemble chimpanzee genes because they didn't mutate in the bigfoot lineage after they separated from the human line. Bigfoot would be expected to have some genes in common with humans because these genes developed before the two lineages split. Bigfoot would also be expected to have genes not found in humans or other apes simply because they evolved only in the bigfoot lineage.

I would expect that bigfoot would diverge into numerous varieties in different locales because that is what australopithecus and homo did in africa at the start. Only later did the other species dwindle and Homo sapiens swept across the world. A simple supposition is that modern humans outcompeted the others for resources and possibly for food as well (Many african cultures eat chimpanzees and gorillas for instance). When our ancestors moved into northern africa and the middle east they probably did the same thing with the neanderthal populations. Australopithecines in these regions may have had some contact with neanderthals and erectine species and learned to avoid them as competitors by going deeper into the woods. When Homo sapiens came along they (bigfoot) were already living in habitats that humans didn't frequent which may explain why they are still alive today.

[Bill]

antfoot:

Thank you for your contribution.

As much as I recall from my earlier days making hominid exhibit models for museums, the australopithecine family tree was rather disjointed with gaps and evolutionary curiosities, and I would not be surprises to find what we call Bigfoot today is derived from one of those gaps in the family tree.

I certainly look forward to the impending DNA studies to see if they actually shed light on this idea.

Bill

[Guest Primate]

Here in N.Ca. the Harvey Pratt/Paulides work has them looking quite human . I wonder if the Australopithicine Hypothesis mentioned above leaves room for this and the accounts of human/sasquatch hybridization in Russia and North America .

[Guest]

antfoot:

Thank you for your contribution.

As much as I recall from my earlier days making hominid exhibit models for museums, the australopithecine family tree was rather disjointed with gaps and evolutionary curiosities, and I would not be surprises to find what we call Bigfoot today is derived from one of those gaps in the family tree.

I certainly look forward to the impending DNA studies to see if they actually shed light on this idea.

Bill

The DNA studies are the main reason I'm beginning to think BF might be real after all. Previous to this I was definitely leaning the other way. I can't imagine DNA testing labs getting excited about mistaken identities. And Derekfoot seems to be a fairly reasonable fellow and he seems to be excited about it all as well. Would these people be this way over regular human DNA or even just slightly different human DNA? I can't picture this being a hoax. Of course that could just be a failure of my imagination.