What Is The Statistical Probability That All Sightings Are False?

[xspider1]

The first UFO siting ever reported by a commercial airline pilot came from an airplane that landed in Yakima, Washington. At least, so the History Channel tells us. But, what do they know? I'm just saying that, in terms of any runs scored for 'the doubters of all things not fully understood' (not specifying you in that group, Ray : B, that could be an out at home plate.

Edited March 6, 2012 by xspider1

[kitakaze]

Bigfoot believers tell us that Bigfoot sightings go back hundreds of years and have all linds of documentation even in the 1800's. UFO believers tell us the same thing for sapcecraft and alien being sightings. In fact, just the other day watching William Shatner's Weird or What focusing on UFO's and abductions, we are told that the first report of an alien abduction was 1897. Here it is...

http://www.ufodigest.com/news/0507/airships.html

So the question remains is what is the manner of filtration? Who is discerning what is a real Bigfoot report and what is fake?

A question for believers - here is the BFRO database...

http://www.bfro.net/gdb/

What percentage of sightings on that database do you consider to be false?

Now here is the MUFON Case Management System...

http://www.ufoworldnews.com/tag/case-management-system/

It's the UFO version of the BFRO's database. The BFRO database is pretty big, but the MUFON database is, ahem, out of this world. Again, just a genral question that requires no endless digging - what percentage of those UFO reports would you consider false in terms of not being alien visitors?

[indiefoot]

I smell fish.....

[kitakaze]

BF has nothing to do with UFOs... (snip)

Thank you for specifiying your filtration setting for Bigfoot reports, namely...

Other Bigfooters are decidely more tolerant and do not dismiss reports such as this...

Briefly, on the night of October 25, 1973, My UFO Hotline was active with UFO reports from around the state. About 10:30 P.M. that evening, I received a call from state trooper from the Uniontown barracks concerning an incident which he had just returned from investigating. One of those involved, was put on the phone for me to interview. At about 9 P.M. about 15 people observed a very large red spherical object hovering low in the sky which began to descend towards a pasture. The witness and two boys proceeded up the field and observed a white dome shaped object on the ground that illuminated the area, and was making a loud whirring sound. It was estimated at about 100 feet in diameter. They were about 250 feet from the object, and about 75 feet from a fence line. Walking along the fence line were two tall figures, 7 to 9 feet tall, covered with hair, and arms hanging down past the knees, and displaying glowing green eyes.

The creatures were fired upon, first tracers were shot overhead, then live ammo was used. The largest of the two creatures turned towards the other almost touching it, and at the same time the object in the field disappeared, and the sound stopped. The creatures slowly walked towards the woods. One boy had already ran home, the other two left the field, went to the farmhouse and moved the family members to a neighbor’s home, and called the state police. When the trooper arrived he and the main witness went to the site, and where the object had landed there was a glowing area, that according to the trooper was about 150 feet in diameter. He said he could read a newspaper from the amount of light that it was emitting. The farm animals refused to go into the area. The witness we talked with has always stated that before they left the field, the largest of the two creatures was seen in the woods about 10 feet from them, and he shot at it and it struck the fence that stood between them.

Later that night our team arrived in the area. Radiation levels normal, glowing area now gone, but animals still wouldn’t go near the spot. Strange events began to occur during the early morning hours in this dark secluded location. A farmhouse several hundred feet from us was seen by some in the party to suddenly light up like daylight for several seconds. A bull in the field and a dog seemed unconcerned about us, and were looking into the woods. The main witness, a rather large individual while being questioned, suddenly begins to growl, throwing his father and my assistant George Lutz towards the ground. The man ran into the field growling like an animal and emitting screams, one which was near inhuman. His own dog approaches him as to attack, then runs off whimpering. The man suddenly collapses onto the ground. Then two of my team members begin to complain that they are having trouble breathing. Suddenly the air is filled with a strong odor that can best be described as rotten eggs.

The man as he came out of what appeared to be an almost trance-like state, began talking about visions he saw about the end of the world, etc. Not knowing what could happen next we helped each other back to our vehicles. It was apparent that professional help was required in this case, and eminent psychiatrist Berthold E. Schwarz was contacted. Dr. Schwarz traveled to PA at his own expense and interviewed all of those involved including the eyewitnesses and state trooper. There is much more detail to this case, and I spent years following the life of the principal involved. There were many para-normal events which reportedly occurred in the years following this episode. And many years later in a follow up interview, an MIB event associated with the case was revealed.

http://www.ufomystic...ot-connections/

More info on UFO-Bigfoot sightings here...

Lots and lots of reports to read.

I personally find UFO-Bigfoot sightings reports fasinating. BFF members wishing to learn more about the connections between UFO's and Bigfoots can go here...

http://bigfootforums...nnection-exist/

There you will find many fellow Bigfoot-UFO believers genuinely interested in the subject and excited about talking about it. Please pay no mind to the heckling from close-minded orthodox F&B Bigfooters. They don't realize that many UFO-Bigfoot believers agree Bigfoot is flesh and blood, just a species not from Earth.

I smell fish.....

That would be something intended to divert attention from the real problem or matter at hand. The matter at hand is what is the statistical probability that all Bigfoot sightings are false. I think 99% based on the evidence showing the manner in which Bigfoot acts like a social construct. The evidence is very strong that Bigfoot is a social construct. This doesn't mean somewhere in there you can't have real Bigfoot. There just isn't any reliable evidence of that. What Bigfoot sightings do is mirror UFO sightings in distribution and placement. This is because it matches human distribution. This shoots the remote and rare misnomer all to hell. Like UFO sightings, Bigfoot sightings are where the people are. So the problem is why do so many people swear they saw Bigfoot? If there was a real living mammal species from New York to New Mexico in breeding numbers frequently coming into human contact and civilization, we would have had bodies many times over.

Don't think Bigfoot does that? I would very much like to see that so that I might introduce you to a large section of the BFF. Hello, Bigfootery, this is you. Feel like talking to yourself? No, don't want to hear it from the guy who says two Bigfoots were in the back of his truck in a parking lot of an Oklahoma camping ground? Don't want to hear it from the guy who says Bigfoot was digging through the dumpster at the Seattle area nursing home? Oh, OK. I guess you certainly won't be hearing it from the witnesses who swear they saw Bigfoot and UFO's together.

And why wouldn't alien visitors be interested in Bigfoot? Like we're the only thing worth checking out here?

Close-mindedness amongst Bigfoot believers who consider themselves and their field to hold a great truth and maverick thinking is just the most delicious thing ever.

[Guest]

What a strange derail for this thread:

Yes, Ray and others insisting on bringing it up is strange...unless you understand that it's a diversion.

bigfooters objecting to having their phenomenon lumped in any way with the UFO phenomenon.

Because they are, in fact, seperate phenomina.

There has even been a charge (led by a guy who uses a gray alien for an avatar)

Rather obvious cheap shot.

that the mere comparison of the similarity in geographic distribution of reports from the two phenomena amounts to a logical fallacy in the argument from ridicule, because we're serious about this bigfoot stuff but everybody knows UFOs are a woo-woo fringe topic.

There, was that so hard to admit? By the way, proponents (for either case) didn't declare either BF OR UFOs "woo-woo fringe topics". That would be...wait for it...Skeptics.

It's quite sad (and frankly, a bit laughable) that RayG's perfectly middle-of-the-road "these things are similar" post has been met with such opposition.

No it's sad that he'd resort to such a ploy to attempt to divert attention from the topic at hand and splash a little tar on the reputation of the BF argument.

His statements in that post are dispassionate, and demonstrably true.

You left out utterly irrelevant.

Thank you for specifiying your filtration setting for Bigfoot reports, namely...

Other Bigfooters are decidely more tolerant and do not dismiss reports such as this...

http://www.ufomystic...ot-connections/

More info on UFO-Bigfoot sightings here...

Lots and lots of reports to read.

I personally find UFO-Bigfoot sightings reports fasinating. BFF members wishing to learn more about the connections between UFO's and Bigfoots can go here...

http://bigfootforums...nnection-exist/

There you will find many fellow Bigfoot-UFO believers genuinely interested in the subject and excited about talking about it. Please pay no mind to the heckling from close-minded orthodox F&B Bigfooters. They don't realize that many UFO-Bigfoot believers agree Bigfoot is flesh and blood, just a species not from Earth.

Which still draws no logical connection between the legitimacy of one and that of the other.

Just because someone claimed a connection between A and B where B is considered the "less likely" of the two does not affect the legitimacy of A.

The possibilities are:

Both claims may be true.

A may be true and B false

B may be true and A false.

Neither claim may be true.

Therefore A and B must be taken as seperate events.

You are attempting a variant correlation/causation fallacy in support of an argument from ridicule vis a vis UFOs vs BF.

I didn't buy it from Ray, and I sure ain't buying it from you.

The evidence is very strong that Bigfoot is a social construct.

Social constructs don't leave forensically typable hairs or other physical evidence. Nor do they leave tracks with distinct and non-human biometric indicators in terms of traits that map to the distribution curve for naturally occuring populations of animals

and civilization, we would have had bodies many times over.

If there was a real living mammal species from New York to New Mexico in breeding numbers frequently coming into human contact

The number of reports compared to the amount of man-hours spent in the wilderness by humans of all types is very very very low. Thus your description of "frequent" is inapplicable.

Edited March 6, 2012 by Mulder

[Incorrigible1]

Kitakaze, yet another half-page diatribe.

Have you ever simply tried speaking your mind? Without the drama of the various tools you employ? Give it a try, sometime. Enough with the drama.

[Guest Kerchak]

^

Unfortunately there are some people who get really really upset that there are people who believe in da bigfoots.

[kitakaze]

Therefore A and B must be taken as seperate events.

You have. of course, just ignored a report of 15 multiple witnesses watching A not only interact with B, but A to actually fire upon B...

At about 9 P.M. about 15 people observed a very large red spherical object hovering low in the sky which began to descend towards a pasture. The witness and two boys proceeded up the field and observed a white dome shaped object on the ground that illuminated the area, and was making a loud whirring sound. It was estimated at about 100 feet in diameter. They were about 250 feet from the object, and about 75 feet from a fence line. Walking along the fence line were two tall figures, 7 to 9 feet tall, covered with hair, and arms hanging down past the knees, and displaying glowing green eyes.

The creatures were fired upon, first tracers were shot overhead, then live ammo was used. The largest of the two creatures turned towards the other almost touching it, and at the same time the object in the field disappeared, and the sound stopped. The creatures slowly walked towards the woods. One boy had already ran home, the other two left the field, went to the farmhouse and moved the family members to a neighbor’s home, and called the state police. When the trooper arrived he and the main witness went to the site, and where the object had landed there was a glowing area, that according to the trooper was about 150 feet in diameter. He said he could read a newspaper from the amount of light that it was emitting. The farm animals refused to go into the area. The witness we talked with has always stated that before they left the field, the largest of the two creatures was seen in the woods about 10 feet from them, and he shot at it and it struck the fence that stood between them.

Ignore it, deny it, scoff at it, but the reports are there. You can either simply dimiss them because they do not fit the preconceived notion that you as an intransigent believer have adopted for what is acceptable for Bigfooot, or you can try and establish why you have multiple witnesses swearing they've seen something that is way outside your area of comfort. If your irony meter is irrevocably beyond repair here, the great irony here is that a skeptic is defending the legitimacy of the viewpoint of UFO-Bigfoot proponents to their orthodox and more close-minded believer peers.

UFO Digest's Regan Lee sums up the close-minded Bigfooter intolerance...

Bigfoot research is notorious for its snobbery regarding anything "weird" outside of Bigfoot-as-animal. There's always been a subculture of Bigfoot research that is decidedly on the weird side, that includes UFOs, "aliens," telepathic communications, dematerializing Bigfoot, and all kinds of high strangeness episodes. The two sides rarely get together to consider things seriously in a mutual effort to explore witness accounts that veer from the straight ahead Bigfoot is a big hairy ape theory. The two sides, with the first leading the way, the latter dismissed and vilified, remain on very different sides of the Bigfoot question.

We all have buffers and biases; but when it comes to research we have to acknowledge those as hindrances and get past them. Instead, those biases are often used as proud justifications to reject what doesn't sit well with ones ideas about things in fringe research. One person's fringe is another person's lunacy.

There are too many witness accounts involving truly bizarre events during Bigfoot encounters, as there are many accounts of long term interactions (sans anything "weird") with Bigfoot. The belittling term "Bigfoot contactee" a term coined by Loren Coleman, semantically puts witness stories firmly in the trivial camp.

http://www.ufodigest...-term-witnesses

There are numerous reports of not only Bigfoot and UFO's being seen together, but actually interacting with Bigfoot entering and leaving alien spacecraft. Here the phenomena of Bigfoot and UFO's join together in a weird melting pot of high strangeness. Too strange for intransigent Bigfooters.

Social constructs don't leave forensically typable hairs or other physical evidence. Nor do they leave tracks with distinct and non-human biometric indicators in terms of traits that map to the distribution curve for naturally occuring populations of animals

and civilization, we would have had bodies many times over.

You don't have a single confirmed Bigfoot hair or even one that is confirmed as coming from an uncatalogued species and as for tracks, please tell us, Mulder, what do you believe made these tracks?

The number of reports compared to the amount of man-hours spent in the wilderness by humans of all types is very very very low. Thus your description of "frequent" is inapplicable.

Sweet Tony Danza, what a whopper. We only had the man hours to build three highly industrialized nations here.

Just wow.

Kitakaze, yet another half-page diatribe.

Have you ever simply tried speaking your mind? Without the drama of the various tools you employ? Give it a try, sometime. Enough with the drama.

Yes, all the time. I'm not sure what tools you refer to nor am I interested in an explanation. . Not only is there a strong correlation in the distribution of Bigfoot and UFO sightings, they in fact often are claimed to be seen together. Bigfoot acts every bit like a social construct. For every bogus hair and hoaxed print, you can be given 10 alien implants and irradiated landing sights. The fact is that when it comes to weak coffee, the evidence for alien visitation vastly outwieghs and is of a far superior nature to that of Bigfoot. Their physical specimens, their footage, the eyewitness accounts leave Bigfootery in the dust. The snobbery many Bigfooters show for Ufology is stange given the phenomena manifest themselves so similarly.

Edited March 7, 2012 by Art1972
: to remove content....

[Guest RayG]

Yes, Ray and others insisting on bringing it up is strange...unless you understand that it's a diversion.

Because they are, in fact, seperate phenomina.

No diversion, it's like pointing out similarities between police departments and fire departments. Both usually funded by the city, both have snazzy vehicles, both wears uniforms, etc.

Separate, but similar.

There, was that so hard to admit? By the way, proponents (for either case) didn't declare either BF OR UFOs "woo-woo fringe topics". That would be...wait for it...Skeptics.

I assure you I made no reference, nor intended any reference to UFOs being 'woo-woo fringe topics'. You were the one making that comparison, because apparently you believe the pursuit and investigation of UFOs is a 'woo-woo fringe topic'. This is only made more obvious by your use of the terms 'fantastic', 'ridicule', 'absurd', 'kooks', 'fringe', and 'woo-woo fringe topic', to describe UFOlogy.

You started off by ridiculing the comparisons I made, mocking them without ever showing them to be false, continue to make unsupported accusations, yet you accuse me of employing ridicule? It doesn't really surprise me though, that seems to be your modus operandi -- never address specific points or issues, just lump them all in the bin of ridicule or accuse the presenter of having motives.

No it's sad that he'd resort to such a ploy to attempt to divert attention from the topic at hand and splash a little tar on the reputation of the BF argument.

Just like that.

RayG

[kitakaze]

I preferred the system much more when your number of posts had an effective application to the number of plusses you could make in a 24 hour period. Air plus, Ray, air plus.

[Drew]

I have said many times, that BIGFOOT can't be rare and elusive, AND be seen in casino parking lots, rest areas, campgrounds, dirt driveways, trailer parks, and crossing 8 lane highways. A 9' tall beast on the open plains of OKLAHOMA, is very conspicuous, for it to elude verification for all these years, means one of two things. Bigfoot sightings are not real, OR, they are being dropped off by supernatural air assault transport like Air Cav troopers from a Huey in a rice paddie. Only to proceed to a dumpster, or dairy queen parking lot, and then be extracted by similar methods.

Which is it? The sightings can't be true if Bigfoot is rare and elusive, or they must be Airmobile.

[kitakaze]

No it's sad that he'd resort to such a ploy to attempt to divert attention from the topic at hand and splash a little tar on the reputation of the BF argument.

Why does the distribution of Bigfoot reports and UFO reports being so similar need to be tar? Why do the so many reports featuring both to the point of direct interection need be tar? Can we not face the reality of what is reported without being dismissive of what does not fit our level of comfort and preconceptions? Bigfoot sightings distribute just like UFO sightings do. Many sightings feature both. Are these the weird uncle of Bigfootery that no one wants to talk about? I'm a skeptic of both. I want to address the connection and how that connection affects the statistical probability that all those reports are the result if humanity, specifically a social construct.

I have said many times, that BIGFOOT can't be rare and elusive, AND be seen in casino parking lots, rest areas, campgrounds, dirt driveways, trailer parks, and crossing 8 lane highways. A 9' tall beast on the open plains of OKLAHOMA, is very conspicuous, for it to elude verification for all these years, means one of two things. Bigfoot sightings are not real, OR, they are being dropped off by supernatural air assault transport like Air Cav troopers from a Huey in a rice paddie. Only to proceed to a dumpster, or dairy queen parking lot, and then be extracted by similar methods. Which is it? The sightings can't be true if Bigfoot is rare and elusive, or they must be Airmobile.

Exactly. What's the filtration, Bigfootery? What's the threshold of tolerance? Is a Bigfoot sighting in Iowa out the door? Do Bigfoot migrate through the delicious cover of corn? Are glowing green eyes on my Vancouver Island OK? Talking "samurai chatter" in the Gifford-Pinchot OK? Stealing propane tanks out of the back of DriverOperator's truck in the parking lot of an Oklahoma campground parking lot not OK? 15 people watch a UFO fire on two Bigfoots not OK? Where's your filter at? Can we deal with the monster we've created?

Edited March 6, 2012 by kitakaze

[Guest]

the evidence for alien visitation vastly outwieghs and is of a far superior nature to that of Bigfoot. Their physical specimens, their footage, the eyewitness accounts leave Bigfootery in the dust. The snobbery many Bigfooters show for Ufology is stange given the phenomena manifest themselves so similarly.

Kitakaze.

I don't feel like your making the best argument here. I feel like the evidence Ufologists have produced is pretty much on par with the evidence BFers have produced. Nor Ufologist or the Government(though i'm sure they have one) have produced a physical specimen or even a piece of any craft for that matter, that is known to the general public. I personally believe in both phenomena (100,000 year old gold mines, but this isn't the place for that). I'm not trying to be dismissive, there are a lot of pictures of pretty lights in the sky. You need to be open to the fact that a lot of those sightings could be non-alien prototypical military craft, which are still classified as UFOs but aren't necessarily alien. You keep bringing up the point of a social construct. Case and point, the more people that live in an area or even in the areas surrounding an area, the more sightings there will be of a particular thing, if that thing does in fact exist in those areas. More sets of eyes=more sightings. I don't think the reason i've given for both the increase and similarity of sighting maps is flawed. As i've told you before both maps you have been repeatedly using to try and prove your social construct hypotheses, are almost identical to the population density map of America. Another member pointed out that all three maps are eerily similar to the sale of Dr.Scholes gel inserts. As another member had pointed out, those maps reflect the density of population. More eyes=more sightings. That should be fairly simple for everyone here to understand.

Edited March 6, 2012 by Caesar

[kitakaze]

Excellent, Caesar. So remote and rare is just gobbledy-goop, yes?

[Guest]

The Okapi is a great example of failed expeditions to find a cryptid no more elusive, just more rare then your average gazelle or deer. They weren't "batting 1000" there.

Is it a great example? Wiki: "The animal was brought to prominent European attention by speculation on its existence found in popular press reports covering Henry Morton Stanley's journeys in 1887. Remains of a carcass were later sent to London by the English adventurer and colonial administrator Harry Johnston and became a media event in 1901.^[2]"

That's 14 years from the first widespread dissemination of it's possible existence to Western science and its confirmation to Western science - and we're talking 19th Century technology to access a creature that still lives wild only in one of the most remote and difficult to access places on the planet. According to the AMNH, Stanley's report did not occur until 1890 - they consider the gap from first report to the West and confirmation to be just 11 years. The 1890 date for Stanley's report is reiterated at this site, with the following item of interest:

"Rumours of this strange, ass-like animal reached Sir Johnston, which spurred him to make a journey into the Congo in 1899. After winning the confidence of the Wambutti, Johnston was able to learn more about the mysterious atti - including its real name. After hearing its description - a dark brown animal resembling a donkey with striped legs - Johnston was sure that the o'api was a species of forest zebra still awaiting a scientific description. Later that year, in the Belgian Fort at Mbeni, Johnston was able to obtain two headbands, made from the striped pieces of okapi skins, which he sent to the Zoological Society of London in 1900."

(emphases mine)

I've checked three reputable sources. None of them describe any attempts to collect an okapi between Stanley's first reports and Johnson's successful expedition. The third account describes how Johnson did not begin his expedition until 1899, and it reports 1900 as the year he sent the skins to London. So by my reckoning, it took ONE expedition less than ONE year to confirm the existence of a species over 100 years ago that today still lives in a really remote and isolated part of the world. Looks like batting 1000 to me.

More to the point though, how could any of this narrative compare to our inability to get a piece of a bigfoot after all these years? Just considering the Colonial period in North America, we've had people living with bigfoots for centuries, and we've got nothing but stories to show for it. For crying out loud, we are the Pygmies when it comes to bigfoot - we're the natives that live with them in our backyards. That's like a perpetual expedition that started in earnest in the early 16th Century.