What Is The Statistical Probability That All Sightings Are False?

[Guest parnassus]

Mulder wrote:

We also have DNA derived from a hair sample in 2001 that was analyzed by professor Malcolm Sykes of Oxford University, who

"was not able to match the DNA to any known animal. "We have never encountered any DNA that we couldn't recognize before," said Sykes, a pioneer of DNA identification as the first genetist to extract DNA from archaeological bone specimens."

We have been through this before, that is debunked.

From Oregon Bigfoot:

April, 2001:

A British expedition team is led to a hollow cedar tree in the Kingdom of Bhutan, in the eastern Himalayas by Sonam Dhendup, the King of Bhutan's official yeti hunter. A long black hair was found and DNA analysis was conducted by Bryan Sykes, professor of human genetics at the Institute of Molecular Medicine in Oxford. “We found some DNA in it, but we don’t know what it is... It’s not a human, not a bear or anything else we have so far been able to identify. It’s a mystery and I never thought this would end in a mystery. We have never encountered DNA that we couldn’t recognize before.†Sykes was the first scientist to extract DNA from archaeological bone specimens.

Analysis completed after the media release, however, clearly showed that the samples were from the Brown Bear and the Asiatic Black Bear.

p.

[Guest]

Saskeptic

You're definitely allowed to pick apart my examples, i was just hoping you'd focus less on the examples and pay more attention to the points i've tried to make. A man is allowed to hope. The reason you found three sources describing one expedition is probably because there were solely about that expedition. Stanley and Johnston were not the only explorers to hunt the Okapi, just the best documented. I can produce sources claiming there were multiple expeditions, some of which failed. We both need to understand we're reading peoples interpretations of events from along time ago. There's room for error in both our arguments. There's sources dating back to the 1600s of europeans describing gorillas, but no one believed them. That's roughly 302 years to my knowledge, since they were officially discovered in 1902. No i haven't been alive forever, i can make these statements with confidence by studying events known to be historical fact. I never once referenced the Lucky Star Casino in Conchos. If you want me to start naming specific locations say so, i don't feel like this is the right thread, and i'm sure you've heard them all before. I feel that your exaggeration of my statements in an attempt to discredit what i've said was a sorry excuse for an argument, from someone as intelligent as yourself. I can embellish your statements also Sas, i just feel its bad form, as i am intelligent enough to know that wasn't the point you were trying to get across. As i know you are intelligent enough to know that wasn't the point i was trying to make.

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

"Determined expeditions uncovered nothing, and it would seem the “African unicorn†was just as mythical as its namesake." a quote from an article.

List of the top ten cryptids proven to exist. Some really good condensed information on known cryptids.

http://listverse.com...out-to-be-real/

Saskeptic if you feel like this information is not credible let me know. Believe me when i tell you i can produce more. Just don't feel the need to flood the thread with links to info many of us know and agree upon.

Incidentally, crypto folks love to write about du Chaillu's accounts of gorillas being pooh-poohed by the establishment in Europe. Wiki says that du Chaillu's travels in Africa occurred 1856-1859; basically 10 years AFTER gorillas had already been described by Savage!

Yes he was exploring in Africa 10 years after they were described, but before they were discovered and believed to exist. That didn't happen until 1902. His accounts of the creature were discredited when they were valid all along.

Edited March 6, 2012 by Caesar

[Guest]

Points i've tried to make, in much simpler terms.

Okapi does not dwell in a high altitude. It's hard enough to move through forest at a regular altitude your accustomed to, now try and do it half way up a mountain, at high altitude.

Okapi is not as hard to track as an ape. They are just extremely rare. It behaves similar to many species known to us and is most closely related to the giraffe. It grazes to eat, animals that graze to eat are quite predictable.

Many crytips have been believed to be fantasy and later proven to exist. The years it took from first description to official discovery vary.

These points can not be argued in my opinion as they are fact.

Edited March 6, 2012 by Caesar

[Guest]

i was just hoping you'd focus less on the examples and pay more attention to the points i've tried to make.

Is not your point that it would take "vigorous" investment to discover bigfoot just like it took vigorous investment for Western science to discover other former "cryptozoological" species? One reason you cite for the fact that bigfoot has not (yet) been formally described is because our governments and scientific institutions in the West have not invested in a vigorous search for bigfoot? Is that correct?

One response to that point would be to describe expeditions that have been funded to find bigfoots - I might argue that Matt Moneymaker does this pretty much monthly. He also "finds bigfoot" on every one of his expeditions but is 0 for ___? in producing any physical evidence. I didn't take that tack, however, because you provided specific examples of vigorous expeditions that were necessary to discover something that many others failed to find. So far, every example you've provided has not amounted to anything more than 1) going to where the species in question lives and 2) collecting a physical specimen of it. In every example you provided, that happened on the first try.

Perhaps like you, I define a "cryptid" as a species that defies collection and description by modern science. A cryptid is (or should be) a species that has been looked for time and again but has left a trail of unrequited expeditions. It might be well-known to native people and have been observed by others, but when "science" goes to look for it, the result is more questions than answers. In this regard, bigfoots and yetis are cryptids, and so are lake monsters. A "cryptid" should not be a species that's recently been discovered simply because no one had previously explored the place where it makes its home. Varanus bitatawa may have been recently described, but it's not a cryptid. Species that have been known to occur in the past but are now extinct despite claims that they're still out there, e.g., Thylacines and Ivory-billed Woodpeckers, are actually much better examples of cryptids than are species only recently described.

Some people (usually those who cast themselves as cryptozoologists) like to cite numerous examples of creatures recently described so they can say "See? 'Science' has been wrong about cryptids many times before. It sometimes takes extraordinary efforts to find these crypto-creatures. If only we could invest in bigfoot the way the AMNH once invested in Komodo dragons!"

When you really look at those examples, however, you see that the parallels to something like bigfoot or Nessie simply fall apart. Let's say for the sake of argument that bigfoot really only lives in the Pacific Northwest. Ignoring the centuries of animal trade in that part of the world by Russian and European trappers, the first expedition analogous to von Beringe's in the Virungas would be the Lewis and Clark Expedition from 200 years ago. In fact, a big part of the L&C expedition was to find and catalog wildlife species, unlike von Beringe's. Yet von Beringe discovered Mountain Gorillas and Lewis and Clark did not discover any bigfoots. In the intervening 200 years, there's been quite a bit more exploration of the Columbia River Valley, yet still no bigfoot.

Thus, bigfoot clearly qualifies as a cryptid: multiple (hardly the right word) opportunities have failed to find it, but people still report encounters with it. Mountain gorillas, however, should not be considered cryptids: they were easily found the very first time someone with the knowledge to collect one had the opportunity to do so. The same goes for lowland gorillas, okapis, fruit-eating monitor lizards, Vu Kuang ox, and please don't get me started on Coelocanths or giant squids!

So it is relevant to really examine what was necessary to discover and describe rare species. Some, like Ivory-billed Woodpecker, offer some really great parallels to the search for bigfoot. Others, like gorillas and okapis, are really poor parallels.

"Determined expeditions uncovered nothing, and it would seem the “African unicorn†was just as mythical as its namesake." a quote from an article.

List of the top ten cryptids proven to exist. Some really good condensed information on known cryptids.

http://listverse.com...out-to-be-real/

Saskeptic if you feel like this information is not credible let me know. "

I don't find it credible. I don't find evidence that any of the "top 10" on that list are cryptids. If you have data describing multiple expeditions that failed to find the okapis that they went to central Africa to discover, I'd be very interested in that information. What I have been able to find indicates that reports of such a creature were not well disseminated to Western science until at least 1887, and that Johnston's expedition beginning in 1899 was the first attempt by a Western scientist to obtain one - which he did.

Yes he was exploring in Africa 10 years after they were described, but before they were discovered and believed to exist.

sense no make this

"Described" in this context means that a binomial is proposed for a type specimen and a written description of the material that comprises the type specimen is published in the journal of a scientific authority. Thus, description follows discovery. Du Chaillu was writing about a creature that Western science had already recognized.

[Guest]

Saskeptic

I apologize for misinterpreting your use of the word describe. I feel BF has a general description, just not by a scientific authority. I thank you and respect you for not embellishing any more of my statements. I guess we will just have to agree to disagree on this one.

It is commonly thought that the gorilla was not officially accepted by science until 1902, if i am wrong, and the correct date is 1887 i apologize for my blunder.

Is not your point that it would take "vigorous" investment to discover bigfoot just like it took vigorous investment for Western science to discover other former "cryptozoological" species? One reason you cite for the fact that bigfoot has not (yet) been formally described is because our governments and scientific institutions in the West have not invested in a vigorous search for bigfoot? Is that correct?

That is more then a fair statement, it is one of the reasons i attempted to present.

Edited March 6, 2012 by Caesar

[Guest]

No worries Caesar. I have strong opinions about what we should consider to be cryptids and what we should not, so when someone presents a narrative with which I'm less familiar, I like to dig a bit and see what really took place that led to its discovery. I can see now how interpretation of "described" as commonly used and "described" in the very specific sense of a published binomial could make this very confusing.

When I refer to "described by Western science" or similar phrasing, that means the first published description of a species with a two-word, usually Latin name that becomes its "binomial." That process wasn't really formalized until the 10th edition of Linnaeus' Systema Naturae in 1758. There were museums before then of course, and there had been scientists (even back to Aristotle) who studied animals and plants and tried to develop classification systems for them. But the modern scientific era of collecting stuff and publishing descriptions of it really took off after 1758. So if a Portuguese explorer in 1610 wrote in his journal that he encountered a giant hairy man in the jungles of Africa - and some pencil neck back home thought he was just telling wild stories - I can surely see that happening. Such a scenario would have played out, however, long before modern science had developed the ability to responsibly evaluate such stories and make sense of them. No one would necessarily have cared to launch an expedition just to find some weird new animal until Systema Naturae. So it's this period after 1758 that's really relevant for when a species was described and what effort it took to make that happen.

Gorillas were described (in the literature) twice: western lowland gorillas by Savage in 1847 and it was Paul Matschie who published the description of mountain gorilla in 1914, based on study of von Beringe's specimens. The stories of du Chaillu's rejection by Western scientists I think are overblown because the species was already known to science. Perhaps it was the behaviors that du Chaillu reported that met with resistance.

Anyway, it's all fascinating to me, and I hope you too!

[Guest]

Very, thanks for clarifying.

[kitakaze]

If any of our fellow members here also posts on Cryptomundo, I highly encourage you to in any post by Loren Coleman on the subject of cryptozoology ask him to name a single catalogued species of animal ever identified and first described by a "cryptozoologist." Like, just one. Just one single contribution to biology and zoology made by a person describing themselves as a cryptozoologist. Then see how long your comment/question stays up before getting zapped.

He absolutely hates that question. That and asking him which institutes offer formal training in cryptozoology.

[Guest]

Okay, wait. I just noticed that bigfoot sightings stop at the US/Mexico border. Wazzup with that? That kind of blows my distribution theory.

[Guest]

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.

Why not? Is there some reason why in the course of it's activities BF cannot move into around or through such areas? It's all amatter of context and location.

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.

Argument by ridicule.

Typical, but still disappointing.

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

Again, a matter of location and context. As in the Seattle case that got discussed last year. BF sighted near a dumpster in back of a nursing home parking lot.

Skeptics said "cain't be". The reporting investigator checked the scene out and found that the parking lot and dumpster in question abutted right up on a deep and rugged ravine that led all the way out of the area into open wilderness. This ravine would make it eminently feasable for the BF to access the area with more than reasonable chance of remaining undetected on it's approach.

Context. Context. Context.

Learn the word.

Live the word.

Skeptics are believers too. They just believe something different.

They demand proof of your position, but cannot prove their own.

Objectively, their position is no more valid than the opposing position.

Using one element of questionable evidence to cast doubt on all evidence is a lawyer's tactic. Establish reasonable doubt. It proves nothing, but does serve to obstruct progress.

BRAVO! Well said!

"Either the most complex and sophisticated hoax in the history of anthropology has continued for centuries without being exposed, or the most manlike and largest non-human primate on earth has managed to survive in parts of North America and remains undiscovered by modern science."

- G.W. Gill - President of the American Boared of Forensic Anthropology

And Occam's Razor tells us that the later is more likely to be the correct conclusion.

Mulder wrote:

We have been through this before, that is debunked.

From Oregon Bigfoot:

p.

Ok, that's one. We still have Moore, Pinker, et al.

If any of our fellow members here also posts on Cryptomundo, I highly encourage you to in any post by Loren Coleman on the subject of cryptozoology ask him to name a single catalogued species of animal ever identified and first described by a "cryptozoologist." Like, just one. Just one single contribution to biology and zoology made by a person describing themselves as a cryptozoologist. Then see how long your comment/question stays up before getting zapped.

He absolutely hates that question. That and asking him which institutes offer formal training in cryptozoology.

How about the converse, Kita? Care to name me one discovery EVER made by dismissing the research efforts of individuals not of the approved Guild of the Name Appended Letters?

Okay, wait. I just noticed that bigfoot sightings stop at the US/Mexico border. Wazzup with that? That kind of blows my distribution theory.

Artificial cut off...there are BF and BF-like creatures reported in Mexico AND Central/South America.

Edited March 7, 2012 by slabdog

[Guest]

a single catalogued species of animal ever identified and first described by a "cryptozoologist." Like, just one. Just one single contribution to biology and zoology made by a person describing themselves as a cryptozoologist.

A single contribution to biology and zoology would be Roy P. Mackal designed a biopsy arrow tip that used with a cross bow would be used to get a sample of the lock ness monster, that pattern went on to be used for biopsing whales. There is no full time cryptozoologist that I can think of but there are a few samples of people ( I can give you examples if you like,includes people with phd) who are intrested in cryptozoology and have used cryptozoology as a method to find new species in there field of studys.

Edited March 7, 2012 by Jeff Albertson

[Explorer]

I was intrigued by the original question on this post: “What is the Statistical Probability that all BF Sightings are False?â€, and explored it further using a different approach.

You don’t have to calculate the probability that all sightings are false in all of North America; instead you can focus at the probability results from a sample region (say PNW).

Probability analysis on the data from the PNW area should give a good indication of the reality of the phenomenon overall.

Also, the way to look at results is not simply bi-modal (True or False); there is always the 3^rd choice of Inconclusive.

To explore this problem and its key assumptions, I built a simple Bayesian Belief Network model (see attached file with description and results).

The model could represent a particular region like PNW. Instead of hundreds of reports, I only modeled 6 BF reports and I added them incrementally.

Only reports with “Excellent†Investigation were considered.

“Excellent†Investigation defined as the best practices used in BF research (field investigations with good resources).

Another difference in this approach is that a BBN model looks at all the Hypotheses being proposed (I only modeled 3) and asks if Hypothesis “X†is true, then what kind of reports (evidence) we would expect.

Then, we look at the reports and ask, given this type of report conclusion, what is the most likely Hypothesis.

I tried what Parnassus suggested, and added “False†reports incrementally to see how the probability of the BF hypothesis changes.

The results agreed with what Parnassus concluded – that adding incremental “False†(negative on BF) reports reduces the probability that BF is real continuously.

However, not all conclusions on BF reports are “Falseâ€.

A “True†conclusion on a BF report does not mean a body in bag; it just means that after an “Excellent†investigation of a report, the experts concluded that the report indicated a real BF.

The model also suggests that if all the report conclusions are “Inconclusive†or a 50/50 mixture of “True†and “False†conclusions, then the most likely outcome is inconclusive.

We end up with the same a priori probabilities where we started.

I believe others in this Forum also had a similar conclusion.

The key assumptions in this model were the Conditional Probability Table and the distribution of “Trueâ€, “False†and “Inconclusive†reports.

I am sure each of you would have a different set of assumptions.

In academia/industry, we would formally interview Subject Matter Experts (SME) to arrive at theses assessments.

I am not sure who in BF research would be able to provide non-biased assessments.

Nonetheless, I believe a BBN model like this would be helpful if we had good unbiased assessments associated with a small region of North America.

BF Probability using Bayesian Network Model.pdf

Edited November 4, 2012 by Explorer

[BobbyO]

Explorer, for me and with how you think, you're like an Angel that has fallen from heaven especially for me..

Seriously, within the SSR Database we're doing, we are actually now using a system ( pre determined ) that " marks " all reports via a points system that includes the level of investigation.

Edited November 4, 2012 by BobbyO

[Guest]

Those maps are continually used dishonestly to infer that there must be something wrong with the idea that more HUMAN OBSERVATIONS will come from areas with MORE HUMANS, whatever the distribution of the phenomena!

You could rig up a 1km grid of weather balloons with flashing red lights on riiight across north america and request people to go outside and see if they could see one, and would the results look like a 1km grid??? No they'd look the same as those other maps. You could use the same logic to "prove" the sky is bluer over Toronto, than it is over Sault St Marie, on any given clear day.

It's also disingenuous to use such relatively large markers on the maps, because then it would be more obvious that BF reports tend to outline populous areas, more than exist within them, as haunted house and UFO reports might.

Also continually used dishonestly is that kermode bear distribution WITHOUT accompanying human population/activity map that also demonstrates that observations by humans are more likely where humans are more likely to be. (Or if you prefer demonstrating that Kermode bears are co-dependant and symbiotic with humans.)

Likewise that graph of reports against time is not normalised for population increase, or advances in communication, literacy and information distribution, and face it, if it was drawn 2 years earlier it would be proved completely erroneous by the the entire mass of the planet NOT being made of BF reports by now.

Another frequent logical error or deliberate strawman depending on whether it is known that they are making the error when it comes to statistics, is hugely overestimating, monumentally overestimating, the chances of some events happening in a postulated small population spread out over the vastness of North America, i.e. roadkill, body finds, photographs. If you are being honest, the things you can say are more like, "Well there is a high certainty it has a population of under a million if we don't find roadkill yearly"

[Guest]

I really can’t buy into the believer mantra that it would be a near impossibility that all alleged bigfoot encounters could be false or fabricated with most simply being fabrications. The fact is, that conclusion is exactly what the known data sets point to.

Despite the fact that most of the believers seem to have this “us against them†mentality and paint most of us skeptics as purposeful tormenters of the faithful who have simply read a few magazine articles on the subject and have no real firsthand experience with “credible eyewitnesses of bigfootâ€, that viewpoint simply isn’t true.

I used to not only believe in bigfoot, but actually used to look for bigfoot and chased eyewitness testimony across the state. This was long before the rise of the internet and an era when people interested in bigfoot had limited means to find information about bigfoot. It was however an ideal era for those of us who were “looking for bigfoot†and progressed to the point that going on campouts referred to as “expeditions†was simply not the best way to find evidence of bigfoot.

The best way by my rationalization back then to actually find bigfoot or evidence of its passing, is to simply set up a network that made your contact information available to “potential eyewitnesses†searching for bigfoot information. There’s a million ways to do that today, but back then there really was only one effective method that I was aware of. Back then anyone who potentially saw something strange, couldn’t Google it, they couldn’t go to Amazon.com or Abes books and purchase everything ever written on the subject. They had to go to the public library to read up on the subject. And if they wanted to talk to someone about the subject they found researcher contact info in a library book and called you directly.

I’ve probably talked to over a hundred individuals who were serious and had claimed to have seen bigfoot or evidence of its passing not counting the obviously comical claims. By my judgment, it seemed like 30-35 of those individuals (or groups of individuals) could have been telling the truth and weren't making claims that fell outside my own normalcy bias.

I was also fortunate enough to meet someone very similar to Al Hodgson. Unlike Hodgson, he advertised his area’s bigfoot sightings on the dry erase board outside his store along with the current fishing and hunting reports. He shared that info with me.

I basically split the witnesses sightings into two categories: Those that happened “months or years ago†and the “I just saw bigfoot†reports. The former were certainly interesting stories but you really can’t do anything with them. The later I investigated.

Another benefit of pursuing bigfoot prior to the internet era is that I had no idea whom the individuals in my area who were interested in bigfoot were, let alone how to get in contact with them. As a result, most of my initial conversations about bigfoot that occurred before I actually started “chasing bigfoot†were with field biologists who studied NA mammalian wildlife. As a result, instead of learning how to record ambiguous calls in the night and speculate how “that had to be bigfootâ€and similar "bigfooter skills", I was learning how to do glass plate tracings of bear tracks and the like while volunteering for low density track surveys. I gained track familiarity of NA vertebrate wildlife and that also spawned an interest early on with visual tracking.

There were dozens of incidents were the “eyewitnesses of bigfoot†either accompanied me to the “scene of the crime†or at the very least were able to point out where it happened on a 7.5 quad within days of the incident. The results were:

There was one honest misidentification of a “bigfoot track†that was in reality, a direct register bear track where the bear was galloping down slope and transitioned to the typical overstep walking gait.

There was one incident where several witnesses really “saw bigfoot†crossing the same stretch of rural highway on the same night but the “bigfoot†was a dude/dudette in a monkey suit.

All the rest were pure fabrications from individuals that simply made up their respective stories. When I pointed out why I wasn’t buying what they were selling and why the evidence at the scene not only didn’t support what they were selling, but clearly indicated that they didn’t do (most cases) what they claimed to have done and that there couldn’t possibly be a real bigfoot involved, most readily admitted they made the story up.

The last report that I investigated (the aforementioned dude/dudette in a monkey suit incident) put me into contact with a staffer from Peter Byrne’s Bigfoot Project. This was Byrne’s third effort to find evidence of bigfoot while spending millions of dollars of other people’s money. Byrne’s project typically got 3,000 plus calls a month and fielded thousands of sighting reports over its several year operating window. A hundred or so passed their litmus test as being “credibleâ€. Of the sightings that were recent and could be investigated, Byrne hired UTS to investigate the scenes of the alleged encounters. Byrne, Hardin and company concluded that all those “I just saw bigfoot†encounters were pure fabrications that simply didn’t involve a real bigfoot. Not one was legit.

Anyone concluding that all the sighting reports couldn’t possibly be false simply isn’t aware of the Byrne's efforts or is purposely ignoring the efforts of those who didn’t just accept the stories and applied actual due diligence and the appropriate skill set to the field investigation. Literally thousands of reports, the “best†of whom all went to zero probability of being real when the best visual trackers on the west coast were the ones applying the “due diligenceâ€. Byrne had dream levels of funding. Byrne also unlike most footers recognized that he didn’t possess the actual skill set to confirm or “deny with certainty†that the witnesses were telling the truth or were fabricating stories, so he hired those that could.

Anyone that buys into the notion that the sheer number of sightings somehow enhances the probability that bigfoot is real IMO is extremely naïve or unaware of Byrne’s results in attempting to validate a single, solitary sighting.

What most should be questioning is the comical levels of sheer buffoonery obviously disguised as “due diligence†applied by the current bigfoot field researchers who investigate footprint and sighting incidents. Are the sighting reports they investigate really convincing or is the reality that none of these supposedly “well respected†individual researchers actually know anything about the one skill set that would actually be valuable in assessing the reality of the actual evidence? By my own experiences, I’m going with the later until someone produces a single solitary incident that can be verified. For verification, I personally don’t need a body of a bipedal monkey on a slab. A well documented, continuous sign of passing of a real bigfoot that is followed for miles from where it was sighted and for miles from whence it appeared would likely do it for me.

For the record, despite the numerous claims of various members of this forum, the only footers I’m aware of and am convinced are actually proficient in visual tracking and have familiarity with the foot impressions of common NA wildlife is Leigh Culver and his associates. Leigh naturally isn’t well supported by the BF community because of all the other “weirdness†he seems to think is real. I do think if Leigh had been involved in investigating the Elbe or London track comedies he would have concluded they were fake within the first hour on scene and no one would have wasted anymore time discussing these two events.

If you look at the totality of the sighting evidence (as metadata) it becomes even more comical. It simply does not suggest or support the existence of a real animal.

Everything that walks the earth leaves evidence of its passing in the form of foot impressions and aerial sign. Footprints typically last for months or at least weeks and can last for years under the right conditions. Known to exist animals leave thousands of foot impressions each day. I can take anyone out for a summer’s day to look for whatever verified target species you want to find (deer, bear, cats, yotes, etc) common in NW California. We might see a deer, bear, cat or yote, but probably won’t. I can guarantee we will find dozens if not hundreds of distinct footprints of the target species. Yet you look at any database of bigfoot encounters (BFRO, TBRC, Oregon bigfoot, etc.) the actual visual sightings of the supposedly elusive bigfoot vastly outnumber the footprint reports. Is that more likely the result of bigfoot spending 15 hours a day consciously attempting to hide it’s sign, or because faking footprints requires significantly more effort on the part of the hoaxer than does making up a “I just saw bigfoot story� If bigfoot is real, the footprint finds should outnumber the visual sightings significantly. That simply is not the case with bigfoot.

The rationalizations that the vast abundance of sighting data supports the existence of bigfoot being expressed in this thread IMO lacks anything remotely resembling critical thinking or a simple application of rational logic.