Has This Theory Been Put Forward Before?

[Guest BlurryMonster]

BlurryMonster - thanks for your response. You make some extremely interesting points. The videos are really good too.

Thanks for acknowledging the points I made. Usually when I reply to something on this forum people just argue with me and tell me I'm wrong. I'm nice to see someone not acting like that.

Please see my post above about people surviving. What are your thoughts? Impossible, or absolutely necessary?

Well, no amount of wanting to survive actually makes people able to find food. You have no know what's edible and what can kill you, and if you don't, chances are you die. What if you eat some berries that look fine (or may even resemble something you're used to eating) and it's poisonous? If someone came over on a slave ship, they would likely be malnourished and suffering from some other physical maladies as well, which makes survival even less likely. It's also worth pointing out again that most slaves weren't just picked out of the jungle like most people think. They lived in settlements and relied on agriculture or horticulture for food, so it's not like they were surivival experts anyway. Someone in that situation being able to survive in unfamilar territory just seems unlikely to me.

I would also like to make some points about the language issue. There is a difference between language and communication, and most bigfoot noises that I've heard about are more like communication (I went over this stuff a little while ago in the Sierra Shooting thread). I'm not aware of a single instance of a group of people losing the ablity for language and resorting to communication, and I think it would be unlikely since the ability for language seems to be hardwired into our brain. What I would expect to happen in your scenario isn't people resorting to using whistles to communicate, but more like what was actually observed among slaves: pidgin langugages developed. People came together that were fluent in different languages and used bits to construct a rudimentary language that children eventually developed into a creole (a fully functioning language), probably a lot like the Gullah language or Carribean creoles.

You yourself say that people could be misidentifying other people as Bigfoot, so I guess you could be (unwittingly) causing offense, too I make the reference to slaves because a lot of reports have mentioned Bigfoot having black skin and a broad nose. Black people do have black skin and some do have a broad nose (yes yes other races can have broad noses too). That's an anatomical fact and if someone sees racist undertones in me saying that, well maybe they need to question their own outlook and not mine.

I am totally with you about the whole "I saw something weird" to "I saw Bigfoot" scenario. That's part of my point, in a roundabout way. I am asking if two things could have come together - legends of monsters living in the forest, with people hiding in the forest who are seen occasionally - to create the myth of Bigfoot.

Best.

Lee

I already said that I didn't think you were being racist, I really don't want to turn this into a big deal. I just wanted to point out that someone might get offended at the idea that escaped slaves turned into bigfoot, because I didn't think you were aware of it and I thought you might want to know if you might offend someone. The idea I suggested was completely different, by the way, and there's nothing wrong with my outlook. It's not like I was projecting racism onto anyone; like I said, I run into that kind of thing all the time. I'm aware of it because I see it a lot. Again, I wasn't trying to cause a problem.

I think two things come together all the time: people see weird things, and people know about bigfoot. As far as that being caused by something mysterious actually living in the woods, I'd say that you have to look at the most simple option here. Either people can be mistaking things we know about, or (in the case of your hypothesis), a group of escaped slaves can be living all over the US undetected. The first option sounds a lot more likely to me because it just seems more probable.

[dopelyrics]

BlurryMonster: I get you completely and I know what you were getting at. No problem at all

Best regards

[Shelly]

For Dope's theory to even be remotely believable by me there would have to be some sort of physical change because there is no way on earth that tens of thousands of people would, somehow, mistake an escaped black slave for Sasquatch. And, that also does not explain 1) stories of Sasquatch that predate slavery, 2) sightings of sasquatch in areas that didn't have slavery, 3) sightings of sasquatch in remote areas where it is doubtful that slaves would somehow migrate to 4) the need for slaves to somehow migrate to areas like New York and then hide out in the woods since slavery was not legal there anyway, etc.

I still feel my above comments are applicable regarding evolution.

When people go from one environment to another, they don't change who they are and suddenly are mistaken for something else.

There ARE some interesting stories about isolated humans in odd environments. I think there was a solitary Indian who was found somewhere that was the last member of his tribe. And some Japanese soldiers held out in the Philippine mountains for decades after World War II. But in those cases they were never mis-identified either.

[Guest BFSleuth]

^ Well said.

I would also add that the theory in the OP doesn't account for unclothed and barefoot humans being able to survive in temperatures well below freezing.

It makes far more sense that they are a unique species or unique number of species that are well adapted to the environment in which they live, and that they are highly intelligent and hunt and move in a cooperative manner.

[Guest]

Personally the idea that this it even being trotted out as any kind of explanation is borderline offensive. Read through the thousands of sighting reports. A very large portion of those reports have witnesses getting a very clear look at what they saw, and they describe the creature as being very simliar to an ape or gorilla. To say they are possibly mistaken and these ape/gorilla looking type creatures are actually black people is getting pretty close to out of bounds. I just don't see how this can even be considered, much less defended.

I don't know, maybe they are decendents of former Confederate soldiers that never turned themselves in and just decided to become completely wild and lost all ability to think like humans. To say this about former slaves is to say they are now animalistic. I don't know about that.

Edited July 14, 2012 by arizonabigfoot

[Guest]

I find the "theory" of this thread offensive and was surprised that the Mods allowed it, but here we are.

I will say that there are reports of people seeing these creatures and mistaking them for black people. Even by other black people.

As an example:

A friend of mine went to a black gentleman's home to investigate strange goat theft.

The gentleman had several goats fenced-in in the back of his property.

He told the investigator that one night he saw a black man stepping over his fence with a goat under his arm.

My friend asked him if he was sure it was a black man and the gentleman said he was positive.

My friend took him to the fence and showed him the height of the fence and asked him again, "Are you sure you saw a black man, with a goat under his arm, step over this fence?"

The fence was 4 ft high. The black gentleman gave my friend a dumbfounded look and shook his head.

[Shelly]

I think its only offensive if you interpret it the wrong way. Since we didn't have any great number of escaped white people hiding out to be mistaken for sasquatch, the theory itself wouldn't even work. There would be areas of the country where black people were not well known. I think today in the US that blacks make up what, 15% of the population? Having said that I dont know if I have read any old 19th century accounts that seemed to confuse "apes" and "gorillas" with escaped slaves in the first place. I suppose also that minor night time occurances like crops being taken etc or prowlers around the homestead that were sasquatch related could be attributed to escapees living off the land.

I can imagine if you, in the dark, saw a tall, black (colored) manlike figure, and were not familiar with sasquatch or just though it was a person, you could describe it as a "black man".

[Guest poignant]

I think we can cut dopelyrics some slack here...he already said that his theory lacked mileage.

[dopelyrics]

Hello,

I am not here to make enemies - quite the opposite, in fact. I have had many people on this forum who have been extremely gracious to me, by emailing me with their personal accounts and telling me things about a subject I am extremely interested in but know little about. Anyway, the point is that I am not going to throw that back in people's faces by knowingly offending them, so if I have offended anyone, I apologise.

I believe the mods on this forum saw my post for what it was - a legitimate question that did not have any kind of ulterior motive behind it. If you want to read something offensive - read Justin Smeja's description of the young Bigfoot he allegedly shot and killed. And there are literally thousands of posts on that subject.

Did you ever see the debate involving Dr. Meldrum, Dr Anna Nekaris and Ian Redmond (plus others) who asked the question whether a Native American on some kind of rite of passage in the forest could have been mistaken for Bigfoot? Is that offensive, too? Is that close to out of bounds? Or is it a legitimate theory? Mine was sort of along those lines.

Anyhow, I don't believe thousands of people are misidentifying what they see. I think Bigfoot probably does exist, and I really hope he does.

Time to put this thread to bed I think. Sincere thanks to everyone who has contributed.

Best regards,

Lee

[Guest MikeG]

Folks,

I think we have covered every aspect of this.

I would like to commend Dopelyrics for conducting his side of the discussion with decorum and for being aware of the sensibilities of raising such an issue. I don't think anyone has posted anything offensive, but we are now starting to see complaints that the whole subject is offensive.

Therefore I am going to take the very unusual step of locking this thread. Thanks to everyone who took part for their input. If you have any views on whether the thread should continue, just drop me a PM please.

Mike