Bigfoot Research – Still No Evidence, But Plenty Of Excuses To Explain Why There’S No Evidence

[Guest]

Are you one who has the opinion that just because bigfoot can't be everywhere then it means bigfoot must be nowhere?

In other words, do I share your opinion from post #2333? "Logic. They simply can't be numerous and widespread over nearly all of the USA and still remain uncatalogued."

If you are suggesting that bigfoots can only occur in the wildest, most rugged mountain ranges of the PNW, then you are discounting the vast majority of accounts that factor into that huge pile of evidence of which DWA is so fond. One problem with this approach is that it makes that pile of anecdotal evidence much smaller. You are suggesting that hundreds or perhaps thousands of reports of bigfoot are actually not evidence of bigfoot. The BFRO lists 229 reports for Ohio and 232 for Oregon. Only the reports you somehow deem to be credible are the real evidence for bigfoot, and that's what fascinates me about people who hold such a view: How have you determined that the anecdotal accounts from BC or CA or WA are any better than those from PA or OH or IN? The only way I can see it is that you are approaching the reports with the built-in bias that only those that come from some place you think is wild enough to harbor what you think a bigfoot is actually can harbor those bigfoots.

I imbue no such bias into my approach to these hypothetical bigfoot discussions. I begin with the premise that the general distribution over which bigfoots are reported in North America is the general distribution over which the creatures could possibly occur. I see nothing in the accounts I read from California that makes them any more likely to be accurate than accounts I read from Kentucky or New York or Virginia. The problem is not that bigfoot lives in out of the way, unexplored places, the problem is that bigfoot evades us no matter where it occurs.

[WSA]

I'm reminded of the old punch line about the husband caught by his wife in flagrante delicto with his mistress: "Honey, who are you going to believe, me or your lyin' eyes?" Put mainstream science in the place of the husband, and substitute eyewitnesses for the wife, and you've just about summed up the current state of things.

Will we ever hesitate to substitute our judgment for others, when they were there, and we were not? Most times it is an opportunity to correct a simple minded hayseed, so how could we resist, right?

I agree Saskeptic. Either the animal lives wherever it is reported, or it doesn't live at all. That said, the totatlity of the evidence indicates this a forest dwelling creature. Reports of BF in my basement might need to be discounted.

[Guest DWA]

I imbue no such bias into my approach to these hypothetical bigfoot discussions. I begin with the premise that the general distribution over which bigfoots are reported in North America is the general distribution over which the creatures could possibly occur. I see nothing in the accounts I read from California that makes them any more likely to be accurate than accounts I read from Kentucky or New York or Virginia. The problem is not that bigfoot lives in out of the way, unexplored places, the problem is that bigfoot evades us no matter where it occurs.

Whoa! National Holiday! Saskeptic and I agree with each other - and disagree with Kerchak, a guy who otherwise seems right down the pike with me - on something!

Um, look, I'm off to talk to Congress. National Holidays clearly take time. I'll be back soon. Be thinking about a name for the holiday.

(Edit. Back. Like I said, the holiday will take time.)

That paragraph could not encapsule what I think better. Where Saskeptic and I differ is on whom bigfoot is evading. It's clearly not evading the many who are seeing it. (If the phenomenon is real: well, most of us don't report most of our wildlife sightings, and a substantial negative incentive exists in this case, so reports are likely a small fraction of actual encounters.) Their sightings, however, haven't translated into mainstream scientific attention yet.

Kerchak:

Where those of us living in the USA and Canada might differ with you (if I understand you correctly) is on the ability of a large, intelligent omnivore to live cheek by jowl with humans. Our referent is the black bear, which is rather adept at doing that. If bigfoot's real, it's smarter; and the encounter literature seems to indicate it has access to a wider variety of food (hands, plus the apparent ability to catch large animals in good health.) Shoot, given the two as hypotheticals, I'd consider bigfoot fitter, and thus more likely! There's nothing in the literature that seems to suggest anything that known animals can't do.

Besides which, eastern forests - as Bindernagel, once a PNW-only man, quickly acknowledged upon visiting places like Ohio and east Texas to follow up on the encounters in those places - are generally considerably richer in potential food than western coniferous forests.

So I tend to give encounters outside the PNW great credence. When one reads them, they are no less compelling.

[dmaker]

^^ Do you have any trees in your basement? According to Finding Bigfoot, all it takes is some trees. I just stored my christmas tree in my basement. Is my basement now "squatchy"? I should go down and do some knocks or calls tonight

[Guest DWA]

Do you feel you are in a position ( not being a scientist) to be able to pronounce what science has done so far to be not a proper appraisal? There are obviously qualified scientists who feel that it has been properly appraised and was found wanting. How is that a lay person gets to challenge that appraisal and say not good enough? What is that based on?

Simple: what they say.

I have not yet heard a scientist dismiss the evidence who has given me a reason to dismiss what i think of it. If the footprints are bogus one must show why; same with the sightings. I should expect at least an engagement with Meldrum that shows good reason to discount what he says and thinks. Same with Krantz and Bindernagel.

So far, nada. Good basis, I'd say.

[dmaker]

Well DWA, we are definitely in agreement on one thing: we both would love for BF research to get proper attention and proper funding from qualified groups. We have different ideas as to the outcome of that research, but I know I would love to see it happen. 10 million dollars can motivate people fairly strongly I would think. This Spike TV offer, in my opinion, is just going to be yet another ridiculous side show like Finding Bigfoot, but you never know.

[Cisco]

Ronn

I'll take a shot at your question. Mind you, I have no idea if Bigfoot exists or what their behaviors are, in any way.

1. Perhaps they store food?

2. Alternating their diet from deer to rodents?

3. Slowing down their caloric needs?

4. Perhaps they migrate?

5. Perhaps they prey on hibernating bears?

Anyhow, these are just some possibilities that may or may not be worth discussing.

[Guest RedRatSnake]

Well DWA, we are definitely in agreement on one thing: we both would love for BF research to get proper attention and proper funding from qualified groups. We have different ideas as to the outcome of that research, but I know I would love to see it happen. 10 million dollars can motivate people fairly strongly I would think. This Spike TV offer, in my opinion, is just going to be yet another ridiculous side show like Finding Bigfoot, but you never know.

When you say proper funding from qualified groups, what kind of groups do you mean, there has already been searches and groups looking for this animal for many many years, what else could possibly be done that hasn't already, I look at other searchers for elusive animals and it is done pretty much the same way all the time, find an area that the animal has been seen in the past, maybe throw out some bait and a few trail cams, then sit down and wait.

I agree with ya about this Spike TV Show, it is going to be just that, a TV Show.

[Drew]

I guess this about does it for the Chinese Bigfoot... http://www.isu.edu/rhi/pdf/Zhou__Tracking%20the%20Chinese%20Wildman.pdf

[Guest]

@ DWA

Have you seen a bigfoot before? (once? more than once?) If so can you describe your sighting, or link to a report of it. Thanks.

Edited January 11, 2013 by LWD

[Guest DWA]

Nope, haven't seen one.

But to conclude on the basis of that that they aren't real would be engaging the argument from personal incredulity, which I personally can't see doing. Call all those people liars or deranged? Not doing it. Presuming all the footprints fake or misidentified (including the ones I saw in 1986)? So unlikely I can't entertain it as the last word.

[norseman]

In other words, do I share your opinion from post #2333? "Logic. They simply can't be numerous and widespread over nearly all of the USA and still remain uncatalogued."

If you are suggesting that bigfoots can only occur in the wildest, most rugged mountain ranges of the PNW, then you are discounting the vast majority of accounts that factor into that huge pile of evidence of which DWA is so fond. One problem with this approach is that it makes that pile of anecdotal evidence much smaller. You are suggesting that hundreds or perhaps thousands of reports of bigfoot are actually not evidence of bigfoot. The BFRO lists 229 reports for Ohio and 232 for Oregon. Only the reports you somehow deem to be credible are the real evidence for bigfoot, and that's what fascinates me about people who hold such a view: How have you determined that the anecdotal accounts from BC or CA or WA are any better than those from PA or OH or IN? The only way I can see it is that you are approaching the reports with the built-in bias that only those that come from some place you think is wild enough to harbor what you think a bigfoot is actually can harbor those bigfoots.

I imbue no such bias into my approach to these hypothetical bigfoot discussions. I begin with the premise that the general distribution over which bigfoots are reported in North America is the general distribution over which the creatures could possibly occur. I see nothing in the accounts I read from California that makes them any more likely to be accurate than accounts I read from Kentucky or New York or Virginia. The problem is not that bigfoot lives in out of the way, unexplored places, the problem is that bigfoot evades us no matter where it occurs.

Evades whom exactly? Bobo? Has the Smithsonian sent in professional big game hunters? No of course not. So who exactly is searching for it? Well some well meaning amateurs like Bobo with the intent on taking it's "picture" are looking for it right? On their spare time on weekends and such.

Most of the sightings are people minding their own business and happen to see one. So I don't see this as an issue of "evading" us........because some of our species see's them quite often. The problem lays with the fact that most of our species doesn't believe in them to begin with and there fore will not allocate resources to get to the bottom of it.

In fact in the 411 missing persons book, in the Dennis Martin case, the FBI's BEST LEAD was a tall hairy looking something packing something smaller on it's shoulder. One family member thought it was a Bear. This sighting was not very far away from where Dennis Martin went missing from his family. The FBI ignored the families report..........why? Bigfoot like sightings on the way home from work are one thing. But when they are your best lead in a case of a missing boy? I think I would have taken that report a bit more seriously.

I was like as you say, someone who had only a luke warm interest in Eastern reportings. That was until I read the 411 books. There is some extremely bizarre happenings out that way and the Park Service doesn't want to cooperate in the least.

But nobody is REALLY looking........at least nobody that is going to report to the general public about what they find.

[Guest DWA]

Well DWA, we are definitely in agreement on one thing: we both would love for BF research to get proper attention and proper funding from qualified groups. We have different ideas as to the outcome of that research, but I know I would love to see it happen. 10 million dollars can motivate people fairly strongly I would think. This Spike TV offer, in my opinion, is just going to be yet another ridiculous side show like Finding Bigfoot, but you never know.

Nothing TV will be anything but ratings-focused, i.e., on the sensational and short-term, barring events neither you nor I could foresee. I will never watch FB. I might watch a show that followed Survivorman - or even better, a scientist of that ilk, or even better, both of them - around, for a full season, in an area with considerable recent history. You wouldn't have to have Squatchy Every Five Minutes to make a show like that watchable. Shoot, Survivorman already gets the ratings. Combining that with bigfoot hunting the way it might actually work...? My opinion is that the show wouldn't have to produce proof, just enough evidence to convince anyone with mainstream credentials who was involved (and oh, that involvement will be necessary) that there is something here worth pursuing. Lots of three-day excursions I've heard of might have done that were the mainstream along for the ride, but they weren't...and then everybody had to go back to work...

When you say proper funding from qualified groups, what kind of groups do you mean, there has already been searches and groups looking for this animal for many many years, what else could possibly be done that hasn't already, I look at other searchers for elusive animals and it is done pretty much the same way all the time, find an area that the animal has been seen in the past, maybe throw out some bait and a few trail cams, then sit down and wait.

I agree with ya about this Spike TV Show, it is going to be just that, a TV Show.

In my opinion there have been three trips likely to come back with something: Patterson-Gimlin (and they did) and the TBRC's Operations Persistence and Endurance (which are apparently sifting through a whole lot of data). That's it. Three.

As I said, if Nat Geo or NSF or World Wildlife Fund or a major museum or other mainstream body had been along for any of a number of TBRC or even BFRO three-day trips, we might be looking at this whole thing differently. But so far no soap.

Edited January 11, 2013 by DWA

[WSA]

I’ve always said, you are left with only these possibilities when considering the large number of modern Sasquatch sightings:

1. The witness is being truthful, but is mistaken in what he/she saw and/or experienced.

2. The witness was intoxicated, deluded, unstable or otherwise unreliable and can’t be taken seriously.

3. The witness is being untruthful and perpetrated a deliberate hoax.

4. A combination of two or all of the above.

5. The witness experienced an encounter with an unknown animal commonly described as a Sasquatch.

These are my assessment criteria:

The motivation of the witness in giving the account should be used to gauge his/her credibility. In other words, what would a witness stand to gain, or lose, when making the attributed statements?

The totality of the circumstances should also be subject to scrutiny, and an abundance of internal consistencies/inconsistencies should be noted as indicators of reliability/unreliability. Comparison to other statements for consistencies/inconsistencies should be done for the same reason.

Corroboration by other witnesses present or with relevant knowledge of the conditions should be given equal weight if indicators of reliability are also present, and if so, the combined credibility of the statements is greater than if the occurrence happened individually. In the same manner, individual, non-contemporary statements that share indicators of credibility will be given greater combined credibility than if considered individually.

Contemporaneous and proximal occurrences witnessed in isolation from one another will be given extraordinary weight, if a satisfactory number of other indicators of credibility are met.

The reader of the statement should also bring to bear his own personal life experience and knowledge of known phenomenon to gauge the probabilities of the event occurring as the witness recounts it, and not just on the ultimate issue, but also as to probabilities of smaller, lesser events within the narrative.

Unless indicated otherwise by actual known facts or the totality of the circumstances, the witness should be presumed to possess the requisite sense capacity to have made the observations claimed, and not to suffer from incompetence or intoxication.

Accounts made by individuals who are engaged in pursuits that place them more often in circumstances requiring heightened powers of observation and awareness should be given more weight than those who are not. If the observer’s occupation or demeanor carries with it a presumption of heightened credibility, that should also be considered.

The reader should refrain from making any determination of the probability for the ultimate event described apart from that gained by application of the above criteria.

[dmaker]

When you say proper funding from qualified groups, what kind of groups do you mean, there has already been searches and groups looking for this animal for many many years, what else could possibly be done that hasn't already, I look at other searchers for elusive animals and it is done pretty much the same way all the time, find an area that the animal has been seen in the past, maybe throw out some bait and a few trail cams, then sit down and wait.

I agree with ya about this Spike TV Show, it is going to be just that, a TV Show.

Well that was more to imagine a scenario that would satisfy DWA. I am already satisfied that BF does not exist. I believe the arguments and evidence against to be stronger than the arguments and evidence for. DWA is of the opinion that we have not properly looked. Not really my opinion. And by qualified I meant professionals, both scientists and otherwise. I would imagine a qualified group to have a membership consisting of biologists, anthropologists, trackers, hunters, linguistics experts, anyone that can bring valuable experience and objectivity to the task. What I don't consider to be qualified are some of the amateur efforts from folks like Bobo, or Dallas Gilbert that see a BF in every shadow or twig crack in the night. That also describes a few members on this board I would imagine too.

WSA, 1, 2, 3, and 4 EVERY time. I have no problem whatsoever believing and accepting that as true. I think the majority of them are #1. I don't envision a massive, coordinated hoax going on, but I do easily see a bunch of people seeing something and believing it to be something else. This happens all the time, and not just with BF.

Edited January 11, 2013 by dmaker