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

[Guest]

Of course not, or there would be no skeptics here discussing it.

I'm a skeptic. I'm happy to say I recently went from giving BF "real" status a 1% chance to a 10% chance. There is evidence that I do not have access to and so cannot evaluate that would probably increase that percentage. But if I can't view, I can't view it.

I also have not had a sighting, so until better evidence (or even better, proof) comes, all I can do is hope I'm wrong, and that there's some wonderful creature out there that will turn many sciences on their heads and rewrite history books.

[Guest Darrell]

Well, there has been physical evidence submitted and I've seen some of the preliminary results of it.

It hasn't been released yet but it is coming.

It's being kept pretty quiet but there is much more than the Ketchum Report in the works. And no, I can't speak any more of it. But it is there and VERY real.

But you see thats a big problem with me. And it might just be my problem, but its always a big discovery that is too big for just anybody and only the inner circle can be privy to this "very real" proof. How many times has this just imploded on the movement in the past?

Now, you've got to understand that for myself and others the standards for belief are different.

Most of us could care less what most scientists think.

And I guess that pretty much sums it up right?

[Cotter]

*shakes head*

I am completely lost for words.....

[Sunflower]

Could you explain to me why these people who have evidence aren't running to the nearest University to show it to the anthropology department? It is what I would do if I had evidence.

And your evidence would conveniently get lost, misplaced or worse "thrown away" as some have reported............

[ohiobill]

Are you suggesting that Drs. Meldrum, Ketchum, and Sykes are throwing away all the good evidence that's been sent to them? You can't have it both ways - either there's serious research going on or all the evidence is being misplaced in a huge conspiracy. What do you believe is happening Sunflower?

If there's no good physical proof and all we have are eyewitness accounts where do we stand? The chief administrator on this forum believes the majority of reported sightings are misidentifications or that the witnesses are not believable and he's a believer with access to info we don't have.

[Sunflower]

Read more above. I was replying to CTfoot's post. In the past, we read about evidence being sent to universities and then nothing..........

The Ketchum study is the first serious attempt at proving that they are real.

[Guest]

Thanks for the footprint link JohnC, and they're saying there's no evidence!

There was a sailor named Christopher years ago everybody thought was nuts when he said earth is round!

[Guest]

A couple genuine questions/observations after reading this interesting thread:

To start off, I think "proof" and "evidence" are getting mixed up in this thread. I won't claim to know which is right or wrong, but I'd like to define them for myself so as to not cause confusion. I personally think there is evidence for the existence of bigfoot (sightings, prints, hair, etc); I also think there is evidence against its existence (no body, few very clear images, no other similar animal in North America, etc); and I would say the fact that Sasquatch is not an officially-recognized species means that there is no proof that it exists. Now, there are certainly individuals out there who have proof for themselves that it exists, and we can argue about whether or not it is legitimate FOR YOU -- and I tend to think that it is. But I also don't think that proof for an individual necessarily means it is good enough for "the masses".

Really growing tired of seeing folks with closed minds poo-poo accounts of others. Doing so only discourages witnesses from coming forth.

Most of them do not ask for or seek their encounter, and are just innocent victims of an experience they can't explain or understand.

They come here to talk with folks that may have enjoyed a similar experience in an effort to understand their encounter.

I've seen this sentiment repeated fairly consistently on these forums -- now, I've often been referred to as an "odd duck" in some social situations, so maybe I'm just weird, but I've genuinely tried to place myself in the shoes of a witness, and I just don't see my feathers getting ruffled at someone not taking any story I tell at face value. If I claim to see something that the majority of the world believes does not and can not exist, I would certainly not find it bizarre for others to be skeptical of my story, especially since none of y'all know me one bit -- you don't even know me well enough to insult me! I wouldn't take it personally (rudeness aside, because obviously some people ARE jerks about it). What am I missing? (Genuinely asking here.)

Do you really think all of those who have witnessed BF are suffering from paredoila, on drugs, have psychological problems or are hoaxing?

Seems fairly incredulous to me if you are as the witnesses come from all walks of life, the majority are clearly credible, and most were not looking to see a BF.

...

And I think the majority of other claims are mis-Id's.

But there is no way all of them are.

The other thing I'd like to note that I think many bigfoot proponents are missing here (and I don't know if skeptics are explaining this particularly well themselves), is that some skeptics are interpreting that the lack of proof is itself evidence for non-existence. That is to say, in this thread a couple skeptics (don't want to put words in anyone's mouth directly) have noted that the amount of evidence -- footprints, blobsquatches, sightings, vocalizations, wood knocks, etc -- seems inconsistent with not having conclusive proof. To put it more bluntly, if so many people are seeing them (and we all agree, there are A LOT of instances) how is it possible we haven't yet gotten PROOF (as I defined above)? It seems to imply that bigfoot is like the perfect criminal, toying with the cops but never getting caught. But mathematically, it's like if someone tells you they have a normal coin, but they keep flipping it and it keeps landing heads. How many times in a row must it land heads before you conclude it's a two-headed coin? So from a certain perspective, the higher number of sightings may actually help convince people that bigfoot doesn't exist.

Finally, I don't want to come off as the normal skeptic here -- I always think it's funny that skeptics *seem* to come off as wanting to convince someone who has had a sighting that their sighting wasn't what they thought it was. I'm guessing if I caught a good minute-plus view of a bigfoot I'd flip right to the side of bigfoot proponent. What I am curious about, for those of you that have seen one -- is what did you think before your encounter? Did you already believe in bigfoot? Did you think it was silly? Because I'm pretty convinced if I saw one, I wouldn't hold it against anyone for thinking I was full of bologna.

So rather than be a skeptic who tries to convince you you shouldn't believe in bigfoot, I'd rather convince you to be understanding of those that don't hold that view. And if you still think skeptics are silly for not believing, explain why. Not everyone can have a sighting or view a super-secret conclusive video, and other than that, there is evidence for and against. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either full of it or is likely a politician.

* Just edited to make myself more clear-er *

Edited September 10, 2012 by PJam

[Guest]

Could you explain to me why these people who have evidence aren't running to the nearest University to show it to the anthropology department? It is what I would do if I had evidence.

They did, in 2005, but the results were not what BF advocates wanted to hear.

http://www.msnbc.msn...through-canada/

[Guest]

The squatchers are constantly trying to shift the burden of proof, or to be more accurate, the burden of "dis-prove" to the skeptics and the scientific community. We demand that you prove all the BF tracks are hoaxes, we insist that you demonstrate to us that wood knocks are not produced by Sasquatches or confirm for us that all the unidentified hairs did not come from BF. Like it or not, scientific discovery does not function in this manner and skeptics have no obligation to help in this quest. The responsibility falls on those who believe, and unfortunately, this includes all the financial burden as well.

Translation: "We're Skeptics. We say BF does not exist. We don't have to PROVE anything, or even provide evidence. Proponents have to prove US wrong. And all that evidence? Doesn't count, because BF is not proven to exist, so any evidence short of a body is invalid."

Circular reasoning 101...straight out of the Skeptic playbook.

As for much of the evidence that's constantly being regurgitated here, you can't call it evidence when no one else is given access except the most animate of BF proponents. Scientific discovery does not operate in this manner either.

"Scientific discovery" doesn't happen at all when Science sits on it's grant-funded posterior in a lab and doesn't do the legwork to objectively and impartially evaluate the evidence to hand, preferring to wait until someone else does all the work for them.

NO scientific discovery was ever made by saying said "It is not", and therefore not bothering to investigate.

Edited September 10, 2012 by Mulder

[ohiobill]

Translation: "We're Skeptics. We say BF does not exist. We don't have to PROVE anything, or even provide evidence. Proponents have to prove US wrong. And all that evidence? Doesn't count, because BF is not proven to exist, so any evidence short of a body is invalid."

Circular reasoning 101...straight out of the Skeptic playbook.

Translation: "We're Believers. We say BF exists. We don't have to PROVE anything, but look at all our great evidence. Skeptics have to prove US wrong. And all that evidence? The tree knocks, the tarps rustling, the clear evidence of psychic powers and advanced infrasound is unassailable because we say it happened. We know it happened so the burden is on you to find proof to counter our perfect evidence."

Hmm, guess it goes both ways.

[Guest]

That's actually a misnomer. Everyone knew the world was round at the time. The King of Spain was COUNTING on that being the case as it was believed that the Atlantic ocean was smaller than it really is, and that by sailing East, one could get to East Asia much faster than by the arduous overland trek west from Europe.

Translation: "We're Believers. We say BF exists. We don't have to PROVE anything, but look at all our great evidence. Skeptics have to prove US wrong. And all that evidence? The tree knocks, the tarps rustling, the clear evidence of psychic powers and advanced infrasound is unassailable because we say it happened. We know it happened so the burden is on you to find proof to counter our perfect evidence."

Hmm, guess it goes both ways.

Nice..you conveniently leave out the photos, cast tracks with biometric indicators (including dermals), forensically typed hairs, etc.

No one is fooled by your oh-so-convenient omission of HARD evidence in favor of a laundry list of fringe claims.

Try again.

[ohiobill]

Nice..you conveniently leave out the photos, cast tracks with biometric indicators (including dermals), forensically typed hairs, etc.

No one is fooled by your oh-so-convenient omission of HARD evidence in favor of a laundry list of fringe claims.

Try again.

Try reading once about my take on the "Hard Evidence" so far and answer the questions that I posted in #673 to HRP. If you want to get away from circular arguments you actually have to respond to questions.

What percentage of the reports do you consider to be true and reliable? What do you think of the sighting I covered in post #486? Thermalman finds it to be proof positive but I find it to be inconsistent, unreliable, and poorly investigated. I don't question the reporter's sincerity but I do question the veracity.

I am unsure how to take PGF - it looks natural to me, it's been examined by experts w/differing conclusions, and there are credible claims of hoaxing...so inconclusive at best. Most everything else I've seen is too blurry or too obvious a hoax to consider. Dermal ridges on footprints sounded promising but the drying plaster experiments have made them inadmissable as evidence in my eyes. Dr. Meldrum's analysis seems compelling but his basic premise (that the midtarsal break would be necessary to support the heavier weight) hasn't been proven and I've seen 400+ lb humans on "The Biggest Loser" run and jog without their feet breaking.

Looking at it from my perspective, what do you find to be the most compelling evidence of bigfoot available to me at this time? I will join the PMP when my post count gets there but until then where should I look? I am asking in all sincerity and with an open mind.

[Guest]

nevermind

Edited September 10, 2012 by CTfoot

[Guest thermalman]

I'm here to discuss BF, not to prove that they exist. Do the skeptics insist that proof comes before discussion?

Sounds foolish, but that's what they're demanding!

If they want evidence, they should be contacting the proper authorities, instead of listening to themselves on a general public forum, that just wants a discussion.

Seems they want to be heard by the forum members, because maybe no one else will listen to them? Redundancy is to the point of annoyance. All we hear is "prove it", "where's the evidence?", etc. Yet, they refuse to take on some of their own initiatives, if there are no answers on the forums suffice for them. When pressed and asked for their own theories, alternatives, hypothesis or any responses of committment, they will not produce any retort that might put them in an accountable position. The believers are here to find the same answers, but you don't hear them ranting and commanding evidence on an hourly basis? We're patient enough to let it transpire however long it takes to do so.

Reminds me of a childrens' saying we had many years ago...."Gimme, gimme, never gets,........don't you know your manners yet?"

Sad, but it seems were at that point with some of the adults here?

Edited September 10, 2012 by thermalman