So Called "myth"

[Guest]

If bigfoot is a myth, it's quite a believable one which isn't so far from being possible. That would help keep it alive. And the fact that he's a dark-coloured, evasive, elusive beast helps as well. But anyone with a vivid enough imagination can glimpse scary monsters if they hike through any forest in the right frame of mind. Bigfoot gives people a clear template to fit a spooky shadow or misidentification to. Nobody saw plesiosaurs in Loch Ness until archaeologists showed us what plesiosaurs looked like. People saw wheels of light in the sky until Kenneth Arnold described some objects he saw as like pie plates or saucers.

And there are definitely giant, dark, shaggy-haired animals seen on two legs in North America's woods. They're bears. There are also definitely odd tracks, strange tree-breaks, pungent smells, weirdly-killed small animals and weird noises in the forest. I honestly don't know what causes all these, but the bigfoot theory neatly explains the lot in one go.

Finally, I believe that mankind everywhere is historically pre-disposed to believing in forest-men, giants and human-like monsters that dwell in dark places. Every culture seems to have such a myth. Woodwoses - wild hairy men, were reported in England and Europe until well into the 16th century. And once you tell people that a forest has got wild men in it, you can be certain that you'll get people coming back with wide-eyes and ashen faces, telling tales of having seen them. This, I suspect, would hold true even if you'd made the wild-men story up yourself. You can't keep a good myth down.

[Guest]

Great post Ludo, you made some good points. While I don't dout for a minute that some sightings are indeed misidintified bears, I just can't believe its that high a percentage. I have never seen a bigfoot, but I have seen several bears in the wild. I just don't think they look at all like a big hairy man. I can say one thing for sure though, the trackway I saw was not made by a bear. I don't know for sure what made it but whatever did was either extremely heavy or someone pounded them into the ground with a jackhammer.

I think there must be something out there other than a myth to make so many people relate so many different encounters.

By the way Ludo, this post is in no way intended to be a counterpoint to yours. As I said, you made some good points.

[Guest]

While I don't dout for a minute that some sightings are indeed misidintified bears, I just can't believe its that high a percentage. I have never seen a bigfoot, but I have seen several bears in the wild. I just don't think they look at all like a big hairy man.

Kind of where I find myself. Granted, it was over 30 years ago, but I have some experience in working with bears. I can see where some less experienced weekend warriors may confuse a bear with a BF, but not anyone with any semblance of experience in the woods.

When bears are walking on two-legs they appear very awkward. Plus, their hind legs are relatively short. I think this contributes to the awkwardness when they are on two legs.

Bears, no doubt, do account for a small percentage of alleged BF sightings. But I think that number is small. The experience in the woods of the witness should play a role in the evaluation process IMO. I highly doubt anyone with any real experience would mistake a bear for a BF.

[Guest]

Great post Ludo, you made some good points. While I don't dout for a minute that some sightings are indeed misidintified bears, I just can't believe its that high a percentage. I have never seen a bigfoot, but I have seen several bears in the wild. I just don't think they look at all like a big hairy man. I can say one thing for sure though, the trackway I saw was not made by a bear. I don't know for sure what made it but whatever did was either extremely heavy or someone pounded them into the ground with a jackhammer.

I think there must be something out there other than a myth to make so many people relate so many different encounters.

By the way Ludo, this post is in no way intended to be a counterpoint to yours. As I said, you made some good points.

Thank you, MarkMc.

You're right about misidents - I don't for a second think that all, or even most sightings are bears. I just wanted to explore the myth idea, referencing a big, scary mammal which does without doubt stomp around bigfoot's traditional homelands. And whilst mythological creatures and bears don't leave deep human-like tracks and throw rocks at campers, it's easy to see how such events can get mythologised.

[Drew]

One of the things that points to 'myth' as the root of Bigfoot, is the distribution of the sightings.

When we didn't have internet, and local news was really local, National wires were for BIG stories, you can see that the PNW had the most sightings by far. as the stories spread, and the PGF happened, more and more people started SEEING bigfoot. It is the perfect example of a Red Panda Effect. As more and more people knew about it, more and more people started reporting it.

Now we have sightings in Michigan, Florida, New York, Populated areas, London, etc...

If it was real and existing in all these areas, then the sightings would not have been so skewed to the PNW where the POPULAR bigfoot myth was instigated.

[Guest Sasquatch]

I just think it is amazing how quickly people rule out the possibility of Bigfoots existence without really thinking about how easy it would be for a large semi-intelligent animal to stay hidden in the forest. If every town, city, road and human populated piece of property in the United States was put together in one place, it would fit inside of texas. How much extra space is there for something else? Have you ever noticed how when you chase a squirrel, it runs around the tree to stay out of your line of sight? As you walk around it, it moves and if you move quickly you will catch a glimpse until it runs out of sight again. I think that if Sasquatches exist, they are much smarter than squirrels and they are much better at hiding. They could sleep in tree tops or in caves or in hundreds of other places where nobody would come across during the day. Most say they are nocturnal, and I can only imagine how easy it would be for these creatures to hide from anyone at night. I believe that if there was a body found, (something to prove to everyone that they exhist) much more focus would be put on the subject, hundreds more people and millions of more dollars would be focused on the subject, and more would be found and probably killed or captured within months. Seems like there arent that many people out there trying to find proof. I think a lot of people who say they have seen them for themselves, no longer care to find proof. If fifty people were to see one at the same time, the general population would still not believe it. If everyone on this forum and their mother sat down and had lunch with a bigfoot, it would still not be accepted by the general population as a real animal. But anyway, these are just a few of my thoughts, I don't know if anyone agrees with me or not.

[Guest Lesmore]

Well in my part of Europe one never hears anything about trolls and goblins. I mean other than in fairytales of course. There are no alleged real-life sightings of those here. Bigfeet in North America on the other hand...

I'm referring to England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Isle of Man, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, etc.

[Drew]

Why would there be any evolutionary pressure for a Giant Beast 9' tall, to hide like a squirrel?

A squirrel needs to hide because if it doesn't it gets eaten. Nothing eats Bigfoot.

The ones who didn't have a trait to hide, died quickly.

You say they are going into caves or trees to avoid humans, why?

Have humans killed off the ones who don't have the trait to hide in caves or trees? if so, where are the bodies?

I see no reason to say how a Bigfoot would know to avoid us.

[Guest Lesmore]

But if bigfoot were really a myth, wouldn't it have died out? Seems to me like you are making a broad generalization Les

Not necessarily. Fairies and other varieties of little people are still believed to live in parts of Great Britain by some.

In fact I believe before you cross a certain bridge on the Isle of Man, it is considered wise to acknowledge the little people who apparently live under said bridge.

[Guest Sasquatch]

I don't know why they would hide, but they obviously haven't perfected their techniques either since so many people see them every year. I am not saying there is any solid 100% proof that it exists, because that would require a body, but im just saying that it would not be that hard for it to exist. I think the BFRO is really good at actually trying to find out whether or not reports are true or false. They have investigators talk to the person in length and even drive to their home and try to learn more about the encounter. I just want to know, if there is nothing out there, what are people seeing? Do you think that EVERY sighting is made up?

[Guest]

Do you think that EVERY sighting is made up?

I think a lot more are simply made up than folks here would like to acknowledge. This is another way a myth persists - out of politeness we tend not to question the veracity of alleged eyewitnesses.

Other people think they've seen something, but they haven't. This class of sighting can be attributed to various forms of illusion and hallucination, which are by no means limited to people who suffer from mental illness or intoxication. Perfectly healthy, coherent, and sober people can experience a hallucination; although we probably have many accounts in the BFRO database from people who were none of those things at the time of their encounter.

Some people do see, smell, or hear something that their brains interpret as bigfoot, even though it's not. Yes, a bear looks little like a bigfoot. But what if you see part of a bear (or a moose or a cow or a horse or an elk or a bison) from a funny angle under shadowy conditions or something? Suddenly that "obvious" bear becomes a lot less obvious. Imagine being in a dense forest, feeling something "eerie," smelling some roadkill on the breeze, and then getting startled by the sight of a massive, hairy shoulder that's at least as high as the top of your head. It doesn't matter that the "shoulder" was the hindquarter of a moose; your brain tells you that you just saw bigfoot. Other animals that contribute to alleged bigfoot sightings: owls (red eyeshine 10' off the ground), coyotes (howls), grouse (hoots), etc.

Some people see something that looks a lot like a bigfoot because it really does: People walking around in unexpected places in the woods (e.g., hunters, moonshiners, marijuana growers, morel collectors), people in ghillie suits, people in bigfoot suits. We've seen photos of this sort of thing here, so it must be relatively common.

So way down on the list of potential explanations for an anecdotal account would be the possibility that the person actually witnessed a real bigfoot. Other explanations are simply far more likely and need to be carefully considered and eliminated before ascribing a bigfoot cause to some unusual event.

[Guest Sasquatch]

You definately have some good points, I think many people think they saw something other than what they saw. There are a lot of ways people could fool themselves. I think that every other possibility should be ruled out before making assumptions that it was a bigfoot. But I also believe that people in general don't know as much as they think they do when it comes to the outdoors. Most people don't have a good grasp on how much uninhabited land is out there. I'm not trying to prove they exist, but I am asking, is it possible for them to exist? Aside from everything though, I spend a lot of time thinking about how many people would have to see a bigfoot for the general population to agree that it is real? Just hypothetically, say that bigfoot definately is a real animal and you have no doubt because you have a body in your living room ready for scientists to come check out. Would anyone believe you without seeing the body? No. If your whole neighborhood saw another one walking around looking for the dead body that you took and dragged in your living room, would anyone believe the people in the neighborhood when they tell the public what they saw? No. I just wonder how many hundreds or even thousands of people would have to see them for people to believe without having a body. I don't know why, but I wonder about that a lot lol.

[Guest]

I found the above video a while back, maybe even from the old BFF, I can't remember. The video kind of startled me at the ability of bears to walk, quickly, on their hind legs. When the bear is out in the open, it's very obvious that it's a bear. But walking, that quickly, through the trees really blurs the lines for me personally. I always pictured bears as lumbering and awkward but the bear in this video looks much more adept at walking. If that bear can do it, others can too. Now, being from Texas where our bear population is extremely new and confined to the far eastern part of the state, we're not used to seeing bears. Others with more bear experience would be a better judge at just how likely it is that bears are misidentified. But anyone with the same misconception that I had [about bears walking awkwardly] and only saw the clip of the bear walking behind the trees, would peg bigfoot as the only explanation for a swift-moving, upright walking, dark haired creature in the woods.

Something to think about.

My point, overall, is not that sasquatch doesn't exist, but that our standard for evidence needs to be extremely high in order for the mystery to truly be resolved or to gain any real scientific respect. Attributing every suspicious tree break, every fuzzy "big" foot print, everything that goes bump in the night keeps sasquatch on the level of mythology that is stands now.

[Guest alex]

Saskeptic, I assume you deny its very existence, correct? Not trying to talk down here or be disrespectful, but I remember you saying that in one of your last posts. If you do not recall saying it, i can refresh your memory

[Drew]

Saskeptic, I assume you deny its very existence, correct? Not trying to talk down here or be disrespectful, but I remember you saying that in one of your last posts. If you do not recall saying it, i can refresh your memory

Alex/Makaya/Blue Bear, why would you ask Saskeptic, a known Bigfoot Skeptic, if he denies Bigfoot's existence?