The Motivation To Hoax

[Guest Luckyfoot]

I'm certainly no fan of throwing any individuals under the figurative or literal bus.

Agreed. Unless it's an actual bus , I don't think it will do hoaxers any good.

[Guest]

I think the motivation behind the Elbe was to discredit foot prints, and those that analyze them in general. I think the idea was for the believers to get all excited, and for it to become a major event so a skeptic could swoop in, and point out some flaws,and prove it a hoax. Why? To attempt an over all blanket of doubt they could attempt to cast over all that pesky foot print evidence that keeps showing up, and contributing, and rightly so, in the belief of existence.

Didn't I already read somewhere here on the forums, that if Elbe was a hoax, then you could not trust in any foot print evidence after that? I think that statement was made a little prematurely.

Yes I can see the motive here, but it still baffles me,is this a new kind of critical thinking in action?

John, they've been playing the "if it can be faked, it can't be trusted" card all along.

And yes, the motivation of Skeptical hoaxers IS to blow as much smoke as possible and cast as much doubt as possible to discredit evidence through the use of conflation and guilt by association.

We see the same sort of nonsense in things like the bashing of Meldrum over Snow Walker when he modified his opinion to account for new facts. We see the same thing in the bashing of Derek and DDA for being initially optimistic about Elbe. If a proponent makes so much as one single mistake, they are forever and universally considered wrong about everything in Skepticland.

That is why the Discreditation motive is the most sinister and dangerous one. The attack is not only on individual researchers' reputations, but on the process of science in BF research itself.

[Guest]

I've never felt tracks are very good evidence, they are typically in a very dynamic substance

Good, means that the conditions for a good track are more likely to obtain.

and context of the find has as much bearing on its crediabilty (who,what, where) as anything.

Since we have no Bigfoot feet any opinions about their structure and resulting tracks by any experts, researchers, ect mean little or nothing.

Most of the examples used as benchmarks for comparision are questionable as well.

A number of professional trackers, hunters, and anthropologists might have something to say about that, don't you think?

I believe Bigfoot could exsit and that's based on some personal experience, but based on my lifetime of fishing, hunting, camping and just snooping around have little confidence in most "evidence" attributed to Bigfoot.

"I haven't seen one so they don't exist" is poor argumentation.

At some point I might go to the trouble of making some stompers, figure out how to make some rubber feet put them on shoes, just to see how hard it would be to do.

Gone to all the trouble got to take them for a test run.....wow they look pretty good might even fool the "experts".

Was my plan from the beginning to defraud anyone....no....just to see if it could be done.

But now I've got a decision to make, man I could show BFS he's been challenging me for months on tracks and Mulder nothing would make happier to show him it could be done......punking Matt Moneymaker that would be awesome!!

So it could start out as something without any malicious intent and very easily turn bad.

We are a very small community of people and we all contribute to something in ways we may not even be aware of....

I'm not defending any hoaxer or making excuses, we all have to make our own choices based on our own moral compass, but I could see how it could happen if someone took it just a little to far.

So which is it? There's nothing wrong with hoaxing so long as it is to "show up" Matt Moneymaker, BFS, myself, et al? Or is hoaxing a bad thing?

[Guest BFSleuth]

Hoaxing is often all about the money.

[Cotter]

^^

Interesting. Should be an easy 100k, right?

[Guest]

I also think it's important to keep things in perspective, and look at the seriousness of any hoax. Did anyone get hurt, did anyone die and so on.

DR

You know what Derek - you bring up a good point.

This is not directed at Derek.. More to his specific point.

How serious is hoaxing? Do we just look in the other direction once we figure out we have been hoaxed - so long as no one is hurt? Everytime a new bigfoot video turned up on Youtube of some person standing on the side of the highway - we all said - eventually someone will get hurt doing this. This year - some one was killed. What happens when someone plants a track on the side of a steep hill - and a researcher (with no knowledge of the hoax) tries to climb that steep hill - and falls - hurting or killing themself.. Do we just say, "Oh - well that's sad, but he/she should have known better than to climb a steep hill? Would we praise the researcher for doing it - if they were able to cast the track and come down unhurt? Probably not - the researcher who scaled the hill will most likely be ridiculed for how silly it was to scale the hill for one track that was probably hoaxed - and later confirmed........... I guess that's how it is these days. LOL.

These things can and do go too far. Good people do get hurt - I do not discount the time, effort, and money that gets put out when we pay attention to reports.

And, before I get trashed for this - No, we can not be responsible for everything people do either in the field or while they are knowingly trying to test our "investigative skills" - but should we just pretend it's all okay when they are within our midst - and we know they are?

As to the topic of this thread. Honestly, I don't care why people hoax. The reasons are as varied as the number of people in the world. We won't ever stop it - and as long as the overwhelming opinion is to simply ignore them - why should they? LOL.

Edited October 10, 2012 by Melissa

[Guest JVDBogart]

I think wasting people's precious free time and money is "hurting" them.

Any free time a person has to spend with their family is very important to most. To waste one second of that time on such juvenille shenanigans is a second you can never get back. Those seconds add up and I know it "hurts" me to waste any of them.

Additionally, to waste money that you worked hard to earn sure sounds like it would "hurt" to me! It hurts me when gas goes up a dime! Not going to be all dramatic and say, "well now those researchers kids can't go to college." I think it is safe to say that could have put those wasted dollars to some good uses. Anything would be better than essentially throwing your money out your car window. Now that HURTS!

[Drew]

Any free time a person has to spend with their family is very important to most. To waste one second of that time on such juvenille shenanigans is a second you can never get back. Those seconds add up and I know it "hurts" me to waste any of them.

OK, so what if it was deemed to be prints from a real bigfoot by the experts, and the hoaxer never came forward, but the prints were still hoaxed, just that the researchers didn't know it, would it still be a waste of time? If it goes down in history as a great Bigfoot trackway, on a par with the BLUFF CREEK or Cripplefoot trackways, it wouldn't really be a waste of time would it?

[Guest thermalman]

By Bluff Creek, do you mean PGF?

[Drew]

BCM is what I meant, but since I think bluff creek is a hoax too, it means the same.

[Guest]

OK, so what if it was deemed to be prints from a real bigfoot by the experts, and the hoaxer never came forward, but the prints were still hoaxed, just that the researchers didn't know it, would it still be a waste of time? If it goes down in history as a great Bigfoot trackway, on a par with the BLUFF CREEK or Cripplefoot trackways, it wouldn't really be a waste of time would it?

I keep coming back to your comment Drew...

Yes - it is an enormous waste of time. Why?

In the most recent situation of hoaxing - the Elbe Trackway - what are the specific credentials of those hoaxing? Do they have some advanced educational experience or employment that makes them qualified to assess the methods used by researchers in this field?

If I need a track I cast assessed, I will go to those I know within the Law Enforcement community. I know MANY bigfoot researchers who do this. So, we have that covered.

What are the hoaxers teaching us when they don't come forward and tell us what they did, and how they did it? In the situation of the Elbe Trackway - these hoaxers have chosen to remain silent. So, what is the teachable moment here? You nor anyone else can tell us what the "teachable moment is" because you were not involved with this hoax. You can only speculate along with everyone else.

Is the teachable moment - Bigfoot researchers can be hoaxed? Okay. We already knew that.

I don't think anyone involved in this trackway would have spent the time, money and resources to go and investigate a hoax - which by the way is really very telling when it comes to Bigfoot Researchers --- we don't want to waste our time and money on bad information or evidence AND apparently the only way skeptics can get us to do this - is to fake something that might get the attention of a "bigfooter".

When the hoaxer(s) do not come forward and share why and how they did what they did -- there is nothing to learn - there is only the re-enforcement that bigfooters are chasing shadows and believing everything they hear. Is that the teachable moment? We have already heard this a couple thousand times already too.

So please excuse me if I do not understand the reasoning behind this incident - or the many others that have happened...

It is possible to be skeptical or even critical, of evidence and information, that is brought in front of this community for evaluation - without a skeptic or even a bigfooter going out and manufacturing the evidence or information. If someone tries to convince me that NOT every person involved in this most recent hoax - is not sitting back and laughing their backside off - well, you will have to excuse me if I don't believe that. There is ALWAYS a certain amount of the "giggle factor" along with a lot of back slapping and high fives that go along with fooling a bigfooter. They sure have not come forward with the lesson or "teachable moment"....

More specifically to your point - the data we collect means nothing if we are constantly being bombarded with fakes and hoaxes because someone felt like they needed to test our knowledge. Most of us, who call ourselves "Bigfoot Researchers", are looking for the truth of this mystery - we are not looking for a way to waste our time and money dealing with hoaxers and frauds - especially when there is nothing to learn. Those involved with the Elbe Trackway must know this, because they are keeping very quiet about their involvement and the so called "teachable moment"..... Something tells me, there is none. If there is - these people are more than welcome to prove me wrong. Tell me what that was supposed to be.

Otherwise, this is just another game being played on this community and its people.. That I find offensive.

Just my 2 cents.

[Guest]

^Excellent post, Melissa. It seems clear to me that certain hoaxers' motivation is not to "teach", but to tear down, to destroy, to cast as much mud and confusion as possible on the subject.

[Guest joename]

Sometimes I wonder if some hoaxes and discreditations are engineered to keep a wood ape (bigfoot, sasquatch, etc) from being actually discovered. Take Melba Ketchum for example. Everything she was working towards looked good and legitimate, but then on her facebook page she talks about interacting with these magical creatures and how playful they are, and how camera shy they are. It ends up discrediting all of her work, just because of what is easily perceived as fantasy. Or the Erickson project, it was looking good, then some deal about money and NDAs, and then some soft of fiction about bigfoot written by one of the people that were very heavily involved.

If bigfoot was discovered, who loses?

Do i think a large nocturnal primate lives in our deep forests - yes - Does somebody else KNOW they exist and don't want it to be public? It seems possible.

[Guest]

You know what Joename - I agree with you on all points. What's the best way to protect this animal if you don't want it bothered by scientists and lookie-loo's? Spread mis-information.

I won't discuss Ketchum - that is a topic that is guaranteed to get me into trouble here. LOL.

^Excellent post, Melissa. It seems clear to me that certain hoaxers' motivation is not to "teach", but to tear down, to destroy, to cast as much mud and confusion as possible on the subject.

I agree with you Mulder. If this most recent incident of hoaxing was to serve a larger purpose - I must have missed the post explaining the reasoning and purpose behind the hoaxing of this trackway..

There is a benefit that could be gained from people who want to test our skills and methods - but this is not it. And people with these skills can help researchers learn to identify very skilled hoaxes - but there has to be a give and take to the exercise.

But, I guess it's more fun for the hoaxers to just do it - bring the hoax to the attention of researchers - then sit back and wait for it to become as public as possible.

Edited to add:

Recently someone told me the field of Paleontology dealt with similiar situations and a lot of the same "bad blood" we deal with in this community.. The bad blood statement may be true - but I don't remember hearing about a Paleontologist making up fake bones - sending another Paleontologist to the location, allowing the time, effort, manpower and expense AND then saying "Hey - I hoaxed you with a fake bone --- see how gullible you are??" LOL.

Edited October 12, 2012 by Melissa

[indiefoot]

Wouldn't the Elbe trackway be described best as an "attempted hoax" since it was discredited pretty quickly. To the hoaxer it is just a big, fresh red herring to flop on the table.