Bigfoot Research--Still No Evidence (Continued)

[Guest LarryP]

I think that every skeptic that ever comes to this forum would be more than happy to be presented with a bigfoot specimen. I am positive that each one would revel in the discovery, in something new, something unique, something thought provoking. They have nothing against bigfoot, are not afraid of bigfoot existing, and have no secret anti-bigfoot agenda they have to stick to.

You really believe that about "every skeptic" ?!

I would agree with you if you'd said every "true" skeptic.

But the vast majority are pseudo-skeptics who are absolutely terrified of anything that might tear apart their materialist view of the world and what they percieve to be "reality".

Please provide examples.

[Drew]

A giant elusive apeman would waste it's valuable energy bending trees for no apparent reason?

And further more, the apeman would do this in the vicinity of a world famous researcher?

I think you need to keep better tabs on your colleagues.

[kbhunter]

World famous? Please don't put words in my mouth. Did I even say it was an ape man Drew? I definitely don't think it was an ape man. If this is your attempt helping provide your opinion on what caused it, you didn't accomplish that.

KB

[dmaker]

I don't have enough experience with investigating what causes things like that tree break. I spend a fair bit of time hiking in the woods, so I see them all the time, but I just chalk them up to mundane causes like wind, or age, or snow, or some other logical explanation. So I don't really have much to add to that part of this thread other than I would just assume some common cause for the tree damage.

[Guest DWA]

A giant elusive apeman would waste it's valuable energy bending trees for no apparent reason?

And further more, the apeman would do this in the vicinity of a world famous researcher?

I think you need to keep better tabs on your colleagues.

Birds do, by conservative estimate, 99,754% of their flying for no apparent reason. (You don't want to know the calculations that went into that. It took 54 years, let's just start with that.)

And no, the "apeman" didn't do anything, because there's no such thing as an "apeman."

(I reserve the right to one-liners and zingers.)

[Guest Tontar]

You really believe that about "every skeptic" ?!

Yes i do, which is why I said it. :-)

I would agree with you if you'd said every "true" skeptic.

I don't see skeptics as some sort of enemy, someone threatening to destroy what I hold dear in my heart, so I don't generally mice words about what is and what isn't a true skeptic. I think that those most often considered scoftics, and actually not even that, those that most proponents simply refer to as skeptics (as a dirty word) only appear to be the big bad meanies because they are pretty well satisfied and convinced that the "evidence" and lack of evidence shows conclusively that bigfoot does not exist, and so why bother tap dancing around that opinion and wander into a fantasyland that they don't particularly want to go into.

Just because someone doesn't believe in mermaids, based on everything presented on he subject, doesn't mean they are mermaid haters. They may not understand why some people can still believe in mermaids, but that doesn't mean there is something wrong with people who just can't get behind the mermaid story.

But the vast majority are pseudo-skeptics who are absolutely terrified of anything that might tear apart their materialist view of the world and what they percieve to be "reality".

Here we go again. Misinterpreting what skeptics think. I've seen some pretty hard core skeptics voice their opinions on things, and I have never gotten the idea that they were somehow afraid or as you put it, "terrified" that bigfoot would tear apart their rigid and limited world view. I fully believe that this kind of statement represents being completely out of touch with skeptical minded people.

Speaking of fear. Fear is an emotion. Proponents of bigfoot and the like are typically the most emotional about it. Skeptics have little reason to be. Bigfoot represents different things to different people, but in general I think that it represents a modern variation of the boogieman. Yeah, I've said that before, but that's my observation and it seems to be consistently borne out again and again. Then big hairy thing that goes bump (knock, knock, knock) in the night. Bigfoot has gone from a daylight creature to a night time, glowing red eye thing that screams and howls and scares the beejeesus out of people.

When I was at the Bigfoot Roundup, and Mike Green presented his thermal video of the zagnut snatching glow-squatch, it was a fascinating event. There was the big warmup discussion, how it all came to be, his history researching, on and on, and eventually getting around to the video being taken. Then after all the warmup talk, the video rolls. And it is timed beautifully. People strain their eyes to see in the dark trees, grainy, IR video, and then here it comes. Sneaky, vague, creeping in, it was so perfect. I kid you not, people were holding their breaths, then gasping, then moaning, saying things like "OMG, OMG, OMG!!!". I would bet money that some were actually peeing their pants in anticipation, then reward, as the blob crept in, grabbed the candy bar, snuck away, then stood up, rocked back and forth, hen snuck away. For some, it was clearly a spiritual, mind blowing experience. It was an event overflowing with globs of emotion.

Now, I have seen a lot of debate about bigfoot here and on other forums, and while I have seen skeptics get a bit emotional during some arguments, I have never seen very much emotional attachment to the idea that bigfoot doesn't exist. I don't see anyone with an emotional investment in the non-existence of bigfoot. But I do, constantly see incredible emotional investment in the existence of bigfoot among proponents. Maybe not all, but a lot. so if anyone is going to be "terrified" of anything, I sincerely doubt it would be skeptics over the reality of bigfoot.

Like I said, I would bet most skeptics, or even all skeptics for that matter, being rather excited if bigfoot was ever to come out of the woods and be real.

[Sunflower]

Tontar and Drew:

You two guys might think about planning a camping trip?????

Peace!

[dmaker]

Sunflower, I'm not sure if you are implying that all it takes to encounter a Bigfoot is to spend some time, at night, in the woods? It might be that simple if you allow yourself to be convinced by every sound, every rustle, that there are Bigfoots lurking about. In that case, yes it is quite easy to trot out to the woods and have an encounter. Otherwise, you are far more likely to spend a pleasant night or two in the woods, possibly hear some wildlife, and that is about it.

[Drew]

Otherwise, you are far more likely to spend a pleasant night or two in the woods, possibly hear some wildlife, and that is about it.

Or, hear a bunch of Bigfoot hunters banging on trees and howling like sick coyotes.

[Guest]

Sunflower, I'm not sure if you are implying that all it takes to encounter a Bigfoot is to spend some time, at night, in the woods? It might be that simple if you allow yourself to be convinced by every sound, every rustle, that there are Bigfoots lurking about. In that case, yes it is quite easy to trot out to the woods and have an encounter. Otherwise, you are far more likely to spend a pleasant night or two in the woods, possibly hear some wildlife, and that is about it.

I agree with this. And the more I interact in the photo/video section with blobsquatches the more I am convinced that this is what it happening. Each piece of photo/video evidence over there always has a few folks (usually the same people) who swear they can see the subject with great clarity. We are all looking at the same thing, and a brown spot or a shadow does not a BF make. In fact claiming so does a huge dis-service to those who perhaps have real experiences and certainly does not help bigfootery in the larger sense.

[Guest DWA]

Oh. John Crane's statement is utterly wrong. On its face. You have to give me someone serious, with a serious argument. This underscores that you can't; but of course you will claim it as verifying that "you can't win," 'coz that's your modus o.

Deja vu! You asked for one, only one, and I predicted this exact response prior to me posting that one.

But just to give you some more names to punt on, how about these:

Dr. David Daegling

Dr. Esteban Sarmiento

Dr. David Begun

Dr. Nina Jablonski

Each one of these scientists have very serious arguments. They are respected within their fields, and you would be a fool to dismiss their arguments the same way you dismiss every other argument that opposes your belief system. Science versus faith is what we have here. Science versus belief.

Now I have given not one, but five scientists that have considered the subject and concluded that bigfoot does not, and pretty much could not exist, given not only the existing collection of evidence, but also far more considerations such as environmental conditions, habitat, biology, food, evolution, various physical reasons, and not excluding the fact that the evidence that everyone speaks so highly of has very little scientific merit.

I honestly don't expect you to respond in any reasonable manner to this new list of people, based on everything previous. Your best argument about John Crane was that he was just "utterly wrong". I gave you only one simple, condensed statement, and you dismiss every possible consideration he might have given it, or any other explanation he may have had that might have been much longer. You don't care. He says bigfoot doesn't exist, so your knee-jerk reaction is simply to say he's utterly wrong. I see how your scientific mind processes problems when they are presented. If a problem is unfavorable, instead of considering it, you react, you dismiss, you turn a blind eye. yet you falsely claim that you are open minded, even while you refuse to consider alternate points of views that might conflict with yours.

I think that every skeptic that ever comes to this forum would be more than happy to be presented with a bigfoot specimen. I am positive that each one would revel in the discovery, in something new, something unique, something thought provoking. They have nothing against bigfoot, are not afraid of bigfoot existing, and have no secret anti-bigfoot agenda they have to stick to. The one thing that is the problem is that there is no reason for them to "believe" that bigfoot exists based on the very sketchy evidence, the mountain of folkloric hoaxes that have gone on for all time, and the complete lack of any biological evidence. Those are very good reasons not to believe. science is not about belief, it's about being able to document things, and expressions of folklore concocted by people is simply not something that sits well under scientific scrutiny.

Bigfoot exists only in the minds of people at this point. It has never been shown to exist outside the creative process of people. If it ever does, great! But until now, it's all subject to human fabrication. Every bit of it.

But it just gets old when some of us realize you'll do it until a body falls on your heads. And stinks. And is hairy. And huge.

Sorry, but that's kind of how it works when a species is categorized, or acknowledged to actually exist in the real world. If we're talking about bigfoot as a real, live, physical creature, some sort of mammal, that eats, drinks, eliminates, reproduces, lives, dies, just like every other animal on this planet, then it must have a body, and that body must have some sort of physical presence, from the macro sense with a breeding population, all the way down to the cellular and molecular level. And to date, there has been nothing to analyze on either end of that spectrum. No breeding populations, and not a single molecule have ever been documented.

And sorry if you consider an actual specimen to be an outrageous expectation, but if anyone is expected to accept the notion that an animal species exists, a specimen of some sort has always been an expectation. Otherwise it is nothing more than fantasy and unfulfilled dreams. If it exists, there should be a specimen. Never has one been presented. I find it amazing that you or anyone else could accept an animal exists without a specimen ever coming to light. Absolutely amazing.

Whoa. Now we're getting some meat! Hey WSA, come on back!

No, Crane's wrong, because one cannot honestly identify all the evidence presented, particularly the trackways, as concocted. Anyone with a decent knowledge of wildlife and people knows that the reports themselves - to answer one of your previous questions - are the biodata. They are not only consistent, and crosscheck against the trackways, but if someone asked a biologist, OK, just talking crazy now, were an ape to exist in the temperate zone, what might it be like? the picture coming from the reports would be so close to what he'd say that the diff isn't worth working over. That's happening from a bunch of random wrongness? Doubt that strongly. You wouldn't bet anything you wanted to keep on it.

Daegling. Forget him. His rant about P/G doesn't even address the film, other than to get a bunch of guys to walk around wearing water bags, and to "nail" Grover Krantz on a vague quote Krantz probably made out of frustration (better than shooting somebody, eh?) ...which he did by cherrypicking one single measurement. (Bigfoot: the result of mating between an unknown hominoid mother and a German Air Force father.) Naaaah. To blame the animal's nonexistence on the folks looking for it doesn't wash.

Esteban Sarmiento is a reasonable skeptic. I've talked to him. He doesn't deny it and he doesn't accept it whole. He's on the fence. And I think he gives it a significant shot of being real. Proponents are very comfortable with him; his mind appears to be open. He looked at Skookum and didn't go, elk, and leave. He's intrigued by it. From Wikipedia: "Sarmiento is one of the few mainstream experts to give serious attention to cryptozoology, particularly reports of Bigfoot. Sarmiento does not suggest that the existence of Bigfoot has been established, but that its existence is possible and that claims and evidence deserve careful scrutiny." Down widdat. Shoot, sounds like crittergetter and me. But skeptics should, because skeptics we are. (SEE? I gave you one.)

Begun, who otherwise seems pretty open on this, falls down on "the lack of fossil evidence makes it unlikely." Any scientist should know that (1) the fossil record may indeed have sasquatch progenitors in it and (2) one never uses the fossil record to pronounce on what lives now. And labeling your sidebar "Bigfoot Ballyhoo" suggests that one is preaching to the choir and either making up his mind or faking it. He's no Meldrum, in other words.

Nina Jablonski is the clown who said they don't have enough to eat. Come on. Forests got the way they are, and keep growing, because the preponderance of their produce goes to compost. There is more than plenty. Keep in mind two things: (1) large bands of roving homo sapiens combed that ground for centuries and (2) large-scale agriculture has provided a huge alternate larder (to say nothing of deer; Columbus never saw near so many). And are we surprised we have many reports of Squatchy taking advantage of the rancher and farmer? That we do. No shock. Gorillas and chimps do it too.

Summing up: one out of five ain't bad...OK. One and a half.

And no that's not how it works. Science, when it's working, pursues incomplete evidence to proof. Nothing that science confirms is something they had no clue about. Oh, they had clues. The clues weren't conclusive yet. Same here. Nobody is breaking out champagne; nobody is declaring search over. Truth is, when we have confirmation, the search will have only begun. We have learned 99% of what we know about chimps and gorillas in the last fifty years.

[dmaker]

That sounds great an all there DWA, except you have made up your mind already. You have made that painfully clear. You allow for zero possibility that a pursuit of the evidence will not lead to a Sasquatch. ZERO. If I am wrong, please correct me. While you are at it, it would be great if you could hazard a guess as to what is causing the evidence if not a Sasquatch. But you will never do that because your mind is not open on this topic at all. You just want people to think that it is. If it was open even a crack, you would have no problem saying , sure there is a chance, not a great one, but a chance that all this evidence is caused by something other than Bigfoot. Anyone who claims to be open minded on this topic would do that. But you won't. Show me wrong, that would be great.

I don't care which scientists pass your muster and which ones you adore. Means squat to me because your allegiance is as predictable as gravity. Pro-Squatch, you love em. Anyone else, hack.

[Guest Tontar]

Tontar and Drew:

You two guys might think about planning a camping trip?????

Peace!

More inaccurate assumptions? Sunflower, I don't know where you live, but I moved to the Pacific Northwest in 1977, and have been on quite a number of "camping trips" since then. More than I could ever begin to count. But sure, the more the merrier. Part of the reason I moved up here was because of my interest in bigfoot. Living essentially in the heart of bigfoot territory sounded like the best way to find out the truth about them, to see them, to have my own personal encounter. So far, it's been a bust. It's been great living here, great camping, great hiking and climbing and all that outdoors stuff, but if you are implying, as I suspect that you are, that Drew and myself might have a better chance of finding bigfoot if we goit out into bigfoot country, well, I can't speak for Drew, but I can speak for myself when I say that in 35 years of "camping" and outdoorsmanship, I have come up with absolutely no evidence of bigfoot.

As long as we're making suggestions, how about you share the photos that yo have that prove bigfoot exists? We were speaking of fears earlier today, so what are you afraid of? Are you afraid that some skeptic would see through the photos, recognize the mask as an online available rubber one? Or perhaps see it as some home made hand crafted job? I've seen such secret photos that proved bigfoot was real come to light now and then, only to be sadly and instantly exposed as half hearted fakes. The Mathilda example is the most recent one that comes to mind. Boy, that was supposed to shake the world to its foundations, and cause a huge paradigm shift in the way people view our place in the world. It was also supposed to put the skeptics in their places as well. What it did, however, is carve off one more piece of absolute proof, and slide it over to the ever growing heap of evidence that was created by people, not sasquatches.

The Temagami and Ben Matine hoaxes also spring to mind. Even though the perpetrators of those hoaxes tried to disguise their masks and suits with things like forced perspective and Photoshop, it was a simple task to rectify their efforts and see through the charades. More fakery. Unfortunately, those pictures were fantastic proof of the authenticity of bigfoot, all the way up until they were made public, at which point they were immediately debunked as fakes. In other words, so much evidence is wonderful evidence and proof, until it is asked to stand up to scrutiny, until it is actually able to be seen for what it is, and not what it is falsely proposed to be.

When you consider how one by one these supposedly authentic pieces of evidence are found to be falsified hokum, and not one has ever been found to be actually authentic, how can you not see the clear trend? It's kind of like Bop A Mole, where the evidence is touted as big proof bigfoot is real, until it becomes visible, then it gets bopped into irrelevance, at which point it disappears and another new piece of big proof rears its head, only to be bopped into irrelevance itself. That's how it always goes with bigfoot evidence. It never stands up to scrutiny, and only stands up as some sort of strong evidence or proof as long as it is kept secret, only seen by the eyes of true believers.

Kind of like the yeti scalp that has been worshipped for eons, only to be found to be goat skin! Or the tracks spread all over northern California, which essentially begins the bigfoot movement, which end up being found to be the work of several bigfoot pranksters having a jolly old time. Which also inspires a new generation of pranksters in the form of Patterson and Gimlin, who raise the bar by not only making prints, but making a film of their version of the bigfoot legend. It goes on and on. People make bigfoot evidence, and the ones who buy into it are those who want to buy into it, and the ones that don't buy into it are criticized for not being open minded enough to see a real creature instead of a lot of fun hoaxes.

You think that the Tibetan people accept that their yeti scalp is noting more than goat? Or do you think that they still worship it as the real deal?

But back to your suggestion. The weather's not so great for camping this weekend, but we will be going out the following one. Since pot is now legal here in washington, maybe I'll smoke a doob while out there, and maybe that'll put my mind in that peaceful, harmonious place where it is open and receptive to a bigfoot encounter. Hmmm, probably won't help. Never did in the old days anyway, so no reason to think it will now. I guess it goes back to the whole mindset thing. One has to have the proper mindset to be able to see a bigfoot.

I see that Gimlin has now crossed over into harmony and telepath world these days. I saw a video where he says that you need to go into the woods, without guns, and open your mind and think peaceful thoughts in order to draw them in. I guess his rifle bearing experience, his only experience, didn't follow his new age rules, eh? Peace, love, good thoughts, mental images of white lights and tie dyed nehru jackets beat out chaps, rifles, horses, cameras, and all that other stuff these days...

[Guest Tontar]

Whoa. Now we're getting some meat! Hey WSA, come on back!

You mean, you got another response? It's called humoring you, while at the same time waiting for the other shoe to fall. As in, it's raining outside, what else is there to do right now, other than poke the bear. :-) Two can play at that game.

No, Crane's wrong...

Daegling. Forget him...

Esteban Sarmiento is a reasonable skeptic...

Begun... falls down...

Nina Jablonski is the clown...

I think it's much easier, and cleaner, and far more reasonable to simply say that you are wrong and so is Dr. Meldrum. You have next to nothing, other than a romantic idea that some giant lives in the forests, virtually in every state in the nation except Hawaii. You have man made evidence, spread all over the place, which is distinctively inconsistent from one example to the next. Prints that have long toes, short toes, splayed toes, peas in a pod toes, sausage toes, marshmallow toes, wide feet, narrow feet, tapered feet, non-tapered feet, flat feet, arched feet, concave feet, convex feet... Puff puff, pant, pant.

And you have bipedal, quadrupedal, slow lurching, fast running, tree swinging, deep sea swimming, digging, jumping, peeking, hiding, disappearing, reappearing, candy bar eating, train hopping, cigarette smoking, mane braiding, car shaking, hotting, howling, growling, speaking, Chinese speaking, clam eating, bark eating, lichen eating (to gain that mineral based invisibility, no kidding), chicken stealing, pig stealing, deer killing, cow avoiding, road crossing, garbage stealing, big ones, bigger ones, even bigger ones, ape ones, human ones, spiritual guide ones, telepathic ones. Huff, puff, huff...

But no matter what, you still have no biological trace they do, or ever have existed. Crane, Daegling, Sarmiento (who by the way is not as much in your camp as you think he is), Begun, Jablonski, all have a far better grasp on the reality of the subject than you or Dr. Meldrum seem to. No offense, but you guys are chasing a dream, nothing more. Real things exist. Bigfoot has not been shown to exist, nor be real. Evidence is all faked, unfortunately.

[Guest DWA]

Yep, toss all the science. Tontar's right on top of it. Somehow, I ain't betting that horse. Ain't life taught you that simple and right are frequently not the same thing? It would be simple for you to just say sasquatch is real, right? And then the evidence is backing you up!