Bigfoot Research--Still No Evidence (Continued)

[Guest Tontar]

A pseudo-skeptic always assumes that the negative claim is somehow more priviledged than the positive claim.

So, you can classify people into different categories of belief systems, but can you classify the bigfoot as a real, living organism? I suspect not. Why is it that when someone makes the claim that an animal exists, for which there has never been even a single cell nor even a single molecule recovered from one, it has to become some insulting barrage of offense and defense tactics to try to distract everyone from the fact that no biological evidence exists for said creature? You can't argue bigfoot into existence. At this point, there is no proof, and no firm evidence that it ever has existed beyond folklore. Why does the request for biological evidence have to be twisted into skeptics having twisted reasoning, or bad attitudes?

Then to make that even more ridiculous, they demand that the person making the positive claim brings them "proof" of the positive claim, while defining exactly what the pseudo-skeptic will consider as proof ahead of time.

Look, skeptics don't have to prove bigfoot does not exist, the facts are what they are. There is no biological evidence that needs to be swept under to rug to make bigfoot go away, or appear to not exist. Quite the contrary. There is absolutely no evidence surrounding the bigfoot mystery that would even suggest that it was made by something other than humans. Nothing! It's all circumstantial evidence, footprints, vague sightings, stories, tall tales, and so on. Every single bit of reliable evidence can be attributed to human construction. Not one piece would requite a giant ape to produce it. Besides that, there is not one iota of biological evidence that would suggest they ever existed. So there's no burden for the skeptics to prove anything. Bigfoot simply has not shown itself to ever exist. That's not a problem for skeptics, it's a problem for people who believe in something that has never been shown to exist. And that's not a ridiculous way to look at it.

This is inevitably also accompanied by pejorative statements like "fantasyland" or "mermaids".

Sorry that you consider fantasyland and mermaids as pejorative. They weren't meant to be. They were only meant as fair comparisons. Bigfoot is, in fact, a fantasy. It is also a myth, just as mermaids were. Myths are nice, fantasies are nice. I don't see why you take either as an insult. The only issue I have is when people can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality.

Which is then promulgated by other small-minded, belligerant pseudo "skeptics" who collectively attempt to intimidate with the same bullying tactics used by the likes of James Randi and the CSICOP crowd.

Aw, it's not exactly nice to say that skeptics are small minded. You do know, that it isn't the small minded skeptics that believe in the boogieman, a wild, hairy giant roaming the woods ready to howl and shine its glowing red eyes at people, stun them with mental tazers, and steal their food, and rape their women to reproduce. There are better places in the forums to call names and fling mental deficient insults.

It is nothing more than intellectual dishonesty.

Hey, there's that term again! Only in the BFF!

But, by the way, you ought not fling that term around too much in a discussion about bigfoot, especially if you believe it exists. Intellectual dishonestly implies that one uses personal bias when looking at an issue, and it's virtually impossible for someone who believes in bigfoot, with the existing scope of evidence, to maintain their position without extreme bias driving it.

They're absolutely terrified of the unknown. These people have the exact same materialist mindset as the people who refused to look through Galileo's telescope while simultaneously denouncing his claims.

Galileo had a telescope to look through, didn't he?

I really do find this attitude funny. That skeptics would be "absolutely terrified of the unknown". Wow, no intellectual dishonesty there, no personal bias showing in that comment! LOL!!!

So they band together as so called "hard core skeptics" in order to constantly reassure themselves of their narrow minded materialist worldviews in order to maintain a collective security blanket.

This is too good. Better than South Park material. I think it's safe to say that here's yet another person who has a rock hard bias against a group of people, who for all intents and purposes have likely bees the movers and shakers in our cultural and scientific advancements. Talk about believing the earth is flat. Those dang scientists, scared of the unknown, terrified of it in fact, I just can't see how they managed to build rockets to go to the moon. Probably got a bigfoot believer to ride in it though, since skeptical minded people would be too terrified of space travel (the unknown), breaking the sound barrier (the unknown), deep sea exploration (the unknown), mountain climbing (the unknown).

[Sunflower]

Tontar,

Quit stomping your feet and go get us some pics????

[Guest DWA]

I'll never cease to be amazed by and laugh at the people who can look somebody right in the face who had an experience for which they were not present, and say: yes, let's chalk that up to a creature with zero proof of existence. Though I suppose it's people like that who keep this thing going forever.

...and then there are the people who think that it is impossible, and should be illegal, to see something before it's proven to exist. That's the real hoot'n'holler.

Then there's Tontar. It's like you push a 'write book' button with him. What makes that investment possible? necessary? produc...no, stop, cut that out...

And I look up, and see no reason to change what I think.

"It is a peculiar kind of narcissism to take a position that something can’t be real because you have not experienced it personally, and then it is exacerbated by an even more peculiar need to convince the witness themselves they didn’t experience it either." - A Guy I Know

So, Tontar, summing up your latest novel, I would have to agree.

If they're so unafraid of the unknown, why don't they just go out and prove this? Better yet, why don't people like you encourage it...???

[Guest Tontar]

"Self-importance is man's greatest enemy. What weakens him is feeling offended by the deeds and misdeeds of his fellow men. Self-importance requires that one spend most of one's life offended by something or someone."

-Don Juan Matus

I hope you got more out of Don Juan's teachings than I did. Never did manage to make it to shape shifting, turning into a bird, a coyote, or peeing on the local dog while it peed on me! Couldn't get hold of peyote, but mescaline was abundant, which is pretty similar. All in all, I kind of figured that the magic that Don Juan and Carlos talked about, was all in the mind. What they saw going on around them, others did not. That's how it goes with hallucinations. Taking drugs and seeing all manner of creatures, monsters, magic, and out of this world events, while sober people at the same place and time do not see them... Yes, I know, the suggestion was that the drugs opened the perceptions to what was actually there, hidden from the view of the sober people, and only those who had mentally and spiritually opened their awareness to the world around them could see what was truly there.

Similarly, that's a lot like bigfootery. Skeptics are like the sober people in the Casteneda books. They don't see. Their minds and eyes are closed to what is there before them. But chew a bit of peyote, alter the senses and the perspective, and reality, true reality, becomes visible. Or in the case of bigfoot, read the reports on the BFF, get out camping more, whack on trees, scream like s atrangled lady in the forest, work yourself up into a pseudo hypnotic, suggestible state, and you too might see a bigfoot. Just like Carlos could see a woman turn into a crow with just the right mental massage, people can also see bigfoots with just the right mental massage?

But just to put this all in perspective. Drugs never helped make bigfoot appear for me. ;-)

Tontar,

Quit stomping your feet and go get us some pics????

LOL!!!

Sunflower, I take my camera to he woods all the time. For the past 35 years in fact. Somehow I have not been as fortunate as you. I don't have any photos. So if I stop stomping my feet, will you show us your pics? You said you have some, why not share? Why be so selfish, and tease us with what you know. You want skeptics to believe. You want skeptics to be proven wrong. You want skeptics to eat crow (hopefully real crows, not shape shifted female witch crows), so give us the evidence, the proof, that we so desperately beg for all the time?

[dmaker]

DWA, not saying, obviously, that it should be illegal to see something before it exists. But a large issue I have is the let's all jump the gun and declare everything a squatch. In fact, let's get really ridiculous and start saying things like Squatches are known to steal and raise coyote pups to help them hunt. I mean what in the world was Bobo even thinking? What's next a Sasquatch candidate for Congress? And if you don't drink the kool-aid and say (after about 90 seconds of interviewing) "Dude, you totally saw a Squatch!", if you don't do that, you get a bum rap like Ranae. Which you obviously agree with since you brought her into this moments ago in a negative light. So don't even start with your Bobo is a clown and should not be taken seriously. Nuh-unh, what is good for the goose is good for the gander. You opened that can of worms. Perish the thought that she would actually want decent grounds before saying a witness saw a squatch. Her objectivity and skepticism somehow garners your derision. Yet, you encourage science? "What, you didn't see a squatch there? You're a terrible scientist then!"

Edited April 5, 2013 by dmaker

[Guest Tontar]

...and then there are the people who think that it is impossible, and should be illegal, to see something before it's proven to exist.

I must have missed seeing the people that want to make bigfoot illegal. How illegal do they want to make it? Illegal to talk about it? Illegal to dedicate a forum to it? Illegal to go out looking for it? Are the Bigfoot Java stands going to have to change heir names now? Heck, pot's legal in Washington now, why not bigfoot?

Then there's Tontar. It's like you push a 'write book' button with him. What makes that investment possible? necessary? produc...no, stop, cut that out...

Hey, bigfoot is one of my hobbies. I'm passionate about it. I investigate it, study it, explore it. How about you? What's your excuse?

"It is a peculiar kind of narcissism to take a position that something can’t be real because you have not experienced it personally, and then it is exacerbated by an even more peculiar need to convince the witness themselves they didn’t experience it either." - A Guy I Know

Whew! Finally a quote by someone else. Something I can read without hurting my brain trying to translate!

Soeaking about experiencing something personally. You know, I don't have to experience bigfoot personally to accept it as real. I'd be happy to trust simply seeing one on TV, presented for scientists to examine. I'd trust my eyes and whatever news channel presented it. I was prepared to even trust in part the Ketchum study, but I think we all should know where that lead! Same with the Erickson videos. I was extremely interested in the "grooming video" that HRPuff said he had. I trusted him when he said it was phenomenal. But of course, where'd that go? Poof, gone forever. I'm actually wondering if it was part of the Chewbacca series of videos, where one person might see it through filters that allows them to see a real bigfoot, while another person might see it without such emotional filters and immediately recognize it as a wookie mask.

Show me a video that shows something real, something that is not human, something that is not available online from some costume supplier, and we can revisit your mistaken opinion that personal experience is all it would take. I guess it depends on what you mean by personal experience. If you mean in person, face to face? Or being able to look at some sort of reliable evidence. If you mean being able to look at reliable evidence, then I guess we're out of luck. I consider reliable evidence an absolute requirement, whether it be decent photos, videos, showing something clearly as bigfoot, or some reliable report that there is biological material on hand.

If they're so unafraid of the unknown, why don't they just go out and prove this? Better yet, why don't people like you encourage it...???

If only you had any idea what you were talking about, but clearly you don't. You clearly don't read vey well either, because if you did, you'd find more gems than you care to acknowledge.

Tell me wise knower, how much time have you spent physically looking for evidence of bigfoot. You know, as opposed to sitting at the computer, actually getting out in the woods where they supposedly live and looking for tracks, hair, scat, sightings? Give me some idea how much time you spend looking for bigfoot, before you make any suggestion that I, or anyone else, are not doing far more than you are towards that end.

Fact is, I am, always encouraging internet junkies to get out and do something, get out and look, get out and hike, camp, explore, live a little outside the confines of their cubicles. Fact is, I am also doing what I suggest others do. More than 35 years of doing it at this point, which provides me a kind of comfortable position to form my opinions from. 35 years of looking for bigfoot, and no evidence whatsoever. That also leads me to many other conclusions, which I have stated plenty of times over. That the existing bigfoot evidence is planted by people, and then conveniently found by people, adding to the ongoing myth that bigfoot exists. Funny what you actually do discover if you spend enough time "out there" looking for bigfoot. Sometimes you even find people giving the myth an extra push further down the road. You wonder why I have become so certain bigfoot is a myth propagated by people? LOL! Yeah, you can find out a lot if you spend enough time in the field.

[Guest Tontar]

But a large issue I have is the let's all jump the gun and declare everything a squatch. In fact, let's get really ridiculous and start saying things like Squatches are known to steal and raise coyote pups to help them hunt. I mean what in the world was Bobo even thinking? What's next a Sasquatch candidate for Congress? And if you don't drink the kool-aid and say (after about 90 seconds of interviewing) "Dude, you totally saw a Squatch!", if you don't do that, you get a bum rap like Ranae.

This is how bigfoot culture is evolving. It's become mainstream now. There are TV shows dedicated to it, which means it is commercially viable. It doesn't mean bigfoot is any more real, it just means that there is a gravy train attached to the mythos right now, and businesses are willing and eager to ride it all the way to the bank for as long as it will keep producing.

It also means that there is fame and fortune to be had. Sightings will increase. That means more people will be out there trying to make their mark, trying to move up the social ladder. Look at the guy in Florida. He is such a fake, yet he keeps on plugging away, making video after video, claiming to see what, wood apes, swamp apes, whatever he calls them? In the vids that you can see his subjects, you can see they are people wearing crappy suits, shaggy, baggy suits! Oh, and now we have MK shucking out video after video showing biggies on farms, hopping fences, white ones, gray ones, ones that wear boots, ones that look like the front end of a horse, with a shadowy rear set of legs following up behind! Bigfoot is hot right now, and so many people are getting in on the fever and trying to get a piece of the pie.

And since there really isn't anything substantial to show for all this hoopla, as in nobody has any bigfoots to share, all there really is is smoke and mirrors, personalities of those wanting to be in the limelight. Like Bobo and Matt, they come up with increasingly edgy behaviors and cultural anecdotes for biggies. Like raising coyote pups. Like breaking deer legs to capture them. Like all the other funny stuff they say bigfoots "like to do". Bigfoots like fireworks. Right. Bigfoots like baby sounds. Right. Bigfoots like raves. Oh, okay.

In the absence of a real bigfoot, the only way to keep the myth rolling is to find, or create, new evidence and characteristics. Adding layer upon layer to the myth. That's "activity" that keeps the story alive and hopping, but it never ends up with a specimen of any value. It's all a social, cultural construct, which keeps on getting painted with fresh coats of paint, new ideas, new theories, new stuff that kind of makes it sound like there is progress towards proof, but it's still all one big fictitious story. It doesn't matter how many pages the BFRO, or Dr. Meldrum, or Bindernagel write ion the subject, the reality is that it is nothing more than their stories, their books, their writings. No bigfoot. No biology. No remains. No creature. It's al just a big, growing story with no animal at the end.

[Guest DWA]

[book button]

GO, Tontar!

DWA, not saying, obviously, that it should be illegal to see something before it exists. But a large issue I have is the let's all jump the gun and declare everything a squatch. In fact, let's get really ridiculous and start saying things like Squatches are known to steal and raise coyote pups to help them hunt. I mean what in the world was Bobo even thinking?

...and I think we all know what I think of the 'science' going on on that show.

Durn shame. Their database is pretty great. But it doesn't take a scientist to set that up. It does take scientific thinking, however, to suss what gets put onto it, and use that information to follow up. These guys have a great tool; they just don't use it. Whether that's driven by Animal Planet or not, couldn't tell you. But I sense that bigfoot-for-TV is one reason NAWAC doesn't do shows like that.

I listen to the people who are driven by the scientific method. (And are actively applying it to this topic.) I don't let the others disprove the animal for me.

[Guest Tontar]

I listen to the people who are driven by the scientific method. (And are actively applying it to this topic.)

Riiiight. Whatever you say. I think you've already shown your hand on that one. Dismissing, and disrespecting anyone who is driven by the scientific method that disagrees with your belief in bigfoot. No need to debate it, it is what it is. Belief in folklore, perpetrated by humans, rationalized by a handful of scientists that are likewise driven by an intense belief in that folkloric creation.

I don't let the others disprove the animal for me.

Loaded statement. The term, "the animal" generally applies to some sort of biological organism that actually exists in the physical world. In the case of bigfoot, the term "the animal" refers to an idea which does not have any biological evidence, any known biological material of which it may be composed of, and leaves no biological trace of it existing or ever having existed in the past. In this case, "the animal" cannot be disproved, for it has never been proven. It hasn't ever been shown to exist. There's no logical way to disprove something that doesn't exist.

It's the same as saying that you won't allow anyone to disprove that invisible, flying, 10 legged day bats that have antlers exist. Can't disprove it, so its the best bet to say they do exist. Oh, and where's the evidence that they do exist? Everywhere. They are constantly knocking pine needles off the trees, and in the fall they pierce tree branches with their needle-like teeth, sucking the sap, and causing the leaves to turn red, then yellow, then fall off. Plenty of evidence they exist, and none that they don't. Invisible, ten legged, antlered day bats. They're kind of scary, actually.

[dmaker]

^^ I have plenty of pictures of them actually. They are only invisible to those that don't believe. In fact, I have a family of them living in my bread box. I can't show you the pictures, though, that would violate the secret coven I entered into with them.

But if you are "open minded" and go off into the woods, you are surely going to see some yourself, or at least lots of evidence that they were there. Hint: they love gift baskets made from your old underwear.

Edited April 5, 2013 by dmaker

[norseman]

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.

first of all this line of reasoning is folly. do we know why a squatch bends trees over? no. but i have a sneaking suspicion it has to do with harvesting something. even evergreen trees like pine or fir offer rewards. i have a botany book for my area that describes the species and also describes what native americans used the species for. pine pitch can be chewed like gum and is high in vitamin c. pine cones house pine nuts and can be harvested. so on and so forth.

second of all, i thinks its extremely rude to simply claim someone is lying or hoaxing from a knee jerk reaction. this is where the skeptic does damage to this open forum. simply because the next time the observer observes something they are less likely yo share it with us......what a shame.

i just got back from the vicinity of the colville indian res, and found a cool tree break that was caused by a moose ill post pictures later in my tree break thread. but not everyone stumbles around in the woods crediting everything to a squatch.

kbhunters photo is compelling because it would seem something tucked that top under that log. was it a human? maybe, maybe not. thats where mitigating circumstances come in. is it remote? are there people who frequent the area? has this been observed before with other squatch evidence close by?

its compelling not proof but something of interest that cannot be easily explained away by wind or snow

[Sunflower]

^^ I have plenty of pictures of them actually. They are only invisible to those that don't believe. In fact, I have a family of them living in my bread box. I can't show you the pictures, though, that would violate the secret coven I entered into with them.

But if you are "open minded" and go off into the woods, you are surely going to see some yourself, or at least lots of evidence that they were there. Hint: they love gift baskets made from your old underwear.

Old underwear......pfffttt, Now that's hysterical, you should do standup!!!!

Edited April 5, 2013 by Sunflower

[dmaker]

Hey Norse. How can you say things like " do we know why a squatch bends trees over?" when we don't even know that squatches exist? That is one of my biggest issues with this whole thing. The assumption that they exist, without any proof, and then we start attributing behaviour to them for pity's sake! And then it also becomes anything that happens in the woods that cannot be easily explained away becomes possibly a squatch. Why does a squatch even need to enter the conversation at that point? Then that bar gets lower and lower until the alternate explanation is barely considered and the phenomenon less odd. Until we have situations where oh look, a pile of leaves. Hmmm, can't rightly say for sure what did that....must be a squatch!

[Sunflower]

Oops dmaker,

You don't know for sure that they don't push trees over. Dang, they also growl, whistle, chatter, amongst other talents. It's a jungle out there lol.

[dmaker]

Hi Sunflower, my point wasn't about challenging that particular behaviour, but the whole notion of attributing behaviour to an animal that has not even been proven to exist. Especially from someone like Norse who has never even seen something that he thought was a Squatch in his life yet. But for some reason he is comfortable with asking why a squatch would do this or do that? Makes no sense to me at all.

Edited April 5, 2013 by dmaker