How Many Normal (Relatively) Intelligent, Adult, Witnesses Without A Prior Agenda Does It Take To Have Any Provative Weight Towards The Unknown?

[Guest]

Without getting us too bogged down on the PGF, I think we can all agree that specific details of what people think they can see in the PGF are highly subjective, and that Patty's apparent size has not been satisfactorily established.  For example, what some people interpret as signatures of leg musculature look for all the world to me like wrinkles from a hip wader.  I also don't think 2001 : A Space Odyssey or Planet of the Apes are all that relevant for a discussion of Patty.  To me, Patty is better than those apes.  THe problem though is that so are numerous apes and ape men in the movies from decades earlier.  For example, Charlie Gemora's "gorilla"costumes went into use on screen from the late 1920s, and they did a better job of masking Gemora's own proportions within the costume than anything Chambers did for POTA or 2001. Gemora could also move with great agility in his costumes, and he wasn't the only one doing this either.  There were other suits and "mimes" active during the Golden Years of Hollywood, and some of their creations sported beautiful, anatomically correct musculature.

 

In short, Patterson could've used decade's-old technology and materials to build Patty and still have her look great - no need for him to have out-foxed Chambers.

[norseman]

True enough, but still we find ourselves at this same old crossroads:

Got Monkey?

No? Where is the Monkey?

And I use that in the comical sense right now, but it's a very telling point: if the PGF is real, then where is the proof of it? Where is the animal?

 

 

Not monkey.........got SLAB monkey?

 

As far as the PGF, I think it could be a hoax. I reject the P. Morris suit, Bob H. connection theory though. It really comes down to money and know how. And you would think after all this time somebody credible would have talked

Edited June 16, 2013 by norseman

[norseman]

Without getting us too bogged down on the PGF, I think we can all agree that specific details of what people think they can see in the PGF are highly subjective, and that Patty's apparent size has not been satisfactorily established.  For example, what some people interpret as signatures of leg musculature look for all the world to me like wrinkles from a hip wader.  I also don't think 2001 : A Space Odyssey or Planet of the Apes are all that relevant for a discussion of Patty.  To me, Patty is better than those apes.  THe problem though is that so are numerous apes and ape men in the movies from decades earlier.  For example, Charlie Gemora's "gorilla"costumes went into use on screen from the late 1920s, and they did a better job of masking Gemora's own proportions within the costume than anything Chambers did for POTA or 2001. Gemora could also move with great agility in his costumes, and he wasn't the only one doing this either.  There were other suits and "mimes" active during the Golden Years of Hollywood, and some of their creations sported beautiful, anatomically correct musculature.

 

In short, Patterson could've used decade's-old technology and materials to build Patty and still have her look great - no need for him to have out-foxed Chambers.

 

Have you watched Munn's study? Those "wrinkles" are present on some real female human test subjects. 

 

 

It's interesting to watch, although I have no hope of the PGF ever being the smoking gun.

[Guest DWA]

 

I never let my assumptions, bogeymen, etc. get in the way of what evidence is telling me.

You assume that people aren't willing to fabricate stories of bigfoot encounters, and this makes you far more open than me to accept anecdotal accounts as genuine. This is how the same evidence can tell us two different things.

 

I assume that if "bigfoot" is a flesh and blood animal native to North America as described, then it coexisted here for thousands of years with native peoples, through the European Colonial Period, and that remnants of its population remain with us today. I assume that it has no magical powers, but that it eats, poops, mates, nurses, grows, senesces, and dies like every other large mammal.  It is therefore extremely odd that no physical remnants of it have been collected as fossils, among Native American artifacts, among the pelts of fur trappers or market hunters, etc.  Like beavers, otters, fishers, mink, bears, cougars, wolves, coyotes, bison, moose, elk, and even White-tailed Deer, I would expect that bigfoots would've been hunted out of areas where they came in contact with white settlers (especially given the accounts of them raiding chicken coops, stealing salmon, competing with us for deer, etc.) and that some piece of one, from somewhere, would've survived long enough to have been described by the great natural historians of the 18th and 19th centuries. 

 

That's why I think if bigfoots were real we would've known for sure by 200 years ago.  The kind of lethal collection expedition you're talking about had already played out countless times in our nation's history, by settlers carving out their existence in the North American wilderness.  Bigfoots would've been shot as a matter of survival, out of fear, for sport, etc., just like all the other large mammals.

 

Well, this is what I mean.  Those are assumptions; we don't have anything to back them up.

 

I don't assume people are seeing bigfoot; I believe they are telling the truth about what they are seeing.  HUGE difference, that I don't think a lot of people see.

 

A friend of mine described to me what sounds like a bigfoot sighting.  I believe him.  Doesn't mean I think bigfoot's proven.  A story won't do that for me.  I need to see it for myself; nothing short of that is proof for me.  But I don't think he's lying to me; and to assume that eyewitnesses are lying or otherwise mistaken is just that:  an assumption with nothing to back it up.  They sure don't sound like they're lying to me.  And I can't imagine an animal known to us that they are mistaking for what they are describing.  So as far as I'm concerned, the evidence hasn't been tested, and when the thing it is describing sounds plausible, it's the default, because madness lies down the road of just presuming that all of this adds up to history's most unlikely mass false positive.  With no evidence that is the case.

 

P/G actually bores me.  I tune out all the video/Photoshop extravaganzas I see here and elsewhere, and only join in to say, usually in one post, "no evidence against authenticity in 45 years," and go off to look for what I really want to talk about, which actually I rarely see here.  Same thing with fossils.  It's my understanding that no current South American primate is accounted for in the South American primate fossil record.  So much for fossils predicting what we should find now.  Not only that, but until we have a sasquatch skeleton to study, we won't know sasquatch progenitors (of which we already have at least two plausible candidates, albeit educated guesses) when we find fossils of them.

 

That's why WSA and I have been angling for this discussion to start focusing on search protocols, e.g., what one does with these eyewitness accounts.  To us, "nothing" is not what a scientist does with them.  Camera traps; biosurveys; long-term field stays; road-runs with video rolling, etc. are what one does with those accounts.  (And as I've already said, being a skeptic, I don't believe biosurveys are gonna work with the mainstream's attitude what it is.)

 

The evidence points, very clearly, to two things:

 

1) an unlisted animal, almost certainly a new member of the Hominoidea;

2) no proof ever being obtained, ever, barring luck none of us deserve, if current attitudes continue.

[Guest]

Not to beat the cougar size black cat thing to death, but I wish someone with enough stature and well knowniness would hold a town meeting or two in South Alabama towns for "black panthers". Like Dalevile, or Ozark or some of the other smaller towns around there. I think you would be surprised at the turn out to a well publicized and planned meeting.I bet most of the council members pastors, city workers,farmers etc. You get the picture. The 'black' panther thing doesnt have quite the stigma as Bigfoot, and a whole lot of folks dont mind telling you they say a big cat. If most of their neighbors, friends, relatives and people they meet everyday have seen it as well. They just wonder like I do why the authorities dont recognize them, and feel a little miffed at that, and go about their lives down there. If it is a matter of money or science resources that is understandable, but still a government cover up of sorts, and I hate conspiracists but that also would equate to a conspiracy of policy. But that begs the threads point, at what point does  science give any credence to a whole bunch of otherwise sane people. An expedition of professionals would almost certainly find these animals, if they were serious and actually wanted to, they apparently were not that uncommon when I was in the area. We saw them quite frequently. Although I have no way of knowing I would guess they are still around and am sure that the fine folks of Ozark, Daleville, Newton, and Dothan would be happy to tell of their sightings and where to look for them. Again, this matter is not the same as Bigfoot, but the parallels are there, and I think enough people with good judgement have seen these creatures at close enough ranges and adequate lighting and with suitable backdrops for scale and positive identification to declare this creature to exist, with or without our State governments' or our Science Communitys' blessing or acknowledgement. Heaven knows our leaders in government would never keep anything from us, or use its power to project its own version of the truth to maintain that power, and tailor information to their advantage.

 

Exactly what species this animal is, is immaterial. whether they are a subspecies of Florida Panthers, or a breeding population of exotic pets like Jaquars, or just a significant number of otherwise normal colored Florida Panthers may already be known to science. Perhaps the scientists are taught to parse terms in their denials or something. to maintain professional or moral honesty. I just know that they were there, and they were black, and they were very big and fast and had very rememberable growls and vocalizations. And that we saw them. Individually and as multiple witnesses of a larger group. And heard them. And saw them chasing deer. And almost hitting a soldier. And although I cannot vouch for others, I know that many people both civilian and military also told us they too had seen them, many multiple times.

Edited June 17, 2013 by people booger

[Guest DWA]

This feller has a lot about that panther thing.  Here's one post; there are more. 

 

http://texascryptidhunter.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-latest-black-panther-reports.html#comment-form

 

As the title might imply, a lot on here about sasquatch too.

 

(That comment at the bottom?  That was my sighting.)

[Guest]

Government entities in other states such as Texas apparently insult their citizens intelligence and truthfulness it appears. Whatever the reason for official policy, the creatures are there for the finding and Government and Science looks really stupid with their denials.

[Guest DWA]

I think it stems from the basic job of wildlife managers:  keeping hunters happy, i.e., managing game species.

 

They give lip service to other stuff, but in general undocumented species suddenly turning up, or rare species being discovered, are a pain in the neck to them.  My jaguarundi sighting in OK has led me to develop the Two-State Rule:  if wildlife agencies document a wild individual a state or so beyond documented species range, and you are two states farther away...start looking for them.  They are likely already there.

[Guest DWA]

And this seems to back me up a bit.  Feeling better already.

 

http://www.anomalist.com/features/jag.html

[Guest]

A friend of mine described to me what sounds like a bigfoot sighting.   . . .  But I don't think he's lying to me; and to assume that eyewitnesses are lying or otherwise mistaken is just that:  an assumption with nothing to back it up. 

Why do you think there's nothing to back up that assumption?  You don't think there's sufficient evidence to conclude that human beings frequently 1) tell stories that are not true and 2) honestly misidentify things they claim to see?    Is not your assumption that alleged witnesses never lie and correctly identify everything they claim to see? What exactly would back up those assumptions?

 

They sure don't sound like they're lying to me. 

Oh, okay.  Well if they don't sound like they're lying to you then I guess that's rock-solid.

 

And I can't imagine an animal known to us that they are mistaking for what they are describing. 

Well I can't comment on the specific details of your friend's claim, but observations of humans, bears, moose, bison, owls, coyotes, foxes, woodrats, Sooty Grouse, and Swainson's Thrushes have all been claimed as "bigfoot" in my time on the BFF.

 

So as far as I'm concerned, the evidence hasn't been tested, and when the thing it is describing sounds plausible,

You might be confusing "plausible" and "possible."  Just because you can read a report and think - "Yep! That's something an ape would do!" - doesn't mean that bigfoot did it.  First, remember that if the "bigfoot" reports you read sounded implausible for bigfoot, they wouldn't have been included as reports of bigfoot.  Next, the idea that there is a population of giant man-apes living, eating, fighting, and dying at a campground near you - all without ever leaving a trace of those activities but for the stories of the lucky ones who've seen them - is exceedingly implausible.  It's not impossible, but it's really implausible.

 

it's the default, because madness lies down the road of just presuming that all of this adds up to history's most unlikely mass false positive. 

So skeptics must be "mad"?

 

 

That's why WSA and I have been angling for this discussion to start focusing on search protocols, e.g., what one does with these eyewitness accounts.  To us, "nothing" is not what a scientist does with them.  Camera traps; biosurveys; long-term field stays; road-runs with video rolling, etc. are what one does with those accounts. 

That's nice, but I've been advising folks to do this for years right here on the BFF.  I'm not sure why you think you've brought some startling new ideas to these worn out bigfoot discussions.  Rather than "start" focusing on search protocols, they were a main topic of discussion before I ever got here either.  You're in Peter Byrne, Rene Dahinden, and Marlin Perkins territory if you think we need to start focusing on search protocols, and that's before ol' Roger and Bob emerged from Bluff Creek with a camera and a cool story.

 

Here's what I think researchers should be doing at these sites where they think they've got ongoing "activity":  Set out arrays of camera traps, hair catchers, and track plates, potentially baited with fruit, carrion, or other attractants.  Researchers who aren't using these standard methods in mammalogical inventory don't appear to me to be interested in providing the type of evidence that can lead to the scientific description of bigfoot.  I am confident that especially DNA evidence from hair catchers could serve as a holotype for a new species that would not require lethal collection.  Redundant information in the form of high quality cameras trap photos and/or the extreme detail provided by track plates would strengthen the case even further.  If I was Jeff Meldrum, this is what I would've been doing for the past 10 years or so.

 

2) no proof ever being obtained, ever, barring luck none of us deserve, if current attitudes continue.

If people frequently report seeing bigfoot crossing roads, sometimes in traffic, and there have even been reports of people hitting them, then why would it be so implausible to you that one could be struck and killed?  If bigfoot is real, there is no reason whatsoever that one couldn't be struck and killed in the next 5 minutes.  There are an awful lot of logging trucks out there, driving too fast with heavy loads on curvy gravel roads . . .

 

[Guest DWA]

OK, now we're getting back into the kind of stuff that WSA and I have been trying ...and as he says, trying like mad...to get away from.

 

"Craziness exists and lying exists, so all these people are lying or crazy" is a flat non-starter.  Sanity and clear-headed objectiveness exist too.

 

And as to all of this "search protocols are a boring old hash hash hash," well here's an assumption for you, and as good as any of yours:

 

Sasquatch would be confirmed by now if the people who should be doing it, were doing it.

 

We need to START focusing on search protocols, and STOP focusing on all this "here's why they're all wrong" and "here's why the fossils that are the barest trace of what has lived on earth say there's no sasquatch" and stuff like that.

 

I don't see why anybody considers it reasonable to sit on hands and wait for proof when there's so much to follow up (and Meldrum is one guy and no I'm not thinking it's gonna happen if he's all there is).  How's that working so far?  Answer:  NEVER. Nothing needs less support than "if you don't look, you don't find."

 

I'm a skeptic.  And nothing deserves higher-raised eyebrows than "it doesn't exist because scientists say so."  History shows that in spades.

So says RedQuote, and they don't get more scientific than that guy.

[Guest]

 . . . at what point does  science give any credence to a whole bunch of otherwise sane people.

Easy - when those otherwise sane people produce a decent photo and/or piece of the thing they claim so to encounter routinely.

Exactly what species this animal is, is immaterial.

It's extremely material, depending on the agency you contact. 

 

I just know that they were there, and they were black, and they were very big and fast and had very rememberable growls and vocalizations. And that we saw them. Individually and as multiple witnesses of a larger group. And heard them. And saw them chasing deer. And almost hitting a soldier. And although I cannot vouch for others, I know that many people both civilian and military also told us they too had seen them, many multiple times.

You're alluding to a population of big cats in a place where big cats are generally thought not to occur.  The problem is that where big cats are known to occur, there is abundant physical evidence of their presence left behind, even when the cats themselves are very rarely seen.  Prints, kills, dung - you must have these things in abundance if you're actually seeing the cats with such regularity.  Even more troubling, cougars are extremely susceptible to getting killed on roads. This was the fate of the cat that wandered from South Dakota to Connecticut.  If you've really got big, black cats in an around a few rural communities, then you can provide much more reliable data than your eyewitness accounts.  When you do that, your respective wildlife officials will have something solid on which to follow up.  Right now, they don't.

[Guest DWA]

Well, going from S. Dakota to Connecticut without getting hit by a car indicates the likelihood that quite a few of them haven't met up with that fate yet.

 

Cougars are notoriously easy to tree...yet the spread in recent years indicates they may be getting over that.

 

 

You're alluding to a population of big cats in a place where big cats are generally thought not to occur.  The problem is that where big cats are known to occur, there is abundant physical evidence of their presence left behind, even when the cats themselves are very rarely seen.  Prints, kills, dung - you must have these things in abundance if you're actually seeing the cats with such regularity.  Even more troubling, cougars are extremely susceptible to getting killed on roads. This was the fate of the cat that wandered from South Dakota to Connecticut.  If you've really got big, black cats in an around a few rural communities, then you can provide much more reliable data than your eyewitness accounts.  When you do that, your respective wildlife officials will have something solid on which to follow up.  Right now, they don't.

Well, they would...but...

 

http://texascryptidhunter.blogspot.com/2013/05/alleged-black-panther-hair-analysis.html

 

As that's not the only one I've heard of, let's just say the skeptic in me doubts that wildlife officials are receiving none of this stuff.  Let's just say the skeptic in me tells me that their assumptions toss the samples undealt with.

[Guest]

OK, now we're getting back into the kind of stuff that WSA and I have been trying ...and as he says, trying like mad...to get away from.

So why do you keep making the same mistakes?

 

"Craziness exists and lying exists, so all these people are lying or crazy" is a flat non-starter.  Sanity and clear-headed objectiveness exist too.

It's also a strawman, because that's not what I said.  I'll see if I can make it even simpler for you:

 

Lying exists.  Misidentifications - no craziness required, that's you saying that - exist.  Sanity (again, why?) exists.  Clear-headed objectiveness exists.

 

All of these things exist.  This is why anecdotal accounts have limited utility in the assessment of unknown phenomena. All you can do is use those accounts to develop a hypothetical picture of the thing you're trying to evaluate so you can design field methods with the potential to reveal it.

 

And as to all of this "search protocols are a boring old hash hash hash," well here's an assumption for you, and as good as any of yours:

Search protocol discussions are not boring.  What's boring is your arrogance to suggest that now that you and WSA are here somehow we can have these important discussions, because none of us rubes have thought to discuss such things in the past.

 

Sasquatch would be confirmed by now if the people who should be doing it, were doing it.

Huntster, is that you?  Remember when I explained that you with your bear rifle would be much better equipped to do this than would me and a graduate student?  Yeah, you kept back-pedaling with the excuse that you didn't have a "bigfoot license" and were worried that you'd run afoul of Alaska Fish & Game.  Ahh . . . good times, ol' buddy.

[Guest DWA]

 

A friend of mine described to me what sounds like a bigfoot sighting.   . . .  But I don't think he's lying to me; and to assume that eyewitnesses are lying or otherwise mistaken is just that:  an assumption with nothing to back it up. 

Why do you think there's nothing to back up that assumption?  You don't think there's sufficient evidence to conclude that human beings frequently 1) tell stories that are not true and 2) honestly misidentify things they claim to see?    Is not your assumption that alleged witnesses never lie and correctly identify everything they claim to see? What exactly would back up those assumptions?

 

The difference between you and me is that you make lots of assumptions.  As a skeptic, I MAKE NONE.  I don't - as you clearly do - presume them lying or mistaken.  What's your evidence?  None?  Thought so.  My bet is always against the people who say "no way" from armchairs and desks.  History bears me out.

 

They sure don't sound like they're lying to me. 

Oh, okay.  Well if they don't sound like they're lying to you then I guess that's rock-solid.

 

Just went over this. 

 

And I can't imagine an animal known to us that they are mistaking for what they are describing. 

Well I can't comment on the specific details of your friend's claim, but observations of humans, bears, moose, bison, owls, coyotes, foxes, woodrats, Sooty Grouse, and Swainson's Thrushes have all been claimed as "bigfoot" in my time on the BFF.

 

I can't account for what was in their chili.  Those don't matter to me.  I'm highly skeptical that I'm reading that sort of stuff on the report databases.

 

So as far as I'm concerned, the evidence hasn't been tested, and when the thing it is describing sounds plausible,

You might be confusing "plausible" and "possible."  Just because you can read a report and think - "Yep! That's something an ape would do!" - doesn't mean that bigfoot did it.  First, remember that if the "bigfoot" reports you read sounded implausible for bigfoot, they wouldn't have been included as reports of bigfoot.  Next, the idea that there is a population of giant man-apes living, eating, fighting, and dying at a campground near you - all without ever leaving a trace of those activities but for the stories of the lucky ones who've seen them - is exceedingly implausible.  It's not impossible, but it's really implausible.

 

Not if one thinks about this.  Oh it's totally plausible.  I'm skeptical of "implausibility" arguments made for stuff that's pretty plausible from where I'm sitting.

 

it's the default, because madness lies down the road of just presuming that all of this adds up to history's most unlikely mass false positive. 

So skeptics must be "mad"?

 

Just inattentive and relying too much on What Is Known Now, which always ...whoops, just changed...

 

 

2) no proof ever being obtained, ever, barring luck none of us deserve, if current attitudes continue.

If people frequently report seeing bigfoot crossing roads, sometimes in traffic, and there have even been reports of people hitting them, then why would it be so implausible to you that one could be struck and killed?  If bigfoot is real, there is no reason whatsoever that one couldn't be struck and killed in the next 5 minutes.  There are an awful lot of logging trucks out there, driving too fast with heavy loads on curvy gravel roads . . .

 

And also, if one is skeptical, no reason to believe that "shovel and shut up" hasn't happened, likely more than once (Business 101 is my backup for that one); and no reason to believe that, well, it just hasn't happened, and as we haven't confirmed what is causing all this evidence, we have no clue why.