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

[Guest]

I was in Teslin when that sighting happened. My Wife was teaching a basket making workshop and one of her students was a sister of one of the witness's. She said the dog started going crazy and the window went dark for a moment. They opened the door and the dog ran into the house. Everybody went outside and saw the bushman (as they called it) running into the bush. In their defence a woodland bison has a tall thin hump that looks like a head and shoulders from behind. They weren't fools or insane.

I think only the first two or three saw something run into the bush and the rest heard it. Everybody wants to be the guy who saw a Sasquatch so I think the rest just said they saw it too. In a mass misidentification I think sometimes the ones who didn't see, say they did just to be apart of something cool. People like attention and respect. It feels good, so good some people will do anything to get it.

The same kind of thing probably happens on the BFF. It's cool to be a member but cooler to be a member who's had a sighting, or better yet a habituator, or even cooler a habituator who shares proof...oh wait nobody is that cool

[Guest DWA]

Well, that's possible, and one of a number of details we don't get in the rendition of the sightings given here.

 

But if these were anything other than total cheechakos, I'm thinking they don't jump to illegitimate conclusions, and no one can say for sure what it was unless somebody got something more than a sighting.  My problem - and WSA has already mentioned it - is the assumptions we make about people who are, we just know it, in no way as...well...as cool as us.

 

And of course there is still that footprint.

[Guest]

My cousin said that your cousin saw a bear, not bigfoot.

 

My cousin told me all about your cousin seeing a bear, not bigfoot.

 

My cousin doesn't seem to me like he's lying, so he must be telling the truth.

 

About a bear, not bigfoot.

 

Are you referring to my post above about my cousin's claim? FYI I don't think he saw BF because I don't think BF exists, which I suppose is kind of obvious. I'm not going to tell him that though, it's not for me to try and convince him of what he saw. I think after all these years it is likely just a memory of a memory of an event. Likely was a bear. I'm forever on his case about bear hunting, I'm not a big fan of it, or hunting in general for that matter, unless it is food, but I digress.

[Guest]

DWA,

This sighting is not really very credible. Lets just say "partying" was a factor. Combine that with a rich folklore a freaked out dog and you have the seeds for a mass misidentification.

And the track wasn't a foot print in the mud, it was an impression in the moss. Easily a doubled up buffalo track.

But this thread isn't about debunking this Teslin sighting.

I just want to add, it's important to have all the details when assessing the weight of witnesses

[dmaker]

"But if these were anything other than total cheechakos, I'm thinking they don't jump to illegitimate conclusions, and no one can say for sure what it was..." -DWA

 

That is interesting coming from you. You are the one who constantly demands that skeptics somehow go back in time and disprove every eye witness report. Yet in this comment you admit the futility of even attempting to do just that with this single report. Double standard much?

[Drew]

So you think it is more likely to be a Giant Hairy Apeman, than say, a meth-head checking out who is harshing his gig?

 

I HAVE PLENTY!  OK, you really aren't paying attention.

 

 

No followup on what the witnesses saw.  No followup on the track.  Just bison results on hair that I have on good authority (Saskeptic) that these people knew wasn't bison.  You have no hunches from that?  Oh. OK.  That is EVIDENCE, b's and g's, that proper scientific procedure was not followed here.  If you think it was, well, I see my problem with your chosen scientists.

 

When you tell me somebody was lying or mistaken and can offer no evidence such as I just did, let's just say I'm skeptical about that finding.

 

Witness provides hair sample he swears is from Bigfoot.

Hair sample comes back bison.

Case closed

 

You think they should still follow up with this line of evidence?  Really?

[Guest DWA]

Well, you can think "my obligation is just to test this hair here."

 

But that's what a technician does, not what a scientist does.  A scientist - one who's interested anyway, and if you're a scientist why aren't you? - checks out, and follows up to the extent possible, all the evidence at the scene.

"But if these were anything other than total cheechakos, I'm thinking they don't jump to illegitimate conclusions, and no one can say for sure what it was..." -DWA

 

That is interesting coming from you. You are the one who constantly demands that skeptics somehow go back in time and disprove every eye witness report. Yet in this comment you admit the futility of even attempting to do just that with this single report. Double standard much?

 Um, doesn't that sound more like "why the heck didn't somebody talk to them more about precisely what they saw?  And if someone did, why isn't that information here?"

 

Yes.  I believe it does.

[dmaker]

Mmmmmmkay, so when the Sierra kills sample came back as bear? Did you also feel that the lab was lying or being silenced by the gubmint?

[Guest]

DWA,

This sighting is not really very credible.

Thank you for commenting on that story with some firsthand experience, Nakani.  This is what "pwned" sounds like, folks.

 

The whole reason we were discussing this case was because DWA insisted that people don't mistake anything else for a bigfoot unless those people are  - his word - "fools".  I was trying to make the point that we know that people misidentify things all the time, but it's rare that we have a good case in which we can demonstrate their error with conviction.  Your allusion to "partying" doesn't help my statements that "sober, smart, rational" people make these mistakes, however you are the first to suggest that the multiple witnesses to the encounter were anything but. In other words, no one who reported on the sightings ever asked if the witnesses were drunk or otherwise impaired.  There are two related stories in the BFRO database, offered with complete confidence that they are real evidence of real bigfoots, but with no suggesting of alcohol or drugs playing a role with the witnesses.

 

Anyway, by their own actions of contacting a university to conduct a DNA analysis of hairs they were convinced came from a bigfoot/bushman, the witnesses demonstrate that they were convinced that the hairs were the real deal.  They thought they had proof of bigfoot and wanted to prove it to the world.  Unfortunately, the analysis of Coltman and Davis indicated that their sample had actually come from a bison.  Thus, this is one of the best documented cases of multiple people simply misidentifying a common animal as a bigfoot, although as I mentioned (and Coltman and Davis do too), this result doesn't prove that they didn't see a bigfoot, because the witnesses might just have made in error in assuming the hairs came from the bigfoot they might have actually seen. However, the information you have provided, Nakani, simply makes that possibility even more remote.

[Guest DWA]

Funny, I'm not feeling "pwned."  And I'm not seeing any additional facts about the sighting that indicate these people saw a bison.

 

Come on, people.  This is just sloppy.

 

But note that Coltman and Davis in that second to last sentence make MY point for me.  Thought you'd hide that in there, didn'tcha.

So they admit - and notice this was nowhere in the original writeup - "we just tested this hair we got.  We didn't investigate anything else.  They may have seen a bigfoot."

 

Pwned.  That's what it sounds like.

 

Folks.

[dmaker]

^^ No, that actually sounds like someone without enough grace to admit when he just might be wrong on something.

[Drew]

Funny, I'm not feeling "pwned."  And I'm not seeing any additional facts about the sighting that indicate these people saw a bison.

 

Come on, people.  This is just sloppy.

 

But note that Coltman and Davis in that second to last sentence make MY point for me.  Thought you'd hide that in there, didn'tcha.

So they admit - and notice this was nowhere in the original writeup - "we just tested this hair we got.  We didn't investigate anything else.  They may have seen a bigfoot."

 

Pwned.  That's what it sounds like.

 

Folks.

Why would a person trained to test hair, have any knowledge of what they saw?  He tested the hair that they said came from a Bigfoot.  His job was over.

They may have SEEN a Bigfoot.

 

I have seen a Bigfoot a few times, I just took the time to figure out what it really was.   One time it was an old man in a black parka with the hood pulled up.  One time it was a burned out stump in the middle of a field in the pre dawn light.  One time it was a sleep hallucination.  

 

I know what you're thinking,  Bigfoot stole the parka from the old man, and was mimicking the old man as it crossed the road,  Bigfoot often hide behind old burned out stumps in fields to hide from people, and Bigfoot sent out infrasound that was speaking to me telpathically.  So don't even go there.

[Guest]

Your reply confirmed  for me that you view one body of evidence (anecdotal) as not of too much use to inform the other (absolute proof).

 

Right.  The anecdotes might be able to tell us generally where to look for bigfoots (and apparently any moderately forested area of North America will suffice according to those reports), but other than that they get us no closer to actually collecting a piece of one. 

 

 

One is not better or worse than the other, really, just a different perspective and emphasis, and the two can lead you to different outcomes.  

 

Well, actually one is better than the other:  an anecdote about bigfoot can be a complete, soup-to-nuts fabrication.  It is not evidence of bigfoot at all.  A misidentification of something as bigfoot is not evidence of bigfoot at all.   We can never fully assess the authenticity of a anecdotal account.  A dead bigfoot, however, cannot be fabricated (despite the efforts of some folks who've enjoyed their 15 minutes of fame in bigfootery).  If it's there, it's there.  It can be photographed, measured, weighed, CT-scanned, dissected, DNA-analyzed, etc.

 

Thus, when people come here and make charges that science has dropped the ball on bigfoot, what they want science to do to analyze a physical bigfoot.  That's the part that hasn't happened yet.  They don't want science to analyze yet another anecdotal account to come to a startling conclusion like, "Yep, someone else has reported a bigfoot in the Pacific Northwest."  There are some cool natural history insights that could be gleaned from some accounts that lead to testable hypotheses (for example, I'd suspect bigfoot to be riparian-associated), but we've got plenty of insights from those hundreds of accounts.  What we don't have is a single scrap of a bigfoot to prove that the danged things are there at all. 

 

BTW, I've done a lot of collaborative work with TNC in Virginia - class act.  Your experience of "bipedal footfalls" sounds quite similar to my own.  Mine was from one of my research sites (about 5 miles away from the location of a BFRO account) in an area where I spend some time poking around in dark recesses and scouring streambeds for bones when I'm not doing a formal bird survey.

[Drew]

How many Bigfoot sightings are similar to my Old-Man-in-a-black parka-with-the-hood-pulled-up, except instead of figuring out what it was, the person just stopped, and called the BFRO, and told them about their Bigfoot sighting?  They THOUGHT they saw a Bigfoot, so they are not lying, and seem very credible.

 

It is no question that standard things can be interpreted by the mind to be unusual things.

[Guest DWA]

^^ No, that actually sounds like someone without enough grace to admit when he just might be wrong on something.

Actually, I'm talking to a bunch of them, because that I might be wrong is something I am totally up front about.

 

I'm here for curiosity.  But you guys are "totally convinced," and seem to need other people to be either in agreement with your or wrong.  Not the scientist's approach, sadly.

 

Why would a person trained to test hair, have any knowledge of what they saw?  He tested the hair that they said came from a Bigfoot.  His job was over.

They may have SEEN a Bigfoot.

 

I have seen a Bigfoot a few times, I just took the time to figure out what it really was.   One time it was an old man in a black parka with the hood pulled up.  One time it was a burned out stump in the middle of a field in the pre dawn light.  One time it was a sleep hallucination.  

 

I know what you're thinking,  Bigfoot stole the parka from the old man, and was mimicking the old man as it crossed the road,  Bigfoot often hide behind old burned out stumps in fields to hide from people, and Bigfoot sent out infrasound that was speaking to me telpathically.  So don't even go there.

 

OK, fine.  But that's my point.  All they did was test a hunk of hair.  From the account, there's nothing to tell us what those people saw, except that a lot of folks think that a near-ton quadruped can be mistaken for an upright ape a quarter of the size or so.

 

Oh.  OK.

 

I've never seen anything that I thought was a bigfoot.  Hmmm.  Might want to get that checked out.

How many Bigfoot sightings are similar to my Old-Man-in-a-black parka-with-the-hood-pulled-up, except instead of figuring out what it was, the person just stopped, and called the BFRO, and told them about their Bigfoot sighting?  They THOUGHT they saw a Bigfoot, so they are not lying, and seem very credible.

 

It is no question that standard things can be interpreted by the mind to be unusual things.

I have read almost no accounts that cannot be attributable to:  hospitalizable malfunction; big fat lie...or what the witness says they saw.  Anyone who thinks anything else ...well, you need to read them better.

 

I'm sorry, folks.  But if you are seeing any North American animal that isn't a bigfoot, and thinking bigfoot, I would have to take the "fool" label under consideration until I knew more about you.  But I would definitely have to say this:  you just did something foolish.