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

[dmaker]

"You know what this one is?  Inconclusive."

 

ALL Bigfoot reports are inconclusive. That is all they can ever be. This one, at least, involves a sample analysis. That is a lot more tangible substance than most of them have, but even still it remains inconclusive just like every other BF report ever made.

[WSA]

 

Saskeptic...I only came to the possibility of BF in VA very late, and my family's history there predates the Commonwealth (Augusta/Rockbridge/Bath Counties).

Very cool!

 

One intriguing piece of anecdotal evidence I recently found in a family history of a collateral ancestor kidnapped in 1786 by the Shawnee down in Tazwell County, along the Bluestone river, really got me thinking. It described how early settlers found a cave "filled to the brim" with gigantic human bones, conjectured to have been from an "extinct race" and also an episode of a mysterious "howling'' animal. Both easily explained by plausible alternatives, I grant you.

The "giant bones" stories from the 18th and 19th centuries are intriguing, but as far as I know "Skeptoid" Brian Dunning is the only person who's done the homework to track down the sources.  His work indicated that none of these many stories ever actually revealed a real, giant skeleton.  It's cool that you've got a personal tie to that bit of American folklore.

 

If I remember correctly as well, T. Jefferson made some allusion to evidence in his "Notes on the State of Va."

I don't know.  I've read that he was convinced there were giant lions to be found in western North America, and he was counting on the Corps of Discovery to collect one. Of course, he was describing bones from an extinct ground sloth.  It's a fascinating story.

 

Yes, one of the more plausible explanations for those bones.  This  account (The Captives of Abb's Valley: A Legend of Frontier Life, by A Son of Mary Moore. Sprinkle Publications, 2002) stated the entrance to the cave was sealed up with "stacked stones", which makes you wonder. As many do,  I've often wondered whether a lay person would necessarily know if they were actually looking at a possible Sasquatch bone, unless they were looking at a full skeleton or skull. Aside from just the sheer size of a bone, what indicators do look for when you do scour around for bones in your field work? Obviously a large tooth, especially canines, would be another obvious flag, but what else? 

[Guest]

Other than something obvious like a skull, I wouldn't expect untrained eyes to be able to determine anything other than the difference between "big" bone and "little" bone.  That said, there are an awful lot of people out there who've butchered their own deer or roasted a feral hog, and folks might know a lot more skeletal anatomy than we might assume.

 

Other than that, the best shot of getting useful bones from an amateur dig would be if the folks at least thought the bones were interesting or weird and set them aside.  That's what happened with Megalonyx:  Eventually, someone showed up at the saltpetre mine and said "Dudes!  Where'd you find these cool bones!"  The miners had set them aside just because they thought the bones looked weird.

 

When I'm bone-hunting - and this is something I only do a couple of times a year so I don't want anyone to think I'm some kind of dedicated fossil hound - I look for small and round (potential teeth) or long bones.  I have some deer, raccoon, cow, etc., but I've never found anything cool and old (other than trilobite fossils, which is too old for this endeavor!).  I've found only recent stuff and (so far) nothing I couldn't confidently identify for myself.

[WSA]

I'll keep my eyeballs peeled. I've always been much more interested with what is on the ground in front of me when I walk, as I guess all myopics are, especially those who hike where rattlesnakes are found. I have found once you get the pattern of what you are looking for imprinted on your mind, it becomes much easier. Seeing that first one is the difficult part. The first time I went arrowhead hunting with a friend, he was picking them up all around me, even at my feet. All I saw was rocks. He then stopped to point one out,  in situ...eureka!

 

For some reason, I also have "snake vision" and have been known to pick their patterns out of the leaf litter and rocks when my companions could not, even when I pointed them out to them. They are just like a flashing neon sign to my eyes.  Like so many things in this life though, you have to put them on the radar screen if you want to find them. You can also fool the mind and eye. I knew a hunter once who would say, "If you want to spot a deer in the woods, look for a rabbit." 

 

As we all know who have walked in the wild, animal remains are scarce, if you don't count scat and feathers.  I've found maybe five or six w.tail deer antlers, most of which were gnawed to a nubbin'.  So really, ANY bone I find is going to make me look closely at it. Truth too, I tend to throw all stuff I find into my pack, and I've piles of it. Kids love it. Wife, she tolerates it. Pity my next of kin at my death who have to do something with it.  

[norseman]

Other than something obvious like a skull, I wouldn't expect untrained eyes to be able to determine anything other than the difference between "big" bone and "little" bone.  That said, there are an awful lot of people out there who've butchered their own deer or roasted a feral hog, and folks might know a lot more skeletal anatomy than we might assume.

 

Other than that, the best shot of getting useful bones from an amateur dig would be if the folks at least thought the bones were interesting or weird and set them aside.  That's what happened with Megalonyx:  Eventually, someone showed up at the saltpetre mine and said "Dudes!  Where'd you find these cool bones!"  The miners had set them aside just because they thought the bones looked weird.

 

When I'm bone-hunting - and this is something I only do a couple of times a year so I don't want anyone to think I'm some kind of dedicated fossil hound - I look for small and round (potential teeth) or long bones.  I have some deer, raccoon, cow, etc., but I've never found anything cool and old (other than trilobite fossils, which is too old for this endeavor!).  I've found only recent stuff and (so far) nothing I couldn't confidently identify for myself.

 

The miner's in Germany that first found a Neanderthal skull cap thought it was a old bear skull and was going to throw it into the tailings pile.

[Guest]

Norseman,

Long time no talk. The buffalo would have been walking/running broadside to the window. Over there the houses are simply built most with no basement and not much of a crawl space underneath. The adult wood bison bulls can be 6-7 feet tall at the shoulder and that's not an exception, more of an average. This is plenty high to cover the windows.

DWA,

In most community's in the north they grow up with story's and legends of Bushmen and dare I say actual Bushmen. All it would take is one person to say "Bushman" and the rest would accept it no problem. I will also say that in fading light a buffalo running directly away from you, crashing through dense bush looks a lot like a tall hairy man. If we're still talking about this later I'll see if I can post my buffalo blobsquatches from my phone.

[Guest DWA]

My problem is that folks submitted what they took to be sasquatch hair samples based on what they saw.

 

No question that Native legends and our folklore tend not to jump cultures.  But that's what strikes me strange; Natives describe the same animals that folks from our culture are seeing.

 

Did this report go into detail about what the people said they saw?  I don't think I'd be submitting bushman hair samples based on seeing something I couldn't define very well crashing into the brush.  And like Saskeptic, I'd expect these folks to know bison hair if it was a local animal.

 

Too much stuff about this one still sounds odd.  One can never say never.  But boy it seems odd to me to submit hair for analysis when you aren't sure, if the animal isn't supposed to be real.

[Squatchy McSquatch]

My problem is that folks submitted what they took to be sasquatch hair samples based on what they saw.

 

But once it's seen, to them, it's proven.

 

If they report it in a database on the intrawebz, then it's really proven.

 

Otherwise you might want to ask yourself, how many normal relatively intelligent [adult] witnesses without a prior agenda does it take to have any provative weight toward the unknown?

 

Nonesofar.

Edited June 22, 2013 by Squatchy McSquatch

[Guest]

Here's my buffasquatch

DWA,

I'm not saying that sasquatch doesn't exist, I'm just saying these kids didn't see one that day. (When I say kids I mean 20ish). Young people aren't very likely to know buffalo hair from Bushman hair, especailly since buffalo is a southern food and rarely hunted.

I think all of the excitement kinda biased their judgement too.

I would think someone would submit hair for analysis BECAUSE they aren't sure.

[Guest DWA]

What I meant by my sentence was that I, personally, wouldn't submit hair for analysis as possible bigfoot unless I, personally, was absolutely convinced of what I saw and wanted somebody else to get interested.

 

Hair analysis is time consuming and expensive enough that if I weren't sure I'd be concerned about wasting somebody's time.  Which is money.

[Guest DWA]

Should have added that if you aren't sure whether what you saw was a bigfoot you probably won't get more sure giving a scientist a hair sample.

 

The best that can come back is "primate, unknown" as there's no type specimen.  And I have a funny feeling that "we tossed the sample" is more likely.

[Guest]

DWA,

You mention your "curiosity" often, and chide others if they seem to lack that attribute. But why does your curiosity only become engaged when you read and analyze Bigfoot reports you take virtually as granted "evidence," and the same curiosity shuts down whenever the possibility of mundane explanations for sightings are advanced?

I'm curious.

[Guest DWA]

When "mundane" explanations either don't explain or aren't mundane, they aren't explanations.

 

I don't like persistent efforts to deny something that isn't going away and demands an explanation.

 

This is what we pay scientists to do.

[dmaker]

There are explanations, you just don't like them.

[Guest DWA]

No.  What I don't like is that they are used to explain everything, by people unacquainted with the evidence who don't have the foggiest notion what they - or the evidence - are saying.

 

Let's get it straight, at least.