N A W A C - Field Study Discussion

[dmaker]

^^^^^^^^^

 

We have almost 100 reports of Sasqutch in Oklahoma just on the BFRO data base alone:

 

http://www.bfro.net/GDB/state_listing.asp?state=ok

 

You also have the Honobia, Oklahoma Bigfoot festival every year.

 

http://www.bigfootmountain2012.com/

 

So I think your off base with your assessment that the NAWAC is a impressionable group of outsiders that report Sasquatch activity where others do not..........no matter what your thoughts are on the validity of the existence of the creature.

No offense Norse, but to put the BFRO reports up against work done in the field by actual biologists is like comparing the National Enquirer to The New York Times. The BFRO is, in my opinion, as tainted a source as could be for adding validity to BF presence in an area. The organization is founded and fronted by a person who loses credibility with every episode of Finding Bigfoot. Not to mention the financial vested interest that exists from the money made by their expeditions/campouts. I'd take sooner take NAWAC's reports with a smaller grain of salt than anything that comes from the BFRO. Just sayin..

[Guest]

I'd like to speak up for what I'm sure are a great many sceptics and/or fence sitters silently reading this thread with fascination. Of course it's ultimately about proof, but with the current absence of that, I'm greatly heartened by the comprehensive, long-term approach NAWAC appears to be taking. If any approach is going to yield concrete results, I  believe it's theirs (although if there are wood apes out there, I still hold out for an old or unwary one to wander into the path of a speeding truck).

 

So by putting aside this absent but much-needed proof, and putting aside the veracity and quality of other undiscovered-primate evidence for a moment, I'm left as a person who believes NAWAC are indeed investing vast amounts of time effort, money and resources into hunting this animal. And that they're doing so with a degree of hard-headed realism.

 

Yes, they may get rich and famous if they pop the monkey on a slab but they absolutely WILL NOT if they have nothing but stories, recordings, print casts or even photos or footage of the beast. So it seems to me that they have no reason to put all this effort in if they aren't genuine believers and aren't sincere about solving the mystery.

 

Having exchanged a few messages with bipto from years back, and followed his output from early days until now, I also happen to believe him when he recounts tales of the experiences he has had in Area X. Is he lying? I don't feel he is. Is he being hoaxed by his colleagues or other human parties? I find myself doubting that too. Does this therefore mean he's encountering secretive apes? I don't know. But he and his organisation seem to understand that only proof will satisfy me (and the world). They've left themselves no wriggle-room there, especially as they claim they've seen and heard these animals. Making such stuff up wouldn't help their desire to be taken seriously one bit, unless they were doing so to convince people to fund them. If memory serves, this is not the case.

 

 

 

too long; didn't read? I don't truly believe in wood apes but I'm here because I love the idea of them, I want them to exist and I'm fascinated by both the stories and those who say they've encountered them. I do believe in NAWAC's quest and I trust them to investigate this phenomenon with due rigour, and in time to shed some light on it.

[norseman]

 

^^^^^^^^^

 

We have almost 100 reports of Sasqutch in Oklahoma just on the BFRO data base alone:

 

http://www.bfro.net/GDB/state_listing.asp?state=ok

 

You also have the Honobia, Oklahoma Bigfoot festival every year.

 

http://www.bigfootmountain2012.com/

 

So I think your off base with your assessment that the NAWAC is a impressionable group of outsiders that report Sasquatch activity where others do not..........no matter what your thoughts are on the validity of the existence of the creature.

No offense Norse, but to put the BFRO reports up against work done in the field by actual biologists is like comparing the National Enquirer to The New York Times. The BFRO is, in my opinion, as tainted a source as could be for adding validity to BF presence in an area. The organization is founded and fronted by a person who loses credibility with every episode of Finding Bigfoot. Not to mention the financial vested interest that exists from the money made by their expeditions/campouts. I'd take sooner take NAWAC's reports with a smaller grain of salt than anything that comes from the BFRO. Just sayin..

 

 

And can you point to where I did that?

 

The point I'm addressing of AK loner, is that the NAWAC is a bunch of impressionable outsiders and nobody in the vicinity aka locals, experiences anything strange. If that were the case? Then why the hundred BFRO reports? Can you point to a US Forest Service board that lists Sasquatch sightings in that area? No? Then people are probably going to utilize what's at their disposal aka the BFRO. And why the big shindig at Honobia? Are we to believe that this is put on by complete strangers out of the area? Nobody from eastern Oklahoma attends?

 

I hear what your saying concerning financial interests and all of that...........I do. But if you see a Sasquatch tomorrow of your back porch in Ontario? Who are you going to report it to?

[gigantor]

One of these days, hopefully soon, here... 

[bipedalist]

 

After listening to Bigfoot Show episode #51, I thought long and hard about what it would be like attempting to track an animal that was not only incredibly stealthy and elusive, but possibly the most intelligent animal besides humans. There was a story last year about a captive Orangutan at a zoo who would was repeatedly escaping its' enclosure. They ended up having installing video cameras to see how he was escaping....

Stones finally managed to catch Fu Manchu in the act. First, the young ape climbed down some air-vent louvers into a dry moat. Then, taking hold of the bottom of the furnace door, he used brute force to pull it back just far enough to slide a wire into the gap, slip a latch and pop the door open. The next day, Stones noticed something shiny sticking out of Fu's mouth. It was the wire lock pick, bent to fit between his lip and gum and stowed there between escapes.

Now imagine animals that are possibly far more intelligent and resourceful than this. Then consider the possibility that they might work in groups to purposefully distract and misdirect intruders. Take that animal and imagine them with all the stealth of a Cougar, but also add a coat of dark hair that is essentially a natural Ghillie suit, perfect camouflage for disappearing into shadowy underbrush. Imagine that animal is also incredibly fast and powerful, with highly developed nocturnal vision.

 

If such an animal truly exists, I doubt even the most adept hunter alive would be capable of stalking one through even sparse cover, let alone dense vegetation with limited visibility.

 

 

 

Nice post, plussed it, though I think there comes a point where you are no longer describing the actions and intelligence of a mere animal, particularly one whose interest in you ,actions are correlated to and influenced by your use of cameras, What is being described in area X is more like a tactical game with a psychic special forces unit. I feel I've had my brushes with this type of thing before, and it leaves you with great respect for their natural or acquired abilities of stealth, distraction, coordination and communication.   

 

 

 

What he said! ^

[Guest]

Once you explore great ape behavior, you'll see that nothing we've observed rises above the kinds of things known great apes have already been described doing. Orangutans in particular (stealing boats to cross rivers, hiding a long piece of metal in their mouth to be able to surreptitiously pick locks), but even chimps (tactical hunting, spear use) are quite clever. Being clever and using your natural assets (hand and big brains) doesn't place them above "mere animals" if you're willing to concede that non-human apes are animals. 

[Guest]

I'd like to speak up for what I'm sure are a great many sceptics and/or fence sitters silently reading this thread with fascination. .................. I don't truly believe in wood apes but I'm here because I love the idea of them, I want them to exist and I'm fascinated by both the stories and those who say they've encountered them. I do believe in NAWAC's quest and I trust them to investigate this phenomenon with due rigour, and in time to shed some light on it.

A fantastic post! Well spoken, and sincerely appreciated.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(I just re-read one of my previous post further up the page. Please pardon all of the faux pas in my grammar/sentence structure. I was very tired.)

Edited July 21, 2013 by Irish73

[Guest]

Agreed!

[southernyahoo]

They've left themselves no wriggle-room there, especially as they claim they've seen and heard these animals. Making such stuff up wouldn't help their desire to be taken seriously one bit, unless they were doing so to convince people to fund them. If memory serves, this is not the case.

 Actually, the whole point of becoming a nonprofit IS to attract donations to fund their research.

 

Once you explore great ape behavior, you'll see that nothing we've observed rises above the kinds of things known great apes have already been described doing. Orangutans in particular (stealing boats to cross rivers, hiding a long piece of metal in their mouth to be able to surreptitiously pick locks), but even chimps (tactical hunting, spear use) are quite clever. Being clever and using your natural assets (hand and big brains) doesn't place them above "mere animals" if you're willing to concede that non-human apes are animals. 

 

Chimps to me are bordering the line where humanity begins and being an animal ends. Ask Goodall about that.

 

http://www.janegoodall.org/chimpanzees/tool-use-hunting-other-discoveries

 

 

 Now we must redefine tool, redefine man or accept chimpanzees as human.

 

This quote is about tool use. We still consider chimps animals, but what do you think would happen with the ability to speak? You once compared the vocals you captured in Area X to the sierra sounds. Those sounds are very much like speech.

 

Speech implies the presence of the human version of the FOXP2 gene that no other apes have. 

 

It may seem like a cart before the horse debate to say they are human because they aren't proven, but the same goes for any argument that says they aren't., particularly for a hominin that makes large human footprints.

 

Many behaviors are culturally learned, so if you exclude those and look at infants, what can you use to distinguish a human infant from a chimp infant?  

What makes one human and the other not? The behavior of their parents?

 

What do you think would happen if you take down a wood ape and it has a fully human mitochondria?

 

What will the headlines read like in the news? 

[Guest DWA]

 

Third, you and I go round and round about, from you, how things should be in the wilderness and, from me, how things *are*.

 

 

Here is another example where truth-telling is important to credibility.  By definition, a cabin on a road is not wilderness.  I don't even say I live in the wilderness despite bordering millions of acres of it.   I saw that discussion of "bona-fides" earlier in the thread.  By our standards up here you don't have any wilderness bona fides.  Staying in a cabin?  I do that permanently.  I have a three year old that does more actual camping than you do. 

 

There are three tiny wilderness designations in Oklahoma, the largest of which by far is the Upper Kiamichi, bordered on the North by highway 1 and having NF 6032 running right through the middle of it.  (This is one of those cases where the government declared it a wilderness despite a road running right through the middle of it.)   There are innumerable studies on the wildlife, the geology, the forest, and even the visitors to this area.   A fellow named Kuzmik wrote his dissertation on visitor characteristics, and can be viewed here:  http://books.google.com/books/about/Characteristics_of_Visitors_and_Reacreat.html?id=ntCqXwAACAAJ

 

One of the pretenses that makes this NAWAC "research" non-credible is the pretense that they are in an area that doesn't have much human use and that revealing the location will somehow interfere - when thousands upon thousands of visitors per year are roaming all over the area.   Someone can look this publication up in the library and get visitor use estimates from the 90's in here and see what they are all up to - and none of them are hunting or reporting bigfoot.  Were that the case, this dissertation would become some kind of Bible for believers.  How many vehicles have driven through on highway 1 over the decades? Staggering millions.

 

In terms of how things actually "are", no - that isn't you.   That would be the professional studies and the professional management personnel charged with overseeing Oklahoma lands and wildlife.  A casual occasional visitor staying in a cabin OUTSIDE the wilderness making fantastical claims can't be treated seriously alongside professionals conducting long-term studies INSIDE it.  They are charged with protecting the wildlife, and do that not by pretending they have secret populations of animals in secret locations - but by publishing in professional literature and making sure everyone knows the exact details.  Science of course requires repeatability.  In this case you have one (predisposed) group of casual visitors making fantastic claims and the other thousands upon thousands of visitors, the managers, the professional scientists doing long-term studies saying no such thing. 

 

How loud do we have to say "yawn" for somebody to hear it?

 

Them over you, brah.  You may be outside a lot.  But you don't seem to understand in the slightest how to think about it.  Just sayin'.  Way things are.

[Guest Urkelbot]

If Bigfoot evolved off of giangtopithicus it would be around 13 million years distant from modern humans. In this case all humanesque traits would be convergent evolution.

I don't think Bigfoot could have evolved off homo due to the lack or evidence of tool manufacture, unless I'm wrong here. I don't think it's likely to evolve traits for increased size while losing the ability to manufacture and use stone tools. what would be the overall fitness advantage? The only way this would make any sense is if Bigfoot had a reduction in brain size and capabilities then of course Bigfoot wouldn't be much smarter than a chimp.

I think Bigfoot is too humanized by a lot of people.

[Guest DWA]

^^^^Well, don't know about most of us.  But many of us - including those doing research in X - agree with you.

 

Excuses have been made for the loss of sophisticated tool use.  I just don't think they scan.  If I had to bet, no homo in this family tree at all.

 

I consider most "they do this, ergo they are human" takes to seriously underrate the capabilities of apes.  There's been quite a bit said about that on this thread.  The known apes are a lot more "human" than most people know.

[MIB]

Hmmmmm ... there's no proof they're "ape" either.   We don't know.   There's no evidence (that we recognize as such) proving evolution in asia, africa, or north america.   We throw up our most reasonable guesses, but that's all they are, guesses.  We should not get so attached to any of them that our pride requires us to continue to defend them when our intellect says it's past time to cut our losses.    If I hadn't seen one for myself I'd write this all off as nonsense myself, but since I have, I'm driven to try to understand.

 

MIB

[Guest DWA]

^^^For sure.

 

All I'm talking about is "were I betting, from my point of view."  There's a pretty decent treatment of the "what are they?" question in Alley's Raincoast Sasquatch, for my money one of the best books on the topic.  He makes a pretty good case that they need be neither human nor ape (although my, once again, bet is that even if neither it'll be a near branch on the tree).

...and watch out for the scorpions too. They like dry and hot areas, preferably in a wood pile, natural or otherwise.

 

And if you have ever seen a herd of Tarantulas cross the road near Harrah it's guaranteed you will never forget that sight.  Hubby and I were rubbing our eyes and squinting to make sure it was what we thought it was.  We estimated a couple hundred!!!   Astounding!

OK, that's cool.  As somebody who has never seen a scorpion in the wild and only one tarantula (a corpse, in Spooky Gulch in Utah), I'd turn back most of the wildlife sightings I've had for one like that.

Edited July 21, 2013 by DWA

[Guest]

MIB, is your encounter publicly recorded? Would like to read of it if it's not a private matter.