What Level Are You At As A Researcher/believer? Why Such Charged Emotions?

July 10, 2013

I dont consider myself a "researcher" and dont like that term at all. Im just a guy who has been reading up on this since the late 60's and who likes to get in the mountains. I never go out just to look for bigfoot. I dont take blotchy pics and post them on blogs or internet forums. I do like this forum, but have to admit it does have a bystander at an accident allure to me.

July 10, 2013

Hello kbhunter,

I only have owned one book on the subject ever. Got it when I was thirteen as a gift. Lost it in a move three years later and have replaced it since with an exact copy. That, coupled with what I've read and learned here and elswhere the past month or so is all that my knowledge amounts to. So......1. BUT I have goals and a vision for the subject. I envision having a database that consists of the BFRO data along with what I can access at the Premium level here, plus John Green's database when the server that has it fixes it's glitches. Those three, plus a couple of other sources, should make for some interesting correlations but it will take a couple of years to pull it all together. The process entails a investigative method requiring a RE-SEARCH of the data in order to compile the information into one place to be cross-referenced with the capability of having a sort function for category selections.

At that point in time, when the process is in full swing, I might consider myself a true researcher, and a strong 2.

Edited July 10, 2013 by hiflier

July 10, 2013

Grifter, no offense, but I put much more store in the words and opinion of Mr. Munns than you.

On a personal note, if the PGF is / was so easily accomplished, why hasn't a decent recreation been accomplished?

Sorry, ain't buying your story.

July 10, 2013

Frankly, I'm losing interest in the whole thing. Now checking videos and reading/skimming posts is just a habit, not an enthusiastic search for information and other's experiences.

Yes, I still like thinking about the implications of what they might be, but my understanding that bigfoot is a real animal really doesn't make a very large dent in my day to day life, except for hanging out here. And I hang here because there's people I LIKE here, and that's now my #1 reason for being here. The sasquatch had better show up again where they were last year, this year, if I am to maintain any long term interest in the subject... Otherwise it goes to the level of "well, that was very interesting but irrelevant to my daily life".

July 10, 2013

Are you talking about Bill Munn???

Among others, but yes, Bill has been pretty comprehensive in his analysis - why?

In Loren Coleman's "Bigfoot!" he talks about the 'investigation' into the film done by skeptic Mark Chorvinsky where the general consensus among Hollywood insiders and makeup pro's that John Chambers was the only person with the skills at the time to have been able to pull it off (he won the 1968 Oscar for his work in "Planet of the Apes"). However Bobbie Short interviewed Chambers in 1997 and he denied any participation in the alleged costume in the PGF. More info available (including the quote below) here:

http://www.bigfootencounters.com/articles/nitpicker.htm

Any of the Hollywoodites who proclaim Chambers made the costume for Roger Patterson need to try and duplicate it today; it still cannot be done. Chambers is on record saying he was the best and he could not have duplicated what he saw in the Patterson film.

Jeff Meldrum's companion volume "Sasquatch - Legend meets Science" devotes a significant portion of the book analysing the film in a number of ways (worth a read), but also mentions that in 1968 John Green met with Ken Peterson, a senior Disney exec, who told him that Disney techs had looked at the film and if they wanted to do something like it they would have had to resort to animation.

It also mentions Janos Prohaska, a Hollywood costume designer who produced a range of ape characters throughout the 1960's. As the book says:

Prohaska was convinced it depicted a living creature rather than a man in a suit. He noted, "You could see all the muscles on the body... It didn't move like a costume at all."

There's more out there...

July 10, 2013

Grifter, no offense, but I put much more store in the words and opinion of Mr. Munns than you.

On a personal note, if the PGF is / was so easily accomplished, why hasn't a decent recreation been accomplished?

Sorry, ain't buying your story.

No offense taken. But I will take the word of the folks I work with over any of you people... YMMV

Also why didn't any scientist swarm the original PGF film site after the footage was released.

The reasoning behind why the film hasn't been dup'd is because in the real world, BF isn't taken seriously. Most people have real problems.

Santa clause, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth fairy carry more importance.... The BF ecosystem has a very small niche in the grand scheme of things.

So don't buy anything I am saying... I feel the same way about allot of the things that are posted as "fact" here concerning BF.

I do try to ask as many questions and read as much as I can about the phenomena.

Also if you read up about Patterson, I have yet to read anything that remotely would convince anyone that he was a genuine person. But regardless, in a few years I bet someone will start quoting Ketchum as well, about the validity of everything BF. Also if the folks at Henson Production Company said it can be done, I will roll with their opinion...

Edited July 10, 2013 by Grifter9931

July 10, 2013

Are you talking about Bill Munn???

Among others, but yes, Bill has been pretty comprehensive in his analysis - why?

In Loren Coleman's "Bigfoot!" he talks about the 'investigation' into the film done by skeptic Mark Chorvinsky where the general consensus among Hollywood insiders and makeup pro's that John Chambers was the only person with the skills at the time to have been able to pull it off (he won the 1968 Oscar for his work in "Planet of the Apes"). However Bobbie Short interviewed Chambers in 1997 and he denied any participation in the alleged costume in the PGF. More info available (including the quote below) here:

http://www.bigfootencounters.com/articles/nitpicker.htm

Any of the Hollywoodites who proclaim Chambers made the costume for Roger Patterson need to try and duplicate it today; it still cannot be done. Chambers is on record saying he was the best and he could not have duplicated what he saw in the Patterson film.

Jeff Meldrum's companion volume "Sasquatch - Legend meets Science" devotes a significant portion of the book analysing the film in a number of ways (worth a read), but also mentions that in 1968 John Green met with Ken Peterson, a senior Disney exec, who told him that Disney techs had looked at the film and if they wanted to do something like it they would have had to resort to animation.

It also mentions Janos Prohaska, a Hollywood costume designer who produced a range of ape characters throughout the 1960's. As the book says:

Prohaska was convinced it depicted a living creature rather than a man in a suit. He noted, "You could see all the muscles on the body... It didn't move like a costume at all."

People have said it didn't move like a costume. Yet some of the industry folks will say the exact opposite. They see seams and padding etc.

They won't even waste time pointing out the flaws in it. Some other folks think the PGF is the Holy grail for BF. I have seen the film a couple hundred times now and it doesn't really convince me that its a BF. To me personally animals move faster than "Patty". Especially ones that are supposed to be skittish around humans and retreating. I can only talk about things and the experience I have seen while on safari in Africa.

Also if you read up on Patterson himself, well its interesting to begin with and hard to believe anything he would produce to be authentic. I don't know if some of the motivation behind some of the Paterson hate is just jealousy or genuine. But I have yet to read anything positive concerning him in general. If we where to listen to testimony about Patterson, most people would not consider him to be honest or reliable. I could be wrong though. I am just going off what I have read.

Also Bill was paid quite a bit for his comprehensive analysis of BF and gets paid on the circuit as well as trying to get his "Oscar submitted Documentary" produced. So to say he is impartial is disingenuous to say the least. He has a very huge monetary stake in proving BF with his gathered evidence. I could be incorrect and will be blown away by the 15 hours of footage he has collected throughout his 5 years of researching BF.

I'll wait to be blown away....

Thanks for including the source material you used. I will follow up and try and get the reading into my rotation.

Edited July 10, 2013 by Grifter9931

July 10, 2013

I'm not a "believer" or a researcher. Either side could have me in this debate. The proponents do.

One word:

Evidence.

The "skeptics" offer none that their viewpoint holds water. But - and frequently with great emotion - they run hellbent past the evidence and spout the same unfounded shibboleths that bigfoot skeptics have been spouting for decades now. That can get quite the weetad annoying.

July 10, 2013

What evidence out there is there that can't be explained by something else other than bigfoot?

Yes there is a lot of different bits of compelling evidence and as whole they paint a picture of bigfoot existing. But there is nothing yet that can be said this is 100% bigfoot.

Look at the PGF it looks pretty real to me and I am not sure how someone could have hoaxed it . But its still possible that it is a hoax.

I don't think the same can be said for any other known extant animal.

July 10, 2013

But there is a gulf between compelling evidence and proof. "100% bigfoot" is proof.

There seems to be a strong strain of thought that says unproven = nonexistent. That's never been true and never will be.

The overall picture of the evidence makes it extremely unlikely, to anyone I've talked to who seems to have fully engaged it and doesn't let their incredulity get in the way, to point to anything but what it appears to point to.

July 10, 2013

I tend to view it as convinced v. unconvinced, and given how nothing is absolute, short of an eye-witness account (haven't had it, but maybe something close to it), I have to put a percentage on it. Given my line of work, I tend to think in burden of proof terms. I would say the current evidence rises to a civil standard of a preponderance (i.e. greater than 50%) but not to the criminal burden of proof of beyond a reasonable doubt. Not that either, in this context, is "proof" as we view the term in the context of science, but there is a personal, deeply subjective level of "proof" for me. We all have it. I find that when I try to convince others of this subjective point of view, they push back just as hard with their own. This makes for an entrenched impasse, deeply dissatisfying to all involved. And I've just concluded it is not worth either coming off like an ideologue or convincing myself somebody else is.

Why so charged with emotions? I try to keep that in check, and granted I'm able to do that better than at other times. I know we all struggle with that here. When I'm failing at that, I try to remember that everyone here has an interest in the subject and there is that in common. Sometimes it doesn't seem that way, I know, but keep reminding yourself of it and the tone of the discourse improves markedly.

July 10, 2013

What evidence out there is there that can't be explained by something else other than bigfoot?

Yes there is a lot of different bits of compelling evidence and as whole they paint a picture of bigfoot existing. But there is nothing yet that can be said this is 100% bigfoot.

Look at the PGF it looks pretty real to me and I am not sure how someone could have hoaxed it . But its still possible that it is a hoax.

I don't think the same can be said for any other known extant animal.

Because there are things in here I can answer in more depth, let's.

As to that first sentence: someone who hasn't made a serious study of the evidence may believe that sightings and footprints "can be explained by something else." Then the question becomes: well, exactly how? Read enough of these; realize the consistencies that span the range of reports, by all kinds of people, most of whom have no experience with primates in the wild; realize that those consistencies run uncannily to just what scientists have experienced studying the apes we know about; and it suddenly becomes a very, very raise-eyebrows proposition to just toss this off to a whole bunch of random motivations and states of mind and eyesight.

Any single story might be just a story. But all the ones I have read? That all this evidence amounts to people doing various kinds of Making Stuff Up? That is such a stretch that I simply refuse to believe it unless it can be proven to me. When the question essentially remains unexamined, I'm just being asked to swallow too much there. And that's what I'm being asked to do: just swallow somebody's toss-off take on all those reports, somebody who, invariably, wasn't there for any of it and has no expertise of which I am aware to make me trust anything he says on this.

And when, to boot, every scientist who agrees with me actually seems to have made a serious study of the evidence and is making no scientific missteps, and when all those who disagree with me make the same toss-off assumptions I see ignorant laymen making ...well, I can tell which scientists are thinking about this, and which aren't. It is not - as so many naive "skeptics" seem to think it is - a question of just picking the people I want to agree with. I came to this with no bias and no desire to believe anything, or anybody. I simply wanted to know. My involvement has been looking for the people whose take on this seems to make sense, not who think what I badly want to think. So I am looking for the people who are applying themselves to this the way I would expect a scientist to do it. So far, that's people like Krantz and Meldrum.

As to the PGF, when somebody asks me - and a number have - for the "five most compelling pieces of evidence," I say that there is only one individual piece that meets that test, and that film is it. As i said, any story can be just a story. But there is something that doesn't even look remotely like any ape suit made during the sixties. So. Guy builds it for one jumpy film, lasting less than a minute; expunges it without trace; and for over 45 years has taken no credit? Just asking me to swallow a bit too much there. The scientists who advocate it as genuine evaluate things I can clearly see on the film. The ones who try to toss it off as a fake either say things that they can't or won't back up, or imagine things are in that film that I can't see in that film....or, worst of all, talk about Patterson's character (everything we know about him says he took this seriously and wasn't a hoaxer) and not his competence to do this (pretty much zero) or the likelihood he got hoaxed (again pretty much zero). Nothing in over 45 years showing Thing One about how a hoax could have happened tells me, pretty clearly, what to think about that film.

Other than that, frequency and coherence tell me what to think; and they tell me that the overall body of evidence is compelling. Anyone who thinks differently has to show me they are right. So far, nobody is even close to beginning to think about that.

July 10, 2013

One other thing I do try to remind myself often of as well: The existence, or non-existence, of a large bipedal ape on this continent does not depend on my interpretation of the evidence, nor anyone else's. When I see the posters on the habituator thread get heckled, with "prove it" challenges, I realize we are all a long way from accepting this basic premise. The natural world does not owe you, me, or anyone else a slake for our thirst for the truth. That goes double for others who claim to know that truth already. If definitive proof of this animal is not forthcoming on a schedule I chose to impose, I have no right to resent it. If proof does come in my lifetime, I only hope my first reaction is to marvel at my luck to be alive at the fortuitous moment. Either way, the universe keeps its own schedule.

July 10, 2013

Heckled? Report it.

Making enormously wild claims and disdaining to show anything more than blobsquatches? They get asked about those claims.

Those claiming habituation often want the acclamation but claim foul when logical, serious questioning follows.

July 11, 2013

Well, the same thing can be said for skeptics who make silly claims with nothing to back them up. They don't deserve serious answers, do they?

Not really.

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