Misidentification

[Guest]

I'm a new member and this is first topic I've posted so I hope it has some relevance.

 

Been catching up on threads on here and was struck by Roguefooter's comments on "Attention Grabbing" topic regarding misidentification.

 

I think I'm probably with RF in that I think the subject is interesting and don't rule out the possibility of a large hominid/ape at large in North America, but feel that it is difficult sometimes to take at face value personal reports without some back-up evidence. However I don't discount personal sightings.

 

Obviously I live in the UK so I've never sighted a bigfoot.

 

However back in 77 I walked into a chippy in Blackpool and seeing what I believed to be a labrador [it had it's back to me] I bent down to pat it. It turned round and it was a lion ! When I say lion, obviously young [if not a cub] and maybe a lioness.

 

Now the chances of seeing a lion in a Blackpool chippy are about as remote as seeing a bigfoot over in the USA. Turned out the guy with it was a keeper at the zoo there and it was quite a common sight in that area when he took it out on a lead. I assume there was some problem and the keeper was rearing it away from the other lions for a time.

 

It must have taken me a second to realise my mistake and see that it was a lion rather than a dog.

 

If we were to transpose that close-up sighting to say a more "crypto" location and I saw what I thought was a dog in the woods which on getting closer I realised was a lion, would I then be advised that actually because lions aren't found in UK woods I had misidentified it.

 

The account given by Salubrious in that topic seemed perfectly believable to me as it chimes with the lion incident. He thinks at first it's a lorry which has shed it's load in the road [my dog] and only up close when it moves does he realise it's something apelike [my lion]. To me that rules out misidentification.

 

That incident was nearly 40 years ago but still fresh-ish in my mind. I have told the story a few times and some people don't believe me even though it was actually a perfectly reasonable incident witnessed by the other customers and mates I was with at the time and given the circumstances which led to it. I don't mind if first reactions are incredulity.

 

I can imagine though how those who have had a sighting of bigfoot can say "I know what I saw"

 

ROD

 

 

[BobbyO]

Not doing it for me I'm afraid Rod.

The key part of the Lion story was the part you put in brackets. [it had it's back to me]

Had it been front on you wouldn't have mistaken the animal, because of course it was a Lion and not a Labrador.

Another key part is what you saw was a four legged animal and what you thought it was was a four legged animal too.

I'm not sure what other animals run across roads as much as these things do, on two feet.

[Guest]

Hello Bobby

 

I'm not quite sure if I made my point clearly there.

 

I recognised it as a lion once I had a clear view.

 

I'm sure you've read about big cats on the loose in the UK. If my sighting had been in the woods around here it would still be a lion. However who would believe me ? Others have claimed to see such and get told that they must be mistaken. It must have been a wild tomcat etc.

 

So as you say a report of an apelike bipedal creature at close range crossing the road cannot be a misidentification.

 

ROD

[NathanFooter]

 True, a sasquatch does not resemble a bear or any known creature when viewed at close range in daylight, my sighting was just under these circumstances and it was immediately clear what I was looking at when it cleared the brush and foliage.  

 

 At distance through the foliage and brush I thought it was my neighbor { it appeared as a dark figure completely upright moving through young aspen and poplar mixed with willow brush and small pines } and so I walked the trail up toward where he would meet the trail, when it reached the trail and cleared the brush I instantly recognized what I was looking at.

 

 I should also note that the individual did not appear ape like other than being covered in hair, the limb ratios where long and that the shoulders seemed lifted up with very little neck { kind of like when a male chimp stands up to display how large he is BUT even male humans do this when trying appear big and bad }.  

 

 To me it looked like a large hair covered Neanderthal with long limbs and dark grey-ish skin.

[Guest]

A feline and a canine have similar builds, generally speaking.

 

Primates do not bear that type of similarity with any other group of animals.

[Guest Coonbo]

I've seen several bears in the wild, including having them appear suddenly and unexpectedly.  Even walked up on one at night.  Same thing with boogers.  Never was there even a second's confusion as to which it was that I was encountering.  BUT, the difference between me (as well as many other folks on this forum and many other folks that have experienced BF) and folks that are left confused by their encounter, is that I already KNEW, without a shadow of doubt, that BF are a perfectly normal part of our fauna. 

 

So, the Bigfoot fit into the "Bigfoot" file already existing in my brain and the bears fit into the "bear" file already in my brain.  Where confusion arises is when those folks that don't have a "Bigfoot" file already in their brain, have an encounter.  Their brain is assailed with this sudden, unexpected blast of data and it's flying around trying to run through the ID filters and fit into a particular file and there isn't one.  So their processor tries to stuff it into the file that's the best fit.  For some folks, that best fit might be the "bear" file.  For others it might be the "gorilla" file or the "panther" file.  It just depends on the person.  Some folks eventually figure it out and their brain creates a "Bigfoot" file, but some others never figure it out.

 

And there are folks that are so closed-minded that they will not allow a "Bigfoot" file to exist in their brain, even when their processor tries to open or create one. 

 

The end results is that we believers and knowers have got to cut some slack to those folks that are confused about the ID of something they encountered or even totally closed-minded.   And we can even gently lead them towards a correct ID.  BUT we've got to realize that they might be entirely accurate in their ID.  We MUST be careful to not try to stuff everything odd or not immediately ID'd into the "Bigfoot" file.  This hurts our cause and our research more than putting BF in the "bear" file.

Edited March 31, 2014 by Coonbo

[Cotter]

 

However back in 77 I walked into a chippy in Blackpool.....

 

Now the chances of seeing a lion in a Blackpool chippy 

 

He thinks at first it's a lorry which has shed it's load in the road...

 

 

I have no idea what those phrases mean.....

 

:-)

[BobbyO]

It's a chip shop cotter and chips are fries, but a little fatter than yours in the States.

Chips are the lifeblood of this once great country..

I think the last me is pretty self explanatory if you think about it.

[Guest]

Sorry Cotter

 

"Chippy" is a local restaurant doing take-away battered fish and french fries. There are similar eating establishments in parts of Detroit, well one on Gratiot I stumbled into. Not to be confused with "chippy" which can refer to a carpenter though not one of the recording duo. Surprisingly [as I had no idea till googling] it is also slang for a hooker. So, should you visit this rain-sodden land be very careful when popping down to the chippy as you probably weren't after a new set of shelves or a UK criminal record.

 

A lorry is a truck usually bigger than a van so a pick-up truck here would not be a "pick-up lorry". "Shed it's load" refers to the contents spilling on the freeway/highway. Back in the 50's when I started school we would often have to recite "Red lorry, yellow lorry". At the time I assumed it was to further a child's grasp on the English language but now realise that at a time of communist threat it was really a device to weed out very small Chinese spies.

 

Should you have any other difficulties with my vocabulary please do not hesitate to ask. You are welcome back, Cotter.

 

ROD

[Guest]

I feel what Rod is trying to say is that alot of times the misidentification comes from the original sighting. As Coonbo would say our brain trying to put what we saw into an existing category (a bear, a person or in Rods case a lab). That is the misidentification. Once we gather more information like seeing it is covered in hair (rules out human) or walking on 2 legs (rules out bear) or in Rods case seeing the head of a lion do we actually make the right identification, which is the one most people are not going to believe. What I have always found very comical in this field are the people who say "it must have been........" They aren't making an identification or even a misidentification, just a hypothesis based off someone else's facts.

[Guest]

Yes that's it exactly.

 

Some "expert" will say no you couldn't have seen that. If my sighting had been in the woods around Clitheroe I could have still identified it correctly as a lion due to the close proximity but because lions don't wander round here I wouldn't be believed.

 

I might not know whether an African lion or an Asian lion, whether young or female but I have the lion template in my brain through exposure to book, film or zoo.

 

Similarly someone who is just a casual observer and not necessarily a bf enthusiast would have templates for native US fauna so bipedal and apelike would not fit into those categories.

 

ROD

[Guest WIKayaker]

My favorite point to bring up about mis-identification is that in my opinion there are FAR more BF's misidentified as a normal person from a far distance and are then just ignored as being a hiker, a prowler, a hunter or someone just out for a walk.

 

We'll never know how many BF's have actually been seen but are unrecognized as anything unusual.

 

This could be an answer to why we don't see more of them if there's really so many out there. Or do we?

 

 

"reverse-misidentification"

[Guest]

Not doing it for me I'm afraid Rod.

The key part of the Lion story was the part you put in brackets. [it had it's back to me]

Had it been front on you wouldn't have mistaken the animal, because of course it was a Lion and not a Labrador.

Another key part is what you saw was a four legged animal and what you thought it was was a four legged animal too.

I'm not sure what other animals run across roads as much as these things do, on two feet.

People run across roads all the time. And some of them even in bigfoot costumes. We have a body to prove it too.

[Guest]

I'm a new member and this is first topic I've posted so I hope it has some relevance.

 

Been catching up on threads on here and was struck by Roguefooter's comments on "Attention Grabbing" topic regarding misidentification.

 

I think I'm probably with RF in that I think the subject is interesting and don't rule out the possibility of a large hominid/ape at large in North America, but feel that it is difficult sometimes to take at face value personal reports without some back-up evidence. However I don't discount personal sightings.

 

Obviously I live in the UK so I've never sighted a bigfoot.

 

However back in 77 I walked into a chippy in Blackpool and seeing what I believed to be a labrador [it had it's back to me] I bent down to pat it. It turned round and it was a lion ! When I say lion, obviously young [if not a cub] and maybe a lioness.

 

Now the chances of seeing a lion in a Blackpool chippy are about as remote as seeing a bigfoot over in the USA. Turned out the guy with it was a keeper at the zoo there and it was quite a common sight in that area when he took it out on a lead. I assume there was some problem and the keeper was rearing it away from the other lions for a time.

 

It must have taken me a second to realise my mistake and see that it was a lion rather than a dog.

 

If we were to transpose that close-up sighting to say a more "crypto" location and I saw what I thought was a dog in the woods which on getting closer I realised was a lion, would I then be advised that actually because lions aren't found in UK woods I had misidentified it.

 

The account given by Salubrious in that topic seemed perfectly believable to me as it chimes with the lion incident. He thinks at first it's a lorry which has shed it's load in the road [my dog] and only up close when it moves does he realise it's something apelike [my lion]. To me that rules out misidentification.

 

That incident was nearly 40 years ago but still fresh-ish in my mind. I have told the story a few times and some people don't believe me even though it was actually a perfectly reasonable incident witnessed by the other customers and mates I was with at the time and given the circumstances which led to it. I don't mind if first reactions are incredulity.

 

I can imagine though how those who have had a sighting of bigfoot can say "I know what I saw"

 

ROD

Hello ROD and welcome to the forum.

 

I am of the opinion that most bigfoot (and yeti, almas, booger, yowie and long list of etceteras) are misidentifications. I do not call myself a believer but I do hope that something is out there. I allowed my normal reticence to get trampled by my enthusiasm with the whole Ketchum fiasco. I'm back to normal now. Most people refuse to believe their own senses can fool them. Knowing, as I do, that one's senses can fool one quite well, I tend to be skeptical about witnesses observations. Humans are lousy witnesses. Even when up close and full frontal. When a witness categorically denies that his or her observations could possibly be illusion then they lose a certain amount of credibility in my eyes. A truly objective observer leaves room for doubt even when they see it themselves. Forensic evidence is the only evidence that counts.

[Guest]

Hi Antfoot and thank you.

 

I'm not so sure about that argument, though like you I am intrigued by the possibility of something out there.

 

Maybe I'm using the wrong analogy ?

 

If I'd have seen that lion in local woods [as some do report bigcats throughout the UK] at the same distance, i.e. not a blobcat 600 yards away in dense foliage, then why would I put it down to illusion or hallucination. I know what a lion looks like. It's not a badger or a deer or even a goldfish in a tawny-coloured bowl !

 

If I were to report it chances of being believed would be slim and I'd be accused of misidentification or fabrication, the latter of course the more probable explanation for a lot of bigfoot videos I've watched on here. I'd still be telling the truth though.

 

If you saw a giraffe ambling through your backyard would you report it or assume it was not there at all because it couldn't be or that you'd misidentified an elk ? Chances are perfectly reasonable explanation would emerge. Run away from the circus or had staged a zoobreak . Why would you doubt what you saw ?

 

I know Bigfoot is different as it's still in the realms of the fantastic/fanciful but the same creature ambling through your yard ? You would tick off in your mind what it's not, and what you're left with is what it is, which for ease of reference is bigfoot. Unless you then go down the road of it must be me and it's an illusion.

 

As for the doubt part then yes I can see that if what you're seeing is so far out you don't believe it yourself.

 

For instance "Officer, I saw three greys abducting the wife back in May 2003 and now I'm really freaked because they want to bring her back"

 

ROD