Misidentification

[Guest]

Actually I awoke Tuesday morning to a mouse in the bathroom. I knew immediately it wasn't a moose due to lack of any kind of antler, short stature, and different spelling.

 

This morning it was a bird in the front room.

 

Anyone with any ideas to stop my cat's psychopathic ways. Took her in as a forlorn bedraggled stray. Turns out she's a killing machine !

 

It was Salubrious's encounter that got me thinking and start this topic. I mean, Drew, how likely is it that he dreamt it all? How likely is it that he was driving along, slowed down and whilst looking at an obstruction in the road , fell asleep and just dreamt the bigfoot encounter after which he drove away, the obstruction having gone. That seems more far-fetched than his telling of what happened.

 

And I assume that S is familiar with the fauna of the US so what did he see if he didn't recognise a familiar animal ?

 

The only explanation is that he's making it up. He says he's not and that is good enough for me. I'm sure he's quite happy to answer any questions.

 

ROD

Edited April 4, 2014 by Detroit Soul

[salubrious]

Ask all you like Rod!

 

But be forewarned I'm a grits-eater. And I like it.

[Guest]

Well actually yes S if you don't mind.

 

Before you saw whatever it was did bigfoot seem just an interesting possibility or were you a confirmed believer ?

 

Had you given it any thought at all in fact ?

 

Did you go straight to that's bigfoot or was it no idea what that is but it fits in with what people term bigfoot ?

 

And you slurp rather than eat grits.

 

ROD

[salubrious]

^^ With lots of butter, unless they are day old in which case they get refried with onions and olive oil. Then slurped.

 

Prior to that I had seen the PGF in a theater way back in the late 1970s. Didn't really think about it much though, and certainly did not think that they might be in Colorado! I mean, I knew that California was pretty messed up and stuff but Colorado?

 

Seriously I had not given it much thought.

 

When I first saw it, I thought a truck had lost its load. When I realized it was alive though, the issue was sorting out what it was, or maybe what it wasn't. Its pose made that easy though, as it was a pose no 4 footed creature can make, and the lack of a snout sealed the deal. I could easily make out the torso, the length of the hair, its color and texture, the arms (which were not nearly as powerful as the legs), and the peak at the rear of the head, which was set forward of the shoulder relative to a human.  It was no leap at all to say 'Bigfoot!'. But part of that was the shear size of it- there are not many creatures in the US that are that big.

 

edited to add: as I was approaching it, I experience a period of 'that's a pile of dirt' to 'no, that's alive' to 'no, that really is a pile of dirt' to finally 'Jeezz! that thing really is alive- and look at the size of it!!'

[Guest]

I am not sure that I have read three bigfoot reports that could be chalked up to innocent misidentification.  It's all down to:  instantly-hospitalizable,, cannot-be-allowed-out-of-bed mental or sensory malfunction; plain **** lie; ...or what the witness says they saw.

I think it's more likely an honest mistake than a lie or a mental problem.

[MIB]

I think it's more likely an honest mistake than a lie or a mental problem.

 

In that case, how do you account for salubrious' post just before yours?   The question begs asking: what do you suggest he saw that he misidentified?   If you can't account for it by misidentification, what do you suggest for an explanation?

 

MIB

[JDL]

Actually I awoke Tuesday morning to a mouse in the bathroom. I knew immediately it wasn't a moose due to lack of any kind of antler, short stature, and different spelling.

 

This morning it was a bird in the front room.

 

Anyone with any ideas to stop my cat's psychopathic ways. Took her in as a forlorn bedraggled stray. Turns out she's a killing machine !

 

It was Salubrious's encounter that got me thinking and start this topic. I mean, Drew, how likely is it that he dreamt it all? How likely is it that he was driving along, slowed down and whilst looking at an obstruction in the road , fell asleep and just dreamt the bigfoot encounter after which he drove away, the obstruction having gone. That seems more far-fetched than his telling of what happened.

 

And I assume that S is familiar with the fauna of the US so what did he see if he didn't recognise a familiar animal ?

 

The only explanation is that he's making it up. He says he's not and that is good enough for me. I'm sure he's quite happy to answer any questions.

 

ROD

 

You remind me of the time one of our cats, a Manx, jumped up on the foot of my bed just as I was stretching awake one morning, walked up my body to my face, and dropped a dead rattlesnake on my chest.

[salubrious]

^^ Dude!

[JDL]

I jumped.  I swear the cat smirked.  He walked through the kitchen past my mother, and past my brothers all the way to my bedroom at the back of the house to deliver it to me.

Manx are pretty awesome cats.  Crazy strong hind legs and compact body.  My jaw dropped one day when I was reading the paper out on the back deck.  One of the females was in the middle of the basketball court.  Suddenly I saw her acquire and track something, then leap straight up out of my field of vision and come down with a bird she caught in flight.

[Guest]

I want one of your cats JDL. The lazy things I have here catch most of their prey in a dish or under a car tire.

Hallucinations become problematic when shared by pets. As my very hi fidelity hi decibel audio thing was. And shared by the two packs of coyotes, who I am sure were not part of the hallucination. At some point one must confront that reality is reality I think regardless of whether it makes any sense to anyone, including the experiencer of said illogical reality in the moment. Detroit Soul, are you a Writer? You are quite good at the written sentence and the humour that can be found in it, along with insight.

I used to have a dog and she was a great reality detector. That does not mean the sights and sounds should be automatically chalked up to bigfoot. Before I learned to identify coyote sounds, I used to think bigfoot (bigfoot reader from childhood so had some idea of bigfoot calling) but now recognize noisy neighbors for they really are. Not saying your sound is coyotes. Unless you actually SAW bigfoot making the sounds, you can not truthfully say bigfoot made those calls. They are just unidentified.

I tried to plus that but I'm out.  

 

I'll add that hallucinations are also a problem when you get them on film and/or record them and can play them back at will.  

 

MIB

Hallucinations do not film well. And I have yet to see a film that is indisputably a bigfoot. I HAVE seen compelling videos but they are not definitively bigfoot. I am not saying that ALL reports are hallucinations either. There are many possible explanations for many reports.

[Guest]

I actually find the mis I'd and hallucinating argument tiresome and insulting because neither have anything to do with reality as both, even combined, are absurd to attribute all Sasquatch sightings too, but I don't believe they're actually about them anyway, I believe they are just another weak argument by people that who just simply won't admit to their existence if one walked up and put one right on their chin.

Speaking as the prime hallucination "expert" (having actual experience with them and being willing to admit it) There is no insult in the hallucination option. A person is not defective because he/she hallucinates. It can happen to ANYONE. Most people would not be aware of the hallucination.

 

Misidentification is also not an insult. It happens. People are horrible witnesses. There is NO doubt about this. Misidentifying an animal in the woods does not make someone stupid or inferior. Police and soldiers also make mistakes. They are just humans like the rest of us.

 

I for one want bigfoot to be real. I will not believe out of wishful thinking however. I want to see them for myself. Preferably at a distance and without disturbing them. Minus that, then I will accept proxy knowledge in the form of physical evidence such as DNA that can be tested and verified by outside authorities. Most skeptics are like me I believe.

[Guest]

I still don't buy this misidentification explanation. And I certainly don't think that hallucination works either.

 

Next time you're late for work try telling the boss you let the first bus go and got on the next one but it turned out to be completely imaginary as you were undergoing a hallucination. I'm sure he'll find that very plausible.

 

There are myriads of sightings so of course some are bound to be misidentifications where it's not a clear sighting and I guess if the witness was a 63 year old wandering round the woods for weeks without a bottled water to hand [and if the USA is anything like the UK who could have missed the clever marketing to carry such at all times in case you die horribly somewhere between work and home on that 30 minute bus ride] then dehydration/electrolyte levels may play a part.

 

I'd hope that there are plenty of people out there who report what they see and are not given to flights of fancy or simple fabrication. I expect explanations for these reports to make sense, not some blanket response that it was down to a pick and mix variety of faults with the witness.

 

ROD

Nicely disingenuous description of hallucinatory experience. The average adult male human being can become quite dehydrated climbing about in the wilderness without prolonging the experience for a few weeks. ANY susceptibility to hallucinations (including genetic and drug interactions) will be enhanced under such conditions. And still, normal ordinary "non-hallucinating" human beings with tons of experience in the woods can end up with these hallucinations. Saying it couldn't happen to you or that you would know if you were hallucinating is generally false. You simply do not know. Not all hallucinations involve Pink Floyd or elephants.

I heard something, which although very loud and very clear and very close,   so far to me has only been accurately compared to the screaming, whooping sounds of what others have heard, recorded and believe is an unknown creature,  I did not record it, and the area it was in is not conducive to tracks, and I have no evidence and no way of backing up what I say. I do not argue the point at all when I recount what I heard, If others do not believe me that is fine with me, I certainly understand their position, as before my audio encounter I had exactly the same view if someone had told me they heard something they could not identify and only sounded like what the guys and gals in the Bigfoot community said was a Sasquatch. Sound of course is not a definitive thing to most of us, and easily confused or misidentified, especially when it is someone else's recollection and opinion of what they heard. Lol, on the other hand, it is completely different when the hearer is you and the hearee is crystal clear, close, powerful and you listen in awe, and a little fear to whatever it is with such an incredible vocal output. So, I am good with however I am treated per any conversation about what I heard. But If it was a visual encounter, I think I had rather be deemed untruthful than be deemed incompetent and unable to distinguish between known creatures and unknown creatures.

Untruthful and incompetent are not the only options. "Incompetent" only applies if you were trained to recognize animal sounds and repeatedly failed to do so. "Mistaken" is an acceptable label but has not been demonstrated because the real source of the sounds was not visually identified. Without that visual identification then you ARE mistaken for saying that it IS bigfoot when at most you should say that you thought it MIGHT be bigfoot.

[Guest]

Someone used the term "reverse misidentification" and resurrected the assertion that more bigfoot are misidentified as people, than people misidentified as bigfoot.

 

I agree with the assertion and I guess the term is as concise and understandable as any other.

 

In every encounter I've ever had, and you can check this for the ones I've submitted on this forum and on the BFRO, my first assumption was not that I was observing a bigfoot.  My first mental identifications were:

 

 

 

So my point is that in every case, in every encounter, I first assumed that what I was seeing or hearing was not a bigfoot, but something else.  It wasn't the other way around where someone says, "There's a bigfoot!", and it turns out to be something else.

Any animal that looks like a man in a gorilla suit is likely going to be mistaken for a man in a gorilla suit and if the light is poor then maybe even for a man not in a gorilla suit. Everyone is going to see bigfoot from their own point of view. I think I might recognize a bigfoot if I saw one as at least not a bear but until I have that experience I really can't say that I would. Speaking as someone who has had frequent hallucinations, I CAN say that they can last for a long time and be quite detailed. Furthermore, memory can play tricks on you. As time goes on more details emerge even as others fade away. This is one reason humans make lousy witnesses.  

 

I am NOT saying that this is what happened to you. I am saying that without physical evidence, you can not expect people to just accept what you say at face value. Many will, but they are largely already believers.  

Edited April 5, 2014 by antfoot

[Guest DWA]

I don't think humans are lousy witnesses.  There are many reasons for them to misrepresent what they saw; and sometimes they might actually be mistaken.  This is why we have courts.

 

When I read one, or someone tells me of an encounter, I assess it.  Does it run in the mainstream of the hundreds and hundreds of others I have read?  Is there any particular reason NOT to accept it as plausible?  If there isn't...I toss it on the huge pile that science needs to explain to me.  Nothing else to do with it, really.  Except, of course, to use themes running across many reports in setting up search parameters.  This, one can do.

[Guest]

^^ Same here. I evaluate what I read or hear with what I have already read and heard. Reevaluation of what has been heard before is necessary as well as later information might contradict previous information. I simply use science and in particular what I know of ecology and evolution to assess likely bigfoot stories. I also consider what I know of human psyche as well. Even if someone saw an actual bigfoot does not mean that what they report is what actually happened. Just like in a court of law.