Bf Sightings By Wildlife Biologists

May 7, 2014

I post this here, rather than on the Sightings page, as apropos to a discussion the other day some of us were having about sightings, or lack thereof, by "real" scientists. Here is another one:

http://www.bfro.net/GDB/show_report.asp?id=42978

May 7, 2014

I just seen this report and shared it on my other social media site, just a great report by a very credible person.

More can be found by just putting in the words ,, BFRO report biologist ,,.

May 7, 2014

I am quite certain that there are dozens of sightings by individuals who are scientists in fields relating to wildlife, although it stands to reason that only a percentage of them have actually made their sightings public. It is bound to occur simply because these animals are out there, but of course on average a sighting will be by your most average type of person simply because there are more of these types of people than anyone else...There are not going to be as many actual scientists out there to have a sighting, so it is a numbers game.

That is just like the fact that it is much more likely for a person not looking for bigfoot to have a sighting, as opposed to someone actually searching for the animal and hoping to have a sighting. There are just not as many of these types of people as there are individuals out for a hike, or who are camping, checking out the area, or in this case bird-watching.

We know that there are a number of reports by trained observers, as well as people who are familiar with animals, so unfortunately I do not think the fact that sightings are reported by biologists is going to change anyone's feelings on the bigfoot phenomenon. So they are just more reports that mean nothing in the grand scheme of things. That is not my belief, rather it is the belief of non-believers.

I think that the only good that could potentially come of sightings by such individuals relates to the fact that they have connections in the scientific community, and as such they could possibly use their resources to further investigate the bigfoot phenomenon. This includes convincing their colleagues that there really is something to bigfoot after all, in which case more scientists might attempt to look in to the idea. I am still waiting for a large-scale effort to be mounted by the scientific community.

We know that the only way to prove the existence of bigfoot is with a body, alive or dead. Even DNA will not suffice considering it cannot be determined what animal the DNA came from. Many things can be determined from DNA, and you could tell what type of animal it was, among other things, but you would know what it looked like without a body, and therefore bigfoot could not be proven definitively. Knowing this we can only hope for the available evidence is enough to convince certain individuals or groups within the scientific community to get the ball rolling on researching the animal in the proper way.

I do wonder however if a some scientists decided to try to find evidence for bigfoot on their own, and let's say they captured video during their own sighting, if this video evidence would be held in higher regard than the other available evidence? It is obvious that many claim that if bigfoot were real it would be captured on video all the time...Well bigfoot is captured on video all the time. It is just that whenever these videos are presented they are automatically dismissed as being hoaxes, if there is obviously a bipedal creature that could not possibly be some other animal. If that is not the case then these people claim it was a misidentification. That's fine, but I do not buy that all the videos depicting what is obviously a bigfoot are fake. Some are, but I think this number is relatively low, and nowhere near 99%. I've heard the claim that 99% of videos are hoaxes, leaving 1% as authentic, and that is ridiculous.

The non-believers have a point, which is that bigfoot SHOULD be captured on video relatively frequently, simply because there are so many people milling around their habitat, and there are so many bigfoot. It is not a regular occurrence, but it is not like years go by between sightings or anything. Multiple people see bigfoot every month. I would estimate that someone captures bigfoot on video at least once every few months as well. We probably do not even see most of these videos, simply because many people do not want to hassle with the idea. Then there is the fact that some people will not feel their videos are of a good enough quality to actually represent what they saw, thus they decide not to upload them.

This is sort of related, but a few years ago this car stalled in front of my house. I live out in the country and the FM road that runs in front of my house is probably 100 yards away. I am standing on my porch when this car stops in the middle of the road, and 4 people jump out and run away. I'm thinking what the heck. Then I see flames coming from the bottom of the car. So I start filming with my cell phone camera.

Pretty soon the car is engulfed in flames, and thick smoke starts filling the air. Then this thing explodes. It was quite a rare event for me, and probably for most people, and I got the whole thing on video. A really cool video of something that probably doesn't happen all that often. Like I said this was a few years ago, and do you know that nobody else has ever seen that video, even though many people would probably like to? I just never uploaded it, as I didn't see a reason to. It was just something that happened to me that I happened to get on film.

Now, being only 100 yards away, the video is not that great. Since I filmed the people getting out of their car as well, I can think of what the video would have looked like had there been a bigfoot there. You would be able to make out a dark bipedal figure, and that is about it. From 100 yards. It would have been one of those videos where many would have said "blobsquatch," or whatever they say. It would not have been "blurry," as it were, but simply not of good quality because of the distance.

So just because someone films a bigfoot doesn't mean anyone else will ever see it. I went to a race one time at a small dirt track with my cousin, and he filmed this car crash, and he never uploaded that either. It was pretty spectacular as well. I am sure all kinds of people do this. Anyway, I am getting too far off the topic of this thread.

I just wanted to say that biologist reports, while obviously of high merit, are not different from the reports of everyone else. The important thing is the number of reports, and the fact that it is not likely for so many thousands of reports to all be false. Look at all of the other phenomena that eyewitnesses report but which are not accepted as scientifically valid. You have crazy reports of things that probably don't exist, but these reports do not approach those of bigfoot in terms of numbers, details, or corroborating evidence, such as footprints. The ONLY other phenomena that approach those of bigfoot in these terms are UFO's and ghosts, both of which are probably occurring due to the high number of consistent reports.

Having experienced paranormal phenomena on multiple occasions growing up, as well as having stories related to me from relatives and friends, I am convinced there is something to such reports. As far as UFO's we know that it is quite easy to mistake a light in the sky for something that it is not, but there are a plethora of reports of individuals and even groups who saw a physical object, and not just a light in the sky. Due to the high numbers of reports of that nature, I am convinced there is something going on in that regard as well. I cannot say that it involved aliens from another planet, but there is definitely something going on. And there is corroborating evidence in many cases as well. But it is much harder for your average person to make determinations regarding speed, altitude, etc. when something is in the air. Most people are not accustomed to making such judgements. So lights in the sky can be confusing at times.

I went into the US Air Force right after high school in 2004, and on every base I was stationed at I would sit and watch planes coming in and taking off, both during the day and at night. Even when looking at fighter jets and other craft that not everyone is accustomed to seeing, it is almost always fairly obvious that the planes are conventional aircraft. The only time that these craft looked strange would be when the plane was flying a certain way or doing a certain maneuver, and the angle between me and the plane just right, so that it looked like a light would appear and disappear, or blink, and look less-conventional. This is because when a plane is presenting a different face to you repeatedly, it can look like a light is going off and then on. It is hard to explain everything that you can see an aircraft do that looks strange, but it happens sometimes.

My point is that it can be tough to know what you are looking at. On the ground things are not so difficult, and even though it is possible for people to hallucinate, for their mind to play tricks on them, etc., this stuff does not happen with such frequency that it would explain bigfoot reports. People are not stupid, and if they get a decent look at a bigfoot, they know that what they're looking at is not a conventional animal. Take this wildlife biologist for instance...He KNEW that he was not looking at a normal animal. It doesn't take a trained observer or a professional scientist to know as much. It is hard to explain to those who have not had a sighting, but you can tell the difference between a real animal and a person in a suit when you are looking at it.

May 7, 2014

Hello JiggyPotamus,

A lot of what you say is just on the money, what can I say. I spent three years immersed in the UFO phenom as a researcher looking for UAP's that fit military airship criteria. I know very well what you say about aircraft and angular attitude that presents alternate light pattern configurations. Nice post and I especially like you confidence that the "common" person's being report is just as good as a scientists. I think many in the field doing the hiking, hunting, etc. are just as observant and familiar with the creatures in the woods as anyone else too. Enough so that as you say they know when it's something not normal.

As far as people in suits go, how is it that they are more confident about not getting shot that when wearing say, a bear suit? I don't get that one at all. NO ONE would run around in a bear suit! So why a Sasquatch one? Risky. Especially these days.

Nice post, thanks.

Edited May 7, 2014 by hiflier

May 8, 2014

Never seen one but have had a few odd experiences

May 8, 2014

I also agree with J.P.'s observation about a lay persons' vs. "expert's" credibility. In most cases too, the non-expert has local knowledget that will trounce the academic acumen of the other.

This sighting report was posted by me as a retort to those skeptics who seemed to place more faith in one over the other, and/or wished to argue that the perceived lack of sightings by biologists lent strength to their arguments. Well, there are no lack of them, really, and if you consider J.P.s point (and I do) it becomes even a weaker argument. In terms of absolute numbers of people in the field, biologists constitute only as small portion of those.

Which brings us to a point we often consider:

The reports are made by people you would expect to see them (like any other species of wildlife observed), usually due to their occupation or hobbies: Hunters, hikers, campers, fisherman, timber industry workers, surveyors, farmers, utility workers...and yes, birders. This is one of the patterns a person who is seriously engaging with the evidence must reckon with. Guys at the local tavern seeing a BF on their way to the car in the parking lot? Not so much.

May 8, 2014

I also agree with J.P.'s observation about a lay persons' vs. "expert's" credibility. In most cases too, the non-expert has local knowledget that will trounce the academic acumen of the other.

This sighting report was posted by me as a retort to those skeptics who seemed to place more faith in one over the other, and/or wished to argue that the perceived lack of sightings by biologists lent strength to their arguments. Well, there are no lack of them, really, and if you consider J.P.s point (and I do) it becomes even a weaker argument. In terms of absolute numbers of people in the field, biologists constitute only as small portion of those.

Which brings us to a point we often consider:

The reports are made by people you would expect to see them (like any other species of wildlife observed), usually due to their occupation or hobbies: Hunters, hikers, campers, fisherman, timber industry workers, surveyors, farmers, utility workers...and yes, birders. This is one of the patterns a person who is seriously engaging with the evidence must reckon with. Guys at the local tavern seeing a BF on their way to the car in the parking lot? Not so much.

I beg to differ, as beer often makes a lot of things look better!

May 8, 2014

Hello Yuchi1,

LOL. Agreed..........at least until the lights go up after last call! Then? Well, there's more than a few folks who know the answer to THAT one

May 8, 2014

I am quite certain that there are dozens of sightings by individuals who are scientists in fields relating to wildlife, although it stands to reason that only a percentage of them have actually made their sightings public. It is bound to occur simply because these animals are out there, but of course on average a sighting will be by your most average type of person simply because there are more of these types of people than anyone else...There are not going to be as many actual scientists out there to have a sighting, so it is a numbers game.

Simple logic. It's interesting to note, in the sighting WSA mentions, the rationales the biologist uses: " I have never believed that something could exist that has never left any concrete evidence. Furthermore, nothing similar has ever been found in the fossil record that I know of so that has lead me to believe it was all false".

Anyone who's paid significant attention to the evidence knows that (1) these are standard-issue scientist objections; (2) concrete evidence has been left, just not seriously examined by the mainstream and (3) more than one similar thing has indeed been found in the fossil record.

That is just like the fact that it is much more likely for a person not looking for bigfoot to have a sighting, as opposed to someone actually searching for the animal and hoping to have a sighting. There are just not as many of these types of people as there are individuals out for a hike, or who are camping, checking out the area, or in this case bird-watching.

Right. This is a handy dismissal of "why don't we have lots of photo/video?" Patterson and Gimlin got their video about when I would expect them to, given they were searching on horseback for something relatively scarce on the ground. "Planet Earth" took about that long - using motor vehicles, on roads, searching for this and nothing else - to find a herd of Bactrian camels, bigger than sasquatch, traveling in herds, and hardly a tree to hide behind. The two circumstances are precisely equivalent; and skeptics can't come back with "yeah, but they found the camels," now can they.

We know that there are a number of reports by trained observers, as well as people who are familiar with animals, so unfortunately I do not think the fact that sightings are reported by biologists is going to change anyone's feelings on the bigfoot phenomenon. So they are just more reports that mean nothing in the grand scheme of things. That is not my belief, rather it is the belief of non-believers.

As is pretty much all of bigfoot skepticism.

I think that the only good that could potentially come of sightings by such individuals relates to the fact that they have connections in the scientific community, and as such they could possibly use their resources to further investigate the bigfoot phenomenon. This includes convincing their colleagues that there really is something to bigfoot after all, in which case more scientists might attempt to look in to the idea. I am still waiting for a large-scale effort to be mounted by the scientific community.

Sightings are recorded because of their utility in narrowing the search. But somebody has to look; and even NAWAC will tell you that, on the scale required to confirm, no one is.

We know that the only way to prove the existence of bigfoot is with a body, alive or dead. Even DNA will not suffice considering it cannot be determined what animal the DNA came from. Many things can be determined from DNA, and you could tell what type of animal it was, among other things, but you would know what it looked like without a body, and therefore bigfoot could not be proven definitively. Knowing this we can only hope for the available evidence is enough to convince certain individuals or groups within the scientific community to get the ball rolling on researching the animal in the proper way.

This is something I really wish more people would get, and it's plain that too many don't. A DNA finding is evidence; worth having for that; and potentially valuable if it spurs more mainstream attention. But it cannot be taken as proof absolute of anything.

I do wonder however if a some scientists decided to try to find evidence for bigfoot on their own, and let's say they captured video during their own sighting, if this video evidence would be held in higher regard than the other available evidence?

It might be; but it would depend on the scientist. If Meldrum or Alton Higgins (NAWAC) got the video, they'd be dismissed as "believers," unless they got the attention of a critical mass of mainstreamers who could see from the video that this is no guy in a suit.

I've heard the claim that 99% of videos are hoaxes, leaving 1% as authentic, and that is ridiculous.

On this, I'm not so sure. We do know that bigfoot hoax videos more than qualify as cottage industry. And we also know (see above) that it's a numbers game; most people just aren't going to get shots of the vast majority of wild animals they see, outside of those habituated to humans. I think the number may be far fewer than 1%; I personally only consider three or four I've seen as possibilities.

The non-believers have a point, which is that bigfoot SHOULD be captured on video relatively frequently, simply because there are so many people milling around their habitat, and there are so many bigfoot.

Again, no, I don't think they have a point. The only photos and footage existing of, say, gorillas that haven't been habituated to humans have been taken by dedicated searchers, which we've already discussed.

It is not a regular occurrence, but it is not like years go by between sightings or anything. Multiple people see bigfoot every month.

This is one of the two things proponents are seeing that skeptics aren't; the other is the sheer consistency of the reports, from people who simply shouldn't be doing that unless they are seeing the same thing.

I would estimate that someone captures bigfoot on video at least once every few months as well. We probably do not even see most of these videos, simply because many people do not want to hassle with the idea. Then there is the fact that some people will not feel their videos are of a good enough quality to actually represent what they saw, thus they decide not to upload them.

Another thing that skeptics routinely laugh at...and shouldn't. This is why, even though I take habituator accounts with a big helping of salt, I can't utterly discount them. The skeptics have only themselves to thank for this; many people - and I would be one - simply don't want to deal with naive or uninformed objections.

This is sort of related, but a few years ago this car stalled in front of my house. I live out in the country and the FM road that runs in front of my house is probably 100 yards away. I am standing on my porch when this car stops in the middle of the road, and 4 people jump out and run away. I'm thinking what the heck. Then I see flames coming from the bottom of the car. So I start filming with my cell phone camera.

Pretty soon the car is engulfed in flames, and thick smoke starts filling the air. Then this thing explodes. It was quite a rare event for me, and probably for most people, and I got the whole thing on video. A really cool video of something that probably doesn't happen all that often. Like I said this was a few years ago, and do you know that nobody else has ever seen that video, even though many people would probably like to? I just never uploaded it, as I didn't see a reason to. It was just something that happened to me that I happened to get on film.

And this is the handy dismissal of "if [X], we would know by now." Really? Not so much.

Now, being only 100 yards away, the video is not that great. Since I filmed the people getting out of their car as well, I can think of what the video would have looked like had there been a bigfoot there. You would be able to make out a dark bipedal figure, and that is about it. From 100 yards. It would have been one of those videos where many would have said "blobsquatch," or whatever they say. It would not have been "blurry," as it were, but simply not of good quality because of the distance.

Unlike, say, PG, which is the clearest possible at that time for a subject that size at that distance. If it were my cousin Eddie, I would know.

I just wanted to say that biologist reports, while obviously of high merit, are not different from the reports of everyone else. The important thing is the number of reports, [and their consistency, on small features and behaviors that laymen would not be expected to know, but primate specialists do] and the fact that it is not likely for so many thousands of reports to all be false. Look at all of the other phenomena that eyewitnesses report but which are not accepted as scientifically valid. You have crazy reports of things that probably don't exist, but these reports do not approach those of bigfoot in terms of numbers, details, or corroborating evidence, such as footprints. [and yet skeptics keep lumping those things and bigfoot together, a sign right off the bat that they aren't paying attention].

Edited May 8, 2014 by DWA

May 8, 2014

I guess it probably is appropriate to dismiss some evidence reported by an intoxicated, or at least the drinking, witness. Still, as DWA has said, Beer: NOT an hallucinogen. (Would that it was)

Still, if any report describes the witnesses' occupation as "house painter", I stop reading.

But, I can't stop there without this:

Woman sits down next to a man in a bar, rubs his leg and whispers in his ear, "I'll do anything you want for $100."

Man reaches into his wallet, lays a Frank on the bar and says, "Paint my house."

May 8, 2014

Hello WSA,

Lol. For a $100? Even better.... RAISE MY KIDS!

May 8, 2014

From the follow-up report: "When I got to the location of the trail crossing, I noticed several tree breaks in both directions, indicating something large had walked through. Interestingly, while I was photographing the broken branches, a tree about 25 yards away from me crashed to the ground. I ventured in that direction, singing softly but was unable to detect any other movement."

Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and file that under "things you won't find me doing, ever." Haha. Man, some of these researchers are just fearless!

May 8, 2014

^^^As somebody who has chased bears he's seen, big ones, I find myself wondering, often, how I'd react to a sasquatch close up.

May 8, 2014

Gatto Know, trust me, chasing a sasquatch is just not a good idea. After a close call, I now will calmly approach or seem casual and head in the direction of any potential observer.

May 8, 2014

DWA, I perceive you are an experienced hunter. One who would ID his possible target with absolute certainty before squeezing the trigger if you were armed.

I have had a close encounter with several Bigfoot subjects, two of which were within about 15-20 feet of me. What I felt was overwhelming and hard to clearly wrap my mind around. They had very humanlike features, yet very thick, rugged and powerful. The look in their eyes had feeling and their face cast expression. Something I have never seen that clear in any animal.

I feel you would be just like other armed folks who chose not to shoot because they saw more than just a dumb animal standing there.

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