Trouble In Grassman's Paradise

[hiflier]

Hello JiggyPotamus,

....Take the details of the moon. It is theoretically possible that someone could get that piece of data confused, simply because they did not focus on that detail and thus misremembered it....

I would think a BF encounter from 35ft away would be a significant event. Under a NEW Moon things are really dark as you know. Under a Full Moon things are remarkably visible. Nature's night light. Color may be washed out but visibility is amazing. It it's thinkable to mistake New for Full. Unless one lies about it. Again though, a good post, and I commend you for giving another Human being the benefit of the doubt. I did until the email response. The Canonsburg affair WAS unusual. Hair samples turned over to Mr. Keating, footprint casts made. along with a videotaped interview. Yes, a significant event.

[salubrious]

Although I am a proponent, I really don't know anyone in the field although I've done a lot of reading. I've never gone to a convention and don't expect to either. Just my opinion but I would not take not knowing Keating as a particular sign of anything other than its likely a person that spends no time thinking about or going to conventions. Just my 2 cents- that and three dollars will get you a cup of coffee.

[Guest DWA]

I don't want to know how many conventions one has been to or how many players in the field one knows.  I want to know what one knows about the field.

 

From my read of the evidence, which seems from my experience here comparatively significant, I am not seeing the field as properly focused.  99% of the discussion is trying to debunk the latest report; most of the debunking effort is "given that this is practically impossible, let's just throw at the wall some things that might be going on and consider that sufficient."  Once in a while, we might actually see a report debunked. 

 

That's not getting the field anywhere.  When I see all the sightings and all the footprint finds, all perfectly summarized in a film of the animal with the tracks, I am so off this train and so on the one marked

 

The evidence has legs, as a body.  it must be evaluated as a body; and field work of sufficient duration and sophistication, by qualified scientists, is absolutely required to get to the bottom of the evidence.

 

That is it, and the rest is noise.

[hiflier]

Hello salubrious,

 

How best to put this.......I'm most familiar with John Green's database. On that database, if one does a sort for the fine state of Ohio , then one will see 163 reports for the state. Here's where it gets strange the source of 85 of those reports is Don Keating's old web site and newsletters. But that isn't really the issue. There are lots of examples in the database of numerous reports found to be from, or submitted by, a single source. The issue is that I find it hard to understand how, after reading thousands of reports, which I assume include Ohio, That somehow DWA missed Don Keating listed as a source 85 times.

 

This subject is getting stranger and stranger as I go.

Edited October 23, 2014 by hiflier

[Guest Stan Norton]

Are the sightings all by Keating, or simply collated and submitted by him? The first would be most odd. The latter not so much. After all, isn't John Green the sole source of the entire database. We aren't saying that he is stringing us all along are we? Getting the language right is key to avoiding misunderstanding.

I guess the issue with the JGD is that we cannot be sure how the data have been interrogated and filtered.

[Guest Divergent1]

One doesn't need to know the "players," just the evidence.  When one knows the evidence, one knows that making "players" responsible for it is a red flag that one isn't paying attention.

 

Just sayin'.

Yes.  MIB had it sussed.  Reading Is Fundamental.  Some could try it, and stop this silly stuff.

What is the point of reading the reports if they are made up? I get what Hilfier is saying that if one such previous notable in the past did it then who else? I liked the fact that he picked one that had casts, hair, a sighting, and yet it still doesn't seem to pan out because the witness won't respond, the hairs are missing, and the story has more or less disappeared from all of the databases.

 

It would be impossible to go through each report, but it might be interesting if each member picked a favorite report and did some research and calls to follow up.Unfortunately, the names have been changed or the witnesses ask for anonymity which is either real convenient for those chasing bigfoot or inconvenient for those looking for some semblance of truth in the matter. It becomes a circular argument where no one accomplishes anything. Bigfoot will stay a meme until that changes.

Edited October 23, 2014 by Divergent1

[hiflier]

Hello Stan Norton,

 

No, the 85 reports from him nearly all were not Mr. Keating's by any stretch. They were gleaned from his website however and as well as his newsletters (same thing) newsletters by John Green. The reports are from different individuals. Quite a few were having "anonymous" as the source. But to me that's understandable. And it's not that he submitted them to Mr. Green athough under the "Source Type" variable which includes, computer survey, newspaper, interview, and other types of records, nothing is listed for any of the 163 Ohio reports to include the over 50% gleaned from Don Keating. I didn't know that until now so thanks for the question.  

Edited October 23, 2014 by hiflier

[hiflier]

Hello DWA,

 

May I just respectfully say that we ARE paying attention. Your goadings that we're not is becoming irritating. We DO read. And people DO need to be accountable when reports come from them. You didn't know who Don Keating was. You cannot come off as better than anyone else. I DO know skeptics who DO know who Don Keating is. It surprised me, but not nearly as much is you ignorance of him. AND your damage control isn't working. The cat's outa the bag.

 

@ ohio bill and Divergent1,

 

I like your ideas. It would take time to get going. There are thousands of reports. The going would be made simpler if we could see the BFRO database as a whole similar to John Green's where we could do our own sorting and sub-sorting. The BFF's SSR database is getting there though and it does include a lot of the BFRO stuff. John Green's format however is the only one in the world presently that allows a near instant look at everything at once. The SSR when it's finished will be the best of the best though IMO.

 

In the meantime? Look around and see if there's are reports where physical evidence was collected and perhaps a thread on the follow ups can be started.

 

I have to be honest here: John Green's original database did have a witness info page cross referenced to the sighting ID numbers. In my revisions I chose to not include it as identity issues these days are much more sensitive than in the "olden" days. I hope everyone understands my discretions in making that decision. PM me if you have questions. 

Edited October 23, 2014 by hiflier

[Guest DWA]

What is the point of reading the reports if they are made up? I get what Hilfier is saying that if one such previous notable in the past did it then who else? I liked the fact that he picked one that had casts, hair, a sighting, and yet it still doesn't seem to pan out because the witness won't respond, the hairs are missing, and the story has more or less disappeared from all of the databases.

 

It would be impossible to go through each report, but it might be interesting if each member picked a favorite report and did some research and calls to follow up.Unfortunately, the names have been changed or the witnesses ask for anonymity which is either real convenient for those chasing bigfoot or inconvenient for those looking for some semblance of truth in the matter. It becomes a circular argument where no one accomplishes anything. Bigfoot will stay a meme until that changes.

Well, the skeptics better come up with some way to prove that thousands of people are sharing notes or channeling the society's subconscious uber-primatologist.

 

Otherwise, this stands unaddressed; and no other similar body of evidence - in scientific history - exists that hasn't turned out to be pretty much what it looked like.  (Which wasn't fakes.)

 

This one-did-it-so-all-did just doesn't pass the most basic sniff test to those who have read them.  But your first sentence neatly avoids the necessary exercise.  Again:  to anyone that has read them, and has experience allowing him or her to judge them, there is no "fake or mistake" scenario that doesn't seem more ludicrous than the animal.

 

Scientists grapple with evidence.  They don't pass judgment on it from an armchair.

Edited October 23, 2014 by DWA

[Guest Stan Norton]

Hello Stan Norton,

 

No, the 85 reports from him nearly all were not Mr. Keating's by any stretch. They were gleaned from his website however and as well as his newsletters (same thing) newsletters by John Green. The reports are from different individuals. Quite a few were having "anonymous" as the source. But to me that's understandable. And it's not that he submitted them to Mr. Green athough under the "Source Type" variable which includes, computer survey, newspaper, interview, and other types of records, nothing is listed for any of the 163 Ohio reports to include the over 50% gleaned from Don Keating. I didn't know that until now so thanks for the question.

Hey Hiflier,

Not sure I understand. Is the issue that Mr Green didn't assign a detailed enough source type? Does that mean we have no way of knowing the true number of reports submitted by Keating? Are you saying that more than 50% of call Green's Ohio reports emanate from Keating? Is that an issue because Keating is dodgy or because Green only got his info from a single source?

[hiflier]

Hello Stan Norton,

 

Correct, John Green evidently did not apply a source type but a description of where the report came from did get logged under the "Name" variable such as: "Don Keating quoting Tom Cinefro", "Bigfoot Co-op April 1985 quoting Don Keating quoting two Newcomerstown men", "Don Keating Monthly Bigfoot Report, June 1994, quoting Richard Myers, Newscomerstown" etc. So there are references at least. And no, I have to say the reports weren't evidently submitted to John Green as much as Mr.Green found them by searching the internet's Bigfoot web sites at the time.

 

Many of Don Keating's reports from the newsletters, listed by year, can be seen on the "angelfire" link I posted before. And yes, a little over 50% of all the Ohio reports are via Mr. Keating. Over all it isn't an issue to see multiple reports listed from one source.  In other words, Don Keating's reports number is only a sample case; there are other groups that had websites up and running with their own sets of reports from their own regions. When researching Ohio or websites in general it just happened that Don Keating's site listed the most for the state.

 

Good questions Stan and I hope I was able to clear things up a bit. If you look at the "angelfire" link and some of the report years you'll see that detail was not Mr. Keating's strong suit but my research shows that to be quite common in other sources as well so by itself means nothing really. His report of his OWN encounter where he lied about the Moon's phase and his response my email on the Canonsburg hair samples are the two things that I had problems with; not so much anything else. And those two things were only because of his position in the upper levels of the BF Community.

 

The ethics at that level I think should be more of a concern and that's why I started the thread...........and for other reasons such as the question of why the affair wasn't more in the public eye and who else might have known becausw "The Bigfootery Enquirer" came out with Don Keating's Moon discrepancy article back in 2010. And they only found out because they checked the Moon's phase for the data of the encounter and saw that Mr. Keating had lied about it on a radio interview in 2008 on the anniversary of the supposed encounter.

Edited October 23, 2014 by hiflier

[Guest Divergent1]

Well, the skeptics better come up with some way to prove that thousands of people are sharing notes or channeling the society's subconscious uber-primatologist.

 

Otherwise, this stands unaddressed; and no other similar body of evidence - in scientific history - exists that hasn't turned out to be pretty much what it looked like.  (Which wasn't fakes.)

 

This one-did-it-so-all-did just doesn't pass the most basic sniff test to those who have read them.  But your first sentence neatly avoids the necessary exercise.  Again:  to anyone that has read them, and has experience allowing him or her to judge them, there is no "fake or mistake" scenario that doesn't seem more ludicrous than the animal.

 

Scientists grapple with evidence.  They don't pass judgment on it from an armchair.

DWA, you know that not all reports are sound, I know you know that, but trying to separate the chaff from the wheat....well there isn't anyway to do that. Discountimg all of the reports as false is just as wrong as saying that the sum total is a valid body of evidence. You do see that don't you? I don't have an answer for any of it but either approach seems like sloppy thinking to me.

[Incorrigible1]

DWA has mentioned his innate sense to "know" which reports he reads (like the wind) are true and which aren't. Yup. Once again, typical.

[david75090]

I'm suspicious of folks who seem to be more interested in the money-making angle of bigfootery than the actual critter itself. Conventions, bookselling and the like. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with those things, it's just that those people are shifting focus from the critter to themselves. Throws up flags for me. Just my opinion.

[Guest DWA]

Divergent1:  but you have already told me you don't read them.  Forming an opinion about what they are without reading them - or standing idly by and not touching them and saying there is nothing we can do here - is the sloppy thinking.

 

The opinion I, a few others here, and a number of scientists by the way, have formed reading them has been formed by a rigorous scientific approach.   We are engaging the evidence, the only way science ever moves off the dime to proof.  Now, if by "valid body of evidence" you mean proof, that is also sloppy thinking and indulged in by too many here.  The constant confusion of compelling evidence with proof is flat stagnating this discussion.  The reports have frequency and coherence, which makes them, in scientific terms, inherently compelling.

 

Thousands are seeing something; are coming forward against a wall of ridicule to report it; most of them were among the ridiculers before they saw one...and you are saying nothing can be done with them?  What value, then, does science add to the community at large?  Answer:  this is the value it adds.  What it does elsewhere it must do here.  As Bindernagel and Meldrum correctly point out, scientists have an obligation to address this subject that they are not living up to.

 

Once again:  thousands of sightings; thousands of tracks; all internally consistent; and a film and associated tracks that tie the sightings and footprints together in the neatest conceivable way.  Sloppy thinking is coming to the logical conclusion?  I don't think so.  The way to separate the chaff from the wheat is painfully obvious.  Bigfoot researchers, to the shame of the professional scientific community, are showing the way.  And it is called fieldwork.

 

Inc1, take something for that.  MIB is right, and it is getting tiresome.

Edited October 24, 2014 by DWA