Lab Practicum: Follow-Up Investigation

[MIB]

If you want *impact* from a report, you have to check it out yourself in person.   There is a *punch* to standing where a sasquatch was reported and looking around to see what its eyes saw.   There is *punch* to climbing a mountain where it came from, then looking down to see why.  

 

Everything else is a bit like drugs, you keep taking the same dose but the impact is smaller and smaller.   So ... you're either going to be disappointed or you're going to have to make it more personal to get your fix.   There's a point where "more personal" can't come from a written report, it requires muddy shoes, bug bites, and an occasional look over your shoulder 'cause something feels a little ... odd ... knowing big brother has been there and might still be watching.

 

IMHO of course.

 

MIB

[Trogluddite]

.... 

The critical problem bigfoot skeptics have with discrediting eyewitness reports as a body - aside from their sheer number - is that they have to postulate thousands of copycats...or a continent-wide consortium of fakers comparing notes...or a small core of conspirators making everything up.....  

 

So here are where the reports from the 1950s and 1960s in the Green/Berkshire/Litchfield* Mountains occurred.  Exactly why did the Vermont Chapter of the International Order of Bigfoot Fakirs decide to concentrate their efforts on only two areas of this corridor and why, for Pete's sake did they decide to pick the Connecticut, the parking lot for New York City?  

 

 

 

* Yes, its' the Litchfield Hills ....

[Guest DWA]

Skeptics would go:  proof they're fake fake fakey fake!  People familiar with large wild omnivores, say, bears, would go:

 

Lots of dumpsters.

[Lake County Bigfooot]

The video is questionable, though I have heard eyewitness descriptions that include a larger head, so that in itself does not

rule it out, prints would have validated the video in this case.  I think it sad that the average eyewitness does not even know

how extremely rare a sighting is, and certainly they have little notion of how to gather evidence.  It is instinctual though to go

check it out, and that would be my question, why would they not go check it out and possibly find the prints?  Like when I heard

vocalizations, I wanted to check for prints as soon as I could, even though I was only a reader of the subject till then.

I have heard someone mention that he knew that some hoaxing took place on a BRFO expedition, in the form of 

individuals making vocalizations to be heard by the group, this is hardly a surprise when your charging individuals

500 bucks just to hang out in the woods!  If I am to spend 500 bucks to learn more on the subject I would head off

to the Olympic Project and not waste my money.  I am sure there are mostly honest investigators leading these 

expeditions, but if I were Matt Moneymaker I would be all over such a report to get to the bottom of it, and to see if

there is any truth to the allegations.  Human nature is such that where money is involved corrupt individuals will see

an opportunity, and such individuals need to be rooted out.

 

The nature of such an organization is something we should discuss, and what accountability is required of the individuals

who operate within its confines. If an investigator is simply paid by the number of individuals that go on expeditions, well

that provides the temptation to make sure your expeditions are not a bust.

Edited December 29, 2014 by Lake County Bigfooot

[Guest DWA]

And this one's interesting...but are you  telling me no follow-up with the witness for another report with whom this witness compared notes...?????

 

http://www.bfro.net/GDB/show_report.asp?id=46328

[Guest DWA]

And this one?  One can look at any follow-up and think of about 20 more questions one could have asked.  But this is a solid B-plus...a very good grade.

 

http://www.bfro.net/GDB/show_report.asp?id=45296

[Guest DWA]

And this one.  Intriguing, particularly since it's kind of in my neck of the woods. 

 

http://bfro.net/GDB/show_report.asp?id=46620

 

But:

 

1.  What made this guy think the "shadow" was what it was?

2.  Why did it not occur as a possibility that it wasn't a giant figure blocking the moonlight with its head?

3.  Was the apparent height of the apparent figure all that did it for him?  What did he see of the "shadow" that made him think person, let alone sasquatch?

 

Another example of "this is a bigfoot site, so..."  Get everything from the witness you can.  Why should it be presumed that this could be, much less is, a giant bipedal primate?

[Guest DWA]

But if you want to see the scientific mind applied well to an encounter, here you go.  Don't read the followup; the meat is in the witness's own account.

 

"For those readers of this story who approach nearly every aspect of your life with a strong scientific bent like I do, you already know that Sasquatch exists."

 

Word.

 

http://www.bfro.net/GDB/show_report.asp?id=26750

[Guest DWA]

And this one.

 

http://www.bfro.net/GDB/show_report.asp?id=40177

 

Carter:  love ya man.  But.  No effort to even try to ask the witness about features?  Head hands legs feet gait etc?

 

It does not matter if the witness knew what it was!  Patterson got a film and we see what that did, right?

 

The more reports showing generally accepted hominid characteristics, reported by people with no other experience with apes (seriously, ask anyone who's "seen lots of chimps in zoos and on TV" what standard ape characters are), the more interesting the database is gonna be to more scientists.

 

If you don't say you asked...well, you didn't.  Not much to add, Carter?  Potentially *pages* to add.

Edited January 16, 2015 by DWA

[Guest DWA]

And this one:

 

http://www.bfro.net/GDB/show_report.asp?id=46477

 

What makes this worthy of discussion is the account of something frequently and consistently reported:   vocalizations so loud and intimidating that outdoorsmen of decades' standing - a hunter in this case, with a solid sidearm at his disposal (many hunters, who disproportionately provide these accounts, have been equipped with high-powered rifles) - are afraid even to look out of the tent to see what it is. 

 

(Note how far away the estimate was.  A Panzer division that far away, if you're an American rifleman in a foxhole, maybe.  But an animal...?)

 

I can tell you that there is no North American animal known - save a bear, or a wolf pack, clearly at the front door of my tent - that could make a sound that could do that to me.  And I never carry a weapon in the woods.  One would think that anyone of logical bent would be intrigued.  I mean, if they read up any on this.

Edited January 25, 2015 by DWA

[MIB]

DWA -

 

Point taken, _perhaps_, but having been subjected to one such interrogation following a report I filed with BFRO, I won't file another report.    So ... decision to make for investigators.   Is it worth entirely silencing potential witnesses rather than accept partial information?   I don't believe so.

 

MIB

Edited January 25, 2015 by MIB

[Guest DWA]

Well I'm not thinking so much *interrogation* as asking the questions and seeing if they produce answers.  Leaving no stone unturned.

 

I have seen more than plenty of reports that if I had to bet what the witness saw the witness saw a sasquatch.  Just four, pulled up because I read them today:

 

http://www.bfro.net/GDB/show_report.asp?id=21714

 

http://bfro.net/GDB/show_report.asp?id=25462

 

http://bfro.net/GDB/show_report.asp?id=40378

 

http://bfro.net/GDB/show_report.asp?id=5299

 

When all circumstances are taken into account, no other explanation will line up well enough to be taken seriously by a serious person.

 

What I am talking about is what gets scientists interested (or people considering scientific careers).  And the more detail in a report the better.

 

I'd seriously want to know what those BFRO investigators were up to.  The amateur approach, I'd reckon:  act "skeptical" rather than think it through.  Either way, if that's the way you reacted to it...that is totally on them.  And as you show...from the research point of view, a big big mistake.  There is no reason to act like that anymore, and any serious bigfoot researcher should really know it.  This is an undocumented (by the mainstream) wildlife species.  That's how it should be treated.  Partial information - as the above accounts are only a few that demonstrate - should not lead to discounting a report.  If it sounded like that's what the witness saw, you really need a good reason to discount it; and that the witness can't write a guidebook entry for the species is a very inadequate reason.

Edited January 25, 2015 by DWA

[MIB]

No argument, just point counter-point.  

 

It was Henner Fahrenbach who called to follow up on my report.   It was not an interview to learn what I saw or to validate my claim.  The only information he asked for, the only information he would acknowledge, was information to support his preconceived ideas.   

 

I learned a lot about how not to talk to witnesses that day. 

 

MIB

[Guest DWA]

Now *that* is disappointing.

 

I'm really wondering how so many people *know* what something is that they cannot confirm to me.  As I like to say:  observations are not taxonomy.  My opinions as to what this is are just those.  All researchers should keep that in mind about theirs.

[MIB]

He was drawing lines in the sand trying to force it to remain something safe for science: just an upright ape.   Where the discussion really went off track was talking about the waves of fear people report.   He was very insistent this was a result of pheromones.   All I did was ask how a chemical could be causing these light-switch off/on fear/no-fear changes in people that were 100-150 yards away ... upwind.   He got kinda huffy that I would dare to question his foregone conclusions. 

 

I was somewhat surprised to find that my report was published.   I'd tell you which one it is but they included far too much personally identifying information that I thought would be kept confidential.      Another strike against filing reports IMHO.

 

MIB