Encounters That Are Never Reported...

[Guest]

I know I would not report an actual sighting to just anyone.  After being made fun of by my own family (and one of them claims to have seen a Bigfoot) after two strange events I learned my lesson! 

 

That is why this forum is so good.  People can come here and talk about their personal experiences, thoughts, ask questions and get good information without too much ridicule.

[bipedalist]

So I assume by "panicked and stalled the vehicle" it was a manual transmission.  Because, if not, we then have the possibility that BF monkeywrenched the vehicle with special powers.  

[Guest DWA]

I know I would not report an actual sighting to just anyone.  After being made fun of by my own family (and one of them claims to have seen a Bigfoot) after two strange events I learned my lesson! 

 

That is why this forum is so good.  People can come here and talk about their personal experiences, thoughts, ask questions and get good information without too much ridicule.

You touch on something worth mentioning and that I often see here: ridicule by people who claim to have seen one.

People! If you saw one, first, this does not make you an expert and, second, someone reporting something other than your experience may have simply had a different experience from you. I can't get over the way proponents shoot both themselves, and each other, in the foot. They kill the very spirit of concerted inquiry that science prescribes to resolve questions. This is why so many of us are rooting for the mainstream to take over: the proponents just aren't doing this right, and are doing as much as the skeptics to keep this topic off the scientific table.

Edited December 21, 2014 by DWA

[Guest]

I have been thinking a lot lately about this as I've tried to read BFRO and other reports.

I know from my experience in law enforcement that there are lots of crimes that never get reported. It is human nature that we place a high priority on the impact making a crime report might have on one's family, one's friends and social relationships, one's job...you name it if a person can think of a way making a report will impact their life in a negative way they absolutely weigh that impact against the perceived value of making the report. They then weigh it against any moral foundation, or compass (if they have one, believe me when I tell you some folks don't) before making a decision to step up and call the cops.

 

I think that people use the same process to decide whether or not to report a Bigfoot, or any other experience that is outside of the accepted mainstream of life experience.

People will be people, after all.

Because they know the impact on their lives will be very real, and as the power and reach of the media has grown they have seen, right before their eyes, the result of making such a report on the lives of ordinary people.

Step out of line with the mainstream and get clobbered.

 

So, when someone does step forward with a report of a Bigfoot, and does so publicly, they have only a few motivations.

-They are seeking their fifteen minutes of fame, and the report is a fabrication.

-They are seeking their fifteen minutes of fame, and the report is a fabrication, and their motivation is money. (huge problem here, obviously)

-They are actively engaged in subterfuge and an effort to discredit the field of study for a variety of reasons.

-They are mentally ill. (seen this a lot)

-They were hallucinating due to narcotic ingestion.    (seen this a lot)

-They have weighed all of the risks, and balanced them against their moral compass, and make the report anyway, but they've made an honest mistake.

-They have weighed all the risks, and balanced them against their moral compass, and made the report, fully aware of the impact, and the report is true.

And they live with the impact.

 

I think the fact that the BFRO and other organizations allow for people to report encounters and remain out of the public eye is critical, most folks wouldn't step forward with out that shield of anonymity...inversely, you have to weigh the fact that this shield is in place would make it easier for someone to fabricate a report without major consequences.

A conundrum.

(As a retired cop, with training in the art form of interview and interrogation it can be really frustrating to read an interesting statement in a BF report that has a big impact on a case and not have the opportunity to go through the statement with the witness in a one on one basis...and come to my own conclusions.

It drives me nuts, actually. As I have tried to bring myself up to speed on all of the reports on line and even to get connected to this site and the reports folks like Gumshoe have shared it really drive me nuts.

My problem, not yours.)

And I digress.

 

The last category.

-They have had a legitimate encounter and they have good documentation of it.They have weighed all the risks, and balanced them against their moral compass, and as much as it goes against their grain, they cannot bring themselves to report it.

 

They may have unimpeachable evidence to back their claim, or excellent photos, or something we can't imagine...but they simply will not subject themselves and the people they love to the blowback that they know will come.

 

These are the reports I wonder about.

I can see it happening very easily.

 

The recent hullabaloo Todd Standing has ignited with his most recent adventures bugs the heck out of me for all of the normal reasons...and another.

What if there is a witness out there, a guy in the last category; just "Joe Average", who was out in the woods and had an experience that generated REAL evidence of an encounter on that level, and he has been agonizing about releasing and/or reporting it?

And he got on the interwebz, surfed around and saw the kerfuffle that Messrs. Standing and others have generated with there "stuff".

And he has come to the exact same conclusion that a huge percentage of Joe Average types would come to. The internal conversation that old Joe Average has with himself goes something like this...

 

"Holy crap, I don't know who this guy is or why he did that but LOOK at what they  put him through. I can't imagine what they are going to do to me if I come forward with this, and they find out it is real. I know it's real, heck I'd take a lie detector or any other test, they can go out there themselves, I'd show 'em...but is it really gonna be worth it for me to come forward...what's gonna happen to my wife..to my kids?

What kind of crap am I gonna get at work? Could the boss mess with me or overlook me for that promotion?

Do I have the right to do that to my family?

No...no way. Screw it. I will...I will just wait. I'll keep an eye on this and if somebody else comes forward with a story from up there and gets a bunch of heat then maybe then I will back him up...depending on what he's got...maybe...but I am not going to go this alone...no way. It just isn't worth it".

 

These are the Joe Average reports I wonder about.

I wonder how many there are.

I wonder.

 

Am I crazy?

What do you think?

What can we do about it?

 

Until and unless circumstances change, and until it is no longer politically correct to ridicule but instead encourage people to report their encounters I would not.

[Doc Holliday]

then there's the flip side.......we also have  circumstances like hoaxing, attention seeking and  those trying to make a fast $ off the gullible.

 

unless they change the ridicule will likely continue in the face of a lack of substantial proof after all this time..... iow, caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place my friend.

[Guest]

So I assume by "panicked and stalled the vehicle" it was a manual transmission.  Because, if not, we then have the possibility that BF monkeywrenched the vehicle with special powers.  

 

 

Come on Bipedalist, I know you can do better than that! Haaaa. Maybe she should have had a can of elbow grease in their too…. And not just any monkey wrench either, it has to be a right handed monkey wrench at that. 

 

I actually have picture of a similar Chevrolet and it was pretty nice and the car in question was an automatic transmission. The 16-year girl was actually driving with her mother as front seat passenger back in those days authorities sort of looked the other way when young unlicensed drivers were behind the wheel on those back country roads. My feeling is that she was startled, slowed down and mother screamed for her to speed up and somehow the car stalled.  

[NCBFr]

My 12 year old daughter's math teacher had this posted on the blackboard the first day of school:

 

"Extra credit, like bigfoot, is a myth"

 

As long as there are people of influence like that in the world, sightings will not be reported with any regularity.

[bipedalist]

Come on Bipedalist, I know you can do better than that! Haaaa. Maybe she should have had a can of elbow grease in their too…. And not just any monkey wrench either, it has to be a right handed monkey wrench at that. 

 

I actually have picture of a similar Chevrolet and it was pretty nice and the car in question was an automatic transmission. The 16-year girl was actually driving with her mother as front seat passenger back in those days authorities sort of looked the other way when young unlicensed drivers were behind the wheel on those back country roads. My feeling is that she was startled, slowed down and mother screamed for her to speed up and somehow the car stalled.  

 

Sounds pretty remote.  I believe BF special powers were at work was my point.  Henry Franzoni has some evidence of how they monkeywrench car starters for example, in which case it doesn't matter what handedness is involved, lol.  

Edited January 4, 2015 by bipedalist

[Guest DWA]

My 12 year old daughter's math teacher had this posted on the blackboard the first day of school:

 

"Extra credit, like bigfoot, is a myth"

 

As long as there are people of influence like that in the world, sightings will not be reported with any regularity.

Pretty much.  That approach is about as antithetical to science as belief in fairies; it's simply the other extreme.

[Guest]

Summarized: 1965 Monroe, Michigan Experience  

It all began in July 1965, when Christine Van Acker, 17, and her mother, Ruth Owens of Monroe, say the huge beast appeared out of the woods and ran alongside of their car before it stalled.  Ruth says a big hairy reaches in the window grabbing Christine by the hair in doing so, she strikes her face on the door and faints. Ruth exits the car standing all alone, on a dark lonely gravel back road and screams for help! The animal they encounter was described as a “seven foot tall, five foot wide, and 400 pound hairy monster.â€

 

Some folk claimed it might have been a wayward bear. It was reportedly nearly  in height to a Brown Grizzly but much larger than the American (Ursus Americanus) black bear native to upper Michigan and not in Southern Michigan, (Monroe County) and yet, neither are found in this region. From the onset, it became apparent great efforts were underway to choreograph pieces as a means of establishing public plausible deniability all part of a prime axiom of spin. Decades later, you read between the lines and see through the spin. If all else fails then resort to name-calling and label the witness a hoax or crazy and the public will follow. Keeping the incident under control was crucial in dampening fears and public hysteria as news spread in this quiet community. We then have to assume authorities in Monroe closely monitored the reports, and years later, it becomes obvious they apparently sat on reports choosing instead to roll their eyes and write off the entire incident as a “figment of someone’s imagination, a lie, and a hoax.† It was only after rumblings threatened to reach fever pitch that reporters and authorities were forced to confront it head-on and did so by leaking additional details in bits and pieces.

 

Like a jig-saw puzzle, when the pieces were collected and placed together a picture comes. It is now believed; authorities fielded not one but sixteen reported sightings from June or July through August 1965. In spite of all the notoriety  Van Acker/ Owens Monroe Monster story gained, it was learned there were two other similar such assaults involving motorist and a Bigfoot creature in Monroe, Michigan that year. 

 

Let us consider this hoax a moment, and see where it takes us. Even a basic understanding of human behavior illustrates why many local people kept their experiences private and to themselves out of fear of being closely scrutinized for mental illness. Is it any wonder why individual’s previous experiences and sightings generally tend to avoid questioning by local officials or media in public? After all, one need only point to the July 1965 Van Acker incident as an example of the nasty crude remarks said about her for basically expressing what nearly one thousand witnesses like her across the Michigan did, shock, confusion and perhaps disbelief over something so unnaturally dissimilar to her reality in 1965.

 

Classic example of disinformation as applied here

 

In this case:  Choreograph pieces of the story as a means of establishing public plausible deniability all part of a prime axiom of spin. Keep the story secret, if all else fails then resort to name-calling and label the witness a hoax or crazy and an obedient public will follow.

 

What Others have to say about Monroe

 

"Michigan has been a hotspot for sightings since the 1960s, especially areas like Sister Lake and Monroe, where there were reports of very aggressive creatures and people being attacked," said Loren Coleman, a highly respected authority in Cryptozological studies in Portland, Maine.

 

Source:  Sands, David. "'Finding Bigfoot' Takes Search To Houghton Lake, Mich.." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 12 Apr. 2012. Web. 28 Nov. 2013. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/12/finding-b_n_1421535.html.

 

What Others have to say about Michigan in general

 

"Bigfoots seem to be rather evenly spread throughout the available habitat in Michigan, and we certainly had great witnesses and night investigations in the area we chose." –Cliff Barackman

 

Source:  Wyant, Jordan. "Bigfoot visits Michigan." Michigan Radio. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Nov. 2013. http://michiganradio.org/post/bigfoot-visits-michigan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 4, 2015 by Gumshoeye

[Guest]

I know I would not report an actual sighting to just anyone.  After being made fun of by my own family (and one of them claims to have seen a Bigfoot) after two strange events I learned my lesson! 

 

That is why this forum is so good.  People can come here and talk about their personal experiences, thoughts, ask questions and get good information without too much ridicule.

Icw, If I had it to do over again, I would not mention any sightings, I hope. I have very sincerely reported my sighting, and over time either my memory changed, or added info, or something happened as I remembered it over the few years because either my memories changed, added stuff, or either the entire event finally fell into place.

 

I don't know the answer as to why or how, but I would never again report any sighting here, only at the Facebook forums where people seem to understand the trauma and are not as eager to tear up a person when there are conflicting memories later after the report is filed.

 

***I'm not saying to ever lie about anything, just keep quiet about it until you actually understand and have the event rationally explained to yourself before telling others.*** Doing this can prevent a lot of pain and embarrassment. IMVHO!

[Guest]

Susi;

 

I can tell you this.

It is a proven fact that human memory is fallible. Over time our grey matter changes things. No intent necessary, no desire to embellish, no plan to deceive. This is why law enforcement has always taught street cops to carry a pocket notebook. A crime scene is only intact, only pure, once.

We document it, photograph it, test it and do everything we can do to memorialize it because if it isn't documented, we lose it once we step in and being physically moving stuff around.

So those notes we take are there to bring it back. As I moved into investigations the notebook was supplemented with a dictaphone, micro recorder and sent to my secretary to transcribe.

Lots of times we don't go to court for years, and memory fades when you do this stuff all day every day day in and day out.

I am retired, but I still have an entire file drawer half full of spiral notebooks from the early years I worked. They are a living testimony to my career.

I would suggest that you, or anyone else for that matter, who has an encounter with the critter or any other event that you think is going to be something you want to freeze in your memory to sit down with a notepad or whatever tool you choose, and write down the event, in chronological order, as soon as possible after the event is over.

Once you've done that, you have it.

Years later you'll find simply reading the notes will bring you back to the time and place, and you'll be able to share it accurately forever.

[Guest]

Well said, well put and very true!

[Catmandoo]

Northfork, there is another factor for not reporting sightings. This thread has listed the human side. It is 50/50, Human/Sasquatch. Reporting an incident/sighting increases the probability that seekers will bring large caliber weapons to the location with one purpose in mind. Anyone in the area is at risk. I am surprised that no one has been shot. Years ago, I had lead winging by me in total darkness. Those people were booted out of the National Forest by LE.

The popularity of roving groups of heavily armed seekers goes in cycles. Washington State has 2 counties that have passed Ordinances to protect Sasquatch.

Skamania County Ordinance 1984-2, April 1984 which replaced Ordinance 1969-01.

Whatcom County created a Sasquatch Refuge with Whatcom County Resolution No. 92-043, June 1991.

Embarrassment/ ridicule is one thing, lead poisoning is another.

BTW, I have a relative who believes in zombies so that means that I can play the big hairy mammal card at any time.

Notebooks: I use 'Reporter's Notebooks'. 4" X 8", fits my hand well, plenty of space for words and drawings and easy to carry around.

[Guest]

Catmando thanks for the take, it is a legit piece of the puzzle.

People that would fall into this group would be thinkers beyond the norm.

Either they are researchers and found what they were looking for, or they have really done well at sorting out the potential ramifications of making a public report to add your risk factor to the decision making process.

I am pleased with all of the conversation this thread has generated, and thank everyone for their thoughtful responses. I think it is highly likely that there is a huge number of encounters that are never reported, and, after digesting the conversation here I believe that there may also be a lot of cases that ARE reported to the non-gov. research units that never are put up for public research.