roguefooter Posted May 22, 2015 Posted May 22, 2015 Going by the photos you posted, the first looks like a deliberate orderly stack while the others look more natural. Any displacement of bones could have been by any animal or person wandering through.
BigTreeWalker Posted May 22, 2015 Author Posted May 22, 2015 Orderly, not so much. I would say more concentrated because of it being between the logs. I also mentioned the third site seemed more disorganized, as if a younger individual was responsible. And I see you are choosing to disregard the impressions which are the most important part of the found evidence. The rest is just behavioral and is of importance because it is found to a certain extent in all three sites. Which I might add has been seen by others all across the country. Of course that's entirely up to you whether you want to believe them or not.
roguefooter Posted May 22, 2015 Posted May 22, 2015 I disregard the impressions because I am not an expert on animal teeth or forensics, therefore I hold no opinion on them. Should I have one? Also, why assume a Bigfoot of all things is responsible?
Celtic Raider Posted May 22, 2015 Posted May 22, 2015 You are correct about our teeth and the ability to make impressions like that. My teeth would break if I tried that. Neanderthal had a tooth structure that would have enabled it to make these impressions. But, the impressions are too large for a neanderthal to have made. We do discuss this in our research. Of course, along with the impressions, is the disarticulation and stacking behavior not seen with any other known predators. We also have three separate kill sites exhibiting the same impressions and behavior separated by miles. Also, the damage could not have happened due to falling against some object. This is forest habitat with no rock nearby. Good point regarding the 'stacking' and disarticulation of the bones, also Airdale brings up a good point regarding the sagittal crest and relative bite force being able to do this to bone. I believe I read that you were a Wildlife Biologist in the original post and not that I'm doubting your credentials but wondered if you had any other feedback from someone specialising in animal dentition.......I would be very interested to hear what they thought.
BigTreeWalker Posted May 22, 2015 Author Posted May 22, 2015 Good point regarding the 'stacking' and disarticulation of the bones, also Airdale brings up a good point regarding the sagittal crest and relative bite force being able to do this to bone. I believe I read that you were a Wildlife Biologist in the original post and not that I'm doubting your credentials but wondered if you had any other feedback from someone specialising in animal dentition.......I would be very interested to hear what they thought. Our research will be sent to many of those referenced in our research for peer review. Both anthropologists and forensic scientists who specialize in this type of work. It is up to them individually to give us their feedback. The bones will be available for their review also while remaining in our custody. There are too many occurrences of things disappearing, whether unintentionally or otherwise. I disregard the impressions because I am not an expert on animal teeth or forensics, therefore I hold no opinion on them. Should I have one? Also, why assume a Bigfoot of all things is responsible? People can and do take the time to become knowledgeable in subjects they are interested in. No PhD required. Our research will contain all of the references we used in our study and comparisons. The impressions are the hard evidence that can be studied. The disarticulation and stacking are behaviors that help determine the type of predator responsible for the evidence. As I discussed with DWA and SWWSP our conclusions are unknown, uncategorized. We hope further study will take it to the level of known and categorised. A biologist and a forensic scientist in the state of Washington, when presented with the details have suggested human-like behavior. When the large tooth impressions, which at that time were not included in the details to them, we still have something human-like but very big. I guess we could suggest there are huge wild humans running around in the forests of the PNW, killing large animals with their bare hands and eating them raw. Don't forget the children with them either. Oh, but we already have accounts of something else that would fit the evidence very well without changing anything. But as I said before, that is just my opinion based on what I have seen. My question for you is at what point do we start considering the fact that something is real? I have never seen a live cougar. But I know they are real because I have seen their tracks, I have seen their kills, and I have seen cougar clawed trees. I don't need anyone including a scientist to tell me they are out there. Pictures help me know what they look like in case I ever do see one. I could take the skeptical attitude towards wolverines, I've never seen one. I have never seen any evidence in the wild that they even exist. I have to rely on others observations and experiences here, PhD or not! Or I could take the attitude, I don't want it to exist so it can't. If you're one of the ones that would like to consider the possibility that bigfoot exists, then why not go along for the ride and see what happens. You might learn something that doesn't fit in with your picture of how the world should work. But, then again maybe not. I do understand the idea of 'how can this be?' I have the same problem sometimes. But I don't shut out the possibilities, I look into them. 1
SWWASAS Posted May 22, 2015 BFF Patron Posted May 22, 2015 Once your paper is published will you continue to look for more evidence in the form of bone piles? I presume you will continue with the project and add to the body of knowledge.
Guest Posted May 22, 2015 Posted May 22, 2015 Hopefully other researchers will now be on the lookout for similar evidence in other areas as well.
Guest Posted May 23, 2015 Posted May 23, 2015 I am trying to picture an animal (okay, lets just suppose it's a bigfoot!) chewing on a rib. Would the bite marks on the ribs be an intentional way of eating the ribs? They would have to bite extremely hard with their front teeth to break raw bone. Beyond the strength of human teeth I would guess. Are these teeth theoretically thicker than human teeth as well as wider? Then they are chewing and swallowing bone splinters. Yikes! I could more easily see them sticking the rib bone in their mouth and gnawing more with their molars. But that doesn't fit the pattern. I am a visual person, can you help me see how this could be done without cracking and damaging the teeth of the rib eater? I see lots of animal bones around in Packwood, I will keep an eye out for unusual patterns.
Guest Posted May 23, 2015 Posted May 23, 2015 You need to remember this is raw meat, which is not soft and 'fall off the bone' like smoked ribs. As mentioned before, BF often have a sagittal crest, indicative of very large and strong jaw muscles. If they exist, they have evolved to utilize nutrients in nature without the benefit of cooking. I can imagine this would be helped a long with powerful jaws and very strong teeth.
BigTreeWalker Posted May 23, 2015 Author Posted May 23, 2015 SWWSP, we will be continuing in our search. It's just an additional thing to watch for any time a person is in the woods. I also plan to place our bite analysis into a spreadsheet so I can easily add to it in the hope that we will find more evidence. Our plan is to continue in our analysis. If we can arrange it we would also like to do some microscopic analysis of the dental characteristics. DNA would be another possibility, we just didn't want to go there right now. Lastlaugh, I do hope others will look for this. Which means a closer look at the bones. Maddog23, what we are seeing would require massive jaws and teeth or it wouldn't happen. That even goes for the juvenile. Molars leave distinct impressions, especially carnivore molars which are called carnasials. We do see some flatter molar impressions toward the ends of the bones but the impressions again are more human-like. The impressions which we are calling incisor impression were not done by molars. There are a lot of elk in the Packwood area. They are part of the Mt Rainier herd.
roguefooter Posted May 23, 2015 Posted May 23, 2015 My question for you is at what point do we start considering the fact that something is real? I have never seen a live cougar. But I know they are real because I have seen their tracks, I have seen their kills, and I have seen cougar clawed trees. I don't need anyone including a scientist to tell me they are out there. Pictures help me know what they look like in case I ever do see one. I could take the skeptical attitude towards wolverines, I've never seen one. I have never seen any evidence in the wild that they even exist. I have to rely on others observations and experiences here, PhD or not! Or I could take the attitude, I don't want it to exist so it can't. If you're one of the ones that would like to consider the possibility that bigfoot exists, then why not go along for the ride and see what happens. You might learn something that doesn't fit in with your picture of how the world should work. But, then again maybe not. I do understand the idea of 'how can this be?' I have the same problem sometimes. But I don't shut out the possibilities, I look into them. I consider something to be real only after all the known avenues are exhausted first. You assumed it could have been a juvenile sasquatch that moved around some bones. Why? I would have first assumed the known- animals, humans. Gone over every single known possibility, and only after the known were absolutely counted out would I even consider the unknown. That's not shutting out any possibilities, it's taking a rational approach. If you saw a light flying around in the sky would you assume a flying saucer? Or take a rational approach and go over the known objects first? A plane, a copter, a drone, a lighted balloon, a flare, etc. I'm all for going on a ride, but unless you practice preventative measures then your ride could turn out to be a big fail.
BigTreeWalker Posted May 23, 2015 Author Posted May 23, 2015 Roguefooter. First of all, I didn't assume anything. An acquaintance of mine, now my research partner, found a stack of deer bones with possible teeth marks in them. He showed them to me and I thought what he had found was odd. I stored it away for future reference. A year or so before he found those bones he also found several deer carcasses layed out side by side, also odd. Last summer my son and I were doing some cross country day hikes and came across a pile of elk bones. I looked closely at them and found some of the same impressions I had seen in my acquaintances bones. So I videoed and photographed the bones and the area. Then we collected all the bones with impressions in them. I didn't even notice the smaller impressions in the bone, which were identical in shape to the larger impressions, until I got home. No assumptions made here. But I was interested to say the least. The third bone pile was found ten miles from the second one while hunting elk. At first I did assume cougar kill. But when I looked closer there was a bone stack on top of a clump of bear grass. These bones again had some of the same impressions. By then I'm wondering, what is going on here? Three different locations, disarticulation, bone stacking, and comparable teeth impressions. Last October I was so curious I started doing research on elk predation. This is where the learning and gaining of knowledge that I mentioned in my previous post to you comes in. Still not assuming anything. I am now fairly knowledgeable about elk predation in the PNW area. I discovered that the predator or scavenger that feeds on a kill can be determined by the size and type of impressions left in the bones. Also by how the kill is left, meaning, bones broken, scattered, or whatever. So forensics and behavior are key to identifying the most likely predator. The problem. No known predator matches the impressions. No known predator exhibits this behavior. This will be our conclusions with even more comparative research included. The other experts we discussed this with said... Human-like. So no assumptions. Conclusions based on facts. And the rational thing would be to read and try to understand what I have posted. If that's not enough then wait until the paper is released, then read it in its entirety to try and understand why we came to the conclusions we did. By the way, I have given enough visual evidence that this could be researched on your own.
Guest DWA Posted May 23, 2015 Posted May 23, 2015 ^^^That's science going on, gang, and his last sentence is right. This must be addressed, and his conclusions must be refuted conclusively...or accepted. (I'd include "or else taken as inconclusive." But you damsight better show me why.)
SWWASAS Posted May 23, 2015 BFF Patron Posted May 23, 2015 Certainly it has gotten a bunch of us in elk country now looking for bone stacks. Quite frankly something else to look for is refreshing because footprints seem to have gotten to a dead end. If Meldrum cannot convince colleague's based on footprint evidence alone, we need other physical evidence supporting existence and this certainly fills the bill. Of course a bone stack find with footprints in the same location would be very compelling. You may have mentioned this but is there any indication that the elk kill and the bone stack were at the same location, or was the elk moved to the eating location? That might change where likely bone stacks could be found and change where I look. It would seem that a reclusive BF might want to carry a kill to a safe location to consume it without chance for discovery by blundering humans. Another thing I just thought of is there any sign that the elk were gutted at the bone location or were they gutted elsewhere? Probably too long a time had elapsed to determine that by the time you found the bone piles. The beauty of this line of research is that it also deals with BF behavior and more can be learned from it than just footprint finds.
Recommended Posts