Cascades Carnivore Project - How Do They Miss The Bigfoots?

[Guest DWA]

Oh, and I had to add:  anyone who honestly rully truly thinks that I "conclude " IT's BIGFOOT" for every odd thing that happens" is not only not using critical thinking skills, but not reading, or thinking about, one or the other or both, my posts.  I'm one of the most skeptical posters on this site.

 

In, er, the way the word actually means.

 

This isn't an assertion, it is a fact:  the only true skeptics in the bigfoot field are proponents.

 

Then there are those who actually allow themselves to think Bob Hieronymous and Ray Wallace are serious; that Patterson was a world-class suitmaker; and that people are doing what's happening in X.  That is serious fail in applying critical thinking skills.

 

No one has begun to think about applying critical thinking to this topic who cannot show me *evidence* making me change my mind on what I think.  (Or admit that he can find none.)

 

English translation:

 

No bigfoot skeptic has begun to think about applying critical thinking to this topic.

 

I can't help uncomfortable facts.  They're still facts.

Edited April 1, 2015 by DWA

[Yuchi1]

Oh do you own property near there? 

 

 

On a ~3400 acre hunting lease on the adjacent property (north) from the crest of the mountain down and north to the far side of the Kiamichi river in the valley.

[Guest Divergent1]

^^^^This is speaking to a need to practice more reading, sifting, sorting, cogitating, ruminating, pondering, reflecting, deliberating, considering, meditating, contemplating etc. than you are doing.

 

Including this simple sentence:  What else could be doing this, ...and what is your evidence????

 

And I'm really sorry that "people, because burden of proof on you," is not a satisfactory response.  It just isn't, not because me, but because science.  Every entrant must provide evidence.  The proponents are doing it.  That the skeptics are not means their thesis may be handily discarded.

 

Not because me.  Because science.

 

(Might want to read your GrayQuote.  It'll help you imagine why there is no reason to believe people are doing this.

 

 

I have not asked you to provide me with proof, I simply want to know what has convinced you that there is no other alternative but bigfoot for the activity in Area X. I have no idea what is doing what in Area X but considering the amount of time that has been invested with no results concluding that it was caused by a troop of bigfoot would be a stretch. That leaves several possibilities, here are four that immediately come to mind:

 

1. Absolutely nothing is happening at all and the whole thing is a hoax.

2.The activity is a mixture of hoaxing by some members, misperception of other supposed evidence by those members with genuine interests in the project, and actual occasional bigfoot related incidents.

3. The activity as described leads one to conclude that bigfoot is not a wood ape, but something else, since no scat, no hair, no body has been retrieved from the area or isn't out there period.

4. The activity is real but the team members are completely incompetent and can't achieve their goal.

 

I don't give any greater weight to any of these specific scenarios. The monograph leaves a lot to be desired in convincing me that any of them are either true or false. The only sure thing I can tell you is that no state agency or university affiliated biologist is going to take the content of the monograph seriously enough to convince an institution to invest money in searching the area. I don't know why you keep beating the skeptic drum unless it's a convenient excuse to not answer the question.

On a ~3400 acre hunting lease on the adjacent property (north) from the crest of the mountain down and north to the far side of the Kiamichi river in the valley.

Have you had similar things described in the monograph happen to you out there? 

Oh, and I had to add:  anyone who honestly rully truly thinks that I "conclude " IT's BIGFOOT" for every odd thing that happens" is not only not using critical thinking skills, but not reading, or thinking about, one or the other or both, my posts.  I'm one of the most skeptical posters on this site.

 

In, er, the way the word actually means.

 

This isn't an assertion, it is a fact:  the only true skeptics in the bigfoot field are proponents.

 

Then there are those who actually allow themselves to think Bob Hieronymous and Ray Wallace are serious; that Patterson was a world-class suitmaker; and that people are doing what's happening in X.  That is serious fail in applying critical thinking skills.

 

No one has begun to think about applying critical thinking to this topic who cannot show me *evidence* making me change my mind on what I think.  (Or admit that he can find none.)

 

English translation:

 

No bigfoot skeptic has begun to think about applying critical thinking to this topic.

 

I can't help uncomfortable facts.  They're still facts.

No, they aren't facts, that's the error in your uncritical thinking. 

Edited April 2, 2015 by Divergent1

[Guest DWA]

We are at agree-to-disagree time.  But this deserves comment.

 

I have not asked you to provide me with proof, I simply want to know what has convinced you that there is no other alternative but bigfoot for the activity in Area X.

 

I have not asked you to provide me with proof, I simply want to know what has convinced you that there is a signifiicant possibility for something else accounting for the activity in Area X.  If you have no evidence for your alternative, it's not a reasonable presumption.

 

I have no idea what is doing what in Area X but considering the amount of time that has been invested with no results

 

...that satisfy you, which is of no import to either them, or me.  "Virtually everyone in X has seen one" would be big-time results to me were I one of the research team.  This is what scientists do, all the time:  garner evidence convincing them that if they keep going, proof is just a matter of time.

 

...concluding that it was caused by a troop of bigfoot would be a stretch.

 

...to you, which is of no import to either them, or me. 

 

That leaves several possibilities, here are four that immediately come to mind:

 

1. Absolutely nothing is happening at all and the whole thing is a hoax.  I know them personally, and know of their investment in this.  Scratch.  (Of *course* that makes a difference.)

2.The activity is a mixture of hoaxing by some members, misperception of other supposed evidence by those members with genuine interests in the project, and actual occasional bigfoot related incidents.  Ditto.

3. The activity as described leads one to conclude that bigfoot is not a wood ape, but something else, since no scat, no hair, no body has been retrieved from the area or isn't out there period.  Again, "no proof satisfactory to me" really means nothing; all that matters at the frontiers of science is what is happening in the field, not what you think of it.

4. The activity is real but the team members are completely incompetent and can't achieve their goal.  This speaks to not knowing much about the "incompetence" (such as just a couple examples Jane Goodall's and George Schaller's, and the "Planet Earth" team that couldn't find herds of animals the size of cattle in the Gobi Desert...for weeks, with motorized transport) that has led to all we know about animals.  I would agree with you on this:  animals make us look pretty incompetent when we are looking for them.  Shoot, just deer. North America is pretty much made of deer. Every hunter should have ten by eight a.m. the first morning of deer season.  Doesn't work out that way, does it.

 

Again, the skeptics need to understand that what they think really doesn't matter.  If one isn't informed, it just doesn't.  That's the way science works.

Edited April 2, 2015 by DWA

[Guest Divergent1]

I agree that we disagree, however, it must be somewhat important to you because you are still having a conversation with me about the topic.

 

I have provided explanations to you for what could or couldn't happen; misperception of natural events, actual bigfoot activity, hoaxing. I can't say which is which since I've never been there. The evidence that any of the above, other than actual bigfoot activity, is possible lies in the fact that they didn't achieve their objective to harvest a body, or anything else related to a bigfoot. If bigfoot is out there, and the participants haven't harvested one yet, then the species is nothing like we think it is, much less a simple ape. All they have is anecdotal evidence.

 

I'm fairly familiar with competence/incompetence when it comes to looking for animals. I still haven't heard why you think there is no question about what's going on out there in Area X regardless of how well you know the participants. I also think you need to review what constitutes scientific thought processes. 

 

So you are friends with these folks out at Area X? Are you sure they want you to tell everybody that? 

Edited April 2, 2015 by Divergent1

[Guest DWA]

Not sure what they think about your last sentence.  Not sure it matters to them, or they might have said something to everyone they know.  Don't mean much to me if they haven't.

 

Other than that:  re-read my posts, and agree to disagree.

I agree that we disagree, however, it must be somewhat important to you because you are still having a conversation with me about the topic.

 

I have provided explanations to you for what could or couldn't happen; misperception of natural events, actual bigfoot activity, hoaxing. I can't say which is which since I've never been there. The evidence that any of the above, other than actual bigfoot activity, is possible lies in the fact that they didn't achieve their objective to harvest a body, or anything else related to a bigfoot. If bigfoot is out there, and the participants haven't harvested one yet, then the species is nothing like we think it is, much less a simple ape. All they have is anecdotal evidence.

 

I'm fairly familiar with competence/incompetence when it comes to looking for animals. I still haven't heard why you think there is no question about what's going on out there in Area X regardless of how well you know the participants. I also think you need to review what constitutes scientific thought processes. 

 

So you are friends with these folks out at Area X? Are you sure they want you to tell everybody that? 

[WSA]

 Divergent1, the forum has lots and lots of discussion concerning Area X and the NAWAC reports of activity  there.  That would be a good place to start reading up, if you've not.

 

In general though, when you have as many consistent reports by as many identified individuals as we have seen from that area, which are congruent with so many other accounts from all over, and which jibe with other wildlife observational studies, and the experiences of those who have spent significant time outdoors in these environments ...well, let's just say the response from those who would dismiss this evidence needs to be stronger than "could be"(when they should know it reasonably can't be) or the trope of all tropes: Bigfoot doesn't exist, so this evidence doesn't need to be addressed in any coherent fashion.  

 

If not those, then the opponent's position has to be that those reporting this are just making crap up. That will get you around a confrontation with the evidence, yep, and it is the "go to" for lots of folks who don't want to have their thinking about how the world works seriously challenged.

 

I would recommend you avoid all those flimsier responses and just follow the evidence to its logical conclusions. Then, wait and see if your conclusions will be confirmed someday. Failing that, it might be incumbent on you to give as much detail as possible as to how this hoax/conspiracy/hallucination is playing out on the ground in X.  We don't hold out much hope you will be doing that though as it is magnitudes more preposterous than the idea of a bipedal primate, of which the earth has seen many such species come and go, and will again. 

[Guest DWA]

Right.  It is 

 

1) something that has never happened in the entire recorded history of our species, and count on it, couldn't in prehistory neither; or

2) a garden-variety critter of a kind of which there have been scads.  (No possible fossil progenitors found?  A number of them have been.)

 

If one wants to cut past the evidence and deny something, it makes sense to deny Homo sapiens.  There could not be anything like us.  Look at the rest of the animal world.  I know, right?  This whole human circus must be an IMAX playing behind a baboon's eyeballs; I couldn't be real and neither could you.  Sasquatch, on the other hand?  Gorilla, bigger and *slightly* more bipedal.  Big deal, of *course* that's real.  Mice and Pteranodon and Uintatherium and the aye-aye are real, right?  Sasquatch?  Yaaaaaaawn.  *Of duh course.*  Thousands see them; thousands of footprints found; and a film that neatly ties all threads of evidence together.  Of *course.*  

 

Maybe that's the problem.  We look at the world from our own entirely unlikely prospect, and consider the routine absurd and make the absurd routine.

 

Flat gobsmacks me how people talking about how important imagination is, Mr., um, Sagan, read a bunch of regular Joes talk about the somewhat non-routine - for your living room, I mean, but not for anywhere wild primates live - happenings they are seeing hanging out where the animals live...and accuse those of us who are just reading it of fabricating stuff, whilst they fabricate people that all evidence garnered over the history of our species prove beyond a doubt could not exist, who must exist because all of this stuff apes can do, easily, must be getting done by humans, and that is all there is to it.  Or they just say:  I am uncomfortable, and uninformed...so these folk must be lying.

 

Yep.  Weird species, we are.  Beyond weird.  I'd deny us, if you are gonna flat deny something right in front of yer eyeballs.

Edited April 2, 2015 by DWA

[Guest Divergent1]

 Divergent1, the forum has lots and lots of discussion concerning Area X and the NAWAC reports of activity  there.  That would be a good place to start reading up, if you've not.

 

In general though, when you have as many consistent reports by as many identified individuals as we have seen from that area, which are congruent with so many other accounts from all over, and which jibe with other wildlife observational studies, and the experiences of those who have spent significant time outdoors in these environments ...well, let's just say the response from those who would dismiss this evidence needs to be stronger than "could be"(when they should know it reasonably can't be) or the trope of all tropes: Bigfoot doesn't exist, so this evidence doesn't need to be addressed in any coherent fashion.  

 

If not those, then the opponent's position has to be that those reporting this are just making crap up. That will get you around a confrontation with the evidence, yep, and it is the "go to" for lots of folks who don't want to have their thinking about how the world works seriously challenged.

 

I would recommend you avoid all those flimsier responses and just follow the evidence to its logical conclusions. Then, wait and see if your conclusions will be confirmed someday. Failing that, it might be incumbent on you to give as much detail as possible as to how this hoax/conspiracy/hallucination is playing out on the ground in X.  We don't hold out much hope you will be doing that though as it is magnitudes more preposterous than the idea of a bipedal primate, of which the earth has seen many such species come and go, and will again. 

I read the thread where Bipto was answering questions about the project, most of it got redundant, and then I read the monograph. I used to work for the forestry service in the PNW, I'm originally from Oregon and grew up on a farm/ ranch, which was mostly timber, so I have spent a significant amount of my life outdoors. I've seen some strange things but never saw any sign of bigfoot that others report. I don't discount that bigfoot could exist, stranger things are out there. 

 

I don't have any kind of ties to these people which I think makes me a little more objective. I think Bipedalist said it best, if you didn't see what did it, or get a picture of it, then it's just a story. The driving goal of that project didn't succeed after many years of effort. Bigfoot might very well be the explanation but we will never know for sure based on the current status of the project. A bipedal primate is probably responsible but it likely isn't bigfoot for all of the activity described. 

 

My personal opinion is that there might actually be occasional activity out there but not all of it is genuine. Some of that activity is misrepresented either deliberately or by over excited imaginations.I base that conclusion on the fact that the remoteness of the property has been exaggerated. The story of the couple being in the area when a bigfoot was shot was omitted from the monograph. What else is exaggerated, omitted, or outright fantasy?

 

The most likely culprit for hoaxing anything would have to come from within the team itself. Not everyone involved would be aware which would add to the suggestibility of the group since the purpose of being out there is to look for woodapes. Anything that happened would be a forgone conclusion that creates a bias in perception.

 

If there was as much going on out there as reported they would have managed to capture one by now. I followed the anecdotal evidence and the conclusion that made the most sense to me was this. It is the most likely conclusion without totally discounting the experiences of others living in the area. Now what say you? Does the Emperor still wear clothes? 

[WSA]

I'd say that never is a long time. I'd also offer up the opinion that your knowledge of what is possible or likely in the woods of the PNW is something I am bound to respect, but of limited use in S.E. As for the idea someone in the group would risk death by gunshot to get their jollies seems kind of, I dunno....bat guano nuts?

[Guest Divergent1]

Right.  It is 

 

1) something that has never happened in the entire recorded history of our species, and count on it, couldn't in prehistory neither; or

2) a garden-variety critter of a kind of which there have been scads.  (No possible fossil progenitors found?  A number of them have been.)

 

If one wants to cut past the evidence and deny something, it makes sense to deny Homo sapiens.  There could not be anything like us.  Look at the rest of the animal world.  I know, right?  This whole human circus must be an IMAX playing behind a baboon's eyeballs; I couldn't be real and neither could you.  Sasquatch, on the other hand?  Gorilla, bigger and *slightly* more bipedal.  Big deal, of *course* that's real.  Mice and Pteranodon and Uintatherium and the aye-aye are real, right?  Sasquatch?  Yaaaaaaawn.  *Of duh course.*  Thousands see them; thousands of footprints found; and a film that neatly ties all threads of evidence together.  Of *course.*  

 

Maybe that's the problem.  We look at the world from our own entirely unlikely prospect, and consider the routine absurd and make the absurd routine.

 

Flat gobsmacks me how people talking about how important imagination is, Mr., um, Sagan, read a bunch of regular Joes talk about the somewhat non-routine - for your living room, I mean, but not for anywhere wild primates live - happenings they are seeing hanging out where the animals live...and accuse those of us who are just reading it of fabricating stuff, whilst they fabricate people that all evidence garnered over the history of our species prove beyond a doubt could not exist, who must exist because all of this stuff apes can do, easily, must be getting done by humans, and that is all there is to it.  Or they just say:  I am uncomfortable, and uninformed...so these folk must be lying.

 

Yep.  Weird species, we are.  Beyond weird.  I'd deny us, if you are gonna flat deny something right in front of yer eyeballs.

Time will tell, it's been 50+ years and we are still waiting. My imagination says if these things truly exist then we better be glad they want to hide from us because none of our assumptions about them are correct.

I'd say that never is a long time. I'd also offer up the opinion that your knowledge of what is possible or likely in the woods of the PNW is something I am bound to respect, but of limited use in S.E. As for the idea someone in the group would risk death by gunshot to get their jollies seems kind of, I dunno....bat guano nuts?

It depends on what part of the monograph you believe. I don't think someone would actually get out in the woods at dark and run through them, that could simply be wildlife. But rocks on the roof? Someone reaching through the window at you? Sure that could be easily fabricated. 

 

Before you defend and say I know these folks, you never truly know anyone, who among us has not  been betrayed by a friend that looked you straight in the eye and lied?

 

I've kept this to myself but the actual sightings out there might be real. They are few and far between though, how do you keep the members of the group vested in the project? You create activity to generate momentum to achieve the goal. The actual bigfoot presence in that area might be sporadic at best but you need a constant human presence to insure success.

Edited April 3, 2015 by Divergent1

[Guest DWA]

I'd say that never is a long time. I'd also offer up the opinion that your knowledge of what is possible or likely in the woods of the PNW is something I am bound to respect, but of limited use in S.E. As for the idea someone in the group would risk death by gunshot to get their jollies seems kind of, I dunno....bat guano nuts?

Well, far far beyond bat guano.  But this is it.  Bigfoot skeptics never pause to unpack what they're saying, and what it would mean.

 

The monograph makes it clear - and have I not typed this a hundred times?  What am I using, invisible ink? - that if people are doing this, they have trained, for years, together; no team of athletes - or soldiers, sailors, cops, you name it - the world has seen is anything like them.  They'd win the Super Bowl, the World Series, and the NBA championship...in a dead row on a dead run, with no off days, never mind every Olympic track and field event.  Toss in a few police actions around the globe to stay in training, you  know, reg'lar ol' outnumbered-ten-to-one, in-the-open firefights..  And some of them are small children.  In little ape suits.  No fear of death; persistence that would make Job go home.  If you doubt a word of this...read the monograph, any time you are ready.  People are not doing that.  No people you or our species have ever heard of.

 

Or sure, they're just lying.

 

It must suck to camp for what must seem like ages, on a website talking about bigfoot and nothing but...denying, or not even reading, anything being said.  Must be hell.

The only *fun* option on this site is the only one the evidence gives you:  knowing that bigfoot's real, 'cause the evidence says it is.

[kitakaze]

 

 

 

 

The above does not include the fact that no one ever need to specifically look for Bigfoot to find it.

 

Cascades Carnivore Connectivity Project: Multiple teams, 62 camera traps, 75 corrals, four years.

 

Canadian Rockies Remote Camera Species Occupancy Project: 250+ cameras, three years.

 

 

An interesting question for members of the Conservation Northwest. Have any of the researchers/members ever had sightings, encountered or even recorded anything that could be attributed as evidence of the alleged species of large bipedal primate known popularly as Sasquatch/Bigfoot? The Washington State is said to be a hotbed of activity by Bigfoot enthusiasts.

Furthermore, whether or not any such experience has happened, what do you think of the notion that were an encounter to happen or evidence be collected, it would be withheld for fear of ridicule or suppressed in some fashion?

Thank you for your wonderful efforts and all the best to all of you this Holiday Season!

 

 

Barbara Hi *****, I've been at Conservation Northwest for more than a decade and in that time we've never seen evidence of Bigfoot in our hundreds of cameras. I can't speak to if someone else would want to withhold evidence that is scientifically feasible, if there were any, but good science reveals all evidence, not just the results you expect. Thanks for the thoughts--interesting.

 

Hello, GP Task Force.

An interesting question for members of the GPTF. Have any of the researchers/members ever had sightings, encountered or even recorded anything that could be attributed as evidence of the alleged species of large bipedal primate known popularly as Sasquatch/Bigfoot? The Gifford Pinchot is said to be a hotbed of activity by Bigfoot enthusiasts.

Furthermore, whether or not any such experience has happened, what do you think of the notion that were an encounter to happen or evidence be collected, it would be withheld for fear of ridicule or suppressed in some fashion?

Thank you for your wonderful efforts and all the best to all of you this Holiday Season!

 

Hi ******,

While the Pacific Northwest has been the historical hot bed of activity with regard to alleged Bigfoot sightings, no staff, members, or volunteers have ever had an encounter with the purported creature or any signs that would indicate its actual existence since our inception in 1985.

With regard to collection of hard evidence, we would imagine that, if someone truly believed they had collected evidence of such a creature, they would provide the evidence for DNA sequencing and other substantive testing to verify it's legitimacy.

The Gifford Pinchot National Forest is a densely wooded swath of 1.3 million largely uninhabited acres full of a diverse array of natural wonders-we certainly do not mind that it's home to a world-renown legend.

All the best,

-The GP Task Force Team

 

[Guest DWA]

OK.  What did ^^^he say?

[WSA]

Well Divergent1, if your world includes people who would creep up to an armed camp at night and reach through an open window to tag somebody sleeping with a loaded weapon, I guess your reality and mine will never mesh. The mental operations to accomplish this perspective are way beyond my ken.