The Carter Farm

[JDL]

But for "bigfoot" to have its origin in the biblical folklore of the story of Esau you have to get pretty soft with your science. If you want to give any credibility to the story of Esau, then you must agree that Esau was the literal brother of Jacob. The biblical Esau would have to have been Homo sapiens. Yes, he is described as "hairy" and perhaps more muscular and outdoorsy than an average guy. So? By those tokens, we probably have several bigfoots reading BFF posts today. Huntster comes to mind . . .

Esau was a guy. He lived in a patriarchal, herding society a few thousand years ago. He wore clothes. He used fire and made tools. He kept flocks of sheep and goats. He used language. He understood such complex cultural ideas as "birthright" and the inheritance of land and material wealth. He cooked his food. He took a human wife when he left his homeland . . .

He wasn't bigfoot, and neither could his descendants become so between then and now.

You're taking the Esau story more literally than I am. I view it allegorically. He may not have been just a guy, he may allegorically represent a species. We know that our ancestors and neanderthals co-existed in the Middle East for a period of time and that DNA mixing seemed to occur more there than elsewhere. I'm not applying any science to the story, I'm simply wondering if it allegorically describes how humans shared the landscape with another species. Just wondering.

There's absolutely no way to prove it and I wouldn't try. I'll only suggest a maybe. Another thing I've always wondered is why it is specified that God made Man is His image. Was this statement a matter of course, or is it more significant because there was another option? It seemed to make a difference who was favored and who was blessed. Were those who were favored justified in using force to secure scarce resources, thus denying water, hunting grounds, etc., from those who were not favored? Just wondering.

If our distant ancestors did interact with neanderthals or bigfoot, it seems to me that they would have documented it to some degree, first by passing it down word of mouth and then, perhaps, alluding to it in their first texts. If so, how much of that has survived successive purging and remains? Is any of that which remains factual? Has any of it become allegory? Just wondering.

No science, no foul.

[Guest]

Silver Fox said:

The film was shot by the previous owners of the home who sold it to Erickson. There is also an incredible 4-5 minutes of HD footage of Matilda sleeping in a forest. This is not so closeup. She is lying on her back in the forest and looks very peaceful. At the end of the movie she starts to get alarmed and wake up.

Susi says:

I think that it is very important the way that you described the female BF awakening. First she is sleeping peacefully, then she becomes alarmed, and then *Wakes Up*.

I take this event as demonstrating the almost supernatural ability the BF have regarding smell. She first started from sleep, to being alarmed, and then she woke up.

Plus they seem to follow *their* humans, even over long distances.

I believe that their sense of smell is almost supernatural, above dogs even who have also been know to follow their families when separated by a move.

This was an unknown smell from the researcher, the BF starts responding to the smell *before* she awakens. This is an amazing species, and are smarter than I had already thought that they were.

No wonder they are so hard to find and /or capture on cameras, especially game cams. They seem to be able to smell the cameras, and the humans who put them there.

It's all making sense to me now why they are so hard to catch..

[Guest]

You're taking the Esau story more literally than I am. I view it allegorically.

Oh, then you don't need it at all. Why hearken to an allegory from the oral tradition of an ancient Middle Eastern herding culture when there's plenty of empirical evidence for the existence of creatures that our best reconstructions indicate probably looked a lot like what people report as bigfoot?

Another thing I've always wondered is why it is specified that God made Man is His image.

By the same token, why take this phrase as particularly noteworthy when you're not convinced that Esau was supposed to be the literal brother of Jacob?

(I'd always assumed it had something to do with the fact that gods so often looked inhuman in ancient cultures, e.g.: the sun, flying serpents, dudes with jackal heads, etc.)

Apologies for the thread derail folks!

[Guest]

Thank you for your quick response Fox. I’m so glad I asked this question because it seems that plenty has happened since the days of National Geographic’s cheap shots and the late night garlic borrowing.

So if what your saying is that Janice was delusional or had some type of mental illness then how should we view those who validate her claims?

I can remember hearing a radio show with a researcher named Joe Fex a few years back. He claimed that these creatures came within a few feet of him while he was on the farm with Mary Green. Close enough that he was able to greet them. Close enough that he feared for his life.

This is only one claim that I’m mentioning. I do know of a few others and I’m pretty sure that there’s more then a few.

Cryptozoology.com use to have wars over this topic. It was those who staked out the Carter farm and had experienced certain activity vs. those who spent time at the same location and came up with nothing. It was a bad scene.

Personally I’m torn. Sometimes I feel that the book Mary penned with Janice should be placed in the fiction section. However, there’s another side of me that wants to know what all of her loyal supporters are seeing.

Susi says:

With all of the new gadgets out today, why not put a camera on the body of a person who can approach the BF who seem to have adopted that human, or put one on the lady who had her BF group/family follow her over 80 miles away from where she had been living??

Rub the camera over the human to try to hide the camera's odor, and then record these interactions.

This could work using humans that the BF have *adopted*.

[Guest]

Can't remember the show, but I remember watching the elderly russian dude who apparently bought the Carter bit hook, line, & sinker at the Carter hacienda, demontrating how BF kill deer by frog hopping over to a busted 3D deer target, mauling it, them pantomining scooping out the guts & feeding.

The only reason I remember this as it was so utterly ridiculous & campy that I said out loud to myself, "now that is going to help credibility"...

Edited May 9, 2011 by NDT

[JDL]

Oh, then you don't need it at all. Why hearken to an allegory from the oral tradition of an ancient Middle Eastern herding culture when there's plenty of empirical evidence for the existence of creatures that our best reconstructions indicate probably looked a lot like what people report as bigfoot?

By the same token, why take this phrase as particularly noteworthy when you're not convinced that Esau was supposed to be the literal brother of Jacob?

(I'd always assumed it had something to do with the fact that gods so often looked inhuman in ancient cultures, e.g.: the sun, flying serpents, dudes with jackal heads, etc.)

Apologies for the thread derail folks!

You missed my point. The question is not whether or not they existed or exist, I'm satisfied on that account. The question on my mind is how did our two species inter-relate back when survival was more iffy and they may have been in direct competition with each other for scarce resources?

Your interpretation of the image phrase may be dead on, who knows?

Bringing this arc back around to the thread, the Carter Farm account deals directly with recent interspecies relations, same thing I'm pondering about in the past, and I'll point out that it was Grandpa Carter who maintained that Fox and his clan were the descendents of Esau. If so, do you suppose they have a sense of history? If so, I doubt it would go all the way back to whenever the Esau story first occurred or was first told. But I gather that they were conscious of past conflict with our species.

[Guest Sallaranda]

Interesting topic of conversation going on between JDL and Saskeptic. Given my general lack of knowledge on anything biblical, I want to pull a certain piece from that discussion to focus on:

Where does Bigfoot fit into place between primitive ape and human?

Naturally, Biology and Evolution do not function in black and white, but rather in shades of grey. It is up to scientists to analyze those shades of grey and attempt to categorically identify them into black and whites - mostly to help the general community better understand.

Therefore, we have two distinct categories of species: apes and humans. Does Bigfoot fit into one of these categories, does it fit into a third category, or does it fit somewhere in the middle?

How about Neanderthal. Where do they fit in? Some will say they are completely human, some will say they fall just short of being human. I do not think there is any chance of Bigfoot falling between Neanderthal and humans. Neanderthal display a much greater degree of intelligence, whereas Bigfoot's mastery of the wilderness and lack of tool use suggests it is closer to ape.

As far as language goes, all species use some form of language to some degree. When does it stop being primitive methods of communicating vague behaviors, and when does it start to become intelligent language suggestive of a human?

So many grey areas it makes my head spin..

[Guest]

The question on my mind is how did our two species inter-relate back when survival was more iffy and they may have been in direct competition with each other for scarce resources?

The fact that there are nearly 7 billion of us and presumably far fewer (I'd say zero) of them answers your question. Again, no need for Esau.

the Carter Farm account deals directly with recent interspecies relations, same thing I'm pondering about in the past, and I'll point out that it was Grandpa Carter who maintained that Fox and his clan were the descendents of Esau.

I don't suppose Mr. Carter was well versed in Hominid evolution, hence he stuck with what he knew: the bible. It needn't be any more complicated than that.

[Guest]

You missed my point. The question is not whether or not they existed or exist, I'm satisfied on that account. The question on my mind is how did our two species inter-relate back when survival was more iffy and they may have been in direct competition with each other for scarce resources?

There are some archaeologists that believe the references to the nephilim are referring to the neanderthal/human hybrids, who were mighty men as it says, and that upon review "giant" was a mistranslation of the word nephilim that didn't have an exact translation. I lean towards those accounts in the apocryphal Book of Enoch as a remnant testament to what civilization was like when cro-mag and neanderthal met in the middle east. The Dead Sea scrolls confirm that the Book of Enoch was around before Christ and that the story is based on a much, much older legend.

As for bigfoot being neanderthal,there is a big gap between Europe/ middle east and North America so I'm not going with bigfoot being a neanderthal remnant. Any time the winner or survivor retells of a historical "clash of the titans" it is because they are the blessed ones, I would not take the reference to being made in 'God's image" too seriously. I'm not sure about the reliability of this link but here is more information about the apocryphal books and specifically Enoch.

http://reluctant-messenger.com/enoch.htm

Edited May 9, 2011 by Jodie

[JDL]

Interesting topic of conversation going on between JDL and Saskeptic. Given my general lack of knowledge on anything biblical, I want to pull a certain piece from that discussion to focus on:

Where does Bigfoot fit into place between primitive ape and human?

Naturally, Biology and Evolution do not function in black and white, but rather in shades of grey. It is up to scientists to analyze those shades of grey and attempt to categorically identify them into black and whites - mostly to help the general community better understand.

Therefore, we have two distinct categories of species: apes and humans. Does Bigfoot fit into one of these categories, does it fit into a third category, or does it fit somewhere in the middle?

How about Neanderthal. Where do they fit in? Some will say they are completely human, some will say they fall just short of being human. I do not think there is any chance of Bigfoot falling between Neanderthal and humans. Neanderthal display a much greater degree of intelligence, whereas Bigfoot's mastery of the wilderness and lack of tool use suggests it is closer to ape.

As far as language goes, all species use some form of language to some degree. When does it stop being primitive methods of communicating vague behaviors, and when does it start to become intelligent language suggestive of a human?

So many grey areas it makes my head spin..

My money is on more human than ape. When I first encountered one face to face I didn't think "That's a heck of a big gorilla". I was thinking "Look how huge that big black man is." Of course at the same moment my brother was screaming "That's not a man! That's not a man!" After close to a minute of direct eye contact I didn't perceive that he was any less intelligent than I. But then, he didn't say anything, which is the best way to preserve others' impression that you are intelligent.

When I looked up and saw a pregnant female watching me fish from the other bank of a small lake my first thought was "Where'd the hillbilly woman come from?" It wasn't "Wow, look at the gorilla." She didn't say anything either. I did not perceive her to be as intelligent as I, but she came across as more intelligent than a gorilla or chimp.

I've never seen a neanderthal. I've never heard a bigfoot speak, but I have heard several vocalizations.

You're the second person to equate intelligence to tool use in a thread I've participated in. I've never seen one use a tool. I have heard them using something to knock on trees, if that qualifies in your book. Since their physical abilities obviate the need for some tools, it may not be an applicable standard for the measure of intelligence in this case.

I suppose tree-knocking qualifies as communication. I've also had one toss a couple of pebbles at me. Whether or not she was trying to get my attention she did and she retreated as I pursued her. Is pebble-throwing communication? If so, it would be a fairly loose standard.

Edited May 9, 2011 by JDL

[JDL]

The fact that there are nearly 7 billion of us and presumably far fewer (I'd say zero) of them answers your question. Again, no need for Esau.

I don't suppose Mr. Carter was well versed in Hominid evolution, hence he stuck with what he knew: the bible. It needn't be any more complicated than that.

I think we're simply talking past each other at this point. Your comments are predicated on the fact that you have never seen one and are skeptical about there existence. That's ok by me.

My comments are predicated on direct observation of more than one individual. I don't believe they exist, I know that they do. I understand that this is insufficient proof for you and that's ok by me too. I do hope that you one day have the opportunity to see one. You would enjoy it under the right circumstances.

The theory I keep going back to is that they are, in part, what they are because they have adapted to live in a world we dominate. There must have been conflict at regular intervals in the past over prime resources. A bigfoot clan living near a herding or agrarian culture would have been a menace to survival. Look at one of the primary themes from the Carter Farm account. They kept consuming the food - the goats, the cattle, other livestock, and much of the food they grew. They came to expect Grandpa Carter to feed them. When they didn't get the food they wanted, it caused conflict. Grandpa Carter let them take what they wanted most of the time. I doubt every human group subject to poaching by a group of bigfoot was so understanding. More likely, they ganged up on them and chased them out of the area, or at least tried. More likely this was the standard response. I figure they've only been relatively unmolested since people started telling us that they don't exist.

Now there's an amusing thought. We exert force against them until their numbers dwindle. They become so scarce that we put them out of mind. After a time they resurge until new reports start coming in, but we're told that they don't exist, so they continue to resurge unmolested. Finally, someone wakes up and says "Gee, look at all the bigfoot." Then it gets interesting.

[Guest]

I equally am hesitant to link tool use to intelligence. I've met many very bright folks who couldn't use a chainsaw to save their lives, or knap flint with a gun held to their heads. Everyone here was a beginner on the computer at some point and the odds of it going well at first for everyone are pretty remote.

I would wager as well most here couldn't live off the land without any tools, noodling fish is an art, and knowing what and how to consume wild plants isn't exactly everyday common knowledge anymore.

[JDL]

There are some archaeologists that believe the references to the nephilim are referring to the neanderthal/human hybrids, who were mighty men as it says, and that upon review "giant" was a mistranslation of the word nephilim that didn't have an exact translation. I lean towards those accounts in the apocryphal Book of Enoch as a remnant testament to what civilization was like when cro-mag and neanderthal met in the middle east. The Dead Sea scrolls confirm that the Book of Enoch was around before Christ and that the story is based on a much, much older legend.

As for bigfoot being neanderthal,there is a big gap between Europe/ middle east and North America so I'm not going with bigfoot being a neanderthal remnant. Any time the winner or survivor retells of a historical "clash of the titans" it is because they are the blessed ones, I would not take the reference to being made in 'God's image" too seriously. I'm not sure about the reliability of this link but here is more information about the apocryphal books and specifically Enoch.

http://reluctant-messenger.com/enoch.htm

I had also heard that nephelim had been mistranslated as giant. That said, bigfoot are pretty good sized. I keep hearing third hand about a DNA study currently under peer review that gives them both human and neanderthal characteristics. It also supposedly gives them some animal characteristics, which I find troubling.

I will say that some hybrids turn out larger than either parent species.

I'll also suggest that, if we did make a practice of pushing them out of prime habitat, then we may have to look for their fossils in less than prime habitat, or at least in places where you don't find those of our own ancestors.

The Book of Enoch looks interesting.

[Guest]

I don't remember ever reading any of this anywhere, and I believe that I would remember it if I had.

This information may have been available before today, but somehow I totally missed it.

As a mother and a nurse,I have worked closely with abused children. I read this child was beaten, and then the parents are trying to ensure her safety from a young BF male. Why does the gender of the BF matter?

That's my question, and I asked was the reason because he could harm her, or what? I'm responding to that statement, plus I'm very distressed to read that this young woman was *beaten*.

In all honesty, You are the person who has written a provocative post, not I.

Asking you to clarify your particular interest in BF is hardly provocative. Everyone gets asked to clarify their interest at some point. I did put forth the assumption it was difficult to believe you hadn't come across the Carter Farm info before, but I also asked you to set me straight if I was mistaken. Which you did.

Having seen your responses to BF information and the shock you profess, along with a healthy ration of fear of course it's inevitable to be curious??

At some point the burden is on each of us to take initiative and avail ourselves of all the material out there on Sasquatch, Bigfoot, or other crypo-critters.

[Guest]

I equally am hesitant to link tool use to intelligence. I've met many very bright folks who couldn't use a chainsaw to save their lives, or knap flint with a gun held to their heads. Everyone here was a beginner on the computer at some point and the odds of it going well at first for everyone are pretty remote.

I would wager as well most here couldn't live off the land without any tools, noodling fish is an art, and knowing what and how to consume wild plants isn't exactly everyday common knowledge anymore.

You are correct about being lost in the woods, and staying alive. Hubby was an Eagle Scout, if I ever got lost *with* him, I'd be fine. He knows everything and I'm not kidding. But most people would not fare as well.

Hopefully most people would *hug* a tree and stay put until rescue occurs. Yikes!

Especially if you are on the Carter Farm where BF abounds!

Edited May 9, 2011 by SweetSusiq