Has Bigfoot Science Stalled?

[Bodhi]

If you want a project that fits the bill. 

mini Zeppelin (most efficient design) with a FLIR, zoom. You need a 10 mile telecommunication link telecommunications and audio visual. There are other designs as well and I could tell you of the relative merits.

The other cheaper option is a passive hydrogen balloon.

The problem here with lighter than aircraft is flight restrictions would prevent you from flying on the USA. (unless again)>> You are a test vehicle, most likely a military one for research and development of surveillance in lighter than air craft.

The problem are money so (unless again) as a military project you get money and design assistance if approved: The problem here: as a military project, your inventions may be used to kill and you may not be able to use your intellectual property in civilian space and recon of BF areas might be outside of the testing parameter, so on the sly, so to speak.

     What doe this have to do with this thread?

You can have a great platform for remote observation of BF behavior and population dynamics and get visual, audio, and understand long term behaviors, habitats, reproduction, social organization, other. You can record the data but no need to reveal study area or means of obtaining it.

My guess is that reaper drones are operated over Cali and may already have good footage but the military would have no interest in releasing the information for several reasons, one of which is is is not the mission of the military and would create controversy with the public and other organizations and departments of the Government such as USGS, USDA, USFS. 

So this is a passive though proactive no kill approach for pure research.

You could organize right here on the BFF.

You need some aerospace engineering design talent, communications design, project design and organization, funding, organization.

Perhaps you are the right audience? I could probably help design the project goals.

Anyhoo, I'm out.

sounds like you're describing the falcon project. The numerous issues involved with running a mini-zepplin in the woods were well spelled out then but. The need for a large unobstructed location, more than one actually, for landings in the wild. The need for many helpers once the zepp is on the ground. The flying regulations for blimps. The loud noise of existing engines. The range of blimps. The tight operating windows for blimps and the unpredictable winds (updrafts/downdrafts) around mountains. The costs. It seems like a neat idea but when they started looking at the reality of trying to run one, on a consistent basis, in the wilderness it became clear that it's a pretty poor platform.

 

I think there was a great start with the ISC in the 80's. The group were able to place some solid scientists on the board and within the organization. There were also more than enough qualified scientists who were open to publishing and researching with the group. But with the death of the president of the group it folded as no one else was willing to step in to head the organization. Something akin to the ISC will have to come along before any meaningful progress is likely to be made IMO.

[georgerm]

 

I posed about 20 newspaper documents dating to the early 1800s where a bigfoot body was brought into a small community on a wagon, horse, or some other way. It didn't last too long with no refrigeration, and they buried the stinky corpse somewhere.  

 

I've seen the old articles on giant burial mounds, but not on bigfoot bodies. Can anyone point me toward a couple of these. Are there any scanned online?

 

 

Here are some sample reports Austin and I had another site too. Welcome to the forum.

 

1856: Ohio or West Virginia. Possible Bigfoot skeleton found with bullet holes in its skull. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record.

Late 1800’s: Winston, Alabama. A moonshiner shot a Bigfoot that was following his mule wagon.

October 1879: Williamstown, Vermont. Two men hunting in the woods were surprised by a Bigfoot. One shot and wounded it. The Bigfoot chased them out of the woods. Reported by the New York Times, October 18, 1879.

1882: Inyo, California. A man, Jack Ferral, shot a Bigfoot five times. Reported by the Inyo Register, March 19, 1981 referring to articles in the Bishop Creek Times of 1882, noted in the Bigfoot Co-op April 1981, p.2.

 

https://robertlindsay.wordpress.com/2014/07/12/bigfoot-news-july-12-2014/

 

Bigfoot "science" has stalled in the sense that it's hard to do much more without, well, data.

 

I am impressed with the NAWAC group's monograph and Brian Browns 2013 presentation because at least here is an attempt to behave scientifically. Short of a body, some of their work has a "false positive" or Type 1 error feel in my opinion. This could be avoided (or tested) by sending teams into Sasquatch free "null" areas and see how many times many of the vocalizations, stone throws, etc. happen. Obviously this would be difficult to do and require some kind of deception (as in a placebo controlled trial), but it would be very VERY useful to establishing the statistical reliability of non-biological data and understanding the degree to which observer bias plays into their reports.

 

Then the data they collect could be effectively tested against something. And by testing I mean actual statistical analysis with a p-value.

 

I hope this isn't stepping on too many toes.

 Welcome Drift to the forum.

 

The main factors that have always limited scientific advance where bigfoot is concerned are interest/belief among academic/professional scientists, and funding. I suspect that there are scientists out there who truly would take a shot at discovering bigfoot by doing real field work, but only if they were given the funding. And I do not mean just once. Scientific advancements have been made when there is only a single small team working on a problem, but more often than not the research and field work is being done by more than one group, and this is even more important where sasquatch research is concerned, since the odds are increased.

 

.

 

 Why is funding for these small teams not available?  Are such university teams out there now?

[MIB]

 

Why is funding for these small teams not available?  Are such university teams out there now?

 

Funding for academic research is very competitive.   Such funding is grant-based and the grants are for specific research, they don't just give you a pile of money and tell you to go find something to study.    Grants can be either federal or institutional but either sort generally requires approval of the academic department.    Boiling it down to simplest terms, you're asking the very same academics who've already scoffed, who are unwilling to engage in the search, to approve your funding to search for bigfoot while turning down some other research (because they have a fixed budget) they think is of higher value.

 

Its sort of a "fox guarding the henhouse" situation perpetuating the lack of action.   I don't believe you're going to get academic funding to look for bigfoot.   Ever.   Academic funding for study of bigfoot won't come until AFTER they've been proven to exist.  (Notice the difference, "search for" vs "study".)

 

As to your second question, no, I don't believe so.   Academics who search for bigfoot do so from their personal budget, it's not funded by their academic department or university.   

 

MIB

Edited January 19, 2016 by MIB

[Woodslore]

I have a thought as to why it may seem as though the science of Bigfoot has stalled. We have not "found" (people have seen it) bigfoot because people do not want it to. If it turns out to be real or fake the mystery is gone.

[Celtic Raider]

The bigfoot community does not need outside funding or personnel to potentially prove bigfoot exists.  It simply needs a true cooperation within it's own ranks.  Consider the subject of habitation for a moment.  Either all are fake, some are fake all are real or some are real.  Assume for a moment some are real. All that is required is for the community at large or a respected person say Jeff Meldrum to spearhead a dialogue with the most promising trust worthy habituators to share their information/bigfoot with science.  This is not a case of real science not wanting to be involved.  Some real scientists are involved and willing.  It must however be considered that this lack of openness on the part of habituators is a means to save face about the falsehood of their claims or by some quirk of psychology all habitatuators have a hermit mentality that somehow bigfoot ferret out to befriend.  Personally I lean towards the former of these two possibilities.  If any one of the well known habituation cases were true and had they been open to the rigors I have mentioned it would have been case closed a long time ago.  

 

That said yes bigfoot science has stalled.

 

Good post Crow.

 

With regard to scientific research, I think it has to be said that while entertaining, much publicized programmes like Finding Bigfoot have not really helped the serious study. Charging around in the dark whooping and banging trees with baseball bats is about as useless as science gets with regards to actually 'finding' a bigfoot . What is needed is not some huge, highly funded but cumbersome enterprise but maybe a couple of modestly equipped but determined small groups or pairs even staking out hotspots for a number of weeks or months continuously. Good footage can be obtained with relatively low cost digital cameras these days and even items such as good quality thermal imaging cameras are an awful lot cheaper than any time in the past and relatively inexpensive when compared to hobbies like golf or sailing.

 

Well trained (with their equipment), dedicated amateurs methodically investigating the habituation areas in particular (if you believe them to be honest) should produce some very good results in a relatively short time period. Attain a series of high definition, unambiguous photos then back that up with track casts, maybe some scat and some hair samples and I'm sure the necessary funding and boots on the ground would be easily found from suddenly interested parties.

[georgerm]

 

 

Why is funding for these small teams not available?  Are such university teams out there now?

 

Funding for academic research is very competitive.   Such funding is grant-based and the grants are for specific research, they don't just give you a pile of money and tell you to go find something to study.    Grants can be either federal or institutional but either sort generally requires approval of the academic department.    Boiling it down to simplest terms, you're asking the very same academics who've already scoffed, who are unwilling to engage in the search, to approve your funding to search for bigfoot while turning down some other research (because they have a fixed budget) they think is of higher value.

 

Its sort of a "fox guarding the henhouse" situation perpetuating the lack of action.   I don't believe you're going to get academic funding to look for bigfoot.   Ever.   Academic funding for study of bigfoot won't come until AFTER they've been proven to exist.  (Notice the difference, "search for" vs "study".)

 

As to your second question, no, I don't believe so.   Academics who search for bigfoot do so from their personal budget, it's not funded by their academic department or university.   

 

MIB

 

 

 

MIB, your description of the academic dilemma is spot on. Asking for grant money to study bigfoot rather than the orange spotted tree frog is a matter of losing or keeping a job.

 

I have a thought as to why it may seem as though the science of Bigfoot has stalled. We have not "found" (people have seen it) bigfoot because people do not want it to. If it turns out to be real or fake the mystery is gone.

 

 

 

We on the forum are living during the 'dark ages' of prebigfoot discovery. We are like the small group of astronomers that knew the Earth is round. We don't know how long this mystery phase will last. Maybe we should enjoy the quest since bigfoot some day will be old news. Academic teams will be fighting over huge sums of funding and science will no longer be slow or just stalled.

 

Aristotle accepted the spherical shape of the Earth on empirical grounds around 330 BC, and knowledge of the spherical Earth gradually began to spread beyond the Hellenistic world from then on....................

 

Hello Celtic: You make some good points and some are out there doing as you describe.

Edited January 19, 2016 by georgerm

[Celtic Raider]

 

We on the forum are living during the 'dark ages' of prebigfoot discovery. We are like the small group of astronomers that knew the Earth is round. We don't know how long this mystery phase will last. Maybe we should enjoy the quest since bigfoot some day will be old news. Academic teams will be fighting over huge sums of funding and science will be no longer be slow or just stalled.

 

Aristotle accepted the spherical shape of the Earth on empirical grounds around 330 BC, and knowledge of the spherical Earth gradually began to spread beyond the Hellenistic world from then on....................

 

Hello Celtic: You make some good points and some are out there doing as you describe.

 

 

Thanks Georgerm!

 

The difference is that we have the tools and the means right now to be able to solve this mystery. Aristotle was hamstrung by limited technology and archaic means and ideas surrounding him. This is the frustrating thing............. science has for hundreds if not thousands of years been done by amateurs with great success, if we believe Bigfoot to be real the discovery will be done by an amateur and only the follow up study by professional scientists.

 

It's the real crux of the situation for me and my own doubts about the existence. If real, honest research is being done in these areas then real, solid, verifiable evidence ought to be being produced. As Crow said, it all seems a little clandestine at these 'habituation sites', Groups like the NAWAC not bothering to try and capture photos as their goal is purely to try and bag a specimen is like playing in the Superbowl but turning down 3 points every time you get a 4th and long in field goal range, sometimes the incremental adds up, you can't score a touchdown every drive. Photos won't prove the existence but they will generate outside interest, increase profile and aid in the recruitment of volunteers, funds, make the effort seem more legitimate and edge you closer to the actual goal.

 

As an aside, is there any other NAWAC type studies going on that I am not familiar with that I may read up on??

[Guest]

Sadly, I think it will take a real, dead, body to prove the existence of Bigfoot,then all kinds of money will come in.  Any sort of photos, high quality videos,etc,will not be enough. 

Until then, I would still like to see more success with simple things like trail cams, etc. If there is an area rich with Bigfoot tracks, why not load those areas up with trail cams? I live in NJ,so while I think it's likely Bigfoot can be here and quite possibly is, I have no doubt he is readily available in the Pacific Northwest,and simple things like trailcams should be doing a lot more then we have seen. Some People say that Bigfoot is too smart and detects them,and avoids them. I think if they are like most animals, or even people, it would be hard to avoid them. A flashless or IR camera won't give off light to spook them, and cover scent & camouflage can be used to hide them. 

 

Also, money,funding,etc is much needed to hunt and verify Bigfoot's capture. If I had won that big Lottery this week, I certainly would have spent a good amount on Bigfooting research    

[ShadowBorn]

 

As Crow said, it all seems a little clandestine at these 'habituation sites', Groups like the NAWAC

But if science has stalled? would it not benefit  science to use these groups as control groups . This way they could recover greater data from these creatures while using these groups as a control. It just makes sense to create some thing like this, where people who have knowledge in certain fields of study. Could go within a database and  can study these control groups and began to understand a living entity living in our forest.

 

The reason amateurs seem to be the first at discovery, IMO . They are always in the field and seem to be in the right place at the right time of discovery. It is when they cannot understand that science gets involve, this surprises me of our past. Of all the time that one has been shot in the past, not one has been studied by science. So this does leave me scratching my head to why? 

 

Why has it only been reported in the 1700 - 1900  that these creatures have been shot but never studied by science. Maybe science has already studied this subject and already knows the truth. Maybe this could be why science has stalled as well. Science is stalling this on purpose since it already knows and is either very nervous or maybe scared of change. Again this is JMO.

 

 

[JKH]

 

Here are some sample reports Austin and I had another site too. Welcome to the forum.

1856: Ohio or West Virginia. Possible Bigfoot skeleton found with bullet holes in its skull. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record.

Late 1800’s: Winston, Alabama. A moonshiner shot a Bigfoot that was following his mule wagon.

October 1879: Williamstown, Vermont. Two men hunting in the woods were surprised by a Bigfoot. One shot and wounded it. The Bigfoot chased them out of the woods. Reported by the New York Times, October 18, 1879.

1882: Inyo, California. A man, Jack Ferral, shot a Bigfoot five times. Reported by the Inyo Register, March 19, 1981 referring to articles in the Bishop Creek Times of 1882, noted in the Bigfoot Co-op April 1981, p.2.

 

 

The first, second, and last links in that post are dead. That website has been gone for a long time.

 

There are literally hundreds of people (don't like the term researcher) gathering data as we type, all over the country, and they're mostly networked. That is science, that's why I said it's ongoing. Some of them post on this forum. MANY have blogs, podcasts, utube channels, facebook groups, etc.

If anyone wants to learn more about it, it's their responsibility to do the homework. I'll never understand why anybody with a genuine interest would want stuff handed to them, and not pay attention to what's really going on.

Edited January 19, 2016 by JKH

[Yuchi1]

IMO, if you want to "find" BF, find the bones, live ones move around, their skeletal remains don't.

[hiflier]

Hello JiggyPotamus,

 

 

Someone call CERN and tell them the elusive particle they're searching for does not exist, because they've already failed to find it. Not the best example I suppose, but you get my point, and I can't think of anything better at the moment.

 

This ^^ Pay attention folks. This is classic Jiggy logic at work. EXCELLENT work JP.

[SWWASAS]

Balderdash. There has been discovered a long fossil record of an enormous amount of North and South American flora and fauna, from prior to and ever since the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event.

Baldershash? Care to venture a guess at what percentage of the species on this planet that have left a fossil record here or anywhere else? I will not even humor you by giving you the answer. Hint! It is a lot closer to zero than 10% It is like walking into a library, picking out twelve books at random, and creating the entire history of humanity from those twelve books. Mostly guess and conjecture on the part of science.

Edited January 20, 2016 by SWWASASQUATCHPROJECT

[Celtic Raider]

 

 

As Crow said, it all seems a little clandestine at these 'habituation sites', Groups like the NAWAC

But if science has stalled? would it not benefit  science to use these groups as control groups . This way they could recover greater data from these creatures while using these groups as a control. It just makes sense to create some thing like this, where people who have knowledge in certain fields of study. Could go within a database and  can study these control groups and began to understand a living entity living in our forest.

 

The reason amateurs seem to be the first at discovery, IMO . They are always in the field and seem to be in the right place at the right time of discovery. It is when they cannot understand that science gets involve, this surprises me of our past. Of all the time that one has been shot in the past, not one has been studied by science. So this does leave me scratching my head to why? 

 

Why has it only been reported in the 1700 - 1900  that these creatures have been shot but never studied by science. Maybe science has already studied this subject and already knows the truth. Maybe this could be why science has stalled as well. Science is stalling this on purpose since it already knows and is either very nervous or maybe scared of change. Again this is JMO.

 

 

The problem as I see it is that nobody can use anything from these groups because either:

 

i) they are clandestine and anything they find is kept, photos not shared, evidence not shown - how many times have we heard stories about habituation sites and people who are regularly seeing (and interacting with in some cases) creatures but cannot or will not share the evidence for one reason or another

 

ii) they are simply not having the experiences and there is no 'habituation' going on

 

Science in this case will not be done by people in white coats in labs, it will be done by amateurs in the woods and forests. It has stalled as no new evidence greater than that already provided is being produced. Science will be advanced when amateurs who are in the right locations produce evidence that can forward the case..........the bite marks on the bones being one example which is actually different from the other evidence produced - this actually seems quite a promising line of enquiry in contradiction to the topic at hand. 

 

The trouble is, producing more ambiguous, blurry photos will not move anything forward. Producing more unclear foot print casts will not move anything forward. Providing more tales and anecdotal evidence will not move anything forward. Progress would come with something like a series of clear HD photos or video, fossilized remains, bones, DNA and so on.

 

Basically for those of us who don't claim to 'know' and have not moved to 'believe' yet we need better evidence not more and more of the same.

[Incorrigible1]

Anthropologists probably operate with the biggest bag of scientific dogma of any field. Their entire human history theory revolves around one continent (Africa) that has been relatively stable geologically for a very long time and not only that but centered in a fairly small area where most of the early finds have been discovered. Has discovery written the history of mankind or has the history been a creation to explain what little we know so far? The Pacific Ring of fire, mountain building and erosion, frequent ice ages and inter-ice age inland seas have frequently inundated vast portions of the North American continent. That and a extinction level event meteor strike in Mexico that pretty much wiped the slate clean 65 million years ago in much of North America. I quite frankly would not be at all surprised if the origins of mankinds ancestors was someplace other than Africa. Camels may not have been the only animal that migrated West into Eurasia.

It's your anti-science screed I oppose. A nebulous belief the Smithsonian have conspired to hide knowledge of human or bigfoot cultures is unproven at best, crackpot or more at the worst.

 

I cannot say humans did not first evolve on North America, but such a belief is right up there with Edgar Rice Burroughs, lost continents, and living dinosaurs roaming remote hill. It just ain't so. Known N American primate remains are the size of squirrels.

 

Also, don't forget the rather complete fossilized evolution of the horse, which did occur in N America.

 

http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/horse/the-evolution-of-horses