Night Walker Posted March 21, 2016 Share Posted March 21, 2016 Not the same. A sighting is a direct 1st person account. It's only speculative if the circumstances were not clear to the witness himself. Many people clearly see Bigfoot in clearly defined circumstances (ie when they are searching for Bigfoot) and are clearly sincere about it but that clearly does not make it so: What skeptics do is speculate on all sightings without regard for the quality of the witness or the circumstances of the sighting based solely on their own belief system. The skeptical process is a step removed, derivative to the sightings themselves and, more often that not, subjectively dismissive based on nothing more than the premise that bigfoot do not exist. I'm not much of a skeptic - I believe Bigfoot "exists" just not in the same manner as yourself. Neither do I "dismiss" any sighting - the above pictures (there are dozens/hundreds/thousands of similar pictures and proclamations), for example, provide tangible evidence of what Bigfoot actually is (ie illusive rather than elusive) and are, therefore, important to understanding the phenomena. Witnesses, too, speculate (even if they call it "knowing what they saw") based on their own subjective experience of the event and via their own belief systems. The skeptical process simply lacks the experiential basis of the witness/experiencer (ie they don't know what it feels like to experience Bigfoot) so reach out and invite a skeptic next time you go out looking for Bigfoot... Bigfoot is an awesome subject for inquiry. Why not share the love? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
norseman Posted March 21, 2016 Share Posted March 21, 2016 (edited) The most persistent point regarding any report is that every single witness providing any bit of data about Bigfoot appears to be sincere yet despite that apparent sincerity of dozens/hundreds/thousands of these witnesses no case has provided even a single piece of verifiable objective evidence that stands up to scrutiny or meets the predefined standard of new species recognition. Not one… That’s 0% conversion rate doesn’t mean that they are all lying – many appear to truly believe what they claim to have experienced. Most of these people are honest and seriously trying to understand exactly what happened. We are taught to trust our own senses and if they saw a giant hairy biped then that is what they saw (unless there is objective evidence of deceit to state otherwise) but that doesn’t necessarily mean that what they subjectively saw was the same as what was objectively there - we don’t really see with our eyes we perceive with our minds. Our minds are geared towards filling in the blanks. Bigfoot may be simply illusive rather than super elusive: It cannot be demonstrated that Bigfoot doesn’t exist but the above examples demonstrate that many people can and do see Bigfoot in moments of uncertainty/ambiguity. People can and do see Bigfoot even when there is no creature to be seen... Can dozens/hundreds/thousands of people be mistaken? Yes. Among the billions of people on this earth every single one can and has been mistaken about many, many things. It can happen any time to all of us. No-one is infallible. No-one... And thats all fine and dandy, some bushes and lighting and "wallah" everyone is mistaken.......Except that you have side stepped the hard evidence that is not explained away by shadows and bushes!! I'm a big advocate of provided proof.....but where is the in depth Bill Munns style report that the skeptics have put forth on the PGF? Oh wait.....such a report does not exist...Why is that? Well its because hard core skeptics have two categories they place everything into. A) Mistaken Hoaxed No thinking is required to plop anything into either category with a simple wave of the hand. Blobsquatch could be anything? Category A. Hairy biped thats not a Bear or a bush? Category B. When you point out to them that this is a crappy way of investigating Sasquatch? They get all grumpy and demand proof or it never happened.....so there. It's a rather lack luster performance on their part, but no matter its us proponents that take most of the heat. There are a few exceptions of skeptics hitting the bush and doing their part, you know who you are.....kudos. Edited March 21, 2016 by norseman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest OntarioSquatch Posted March 21, 2016 Share Posted March 21, 2016 Some people have a tendency to completely dismiss anything that falls short of proof. This sort of mentality prevents them from making progress in understanding this phenomenon. Anyway, it's said that people tend to fill in the blanks with things they're familiar with, so I find it hard to believe that experienced outdoorsmen are seeing and hearing ambiguous things and attributing them to Sasquatch. If we assume that Sasquatch are real, then it would make sense that more people are mistaking Sasquatch for bears rather than the other way around. Personally, if I see a flash of fur from a large animal behind some bushes, the first thing that will come to my mind is bear even though I'm fully convinced that Sasquatch are real. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Night Walker Posted March 21, 2016 Share Posted March 21, 2016 Except that you have side stepped the hard evidence that is not explained away by shadows and bushes!! I'm a big advocate of provided proof.....but where is the in depth Bill Munns style report that the skeptics have put forth on the PGF? Oh wait.....such a report does not exist...Why is that? Well its because hard core skeptics have two categories they place everything into. A) Mistaken Hoaxed No thinking is required to plop anything into either category with a simple wave of the hand. Blobsquatch could be anything? Category A. Hairy biped thats not a Bear or a bush? Category B. When you point out to them that this is a crappy way of investigating Sasquatch? They get all grumpy and demand proof or it never happened.....so there. It's a rather lack luster performance on their part, but no matter its us proponents that take most of the heat. There are a few exceptions of skeptics hitting the bush and doing their part, you know who you are.....kudos. Two people personally witnessed and documented this Bigfoot: Dozens/hundreds/thousands of people personally witness and document Bigfoot similar to these: I'm not "waving my hands" and dismissing anything. These images and their accompanying accounts are important - there are dozens/hundreds/thousands of similar quality images. These provide tangible visual examples of how people "see" Bigfoot. I'm certainly not denying that these documented events "happened" and were experienced as "real" - they clearly did and, as such, are significant and worthy of understanding. I'm not "grumpy" about that but it seems you might be, Norse. What "heat" is there to take? You are responsible for your own opinions/thoughts/beliefs/perceptions - not for anyone else's. For me it is what it is... The PGF is great - so iconic. I love it. If the original film was to be released for independent scrutiny then the number and quality of analyses would dramatically increase. We might all learn something that was previously unknown/hidden. Who has any reason not to release it? Well, the owner does and there's not much anyone can do about it... Anyway, it's said that people tend to fill in the blanks with things they're familiar with, so I find it hard to believe that experienced outdoorsmen are seeing and hearing ambiguous things and attributing them to Sasquatch. Perhaps you need to update and improve your understanding of modern cognitive/perceptual/anomalistic psychology... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest OntarioSquatch Posted March 21, 2016 Share Posted March 21, 2016 It's called the law of closure in Gestalt psychology. When the brain processes visual information, it'll search for recognizable patterns and try to fill in missing information with what it's most familiar with based on past experiences and current knowledge. Some things to consider here 1) An *extremely* low number of BFRO reports contain photos of "blobsquatches 2) The witness saw the camera subject in much better detail in real life than we do on our computer screens. 3) If someone is constantly presenting blobsquatches and claiming they're Sasquatch, they might be hoaxing. You can find a lot of these people on YouTube. 4) A lot of class A reports describe something that would not be ambiguous if it was caught on camera by the witness. There's legitimate explanations for why these witnesses usually don't obtain video or photographic evidence. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Incorrigible1 Posted March 21, 2016 Share Posted March 21, 2016 Some people have a tendency to completely dismiss anything that falls short of proof. This sort of mentality prevents them from making progress in understanding this phenomenon. And some people think they see / hear / detect bigfoot at the slightest sound, sight, or occurrence. The two factions demonstrate human nature. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dmaker Posted March 21, 2016 Share Posted March 21, 2016 Some people think bigfoots were made by aliens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WSA Posted March 21, 2016 Share Posted March 21, 2016 Just by the way of a general observation on this subject: It is perhaps just a consequence of living in the times we do...that everyone you know believes that anything that is bound to happen in the world will be reported to them at the speed of the internet. Never in the history of the world has this been probable, and it isn't even probable now, despite all our mistaken believes to the contrary. And to this I say: "Thank you!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dmaker Posted March 21, 2016 Share Posted March 21, 2016 Uhm, great. Thanks for that..not even sure what to call it. If you don't believe that the Internet has changed the speed of news reporting, then I would suggest that you have no idea what you are talking about. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
norseman Posted March 21, 2016 Share Posted March 21, 2016 (edited) Except that you have side stepped the hard evidence that is not explained away by shadows and bushes!! I'm a big advocate of provided proof.....but where is the in depth Bill Munns style report that the skeptics have put forth on the PGF? Oh wait.....such a report does not exist...Why is that? Well its because hard core skeptics have two categories they place everything into. A) Mistaken Hoaxed No thinking is required to plop anything into either category with a simple wave of the hand. Blobsquatch could be anything? Category A. Hairy biped thats not a Bear or a bush? Category B. When you point out to them that this is a crappy way of investigating Sasquatch? They get all grumpy and demand proof or it never happened.....so there. It's a rather lack luster performance on their part, but no matter its us proponents that take most of the heat. There are a few exceptions of skeptics hitting the bush and doing their part, you know who you are.....kudos. Two people personally witnessed and documented this Bigfoot: Dozens/hundreds/thousands of people personally witness and document Bigfoot similar to these: I'm not "waving my hands" and dismissing anything. These images and their accompanying accounts are important - there are dozens/hundreds/thousands of similar quality images. These provide tangible visual examples of how people "see" Bigfoot. I'm certainly not denying that these documented events "happened" and were experienced as "real" - they clearly did and, as such, are significant and worthy of understanding. I'm not "grumpy" about that but it seems you might be, Norse. What "heat" is there to take? You are responsible for your own opinions/thoughts/beliefs/perceptions - not for anyone else's. For me it is what it is... The PGF is great - so iconic. I love it. If the original film was to be released for independent scrutiny then the number and quality of analyses would dramatically increase. We might all learn something that was previously unknown/hidden. Who has any reason not to release it? Well, the owner does and there's not much anyone can do about it... Anyway, it's said that people tend to fill in the blanks with things they're familiar with, so I find it hard to believe that experienced outdoorsmen are seeing and hearing ambiguous things and attributing them to Sasquatch. Perhaps you need to update and improve your understanding of modern cognitive/perceptual/anomalistic psychology... You act like the PGF is the only film we have of a unidentified biped, surely films like these are MORE worthy of understanding than a bunch of obvious stumps and bushes?And I'm not directing my skeptic critique at you. Here is a film that predates the PGF that was taken by a BSA leader. http://cryptomundo.com/bigfoot-report/1962-colorado-mystery-film-footage/ Edited March 21, 2016 by norseman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JDL Posted March 21, 2016 Share Posted March 21, 2016 However, if they don't exist then circumstances can not possibly be clear and factual . While there is a difference ultimately the result is the same. The skeptical process can include the sighting, reputation and the quality of the sighting. For instance I may not accept that the creature is real, but there are very credible sightings that keep me hoping. Up to and including one in particular I learned about from this forum. That's a great big "IF" there. And IF you were right you would be right. Not the same. A sighting is a direct 1st person account. It's only speculative if the circumstances were not clear to the witness himself. Many people clearly see Bigfoot in clearly defined circumstances (ie when they are searching for Bigfoot) and are clearly sincere about it but that clearly does not make it so: What skeptics do is speculate on all sightings without regard for the quality of the witness or the circumstances of the sighting based solely on their own belief system. The skeptical process is a step removed, derivative to the sightings themselves and, more often that not, subjectively dismissive based on nothing more than the premise that bigfoot do not exist. I'm not much of a skeptic - I believe Bigfoot "exists" just not in the same manner as yourself. Neither do I "dismiss" any sighting - the above pictures (there are dozens/hundreds/thousands of similar pictures and proclamations), for example, provide tangible evidence of what Bigfoot actually is (ie illusive rather than elusive) and are, therefore, important to understanding the phenomena. Witnesses, too, speculate (even if they call it "knowing what they saw") based on their own subjective experience of the event and via their own belief systems. The skeptical process simply lacks the experiential basis of the witness/experiencer (ie they don't know what it feels like to experience Bigfoot) so reach out and invite a skeptic next time you go out looking for Bigfoot... Bigfoot is an awesome subject for inquiry. Why not share the love? My direct encounters were nothing like the photos above. In 1972 I, my brother, and my friend were directly confronted by an adult male bigfoot. It came out of a dry wash where it had been concealed and stood directly in front of us for over 45 seconds. There was nothing between it and me but sagebrush that was shin high on the bigfoot. My friend, David was within arm's reach of it, rooted to the ground in shock looking up at it with his mouth wide open. My brother was 20 feet from it. I was thirty feet away. Middle of the afternoon, middle of August, not a cloud in the sky. I was closer to it than Patterson was to Patty. It was standing still. I was standing still. There were no shadows from any forest canopy, no trees at all within a quarter mile. And we stood there staring at each other for 45 seconds. In 1974, the pregnant female wasn't as close, maybe forty yards away across the end of a small lake. Middle of the afternoon, middle of June. Bright sunny day, but she was not in direct sunlight on the other side of the lake from me. Still, she was clearly visible and I could make out her facial features, she clearly had facial hair and her chest anatomy (I was 14 and quite impressed by its size) was visibly covered in hair. She was crouching on the edge of the bank watching me fish and she was more than ten feet from the closest tree. Not a single bit of vegetation or any other object obstructed my view. I viewed her directly for over thirty seconds before waving at her, saying "Hi" and attempting to approach her across the small dam at that end of the lake. That was when she turned carefully (she was gravid), and went straight up a deer trail that came down to where she was watching. You can't assume that all encounters are at a distance where the bigfoot is mostly concealed. I know that this assumption neatly fits your rationalizations, but this is not always the case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Crowlogic Posted March 21, 2016 Share Posted March 21, 2016 ^Night Walker you have nailed it very, very well. Those who claim sightings or encounter frequently do later go off on a religious or spiritual metaphysical. Two that come to mind are Albert Ostman and most recently Matt Johnson. If I recall BTW Ostman was supposedly writing a book around the time of his death where he was going to tell the full story of his encounter and yes by then he had gone deeply woo on it. It does indeed seem like a mild external stimuli creates a mega elaborate post stimuli construct. woo n.(or adj), the way a person is when they uncritically believe unsubstantiated or unfounded ideas. Short for "woo woo". woo woo Unfounded or ludicrous beliefs ludicrous adjective: so foolish, unreasonable, or out of place as to be amusing. Such "experiences" can be deeply personal and profound - certainly not unfounded, nor foolish, nor unreasonable, nor amusing. A term like "woo", therefore, is not accurate and is inappropriate in this context... I think that the process of legend-tripping may be a bit more elaborate than just mild external stimuli creating a mega elaborate construct. It's ritualistic in some ways - perhaps tapping into something primal. Potentially, under the right set of circumstances, anyone could get a similarly profound experience. Belief may not even be necessary - maybe just the suspension of disbelief. Would certainly make for an interesting experiment but may not meet ethical criteria so perhaps Reality TV may be the way to go... it'd be like taking Finding Bigfoot to the next step - Really Finding Bigfoot ! or Finding Bigfoot for Yourself ! (which is essentially what people do when they go out researching/legend-tripping Bigfoot anyway)... It is profound but the profundity is the willingness to add layer after of straw based flesh and blood to what are mind games. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShadowBorn Posted March 21, 2016 Moderator Share Posted March 21, 2016 Just by the way of a general observation on this subject: It is perhaps just a consequence of living in the times we do...that everyone you know believes that anything that is bound to happen in the world will be reported to them at the speed of the internet. Never in the history of the world has this been probable, and it isn't even probable now, despite all our mistaken believes to the contrary. And to this I say: "Thank you!" It is almost as fast as light except you have to login to find out how fast it is ( the internet) it be faster if we were all on fiber optic, but that's our future. It be even faster if it was all telepathic but no one dares go there, oh forbid if we step into that realm of a sh*t hole. But again things do move quickly on the net and data mining is the key and writing programs to do this is one. A lot of info out there on google servers just need to know how to mine it. Other wise just get out in the field and do the work your selves and learn the truth that way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JDL Posted March 21, 2016 Share Posted March 21, 2016 ^Night Walker you have nailed it very, very well. Those who claim sightings or encounter frequently do later go off on a religious or spiritual metaphysical. Two that come to mind are Albert Ostman and most recently Matt Johnson. If I recall BTW Ostman was supposedly writing a book around the time of his death where he was going to tell the full story of his encounter and yes by then he had gone deeply woo on it. It does indeed seem like a mild external stimuli creates a mega elaborate post stimuli construct. woo n.(or adj), the way a person is when they uncritically believe unsubstantiated or unfounded ideas. Short for "woo woo". woo woo Unfounded or ludicrous beliefs ludicrous adjective: so foolish, unreasonable, or out of place as to be amusing. Such "experiences" can be deeply personal and profound - certainly not unfounded, nor foolish, nor unreasonable, nor amusing. A term like "woo", therefore, is not accurate and is inappropriate in this context... I think that the process of legend-tripping may be a bit more elaborate than just mild external stimuli creating a mega elaborate construct. It's ritualistic in some ways - perhaps tapping into something primal. Potentially, under the right set of circumstances, anyone could get a similarly profound experience. Belief may not even be necessary - maybe just the suspension of disbelief. Would certainly make for an interesting experiment but may not meet ethical criteria so perhaps Reality TV may be the way to go... it'd be like taking Finding Bigfoot to the next step - Really Finding Bigfoot ! or Finding Bigfoot for Yourself ! (which is essentially what people do when they go out researching/legend-tripping Bigfoot anyway)... It is profound but the profundity is the willingness to add layer after of straw based flesh and blood to what are mind games. Crow, most of us don't try to play any mind games with anyone. But do consider that the process of subjective rationalization to accommodate your own belief system is a mind game in and of itself. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Crowlogic Posted March 21, 2016 Share Posted March 21, 2016 Just by the way of a general observation on this subject: It is perhaps just a consequence of living in the times we do...that everyone you know believes that anything that is bound to happen in the world will be reported to them at the speed of the internet. Never in the history of the world has this been probable, and it isn't even probable now, despite all our mistaken believes to the contrary. And to this I say: "Thank you!" It is almost as fast as light except you have to login to find out how fast it is ( the internet) it be faster if we were all on fiber optic, but that's our future. It be even faster if it was all telepathic but no one dares go there, oh forbid if we step into that realm of a sh*t hole. But again things do move quickly on the net and data mining is the key and writing programs to do this is one. A lot of info out there on google servers just need to know how to mine it. Other wise just get out in the field and do the work your selves and learn the truth that way. Here's the rub about working the field so to speak. The field never produces solid results that matter. I continue to wade through the video accountings of those in the field and I see time and time again what constitutes evidence. Once again it all comes down to pebbles and pine cones being tossed or vague foot prints and or a distant wood knock. All of this can be fabricated or simply happen on it's own. But we don't see the undeniable. We never have. So when you go off into the field armed with the expectations of what passes for credible you are essentially going off with bundles of straw that gets exchanged as OMG BF activity in the form of pine cones, pebbles, hoots and hollers. If I were to go off into the field with a seasoned "researcher" in a hot spot and all I got were pine cones and pebbles I'd be pretty quick to dismiss the researcher and the activity. ^Night Walker you have nailed it very, very well. Those who claim sightings or encounter frequently do later go off on a religious or spiritual metaphysical. Two that come to mind are Albert Ostman and most recently Matt Johnson. If I recall BTW Ostman was supposedly writing a book around the time of his death where he was going to tell the full story of his encounter and yes by then he had gone deeply woo on it. It does indeed seem like a mild external stimuli creates a mega elaborate post stimuli construct. woo n.(or adj), the way a person is when they uncritically believe unsubstantiated or unfounded ideas. Short for "woo woo". woo woo Unfounded or ludicrous beliefs ludicrous adjective: so foolish, unreasonable, or out of place as to be amusing. Such "experiences" can be deeply personal and profound - certainly not unfounded, nor foolish, nor unreasonable, nor amusing. A term like "woo", therefore, is not accurate and is inappropriate in this context... I think that the process of legend-tripping may be a bit more elaborate than just mild external stimuli creating a mega elaborate construct. It's ritualistic in some ways - perhaps tapping into something primal. Potentially, under the right set of circumstances, anyone could get a similarly profound experience. Belief may not even be necessary - maybe just the suspension of disbelief. Would certainly make for an interesting experiment but may not meet ethical criteria so perhaps Reality TV may be the way to go... it'd be like taking Finding Bigfoot to the next step - Really Finding Bigfoot ! or Finding Bigfoot for Yourself ! (which is essentially what people do when they go out researching/legend-tripping Bigfoot anyway)... It is profound but the profundity is the willingness to add layer after of straw based flesh and blood to what are mind games. Crow, most of us don't try to play any mind games with anyone. But do consider that the process of subjective rationalization to accommodate your own belief system is a mind game in and of itself. Mathew Johnson has that to an entirely new level. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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