What Are The Percentages?

[gigantor]

Well, because when you read a lot of them in order to mine data from them, you painfully realize how weak most reports are.

 

I invite all to classify just 20 reports. That is, read them thoroughly, mine the data and input it into the SSR. You'll soon realize how weak the evidence is in most sighting reports.

 

BTW, this will also allow you to appreciate the 2% of reports that really stand out as legitimate.

Edited April 12, 2016 by gigantor

[Old Dog]

I think your question depends so much on the experience, or lack of it, of the observer reporting it, that it is almost impossible to quantify. Virtually all of the preceding observations apply, under the right conditions for each case: experienced hunter/trapper, city boy/girl, trained observer of nature, drunken yahoo, needy for attention teenager, and a hundred other cases of the human condition. My personal experiences lead me to believe that at least some reports are legitimate, and that is enough for my continued interest in providing confirmation of the existance of Sasquatch/Bigfoot.

 

Regardless of the expertise or sobriety of the observer, all are subject to misinterpretation of what they are seeing.  Although one can have some outdoor expertise in hunting or camping (observation of nature in this case) they are still subject to misidentification of a subject.   One can narrow down the experience to what ever category one chooses, but in the end, when all are tossed in to the same pot, an average emerges.  A city slicker can have a legit sighting and a seasoned hunter can have a mis-ID of a creature, it is all up to the specific circumstances of the encounter.  As I mentioned to WSA, I'm resisting the urge to over think this question.  When one starts putting parameters on the conditions of a sighting, to many if's and but's get tossed in and it just muddy's the issue.  One could take it to the extreme I suppose and ask how many hunters have had a misidentification of a Sasquatch on a Tuesday at noon during the vernal equinox on a leap year, but I was thinking more in general terms.  Point being, there are thousands, if not tens or hundreds of thousands, of sightings of Sasquatch.  I find it amazing for anyone to say that ALL are either misidentified or hoaxes with any level of certainty.

Edited April 12, 2016 by Old Dog

[ShadowBorn]

One could take it to the extreme I suppose and ask how many hunters have had a misidentification of a Sasquatch on a Tuesday at noon during the vernal equinox on a leap year, but I was thinking more in general terms.  Point being, there are thousands, if not tens or hundreds of thousands, of sightings of Sasquatch.  I find it amazing for anyone to say that ALL are either misidentified or hoaxes with any level of certainty.

The problem I have is that hunters know what they are hunting when they go out to hunt, so they know  what is out in nature. I am a city boy and at the time of my sighting I had no idea of what was in nature or what to expect in nature, but I knew what I saw. But after my sighting I made it a point to learn what to expect out in nature so that I would not be mistaken.

 

Most people know about nature as to what they were taught in school, so we have this knowledge in us. So to say that a witness does not know what they are looking at is just not true. A witness has the means to find out what they had saw trough books and through the internet. Any witness who has witness these creatures are not going to stop and say that what they are looking at is a bear since they have the means to see what a bear looks like and point it out easily on a photograph. This is where the percentage drops since there are photographs of a living species, such as bear, or any other large animal that can easily be picked out in a photograph.

 

The percentage goes up when the witness has a problem describing what they saw, which is some thing that they cannot explain. When there is no photograph that describes what they saw, how it has left an emotional scar on them that has left them at total amazement. Always wondering at what they have encountered with no explanation.

[Guest JiggyPotamus]

There is this prevailing sentiment when dealing with this or some other mysterious topic (mostly UFO's), that less than 5% of experiences are valid manifestations of the unexplained phenomena, and I have great difficulty supporting such a position. It seems that such a belief stems from the claim that the other 95% of experiences can be explained via conventional means, but this, just like my counter-claims, are opinions as opposed to facts. This is because there are many cases for which an explanation has been claimed, but not proven, and these explanations are also very far from adequate, often because they raise completely different problems. There are times when the existence of sasquatch becomes a more probable explanation than the supposedly "natural" counter-explanation, considering that the natural explanation makes more assumptions, requires more coincidental occurrences, etc., and as such has its probable validity reduced substantially.

 

Not only do I take issue with the claim that the majority of experiences can be magically (and conveniently) explained away, with less-than-vigorous methodology (often exhibiting or bordering on outright dismissal), but I also cannot accept misidentification as accounting for any meaningful percentage of cases- the reason being the psychology of the average human. It would be difficult to argue the claim that eyewitness testimony is often unreliable, but it is quite easy to argue that this statistic applies mainly to the identification of other humans in criminal cases, when the witness basically only saw a quick glimpse of another person's face. The fact that humans deal with so many other humans on a daily basis, and more importantly the fact that the testimony of these witnesses stems from the fact that these individuals are called upon to pick out new details that were present in their routine environment, has little to do with the setting in which a sasquatch is witnessed. That urban environment, with people being everywhere and with the tendency to subconsciously dismiss one's surroundings as being irrelevant due to their familiarity, has little or nothing in common with witnessing something that is in fact not common, and has not been ingrained within the human mind.

 

And even someone who has never seen a bear before will instinctively know when they are looking at a bear, given that there are no visual obstructions or other factors overriding common sense. I could easily buy the idea that a person may see something hairy through the foliage, but I am less inclined to believe that the average person would interpret that as a bigfoot. I will admit that it likely does occur, but not with any regularity, because it does not make sense. The only instance in which it does make sense would be if someone wanted to see a sasquatch, or had bigfoot on the brain, but even then it wholly depends on the person and their honesty. I can accept that a small percentage of sightings can be explained in this manner, but my counter-argument would be to read the sighting reports. Rarely is this scenario encountered. Instead, when someone has an encounter compelling enough to warrant a report, it is likely because they were able to see defining characteristics of the subject in question, and it is that which drives the willingness to file a report. The human brain is not going to confuse a bear and a bigfoot except in special cases, and the average human is not going to go to bigfoot as the first explanation. In fact, the sighting record seems to indicate that bigfoot is the LAST explanation considered. People tend to actually attempt to explain away their legitimate sightings, but that is impossible when a sighting is undeniable.

 

Anyway, my conclusions are, roughly, as follows:

 

sasquatch is actually experienced: 65%

non-sasquatch explanation: 35%

 

I still think 65% is probably too low for legitimate encounters. I would be more comfortable with 72%.

 

Even considering the worst-case scenario that still conforms to my reasoning and beliefs, here are some adjusted percentages:

 

sasquatch actually experienced: 40%

non-sasquatch explanation: 60%

 

That would be as low as I could comfortably go as far as real bigfoot experiences are concerned. Still, 40% has huge implications. Honestly though, even 0.05% has huge implications, considering it would still mean sasquatch are flesh and blood animals.

Edited April 12, 2016 by JiggyPotamus

[1980squatch]

Jiggly, I thought about writing such a post, thanks for doing so. Plussed.