How do you go about proving Bigfoot?

[Yuchi1]

Scientific proof may not be enough as legal proof would define this entity and lay out the metes and bounds of how the government and the public interact with them once official legal status is attained.

 

Evidence comes in a variety of forms such as oral, written and the many types of forensic evidence. It is a collection of verifiable evidence that coalesces into proof.

 

One of the apparent impediments to such is the competition among many of the various groups and their unwillingness to work together on a common goal. The ego factor and greed for fame and fortune not only facilitate devisive behavior but have even led to causes of action at the courthouse.

 

BFRO reports are a resource to start developing a blueprint to begin patterning behavior and developing the common denominators that are sitting there in plain sight.

 

We are using them to develop a basis for where to look (first) for skeletal remains. There can be more than one reason as to why humans are escorted out of certain areas.

 

Above all, make sure the people you choose to associate with are like-minded as you will eventually find out the truth and it becomes a real source of frustration.

 

[ioyza]

What am I doing to prove BF's existence to "SCIENCE" i.e. the popular conception of a loosely organized body of scientists who communicate with one another about a wide range of issues and form "scientific consensus" based on informed expert opinions? Nothing, the concept is a myth.

 

What am I doing to prove BF's existence to scientists? To those of them that I can call my friends to an extent that I feel assured that telling them won't damage my career, I talk their ears off. I walk them through the evidence, hold their hand, and take them out into the woods. When we're hiking and they ask "Woah... Is that what you'd call a woodknock?" I smile and say "yep."

 

I contribute to the snowballing of public opinion, which, in the case of the subject at hand, is no less informed nor less relevant than scientific opinion. I believe the evidence in favor of BF's existence is already painfully obvious if one takes the time to look at it thoroughly and logically (I know that's hardly a unique position around here), but it takes someone well-acquainted with the subject to walk you through that. That's why I'm here, and I fully intend to bring others around.

 

If you were hoping for me to describe what caliber rifle I'm shopping for, don't hold your breath.

 

As far as my personal investigations are concerned, right now I want to contribute to documenting locations and seasonal movements. Where, specifically, do we find structures? That tells you a location has been in use at some point, for some length of time, even if they're just passing through. When do structures appear, disappear, and change? When do you get actual encounters? That tells you a lot more, i.e. they're in that specific location at that specific time (well, duh). Think about the sightings map / BFRO Google Earth layer - it gives a pretty good sense of their range right? Is there any reason we shouldn't be able to produce something MUCH more extensive, and with a seasonal or temporal aspect to it?

 

I want to understand the Chicagoland clans, and start to predict their movements. I've already found an area they use that's MUCH closer to the heart of Chicago than anything else I could find online. 

 

I want to try to help understand structures, their meanings. This aspect is absolutely brimming with possibilities. There are so many common archetypes found all over the place, how could that be random rather than symbolic? This is also an aspect of pushing the snowball, which if you spend any time on Youtube and #projectgoandsee you know is really taking off in the past year or two.

 

Ultimately, I want to find myself a family of backyard BFs in the mountains of Colorado and work on getting to really know them, because that's what this study should really look like, but I think that's a ways off for now. 

 

At any rate, the way I see it there are two approaches:  trying to "prove" it to "science," which is really no different than proving it to any lay person, they are equally uninformed and unqualified to opinion, a body on a slab will surely suffice (though I'm equally sure you won't get one, and for that we can be thankful); OR we can work to define what the study of bigfoot should actually look like, since there is no such discipline currently. As a scientist, the latter is the far more exciting, tantalizing option. And everything I've read and experienced leads me to believe that the study of bigfoot should much more closely resemble a type of cultural anthropology, or primate habituation, along with documented field observations, as opposed to this crime scene forensics approach that people seem to think is the way to "prove it to science."

 

Let me rephrase the question and turn it around: what are you doing to prove the existence of BF to anthropologists and wildlife biologists? They are the only relevant scientists to this subject.

[gigantor]

2 hours ago, ioyza said:

 Think about the sightings map / BFRO Google Earth layer - it gives a pretty good sense of their range right? Is there any reason we shouldn't be able to produce something MUCH more extensive, and with a seasonal or temporal aspect to it?

 

You mean like this below?

 

[ioyza]

Gigantor - Yes, exactly! - almost. I know you guys have done some incredible work with the SSR project, I'd love it if it were a little more visible sometimes (can anyone access it? is there a link somewhere?), and I might love to get involved at some point. But what I'm envisioning would not just categorize witness reports, but put researcher observations and structure finds on the map. Imagine zooming into a very small area and finding a myriad of pins that each link to a picture of a structure, indicating its specific location and orientation. Color codes for categories of findings, observations, sightings, audio, etc. Just generally taking this kind of documentation that's being done with witness reports and extending it to our own field work - if anyone's already doing something like that I'd love to know.

[gigantor]

The above gif is old. We have added automatic color coding and links to the original reports when you click on a marker.

 

To use it for field work, all you have to do is have a website with the documentation. The SSR would link to each report/field note/etc.

 

All Premium members can access the SSR.

[Guest Cricket]

On 6/28/2017 at 2:22 PM, ioyza said:

As far as my personal investigations are concerned, right now I want to contribute to documenting locations and seasonal movements. Where, specifically, do we find structures? That tells you a location has been in use at some point, for some length of time, even if they're just passing through. When do structures appear, disappear, and change? When do you get actual encounters? That tells you a lot more, i.e. they're in that specific location at that specific time (well, duh). Think about the sightings map / BFRO Google Earth layer - it gives a pretty good sense of their range right? Is there any reason we shouldn't be able to produce something MUCH more extensive, and with a seasonal or temporal aspect to it?

 

I want to try to help understand structures, their meanings. This aspect is absolutely brimming with possibilities. There are so many common archetypes found all over the place, how could that be random rather than symbolic? This is also an aspect of pushing the snowball, which if you spend any time on Youtube and #projectgoandsee you know is really taking off in the past year or two.

 

At any rate, the way I see it there are two approaches:  trying to "prove" it to "science," which is really no different than proving it to any lay person, they are equally uninformed and unqualified to opinion, a body on a slab will surely suffice (though I'm equally sure you won't get one, and for that we can be thankful); OR we can work to define what the study of bigfoot should actually look like, since there is no such discipline currently. As a scientist, the latter is the far more exciting, tantalizing option. And everything I've read and experienced leads me to believe that the study of bigfoot should much more closely resemble a type of cultural anthropology, or primate habituation, along with documented field observations, as opposed to this crime scene forensics approach that people seem to think is the way to "prove it to science."

 

Let me rephrase the question and turn it around: what are you doing to prove the existence of BF to anthropologists and wildlife biologists? They are the only relevant scientists to this subject.

 

I agree.  This is where a good lit search of primate observation work and how archaeologists approach sites would be necessary.  Always start with the literature of what has already been done in order to look for a good model in designing any such work as applied to BF.

[hiflier]

19 minutes ago, Cricket said:

This is where a good lit search of primate observation work and how archaeologists approach sites would be necessary

 

I think a more accurate field would be a FORENSIC ANTHROPOLOGIST and how THEY would approach a site. That would include someone or a group educated in osteology too just in case a skeleton is found. Any backgrounds should also include someone strong in hair morphology along with an expert in tracking that encompasses ground as well as flora disturbances. The team might also consist of someone outfitted for sound recording that has a complete sonogram library. And too, a person well trained in hominen and faunal predation would be a goodaddition. As long as one is considering what field of science to target for experts then one may as well cover all of the bases and specify not just anthropology but gather the necessary different specialists in the sub-fields as well. Initially of course, in zeroing in on fauna, a comprehensive study of the target would be needed and expected before an expedition of this sort could be designed and launched. Expensive and therefore more likely to be university connected.

 

Or just have someone currently in the field with all of those credentials rolled into one embedded in an historically active habitat for an extended period of time. Or one of our own researchers just getting lucky. Or an everyday hiker who finds something unusual and brings it to a local BF group. As you can see the order of things in this post went from the most intense search to the most casual of non-searches. 

[Guest Cricket]

7 minutes ago, hiflier said:

 

I think a more accurate field would be a FORENSIC ANTHROPOLOGIST and how THEY would approach a site. That would include someone or a group educated in osteology too just in case a skeleton is found. Any backgrounds should also include someone strong in hair morphology along with an expert in tracking that encompasses ground as well as flora disturbances. The team might also consist of someone outfitted for sound recording that has a complete sonogram library. And too, a person well trained in hominen and faunal predation would be a goodaddition. As long as one is considering what field of science to target for experts then one may as well cover all of the bases and specify not just anthropology but gather the necessary different specialists in the sub-fields as well. Initially of course, in zeroing in on fauna, a comprehensive study of the target would be needed and expected before an expedition of this sort could be designed and launched. Expensive and therefore more likely to be university connected.

 

Or just have someone currently in the field with all of those credentials rolled into one embedded in an historically active habitat for an extended period of time. Or one of our own researchers just getting lucky. Or an everyday hiker who finds something unusual and brings it to a local BF group. As you can see the order of things in this post went from the most intense search to the most casual of non-searches. 

 

Sure, all that is relevant.  Bioarchaeologists specialize in the skeletal remains associated with archaeological sites.  But as far as the average citizen is concerned, even they can acquire some experience volunteering at ongoing archaeological sites in their local area, or wherever their personal means allow.  As for the environmental aspect, I took a field natural history class at my local community college and at least got some basic exposure to a variety of methods used to evaluate different types of habitats/biomes.  I posted some very rough ideas I had about the tree structures in the 'field methods' forum here, under the thread about tree structures.  That was just a few ideas I had in very rudimentary form. 

I should add that the reason I first thought of archaeological methodology is that even though this involves an extant creature, there are potential patterns of these tree structures over time, so it kind of starts to overlap into the way archaeology deals with patterns of behavior over space and through time, via material culture remains. 

[hiflier]

A guy in New Hampshire wrote two books on forest forensics which helps 'read' the history of woods and fields. His Name is Tom Wessels and I have found the books interesting in determining the 'lay of the land' so to speak. Especially around areas that have had sightings so I know what you mean. This isn't about looking for sign it's more about reading the trees and the land itself and what they say about an areas history of activity such as Pasteur along with the types of rocks in walls and piles and what they say, what kind of cultivation, and whether logging or fire was a thinning factor along with the difference between wind damage and ice/snow events. Good reading really.

Edited June 30, 2017 by hiflier

[BobbyO]

Creating the best report database that there is that will allow us to analyse a whole host of different search parameters regarding various different comparables, in a way that this subject has never seen.

 

I will self fund various analysis techniques including specific, geo spatial mapping software plus fund Geeks who i feel benefit the subject and my vision hugely once i nail some more direction.

 

Aside from that however, one needs to be popped.

 

PS : I wrote the above without reading any of the other posts in the thread, just for the record.

[Trogluddite]

On 6/27/2017 at 5:21 PM, norseman said:

....

Proponents? How are you working on proving the existence of Bigfoot to science? Are any of you just in the planning phase? Do you have some good ideas towards that goal?

 

Put a dead, still cooling, body on a slab at your local zoo or university with cameras running while accredited biologists, zoologists, or whatever ologists would carve up an animal body start dissecting.  

 

Sadly, a database won't prove diddly-diddly to anyone in science who is not already predisposed to believe in existence due to outside factors, such as having seen one for themselves.  The best that analytics can do is provide a basis for a reasonable person to determine that there is a possibility that bigfoot exists - i.e., probable cause.  A different, equally reasonable person could just as legitimately conclude, from the exact same evidence that bigfoot does not exist.  Neither would be wrong.   

 

Obviously, and hopefully, a good statistical analysis could lead one to be in position to obtain the dead, still cooling, body, so there is that. 

[Martin]

On 6/27/2017 at 11:10 PM, Yuchi1 said:

..............There can be more than one reason as to why humans are escorted out of certain areas.

 

 

How does this actually work?

[gigantor]

On 7/19/2017 at 9:00 PM, Trogluddite said:

Sadly, a database won't prove diddly-diddly to anyone in science who is not already predisposed to believe in existence due to outside factors, such as having seen one for themselves. 

 

True, but I think the questions are  "How are you working on proving the existence of Bigfoot to science? Are any of you just in the planning phase? Do you have some good ideas towards that goal?"

 

I don't think the original post asked for a shootout of who's efforts are better or even if they will work, just what are YOU doing...  just saying. 

 

[wiiawiwb]

On 6/30/2017 at 11:31 AM, Cricket said:

 

Sure, all that is relevant.  Bioarchaeologists specialize in the skeletal remains associated with archaeological sites.  But as far as the average citizen is concerned, even they can acquire some experience volunteering at ongoing archaeological sites in their local area, or wherever their personal means allow.  As for the environmental aspect, I took a field natural history class at my local community college and at least got some basic exposure to a variety of methods used to evaluate different types of habitats/biomes.  I posted some very rough ideas I had about the tree structures in the 'field methods' forum here, under the thread about tree structures.  That was just a few ideas I had in very rudimentary form. 

I should add that the reason I first thought of archaeological methodology is that even though this involves an extant creature, there are potential patterns of these tree structures over time, so it kind of starts to overlap into the way archaeology deals with patterns of behavior over space and through time, via material culture remains. 

 

The bioarchaeologist approach won't work. The first fossilized remains of chimpanzees weren't discovered until the Fall of 2004 in the Rift Valley by Dr. Nina Jablonsky.  Given the numbers of chimps compared to sasquatch, if chimps remains weren't found until 2004, there is no hope that approach could ever work with BF.

 

My efforts have not, for a second, been concerned with science, or the scientific community. My efforts are only concerned with proving it for me. I have little respect for the scientific community and worrying what they thought would be the last thing on my mind.

Edited July 22, 2017 by wiiawiwb

[Guest Cricket]

7 hours ago, wiiawiwb said:

 

The bioarchaeologist approach won't work. The first fossilized remains of chimpanzees weren't discovered until the Fall of 2004 in the Rift Valley by Dr. Nina Jablonsky.  Given the numbers of chimps compared to sasquatch, if chimps remains weren't found until 2004, there is no hope that approach could ever work with BF.

 

My efforts have not, for a second, been concerned with science, or the scientific community. My efforts are only concerned with proving it for me. I have little respect for the scientific community and worrying what they thought would be the last thing on my mind.

 

Hi, wiiawiwb.  To each his own, I say!  Some may be concerned with science and the scientific community, and others may not.  I am sorry that you have little respect for the scientific community.  I do not share that feeling.  I think the methodology is sound and serves a purpose.  That may not be your purpose, and that's OK.