Some Thoughts On Reliable Eyewitness Testimony

[dopelyrics]

Hello,

Fist of all, let me qualify this post. I am not a professional in psychology or law enforcement and my views and opinions come from what I have read or seen on the TV. I am hoping there is someone on this forum who can speak with a lot more authority and perhaps shed some light on what has oftentimes made me scratch my head.

I am led to believe that if you speak to any police officer or psychologist, they will tell you that eyewitness testimony can be notoriously unreliable. People who witness serious crimes or accidents are obviously in heightened states of excitement or anxiety, and this can have an effect on what they are seeing, or what they think they are seeing. This means they can perhaps misidentify things. In relation to the bigfoot/yeti phenomenon, I heard a story about an academic from where I live (Manchester, England) who was running though the Himalayas when he saw a yeti which was stood, almost still, for a short period of time. He even took a picture of it. He was convinced it was a yeti but when he went back a year later he discovered it was just a rock formation. His name is Tony Wooldridge and it is a fascinating story. The point here is that, yes, people can misidentify things and this is no doubt the case with a lot of Bigfoot sightings too I'm sure.

What puzzles me, though, is that if you take away the crackpots and barefaced liars, you are left with seemingly sane, credible witnesses who are definitely seeing something. I did read that when someone sees something they are at first unsure of what it is, their brains will tell them that they are seeing something familiar. I've done it myself on numerous occasions, most recently when I was on a riverbank and I saw a duck flapping, trying to get in to the water. Turns out it was a cardboard box with the lid flapping in the wind. Nothing like a duck! But because of where I was, maybe I was subconsciously thinking I would see a duck there and so I saw one. This would make sense when you hear that a lot of people who claim to have seen Bigfoot will say that at first they thought they were looking at a bear. Therefore, when the skeptics say people are misidentifying bears as Bigfoot, I am slightly wary because surely they would at first think they are seeing a bear, and then realise it is something else entirely. Yes I am sure some people do misidentify bears as Bigfoot on occasion, but surely that can't be the case all the time. Anyone any thoughts on this?

Best regards,

Lee

[Guest Spazmo]

Hi DL-

This is an important point for me as well.

I have a tough time with the idea that all reports are misidentifications, hoaxes or lies. As you said, toss out the lies and hoaxes, and you still have a very large number of reports by witnesses who seem credible. The question "what are they seeing?" is the biggest reason I'm here.

I've got some ideas for future projects that might be able to clear up this ambiguity in some cases, but for now I'm just trying to rationalize this idea that all reports are inaccurate. And it's tough.

[Guest TooRisky]

I think that when going through the reports one tends to group into believable, not believable and Hmmm thats interesting.... The point is this, one cannot make the decision of whether it is real or not by reading a story... This is why detectives bring people in and talk with them, observe body language and determine if there is anything to gain from a hoaxed story...

So when ya get right down to it, most will never know the truth unless you make a huge effort to find the truth... But what gets me is when the truth or the preponderance of evidence is put forth, some will never except it because they are biased in their thoughts.

Don't stop enjoying the stories, there are many that are great reading and you can spend hours of reading them... But don't try to over- evaluate them for the loss of entertainment and/or a huge chunk of your life finding the truth.

[Old Dog]

What about the people who may see a Bigfoot and think they see a bear because their mind isn't expecting to see a Bigfoot? They just pass it off as "Oh, I just saw a bear."

[Guest]

I am led to believe that if you speak to any police officer or psychologist, they will tell you that eyewitness testimony can be notoriously unreliable.

and what happens when the witness IS a Law Enforcement Officer? as in the whitehall new york sightings?

theres a long story behind it also.......

http://www.is-bigfoot-real.com/whitehall-bigfoot/

[Guest nycBig]

and what happens when the witness IS a Law Enforcement Officer? as in the whitehall new york sightings?

theres a long story behind it also.......

http://www.is-bigfoot-real.com/whitehall-bigfoot/

;Profiled on the show MonsterQuest (the History channel), “the Monster of Whitehall†the Bigfoot creature reportedly stands 7 to 8 feet tall, strange high pitch screaming, walks like a gorilla hunched over. Several police officers reported a Bigfoot sighting in 1976, and the original officers have recently passed polygraph tests, for the show.;

dont anyone tell kitakaze he will be down there in a minute debunking it. HI Kit, where have you been?

[Guest RattleSnakeWillie]

There was a TV show on the subject of how the brain fills in the parts to make it complete. They took a group of people and walk them around a course and let them see a variety of sets for a very short period of time. Then interviewed them within 30 minutes on what they saw. Most of them had already started filling in the blanks. The next day was even better as the stories got really wild.

Anyone remember this show?

[BobbyO]

Hello,

Fist of all, let me qualify this post. I am not a professional in psychology or law enforcement and my views and opinions come from what I have read or seen on the TV. I am hoping there is someone on this forum who can speak with a lot more authority and perhaps shed some light on what has oftentimes made me scratch my head.

I am led to believe that if you speak to any police officer or psychologist, they will tell you that eyewitness testimony can be notoriously unreliable. People who witness serious crimes or accidents are obviously in heightened states of excitement or anxiety, and this can have an effect on what they are seeing, or what they think they are seeing. This means they can perhaps misidentify things.

Yes maybe so but i'd love to see the amount of simple eyewitness accounts that lead to people being found Guilty of whatever, by people are completely on the level, have no grounds for mis identification & simply saw what they saw & said as such..

In relation to the bigfoot/yeti phenomenon, I heard a story about an academic from where I live (Manchester, England) who was running though the Himalayas when he saw a yeti which was stood, almost still, for a short period of time. He even took a picture of it. He was convinced it was a yeti but when he went back a year later he discovered it was just a rock formation. His name is Tony Wooldridge and it is a fascinating story. The point here is that, yes, people can misidentify things and this is no doubt the case with a lot of Bigfoot sightings too I'm sure.

I don't disagree you at all & i'm sure there are many out theere in the public domain that are Mis ID's..However i'm also sure there are numerous reports out there that are not Mis ID's at all..

With regards to the Yeti thing you said, how any can see a Rock Formation & obviously not see any movement at all, because Rocks don't move, believe they are seeing one off the World's rarest Animals, view it for a while then take a Picture still with not the faintest hint of movement & declare it as that Animal, is completely beyond me but there we go..

Best regards,

Lee

Lee, welcome to the Forum Fella, i hope you're a Blue Mancunian as oppposed to a Red one too but you must be thinking about it as you're from Manchester..

Just a couple of things to add on to what you wrote above in BOLD..

[Guest]

;Profiled on the show MonsterQuest (the History channel), “the Monster of Whitehall†the Bigfoot creature reportedly stands 7 to 8 feet tall, strange high pitch screaming, walks like a gorilla hunched over. Several police officers reported a Bigfoot sighting in 1976, and the original officers have recently passed polygraph tests, for the show.;

IMO, polygraph tests are the most reliable thing we have right now, for determining if someone is telling the truth or not. Maybe it's not completely foolproof, or accurate to 100%...and don't really want to get into that debate or discussion.

Putting the polygraph tests aside, these officers have a long standing good reputation in a small community, where just about everyone knows them. I think they went out on a limb, just to make the stories of these sighting incidents public. Although they are retired, they are still residents of that community. Being country boys and growing up in the area, they know what a bear looks like, and what something they never witnessed before, looked and walked like.

[Guest Creekfreak]

You will know when you see the real deal theres an old lady that lives not far from here that had an encounter the cops tryed to tell her she saw a bear she used the F word when she told the cops dont F ing try to tell me I saw a bear you S O B 80 years old retired marine I would not recomend any skeptics knocking on her door

[Guest WIKayaker]

Consider the opposite misidentification scenarios which might explain fewer than expected sightings.

How many BF might be seen from a distance, like across a field, which might look like a normal person walking? So our mind assumes it is just a person, and it is just disregarded. How often are BF misidentified as human, and never ever reported. Because there was nothing unexpected to question.

Similarly, how many BF are seen but misidentified as a bear or moose (especially in heavy foliage) and never reported, because BF was never considered as a possibility?

My wife, family and I had a funny experience vacating in Florida. She adamantly saw a bear a few hundred yards away. When I zoomed in with my camcorder, It was clearly an at least 13 inch tall raccoon.

I think this is a very important factor why more of the BF may not be seen. I think they are seen, but not identified.

[Guest Ambermae]

What about the people who may see a Bigfoot and think they see a bear because their mind isn't expecting to see a Bigfoot? They just pass it off as "Oh, I just saw a bear."

That's crossed my mind as a possibility too, i wonder how many non believers there are that have told themselves that what they have seen must have been a bear because Bigfoot doesn't exist to them.

[Guest]

Unfortunately people are sent to prison for less than what is required to validate a bigfoot sighting. Truthfully, if resources allowed, the best time and conditions to interview are immediately after the sighting because the memory fades and fills in the gaps over time. We also tend to have problems expanding the focus of our attention. Here is a video that demonstrates just how fallible we can be when witnessing something:

[Guest UPs]

As with many other outdoorsmen/women, I have seen my share of large animals in the area that I spend most of my outdoors time in. My mind quickly fills in the blanks when I see even part of the animal (daytime and hunting or scouting). Your eye looks for outlines of the animal that you are expecting to see and it helps you pick the animal up when it is partially hidden. I cannot imagine the shock the hunter would feel and how out of place this animal would be in his/her mind. I would imagine many would not even report the sighting. When I do read a sighting from what I consider a seasoned outdoors man, it has more meaning to me. Another thing to remember about hunters is they must identify the animal they are legally hunting before they can attempt to shoot. We do not see hunters tagging bears during deer/elk season. You do not see a wolf hanging on a buck pole. The seasoned hunter must know how to identify what they are shooting at. I am sure there have been exceptions to this throughout the years, but I cannot think of any examples offhand and certainly not enough to say they are misidentifying other large animals as bf.

As far as liars go, if I cannot prove they are lying, then I cannot conclude (as fact) they are lying. This works the same way as not having DNA to conclude that bf does exist. UPs

[Guest]

Some Thoughts On Reliable Eyewitness Testimony Are they all misidentifying things?

A very good question!

As a researcher (actually more of a confidant) to a family that have seen and experience these animals, you really have to present them with the fact that what they saw was possible mis-identification. For instance, if they tell me that they heard something, I try and get them to describe it, if they can, I then scour the resources I have to find that sound (or similar) and put it on a disk to play back to them. I've been able to debunk some of their experiences and do it respectfully, now to the point of them respecting me.

It was surprisingly easy to get to this point with them, what I did was sit down with them (It was over dinner) and tell them that I don't think that they're lying, but I will present them with possible and more probable explanations for what happened and they HAVE to be honest with me. Now they debunk experiences without me, they just tell me when I see them next.

In short, it is possible that there are a lot of reports that are a result of misidentification, but not all of them. However, no matter how odd an experience seems, there is probably a logical explanation for it's occurrence.