Implications of Apparent Consistency of Evidence

[MikeZimmer]

I am spring-boarding off another thread, prompted by an observation by OkieFoot (below):

 

28 minutes ago, OkieFoot said:

 

... I agree a database is good at providing evidence of patterns, trends, etc. I don't want to steer this away from footprints but an example is when you look through the many BFRO reports of actual sightings, there are very similar descriptions of what a witness saw. And these are from people that are in different parts of the country, don't know each other, and are from different time periods. Plus, when the amount of reports number in the few thousands, it becomes much more difficult to just dismiss them as fabricated stories or misidentifications. Some yes, but not thousands.

 

Is this a fair question? I'm not sure if this could apply to BFRO investigators but could an experienced BF investigator begin to tel, or at least suspect, if a witness is making up their alleged "sighting"? I'm referring to a witness with some detail in their story. 

 

 

This was always the point made by a previous member, DWA, albeit in a somewhat off-putting fashion.

 

I find it compelling, but I think what we need to ask are the following questions:

1 - Is there a real consistency in the evidence?

2 - What counts as consistency/inconsistency?

3 - How can we measure it (e.g., degree of consistency, percentage of sightings that are consistent)

4 - What mechanisms could account for this apparent consistency (e.g., organized society of hoaxers, hoaxers with access to the internet, shared delusion, ...., a real species,  anything else.)

5 - Can we use the data base to help us identify and quantify consistency?

 

I would be interested in seeing thoughtful responses to these questions. Undoubtedly there are other questions that I have not thought of.

[Huntster]

53 minutes ago, MikeZimmer said:

......Can we use the data base to help us identify and quantify consistency?.........

 

Yes, it has and continues to be done, and thst provides positive answers to #s 1-4.

[norseman]

I think the only consistency that can be used to prove the creature as real?

 

Find the seasonality presence of a given area. And get ahead of the beast and ambush it.

 

If Bigfoot sightings happen every year at location X,Y or Z beginning in June? Go get set up in May and be waiting.

[MIB]

So far as consistency, I come at this from a biology background.    I would look for averages, standard deviations, and large enough sample size for the data to be repeatable.    If the data is too divergent, I expect it comes from cries for attention, not actual observation.   If it is too consistent, I suspect organized hoax.    For me, the bigfoot data .. height, hair color distribution, track distribution, etc .. all point to a biological species, not hoax of either sort.   Especially given the prolonged timeline.     There are consistencies in behavior as well though those are harder to quantify.  

 

I really don't know why more biologists are not seeing this consistency and getting curious enough to take a second look.  

 

MIB

[Old Time Lifter]

2 hours ago, norseman said:

I think the only consistency that can be used to prove the creature as real?

 

Find the seasonality presence of a given area. And get ahead of the beast and ambush it.

 

If Bigfoot sightings happen every year at location X,Y or Z beginning in June? Go get set up in May and be waiting.

 

[OkieFoot]

3 hours ago, MIB said:

So far as consistency, I come at this from a biology background.    I would look for averages, standard deviations, and large enough sample size for the data to be repeatable.    If the data is too divergent, I expect it comes from cries for attention, not actual observation.   If it is too consistent, I suspect organized hoax.    For me, the bigfoot data .. height, hair color distribution, track distribution, etc .. all point to a biological species, not hoax of either sort.   Especially given the prolonged timeline.     There are consistencies in behavior as well though those are harder to quantify.  

 

I really don't know why more biologists are not seeing this consistency and getting curious enough to take a second look.  

 

MIB

 

This is something I had wondered about. Supposing someone looked at a large number of known fabricated reports;  Would we see too much consistency and too little variance. I tend to think you're right.

Could it be that a hoaxer thinks they have to stick to the norm, or close to it, in order to be believed? 

[Patterson-Gimlin]

I agree with Norse. Also consistency of eye witnesses is easily explained by one or two reasons. 

One being copy cat and repeating what is already known for years by other accounts 

This explains why similar stories are wide spread in places where it is more than obvious there are none. 

Thus the statement of Bigfoot are everywhere but no where. 

 

The other explanation is some people are really seeing flesh and blood real life man apes.

Edited February 20, 2019 by Patterson-Gimlin

[Huntster]

13 minutes ago, Patterson-Gimlin said:

.........This explains why similar stories are wide spread in places where it is more than obvious there are none. 

Thus the statement of Bigfoot are everywhere but no where. 

 

The other explanation is some people are really seeing flesh and blood real life man apes.

 

http://www.photekimaging.com/Support/rptcol2.pdf

 

..........The Bigfoot phenomenon may be the result of a combination of sociological origin, physical manifesta- tion through willful manufacture, and the by-product of cataloged and uncataloged animals. Observa- tional data related to the Bigfoot phenomenon is presented and analyzed to identify its origin. Human and animal archetypes are used to demonstrate the inclusion or exclusion of these archetypes within the observations. An argument of continuity, the expectation that there may be a continuous record of the existence of an organism, is employed to include or exclude the possibility that the observations originate from an uncataloged animal. The plausibility of an uncataloged animal is examined through ecological analogy.......

 

........The relationship in the clustered data is the correlation between population density and frequency: the Group A correlation of +0.9661 is high relative to the Group B correlation of +0.1244.
A second relationship in the clustered data is the correla- tion between population and frequency. When Group A is separated from the dataset, its correlation to popula- tion rises from +0.1192 to +0.5664.
Group A is differentiated from Group B by its high corre- lation to population density. This is consistent with the model of receiving a report of a cataloged animal (Eq. 1).

Let’s assume that manufactured reports will be uni- formly distributed across the population. If the rate of manufactured reports is constant, then the frequency of reports should correlate to population. To some degree, this is seen in Group B. There may be other unidentified influencing factors such as mean media exposure to Big- foot, which may influence the density of manufacturing.

The author speculates that Group A and Group B repre- sent different phenomenon. Group B may represent manufactured reports because of the correlation to popu- lation, whereas Group A may represent a different phe- nomenon because of its correlation to population density. The author hypothesizes that if Green’s data is the superposition of multiple phenomena that this is the expected result.........

[Patterson-Gimlin]

Thank you very much for sharing that link. It explains in great detail of what I was talking about in my own simplistic way. 

[gigantor]

1 hour ago, Huntster said:

http://www.photekimaging.com/Support/rptcol2.pdf

 

We should duplicate that study with current data...

[Huntster]

You're welcome. I very much liked Glickman's theory on the groupings of reports based upon human population density compared to report densities compiled before the bigoot media craze began. 

Just now, gigantor said:

We should duplicate that study with current data...

 

I think it would prove very interesting, especially with a much greater media exoosure to sasquatchery over the past several years.

[norseman]

There is no arguing the fact that there is a consistency with Human reporting ape men in forests and mountains. There are a few exceptions in the midwest. But the vast vast majority of sightings stay in that topography.

 

You would think if people were experiencing a mass delusion? It would be much more evenly distributed across the US.

[MikeZimmer]

2 hours ago, Huntster said:

 

http://www.photekimaging.com/Support/rptcol2.pdf

 

 

 

 

Thanks Hunster, I had forgotten about that study.

5 minutes ago, norseman said:

There is no arguing the fact that there is a consistency with Human reporting ape men in forests and mountains. There are a few exceptions in the midwest. But the vast vast majority of sightings stay in that topography.

 

You would think if people were experiencing a mass delusion? It would be much more evenly distributed across the US.

 

Does that finding by John Green that rainfall was a good predictor still hold up, and agree with frequency of sighting reports?

[Trogluddite]

4 hours ago, OkieFoot said:

 

This is something I had wondered about. Supposing someone looked at a large number of known fabricated reports;  Would we see too much consistency and too little variance. I tend to think you're right.

Could it be that a hoaxer thinks they have to stick to the norm, or close to it, in order to be believed? 

There are definitely some statistical red flags that suggest hoaxes - for example, multiple encounters in an area that is significantly smaller than the more common square mileage needed to generate the same (or more often fewer) number of encounters. When I originally started my database, I didn't include hoaxes because they're not sightings or encounters by definition.  Then I realized that by including known hoaxes and hoaxers, you can spot problems with other reports. 

 

While there are not enough known hoaxes to generate detailed patterns, there are other "tells" that should raise concerns.  However, almost every time that someone has raised a question concerning biological aspects of encounters (height, weight, track length), I run the numbers and get a bell curve of results.  I believe the SSI does the same.  I have a very difficult time believing that a series of unconnected, uncoordinated hoaxers or fabricators would generate these results in fabricated stories - if you want a big scary monster, you don't fabricate reports about 6' to 6 & 1/2' tall creatures; everything is 7', 8', 9' high and rising.  

 

Similarly, when Bobby O or Redbone posts sighting data from the SSI (mostly focused for now on encounters outside of the northeastern US), I can run similar searches and come up with similar distributions for northeastern encounters.  Again, I'm not sure how a series of uncoordinated hoaxes (or a deliberate campaign of fakery) could pre-plan their hoaxes/fake reports to generate this kind of result. 

 

[Huntster]

1 hour ago, MikeZimmer said:

........Does that finding by John Green that rainfall was a good predictor still hold up, and agree with frequency of sighting reports?

 

I think it does, and I believe that the rainfall is above 50 inches per year, and the higher the precipitation, the greater the densities of sasquatch reports as well as the greater the density of black bears, too. One of my favorite sasquatch academics, Roger Knights, theorized that the best sasquatch habitat dumped upwards of 100" of rain per year, was the highest black bear habitat on the continent, and probably boasted 1 sasquatch per 200 black bears.