The Ketchum Report

[indiefoot]

I am very troubled that Ketchum is claiming to have sightings. Now all of my confidence in the Ketchum Report has been 100% shattered. IMO repeat/frequent sightings are the most suspect of all kinds of sightings. Has anyone ever produced a single shred of verifiable evidence that there is anything to those kinds of claims? Good photo, video will suffice but I fear it'll remain just as it is now....Null Set.

The whitey video currently under examination is from an habituation scenario. Is it conclusive? No, but better than most. In the right circumstances multiple visits to a location take place and for those who have access to those locations multiple sightings can occur. It doesn't make getting conclusive evidence much easier though.

[Cotter]

We have evidence of a young Australopithecine who was killed by an eagle about 2.5 million years ago. Meanwhile, bigfoots are preying on black bears but we have no physical evidence of such a thing ever happening. Makes sense to me!

However, evidence isn't proof, right Sas? And lack of evidence does not prove lack of existence, right?

:-)

*ducking and running*

:-)

[Guest]

You don't think an ecologist trying to figure out how his tagged bear died, would try to figure out what killed it?

Surely some of these must come back, 'Beaten by Giant Upright Primate', I mean they can tell if the bear was killed by another bear, or by a cougar, why don't any of those studies say 'Beaten atop the head by giant fists of a Bigfoot'?

That presumes that only tagged bears die or are killed/etc by bf.

[Drew]

No, it presumes that some (at least one) tagged bears are killed by a bigfoot.

[Guest]

We have evidence of a young Australopithecine who was killed by an eagle about 2.5 million years ago. Meanwhile, bigfoots are preying on black bears but we have no physical evidence of such a thing ever happening. Makes sense to me!

One, out how how many of such that died/were killed over the millenia they were around...how many of those who died from ANY cause do we even have?

Remember the chimpanzee, not documented from the fossil record until a half-century ago or so. Or good-old Gigantopithicus, still only known by a what? A jaw, a few teeth, etc. There must have been millions of them over the millenia, and that's all we have for them.

Leaving aside the issue of fossilization (which has been discussed to death), it's simply the case that nature is a VERY efficient disposer of dead bodies. If it were not, the woods would be up to it's proverbial armpits in dead animal carcasses in short order.

No, it presumes that some (at least one) tagged bears are killed by a bigfoot.

As with all these "if BF were real, we must have [insert claim or type of evidence], there are multiple options that allow for (in this particular case) a lack of professional findings being published about a bear being killed by a BF that still permit BF to kill bears include:

• the body is never recovered to begin with, either as the result of location and natural processes (decay and scavengers), or by removal or consumption on the part of the BF
  
• the body is recovered but the tag is missing so it is not identified as a tagged bear
  
• the body is recovered, but due to it's condition the cause of death is not readily identifiable
  
• the body is recovered, the cause is clear, but the finding is suppressed, either by the individual researcher or by wildlife officials.
  

[southernyahoo]

Posted 05 May 2012 - 07:57 AM

Yes, I'm quite aware of the authors' intent to illustrate shortcomings in ENM in the Lozier et al. paper. They say that's the intent in the paper. As a wildlife ecologist, I find their analysis quite damning regarding bigfoot. Through analysis of the spatial ecology of bigfoot sightings, they determined that the distribution of "bigfoot habitat" correlates very highly with the distribution of black bear habitat in the Pacific Northwest. They focused on the broad niche overlap that must be postulated between bigfoots and black bears, and which would be rather dubious given what we've learned about animal ecology. The more important aspect I see, however, is a complete obliteration of the notion that bigfoots occur in wild and remote places never/seldom visited by humans, and that's how they've escaped collection through centuries of exploration and settlement of the American West. The Lozier paper tells us that everything we're told about bigfoot as occupying wild places on par with those of "cryptids" across the globe is a crock. It tells us that efforts to "protect bigfoot habitat" are silly. If bigfoots are real, then anyplace capable of supporting bears can support bigfoots - and according to the sightings, actually does.

I think bigfoot habitat correlates even better with niche models for deer ,coyotes , jack-rabbits.and humans..JMHO Why stop at an overlap for bear habitat? Oh, I know why, because thats what we would rather accept, if bigfoot were actually real. There's no difference between this and citing a correlation between sightings and human population distribution, or citing that rainfall totals tend to overlap all the above. Humans and animals like food rich environments generally, so what else is new?

[Guest]

This has been the most backwards way of proving they exist as could possibly be. You have samples. You have DNA. You have the hair, flesh, teeth, bones, blood, of the creature. You have Erickson's videos. You have apparently access to a habituation with a family of them. Call a huge news conference, show the vids and pictures, then present the samples. Then distribute samples to various labs and universities to test for themselves. All results come back as the same critter, a new critter and boom. Done. No secrecy. No need for a financier. No NDA's. No added drama. HD video with 3 separate DNA sources would do it. If that didn't, a body is needed. After all, the public will decide if they believe it or not.

I suspect the answer lies in the fact that the evidence relating to this report does not represent BF, the video and pictures of any BF do not exist, and there will be no conclusive report from this camp. Too bad too, because it would be awesome if I were wrong.

Why would you find it surprising to find two different types of large-bodied mammalian omnivores adapted for a certain climate and terrain having a similar distribution mapping? Us lowly members of the "great unwashed" can understand that. It isn't "rocket science".

It is the fact that one is well documented and repeatedly documentable...while the other...well...not so much!

I am very troubled that Ketchum is claiming to have sightings. Now all of my confidence in the Ketchum Report has been 100% shattered. IMO repeat/frequent sightings are the most suspect of all kinds of sightings. Has anyone ever produced a single shred of verifiable evidence that there is anything to those kinds of claims? Good photo, video will suffice but I fear it'll remain just as it is now....Null Set.

What he said!

We have evidence of a young Australopithecine who was killed by an eagle about 2.5 million years ago. Meanwhile, bigfoots are preying on black bears but we have no physical evidence of such a thing ever happening. Makes sense to me!

The Taung Child, been a few years since I read up on that.

Good question. You would expect the science atmosphere to be be charged with electric anticipation and loud rumor buzz if university department heads and credible scientists in relevant disciplines have joined with Dr. Ketchum to give serious credence to the existence of Bigfoot, NDAs or no NDAs.

Yet, the story of the paper is still flying below the public radar.

Exactly! This would be a huuuuuge deal if it were even remotely possibly true. There is no way an NDA would cut it, especially with the primary researcher making claims like sightings and repeated observations. It is totally beyond believable in my opinion. It is way beyond bigfootery when 'evidence' of another, yet uncatologued higher primate...bipedal at that....may actually exist!

Edited May 8, 2012 by summitwalker

[HOLDMYBEER]

Posted 05 May 2012 - 07:57 AM Saskeptic, on 04 May 2012 - 07:25 AM, said: ...... The more important aspect I see, however, is a complete obliteration of the notion that bigfoots occur in wild and remote places never/seldom visited by humans, and that's how they've escaped collection through centuries of exploration and settlement of the American West. The Lozier paper tells us that everything we're told about bigfoot as occupying wild places on par with those of "cryptids" across the globe is a crock. It tells us that efforts to "protect bigfoot habitat" are silly. If bigfoots are real, then anyplace capable of supporting bears can support bigfoots - and according to the sightings, actually does.

Saskeptic,

No intent to derail this thread, but since nothing is happening with the Ketchum Report........

I read this paper and I confess I have no real gift for understanding it's complexities. But how does the paper completely obliterate any notion of where bigfoots occur when the paper is based on the input of several big piles of unvetted data. How does garbage in, garbage out not hold true?

[Guest]

^As far as bigfoot goes I think it's all "garbage in", but most bigfoot proponents don't agree with me on that. Lozier et al. used the BFRO sightings database to build their bigfoot ENM. Is there a specific problem with using the BFRO database to build a hypothetical bigfoot distribution and characterize habitat from it?

"We present ENMs for Bigfoot in western North America based on a repository of (1) putative sightings and auditory detections (n = 551), and (2) footprint measurements (n = 95) collected from 1944 to 2005 (Fig. 1). This data set was taken from a collection of reported Bigfoot encounters archived by the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (BFRO; http://www.bfro.net/news/google_earth.asp). The reports generally consisted of a description of the event and where it occurred. The reports used were filtered to eliminate spurious points by carefully examining event descriptions prior to incorporation in the present study. The events were assigned geographic coordinates by matching descriptions of event locations to actual locations on USGS quad maps and commercially available atlases."

[JDL]

There've been a number of threads on this forum dealing with wild men in European, Asian, and Native American lore. One of the many cross-cultural consistencies is that they lurk on the edge of human communities, stealing livestock, children, etc.

Now, this may simply be another big pile of unvetted data, but it is consistent unvetted data. It can be viewed subjectively, objectively, dismissively, or hypothetically. Sometimes you glean from material only what you expect to get out of it and one man's garbage may turn out to be another man's silver.

Case in point. A year or two after the Comstock Lode was in full swing and they'd taken ridiculous amounts of gold from the several mines there, someone had the bright idea to analyze the mine tailings (the mounds of left-over dirt already taken from the mine) for silver. It turned out that the value of the silver ore already out of the mines and simply laying in massive piles on the ground surpassed that of the gold that they had already mined.

There are ways to analyze unvetted data to derive meaningful information from its consistency or lack therof.

[southernyahoo]

But how does the paper completely obliterate any notion of where bigfoots occur when the paper is based on the input of several big piles of unvetted data. How does garbage in, garbage out not hold true?

I hate to further compound the problem, but exactly who's vetting would be good enough to declare that it IS actually vetted? You start with some verifiable evidence right? Then throw out the rest?

[Guest BFSleuth]

IMHO the BFRO database is likely the best available database so far (until BFF gets its database done). However, many of the BFRO reports have little or no follow up research by BFRO investigators, especially the early ones. If I were going to do a database analysis I would likely want to use only the most vetted reports, those that show that the investigator did some kind of follow up investigation with witness interview, pictures, etc. Many of the early reports had no investigation noted at all.

[Guest]

Back to the thread.

I know that at least some of the members attended the symposium and should be able to answer a couple of questions.

Melba Ketchum wrote on FB:

.......

3. The PowerPoint Presentation did include results of the first alleged BF samples tested in our lab. This was followed by me discussing the results of the first BF samples that actually triggered the beginning of this project.

Two questions:

1) What did she say about the above mentioned alleged BF samples?

2) Was the Power Point Presentation canned or live, thus making it possible to address questions live?

[Guest OntarioSquatch]

Another thing:

"Dr. Ketchum mentioned that her life has been threatened for giving "information"."

http://bigfooteviden...to-bigfoot.html

Who would want Sasquatch to be kept a secret? The Government? Extremists? Trolls?

[Guest Transformer]

There've been a number of threads on this forum dealing with wild men in European, Asian, and Native American lore. One of the many cross-cultural consistencies is that they lurk on the edge of human communities, stealing livestock, children, etc.

Now, this may simply be another big pile of unvetted data, but it is consistent unvetted data. It can be viewed subjectively, objectively, dismissively, or hypothetically. Sometimes you glean from material only what you expect to get out of it and one man's garbage may turn out to be another man's silver.

Case in point. A year or two after the Comstock Lode was in full swing and they'd taken ridiculous amounts of gold from the several mines there, someone had the bright idea to analyze the mine tailings (the mounds of left-over dirt already taken from the mine) for silver. It turned out that the value of the silver ore already out of the mines and simply laying in massive piles on the ground surpassed that of the gold that they had already mined.

There are ways to analyze unvetted data to derive meaningful information from its consistency or lack therof.

Regarding the "Case in point" that I highlighted in the quote above I think this is perfect in this thread because it is just a tall tale. The silver was found during regular mining processes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comstock_Lode

Another thing:

"Dr. Ketchum mentioned that her life has been threatened for giving "information"."

http://bigfooteviden...to-bigfoot.html

Who would want Sasquatch to be kept a secret? The Government? Extremists? Trolls?

This is very serious and I wonder where the police report was made.