General consensus on what Bigfoot is

[Huntster]

11 hours ago, Doug said:

.........Sometimes when the weighty, deep and sometime abstract thoughts on a subject come up and I contemplate them with an open mind, I sometimes revert back to something more simple such as the old saying; "ignorance is bliss" and just go with that.

 

You must be more akin to the quiet version. As one who hates mankind in the macro, and lives in and seeks the more quiet areas of the planet, I think I'm also more related to the quiet version. But the desire to understand, even if not expand collectively, is strong with me.

 

I also see sasquatchery in a spiritual realm. They are a pre-Creational human. "Man" (Homo sapien) was "created" (modified) in the image and likeness of God..........IOW, Man was created in the spirit. Other members of the Homo genus weren't. 

 

Aboriginal peoples original religions tended to be animist and shamanist. The spirits of the different species of animals, trees, waters, lands, etc were understood by their behaviors and relationships with everything else. Often individual people were seen spiritually as similar to various animals because of their physical aspects and behaviors, so a huge, powerful, and aggressive man might be called a bear. Thus, in my life, I've been likened to bears, but for some reason I feel much more spiritually akin to wolves. Wolves seem to like me, and vice versa. I've had many close interactions with wolves, and they have all left me pleased. Not so much with my bear experiences. 

 

My only sasquatch experience was a trackway find and a mysterious evening of events on that day. I long for another such experience, but with a visual treat and the chance to "talk", even if just with signs and body language. 

[Doug]

Yes, i am very Mucha quite version. I have been described by others as otter like. I see myself as a cat myself. I tend to be like a bobcat. The spirit realm, I believe is every bit a part of us as the physical.

Edited April 8, 2022 by Doug

[iacozizzle]

Ancient megafauna, a lot older than we are.  Just my speculation. 

[Sasquatchodon]

I think Giganto, or something like it, is still a good null hypothesis. Although it's contested if they were even bipedal or ate anything else besides bamboo. There were a lot of large apes like Giganto in Southeast Asia (and Europe!) from the Miocene up to Pleistocene. But given the intelligence level of Sasquatch, I think something like Paranthropus fits even better. They were bipedal, more intelligent and humanlike than Pongids, but didn't use fire or any sophisticated tools as far as we can tell. There's a lot of similarity between them and the Patterson creature as well. They're only known in Africa, but it seems more likely some relatives of theirs's (regular Australopithecus) at least made it to Flores to found the Hobbits.

 

What Bigfoot is not, if it's real, is a Neanderthal or Homo Erectus (but it could be an offshoot just before Erectus). The physiology, let alone material culture and intelligence, just don't work. It's also not an alien, shapeshifter, spiritual entity, or interdimensional until shown otherwise. 

[zeebob889]

9 hours ago, Sasquatchodon said:

I think Giganto, or something like it, is still a good null hypothesis. Although it's contested if they were even bipedal or ate anything else besides bamboo. There were a lot of large apes like Giganto in Southeast Asia (and Europe!) from the Miocene up to Pleistocene. But given the intelligence level of Sasquatch, I think something like Paranthropus fits even better. They were bipedal, more intelligent and humanlike than Pongids, but didn't use fire or any sophisticated tools as far as we can tell. There's a lot of similarity between them and the Patterson creature as well. They're only known in Africa, but it seems more likely some relatives of theirs's (regular Australopithecus) at least made it to Flores to found the Hobbits.

 

What Bigfoot is not, if it's real, is a Neanderthal or Homo Erectus (but it could be an offshoot just before Erectus). The physiology, let alone material culture and intelligence, just don't work. It's also not an alien, shapeshifter, spiritual entity, or interdimensional until shown otherwise. 

I'm sorry, but to take an essentially tropical, vegetarian ape, and send it across a variety of less than friendly climate and terrain, and expect it to not be out competed if not preyed upon by predators and other animals better suited to those environments is just patently unrealistic. Where is the climatic trigger that would have spawned such a sudden change in Giganto's development.

 

Whatever Bigfoot is or isn't, it isnt Giganto.

[guyzonthropus]

When thinking of our human heritage, one MUST keep in mind just how incomplete the fossil record really is, and just how limiting the parameters that allow for fossilization really are. I figure that if we've found say 15-20 stages and forms of hominids, chances are there's quite a large number of one's we've yet to find and/or never will because of the two factors mentioned above. It's crazy to think we know anything close to the whole story.  Alien intervention? Maybe...were we planted here? I really don't think so. Sasquatch, certainly a relative of one distance of another. I'm rather prone to thinking they're something of a megafauna primate that came to their form competing with a large array of predators and managed to survive to the present thanks to their intelligence which allowed them to adapt to changing conditions. Being an omnivore was bound to be a big factor that allowed them to persist in shifting habitats. Their past history with megafauna predators gave them strategies that helped them deal with the influx of smaller humans once we stopped just running away, as we do tend to kill a lot of stuff over time, and they certainly realized this before it was entirely too late. Surviving once again.

[Sasquatchodon]

11 hours ago, zeebob889 said:

I'm sorry, but to take an essentially tropical, vegetarian ape, and send it across a variety of less than friendly climate and terrain, and expect it to not be out competed if not preyed upon by predators and other animals better suited to those environments is just patently unrealistic. Where is the climatic trigger that would have spawned such a sudden change in Giganto's development.

 

Whatever Bigfoot is or isn't, it isnt Giganto.

Well I do agree that Bigfoot probably isn't Giganto, since I think it's likely Giganto was a bamboo specialist, and probably not intelligent enough. But Giganto was the right size, and in the right place, since they were in China, where there are still modern reports. I think it's important to keep Giganto in mind, more so that whole family of large Miocene-Pleistocene apes in Asia, because they were "close" to Northeast Asia, and large in size, where you can imagine how it could have entered North America.

 

The problems of not being near NE Asia, adapted to a cold climate, or having defenses against terrestrial predators is also an issue for all the other candidates. Unless Bigfoot can make spears or fire, it would run into trouble from forest Pleistocene predators like Tigers, Short Faced Bears, Smilodon, and Jaguars. Perhaps the cryptic nature of Sasquatches, along with their seeming preference difficult terrain like mountains, arose from having to deal with large predators. We look at Sasquatch today as not having to fear anything, but that is with our vastly depleted megafauna. If they presumably came to North America in the late Pleistocene or earlier, there would be a lot of things that would be dangerous to them. 

[Sasquatchodon]

6 hours ago, guyzonthropus said:

When thinking of our human heritage, one MUST keep in mind just how incomplete the fossil record really is, and just how limiting the parameters that allow for fossilization really are. I figure that if we've found say 15-20 stages and forms of hominids, chances are there's quite a large number of one's we've yet to find and/or never will because of the two factors mentioned above. It's crazy to think we know anything close to the whole story.  Alien intervention? Maybe...were we planted here? I really don't think so. Sasquatch, certainly a relative of one distance of another. I'm rather prone to thinking they're something of a megafauna primate that came to their form competing with a large array of predators and managed to survive to the present thanks to their intelligence which allowed them to adapt to changing conditions. Being an omnivore was bound to be a big factor that allowed them to persist in shifting habitats. Their past history with megafauna predators gave them strategies that helped them deal with the influx of smaller humans once we stopped just running away, as we do tend to kill a lot of stuff over time, and they certainly realized this before it was entirely too late. Surviving once again.

I like your thoughts! I think its interesting, or at the very least fun, to think about the "natural history" of Sasquatches in the Pleistocene. The ecosystem was a whole lot different then, with a lot of dangerous megafauna. Sasquatch would of had to have come in either around 20-10k BC, along with Elk, Grizzly Bears, Moose, and Humans, or earlier. Either way, they're having to deal with Short Faced Bears, Smilodon, American Lions, Dire Wolves, Scimitar Cats, along with the Jaguars, Cougars, Bears, and Wolves still found here today. Sasquatches actually would be pretty vulnerable to some of these. Their intelligence would serve them well, as well as living in difficult terrain, and dense forests where its easier to hide (and you avoid the plains predators like lions).

 

Theoretically, it also makes sense Sasquatches to have survived the Pleistocene extinctions too. Species with large mass, and lower intelligence, died out more often than smaller and more intelligent ones. This is potentially (I think probably) because the extinctions were human caused. This also really makes you think if it could explain why they're so rare and elusive.

[McGlencoe]

There are so many possibilities, but, we still need way more information on them before we can even surmise those possibilities.

[zeebob889]

12 hours ago, Sasquatchodon said:

Well I do agree that Bigfoot probably isn't Giganto, since I think it's likely Giganto was a bamboo specialist, and probably not intelligent enough. But Giganto was the right size, and in the right place, since they were in China, where there are still modern reports. I think it's important to keep Giganto in mind, more so that whole family of large Miocene-Pleistocene apes in Asia, because they were "close" to Northeast Asia, and large in size, where you can imagine how it could have entered North America.

 

The problems of not being near NE Asia, adapted to a cold climate, or having defenses against terrestrial predators is also an issue for all the other candidates. Unless Bigfoot can make spears or fire, it would run into trouble from forest Pleistocene predators like Tigers, Short Faced Bears, Smilodon, and Jaguars. Perhaps the cryptic nature of Sasquatches, along with their seeming preference difficult terrain like mountains, arose from having to deal with large predators. We look at Sasquatch today as not having to fear anything, but that is with our vastly depleted megafauna. If they presumably came to North America in the late Pleistocene or earlier, there would be a lot of things that would be dangerous to them. 

 

Exactly, and I blame Noll and Meldrum for furthering a BS premise back in the day. There's simple too much of a stretch to get Giganto all the way to North America given the obstacles it would have faced. It was an attempt to alter a puzzle piece to fit an irregular hole, and it was sloppy science.

[Outcast]

On 3/30/2022 at 6:14 AM, SasquatchPA said:

To me if it exist I see it as a bipedal primate. 

I agree. Nothing supernatural about it if its out there which I think there is something to all the stories. 

[CallyCat]

I don't know what it is, people wonder how something that big could stay hidden. I think that part of the enigma is easy enough to understand. If something isn't the "norm" you aren't expecting to see it. The brain works to rationalize brief experiences as something known, like large animals that live in the area. People tend to dismiss that niggling intuition that tells them that what they saw, heard, or smelled didn't exactly match the "norm" and go on about their business.

 

Combine that with the fact that there probably aren't that many of them to begin with so they can stay off the mainstream radar. I think that's why the national parks were established. It gives them a range to move where they want to go with little chance of coming into contact with humans, or at least that would have been true when the parks were established; no interstate system, less than 2 billion people in the U.S. 

 

The few footprints we have of Neanderthal look amazingly like smaller versions of bigfoot tracks. Neanderthals broke off from homo Sapien 500,000 years ago, they weren't as social as homo sapiens and lived in small groups. The skulls of Neanderthal have huge eye sockets so I wonder if they were adapted for the arctic circle or underground environments. Possibly a group splintered off early on, adapted well to their environment, inbreeding might have played a part, and what you have now is some kind of being that doesn't need what we need to survive on this planet and keeps their distance.

Edited April 23, 2022 by CallyCat

[norseman]

@Huntster

 

I moved my reply over here.

 

 

[norseman]

There is very good reason to define them as different species. 
 

No male Y chromosome Neanderthal DNA exists today. Why? Because male hybrids were sterile. Females at least some where not. Just like mules typically are sterile, but not always. 
 

Does it make sense than Bigfoot would have speech and not fire or stone tools? It doesn’t to me. I would chalk this one up with the fish trap.   Does Bigfoot have a hyoid bone? We have no idea until we have a specimen.

[Huntster]

11 hours ago, norseman said:

There is very good reason to define them as different species. 
 

No male Y chromosome Neanderthal DNA exists today. Why? Because male hybrids were sterile. Females at least some where not. Just like mules typically are sterile, but not always. 
 

  Does Bigfoot have a hyoid bone? We have no idea until we have a specimen.

 

Valid point. This would make Neanderthals a different species, and a lack of the mystery sasquatch marker (if, indeed, there is such a lack) in the native American gene pool would indicate that sasquatches are a different species.

 

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.........Does it make sense than Bigfoot would have speech and not fire or stone tools? It doesn’t to me. I would chalk this one up with the fish trap........

 

There is plenty of testimony and even recordings of sasquatch chatter that sounds like speech, and testimony that indicates that they speak to each other. Limited tool manufacture and tool use is not a factor in species identification, in my opinion. They simply don't need specialty tools. Throwing rocks and using crude clubs appears to be all they need. AFAIC, the fish trap is evidence of a poacher, not a sasquatch, but a crude fish trap is entirely possible, easy to manufacture, and leaves no endurable archeological evidence.

 

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..........Does Bigfoot have a hyoid bone? We have no idea until we have a specimen.

 

Regarding hyoid bones:

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyoid_bone

 

Quote

........The hyoid bone is present in many mammals. It allows a wider range of tongue, pharyngeal and laryngeal movements by bracing these structures alongside each other in order to produce variation.[6] Its descent in living creatures is not unique to Homo sapiens,[7] and does not allow the production of a wide range of sounds: with a lower larynx, men do not produce a wider range of sounds than women and 2-year-old babies. Moreover, the larynx position of Neanderthals was not a handicap to producing speech sounds.[8] The discovery of a modern-looking hyoid bone of a Neanderthal man in the Kebara Cave in Israel led its discoverers to argue that the Neanderthals had a descended larynx, and thus human-like speech capabilities.[9] However, other researchers have claimed that the morphology of the hyoid is not indicative of the larynx's position. Recent research has indicated that the hyoid bone may have significant involvement in the ability to swallow. It has been hypothesized that the mammalian hyoid bone evolved in conjunction with the development of lactation, thus allowing babies to suckle milk.[10] It is necessary to take into consideration the skull base, the mandible and the cervical vertebrae and a cranial reference plane.[11][12]..........

 

Caribou have hyoid bones. I can't remember if moose and bears have one, but I believe they do.