The Relict Hominoid Inquiry

[Guest]

Thanks and kudo's to you WBT1. I would say at this point for you, JMO it's just a matter of hooking up with someone who's got some activity going on and then some of the camping/grind till enough happens you can point at as an AH-HAA moment.

Even people who capture the vocals and find tracks still face the hurdle of ''hard science''. It's frustrating, but thankfully people keep batting at it. Call me naieve, but at this point in time it's maybe beneficial that folks start working out their differences and team up. Like on a individual basis.....snagging ''definative proof'' is still gona be a bugger, but it's better than doing nothing.

[Guest]

I'd be amazed if this isn't true. I'll bet that one of the side effects of the publication of the Ketchum report will be a scrambling through old drawers of stuff in museums all over the world, looking for items to recatalogue, or send of for testing.

Mike

My dad always said that many museums have amazing finds in storage, and that one day they would "discover" that they have BF artifacts, bones,teeth, and even skin with hair dried someplace.

Having seen the storage basements in London's Museum of Natural History, and The Smithsonian, I agree with him.In London, there were levels below ground with 40 -50 foot ceilings PACKED with stuff.I saw them.

Same for the Smithsonian, but I don't think they had multiple levels.

This touring was when I was like 18 yo, so hopefully my memory is correct about the multiple levels, but my dad's words regarding BF are accurate.

Edited to add:

Dad thought that BF artifacts museums have could be mislabeled, and dad thought that we have BF listed, just as a different creature that science thinks is extinct.

We shall see.

Edited January 31, 2012 by SweetSusiq

[Guest]

Sir Ronald Ross dissected mosquitoes for 15 years, doing virtually nothing else, before finally finding one which carried the malarial parasite. If he'd have given up after 14 years, the cause of fighting malaria would have been set back by decades. Sometimes you have to look, and look, and look again, obsessively, before you find what you are looking for. Remember, too, that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Mike

That's all fine and dandy, and makes my point more directly than I did. First, a statement. I never advocated giving up the search. Finally, a question.

Before Ross found malaria, would it have been accurate and intellectually honest to have asserted, "A drug treatment or immunization for Malaria does not exist." I think so. See my point?

[Guest MikeG]

OK. Well, before Ross, malaria was thought to be the result of "bad air", not mosquitoes. (Italian Mal=bad aria=air). Not looking and looking would have left us with the status quo (as it did with you).......the equivalent of "the only hominid on the planet is modern human, until proven otherwise".

What I'm really saying is.........get back out into the woods!!!

Mike

Edited January 31, 2012 by MikeG

[Guest]

My dad always said that many museums have amazing finds in storage, and that one day they would "discover" that they have BF artifacts, bones,teeth, and even skin with hair dried someplace.

Having seen the storage basements in London's Museum of Natural History, and The Smithsonian, I agree with him.In London, there were levels below ground with 40 -50 foot ceilings PACKED with stuff.I saw them.

Same for the Smithsonian, but I don't think they had multiple levels.

This touring was when I was like 18 yo, so hopefully my memory is correct about the multiple levels, but my dad's words regarding BF are accurate.

Edited to add:

Dad thought that BF artifacts museums have could be mislabeled, and dad thought that we have BF listed, just as a different creature that science thinks is extinct.

We shall see.

I can see that happening as well, some sort of individual effort at every institution with a storage site to reclassify that large thigh bone or oddly shaped skull.

If these latest efforts prove them to exist, and nail down a genes, my money is on relic along the lines of H. Erectus who grew larger and more hairy just as the prehistoric mega-fauna did. We have loads of evidence for those other large creatures, giant sloths, giant cats, giant beavers, so it seems plausible.

Interestingly enough, the H. Erectus and giant beavers (and other prehistoric mega fauna) lived during the Pleistocene which included some rough weather changes.

Homo Erectus was the longest lasting hominoid surviving for almost 2 million years, they're also the 2nd most recently extinct, behind Neanderthal, outlasting Heidelburgensis, spread almost world-wide, used tools but not a wide variety of tools, possibly had only rudimentary language, limited use of fire if at all (may not have mastered it, may only have stolen it from others or forest fires), adapted to a wide-range of climates.

Their physical appearance changed over those years, with changes in their bodies over time including a face that went from snout like to flatter. That is, more ape-like to more human-like.

As for how they managed to avoid us all these years is they had no choice. Those who interacted with us didn't live long enough to breed. My guess is, they avoid modern humans today because to contact us in the past meant certain death. Between hunting and disease, nature selected for more and more elusive animals in each subsequent generation and it continues to do so today.

The ones left are the ones who stayed the heck out of sight, retreated first, lived in areas the modern humans avoided, and avoided detection by not using fires outdoors, covered their tracks, walked silently, stopped and observed rather than confronted in visual range, etc. Again, anyone who violated those rules was rewarded with a spear point, or a deadly flu to bring home to mom and the kids.

There are other similarities to H. Erectus, specifically hunting, didn't have full blown culture, no sign of clothing, limited language use, no artwork to speak of, things like that. If you take the sum of all of our bigfoot knowledge and overlay on top of it the sum of all of our H. Erectus knowledge, two things missing are the hair and the apparent size? Certainly one could be the descendant of the other, in my layman's opinion which is worth about as much as the electrons it took to reprint this post.

[Guest]

I've been in the woods countless hours both by myself and with others, using various techniques and in three different states. I've read eight books on BF starting with Krantz'. I've studied my evidence and others as well. I' like most here, have read almost everything about BF on the net that there is.

I have done my due diligence and reached my conclusion. Bigfoot does not exist.

I am open minded however and would like nothing better than to be wrong.

It is your opinion that BF does not exist. I can assure you from personal experience that said opinion is 100% wrong.

It's those expressions of certitude that really get under the skin of those of us who absolutely know that BF exists. In the eyes of institutional science, we are all either: a)lying, b)crazy or c)too stupid to know what we are seeing, and that is not only insulting to us personally, but arrogant in the extreme.

Your parody of science is, forgive me, slightly misleading. They don't say "if it isn't in our data it isn't true". They don't say that at all. That would display a supreme and indefensible arrogance.

Yes, it would, and yes, they do on a regular basis, and not just about BF. Take a long look into the origin of life debate and you'll see institutional science at it's sneering, contemptuous worst when it come to addressing the non-evolutionary theory of the beginning of life.

Science is, as I see it, completely neutral about stuff it hasn't looked at properly, so long as it doesn't fall outside the fundamentals.

So how do you square that position with the fundamental rejection out of hand by Science (as an institution) of BF?

[Guest MikeG]

Yes, it would, and yes, they do on a regular basis, and not just about BF. Take a long look into the origin of life debate and you'll see institutional science at it's sneering, contemptuous worst when it come to addressing the non-evolutionary theory of the beginning of life.

Well, you left this bit out of my original post when you quoted me, and I think it helps.......

Science is, as I see it, completely neutral about stuff it hasn't looked at properly, so long as it doesn't fall outside the fundamentals.

So how do you square that position with the fundamental rejection out of hand by Science (as an institution) of BF?

Firstly, science isn't an institution. Secondly, it hasn't "fundamental(ly) reject(ed) out of hand" bigfoot, as you suggest. Science is in a completely neutral position, a neutral skeptical position. How else would you want it to be? How else could it possibly be?

Just wait and see how silly this argument will look if the Ketchum paper is as promised. There will be zoologists crawling all over the woods, with funding. There will be a series of studies into the DNA. There will be environmental scientists studying the inter-relationship of Sasquatch and it's environment, and the impact of humans upon it/ them.

Once again, once there is evidence, strong, acceptable, verifiable evidence, science will move. For the life of me, I can't think how else it could sensibly be. What sort of insane world would we live in where we accepted hearsay and speculation as fact?

Mike

[Guest]

I can see that happening as well, some sort of individual effort at every institution with a storage site to reclassify that large thigh bone or oddly shaped skull.

If these latest efforts prove them to exist, and nail down a genes, my money is on relic along the lines of H. Erectus who grew larger and more hairy just as the prehistoric mega-fauna did. We have loads of evidence for those other large creatures, giant sloths, giant cats, giant beavers, so it seems plausible.

Interestingly enough, the H. Erectus and giant beavers (and other prehistoric mega fauna) lived during the Pleistocene which included some rough weather changes.

Homo Erectus was the longest lasting hominoid surviving for almost 2 million years, they're also the 2nd most recently extinct, behind Neanderthal, outlasting Heidelburgensis, spread almost world-wide, used tools but not a wide variety of tools, possibly had only rudimentary language, limited use of fire if at all (may not have mastered it, may only have stolen it from others or forest fires), adapted to a wide-range of climates.

Their physical appearance changed over those years, with changes in their bodies over time including a face that went from snout like to flatter. That is, more ape-like to more human-like.

As for how they managed to avoid us all these years is they had no choice. Those who interacted with us didn't live long enough to breed. My guess is, they avoid modern humans today because to contact us in the past meant certain death. Between hunting and disease, nature selected for more and more elusive animals in each subsequent generation and it continues to do so today.

The ones left are the ones who stayed the heck out of sight, retreated first, lived in areas the modern humans avoided, and avoided detection by not using fires outdoors, covered their tracks, walked silently, stopped and observed rather than confronted in visual range, etc. Again, anyone who violated those rules was rewarded with a spear point, or a deadly flu to bring home to mom and the kids.

There are other similarities to H. Erectus, specifically hunting, didn't have full blown culture, no sign of clothing, limited language use, no artwork to speak of, things like that. If you take the sum of all of our bigfoot knowledge and overlay on top of it the sum of all of our H. Erectus knowledge, two things missing are the hair and the apparent size? Certainly one could be the descendant of the other, in my layman's opinion which is worth about as much as the electrons it took to reprint this post.

I think your thinking is similar to mine but I would replace Homo erectus with an australopithecus species. Sapiens and neanderthals both used fire and likely got it form a common ancestor (Homo erectus) about 500,000 years ago. Furthermore there are possible hearths approximately 1.6 million years old in the Rift valley of Africa in association with erectus fossils and tools.

[Guest]

Even people who capture the vocals and find tracks still face the hurdle of ''hard science''.

Right there you're buying into the Skeptic argument. Vocals and tracks ARE "hard science". They are tangible, testable, and analyzable in the laboratory setting.

Before Ross found malaria, would it have been accurate and intellectually honest to have asserted, "A drug treatment or immunization for Malaria does not exist"? I think so.

Which is a far cry from saying that malaria itself did not exist. Which is the case with BF.

Firstly, science isn't an institution.

There absolutely IS an "institutional" position in science. It's also called "consensus" or "prevailing theory". It's the body of knowledge that science as a whole accepts as "accurate" or "true".

Secondly, it hasn't "fundamental(ly) reject(ed) out of hand" bigfoot, as you suggest.

Funny, I hear plenty of scientists do just that...has BF been admitted to the rolls of even the "possible" by institutional/mainstream science when I wasn't looking?

Science is in a completely neutral position,

Not when it's mind is already made up it's mind and made a definitive statement ("no bigfoot")

a neutral skeptical position.

Skepticism is not neutral. Neutral would be going wherever the evidence leads. Science is going AGANST the evidence (reports, vocals, hairs, tracks, etc)

How else would you want it to be? How else could it possibly be?

How about truly neutral and honest and admitting there is at a minimum a strong circumstantial case for BF and doing more/better research?

Once again, once there is evidence,

There is: hairs, tracks, reports, etc

strong, acceptable,verifiable evidence,

"weasel" words that allow you to simply dismiss any evidence you don't like.

What sort of insane world would we live in where we accepted hearsay

Civilian observes X and reports = "hearsay"

Scientist observes X and reports = "data".

and speculation as fact?

Since we have far more to hand than "speculation" that is a non-argument.

Edited January 31, 2012 by Mulder

[Guest MikeG]

I'll come back to this when a little editing has made it readable......sorry!

Mike

[Guest]

It is your opinion that BF does not exist. I can assure you from personal experience that said opinion is 100% wrong.

It's those expressions of certitude that really get under the skin of those of us who don't absolutely know whether bigfoot does or does not exist.

In the eyes of institutional science, we are all either: a)lying, b)crazy or c)too stupid to know what we are seeing, and that is not only insulting to us personally, but arrogant in the extreme.

You know, it would make it a lot easier to accept your argument that "Skeptics" set up straw-man arguments for "Believers" if you didn't so blatantly do the exact same thing yourself. Seriously, look at your post. You genuinely believe that ALL institutional science (and, if I recall, you define institutional science as 'science that doesn't accept bigfoot as fact') thinks EVERYONE who has had an alleged bigfoot sighting as "lying, crazy, or stupid"?

Removing any personal slight you seem to have taken from 'science', I think it's safe and rational for you to acknowledge that our senses frequently deceive us. I'm not saying you're lying. I'm not saying you're crazy. I'm not saying you're stupid. I'm saying that, given an individual who has not yet been as fortunate as you to see a bigfoot, when given an eye-witness account, they are generally presented with a choice between two things: 1) Acknowledging something may exist that they have been told their whole life does not; or 2) Acknowledging that a human being is capable of having their senses deceive them.

To be clear, I'm not saying people SHOULDN'T believe eye witness accounts. I'm saying you shouldn't take it quite so personally, when clearly option #2 is going to be a common, perhaps rational, reaction.

[Guest MikeG]

Let me give you an idea of what constitutes zoological evidence.

My daughter has just returned from Africa, and for part of her time there she studied with a team of hyaena specialists on the Maasai Mara. They spent 6 hours a day with a group of hyaenas, at their den sites, out on kills, and following on patrol. They always went as a group of 3.....two to do the observations, one to drive and help with recording when things got busy. They had to be able to instantly recognise 120 different adult & infant spotted hyaenas by sight. Every single movement was recorded. Every time an infant suckled, it was recorded. Every time two adults looked at each other, it was recorded. Every movement in and out of the den was recorded. Every scent marking was recorded. Scat was collected and analysed weekly. Prey species counts were done monthly. Lion counts were done weekly. Hyaenas were darted, measured, blood taken & tested, regularly. When they returned to camp, the rest of the day was taken with entering the data into the various data bases. This has been going on every single day for over 22 years.

Even then, it is arguable that this isn't science. It only becomes science when a paper is published in a recognised journal............

Now, how does this compare with a 10 second glimpse of an animal in a wood, uncorroborated?

I can ask this in all honesty because it has happened to me. I have the northernmost sighting of the African black-footed cat on record. 400 miles out of it's previously known range, and the only time it has been seen north of the Zambezi. I watched it for 10 minutes from 3 to 5 metres, in the open, but my camera was locked in the loadbay of my pick-up, and besides, it was after sunset. The researchers are terribly interested, and are following up my sighting, but it will never appear in any publication. I could be some hoaxer after my 5 minutes of fame. It is only my word that says I saw it. Does that bother me? Not in the slightest. This is science at work. It would completely undermine their integrity if they accepted sightings from anyone and everyone as fact.

Mike

Edited January 31, 2012 by MikeG

[Guest]

It is your opinion that BF does not exist. I can assure you from personal experience that said opinion is 100% wrong.

And I may be. I hope I am. But what aren't you getting here? Your personal experience does not equate to scientific proof. Seriously, why should I not hold the opinion I have? Why? What is so wrong with my needing proof? Why so angry?

In reality, neither of our opinions matter a nary.

Have you considered taking your anger out on the people who you are really angry with instead of a message board? This message board has no power. Have you looked up any Medical Scientists, Zoologists, Microbiologists or Wildlife Biologists in your area or the area's you would like them to investigate? I'm totally serious. Start something like a political campaign mailing list and call, email etc. all of them repeatedly until you get a response.

Worst case scenario???

You can copy their blow-offs here as proof that they are turning a blind eye. Think about. You will never again have to defend your position of science ignoring the search or the review of evidence or even ignoring your input. You will have documentation.

Best case scenario? You either get results or you have at least properly directed your displeasure with those who are causing it, instead of at some dim-whited WTB1 character and his ilk on this forum.

I'm being serious. Wouldn't you rest easier if you could come back here and say, "I have contacted this person, this person, this person etc. and this is what I have gotten back in response? Did I not tell you science has and will ignore any notion of BF? See? See?"

Finally. If I knew BF was real because I had an unmistakable sighting, I wouldn't let statements like 'BF does not exist' get under my skin at all, as you intimated a few posts ago. Particularly from a nameless faceless poster on the net. Really, if I knew? The joke would be on them. I wouldn't get angry, I would chuckle to myself and to them that...."You'll see, you'll see." And when they say, "Show me the money," I'd say, "It's coming pal. Just wait. And by the way, are you a betting person?"

Please Mulder; direct your anger toward the scientific community in written documentation, not BFF posters. Imagine the documented lack of interest you could collect to support your case that science is close-minded. Skeptics and naysayers on the net have no sway, so I humbly suggest you direct your disdain and accusations of bias and close-mindedness at those who really matter.

Please see the logic in this.

If not, you will come off as a continued crusader, endlessly arguing on a forum reactively as opposed to being proactive.

BTW, can you direct me to where I can find your encounter? PM or here is fine.

And I admire, however, your misplaced or properly arrived at passion.

Edited for typo's

Edited January 31, 2012 by WTB1

[Guest]

I'll come back to this when a little editing has made it readable......sorry!

Mike

Nothing I can edit will change it...it's the way the board posted it.

It's those expressions of certitude that really get under the skin of those of us who don't absolutely know whether bigfoot does or does not exist.

His certitude is based solely on an unsubstantiated opinion. Mine is based on observed reality.

You know, it would make it a lot easier to accept your argument that "Skeptics" set up straw-man arguments for "Believers" if you didn't so blatantly do the exact same thing yourself. Seriously, look at your post. You genuinely believe that ALL institutional science (and, if I recall, you define institutional science as 'science that doesn't accept bigfoot as fact') thinks EVERYONE who has had an alleged bigfoot sighting as "lying, crazy, or stupid"?

Since they dismiss all reports, no matter how detailed as either hoax, illusion or misidentification, then yes, I know that they DO in fact think we're either lying crazy or stupid.

Removing any personal slight you seem to have taken from 'science', I think it's safe and rational for you to acknowledge that our senses frequently deceive us. I'm not saying you're lying. I'm not saying you're crazy. I'm not saying you're stupid. I'm saying that, given an individual who has not yet been as fortunate as you to see a bigfoot, when given an eye-witness account, they are generally presented with a choice between two things: 1) Acknowledging something may exist that they have been told their whole life does not; or 2) Acknowledging that a human being is capable of having their senses deceive them.

To be clear, I'm not saying people SHOULDN'T believe eye witness accounts. I'm saying you shouldn't take it quite so personally, when clearly option #2 is going to be a common, perhaps rational, reaction.

This to me is a cop out. It's a backdoor, gentler way of implying what you refuse to say outright.

I saw what I saw.

I KNOW what I saw.

I was not drunk or high (I do neither alcohol nor drugs). I was fully awake and watchful.

My encounter was not a vague impression out of the corner of my eye, or an unseen noise maker in the dark. I saw in full view of my headlights at a range of ~30' a hairy, bipedal HUMANOID figure (not a bear, as it neither resembled nor moved like one) take a full step and a half as it walked around the corner of my friend's house. It was at least as tall as the edge of the roof at that point (8'+).

No one other than my friend knew I was coming, and he was in the house with his family (and a gun, so anyone randomly wandering about in a putative monkey suit would have been cruising for lead poisoning).

So do not talk to me about "rationality". My experience, and those of 100s if not 1000s of other people firmly put BF in the "exists" category, no matter how much yammering the Skeptics do about "proof".

It's those expressions of certitude that really get under the skin of those of us who don't absolutely know whether bigfoot does or does not exist.

His certitude is based solely on an unsubstantiated opinion. Mine is based on observed reality.

You know, it would make it a lot easier to accept your argument that "Skeptics" set up straw-man arguments for "Believers" if you didn't so blatantly do the exact same thing yourself. Seriously, look at your post. You genuinely believe that ALL institutional science (and, if I recall, you define institutional science as 'science that doesn't accept bigfoot as fact') thinks EVERYONE who has had an alleged bigfoot sighting as "lying, crazy, or stupid"?

Since they dismiss all reports, no matter how detailed as either hoax, illusion or misidentification, then yes, I know that they DO in fact think we're either lying crazy or stupid.

Removing any personal slight you seem to have taken from 'science', I think it's safe and rational for you to acknowledge that our senses frequently deceive us. I'm not saying you're lying. I'm not saying you're crazy. I'm not saying you're stupid. I'm saying that, given an individual who has not yet been as fortunate as you to see a bigfoot, when given an eye-witness account, they are generally presented with a choice between two things: 1) Acknowledging something may exist that they have been told their whole life does not; or 2) Acknowledging that a human being is capable of having their senses deceive them.

To be clear, I'm not saying people SHOULDN'T believe eye witness accounts. I'm saying you shouldn't take it quite so personally, when clearly option #2 is going to be a common, perhaps rational, reaction.

This to me is a cop out. It's a backdoor, gentler way of implying what you refuse to say outright.

I saw what I saw.

I KNOW what I saw.

I was not drunk or high (I do neither alcohol nor drugs). I was fully awake and watchful.

My encounter was not a vague impression out of the corner of my eye, or an unseen noise maker in the dark. I saw in full view of my headlights at a range of ~30' a hairy, bipedal HUMANOID figure (not a bear, as it neither resembled nor moved like one) take a full step and a half as it walked around the corner of my friend's house. It was at least as tall as the edge of the roof at that point (8'+).

No one other than my friend knew I was coming, and he was in the house with his family (and a gun, so anyone randomly wandering about in a putative monkey suit would have been cruising for lead poisoning).

So do not talk to me about "rationality". My experience, and those of 100s if not 1000s of other people firmly put BF in the "exists" category, no matter how much yammering the Skeptics do about "proof".

[Guest]

Mulder,your in good company,

"many rural and wildland sightings are still reported each year by hunters, fishermen, trappers, loggers, farmers, ranchers, ranch hands, sheepherders, hikers, birdwatchers, bicycle riders, horse riders, mule packers, mushroom pickers, kayakers, canoeists, river guides, dirt bikers, snowmobilers, paintballers, sunbathers, meteor watchers, ATVer's, helicopter pilots, couriers, cave explorers, land surveyors, war reenactors, rock hunters, homesteaders, arrowhead collectors, herpatolgists, UPS drivers, nurses, homesteaders, bat researchers, crop pickers, tour train occupants SIS, field archeologists, ginseng diggers, metal detectors, pine nut pickers, lawnmowers, firewood gatherers SIS, newspaper carriers, downed pilots, pizza deliverers, frog giggers, siesmic drilling rig operators, frontiersmen (Daniel Boone), and other outdoor workers and recreationists. "