Is The Skookum Cast Still Considered To Be A Potential Bigfoot Lay?

[Guest LAL]

Two words: nut prints.

So a possible misidentified coyote track happened to occur just where testicles might have been. How does that prove anything?

[Guest]

The majority of the folks that gave there input too what it was were BF enthusiasts looking for only one answer ~ No to mention that is came from the totally one sided BFRO were nothing can ever be questioned.

Tim

Oh my -- I've been hit with yet another Nerf ball!

Given that the Cast was found near the end of a BFRO expedition, no one can be surprised that BF enthusiasts found the impression, made the Cast, and now possess the Cast. Noll has offered to make the Cast available to be examined by other scientists, especially wildlife biologists with knowledge of elk, and to my knowledge no such wildlife biologist has ever taken him up on his offer. He had displayed reproductions of the Cast, which may not be perfectly faithful, but these displays have offered interested wildlife biologists opportunities for examination. It's not Noll's fault that no one has expressed interest, and failure of others to express interest does not add up to evidence in support of the Cast being made by an elk. And I can understand Noll not being positively impressed with all the remote viewers that are somehow able to prove beyond doubt that it's an elk lay without ever having seen the Cast.

Using more RRS logic no physical evidence obtained by BF enthusiasts because of who collected it. Fortunately, science operates not on who collected the evidence, but on how the evidence stands up to scrutiny. It was a lowly patent clerk who published a paper on special relativity that changed the world of physics.

[Guest]

Are you saying an elk can jump out of an elk lay without messing it up or leaving fresh tracks if it's sufficiently scared?

Take away the levitating elk hypothesis and the deniers don't have a leg to stand on. The only video clip posted here so far shows an elk rising and placing its feet within the boundaries of where it was laying. We obviously weren't supposed to examine the evidence offered. So, instead of modifying their hypothesis, the deniers simply throw out the evidence. What's it called when a hypothesis can't be falsified? Oh yeah, either pseudoscience or faith.

[Guest]

Bigfoot, the elusive creature so smart and so intent on not being captured alive, dead, fossilized, or in a clear photograph, must have been aware that some annoying humans were in Skookum Meadows that fateful night. What does he do?

1) He walks out in the open near a road.

2) He finds an obvious "trap" in terms of a pile of fruit put there by humans on a wide open roadside.

3) Our master of the woods cannot resist the sweet temptation of that fruit.

4) For some reason - unlike the bigfoots that have left thousands of footprints around for people to find - this one is very cautious about stepping in any soft mud.

5) He decides, therefore, to leave an entire impression of his body by bellycrawling or somehow rolling into position where he can sit and enjoy some - but not all - of that fruit that he just couldn't resist in the first place.

6) So for some unspecified period of time that night, there was a bigfoot lazily reclining in a wide open muddy patch on the side of the road so he could delicately sample some fruit put out by humans to lure him into view in an obvious trap.

Makes sense to me. It's gotta be either the above scenario or that an elk, which are abundant in the area, do bed down along roadsides, do wallow in mud, do enjoy an occasional bite of apple, and did leave prints in the mud is responsible. I'm baffled, frankly.

[Guest]

No, no, no...it went down like this, only on a larger scale

http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIS15k2Zwdg

[Guest krakatoa]

Take away the levitating elk hypothesis and the deniers don't have a leg to stand on. The only video clip posted here so far shows an elk rising and placing its feet within the boundaries of where it was laying. We obviously weren't supposed to examine the evidence offered. So, instead of modifying their hypothesis, the deniers simply throw out the evidence. What's it called when a hypothesis can't be falsified? Oh yeah, either pseudoscience or faith.

So eyewitness testimony of seeing just that behavior from an elk...

And a picture posted previously showing an elk lay w/ no foot prints in it...

That's all fabrication or simply mistaken identity.

But a levitating Bigfoot that leaves no clear footprints amongst all manner of other footprints ... that right there is hard science.

Thanks for the lesson.

It's not about being a denier, and I for one find that word use, "denier", to be in extremely poor taste. YMMV, of course.

It's about looking at all the data available, and coming to the most reasonable hypothesis.

[Guest parnassus]

Gosh, all those gamekeepers/zookeepers Meldrum mentioned must have been wrong too. Most telling? The front feet have to come down sometime, don't they?

Why would an elk lie down to eat fruit in the first place instead of walking up and eating it whole? What about the bits?

....

I would not expect zookeepers to know about it. I expect that it would be primarily bowhunters who observe this behavior. Bowhunters frequently observe elk at very close range, in wallows, for prolonged periods and see when they decide to get up fast. It is a lot of fun (and sometime a little scary) but no one else does it.

Sorry I can't speculate on the time sequence of that elk or some other animal biting those apples or lying down other than to say that it is a proven fact that elk exist and that elk will eat apples and they will lie down in mud puddles which they walk to and sometimes jump out of, while leaving shed hair.

Had the team collected the apples for DNA I doubt we'd be having this conversation. But then, even without it, I don't see why we're having this conversation.

This is not levitation. I am not a believer in magical or supranormal powers of strength, speed and agility (that would be Bigfoot proponents). It's what actually happens in the woods. The elk lands several feet away and can make his escape or do whatever seems best.

To reiterate, what Meldrum termed possibly the strongest evidence against an elk lay is in fact NOT evidence against an elk lay. It is consistent with what wild elk do in the wild, especially when smelly guys are clinking around in their habitat.

Edited October 14, 2011 by parnassus

[Guest HairyGreek]

I would not expect zookeepers to know about it. I expect that it would be primarily bowhunters who observe this behavior. Bowhunters frequently observe elk at very close range, in wallows, for prolonged periods and see when they decide to get up fast. It is a lot of fun (and sometime a little scary) but no one else does it.

So what you are saying is, you have no proof, just eyewitness accounts...hmmm, interesting.

This is not levitation. I am not a believer in magical or supranormal powers of strength, speed and agility (that would be Bigfoot proponents).

ZING!!! Good one Parn.

[Guest 127]

Take away the levitating elk hypothesis and the deniers don't have a leg to stand on. The only video clip posted here so far shows an elk rising and placing its feet within the boundaries of where it was laying. We obviously weren't supposed to examine the evidence offered. So, instead of modifying their hypothesis, the deniers simply throw out the evidence. What's it called when a hypothesis can't be falsified? Oh yeah, either pseudoscience or faith.

Pteronarcyd: How do you explain the photo of the elk lay that had no impressions in it from the feet? Was that also a bigfoot impression because of the foot impressions not being inside of the body impression? Yet us "deniers" are the uneducated ones on the subject because we "deny" that a large unclassified ape like creature left the impression of its body/fur without leaving any hairs or other trace of its existence on the entire planet - much less in the mud/elk lay. Also we're supposed to ignore the elk hairs and the elk prints and the elk impression and come to the conclusion that a sasquatch approached this mud with the upmost caution, because those darn apples are highly protected/gaurded and it rolled or levitated to that position, and left leaving no evidence of its presence.

Ok, sounds reasonable. Not. The simple truth is - you have no evidence of any bigfoot being in that elk lay. There is evidence of elk everwhere. Your only token in which you rest faith in it is a bigfoot is the simple fact the impression does not have foot prints directly in the body impression yet other elk impression photo has been posted with no foot prints inside of it and that gets ignored because it does not fit with your bigfoot theory.

The bigfooters were looking for bigfoot, and they found it. Elk lays do not stretch the truth, or bend it to fit their purpose. People definitely do though. The sad part is - you have proponents pointing fingers from behind their noble leader scientist position on the thing, and he refuses to update or change his position. Why? Likely because he enjoys the adoration and following - not because his academic honor calls at him. I find it disgusting personally.

Edited October 14, 2011 by 127

[Guest LAL]

Had the team collected the apples for DNA I doubt we'd be having this conversation. But then, even without it, I don't see why we're having this conversation.

They did collect the apples. The bits were left in the alcohol too long so they yielded no "products for amplification". There were bits scattered over the imprint - good trick for an elk but pretty normal feeding behavior for a large primate. DDA mentioned a possible fingernail print in one piece.

Hasn't this conversation been had before only with DDA present?

[Guest Cervelo]

Yes this ground has been well wallowed someone could just direct us to the old thread and no one would have to type a thing same poop different thread, same people with the exact same arguments and guess what same outcome inconclusive!

[Guest LAL]

I've already directed people to the old threads - with quotes and links.

John Green's response to Perez' article:

"Canadian Bigfoot author, John Green had plenty to say, as expressed in a May 31st letter, "Dr. Wroblewski's proposed explanation for the Skookum imprint is certainly worth further checking, but some of his and your comments are miles off base. Right from the start there were plenty of consultations with people who should have been familiar with elk imprints. I took one of the casts of the "heel print" to the Vancouver Game Farm myself. They have lots of elk and lots of mud and while I have no memory of the specific conversation they certainly did not suggest that it could be any part of an elk. Dr. Leroy Fish (one of the finders of the Skookum impression) is dead, but I am sure that in his career as a wildlife biologist in Oregon he must have had ample familiarity with elk imprints. I expect that because of the elk hoof prints, trying to fit the body imprint to an elk would have been the first thing on his mind when they tried to puzzle out what they had found and they, of course, did see any approaching and leaving prints that they were outside the area that was cast. They most certainly did not just "see what they wanted to see." I don't think that Dr. George Schaller ever studied elk, but he must have seen many ungulate imprints. Both Dr. Jeff Meldrum and Dr. Daris Swindler are primate anatomist, fully qualified to determine whether something is a primate heel print. I expect that everyone who sees the cast is thinking about elk to begin with, but in my experience, other than Dr. Wroblewski, they have always quickly ruled that out. Could he be the one who is seeing what he wanted to see? I have a copy of the original imprint at home and I can't fit the elk in his photo to it. Maybe if that elk were lifted out by helicopter without having to stand up. And there are other parts to the imprint that he suggests no explanation for. However I have no expertise whatever."

The "elk wrist imprints", "heel strikes" or whatever anyone wants to call them - and there were several - were made by something that was lifted straight up. I have trouble envisioning a startled elk being able to do this even by sproinging directly from the wrists while shifting its weight to the hind legs. What happens to the hooves while this is going on? The forelegs? Do we have video? YouTube? Film at eleven?

These are the impressions:

Incidentally, the picture below was originally posted by DDA. I just found it in my files.

[Guest Kerchak]

You nailed it LAL.

You could probably put a picture of a WW2 Spitfire next to it match up a lot of lines.

[Guest]

Pteronarcyd: How do you explain the photo of the elk lay that had no impressions in it from the feet? Was that also a bigfoot impression because of the foot impressions not being inside of the body impression? Yet us "deniers" are the uneducated ones on the subject because we "deny" that a large unclassified ape like creature left the impression of its body/fur without leaving any hairs or other trace of its existence on the entire planet - much less in the mud/elk lay. Also we're supposed to ignore the elk hairs and the elk prints and the elk impression and come to the conclusion that a sasquatch approached this mud with the upmost caution, because those darn apples are highly protected/gaurded and it rolled or levitated to that position, and left leaving no evidence of its presence.

One can say that only by ignoring the cast itself and the extensive analyses of it that have been laid out in multiple reports. Yes, there is evidence of elk everywhere, as there is in the middle of any elk habitat. Most of the hairs found in the impression were elk, but one was classified as presumptive bigfoot -- just one of many facts that has escaped you or you chose to ignore. You choose to ignore aural evidence of possible bigfoot presence in the area, as well as track evidence (albeit not in the immediate vicinity of the impression of interest). You choose to ignore that the hair impressions are much too long and thin to have been made by elk, and that the cross section of the possible bigfoot heel or elk foreleg knee is better explained by a primate heel than an elk leg. The sum total of the evidence does not, in my opinion, prove the Cast was made by a bigfoot, but neither do illogical arguments based on cherry picked facts prove that it was made by an elk.

I haven't read every post in this thread, so have not seen a photo of an elk lay with no hoof prints inside it. Please inform me which post it's in, and I shall take a look at it. I'll be happy to finally see some evidence offered to back up the frequent claim that elk arise without putting their feet underneath them.

I have no idea who you think a noble leader scientist is, but I assure you my open-minded skepticism on this matter is rooted in empiricism.

Edited October 16, 2011 by Art1972
to remove several personal attacks and unnecessary material.

[BobbyO]

Yes this ground has been well wallowed someone could just direct us to the old thread and no one would have to type a thing same poop different thread, same people with the exact same arguments and guess what same outcome inconclusive!

Someone did, in Post #4..