Dr. Matthew Johnson's Encounter

[Guest]

For those who think that a psychologist cannot be just as susceptible to an emotional stress disorder as anyone else, you do realize that oncologists occasionally die from cancer and that cardiologists have heart attacks?

Did someone make this implication? I'm not sure it's necessary to point out that Dr. Johnson is human. It's fairly obvious even without a DNA test.

[Guest]

Maybe it's also because I also have a Ph.D., so to me Johnson is just another "colleague" with a doctorate. So I guess I wouldn't expect the BF community to give any future sighting of mine some special significance just because of my job title.

Unless your PhD was in in say Anthropology, or some related biological field...

Then I think that might hold some extra significance, especially if you were to come forth with a public accounting of said experience- as Dr. Johnson did...

Think about how your peers, your "colleagues" might think differently of you, treat you differently etc...

I wondered about it in his case, as his "colleagues" and himself being in the psychology field, if he wasn't the subject of numerous behind his back conversations about how "sadly, he too has gone around the bend."

Two people come forth with a report of an encounter...

One is a well spoken, PhD educated person- who knows many people, both professionally and on a peer level.

He/She definitely has more at stake than "Billy-Bob" the yocal who comes on camera with his stained wife beater tee, unkempt appearance, and can barely string a sentence of English together- saying things like "I seen it down by the crick"... etc..

What exactly does he have to lose ?? The people at his local bar probably already think he's a bit of a "kook" anyway....

There is a difference to most people- in what they expect or are willing to believe- coming from someone who's educated, and has lifted themself above a more "base existence".....

That being said- it actually always bothered me that this guy always breaks down into tears when relating his experience... it always seemed a bit contrived to me...

Just the way I see it.. your mileage may vary.

Art

[Guest]

Did someone make this implication?

Do you mean other than this from the OP?

"He was a practicing psychologist at the time who had a lot to lose by coming forward. He suffered PTSD after seeing something he feels wasn't possible for him to see."

Explicit? No. Implicit? Yes.

[Guest]

Do you mean other than this from the OP?

"He was a practicing psychologist at the time who had a lot to lose by coming forward. He suffered PTSD after seeing something he feels wasn't possible for him to see."

Explicit? No. Implicit? Yes.

I'm not sure how stating he suffered from PTSD indicates that he's not subject to other stress induced maladies, which I assumed was the point you were trying to make. Something along the lines - “Just because he’s a psychologist doesn’t mean he doesn’t have psychological issues – like hallucinations.†Of course that is a possibility, but it’s also possible that he saw something real that day that he can’t explain. The fact that it left a track and made grunting sounds that others heard indicates that his sighting wasn’t stress induced. The stress came after the sighting.

Maybe I misread your intention.

[Guest]

Yes, I saw that episode and was surprised that Stephen Fry was so harsh on Johnson in particular and Bigfooting in general. This contrasts with the way in which he usually seems to go out of his way to be extra-nice to everyone else.

Britain is very different to the USA and the sceptical, rational, evolutionary approach as demonstrated by thinkers like Richard Dawkins, Philip Pullman and Fry is very much the dominant ideology. So much so that one of the Pope's advisers allegedly let slip that the Pontiff was was nervous about his trip to Britain last year because it is the home of the: "New militant Atheism".

Plus, he's a Hun. (Sorry -- irrelevant, and verging on territory forbidden on this forum -- enough!)

Perhaps a little odd, the way things have turned out; since it could be suggested that as regards prominent media interest in "mysterious big hairies", Britain was there earlier than America -- with the carry-on that there was, about the Himalayan Yeti, in and adjacent to Britain's one-time Indian Empire.

[Guest parnassus]

I too am on the fence about his sighting, but don't really know why. He seems a very credible witness. Anyway, his wife talked about it on the show "In Search Of..." back in 2002,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIx2Wft80_0

Interesting comment on arm proportions by Dr. Meldrum at about 8 minutes, saying that Bigfoots forearms are relatively LONGER than humans'. Oops.

I may have missed it but how did Johnson happen to cast a footprint?surely it wasn't that day. And he can't pin the smell or the noises on what he saw for ? 1 second? 2 seconds?

Edited November 4, 2011 by parnassus

[PBeaton]

Interesting comment on arm proportions by Dr. Meldrum at about 8 minutes, saying that Bigfoots forearms are relatively LONGER than humans'. Oops.

I may have missed it but how did Johnson happen to cast a footprint?surely it wasn't that day. And he can't pin the smell or the noises on what he saw for ? 1 second? 2 seconds?

He said it took about two seconds to go from one tree to the other, that's my understandin' of it. The smell an noises heard by he an his family occoured prior to his actually seein' it, again, my understandin' of it.

Pat...

[Guest]

He said it took about two seconds to go from one tree to the other, that's my understandin' of it. The smell an noises heard by he an his family occoured prior to his actually seein' it, again, my understandin' of it.

Pat...

You are correct. The sighting was longer than one to two seconds, and the noise was heard a couple of times by Johnson and his wife prior to the sighting. Not sure about the smell.

The cast was not from the encounter.

[PBeaton]

You are correct. The sighting was longer than one to two seconds, and the noise was heard a couple of times by Johnson and his wife prior to the sighting. Not sure about the smell.

The cast was not from the encounter.

rwridley,

Seemed that way to me. Think his kids also heard the sounds, I'd have ta watch vid. again, but seemed they smelled it prior to him seein' it, cause when he did see it, he quickly rushed his family away from area. Not sure like I said.

Pat...

[Guest]

I'm not sure how stating he suffered from PTSD indicates that he's not subject to other stress induced maladies, which I assumed was the point you were trying to make.

Sort of. I interpreted your comment that because he suffered from PTSD then it follows that he actually experienced something traumatic. I'm not convinced, and Dr. Johnson's account reads to me like that of someone suffering from a stress disorder prior to his alleged encounter. Of course, that would mean that biochemically, he did experience trauma that day, I just don't think it was triggered by a bigfoot.

We get into it in the thread I linked, but here's the gist of my Johnson hypothesis: I think Johnson was predisposed to reacting as he did to something he thought (1) smelled and (2) sounded funny. I don't know what, if anything he smelled, but the sound that seems to have really scared him appears very likely to have been made by a grouse. Johnson's description is bang-on for a blue grouse, and I think someone posted a video clip of one "hooting" in the thread I linked. (Yes, it could have been a bigfoot imitating a blue grouse, but I'm a big fan of parsimony so I'm going with the far more likely explanation.)

According to Johnson's own account, we was extremely agitated by the odor and the sound he heard and then saw the bigfoot. I don't doubt that he was freaking out, and apparently feared for his life and that of his family members. If anyone could ever experience a bigfooty hallucination, Dr. Johnson certainly seems like a prime candidate. He may also have seen a bear or an elk or something that his mind perceived as a bigfoot, I surely don't know.

Ultimately of course, "I don't know what happened to Dr. Johnson" is the most responsible and conservative assessment of his alleged encounter. To me, however, his account shows all the hallmarks of someone who displayed textbook susceptibility to some sort of stress-induced hallucination. I thought that before learning anything about his alleged subsequent encounter (the "pull my finger" incident is not one you're gonna get a guy named "Saskeptic" to buy into on his worst day) or the difficulties he's had in his personal life. I guess it comes down to my interpretation that his bigfoot encounter was not the cause of his problems, it was another symptom.

[Guest]

I went down to the area right away and interviewed him extensively. I believe I still have the recording somewhere. He sat in my pickup and literally started weeping when he got to the sighting part. There was a lot of emotion coming out of him. I don't think it was an act. I found him very believable. That being said, I do have a problem with the sighting, or at least how he interpreted it. If in fact he did see a Sasquatch, I don't think it went down exactly like he said.

That is a beautiful area. The trail affords great visibility. There's not a lot of underbrush, just large trees and a creek if I remember correctly. It's a very nice loop trail. He and his family started hearing, " waa waa waa ". He said the noise was following them. When he took his bathroom break on the side hill he saw what he saw. The problem is, the ground was very very dry. The minute you stepped off the trail it got really noisy. The dry brittle branches easily broke under foot. He showed me the tree that the possible Sasquatch was standing behind and it wasn't very far off the trail. If this creature would have been following them it would have been noticed because of the noisy ground. I don't think that there's any way it could have followed them and snuck up so close to their position undetected.

If indeed he actually saw a Sasquatch that day, then IMO there had to be two of them. One following, and one hidden ahead of them on the trail.

He did seem to be one of the more credible witnesses I've interviewed. I think there's a good chance he was telling the truth.

Just my 2 cents.

DR

[Guest]

I've always classified this one as a sincere mistake. The park ranger said he investigated and found bear tracks. I suspect a bear was curious and momentarily rose on its hind legs to get a better look at the family and moved forward a few steps. The doc caught a glimps of it and his mind filled in the blanks. 'Would love to be wrong.

But I find this to be very credible, but sadly a case of mistaken identity.

[Guest]

He sat in my pickup and literally started weeping when he got to the sighting part. There was a lot of emotion coming out of him. I don't think it was an act. I found him very believable. That being said, I do have a problem with the sighting, or at least how he interpreted it. If in fact he did see a Sasquatch, I don't think it went down exactly like he said.

I'm not sure I know how to square the bolded statements.

More to the point though, lets' be careful about things like weeping and emotion and whether it was an "act." I'm fully on board with the story line that Johnson was intensely distressed. Crying? Sure. So freaked out that he needed to relieve himself? Sure. Absolutely convinced of the experienced he claimed to have? Sure. Real adrenaline coursing through his body? Real pounding heart? Real, palpable fear? Yes, yes, and yes. None of these things, however, require that he actually encountered an actual bigfoot. They're right in line with symptoms of some kind of anxiety attack, and these can be triggered by a myriad things.

[Guest Dr. Boogie]

I must admit that the newspaper article that listed more recent events in Dr. Matthew Johnson's life did change my perception of the first incident. How many believe the reported incident about him grabbing a Bigfoot's finger from the inside of his tent? If the newspaper article is based upon the truth then it illustrates a recent decline in both his personal and professional life. Proponents will claim that this is evidence of PTSD and only adds to the veracity of his story and I agree that it could well be the case but it could also be a sign that he had a pre-existing vulnerability. I really wish that bigfoot hadn't decided to probe his body through that tent. I really wanted to (and did) believe in this one.

[Guest RayG]

The stress came after the sighting.

Nay nay. He was already in fully stressed 'fight or flight' mode BEFORE his sighting.

First they smelled something strong as a skunk, but not a skunk.

Then they heard the 'Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa' noises.

Then he started putting one and one together in his mind [bigfoot] and his biological 'fight or flight' responses kicked in.

Then he leaves his wife and children and hiked up the hill because he had to go poop ASAP (i.e., this happens when the biological 'fight or flight' response kicks in).

THEN, while he was doing his duty, and scanning the woods down the mountain on the other side of the trail, THAT'S when he saw it.

From Dr. Johnson's own submission, report #678 at the BFRO page.

I'm thinking at that point he's already primed his brain with the unconfirmed smell and sound of bigfoot, and he's scared to the point he abandons his family to evacuate his bowels, so anything he sees could be corrupted by his state of panic.

RayG