The thread about ghosts got me wondering if another of our great human mysteries has touched any of us here.

As for myself, yes it has! I'm actually a bigfoot researcher with a well known International organization, and I could tell you a whole lot of stories..

In fact I'm writing a book about my experiences now. Wild stuff, most of which I would not have believed a few years ago. How about you? Where do you stand on the existence of a large, bipedal North American ape?

Did you know that in 2002 a major asteriod came in within 120,000 km of colliding with Earth?

I know that this has nothing to do with bigfoot but it seems to fit.

The thread about ghosts got me wondering if another of our great human mysteries has touched any of us here.

As for myself, yes it has! I'm actually a bigfoot researcher with a well known International organization, and I could tell you a whole lot of stories..

In fact I'm writing a book about my experiences now. Wild stuff, most of which I would not have believed a few years ago. How about you? Where do you stand on the existence of a large, bipedal North American ape?

I want to believe, but I have a hard time believing any report now because we just would have found something by now that was total proof. To my knowledge it hasn't happened.

I was talking with a biology professor a year or so ago, and he said less than 1% of existent species has been identified. There's a lot we don't know about life on earth.

If you go out into the woods with me, in the right places, I'll get you some proof.

The chance of seeing one is pretty small, becaues they are faster than us, they see better than us, and they know all our tricks. Still we do sometimes see them when we go looking. And we have photographs and video of them, most of it at a distance and therefore equivocal.

But we get all kinds of other evidence, including footprints, hair samples, scat samples, bedding areas, stick formations, recordings of vocalizations that show unique differences from humans and other ordinary mammals.. and more!

One reason many of you don't believe now is the guy who said he was in a monkey suit in the famous Patterson/Gimlin film from 1967. Long story short -- no he wasn't!

That doesn't make the film legit, but there are some mighty intersting things to see in it when you can look at a very good copy. The muscle movement alone could not have been faked in 1967. The only way we could fake it now is with a digitally enhanced image.

The proof will be coming along eventually.. one day someone will run across a dead one in the woods and take some good pictures, maybe get some parts out.

We've *almost* done that several times already -- we've gotten the reports from people who have found a carcase in the course of their ordinary hiking or camping experiences. When we get there, however, the body is gone.

But these things are smarter than an ape. When they come across their own dead, they move them. I suspect they either bury them or put them somewhere we can't look.

If you go out into the woods with me, in the right places, I'll get you some proof.

The chance of seeing one is pretty small, becaues they are faster than us, they see better than us, and they know all our tricks. Still we do sometimes see them when we go looking. And we have photographs and video of them, most of it at a distance and therefore equivocal.

But we get all kinds of other evidence, including footprints, hair samples, scat samples, bedding areas, stick formations, recordings of vocalizations that show unique differences from humans and other ordinary mammals.. and more!

One reason many of you don't believe now is the guy who said he was in a monkey suit in the famous Patterson/Gimlin film from 1967. Long story short -- no he wasn't!

That doesn't make the film legit, but there are some mighty intersting things to see in it when you can look at a very good copy. The muscle movement alone could not have been faked in 1967. The only way we could fake it now is with a digitally enhanced image.

The proof will be coming along eventually.. one day someone will run across a dead one in the woods and take some good pictures, maybe get some parts out.

We've *almost* done that several times already -- we've gotten the reports from people who have found a carcase in the course of their ordinary hiking or camping experiences. When we get there, however, the body is gone.

But these things are smarter than an ape. When they come across their own dead, they move them. I suspect they either bury them or put them somewhere we can't look.


please tell me you're kidding

Bigfoot exists and so does good sex.

When I was in high school, some buddies and I decided to drive to Foulke, Arkansas, one night to find 'the Foulke monster', a local version of bigfoot that had been popularized in a third-rate movie. We never made it to Foulke, but did do lots of drinking. So I can only say that the results of our expedition were inconclusive.

But we get all kinds of other evidence, including footprints, hair samples, scat samples...

Honest question here.

If you get these hair sample and such... don't we now have technology that enables us to determine the precise source of living material? We can do DNA tests on it to rule out things such as bears, or whatever else might be out there. It seems to me that if researchers, as you suggest, can go out and routinely find such physical evidence, then it would be fairly straightforward to do an analysis on it to demonstrate that it does not match up with any of the other species that we know.

What's missing in this logic?

I was talking with a biology professor a year or so ago, and he said less than 1% of existent species has been identified. There's a lot we don't know about life on earth.

How about among species that have a total mass of at least, say, 1 gram? I suspect we're doing pretty well in that regard... especially those that inhabit overland regions, rather than, say, deep waters.

Even if that statement is true, I'm not sure what bearing it has on large bipedal creatures wandering woodlands across the world.

If you go out into the woods with me, in the right places, I'll get you some proof.

The chance of seeing one is pretty small, becaues they are faster than us, they see better than us, and they know all our tricks. Still we do sometimes see them when we go looking. And we have photographs and video of them, most of it at a distance and therefore equivocal.

But we get all kinds of other evidence, including footprints, hair samples, scat samples, bedding areas, stick formations, recordings of vocalizations that show unique differences from humans and other ordinary mammals.. and more!

One reason many of you don't believe now is the guy who said he was in a monkey suit in the famous Patterson/Gimlin film from 1967. Long story short -- no he wasn't!

That doesn't make the film legit, but there are some mighty intersting things to see in it when you can look at a very good copy. The muscle movement alone could not have been faked in 1967. The only way we could fake it now is with a digitally enhanced image.

The proof will be coming along eventually.. one day someone will run across a dead one in the woods and take some good pictures, maybe get some parts out.

We've *almost* done that several times already -- we've gotten the reports from people who have found a carcase in the course of their ordinary hiking or camping experiences. When we get there, however, the body is gone.

But these things are smarter than an ape. When they come across their own dead, they move them. I suspect they either bury them or put them somewhere we can't look.

Definately, I think that its only a matter of time before one is killed/ran over by a truck et. ala. It'll take some time though. I mean the Silverback gorilla was a legend until one was shot.found in 1900-10, and same with the panda too.

Honest question here.

If you get these hair sample and such... don't we now have technology that enables us to determine the precise source of living material? We can do DNA tests on it to rule out things such as bears, or whatever else might be out there. It seems to me that if researchers, as you suggest, can go out and routinely find such physical evidence, then it would be fairly straightforward to do an analysis on it to demonstrate that it does not match up with any of the other species that we know.

What's missing in this logic?

going further, in keeping with my post in the ghost thread, where i said "just because you can't explain it doesn't make it the work of ghosts", if they were to do DNA testing on these samples and not be able to identify the source that wouldn't necessarily suggest it's "Bigfoot". i'm sure you have to leave room for the logic that suggests it could just be an animal we haven't come across yet.

Aside from QS's question of which I was wondering myself...

The chance of seeing one is pretty small, becaues they are faster than us, they see better than us, and they know all our tricks. Still we do sometimes see them when we go looking. And we have photographs and video of them, most of it at a distance and therefore equivocal.
Most? Or All? If not all, any chance of posting the few that are not equivocal?

How about among species that have a total mass of at least, say, 1 gram? I suspect we're doing pretty well in that regard... especially those that inhabit overland regions, rather than, say, deep waters.

Even if that statement is true, I'm not sure what bearing it has on large bipedal creatures wandering woodlands across the world.

He was specifically talking about worms (his area of expertise), but it also came up that there is no official registry of identified species, and that it is assumed that there are massize numbers of unidentified species in all environments.

I'm not suggesting there is a bigfoot, just reminding us to be humble in our exploration of the question.

He was specifically talking about worms (his area of expertise), but it also came up that there is no official registry of identified species, and that it is assumed that there are massize numbers of unidentified species in all environments.

I'm not suggesting there is a bigfoot, just reminding us to be humble in our exploration of the question.

Fair point. Massive numbers, I can buy... numbers of massive species, not so much.

I don't suggest that it's a closed case, but the likelihood of these things actually running around without leaving even the first tiny shred of meaningful evidence just seems remote. I don't claim any expertise in this regard, my assessment is just based on common sense and the lack of any compelling argument to the contrary.

The thing about Bigfoot is that even if a species were discovered, it's existence would become prosaic, requiring the invention of another mythical beast. Bigfoot's reality is more significant in the imagination than in the woods.

for any TechTV fans, Scott Herriot is a bigfoot hunter - saw him quite unexpectedly on a bigfoot documentary one day.

anyway, no, I don't think it exists, and quotes like "The muscle movement alone could not have been faked in 1967" make me laugh.

I'd love to believe in bigfoot. The two things that struck me about your post was what QS said (if there are samples, it should be really easy to test with the technology we have now) and this:

Originally Posted by Sidhe
The chance of seeing one is pretty small, becaues they are faster than us, they see better than us, and they know all our tricks.

How do we know any of this? They are faster than us, they see better and they know all of our tricks? Is the fact we've never caught one the only reason you assume these things? Are all of these things this smart? I mean, over the last 100 years we haven't had one of them born that was brain damaged and ran out into an open field when someone happened to have a camera handy?

Sorry, but I'm not willing to put an intelligence, speed or sight rating on an animal we don't even know exists. If we ever catch one and we determine these things conclusively, I'll bow to your skills in this regard.

One last thing: I'm not a natural skeptic. I'm not sure about ghosts, but I could see it. I think there are plenty of things in the world we don't understand and I fully believe some of the things we think aren't possible or things we think cannot exist will be proven. My problem isn't with the belief in bigfoot. My problem is saying you have samples and giving this creature chatacteristics which can't possibly be proven. One thing at a time. . . prove the creature exists, then prove its intelligence level.

What are they gonna say about him? What are they gonna say? That he was a kind bigfoot? That he was a wise bigfoot? That he had plans? That he had wisdom? Bullshit man! Hey, man, you don't talk to Bigfoot. You listen to him. Bigfoot's enlarged my mind. He's a poet-warrior in the classic sense. I mean sometimes he'll, uh, well, you'll say hello to him, right? And he'll just walk right by you, and he won't even notice you. And suddenly he'll grab you, and he'll throw you in a corner, and he'll say do you know that if is the middle word in life? If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you - I mean I'm no, I can't - I'm a little man, I'm a little man, he's, he's the great bigfoot. I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across floors of silent seas...

One through nine, no maybes, no supposes, no fractions. You can't travel in space, you can't go out into space, you know, without, like, you know, uh, with fractions - what are you going to land on - one-quarter, three-eighths? What are you going to do when you go from here to Venus or something? That's dialectic physics-----There's mines over there, there's mines over there, and watch out those goddamn monkeys bite, I'll tell ya. This is the way the fucking world ends. Look at this fucking shit we're in man. Not with a bang, but with a whimper. And with a whimper, I'm fucking splitting, Jack.

I've seen someone who is so hairy I thought he was bigfoot. Does that count?

I've seen someone who is so hairy I thought he was bigfoot. Does that count?

Was it at a county fair? County fairs always seem to have overly hairy men in tank tops.

Honest question here.

If you get these hair sample and such... don't we now have technology that enables us to determine the precise source of living material? We can do DNA tests on it to rule out things such as bears, or whatever else might be out there. It seems to me that if researchers, as you suggest, can go out and routinely find such physical evidence, then it would be fairly straightforward to do an analysis on it to demonstrate that it does not match up with any of the other species that we know.

What's missing in this logic?

Yes and no. One reason we can precisely identify some animals is because we have an extensive database, and a baseline, for that animal.

In the case of unknown primates, of which there are many candidates btw, the best you can do is say that it LOOKS like primate hair, but does not match anything we have already.

In the case of the North American bigfoot, the hair comes back as "human". For quite some time we thought that meant that either we were getting hoax hairs, or there was human DNA contamination. Contamination is very likely because the kinds of people who go out to collect the evidence are not the most careful technicians using only sterile media. We are trying to get people educated, but the problem is of course the people who actually see these things, and then run across the hair, are people like you guys who have no previous knowledge about bigfoot. You would not believe how many times I've heard a witness say, "I never believed in this stuff, but I know what I saw couldn't have been anything else."

Well recently we've come to suspect that bigfoot DNA probably is very closely related to human DNA. That's not as outrageous as you might think. We share about 95% of our DNA with our dogs, after all.

So what is probably happening is that we do not know yet where the DNA is different, so we don't test the right sequences of DNA to get a clear idea of how different they are.

So there is nothing missing in your logic, what is missing is our baseline knowledge of the mystery DNA.

And if you ask me whether someone is trying to totally sequence the DNA from the hairs we find, I know that this is possible if we have enough material, but the cost isn't free. Right now we have some scientists who are interested enough in the question that they donate their time for the kinds of testing we get done, but it isn't this extensive full sequencing thing.

In terms of hair morphology, we have shown pretty conclusively that there are unique differences between bigfoot hairs and hairs of other primates, including our own.

Bigfoot hairs look quite a bit like human hairs but they are always much more pigmented, do not have cut ends, and chemically speaking, aren't as full of crap as ours is (due to our diet).

So the morphological differences have been demonstrated, but we have a ways to go before the DNA is convincingly done.

In the case of scat (that's a polite word for "poop") we've gotten very interesting results that show bat, dog, and human from the same pile. One of those animals ate the other two.. Only the human probably isn't really human, since that pile was found in a place with multiple bigfoot sightings, hair samples, footprints.. a lot of evidence.

We are pretty close to a case that would convince scientists and I don't think THIS part of it will take long at all. Of course it will not convince everyone, because what do we know about hair morphology and poo DNA? Only a body will really convince.

I'm against shooting one, btw, even with a dart. We'll just have to turn up some remains.

Now I am not saying it one way or the other, but I find it highly doubtful that these animals have been able to hide from humans for the entirety of our history. If they exist, we must have been able to find a dead corpse somewhere over the last hundreds and thousands of years, but we don't even have one?

I thought BigFoot was a truck...

How do we know any of this? They are faster than us, they see better and they know all of our tricks? Is the fact we've never caught one the only reason you assume these things? Are all of these things this smart? I mean, over the last 100 years we haven't had one of them born that was brain damaged and ran out into an open field when someone happened to have a camera handy?

We know most of this through consistent eyewitness testimony. Several eyewitnesses have seen a bigfoot while they were in their car, travelling at speed. We have a set of credible accounts that put them able to move at least 30mph. We've gotten a few reports that they can even move faster than that.

We don't move that fast without a vehicle, and you can't get many vehicles in the woods that will help you. Maybe one of those Speeders from The Return of the Jedi..

We have video of one reacting to infrared light. You and I can't see infrared without special equipment. Their eyes are physically much larger than ours, so they'd collect light better at night, suggesting that their night vision is superior to our unaided eye. When we do get our night-vision on them, they react by getting behind cover. So obviously, they are seeing as well as we are with NV.

Note, nobody thinks they know what NV is, but they know what direction our heads are pointed, and they like to keep out of sight.

As for the last bit, we do have some evidence along the lines you suggest, but you won't see it. We can't release a video to the public that doesn't look like what they already expect to see. It would do more harm than good.

Which answers another question from uplist also. If we were in the same room I could show you a lot of cool stuff, but I can't put it up for general consumption on the internet.

I really believe that something compelling is coming down the pike, though. So stay tuned..

well, i'll tell you one thing, bigfoot or not, you do seem to come off looking/sounding sincere, and you're not playing a joke on the board. hope you can provide some more compelling information in the future.

One reason many of you don't believe now is the guy who said he was in a monkey suit in the famous Patterson/Gimlin film from 1967. Long story short -- no he wasn't!

That doesn't make the film legit, but there are some mighty intersting things to see in it when you can look at a very good copy
Where could I find a very good copy of the film?

Now I am not saying it one way or the other, but I find it highly doubtful that these animals have been able to hide from humans for the entirety of our history. If they exist, we must have been able to find a dead corpse somewhere over the last hundreds and thousands of years, but we don't even have one?

There have been anomalous finds over the short history of the US including bodies up to twelve feet tall. At the time of their being reported (all of these finds are from the 19th century) they were considered to be a race of giant Indians. These specimen have all been lost over the course of time. The interest in them lapsed for about a hundred years so this is not too difficult to understand.

Europeans and their decendants have many stories about Hairy Wild Men. One tale you probably had to read in high school was Beowulf. What's Grendel? A large, bipedal, hairy humanoid. And there are many historical reports of people having encounters with Wild Men of the Woods. At the time it was thought that these were people who had gotten lost in the woods and who had completely reverted to animal behavior. And grown a lot of body hair.

So there is a historical basis for creatures akin to what we are talking about speaking from the European side of America's anscestors. There continue to be some contemporary reports from Eastern Europe. Russian science, in particular, takes the question seriously enough, a little more so than we do in the West.

If you look to the far east, there are contemporary reports of strange bipedal creatures. The most interesting of these is probably the Orang Pendek. This is a creature that walks in the woods of Sumatra. It was long historically attested by the natives. When zoologists would ask them about Orangutans, they would answer, "Which ones do you mean? The small ones with the puffed out faces, the larger ones, or the really big ones who walk like men?"

Oftentimes what we consider to be mythical is well known to native inhabitants.

Which brings me to native North Americans. The belief in bigfoot as a real living creature was widespread and crossed the continent. They've tried to tell us, but we haven't listened. Many of them considered bigfoot to be a race of large hairy Indians who have language and culture and who can be reasoned with, but who were too unpredictable and strong to be trusted.

If we do have bigfoot here, it didn't come from Europe with us. It probably travelled across the bering strait with many of the first human inhabitants of this continent. Bigfoot does share some similarities with a known extinct primate, gigantopithecus. There are physical remains of this ancient relative of the orangutan -- a creature that could stand 8' or more tall, and is nearly universally thought to have been bipedal.

Ok, that's enough of that. I don't need to change anyone's mind -- it doesn't matter whether people believe or not after all, it will either be found, or it will turn out to be something other than a real animal. I only wanted a good survey of belief here. And I did wonder if anyone would admit to having seen one..

well, i'll tell you one thing, bigfoot or not, you do seem to come off looking/sounding sincere, and you're not playing a joke on the board. hope you can provide some more compelling information in the future.

Thanks. When I get something good that I can share, I'll be sure to post a link to it here.

Look! I found him!!

http://home.comcast.net/%7Esuicane/High.JPG

Thanks. When I get something good that I can share, I'll be sure to post a link to it here.

I enjoy reading any information about this topic, so any other links you could provide would be sweet. Bigfoot has intrigued me since I was a kid..

I enjoy reading any information about this topic, so any other links you could provide would be sweet. Bigfoot has intrigued me since I was a kid..

Here's a bunch of links I just pulled from my bookmarks. Have a look around and you may find some interesting things. Not all of them are exclusively about bigfoot though..

http://www.bfro.net/
http://www.cryptozoology.com/
http://www.bigfootencounters.com/
http://paranormal.about.com/od/bigfootsasquatch/index.htm?terms=bigfoot
http://www.bigfoottimes.net/
http://www.rfthomas.clara.net/cb/1978.html
http://s9.invisionfree.com/sasquatchwatch/index.php?

Bigfoot exists and so does good sex.


Good sex exists? Surely you jest!

I thought it was a hoax but while visting my high school friend in Florida we saw what they call the Flordia Skunk Ape. He said its a version or relative of Bigfoot. What we saw wasn't as big as i would have thought but it was fast and i am sure strong was around 5 feet tall but it was bipedal hairy and smelly.

When you find him, I hope you make him return Dodger's remote.

I'm quite skeptical about magical phenomena that requires statements like "they don't want to be seen." I'm sure there are plenty of species out there that remain unstudied and relatively unknown. Not so sure any of those species are all that much bigger than a bowl of corn flakes or live out of water.

Your explanations above, I'll admit, get beyond any degree of understanding of DNA testing and the like that I may possess... so I can neither criticize nor truly accept it on my own.

We are pretty close to a case that would convince scientists and I don't think THIS part of it will take long at all. Of course it will not convince everyone, because what do we know about hair morphology and poo DNA? Only a body will really convince.

I will, however, be very interested to see if this actually happens. I wouldn't claim to have the knowledge to assess these things, but it seems to me that if a respected team of disinterested scientists reach the conclusion that the evidence really is there ... I'm open to changing my mind on the matter.

As for this:

You would not believe how many times I've heard a witness say, "I never believed in this stuff, but I know what I saw couldn't have been anything else."

And, of course, there are legions and legions of perfectly sane and rational people who have said much the same thing after seeing barn owls, the planet Venus, heat mirages, weather balloons, bear cubs, hobos, and all manner of perfectly explainable stuff.

For now... still not convinced. But thanks for taking my question seriously.

And, of course, there are legions and legions of perfectly sane and rational people who have said much the same thing after seeing barn owls, the planet Venus, heat mirages, weather balloons, bear cubs, hobos, and all manner of perfectly explainable stuff.

For now... still not convinced. But thanks for taking my question seriously.

Just want to point out that you accept the theory "there are legions and legions of perfectly sane and rational people who have said much the same thing after seeing barn owls, the planet Venus, heat mirages, weather balloons, bear cubs, hobos, and all manner of perfectly explainable stuff" without the same kind of proof that this is indeed the case as you expect for the theory you regard as less likely.

What you probably meant is that you have read that there are legions of these easily deluded folk. But do you know whose interpretation of events you've gotten?

I don't bother with that anymore.. I go out and look for evidence myself.

Just want to point out that you accept the theory "there are legions and legions of perfectly sane and rational people who have said much the same thing after seeing barn owls, the planet Venus, heat mirages, weather balloons, bear cubs, hobos, and all manner of perfectly explainable stuff" without the same kind of proof that this is indeed the case as you expect for the theory you regard as less likely.
Well now this is simply not true. Not speaking for QS, but I have seen people recreate "paranormal activity" or other kings of sightings demostrating that it is likely that people were seeing the kinds of things QS listed. People have shown how a heat mirage, light from Venus, bear cubs, weather baloons, etc. can look like what they are not and that they have accounted for many sightings of various things.

That's quite a leap from a limited demonstration to a general truth, isn't it?

"I have seen people recreate "paranormal activity" or other kings of sightings demostrating that it is likely that people were seeing the kinds of things QS listed."

What about your seeing a plausible recreation demonstrates "that it is likely that people were seeing" what it is more comfortable for you to believe they saw?

That is to put the theory before the facts. In fact, that's to make a theory that rules out a priori that these paranormal things might actually happen.

But I don't want to convince you. Carry on!

I honestly believe I have a better chance of running into Walt Whitman in the woods than Bigfoot.

Just want to point out that you accept the theory "there are legions and legions of perfectly sane and rational people who have said much the same thing after seeing barn owls, the planet Venus, heat mirages, weather balloons, bear cubs, hobos, and all manner of perfectly explainable stuff" without the same kind of proof that this is indeed the case as you expect for the theory you regard as less likely.

What you probably meant is that you have read that there are legions of these easily deluded folk. But do you know whose interpretation of events you've gotten?

I don't bother with that anymore.. I go out and look for evidence myself.

Well, I don't have the inclination to dedicate my own time to the search for bigfoot... so you'll always have that one on me, for what it's worth.


As for the rest of it -- I subscribe to Occam's razor here. When people in a certain area claim to have seen a UFO, and then upon further study there turns out to have been an errant low-flying weather balloon in the very same area at the very same time... I am not really at a loss. Sure, there's still some chance that the people saw a bona fide extra-terrestrial object and are victims of a weird coincidence. I am very comfortable, however, judging that one as a closed case in the "fully explained" category.

Is that a bias on my part? Perhaps it is. I think it's really just properly assigning the burden of proof. If someone wants to assert that there are little green men flying around and probing people's anuses... it's on him to demonstrate it to be so, not on me to demonstrate otherwise. Same goes for titanic-sized bipedal creatures who have cunningly escaped every verifiable sort of detection and verification at every turn for time immemorial. Burden of proof is in those claiming they exist, and I think that's fair.


All this, incidentally, comes from a guy who has a blow-up of Frame 352 on his computer desktop. Honestly, I do, and have for years.

Tell me that *you* are sure there was an errant low flying weather balloon and you'll see what I'm getting at. You'll accept one authority and not another (the witness, which often enough is someone whose credibility is as impeccable as you could ever want).

In the case of UFOs government coverup is part of the story. But that's a red herring anyway because we aren't talking about UFOs.

Bigfoot has not cunningly escaped every sort of verification. Not even close! It's very good at staying hidden, true, but after all, its best ally in that effort is the human mind.

Tell me that *you* are sure there was an errant low flying weather balloon and you'll see what I'm getting at. You'll accept one authority and not another (the witness, which often enough is someone whose credibility is as impeccable as you could ever want). Not really. It's not about taking the word of one authority over another (which is what you seem to be doing, always beleiving the word of the witness).

The issue is that two people are offering two explainations for what happened. One says he saw a UFO and another, who works for...whoever it is who deals and manages the weather balloons, says it was a weather balloon.

Now, the guy who says it is just a weather balloon could show us radar images, maps showing the locations of their weather balloons relative to the location of the witness, etc. The guy who says it was a UFO, at best, has a really blurry photo. Now, most people seeing all of the evidence that the weather balloon guys is offering and seeing a blurry photo of something in the distance is probably going to come to the conclusion that it was most likely a weather balloon. Unless, of course, the person already fully believes there's some massive government cover up...

And then of course, you could just have one witness, with no evidence, saying "I saw a UFO" and another, with no evidence, saying "It was a weather balloon." Who do you believe? The answer is neither. The burden of proof does work both ways. Someone saying "No, what they saw was a weather balloon" has the same burden of proof as the UFO guy.

But, you see, simply because the weather balloon guy can't meet his burden of proof does not, in any way, prove or even support the UFO guy's statement. The UFO guy still has his own burden of proof to meet, and they never do.

However, it's been shown enough that many UFO sightings are actually weather balloons (with much more than just a guy saying so) or flares or blimps that when one guys says UFO and another says balloon, I'll lean to the balloon guy. Bias? Yeah, but not without merit or rationality behind it. I won't go so far as to believe him, but I'll lean a bit more his way. I don't put one person's word over another, I expect BOTH to prove their side. Inability for one to prove their side does not effect, IMO, the other's. But you can't completely discount history either.

Sidhe is really serious isnt he? I just dont understand how we have never even found a dead bigfoot, what are they fast, know all our tricks, have intelligence, and bury their dead? What about Big foot bones, a skull, anything? Its just nonsense.

Not even close! It's very good at staying hidden, true, but after all, its best ally in that effort is the human mind.

I read this (a couple of times), and I understand what you're saying.

I find it quite intriguing -- I don't think I have ever heard the argument of "gullibility" used by the believers rather than the skeptics. Ordinarily, I'd expect someone to be arguing against the existence of [insert supposedly unexplained phenomenon here] to be pointing toward human weakness in believing stories without airtight or even compelling evidence. Instead, I see you criticizing me (and others) for being too willing to believe the "alternative explanations" that offer a more ordinary source for the phenomenon.

I'm at a loss.

I have a friend who is a wildlife artist who is also into cryptozoology. A few years ago, he was investigating a bigfoot type creature that has been seen in Eastern Oklahoma near the Arkansas border. He talked to a lot of people who claimed to have seen it, but none of them said they would go public because they didn't want to be be labeled as kooks. He also talked to a pair of good 'ol boy brothers who lived with their families out in the woods. They say they have seen several different creatures while hunting. They also claim to have shot one, but were driven away from the carcass by the others, who they said made God-awful noises and threw large stones at them. When they returned later, they said the body of the thing was gone. They said for several weeks following the incident, the things would come during the night and throw large rocks at their houses and one apparently threw a large tree branch through the windshield of their pickup truck. They would grab their guns and run out on the porch with flashlights, and the things would disappear into the woods. Things would settle down, but a few hours later they would return and begin the harrassment again. Needless to say, they didn't get much sleep during that time. After a few weeks, they say the incidents stopped and they say they haven't seen any of the things since. However, they can still hear them "hooting" in the deep woods every now and then.

I have a friend who is a wildlife artist who is also into cryptozoology. A few years ago, he was investigating a bigfoot type creature that has been seen in Eastern Oklahoma near the Arkansas border. He talked to a lot of people who claimed to have seen it, but none of them said they would go public because they didn't want to be be labeled as kooks. He also talked to a pair of good 'ol boy brothers who lived with their families out in the woods. They say they have seen several different creatures while hunting. They also claim to have shot one, but were driven away from the carcass by the others, who they said made God-awful noises and threw large stones at them. When they returned later, they said the body of the thing was gone. They said for several weeks following the incident, the things would come during the night and throw large rocks at their houses. They said the things busted out the windshield on one of their pickup trucks. They would grab their guns and run out on the porch with flashlights, and the things would disappear into the woods. Things would settle down, but a few hours later they would return and begin the harrassment again. Needless to say, they said they didn't get much sleep during that time. After a few weeks, the incidents stopped and they say they haven't seen any since. However, they can still hear them "hooting" in the deep woods every now and then.


As an innate skeptic, I don't have a particularly clear way to discount stories like this. To me, I just have a hard time understanding why someone would just "make up" such a tale, with all that detail. And there's really no way that the people could have just been mistaken, right? So, what's left? That this is a tale many times told, like many urban legends -- where the intermediate steps just get left out? (It wasn't really your friend who talked to the two guys, but rather he talked to someone who claimed he talked to the two guys, and so forth...)

I dunno. I suppose there are people who make up stories about this kind of experiences... but I can't realy understand why they would do so, especially when they are then reluctant to talk about them publicly.

I can understand how a body could not be recovered. If there is a small population density, say 1 bigfoot for every 100 square miles, then the odds of finding a recognizable body are quite small.

Think about how much wildlife you see. Not just the small stuff like rabbits and chipmunks, but also the bigger stuff like deer and bear. How often have you run across an intact body or complete skeleton in the wilderness? Sure you can see one that was hit by a car, but how many have you seen on a trail? My guess is not that many. Think of the population density of these creatures. For the small animals, it is in the multiple dozens per square mile, and the bigger ones like deer, it is 20 to 50 per mile, and the large animals like bear, it is one every 5 or more square miles. To run across a complete body, it would have to be fresh, before scavengers got to it. Once the bones are scattered about, the layman's eye wouldn't be able to tell the leg bone of a deer apart from the rib of a bear, especially if there aren't a cluster of bones to get a better idea of what animal they came from. If there just aren't many bigfoot creatures out there at all, then the odds of running across a freshly deceased body are quite small.

And also look to the many victims of serial killers whose remains are never found. They are smaller than the assumed size of a bigfoot. So the absence of a body is not necessarily an indicator of the non-existence of these creatures.

As an innate skeptic, I don't have a particularly clear way to discount stories like this. To me, I just have a hard time understanding why someone would just "make up" such a tale, with all that detail. And there's really no way that the people could have just been mistaken, right? So, what's left? That this is a tale many times told, like many urban legends -- where the intermediate steps just get left out? (It wasn't really your friend who talked to the two guys, but rather he talked to someone who claimed he talked to the two guys, and so forth...)

I dunno. I suppose there are people who make up stories about this kind of experiences... but I can't realy understand why they would do so, especially when they are then reluctant to talk about them publicly.

My friend has said that authorities often discount most bigfoot reports as people misidentifying bears.

No I will not eat bigfoot poop.

No I will not eat bigfoot poop.

Not even if it were deep fried?

I'm at a loss.

I know it's de rigueur to accept the skeptical viewpoint as the baseline, but in fact it is not intellectually rigorous.

And we should stop using the UFO analogy because its not a one-to-one analogue.

Here's the why for both statements above.

For the existence of bigfoot we have these categories of evidence, all of them well attested:

1. Thousands of sightings from eyewitnesses. One would be wrong to throw these out, even as a skeptic. No one case proves anything, but the sheer number of people should alert one to something unexplained going on. And the consistency of detail is astounding if one wishes to believe these are all misidentifications and hallucinations. We have years of reports that correspond with each other, many with details researchers didn't appreciate well enough until recently.

2. Tracks that show anatomical details no hoaxer would have bothered to create (at least until they became a "feature" of what is considered a legit track). The number and distribution of tracks suggests, as author and researcher John Green pointed out years ago, that if it is a hoax, there is a worldwide organization committed to creating and sustaining the hoax. These tracks are often found in places people are very unlikely to go, suggesting that there are many more hoaxed tracks never found. How do skeptics explain this?

3. Hair samples. There is a collection of hairs now that show internal consistencies but also they do not come from any known animal. The most interesting feature of the hair samples is that they appear to be human in most respects, but they do not have the toxins our hairs do as a result of our living in our toxin rich society.

4. Fecal samples. Some as large as coke cans. (I've seen one of these in a picture with the coke can next to it.) They are from no known animal, and when tested for DNA come back as "likely human".

5. Photographic evidence. By itself it isn't much, but it does support the other evidence.

6. The Patterson/Gimlin film. If one spends the time to analyze the film, especially if you have one of the stabilized images you can get from other boards, you will notice many features that argue against the subject being a man in a suit. As a whole, these features simply overwhelm the contradictory evidence.

7. Secondary evidence arising from analysis of the evidence we now have; for instance, the foot size distribution comes out as a bell curve, suggesting a real population of animals, not a hoax (since one assumes hoaxers wouldn't know each other and wouldn't make enough prints of different sizes to create the impression of a population -- unless you accept the worldwide hoaxing organization theory, which is absurd!).

Simply apply Occam's Razor -- what is the simplest theory that can account for the conglomeration of evidence without creating more unaccounted for features? That there is a real creature out there producing the evidence.

Though not many really know about it, the case for bigfoot does not rest on a couple of guys telling stories that may be tall tales. We have thousands of reports. The fact that we have physical evidence in the abundance that we have it goes far beyond the case for the UFO.

I'm not saying anything about what I think about the UFO phenomena by saying that, just that it's apples to oranges comparing them to bigfoot.

The reason the authorities don't tell you what they suspect is out there, from my conversation with several National Park Rangers, is they've been told not to, and they'd lose their jobs if they did. We have asked ourselves why this would be for some time, and have a couple of answers.

1. Admitting a large, potentially dangerous, creature is living in the woods would create a panic and the government would be forced to do something about it. They have done the cost/benefit analysis and regard the bigfoot as harmless enough to want to avoid this scenario altogether.

2. Some bright spark in the defense industry one day had a thought about training bigfoot for defense purposes (they do it with dolphins!) Once someone proposed this idea, the very existence of bigfoot would be classified, and studies show that once the government classifies something it tends not to unclassify it unless forced to.

3. The existence of bigfoot is a scary thought if you aren't prepared for it. The human mind may simply reject the notion altogether until it comes face to face with one, which created a culture in which the folks in the field learn something which the folks in the office reject out of hand. Over time, the field workers have learned the best thing to do when you learn about bigfoot is shut up about it.

Since many Rangers have been only too glad to tell us what they know, I suspect that number 3 is the main reason, though all three could be in operation at once.

I've seen enough to know that bigfoot is out there. If it is *not* a flesh and blood creature that lives and dies in our woods, then we really do live in a strange strange world.

Someone asked where to find a good resolution copy of the Patterson/Gimlin film. The entire film is appended to the video "Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science", which you can buy from the BFRO on this page:

hxxps://secure19.activehost.com/legendmeetsscience/ProductDetails.aspx?productID=2

In that video you can see more about the evidence I was talking about, and even some scientists who come right out and say what they believe.

http://www.toddbradley.com/images/bigfoot_patterson02.jpg

Just want to point out that you accept the theory "there are legions and legions of perfectly sane and rational people who have said much the same thing after seeing barn owls, the planet Venus, heat mirages, weather balloons, bear cubs, hobos, and all manner of perfectly explainable stuff" without the same kind of proof that this is indeed the case as you expect for the theory you regard as less likely.

What you probably meant is that you have read that there are legions of these easily deluded folk. But do you know whose interpretation of events you've gotten?

I don't bother with that anymore.. I go out and look for evidence myself.


No. . . I believe that MANY of them can be explained by basic psychology. I'm not talking about all of them, but many of them.

Go out and look at a tree. See all the pretty leaves? Realize that many of the leaves you see are made up images in your mind. The ones you aren't focusing on directly are filled in by your mind the way it thinks it should be.

So a lot of them can be explained.

That said, good for you. Fight the fight and get the proof. I hope you prove the existence of Bigfoot. I'll be first in line to buy a copy of your book as to how you broke the story.

http://www.toddbradley.com/images/bigfoot_patterson02.jpg

awww, see those hairy man-boobs, that's just Subby.

A body is needed, pure and simple. I personally think there might be something out there, although I think there is a much better chance of finding a new primate in Central Asia.

The environmentalists will go nuts if we ever do find Bigfoot though. Look what they did for some spotted owls. I think they'd shut down the forests in a 100 mile radius of the finding.

Clearly it's Bush's fault, he's maintaining a coverup to benefit the timber industry :)

Oh yeah, one thing I wanted to ask Sidhe, since he has been keeping up with this more than I have. Have they found any more Gigantepithecus bones yet? Last I heard when I was studying anthropology, all that had been found was a mandible and three teeth. I always had trouble with projections of Gigantepithecus size and morphology based upon so little material.

Wow.... this was actually very refreshing to read. I don't really have an opinion on Bigfoot, not being an outdoorsman in the least... but I find this discussion fascinating and plan to look through some of the provided links. Kudos (improper noun, not the alien) to all of those on both sides for an actual discussion on this and not a "Let's make fun of the trailer park dwellers" discussion.

Regards,
Chas

I also think Sidhe is doing a great job arguing his side here without being condescending or snide. I can't say I've ever given the issue much thought, but this has been a very interesting discussion.

I also think Sidhe is doing a great job arguing his side here without being condescending or snide. I can't say I've ever given the issue much thought, but this has been a very interesting discussion.

Agreed.. Thanx for the Links to the Websites Sidhe, I found some good reading there.. I hadn't given this topic much thought until I saw a show on TV recently and then read this thread. Your posts have made me think deeper..

For the existence of bigfoot we have these categories of evidence, all of them well attested:

1. Thousands of sightings from eyewitnesses. One would be wrong to throw these out, even as a skeptic. No one case proves anything, but the sheer number of people should alert one to something unexplained going on. And the consistency of detail is astounding if one wishes to believe these are all misidentifications and hallucinations. We have years of reports that correspond with each other, many with details researchers didn't appreciate well enough until recently.

2. Tracks that show anatomical details no hoaxer would have bothered to create (at least until they became a "feature" of what is considered a legit track). The number and distribution of tracks suggests, as author and researcher John Green pointed out years ago, that if it is a hoax, there is a worldwide organization committed to creating and sustaining the hoax. These tracks are often found in places people are very unlikely to go, suggesting that there are many more hoaxed tracks never found. How do skeptics explain this?

3. Hair samples. There is a collection of hairs now that show internal consistencies but also they do not come from any known animal. The most interesting feature of the hair samples is that they appear to be human in most respects, but they do not have the toxins our hairs do as a result of our living in our toxin rich society.

4. Fecal samples. Some as large as coke cans. (I've seen one of these in a picture with the coke can next to it.) They are from no known animal, and when tested for DNA come back as "likely human".

5. Photographic evidence. By itself it isn't much, but it does support the other evidence.

6. The Patterson/Gimlin film. If one spends the time to analyze the film, especially if you have one of the stabilized images you can get from other boards, you will notice many features that argue against the subject being a man in a suit. As a whole, these features simply overwhelm the contradictory evidence.

7. Secondary evidence arising from analysis of the evidence we now have; for instance, the foot size distribution comes out as a bell curve, suggesting a real population of animals, not a hoax (since one assumes hoaxers wouldn't know each other and wouldn't make enough prints of different sizes to create the impression of a population -- unless you accept the worldwide hoaxing organization theory, which is absurd!).

Okay, I appreciate your attempt to be logical about this. I don't claim to have anywhere near the knowledge base on this subject that you do, so I can't exactly engage in any debate about the varacity of any of the supposed evidence and whether it is truly "well attested." I have, admittedly, never heard the "bell curve" argument about footprints before... but I don't add it to my list of compelling arguments quite yet.

Anyway -- what needs to be part of this discussion, if you want to really be all-inclusive about it -- are the bits of evidence that work against the existence of Bigfoot (or whatever).

Without having the background to cite studies and research, I'll just frame it in one simple item:

1. If there are indeed giant, bipedal, mammalian creatures that spend time in woods all across our continent (and perhaps others), and are so widespread and numerous as to maintain independent populations in practically every corner of the country (after all, we do have eyewitnesses and footprints from here in Maryland, not just the Oregon and California woodlands), then it seems staggeringly unlikely that we, a civilization that ravages virgin timberlands at an alraming rate and either temporarily or permanently inhabits such a wide range of climates and settings, would have spent all these years or development and exploration without ever coming across one bit of uncontested physical evidence of their existence.


With that statement, phrased as fairly as I am able, I am very comfortable in feeling that Occam's Razor is at the very least up for grabs.


Again -- I bring no particular expertise to the subject, but that is, quite obviously, what you're up against. Just confirm that one hair sample, one fecal sample, or one bit of anything is demonstrably from a heretofore unidentified large mammalian species, and I think you'll have a great big foot in the door. Until then, it's going to be hard for any "academic" work coming from a group of dedicated believers to convince much of anyone.

Well the footprints and the hairs are physical evidence, QS. So is the poop, and also tooth impressions, handprints (including the fingerprints, which we call dermal ridges, showing that whatever made the finger or footprint, it wasn't any ordinary human). These are categories of physical evidence.

And it is not the case that people who go out in the woods never see them! They do, it's just that folks who haven't aren't inclined to believe it.

Even a pretty good film of one walking across a sandbar didn't convince many folk.


Thanks to all involved in this debate. I don't consider it an open and shut case that bigfoot physically exists, but if it doesn't, then we have a whole other problem on our hands.. and I am not prepared to think in terms of the paranormal when the possibilities of the normal haven't been exhausted.

I'm sure QS will find that ironic.. but you've got to explain the physical evidence we do have. It isn't fair to raise the bar every time something new comes in.

Incidentally, I am myself intimately involved in the discovery of a new category of evidence, but we don't have it open and shut yet so I have left it off my list. Soon, though.. very soon.

Oh yeah, one thing I wanted to ask Sidhe, since he has been keeping up with this more than I have. Have they found any more Gigantepithecus bones yet? Last I heard when I was studying anthropology, all that had been found was a mandible and three teeth. I always had trouble with projections of Gigantepithecus size and morphology based upon so little material.

You aren't the only one, however, it's fairly common practice.

Recently more material was found in a Chinese market, and some scientists are trying to run down where it was originally found.

Recently more material was found in a Chinese market, and some scientists are trying to run down where it was originally found.

How much did they want for it? :D

Harry and the Hendersons is a guilty pleasure of mine, not sure if that counts.

I'm holding out more hope for there being Yetis than a Bigfoot.

uncontested physical evidence

Well the footprints and the hairs are physical evidence, QS. So is the poop, and also tooth impressions, handprints (including the fingerprints, which we call dermal ridges, showing that whatever made the finger or footprint, it wasn't any ordinary human). These are categories of physical evidence.

There's the rub. You have physical evidence that something lost a hair, and that something took a shit. So far, the simplest explanation for this is a mountain man recluse (human) who hasn't been exposed to many worldly toxins.

I don't mean this as a slam... but this clearly remains the weak spot in the whole argument. If this stuff is demonstrably from a non-human, un-identified creature... then run a lab test or a DNA test of some sort and prove it. If it isn't, or if the labs all say that it looks like human stuff... then it's not really uncontested physical evidence of bigfoot, it's just stuff that may have come from a human or from something else.

One body. One bone. On piece of matter of any sort that can be clerly shown to be non-human and from nothing else we know of. That is, presumably, all it would take.

I'll have to be another that contributes nothing to this thread rather than "great thread"... It's very rare that I've seen such good, "logical" discussion about a serious topic.

Bravo Team, Bravo!

Yeah same here. I've lived in an area that has a well-known legendary bigfoot that roams the area. It is talked about quite frequently and I have heard many, many stories about encounters with it (it is, strangely to me, assumed to be just one). The stories are quite credible and from what I consider credible sources. I've always thought there was more to this than people really thought. I have never seen any direct evidence of the creatures, though.

That said, I would be more interested if we could have this sort of discussion on the UFO phenomenon. That is a subject that has always fascinated me. I have actually had some encounters in this area in my life (several, in fact) and wouldn't mind discussing them.

In somewhat of a coincidence, I came across this story in the Chicago Tribune today..

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0510100165oct10,1,151482.story?coll=chi-news-hed

I'm sure QS will find that ironic.. but you've got to explain the physical evidence we do have. It isn't fair to raise the bar every time something new comes in.
This is what me and QS were talking about before. The burden of proof. "We" (the general skeptic and unbeliever population) don't have to prove or explain anything. "You" (the general collectors of evidence and the claiments) are the ones who hold the burden of proof.

You have a bunch of evidence that suggests "something" is out there. Whether it be Bigfoot, "mountain men", hoaxers, something more "animal" than Bigfoot, etc. (or any combination of the above). You have evidence. What that evidence is of is undetermined. You even say it yourself. The hair comes back human, uncut and free of toxins. The crap has human and animal DNA in it. The footprints are of a large animal (possibly bipedal). You have video and photos but many people who have taken video and photos of bigfoot have admitted that they were hoaxes. Even if you don't believe they are telling the truth that they were hoaxes, they are saying as much. So it leaves that evidence as unreliable. (You'd be suprised. I've seen hoaxers do some pretty amazing things.)

It is all, at the very best, circumstantial evidence. Until there is a body, or some bones are found, and they are independantly verified, or certain technologies allow us to take the DNA and reconstruct the animal in a simulation or some thing like (pretty far off I'd imagine. :) ), all of the evidence still pretty much remains evidence of just "something".

There have been anomalous finds over the short history of the US including bodies up to twelve feet tall. At the time of their being reported (all of these finds are from the 19th century) they were considered to be a race of giant Indians. These specimen have all been lost over the course of time. The interest in them lapsed for about a hundred years so this is not too difficult to understand.

Europeans and their decendants have many stories about Hairy Wild Men. One tale you probably had to read in high school was Beowulf. What's Grendel? A large, bipedal, hairy humanoid. And there are many historical reports of people having encounters with Wild Men of the Woods. At the time it was thought that these were people who had gotten lost in the woods and who had completely reverted to animal behavior. And grown a lot of body hair.

So there is a historical basis for creatures akin to what we are talking about speaking from the European side of America's anscestors. There continue to be some contemporary reports from Eastern Europe. Russian science, in particular, takes the question seriously enough, a little more so than we do in the West.

If you look to the far east, there are contemporary reports of strange bipedal creatures. The most interesting of these is probably the Orang Pendek. This is a creature that walks in the woods of Sumatra. It was long historically attested by the natives. When zoologists would ask them about Orangutans, they would answer, "Which ones do you mean? The small ones with the puffed out faces, the larger ones, or the really big ones who walk like men?"

Oftentimes what we consider to be mythical is well known to native inhabitants.

Which brings me to native North Americans. The belief in bigfoot as a real living creature was widespread and crossed the continent. They've tried to tell us, but we haven't listened. Many of them considered bigfoot to be a race of large hairy Indians who have language and culture and who can be reasoned with, but who were too unpredictable and strong to be trusted.

If we do have bigfoot here, it didn't come from Europe with us. It probably travelled across the bering strait with many of the first human inhabitants of this continent. Bigfoot does share some similarities with a known extinct primate, gigantopithecus. There are physical remains of this ancient relative of the orangutan -- a creature that could stand 8' or more tall, and is nearly universally thought to have been bipedal.

Ok, that's enough of that. I don't need to change anyone's mind -- it doesn't matter whether people believe or not after all, it will either be found, or it will turn out to be something other than a real animal. I only wanted a good survey of belief here. And I did wonder if anyone would admit to having seen one..
I learned a little bit about the large ones you mentioned in my primatology class and they are not "bigfoots", they are a known large primate species that had been hunted to extinction. And I beleive my prof mentioned that they were not bipedal.

Doesn't Shaq have big feet?

I learned a little bit about the large ones you mentioned in my primatology class and they are not "bigfoots", they are a known large primate species that had been hunted to extinction. And I beleive my prof mentioned that they were not bipedal.

Well, I think your prof was exaggerating a bit. Those are the theories, but what is actually know about the ape is pretty minimal. All we have for evidence for the species is a few teeth and a jawbone (unless more has been found in the last 10 years). Anthropologists have filled in the rest, theorizing that they lived similar to pandas because of where the bones were found and because of the size of the molars and jaw found, which would be suitable for chewing bamboo. And because its thought they went extinct 50K-100K years ago, as man was coming to the forefront, that man caused their extinction.

If bigfoot exists, it's likely a close relative of Gigantepithecus given its physical similarities and proximity to the Bering Land Bridge.

(Not often my anthropology degree helps me in a discussion :D )

I must confess, I have a fondness for all things Fortean.

For those that are intersted, I found Carl Sagan's book, The Demon-Haunted World (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0345409469/qid=1128977484/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/103-1508474-4626221?v=glance&s=books&n=507846), to be an excellent read regarding topics such as this.

An anthropologist speculating based on the scant evidence to hand is alright, so long as nothing unexpected results..

We've got enough evidence in the case of bigfoot that the burden of proof has shifted. The fact that you haven't seen that proof well enough to understand that this is the case could also use explaining. But that's for the sociologists or anthropologists, not me.

Here's something that's analogous -- though well known to native people and a few Westerners for centuries, science finally catches up only when remains are found. Because natives and explorers cannot be relied upon in the matter of something that is manlike. It has always been this way:

http://www.nature.com/news/specials/flores/index.html

The first Dutch explorers to the Island learned that the natives knew of a small race of hairy people. A few of the explorers may even have seen them. This back in the late 17th century. Now we read that they did indeed exist and perhaps even persisted into historical times..

Who would have figured?

Bigfoot is different from all the paranormal things it is often cast away with. You can touch it, you can see it, you can smell it, you can film it, you can take a picture of it, you can get a recording of its voice, you can watch it walking, eating, bathing, swimming, hunting, sleeping and doing many many other things besides -- there is no facet of a bigfoot's life that is closed to observation. It's just that bigfoot would rather not be in the same place you are, for good reason, so the observations have come from many different people in glimpses.

Had bigfoot not adopted a strategy of extreme aversion to human contact, it would have been hunted to extinction just like all the other megafauna have been. Its elusiveness is hardwired, honed to brilliance by plain old evolution. Our history is replete with stories of hunting parties who "chased the Wild Man of the Woods." We haven't found any that speak of catching one, though..

It helps that bigfoot has been clocked at 35mph, and faster.

I think one reason people automatically reject what evidence there is already is because of fear. I like to pass along this particular set of tales to help folks understand that we aren't talking about a raving gorilla in the woods. Far from it.

There are several cases where a bigfoot helps a hurt or trapped human. In one, a logger, working alone pretty far from help, gets trapped under the tree he fells. It would be quite some tme before his workmates would be back and he was in a lot of pain under the tree.

A bigfoot happens by. That alone was pretty shocking to the fellow, I'm sure, but he couldn't have been prepared for what happened next: he said the bigfoot stopped and looked at him, then at the tree, and seeming to pause only a moment to make a decision, stooped to lift the tree off the fellow, and then continued on its way witout looking back.

In another story a young boy of four or five was lost playing in the woods near his home. A large searching party was organized but it got too dark before they found him. The next morning his parents found him on the front porch. They were overjoyed of course, but he told everyone that "the big hairy monkey" had brought him home after it sat with him all night to keep him warm.

I've seen at least three reports of folks who have fallen while running from a bigfoot, who they thought was chasing them. In each case, they looked back expecting the worst only to find the creature paitently waiting for them to get up and start running again.

And this trio of reports is born out by all the others -- bigfoot may chase you but it never catches you.

Of course many of you will say that's because it doesn't exist. But now you'll have some basis for not freaking out when it turns out that it does.

Which is not to say bigfoot is entirely harmless either. When they want you gone they'll try to intimidate you, and one way they do this is by throwing things. Sometimes the things they throw are quite large. I don't think their aim is good enough to miss you even if they aren't aiming right at you..

It helps that bigfoot has been clocked at 35mph, and faster.


So, the hikers thought to pack a JUGS gun, but not a camera?

Oh, well, this thread is entertaining, if nothing else.

As colorful and interesting as they are, there is simply no point in injecting "eyewitness accounts" into a debate intended to convince a skeptic of anything. The fact that you say that this is someone's account... or that you read someone who wrote about this being someone else's account... or whatever... doesn't make it something that I can invest any particular weight into. Understandably.

Of course, I do agree with the subtext of the believers' argument -- which often comes down to if these things aren't out there, how can so many people claim to have seen them? I don't have a particularly good answer to that -- other than the long-standing myth of the ape-man having somehow just become such a part of folklore and legend as to be a part of the human unconscious (possibly something along the lines of the "bright light" you experience upon death, which many people explain away the same way).

Interesting stuff - I have read about lots of accounts of bigfoot sightings and encounters, including the guy under the tree (I assume it's the same guy, or else it's the same legend by different branches of the same telling tree) -- and while I'm not necessarily casting apsersions, I also am not inclined to accept them as evidence of anything but myth and perhaps odd human behavior.

You can touch it, you can see it, you can smell it, you can film it, you can take a picture of it, you can get a recording of its voice, you can watch it walking, eating, bathing, swimming, hunting, sleeping and doing many many other things besides -- there is no facet of a bigfoot's life that is closed to observation.

But, apparently, you can't actually get a piece of it for conclusive investigation, or stick a dart in it, or take a picture that convinces skeptics, or anything else of that nature. I applaud your sincerity, but there's a credibility concern, I think, when you suggest these matters are so one-sided.

Well, considering they have suspected the existance of giant squids for decades and only now (maybe) have gotten some photographic evidence ....

In another story a young boy of four or five was lost playing in the woods near his home. A large searching party was organized but it got too dark before they found him. The next morning his parents found him on the front porch. They were overjoyed of course, but he told everyone that "the big hairy monkey" had brought him home after it sat with him all night to keep him warm. I have no idea if this is connected, but last winter, as I carried my 3-year-old son back from the car to the house, I saw some rabbit tracks in the snow in front of our house. I asked my son, "Hey, look! Tracks! What do you think made them?"

My son looks around at the tracks going all over the place in the snow. "A big monster!"

"Look at the tracks, son. Aren't they a bit small?"

My son looks down at the tiny tracks. Thinks for a second. Looks back at me.

"A big monster with reeeeeally small feet."

Wouldn't Bigfoot hang out near a Big and Tall Men instead of the woods?

So, the hikers thought to pack a JUGS gun, but not a camera?

Oh, well, this thread is entertaining, if nothing else.

Don't be silly. No need to do that, especially if you watched "The Six Million Dollar Man," back in the 70s. Besides bigfoot could match Steve Austin's speed, and Steve could run 60 mph easy!!!

\

Don't be silly. No need to do that, especially if you watched "The Six Million Dollar Man," back in the 70s. Besides the bionic bigfoot could match Steve Austin's speed, and Steve could run 60 mph easy!!!
Could he outrun Wonder Woman?

Just a couple of comments...

We've got enough evidence in the case of bigfoot that the burden of proof has shifted.
The burden of proof never shifts. It's always on the one making the claim.

I think one reason people automatically reject what evidence there is already is because of fear.
No one is rejecting the evidence. Just saying that it is just circumstantial and not enough. You may be right in that these things do exist but that does not mean you have enough evidence. Just because we say we need more evidence does not mean we are rejecting the evidence that's there.

I guess like everything else, the more people "suggest" something is true, the more believable it becomes, regardless of the facts.

And for what it's worth, I also don't believe anybody here "fears" bigfoot. Personally, I would love nothing more than for any legend/myth to become fact and not fiction.

Speaking of which, what is the last legend/myth that was proven to be true? That the earth is round, perhaps?

last myth to be proven true:

Subby uses a penis pump.

(Having not read a single post in the thread, and not knowing if the jokes been told)...


Why? Is he missing?

Items we know based on circumstantial evidence:

Black holes exist
Dark Matter and Dark Energy exist

Item I suggest is in the same category:

Bigfoot exists

Theory: Black Holes Exist
Hypothesis: If Black Holes exist, they should leave physical evidence
Experiment: Observation of such evidence

Note that the case for the black hole is circumstantial.

Theory: There is an enormous amount of unseen energy that makes up the bulk of the universe
Hypothesis: This unseen energy (some of it in the form of matter) makes the universe behave in a certain manner.
Experiment: observe the behavior of the universe

From this we infer that dark matter and dark energy do exist. We come to this from the circumference, not from the center of direct observation of the thing itself.

These are scientific analogues of the bigfoot problem. We first noticed that things didn’t add up, then we inferred that there must be an unseen (or unacknowledged) entity to account for it.

There is a body of non-testable evidence in use here in both cases. And we have not (and never will have) observed a Black Hole. We have not observed Dark Matter/Energy, though if the theory is correct, we will. Even if the theory is incorrect, it will have led us to investigate the matter more deeply.

In Biology, the standard of specimen collection has failed over time; ie., species reported extinct when in fact they were only very rare; accounts of surviving groups of small men-like apes (like the recently discovered Hom Floresienses) ignored for centuries until now, with the discovery of a relatively recent skeleton. Scientists seem much more willing to use these anecdotes to entertain the idea that Floresienses may still live now that they've seen a skeleton than they were to entertain the idea of their existence at all before.

The standard seems to be that you can’t trust experience (ie, anecdotal evidence), but that standard is absurd if you dig into it. What is experiment but a rigorously controlled experience?

Taking scientific method’s insistence on repeatability, if something is periodic and largely unpredictable as, for instance, certain particals of matter at the sub-atomic level, and as an elusive creature would be also, the standard can’t apply in the regular sense. No physicist expects to find two electrons in exactly the same place at exactly the same time during two experiments. They know the matter rests on probabilities. Yet no one would be so foolish as to say what they were doing wasn’t science. But it seems to matter to the skeptics that you can’t produce a body of a large bipedal North American Ape right where and when you want it. Do you know how vastly improbable it is that you'll find a bear carcase in the woods? And we have good reason to suspect that there are many more bear in the woods than bigfoot.

Only the body will suffice. But we have the example of Homo Floresienses, and a myriad of others too, to show why this standard doesn’t put one in the best position to say what exists and what doesn’t.

In recent months, I have seen at least two articles about animals thought extinct in an area being found in that area again.

Extreme scarcity does not equal absence. I suppose when I drop my contact lens on the ground and then I can't find it again, it never existed?

And then lets come at this from the other direction and demonstrate that bigfoot is not so susceptible to debunking as some of you have said it to be.

Proposed: the phenomenon known as rods is completely debunked.

RODS- supposedly small flying things that are so quick as to be invisible to the naked eye, but visible on a video camera. A phenomenon only discovered by digital camcorders with zoom. Never seen by cameras with film, never seen with optical zoom, never seen with naked eye.

Explanation -- the digital zoom creates the artifact out of the wings of bugs and birds. On experimentation this is confirmed to happen.

This explanation leaves *nothing* unexplained, and we created nothing new to explain it, following Occam's Razor.

Now try debunking BF.. you simply cannot fully debunk it without creating something new. Because I've already taken up enough of your time, I'll just use one example: the footprints. To explain them all, you have to postulate that there is a significant population of hoaxers, all in communication with each other, willing to do the most physically demanding, even dangerous things, such as put on monkey costumes and run around risking a bullet or two; such as walk up to several miles with fake feet strapped to your feet, something heavy on your back, with an incredibly exaggerated stride, all these things in places people might not even *find* what you hoaxed.. This is a brand new form of human behavior postulated by skeptics! They ask you to believe this on no other authority than their word, rather than entertain the simplest explanation. Occam's Razor has indeed cut against the skeptic in this case!

And you will notice no doubt that most skeptics are quite willing to jump in and say "nyet!" without being all that conversant on the subject they are nay-saying. I think that's an imporant point.

I was interested in this topic for years, but I didn't think bigfoot existed until I had investigated the matter for myself.

The comments about the radar gun weilding witnesses given just above prove that some skeptics don't even bother to read a whole thread before giving their comment..

But maybe my posts are just too long. My bad.

I'll let this stand as the final one. No need to go over it all again and again..

Except I did want to add this, which I consider a perfectly reasonable stance for science to take re: bigfoot:

Bigfoot -- a creature that may exist, but no specimen has ever been collected. Many credible people have reported seeing it, including scientists, doctors, policemen, etc., but the fact that no body has ever been collected makes its existence hard to prove. Some physical signs have been collected, including footprints, scat, hair samples, and body prints, but these alone do not prove the existence of a creature since all of these categories of evidence are susceptible to hoaxing. Statistical analyses of some of the evidence are suggestive of a real population of creatures, however, so further study is warranted.

Untrue, Disney made a movie about The Black Hole. Not too shabby for back then either.

I saw it in a movie theater = it must be true.

Just like we owe all of our lives to Bruce Willis.

I have size 13 1/2 feet. I also inherited all the hairy Russian genes known to mankind. But I'm not much of a mountain climber, so it isn't me.

Comparing this to astronomical exploration is interesting, but incorrect. In your case, your evidence comes mostly from anecdotes. Attempts to recreate the observations fail, supposedly because, you theorize, these creatures consciously avoid being seen.

In astronomy, theories develop from repeatable observation. Theories change over time, as observation improves.

Your theory that Big Foot exists doesn't change. In that way, it's like a religion.

Occam's Razor doesn't really work for you. The simplest explanation is that it is a hoax, with people working together, unknown to you, to create and "find" footprints and other "evidence."

Only the body will suffice. But we have the example of Homo Floresienses, and a myriad of others too, to show why this standard doesn’t put one in the best position to say what exists and what doesn’t.

In recent months, I have seen at least two articles about animals thought extinct in an area being found in that area again.

Extreme scarcity does not equal absence. See, this quote says a whole lot. It shows that you don't seem to get the whole idea of burden of proof. Are you saying that because some animals thought to have been extinct were found, all animals rumored to exist do exist? Are you coming from a position of they exist until proven otherwise?

This quote seems to suggest that you think:

1) An animal thought to not exist was found to exist
2) Bigfoot is thought to not exist
3) Therefore, Bigfoot exist.

Each case is 100% seperate. It does not matter how many animals thought to not exist are shown to exist. That is irrelevant to whether or not bigfoot exists.

The best position to say what exists and what doesn't is if you had god-like abilities and can see everything in the universe at once. Short of that, "until we have at least some bones contemporarily dated" is the best we've got. I don't suppose something exists and then try to prove it, I add up the evidence that's there and then form an idea. Right now, the evidence says "something", but it's far from conclusive that it's bigfoot. It could any number of things.

Now try debunking BF Are you seriously suggesting that someone prove a negative?

To explain them all, you have to postulate that there is a significant population of hoaxers, all in communication with each other, willing to do the most physically demanding, even dangerous things, such as put on monkey costumes and run around risking a bullet or two; such as walk up to several miles with fake feet strapped to your feet, something heavy on your back, with an incredibly exaggerated stride, all these things in places people might not even *find* what you hoaxed.. This is a brand new form of human behavior postulated by skeptics! They ask you to believe this on no other authority than their word, rather than entertain the simplest explanation. Occam's Razor has indeed cut against the skeptic in this case! Heard the same thing about crop circles (long winded explainations about how it would be nearly impossible to hoax). Look what happened there.

Bigfoot -- a creature that may exist, but no specimen has ever been collected. Many credible people have reported seeing it, including scientists, doctors, policemen, etc., but the fact that no body has ever been collected makes its existence hard to prove. Some physical signs have been collected, including footprints, scat, hair samples, and body prints, but these alone do not prove the existence of a creature since all of these categories of evidence are susceptible to hoaxing. Statistical analyses of some of the evidence are suggestive of a real population of creatures, however, so further study is warranted. And how is this so different from what we've been saying the entire thread?

In that way, it's like a religion.

I'm surprised this didn't come up earlier. The similarities between our quest to prove higher beings and bigfoot are uncanny.

I read this (a couple of times), and I understand what you're saying.

I find it quite intriguing -- I don't think I have ever heard the argument of "gullibility" used by the believers rather than the skeptics. Ordinarily, I'd expect someone to be arguing against the existence of [insert supposedly unexplained phenomenon here] to be pointing toward human weakness in believing stories without airtight or even compelling evidence. Instead, I see you criticizing me (and others) for being too willing to believe the "alternative explanations" that offer a more ordinary source for the phenomenon.

I'm at a loss.


I disagree with your conclusion that his statement hinted at gullibility at all. It sounds like he's simply saying that a species has adapted a pattern that relies on a trait of it's enemy ( so to speak ) for it's safety.

The human mind is generally set up to look for the simplest, most logical answer to a situation and can go quite to extremes to do it.

I was in Pasadena when I first experienced an earthquake. I was at home and I heard a low rumbling noise and a few seconds later the building started shaking.

My first thought was "a truck is hitting my apartment building."

Now, this would be a trick considering the complex layout but it's all I could think of that would explain what I was experiencing and I knew through reading that earthquakes existed. I'd never experienced one.

When I had my first experience my mind raced through the things it knew and had experienced ( it's reality so to speak ) and came up with the most logical answer it could come up with, impossible though it was as an explanation.

Interestingly enough it was the clattering of dishes that finally clued me in seconds later. I remembered hearing that in the movie Earthquake and boom, my mind thought earthquake and I could deal with the reality.

Well, relatively deal. It was at this point I panicked btw and I remember saying to the cat "don't look at me, you're from here. You tell me what to do." :D

Now, if I'm a hiker and I see a shape moving in the distance, at a pretty good clip and quickly getting to cover, I'm not thinking bigfoot. I'm thinking bear and my mind goes about it's business as does the bigfoot. No matter my opinion on the existence of bigfeet, if they do exist, I have no problem seeing this as an explanation on how they use human nature instinctively to remain safe.

Now, some people might see the bigfoot and think bigfoot before bear but frankly I wouldn't rely on those peoples observations too much because we can just as easily turn a bear into bigfoot in our minds as vice versa. That again, would work in the creatures favor as the person would be hesitant to share his experiences or be disbelieved if he did, either way further protecting the creature from human intervention.

That is, if the species exists of course and I voted C in the poll ( for reference ).

What is the relationship of bigfoot/yeti/sasquatch? Are they all the same thing, or different?

I have a friend who is a wildlife artist who is also into cryptozoology. A few years ago, he was investigating a bigfoot type creature that has been seen in Eastern Oklahoma near the Arkansas border. He talked to a lot of people who claimed to have seen it, but none of them said they would go public because they didn't want to be be labeled as kooks. He also talked to a pair of good 'ol boy brothers who lived with their families out in the woods. They say they have seen several different creatures while hunting. They also claim to have shot one, but were driven away from the carcass by the others, who they said made God-awful noises and threw large stones at them. When they returned later, they said the body of the thing was gone. They said for several weeks following the incident, the things would come during the night and throw large rocks at their houses and one apparently threw a large tree branch through the windshield of their pickup truck. They would grab their guns and run out on the porch with flashlights, and the things would disappear into the woods. Things would settle down, but a few hours later they would return and begin the harrassment again. Needless to say, they didn't get much sleep during that time. After a few weeks, they say the incidents stopped and they say they haven't seen any of the things since. However, they can still hear them "hooting" in the deep woods every now and then.


No offense but this story is patently absurd. I'm not saying it's not true but it fails on so many levels.

The obvious though is that two good ole boy hunters, with the chance to bag the most legendary creature next to the loch ness monster, let these things mill around their property for several weeks and all they thought to do was run out on to the porch with guns and flashlights?

For weeks?

Come on, they'd have set up an ambush or set traps or something. They'd have brought down a creature.

But wait. Lets think deeper. They know that they have killed a rather large unknown and unidentified primate and it's equally unknown friends are extremely pissed off about it and attacking their homes and they are that nonchalant about it?

There's no way to know what such a creature would be capable of and it's already damaging your property. Who's to say that they dont come in at night quietly ( they are faster and quiter than us you know ) and kill them. No one is to say because no one has ever seen one and has no clue what it'd do.

Would you live for weeks with this threat literally out your backdoor?

There's more but I can't see any of this as being plausable. I think it was the local boys taking the educated city slicker on a snipe hunt. Sorry.

What is the relationship of bigfoot/yeti/sasquatch? Are they all the same thing, or different?

Bigfoot lives in North America, Yeti live in the arctic and Sasquatch is Eddie Murphy's aunt.

Bigfoot lives in North America, Yeti live in the arctic and Sasquatch is Eddie Murphy's aunt.

Good ole Aunt Bunny from Puerto Rico. Shave that 'stache!

Oh, and Aunt Bunny is a Bigfoot.

Good ole Aunt Bunny from Puerto Rico. Shave that 'stache!

Oh, and Aunt Bunny is a Bigfoot.

Right, Sasquatch lives in North America, Yeti live in the arctic and Bigfoot is Eddie Murphy's aunt. :)

Guess my memory isn't what it used to be.
:(

Right, Sasquatch lives in North America, Yeti live in the arctic and Bigfoot is Eddie Murphy's aunt. :)

Guess my memory isn't what it used to be.
:(

Don't get me wrong, my memory is shot. I just happened to watch that about 6 months ago. :D

Anyone see the show Bigfootville last night? Not sure what channel it was on - one of those specialty channels on DirecTV between 260 and 285. It was somewhat interesting. It focused on an area in SE Oklahoma (Ada was one of the towns). I couldn't tell how much of a true "documentary"-type show it was supposed to be, since they went out searching the woods/river basins and the show ended up taking on a Most Haunted quality, with people giving night vision testimonials, Blair Witch style, about hearing grunts, seeing movements, and having rocks thrown at them, none of which was visible or audible on the tape. Still, it was decent viewing for a Friday night with absolutely nothing else on.

Anyone see the show Bigfootville last night? Not sure what channel it was on - one of those specialty channels on DirecTV between 260 and 285. It was somewhat interesting. It focused on an area in SE Oklahoma (Ada was one of the towns). I couldn't tell how much of a true "documentary"-type show it was supposed to be, since they went out searching the woods/river basins and the show ended up taking on a Most Haunted quality, with people giving night vision testimonials, Blair Witch style, about hearing grunts, seeing movements, and having rocks thrown at them, none of which was visible or audible on the tape. Still, it was decent viewing for a Friday night with absolutely nothing else on.

Southeast Oklahoma? That was just Dennis Rodman's ghost throwing rocks at the cameraman. :)

I'm suspicious of those shows ever since the "Mysterious Encounters" show that was on the Outdoor Life Network. I know one of the guys who was on that show. They staged things -- little stupid things, like the "what was that?" moments. Their whole idea was to make a "Blair Witch, with Bigfoot".

There are rarely any shows on tv that do the subject justice. The best one was created with the help of the BFRO -- Legend Meets Science.

But I should say I don't know anything about Bigfootville. It just got on my nerves when they were saying "See that right there? " but the camera never shows that location. As if the cameraman wouldn't turn his video up to try to catch it.. :rolleyes:

Here's a new possible bigfoot video, btw. If the links are still up.

Page put up by the witness/videographer: http://www.angelfire.com/realm3/marknelson/

Stabilized version of the figure in the video: http://www.texasbigfoot.com/CAvidrn5.wmv

that video you link to shows nothing btw. goto the page and check out his video. It actually shows something...

I'm suspicious of those shows ever since the "Mysterious Encounters" show that was on the Outdoor Life Network. I know one of the guys who was on that show. They staged things -- little stupid things, like the "what was that?" moments. Their whole idea was to make a "Blair Witch, with Bigfoot".

There are rarely any shows on tv that do the subject justice. The best one was created with the help of the BFRO -- Legend Meets Science.

But I should say I don't know anything about Bigfootville. It just got on my nerves when they were saying "See that right there? " but the camera never shows that location. As if the cameraman wouldn't turn his video up to try to catch it.. :rolleyes:

Yeah, same here. The Blair Witch moments and the impossibly slow cameraman made me think it was all a bunch of shit. Which it probably was. Still, for what it was, it was somewhat entertaining. I mean, when the highlight of your night is the Florida Panthers ending a 47 game losing streak, Bigfoot seems pretty fucking cool by comparison.

Had another interesting look through this thread.

I'm still "staying tuned" awaiting the bombshell evidence or publication that the thread-starter intimated was just around the corner. Any updates out there?

weekday bump

QS is hawt when he's trying to say I told you so

QS is hawt when he's trying to say I told you so
I wonder if QS puts reminders in his calendar a few months in advance along the lines of 'April 23, 2006 - make Sidhe eat his words'

James Randi posted this on his website awhile back. It's an animated GIF someone made that essentially eliminates the shaking of the Patterson film, so you can really see how "Bigfoot" was walking.

http://www.bigfootencounters.com/files/mk_davis_pgf.gif

I wonder if QS puts reminders in his calendar a few months in advance along the lines of 'April 23, 2006 - make Sidhe eat his words'

Quiksand doesn't use calendars - he can figure out the date in an instant just by glancing at the angle of the sun.

That's a cool video.

Quiksand doesn't use calendars - he can figure out the date in an instant just by glancing at the angle of the sun.

Quiksand once stumped Chuck Norris. Chuck asked if he would like to change his name to Kicksand. Quiksand never tried to stump Chuck again.

:drumming fingers:

lol

This is a GREAT day for the fofc.

James Randi posted this on his website awhile back. It's an animated GIF someone made that essentially eliminates the shaking of the Patterson film, so you can really see how "Bigfoot" was walking.

http://www.bigfootencounters.com/files/mk_davis_pgf.gif

This is fascinating. From this video one is able to confirm that the Bigfoot walks exactly like a human being wearing a bigfoot suit! What a breakthrough!

As for myself, yes it has!

Hmmmm...

Are you aware your name is a fairy in Irish Folklore? On second thoughts, of course you are. Don't happen to be a Cryptozooologist, do you?

:drumming fingers:

For their show Bullshit, Penn & Teller created a fake Bigfoot video and released it on the internet (saying that it was real, of course). They got tons of replies, several from people who were "serious Bigfoot investigators". I'm wondering if P&T's hoax video (they would have had to have done it several months in advance for the episode, since they showed it to some of the experts on the show as well) was the breakthrough he was talking about. When I saw the episode, it reminded me of this thread.

And, of course, the people who actually knew what they were talking about ripped the video apart, practically laughing at their attempt at trying to make a believable video..

I'm suspicious of those shows ever since the "Mysterious Encounters" show that was on the Outdoor Life Network. I know one of the guys who was on that show. They staged things -- little stupid things, like the "what was that?" moments. Their whole idea was to make a "Blair Witch, with Bigfoot".

There are rarely any shows on tv that do the subject justice. The best one was created with the help of the BFRO -- Legend Meets Science.

But I should say I don't know anything about Bigfootville. It just got on my nerves when they were saying "See that right there? " but the camera never shows that location. As if the cameraman wouldn't turn his video up to try to catch it.. :rolleyes:

Here's a new possible bigfoot video, btw. If the links are still up.

Page put up by the witness/videographer: http://www.angelfire.com/realm3/marknelson/

Stabilized version of the figure in the video: http://www.texasbigfoot.com/CAvidrn5.wmv

Holy crap, I didn't see this post before. This is Penn & Teller's hoax!

I dunno why, but everytime someone brings up Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster, I always think of the Roswell Crash. I kinda lump them all in the same sorta grouping.

For their show Bullshit, Penn & Teller created a fake Bigfoot video and released it on the internet (saying that it was real, of course). They got tons of replies, several from people who were "serious Bigfoot investigators". I'm wondering if P&T's hoax video (they would have had to have done it several months in advance for the episode, since they showed it to some of the experts on the show as well) was the breakthrough he was talking about. When I saw the episode, it reminded me of this thread.

And, of course, the people who actually knew what they were talking about ripped the video apart, practically laughing at their attempt at trying to make a believable video..

I agree that it's wise to separate the two groups of "serious Bigfoot investigators" and "the people who actually knew what they were talking about." I saw the episode too, and found it quite comical (more so than many).

Way before that episode was even announced, not a few folks came out and said they didn't believe the video was legit. John Frietas actually interviewed the "witness" by phone and tried to find the location -- the witness, obviously, wasn't telling the truth when he talked to Frietas, and that's what Frietas said in his unofficial report. It was posted on Rense.com within a month or two of the video getting out.

The "serious Bigfoot investigators" Penn and Teller mentoined are well known folks. How they kept their names out of the show is beyond me. Well, actually I'm pretty sure they both threatened to sue. In any event, they are not at all serious about looking for bigfoot, they are showmen. They got less than they deserved.

I made my own statement about that video well before the Penn and Teller episode came out, as reflected in the following quoted post from December 2005, which also names Frietas, a police detective, and Kathy Moskowitz, an archaeologist, both fairly well known bigfoot experts, neither of whom were consulted for the Penn and Teller episode.

December 10th, 2005 09:26 AM

The word from John Frietas, who has been investigating the Sonoma video, is that the witness is cagey and unreliable. Of course, John Frietas might elicit that response from any number of otherwise reliable people, I don't know.. Kathy Moskowitz thought the same though when she tried to get some information from the witness.

Frietas says that he has found the location of the filming, that it is only about 100 yards from a road, and that because of this the filmer would have some explaining to do. The witness had not told Frietas where to find the location. Frietas says he will give more details tomorrow. Why we have to wait, I don't know. Maybe he's got pictures.

If the witness wasn't careful about the location details, isn't really cooperative with investigators, that usually means hoax. Remember the Manitoba video -- that guy wanted some money too, but he let his family take people right to the filming site to look for evidence. He understood that could increase the value of his film.

Altogether, facts are pointing toward "hoax".

Just a little more than a week ago, the police chief for the Pine Ridge Reservation confirmed that officers had seen a bigfoot on the reservation. You won't hear about that in the news, but here's a link if you are interested:

hxxp://www.cryptomundo.com/breaking-news/chiefconfprbf/

There are multiple and confusing stories coming from the area -- some folks are convinced they are seeing a very large man with a stove-pipe hat. I know that you read that and you say, "That's it, I'm outta here." But you don't really know what those folks are seeing.

As I say, the police chief confirmed that his men had seen something very strange, and had even gotten a view of it on their thermal imager. (That's the hot item in bigfoot research now. People who have them are starting to get good stuff.)

Just today another local wrote in to Loren Coleman saying that the chief hadn't really said all there was to say.

Okay, some things are not being said. I’m from this reservation, and, really, you couldn’t go 5 minutes without the topic coming up during that week. I heard from an OST officer, who is a good friend to both my father and my uncle, that a few units were able to corner a Bigfoot like creature in Pine Ridge. His description of it was much different from that in the statement. He said it was extremely tall (between 12 and 15 feet), had hair covering its entire body, with the exception of its face which was black, and red eyes. He also said it smelled horrible…like a sewer.

hxxp://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/stovepipehatbf/



Nobody I know is actively involved in that one, and most people who actually go out to look don't care a whole lot for Loren Coleman and his sensationalizing -- but this is the kind of thing we get all the time. Someone sees something, often this is a very credible witness. Police investigate and they often have a confirming sighting. But you won't hear about it. Official policy in most places is to deny it. Just this week one of my associates in Ohio found that the local police near a sighting had been "told to keep their mouths shut." Back in 2002 there was a sighting at a mall development in Maryland by an officer, who made a report but then later said that he could not talk about it anymore. In a West Virginia natural park, a few of us spoke with the rangers. We asked them whether they had ever heard of any bigfoot. Their answer was, "On the record? No comment." I can't tell you what they said off the record, unfortunately, but they did have something to say.

There are crazy people out there who just want attention, or they imagine things and let it get out of hand, but trust me -- that's not very hard to spot.

Then there are those people who tell credible stories, with multiple witnesses, and even physical trace evidence, like footprints or hair.

I know you'll come back with, "Well that was ox hair" (from a recent well known media report). But the thing is, right now the media is all about the "debunking" because they think that's what the public is in the mood to hear. Twenty or thirty years ago, it was more open to something like this. But we've gotten hairs, footprints, videos -- the Patterson Gimlin film still has not been convincingly debunked or duplicated after 40 years. We get all kinds of tantalizing evidence. You just aren't hearing about it now. When the pendulum swings back around, maybe you'll hear about it in the news.

What you may not know is that all of our local newspapers, going back into the 18th century, have many references to "wildmen" or "hairy giants". This is not some new thing that came up in 1958 with Jerry Crew or 1967 with Roger Patterson.

Well I could go on, but I just wanted to put some of this out there. I recognize that it isn't sufficient to sway a hardcore skeptic -- after all, even police officers (and their chief) can be mistaken. Certainly all of us silly bigfoot investigators can be. But what keeps drawing me back are the stories witnesses tell me. I don't know if I mentioned it already in this thread, but more than once I've had tough guys, seasoned hunters, two recent Iraq veterans in the last two years actually, say, in their own words, "I have seen a lot of stuff go down, but I am not going back out into those woods."

Perhaps it's mostly mythical, but a myth does not leave a footprint in your backyard. Or does it? If I had to lay money on it, right now that's where my bet would be -- I don't think we know as much about our physical reality as we think we do.

Wait...didn't read the entire thread...but there is supposedly more than one Bigfoot? I thought that fucker was a one-of-a-kind beast.

Way before that episode was even announced, not a few folks came out and said they didn't believe the video was legit. John Frietas actually interviewed the "witness" by phone and tried to find the location -- the witness, obviously, wasn't telling the truth when he talked to Frietas, and that's what Frietas said in his unofficial report. It was posted on Rense.com within a month or two of the video getting out.

The "serious Bigfoot investigators" Penn and Teller mentoined are well known folks. How they kept their names out of the show is beyond me. Well, actually I'm pretty sure they both threatened to sue. In any event, they are not at all serious about looking for bigfoot, they are showmen. They got less than they deserved.

I made my own statement about that video well before the Penn and Teller episode came out, as reflected in the following quoted post from December 2005, which also names Frietas, a police detective, and Kathy Moskowitz, an archaeologist, both fairly well known bigfoot experts, neither of whom were consulted for the Penn and Teller episode.



Just a little more than a week ago, the police chief for the Pine Ridge Reservation confirmed that officers had seen a bigfoot on the reservation. You won't hear about that in the news, but here's a link if you are interested:

hxxp://www.cryptomundo.com/breaking-news/chiefconfprbf/

There are multiple and confusing stories coming from the area -- some folks are convinced they are seeing a very large man with a stove-pipe hat. I know that you read that and you say, "That's it, I'm outta here." But you don't really know what those folks are seeing.

As I say, the police chief confirmed that his men had seen something very strange, and had even gotten a view of it on their thermal imager. (That's the hot item in bigfoot research now. People who have them are starting to get good stuff.)

Just today another local wrote in to Loren Coleman saying that the chief hadn't really said all there was to say.



Nobody I know is actively involved in that one, and most people who actually go out to look don't care a whole lot for Loren Coleman and his sensationalizing -- but this is the kind of thing we get all the time. Someone sees something, often this is a very credible witness. Police investigate and they often have a confirming sighting. But you won't hear about it. Official policy in most places is to deny it. Just this week one of my associates in Ohio found that the local police near a sighting had been "told to keep their mouths shut." Back in 2002 there was a sighting at a mall development in Maryland by an officer, who made a report but then later said that he could not talk about it anymore. In a West Virginia natural park, a few of us spoke with the rangers. We asked them whether they had ever heard of any bigfoot. Their answer was, "On the record? No comment." I can't tell you what they said off the record, unfortunately, but they did have something to say.

There are crazy people out there who just want attention, or they imagine things and let it get out of hand, but trust me -- that's not very hard to spot.

Then there are those people who tell credible stories, with multiple witnesses, and even physical trace evidence, like footprints or hair.

I know you'll come back with, "Well that was ox hair" (from a recent well known media report). But the thing is, right now the media is all about the "debunking" because they think that's what the public is in the mood to hear. Twenty or thirty years ago, it was more open to something like this. But we've gotten hairs, footprints, videos -- the Patterson Gimlin film still has not been convincingly debunked or duplicated after 40 years. We get all kinds of tantalizing evidence. You just aren't hearing about it now. When the pendulum swings back around, maybe you'll hear about it in the news.

What you may not know is that all of our local newspapers, going back into the 18th century, have many references to "wildmen" or "hairy giants". This is not some new thing that came up in 1958 with Jerry Crew or 1967 with Roger Patterson.

Well I could go on, but I just wanted to put some of this out there. I recognize that it isn't sufficient to sway a hardcore skeptic -- after all, even police officers (and their chief) can be mistaken. Certainly all of us silly bigfoot investigators can be. But what keeps drawing me back are the stories witnesses tell me. I don't know if I mentioned it already in this thread, but more than once I've had tough guys, seasoned hunters, two recent Iraq veterans in the last two years actually, say, in their own words, "I have seen a lot of stuff go down, but I am not going back out into those woods."


So what side of the kill controversy do you follow?

Sidhe, I do not doubt your sincerity on these matters, and applaud your continued participation in the discussion. The level of frustration in this thread has remained surprisingly low, I think.

Your comment above has me thinking...

We get all kinds of tantalizing evidence. You just aren't hearing about it now.

Okay, I guess you are blaming the media, for whatever reason. But haven't we gotten past that at this point? In the internet age, everyone is empowered to share "tantalizing evidence" even if he isn't a mainstream media source, right?

So, why aren't we, the curious (even if skeptical) hearing about the tantalizing evidence? Is someone deliberately keeping it a secret? Is someone trying and failing to get Newsweek to do a feature piece on it?

As I have said before... I think there are quite a lot of people who are open to the notion that there really is something out there, and to being persuaded of its actual existence by just about any compelling piece of evidence. A body, great... but just about anything - hair, scat, bones, whatever - woudl probably fill the bill. Bring us something that isn't ox hair or human bones or the like, and this whole debate reaches an entirely new level. The persistent inability to do ever do any such thing is the huge (as in 13-foot high and hairy and smelly) weakness in the argument from the believers here.

You yourself have intimated that big evidence was soon forthcoming, the sort of stuff that would turn people around. Well...?

We get all kinds of tantalizing evidence. You just aren't hearing about it now.

Any update on this front? Have any of these researchers with the "tantalizing evidence" done something like started a website, or launched a blog, or something like that... you know, so they could break the stranglehold of the skeptical media?

I'm really interested in (well, at least the logic of) all this compelling evidence we just don't get to hear about.

Mmmm, Yeti Burgers.

It's a Yeti coverup!

I think that it is not a coverup, but a diversion. They've been cloning Bigfoots (or is it Bigfeet) from the DNA recovered from the evidence. These are being trained as we speak to be used as Bush's secret plan for winning in Iraq.

It's definitely "Bigfeet".

I think the more interesting question is can someone be banned for posting only bigfoot threads and participating only in bigfoot discussion?

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/11/03/D8L5UOT00.html

- - -

Professor's Bigfoot Research Criticized
Nov 03 8:26 PM US/Eastern

By JESSE HARLAN ALDERMAN
Associated Press Writer

POCATELLO, Idaho



Jeffrey Meldrum holds a Ph.D. in anatomical sciences and is a tenured professor of anatomy at Idaho State University. He is also one of the world's foremost authorities on Bigfoot, the mythical smelly ape-man of the Northwest woods. And Meldrum firmly believes the lumbering, shaggy brute exists.

That makes him an outcast _ a solitary, Sasquatch-like figure himself _ on the 12,700-student campus, where many scientists are embarrassed by what they call Meldrum's "pseudo-academic" pursuits and have called on the university to review his work with an eye toward revoking his tenure. One physics professor, D.P. Wells, wonders whether Meldrum plans to research Santa Claus, too.

Meldrum, 48, spends most of his days in his laboratory in the Life Sciences Building, analyzing more than 200 jumbo plaster casts of what he contends are Bigfoot footprints.

For the past 10 years, he has added his scholarly sounding research to a field full of sham videos and supermarket tabloid exposes. And he is convinced he has produced a body of evidence that proves there is a Bigfoot.

"It used to be you went to a bookstore and asked for a book on Bigfoot and you'd be directed to the occult section, right between the Bermuda Triangle and UFOs," Meldrum said. "Now you can find some in the natural science section."

Martin Hackworth, a senior lecturer in the physics department, called Meldrum's research a "joke."

"Do I cringe when I see the Discovery Channel and I see Idaho State University, Jeff Meldrum? Yes, I do," Hackworth said. "He believes he's taken up the cause of people who have been shut out by the scientific community. He's lionized there. He's worshipped. He walks on water. It's embarrassing."

John Kijinski, dean of arts and sciences, said there have been "grumblings" about Meldrum's tenure, but no formal request for a review.

"He's a bona fide scientist," Kijinski said. "I think he helps this university. He provides a form of open discussion and dissenting viewpoints that may not be popular with the scientific community, but that's what academics all about."

On campus, Meldrum _ himself a hulking figure, with a mop of brown hair, a bristly silver mustache, and a black T-shirt with a silhouette of a hunchbacked, lurking Bigfoot _ gets funny looks and the silent treatment from other scientists, and is not invited to share coffee with the other science professors.

Over the summer, more than 30 professors signed a petition criticizing the university for hosting a Bigfoot symposium where Meldrum was the keynote speaker.

He pays for his research with a $30,000 donation from a Bigfoot believer.

Still, Meldrum has a distinguished supporter in Jane Goodall, the world-famous authority on African chimpanzees. Her blurb on the jacket of Meldrum's new book, "Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science," lauds him for bringing "a much-needed level of scientific analysis" to the Bigfoot debate.

"As a scientist, she's very curious and she keeps an open mind," said Goodall spokeswoman Nona Gandelman. "She's fascinated by it."

Bigfoot is sort of the Loch Ness Monster of the Pacific Northwest. The legend dates back centuries. Indian folklore includes murmurs of a man-ape that roams the hidden hollows. Sasquatch is a Salish Indian word meaning woodland wildman.

Newspapers began recording sightings of Bigfoot in the backwoods during the 1920s. But skeptics have challenged the accounts, and practical jokers have staged elaborate hoaxes, including grainy film footage of someone in a monkey suit and phony footprints stamped into the ground with giant molded feet.

Meldrum said it was a decade ago in Walla Walla, Wash., that he first discovered flat 15-inch footprints in the woods. He said he thought initially that they were a hoax, but noticed locked joints and a narrow arch _ traits he came to believe could only belong to Bigfoot.

"That's what set the hook," Meldrum said. "I resolved at this point, this was a question I'd get to the bottom of."

When not in the lab, he loads his Chevy Suburban with tents and forensic gear and heads for the woods of Washington state and Northern California, where he has collected what he says are footprints, hair and feces from the ape-man. He tests hair samples and uses physics to produce charts that purport to show how Bigfoot would walk.

Meldrum wonders aloud how much longer he will be on the faculty. But he said he also dreams of one day bringing back a bone or a tooth or some skin, and silencing the "stuffy academics."

"Is the theory of exploration dead?" he asked. "I'm not out to proselytize that Bigfoot exists. I place legend under scrutiny and my conclusion is, absolutely, Bigfoot exists."

___

So, my TiVo Season Pass picked up an episode of National Geographic's show "Is It Real?" on Bigfoot. Haven't watched it yet -- I don't expect any major revelations, but the topic (as usual) made me think of this thread, and the apparently still-pending breakthroughs that were sort of promised earlier on...

People who are waiting for proof of bigfoot remind me of people who are waiting for proof of God. There's nothing wrong with blind faith, as long you're not someone who suffers through it.

Nope, they haven't proved his existence Yeti.

So, the Is It Real? episode didn't really shed any light into all this, but it did frame one question awfully nicely.

So, Sidhe and company find it too hard to believe that the various "evidence" that exists for this thing is just too widespread and compeling to ignore. That raises a pretty interesting question, to me.


Bigfoot sightings, footprints, and other reports come from all over the place. not just up in the Pacific Northwest. We have dozens of reports here in Maryland every year, and virtually every state has an ongoing stream of footprints and sightings and the like being reported. It seems that the "bigfoot" in one state is a violent, nasty guy... and the "bigfoot" in another state is a more mellow and peaceful type, but still, there are people all over the place claiming there are gigantic ape-like hairy men walking around in the woods.

And this also occurs across teh globe - every continnent has its own legends of giant ape men. We know the most obvious ones, but it seems this legend is nearly universal. So, there are apparently giant ape men similarly littering the globe - in Africa, Russia, Sumatra, Australia, South America, the Himalayas, the Andes, the deserts, and on and on and on. Okay.

All this just pushes the same point -- how many of these fuckers have to be out there, for there to maintain a population over decades and decades? The so-called experts say that it probably means hundreds just in the Pacifid NW region... when you expand that across the whole of North America, then how many" Five thousand? Fifty thousand? Across all continents, and seemingly all different biomes? Maybe a hundred thousand of them? Maybe a million?

And all these thousand upon thousands creatures walking around... and *never* even over the course of decades and decades (or centuries, actually) do we see that even a single one of them ever just dies in some locatable spot, gets hit by a car, leaves behind a bone, drops a bit of analyzable scat, or even a hair sample -- not one bit of physical evidence of anything.

The likelihood of these two "truths" simultaneously occurring has to be just staggeringly unlikely, by just about any calculus. We're not actually talking about tiny little fish in the deep sea, or little birds that flit about in the dark of night -- we're talking about, almost literally, 800 pound gorillas. Ones that manage to never, ever, ever leave any practical trace of their existence.

Sorry to re-walk a beaten path... it just is such a compelling argument, it seems worth trying to crystallize.

Maybe they believe in cremation.

I had Yeti for lunch yesterday. Tastes like chicken.

Maybe they're prone to spontaneous combustion.

Chewbacca is going to be pissed

I smoked weed with Bigfoot once. Cool dude, but don't get him talking about politics.

http://www.bofunk.com/video/4816/conspiracy_week.html

Ping: Sidhe!!11!

hxxp://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20070925
/sc_livescience/satellitesearchescouldspotbigfootlochnessmonster;_ylt=Ang_sZKqjO0yt.9ArxzXcA8E1vAI

Satellite Searches Could Spot Bigfoot, Loch Ness Monster
Benjamin Radford
LiveScience's Bad Science Columnist
LiveScience.com
Tue Sep 25, 1:55 PM ET


Adventurer Steve Fossett went missing Sept. 3 about 70 miles southeast of Reno, Nevada, in a small plane. He left no flight plan, and searchers have combed tens of thousands of square miles of Nevada and California. After weeks of fruitless searches, and with the survival window closing, Web users were enlisted to help in Fossett's rescue, from the comfort of their own homes.

Using a program called Mechanical Turk, high-resolution satellite imagery of the search area was collected and analyzed. Participants were shown a single satellite image and asked to note any objects or wreckage that could be a plane or its debris.

The search did solve a few mysteries: several previously unknown small plane wrecks—some dating back to the 1950s—were found. Though Fossett and his plane remain missing, the satellite technology used to search for him could theoretically be applied to other types of searches. It may finally verify the existence of large, mysterious creatures reputed to inhabit the globe. Unknown animals such as Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster, for example, might be easily located and captured—if indeed they exist.

While satellites would be of limited use in heavily wooded areas, Bigfoot creatures have been reported in many places with relatively little forest, including Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Texas and Arizona. A single 12-foot Bigfoot may or may not be hard to spot, but a family of them would be easier to find. Furthermore, there cannot be only one Bigfoot; there must be a breeding population of them, by some estimates 6,000 to 10,000 in North America alone. Surely a coordinated, close search of satellite images would reveal dozens, if not hundreds or thousands, of Bigfoot in remote areas at any given time.

The search could include bodies of water as well. Many lake monsters and sea serpents are reported to be 50 feet or longer, and surface regularly where they are seen. If armchair investigators are up to the task, they could monitor monster-inhabited lakes such as Scotland's Loch Ness, Canada's Lake Okanagan and America's Lake Champlain using Google Earth technology. Monster buffs don't need to dip their toes into cold lakes or brave the wilderness to search for their quarry; they can scan a dozen square miles over cup of hot coffee at their leisure.

Of course, if such searches are done and still reveal no solid proof of the monsters' existence, few minds will be changed. Diehard believers can always claim that all the monstrous beasts somehow hid undetected or are masters at camouflage. Or the searchers didn't look long enough or in the right places. It only takes one live or dead Bigfoot or lake monster to forever prove that they exist, but no amount of failed searches will ever prove they don't.

Benjamin Radford is LiveScience's Bad Science columnist. He is co-author of "Lake Monster Mysteries: Investigating the World's Most Elusive Creatures" (2006). This and other books are noted on his website.

Have you guys not seen the commercial with the Loch Ness Monster swallowing and then spitting out the pickup truck? What more evidence do you need? Geez!

Have you guys not seen the commercial with the Loch Ness Monster swallowing and then spitting out the pickup truck? What more evidence do you need? Geez!

Not only that, but Bigfoot has appeared in commercials for beer and beef jerky recently. The dude has a hollywood agent and people still think he doesn't exist!

Unknown animals such as Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster, for example, might be easily located and captured—if indeed they exist.

While satellites would be of limited use in heavily wooded areas, Bigfoot creatures have been reported in many places with relatively little forest, including Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Texas and Arizona. A single 12-foot Bigfoot may or may not be hard to spot, but a family of them would be easier to find. Furthermore, there cannot be only one Bigfoot; there must be a breeding population of them, by some estimates 6,000 to 10,000 in North America alone. Surely a coordinated, close search of satellite images would reveal dozens, if not hundreds or thousands, of Bigfoot in remote areas at any given time.

I presume that the "scientists" who continue to argue the affirmative on this sort of thing would find some clever way of refuting results coming back from this kind of analysis, when they turn up no evidence for giant bipeds running around in any of the areas scanned. Oh, the terrain was all wrong for bigfoot... or they craftily scurried away when sensing the scanning equipment...or somesuch. They will continue to demand that skeptics prove a negative.

I presume that the "scientists" who continue to argue the affirmative on this sort of thing would find some clever way of refuting results coming back from this kind of analysis, when they turn up no evidence for giant bipeds running around in any of the areas scanned.

Bigfoot spends 99.9% of his time in caves or in the shadow of trees. This is a well known fact.

Bigfoot spends 99.9% of his time in caves or in the shadow of trees. This is a well known fact.


This is why terrorists can't operate in America. The bigfoots are clogging up all the tunneling systems. Bigfoots, fuck yeah!

Every time this thread gets bumped and it isn't because a Bigfoot carcass has been discovered near a major interstate - I'm dissapointed.

I always get a little disappointed when this thread resurfaces as well. I'm kind of hopeful that one day we'll find bigfoot, communicate with aliens, and other stuff I find cool to think about (like Jessica Alba being totally into me)...

Bigfoot is the shizzznit.

They love Corona.

WHat?
Bigfoot is a big deal?
Awwww sheeet me and maw caught a baby yars ago, and kept him pinned up hind the barn. He grew and grew til we realized he was really a she...I meen he was hairy then teets popped out.

Well another bigfeet mna crept up and bred my pet one night, then fo you knew it we had 7 youngun lil feet running round. They scared the cows, chased the chikens and kept playin with them selves in front of maw and Neugene....We eventually had to turn them loose...If Id known they were rare Id took a photo....But I thought everyone had one in the yard

Okay, get out your EMF meters and your tin foil hats, but I have friends who live in the boonies of the mountains in Washington state and they say bigfoot is reals, y'all!

I presume that the "scientists" who continue to argue the affirmative on this sort of thing would find some clever way of refuting results coming back from this kind of analysis, when they turn up no evidence for giant bipeds running around in any of the areas scanned. Oh, the terrain was all wrong for bigfoot... or they craftily scurried away when sensing the scanning equipment...or somesuch. They will continue to demand that skeptics prove a negative.

It will prove nothing! The species of Bigfoot are transdimensional shapeshifters and your poorly trained satellite operators can do nothing in Bigfoot research!

Unless of course they happen to find one...

FOUND!

http://www.pabucks.com/bigfoot/1012071556a.jpg

http://www.pabucks.com/deer-hunting-forum/viewtopic.php?t=5188


Perhaps this, by most accounts a "mangy bear" but apparently to some it's Bigfoot, is the elusive missing evidence we were hearing about way back (in this thread). *shurg*

Found!

Watch closely though... you might miss it.

http://www.monorails.org/webpix%202/FilmHarryHendersons.jpg

FOUND!

http://www.pabucks.com/deer-hunting-forum/viewtopic.php?t=5188


Perhaps this, by most accounts a "mangy bear" but apparently to some it's Bigfoot, is the elusive missing evidence we were hearing about way back (in this thread). *shurg*

Saw this on the news today. Apparently they were taken in the middle of Sept, so it wouldn't be the fabled smoking gun evidence of Bigfoot. The Game Commision is saying that it's a bear with a severe case of mange. But then again, they are in on the cover up, so they can't be trusted.

That might just be a pic of manbearpig.

FOUND!
http://www.pabucks.com/deer-hunting-forum/viewtopic.php?t=5188


Perhaps this, by most accounts a "mangy bear" but apparently to some it's Bigfoot, is the elusive missing evidence we were hearing about way back (in this thread). *shurg*


Maybe it's the lighting, but it looks like he's (it's) wearing boots. Maybe it was muddy...

Apparently they were taken in the middle of Sept, so it wouldn't be the fabled smoking gun evidence of Bigfoot.

My sarcasm wasn't clear, I reckon (certainly understandable) -- please don't take my pokes seriously. I am not *really* buying the whole line that there's tons of good evidence out there, and the problem is that it just isn't getting "out there." That's the other guy.

Here is the web site those were posted on:
http://bfro.net/avevid/jacobs/jacobs_photos.asp

30 minutes before those 2 pics were taken you had 2 bear cubs in the same spot. I doubt bigfoot.

Here we go again....why wouldn't they just, you know, present the body if they had it. What's the scam here?

'Bigfoot' Trackers Claim They've Found Their Prey - News Story - KTVU San Francisco (http://www.ktvu.com/news/17174989/detail.html)

'Bigfoot' Trackers Claim They've Found Their Prey

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- It’s more than 7-feet tall. Weighs over 500 pounds and walked upright -- three "Bigfoot" seekers, including a Redwood City man, Wednesday claimed they have proof that they have found the body of the elusive creature in the wilds of Georgia.

And on Friday, at a news conference in Palo Alto, they say they will present DNA evidence to prove the carcass of “Rickmat” is that of a bigfoot.

Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer, Georgia residents who lead Bigfoot-tracking expeditions, say they found the body of what appears to be a Bigfoot in the woods of northern Georgia and will join local Bigfoot researcher Tom Biscardi at the news conference, according to Robert Barrows, who is publicizing the event.

Among the creatures's other physical characteristics of the body -- according to the hunters website -- http://www.searchingforbigfoot.com/ -- were flat feet similar to human feet. Its footprint is 16 ¾ inches long and the length from palm to tip of the middle finger is 11 ½ inches long.

"I think you'll find that this is the real deal," Barrows said of the alleged discovery.

Whitton, a police officer in Clayton County, and Dyer, a former correctional officer, are not saying exactly where the body was found or where it is now, Barrows said.

Biscardi, a veteran Bigfoot tracker who said he went to Georgia to view the find over the weekend, said DNA tests are being conducted and a team of scientists will study the body, but declined to name any scientists involved.

Officials from the Georgia Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Resources Division said the largest wildlife they are aware of in the state are black bears and white-tail deer.

Probably a deer. Big one.

How do you "present" the DNA at a press conference?

"Ladies and Gentlemen, we've checked the DNA - it's bigfoot! Any questions?"

Bigfoot Guy: We have top men working on the DNA.

Reporter: Who?

Bigfoot Guy: Top...men.

Theres a picture of it on their website. I have to say, the size of the picture doesn't help lend to the credibility of their claim. The face of it looks like a mask. All I know is, if I found Big Foot, I would not post a small picture of it, I'd post the biggest one possible to let people scrutinize....oh wait...nevermind.

local Bigfoot researcher Tom Biscardi

Wonder what he did to earn that title.

This is a pretty clumsy scam

Bigfoot body 'discovery' dismissed as a hoax - Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/2563307/Bigfoot-body-discovery-dismissed-as-a-hoax.html)

-"Mr Dyer and Mr Whitton posted a video on YouTube in which a man identified as scientist Dr Paul van Buren endorses their Bigfoot discovery. He has since been revealed as Mr Whitton's brother, who has no scientific qualifications."

-Jefrey Meldrum, another Bigfoot researcher, has poured cold water on the claims. "I’ve had interactions with Tom Biscardi in the past, and based on that history, I would say that anything he is involved in is suspect," Mr Meldrum told Scientific American. "The fact that the two Georgian men turned to him and not anyone with scientific credentials is very questionable."

Never seen one. Is it possible there might be one? Maybe. Hard for me to rule it out when we are still discovering untouched (by modern civilization) human societies/tribes on this planet.

Bigfoot's body a hoax, California site reveals | ajc.com (http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/clayton/stories/2008/08/19/bigfoot_hoax.html?cxntlid=homepage_tab_newstab)

Can you believe it? Georgia’s “Bigfoot” was just a big hoax.

The body of a supposed ape-man found in the North Georgia mountains was nothing but an empty rubber monkey suit embedded in ice, according to California Bigfoot enthusiasts who finally got a chance to examine it last weekend.

The two Atlanta men who stood up at a news conference in California last week and tried to convince the world they had found Bigfoot now apparently can’t be located — just like the real Bigfoot.

Calls to Matthew Whitton, a Clayton County police officer — make that former police officer — and his car salesman buddy Rick Dyer weren’t returned Tuesday.

The answering machine on a “tip line” connected to the pair’s Web site, which still advertises $499 Bigfoot “expeditions,” says they’re still out searching for Sasquatch — as well as leprechauns, dinosaurs, unicorns, Jimmy Hoffa and Elvis.

Searching for Bigfoot Inc., the California outfit that paid an undisclosed sum to Whitton and Dyer for rights to their story and their find, says the pair checked out of the hotel where they had been put up over the weekend.

According to a news release on Searching for Bigfoot’s Web site, the whole scam unraveled when a block of ice containing the “body” melted over the weekend. Whitton and Dyer later confessed that it was just a costume, according to the release.

Why the two Georgians contrived the cross-country con isn’t clear.

What is certain is that Whitton, 28, on medical leave after being shot in the wrist by a robbery suspect earlier this year, won’t be going back to work at the Clayton County Police Department.

As soon as he heard Whitton’s Bigfoot was a big fake, “I terminated him,” said Police Chief Jeffrey Turner said Tuesday.

“He’s disgraced himself, he’s an embarrassment to the Clayton County Police Department, his credibility and integrity as an officer is gone, and I have no use for him,” Turner said. “His behavior is unbecoming of that of a police officer.”

“This turn of events from hero to someone who defrauds a nation is just baffling. I don’t know how he got from one point to the other,” Turner said.

The chief said he wants to send Whitton his termination paperwork and get his uniforms back. However, he said, “We haven’t been able to get in touch with him.”

Gee, what a shock.

At least the cop lost his job.

The beat goes on.

"Why the two Georgians contrived the cross-country con isn’t clear."

ummm....

"Searching for Bigfoot Inc., the California outfit that paid an undisclosed sum to Whitton and Dyer for rights to their story and their find"

....Probably that

http://members.cox.net/sauvignon/close%20encounters.jpg


"I saw Bigfoot once. 1951 back in Sequoia National Park. Had a foot on him thirty-seven inches heel to toe. It made a sound I would not want to hear twice in my life."

"Tell 'em Big Bertha sent ya.."

Those 2 guys disappeared just like Sidhe from this thread.

I have photographic proof of Bigfoots existence...

Heh...I know Bigfoot personally. He told me the hunters will never get the proof they need.

I've not only seen a bigfoot, but I've actually eaten part of one.

http://supercarshow.com/images2007/SquareBoyPizza-700x490.jpg

I sampled the "crust" part of it. It wasn't too bad.

In honor of sidhe, the year's Top 10 Cryptozoology stories.

Cryptomundo » The Top 10 Cryptozoology Stories of 2008 (http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/top10cz08/)

"Sadly, most of the news items were about hoaxes."

Gee, ya think???

The thread about ghosts got me wondering if another of our great human mysteries has touched any of us here.

As for myself, yes it has! I'm actually a bigfoot researcher with a well known International organization, and I could tell you a whole lot of stories..

In fact I'm writing a book about my experiences now. Wild stuff, most of which I would not have believed a few years ago. How about you? Where do you stand on the existence of a large, bipedal North American ape?

glad to know you're a complete fucking retard.

glad to know you're a complete fucking retard.

LOL

LOL

+1

This game has potential.

Still waiting for our proof here.

Personally, I would be more excited about proof of the Loch Ness monster.

Every time this thread gets bumped and it isn't because a Bigfoot carcass has been discovered near a major interstate - I'm dissapointed.

Ooops. Sorry, bud.

I didn't know what "Frame 352" meant when QS mentioned it. So I went looking around...

http://darrennaish.blogspot.com/2006/11/frame-352-and-all-that.html

The original video.

<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/lOxuRIfFs0w?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/lOxuRIfFs0w?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>

The original video zoomed in some.

<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/v7DFQwKlfnk?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/v7DFQwKlfnk?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>

Still love this thread.

The Search for Sasquatch (http://www.minnesotamonthly.com/media/Minnesota-Monthly/September-2010/The-Search-for-Sasquatch/index.php?cparticle=1&siarticle=0#artanc)

I think Sidhe was trying to be serious. I think calling him a retard was kinda uncalled for back then . sure hes disappeared somewhat now. But there is nothing wrong with believing any evidence they had. He definitely was good at keeping the discussion civil and calm, unlike most discussions on this board.

sure hes disappeared somewhat now.

You'll never see the body of mocked FOFC poster. JimmyWint comes and pulls it into the mist..

Still love this thread.

+1

Sad that there's no Loch Ness Monster thread or one for UFOs.

I have a sickness. Any poll posted on FOFC, regardless of how serious or meaningful it may be, loses all credibility with me if there is no trout option. I need help.

This guy saw and videotaped bigfoot - I think he also has some good college coaching insider info:

Bigfoot video emerges of 'ape man' crossing the road in North Carolina | Mail Online (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1369555/Bigfoot-video-emerges-ape-man-crossing-road-North-Carolina.html?ito=feeds-newsxml)

<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/jGz8qqRgTVQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

That was definitely somebody crossing the road, I think we can say that much.

Bigfoot looks like he's doing a forward moonwalk!

HAHAHAHA!!! Even my cheap ass camera in my phone could take a clearer picture than that. Come on people, you can do better than that.

Still love this thread.

+1

I KNEW IT!!!

Last weekend, a woman named Samantha went hiking with her friends near Spokane, Washington and documented the trek with her iPhone. After returning home and reviewing footage of the hike, however, Samantha was stunned to see an uninvited—yet strangely familiar—figure moving ahead of her group. Could it be... Bigfoot?

http://gawker.com/5806420/washington-hiker-swears-she-has-video-evidence-of-bigfoot

Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) from a Bigfoot Enthusiast (http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/ju0kx/ive_spoken_on_the_existence_of_a_species_of/)

Oh man, that Bigfoot dude is struggling in that thread.

...Wow.

How on earth have I missed this gem? It's like the zoological version of the blackjack thread.

I love how the Bigfoot dude is estimating the Bigfoot population based on anecdotal eyewitness accounts.

Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) from a Bigfoot Enthusiast (http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/ju0kx/ive_spoken_on_the_existence_of_a_species_of/)

"I wish I could show you every article, but when research spreads over the course of 13 years, sources are misplaced or forgotten"

*facepalm*

For starters, Bigfeet are nocturnal. Secondly, Bigfeet have extraordinary senses of smell, hearing, and sight. They're essentially higher-level primates (like a gorilla on long legs) so they're also very intelligent. Thirdly, Bigfeet are also very shy animals. For example, wild squirrels and birds aren't that shy, but wild deer are VERY skittish.

I enjoy how all of these facts that he lays out about Bigfoot help explain why we can't ever seem to find any evidence of them. First of all, they'll see, hear, and smell you coming from 472 miles away. Secondly, they'd like to meet you, because they're super smart, but they are very shy - so you know, you have to get to know them first.

And honestly I kind of hope Bigfoot does exist. I think that would make the world I live in a bit more interesting, but ... yeah, this guy isn't really helping much I don't think.

"All things are known because we want to believe in them."

<3

The Russians are closing in.
Siberian region 'confirms Yeti exists' - Yahoo! News (http://news.yahoo.com/siberian-region-confirms-yeti-exists-144034924.html)

I'm sold.

This: "They found his footprints, his supposed bed, and various markers with which the yeti marks his territory," the statement said. The collected "artifacts" will be analysed in a special laboratory, it said.

Does not equal this:

A Russian region in Siberia on Monday confidently proclaimed that its mountains are home to yetis after finding "indisputable proof" of the existence of the hairy beasts in an expedition.

All it does is result in this:

The person who made the "Jump to Conclusions" wall-hanging is a real looser.

That's a "mute" point.


Okay, I only wish they'd made that mistake. :)

Scientists ’95% Sure’ Bigfoot Lives in Russian Tundra

Proof of Bigfoot? Scientists in Siberia Say Yeti Exists | NewsFeed | TIME.com (http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/10/11/scientists-95-sure-bigfoot-lives-in-russian-tundra/)

Man, I love how they say they have irrefutable evidence and then say they are 95% certain of its existence and then they say they "think" they have hair samples.

That's quite the spectrum of certainty. Still not holding my breath...

Hmm. Never knew this thread existed and it is 7 years old. Well, my son's friend wants to hunt down Bigfoot in in the Pacific Northwest; however, I advised him that completing middle school first is probably a good idea.

Hmm. Never knew this thread existed and it is 7 years old. Well, my son's friend wants to hunt down Bigfoot in in the Pacific Northwest; however, I advised him that completing middle school first is probably a good idea.

They have bigfoot wilderness expeditions, and they actually claim they get more sightings when there are women and children in the group because the bigfoots (bigfeets?) find them less threatening. They let you play with all their high-tech night-vision/audio stuff. I think it'd be a fun trip.

They have bigfoot wilderness expeditions, and they actually claim they get more sightings when there are women and children in the group because the bigfoots (bigfeets?) find them less threatening. They let you play with all their high-tech night-vision/audio stuff. I think it'd be a fun trip.

Yeah, well. You say that now but how will you feel when some giant hairy man-beast is carrying you away like a sack of potatoes over his shoulder.

Didn't Animal Planet recently have a show with Bigfoot hunters?

Didn't Animal Planet recently have a show with Bigfoot hunters?

Ya, and I think they're one of the groups that does tourist "expeditions" on the side.

I advised him that completing middle school first is probably a good idea.

Or just tell him to pack light. He won't have to worry about hauling around traps and nets and stuff.

Yeah, well. You say that now but how will you feel when some giant hairy man-beast is carrying you away like a sack of potatoes over his shoulder.

Honestly, it would depend on what he planned to do with me. Eat me alive? Not ideal. Kidnap me for the purposes of training me to become a bigfoot butler in some mysterious and fantastic underground ape-lair? Eh, maybe that wouldn't be too bad. I'd go in with an open mind at least.

Honestly, it would depend on what he planned to do with me. Eat me alive? Not ideal. Kidnap me for the purposes of training me to become a bigfoot butler in some mysterious and fantastic underground ape-lair? Eh, maybe that wouldn't be too bad. I'd go in with an open mind at least.

Imagine all the shit you'd have to shovel. Hopefully he does it all in one corner.

Honestly, it would depend on what he planned to do with me. Eat me alive? Not ideal. Kidnap me for the purposes of training me to become a bigfoot butler in some mysterious and fantastic underground ape-lair? Eh, maybe that wouldn't be too bad. I'd go in with an open mind at least.

He might want you as a personal sex slave/butler. Now what.

He might want you as a personal sex slave/butler. Now what.

I assume I'd be a sex slave for the bigfoot women though. And I like Italian human women, so how much different could it be?

They have bigfoot wilderness expeditions, and they actually claim they get more sightings when there are women and children in the group because the bigfoots (bigfeets?) find them less threatening. They let you play with all their high-tech night-vision/audio stuff. I think it'd be a fun trip.

I wasn't aware Bigfoots were up on modern technology. I always assumed they adapted their natural senses.

Honestly, I think the bigfoot women might find you to be a bit lacking.

ping Sidhe... you still around, man? Sorta worried about you.

Man killed while trying to create Bigfoot sighting - seattlepi.com (http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Man-killed-while-trying-to-create-Bigfoot-sighting-3819352.php#ixzz24ome82Wn)

If this is one of the BYU students dressed up in the Canyon, they are damn lucky to not be shot, it's hunting season up there..

<iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Ss_Gm_N5C48" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" width="560"></iframe>

Heard the same thing about crop circles (long winded explainations about how it would be nearly impossible to hoax). Look what happened there.

Wait, what happened to the crop circles?

How did I ever miss this thread? Would love to play some blackjack with one of these Squatches. I have a great system.

I think Disney bought him.

Still love this thread.

+1

channel surfing this evening (fairly rare for me) and stumbled on a bigfoot hunter show... seems to be an hour worth of people flying in helicopters and employing heat seeking devices and high tech cameras, all to see nothing... and this is on television! What a country!

Still love this thread.

+1

Bro, you can't +1 yourself. That's fucked up.

No bigfeet, but I have seen aliens once, when I was really young. One was green and the other orange.

+1

+1

Bro, you can't +1 yourself. That's fucked up.

Dude, I agree with old me more than anyone else I ever met.

oooh timetraveling quiksand. now that shit's messed up.

channel surfing this evening (fairly rare for me) and stumbled on a bigfoot hunter show... seems to be an hour worth of people flying in helicopters and employing heat seeking devices and high tech cameras, all to see nothing... and this is on television! What a country!

I think we call this a glitch in the matrix. Someone bumps this thread. Quik posts in it. Quik never channel surfs, but does tonight, and sees a bigfoot hunter show. More than a coincidence, but not quite a supernatural event.

Sort of like bigfoot him/herself.

Searching for bigfoot with a blimp. (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/49688342/ns/technology_and_science-science/)

You Should Read This Before You Go Bigfoot Hunting (http://deadspin.com/5962334/you-should-read-this-before-you-go-bigfoot-hunting)

Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com (http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_c2#/video/bestoftv/2012/11/29/nr-dna-evidence-proves-big-foot-exists.cnn)

Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com (http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_c2#/video/bestoftv/2012/11/29/nr-dna-evidence-proves-big-foot-exists.cnn)

North Korea Has Found a Secret Unicorn Lair, Apparently - Global - The Atlantic Wire (http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2012/11/north-korea-says-they-unearthed-unicorn-lair/59483/)

Bigfoot and unicorns proven to exist in the same week! :eek:

Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com (http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_c2#/video/bestoftv/2012/11/29/nr-dna-evidence-proves-big-foot-exists.cnn)

They just HAD to be from Texas, didn't they?

*sigh*

Mock ye no more! Maybe there's something to all this...

Existence Of Bigfoot Depends On DNA Proof - Science News - redOrbit (http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112784054/bigfoot-dna-sequenced-homo-sapiens-cognatus-021413/?)

Mock ye no more! Maybe there's something to all this...

Existence Of Bigfoot Depends On DNA Proof - Science News - redOrbit (http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112784054/bigfoot-dna-sequenced-homo-sapiens-cognatus-021413/?)

Haha! What the article fails to mention is that her 'scientific' paper was turned down for peer review over and over again. So what did she do? She bought a science journal and renamed it to De Novo, came out with a special edition that only has the paper in it. Boom! Now she's published.

I shall continue to mock ye!!

:D

That article made my head hurt, I don't know all of those words.

That article made my head hurt, I don't know all of those words.

May I suggest this wikipedia article? Washington State Route 155 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_State_Route_155)

Haha! What the article fails to mention is that her 'scientific' paper was turned down for peer review over and over again. So what did she do? She bought a science journal and renamed it to De Novo, came out with a special edition that only has the paper in it. Boom! Now she's published.

I shall continue to mock ye!!

:D

I don't know man, if you go to their website, there's a photo of a scientist lady filling beakers with an aqua-colored liquid. That seems pretty legit sciencey to me.

DeNovo| accelerating Science (http://www.denovojournal.com/)