Lacking opposable thumbs, bears would be mostly limitted to something like a basketball chest pass, perhaps a rugby pass. They will dextrously manipulate things with both paws, but using just one to do anything is not so biomechanically practical: their fingers aren't as short as you might think - add the claw part and they're well endowed - but the pads reduce what can be placed where (and as I mention, no opposable thumb).
When trying to establish the existence of a new species, since always. You need a type specimen.
No, that is not even close to my attitude. My attitude is that IF it exists it will be possible to prove it exists. Naturalists and then scientists have been collecting specimens in North America for several hundred years now. So far solid evidence for Bigfoot has not been found. Even the photographic evidence, which would not be sufficient without a type specimen (but would be informally convincing) is of consistently poor quality.
Absolutely... and what changed? PROOF was brought forward! And when that happened, what we know was revised to account for new discoveries.
I know there is little additional evidence. But since when are statements from so many witnesses worthless? It seems that the attitude is: it cannot exist, so it will not exist. Just as not so long ago it was not possible that meteorites existed, because 'stones simply do not fall from the sky'. According to Newton 'no small bodies exist in space beyond the Moon'.
The evidence for meteorites was rather better than the evidence for bigfoot, and the evidence for empty space was rather worse than the evidence against bigfoot.
Chladni's 8 years have long gone since Patterson/Gimlin, it's been 57 years with no evidence of bigfoot! And mammals (and their evolution) are rather better researched today than space was in Newton's time (aether theory was still a thing).
Chladni started with evidence. There were actual fireballs falling from the sky that could be seen far and wide. They undeniably existed. Chladni then collected many anecdotal accounts and formulated a hypothesis, which he published. 8 years later, this hypothesis was irrefutably confirmed by physical evidence and multiple witnesses.
Bigfoot hunters do not start with evidence, they start with anecdotes, and then try to collect evidence that confirms them. But they do not start with an actual phenomenon, like Chladni did.
Article:
Ray Hyman's categorical directive: "Before we try to explain something, we should be sure it actually happened." Hall's corollary is "Before we do research on something, we should make sure it exists."
What happens when you attach a tracker to an animal you can't prove exists? You're conducting tooth fairy science.
Article:
"Tooth Fairy science" is an expression coined by Harriet Hall, M.D., (aka the SkepDoc) to refer to doing research on a phenomenon before establishing that the phenomenon exists. Tooth Fairy science is part of a larger domain that might be called Fairy Tale science: research that aims to confirm a farfetched story believed by millions of scientifically innocent minds. Fairy Tale science uses research data to explain things that haven't been proven to have actually happened. Fairy Tale scientists mistakenly think that if they have collected data that is consistent with their hypothesis, then they have collected data that confirms their hypothesis. Tooth Fairy science seeks explanations for things before establishing that those things actually exist. For example:
You could measure how much money the Tooth Fairy leaves under the pillow, whether she leaves more cash for the first or last tooth, whether the payoff is greater if you leave the tooth in a plastic baggie versus wrapped in Kleenex. You can get all kinds of good data that is reproducible and statistically significant. Yes, you have learned something. But you haven't learned what you think you've learned, because you haven't bothered to establish whether the Tooth Fairy really exists.
When the studies show that prayer doesn't heal or that applied kinesiology or dowsing doesn't work under controlled conditions do their advocates reject a belief in spirits or energies? No. They know their fairies exist. That's their story and they're sticking to it no matter what the evidence. They have tons of anecdotal evidence that outweighs any scientific studies that don't confirm their beliefs. Tooth Fairy science is a magnet for those who believe that the plural of anecdotes is scientific data.
Need I explain how that applies to bigfoot hunting?
Article:
In the scientific method, the scientist says "Here are the facts. What conclusions can we draw from them?" In the pseudoscientific method the pseudoscientist says "Here's the conclusion. What facts can we find to support it?" The scientist asks IF something works; the pseudoscientist tries to SHOW that it DOES work.
It's hard to let go of a convincing anecdotal belief when the data doesn't support it. Some people never manage, and I bet also depends on how closely the belief is held.
That's a great quote. I refer to it as "sum is greater than the parts", but this is a more elegant version. Much of Bigfootery also falls into @Sharon Hill 's term "Scientifical". Tracking animals with telemetry devices is a known scientific practice. Trying to attach a telemetry device to an unknown bipedal hominid with glue and burrs is certainly clever. Calculating the home territory of an unknown hominid based on the positions of a telemetry tracker with no idea what the telemetry tracker is attached to is clearly "scientifical".
But no UFO/UAPs [in the sense of confirmed exceptional phenomena] yet, as the very same AARO report says. And I can't still understand what it has to do with bigfoot: are you proposing bigfoots fly on UFOs? you can of course, but keep in mind two extreme improbabilities, say UFOs and bigfoot, when combined together make one extreme improbabilty, squared.
The hearings are a function of the particular congress we have at any given time. There are some UFO believers in Congress who introduce bills to fund such an investigation. That doesn't necessarily mean that UFOs as mysterious other-worldly entities are taken more seriously than they were before. There are more "normal" things in the sky these days, including drones, communication satellites, huge balloons, and massive kites. Therefore there are more things that might pose a hazard to aircraft, and occasionally there's something that might be suspected of being a surveillance balloon.
So far, almost everything (in spite of the improvements in photography) falls in one of two categories: it's either identified, or it falls in the Low Information Zone. There's simply no further information to be had from a couple of blurry pixels.
They're still all misidentifications. "Swamp gas" is not a blue book category, btw, and a rare thing to misidentify (though we have at least one case where an oil rig gas flare was misidentified).
The latest "thing" going around seems to be the notion that there's something unique about the present UFO situation. It just seems to be based on a lack of historical knowledge. Akin to the notion that this is the most turbulent period of U.S. history - zipping right past the War of 1812, the Civil War, the Great Depression, WWII, the '60s, and so on. Based on the feeling that history starts somewhere around the time each particular person holding the notion was born.
1966 - Perhaps the greatest UFO flap in history. 2024 isn't a patch on 1966.
January - Wanaque, police officers and several other witnesses report seeing strange lights over the Wanaque Reservoir. Witnesses claim the lights seem to hover over the water, move erratically, and even affect the water level of the reservoir. A saucer was seen burning a hole in the ice.
March - Witnesses report sightings of strange lights and objects over Dexter and Hillsdale, Michigan. Police officers, college students, and local citizens claimed to have seen flying saucer-like objects hovering or moving in erratic patterns.
Dr. J. Allen Hynek, an astronomer and consultant to Project Blue Book, the U.S. Air Force's official UFO investigation program, was sent to Michigan to investigate. After evaluating the reports, Hynek famously suggested that the sightings were likely caused by swamp gas, a natural phenomenon where decaying organic matter produces methane, which ignites in the air.
Hynek's swamp gas explanation was widely ridiculed, and it caused public outcry. Many believed the explanation was dismissive and failed to address the credibility of the witnesses, including police officers.
March - Michigan Congressman and future president Gerald Ford calls for congressional investigation. "The Air Force has been accused of hiding something. It is time for a full, open, and public hearing on the matter."
IBM sponsors "CBS Reports" television special hosted by Walter Cronkite. Featuring Carl Sagan, Allen Hynek, Donald Keyhoe, George Van Tassel and more. This special aired as a response to the Michigan UFO "Swamp Gas" flap of 1966. In those more earnest days, it was remarkable that staid CBS News put together this special report.
April - Portage County, Ohio, two police officers, Dale Spaur and Wilbur "Barney" Neff, report chasing a UFO for nearly 86 miles at high speed. The UFO was described as a large, glowing object that hovered low in the sky and changed speeds rapidly. The officers followed the craft across state lines into Pennsylvania before losing sight of it.
The Portage County incident received significant attention. A fictionalized version was featured in the 1977 movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
April - The U.S. House Armed Services Committee holds a hearing to discuss UFOs. While the hearing did not lead to any conclusive answers about the Michigan sightings or UFOs in general, it helped to elevate the conversation about UFO phenomena in the U.S. government. One has to put this in perspective. Once again, this was a more earnest time.
August - At Minot AFB, military personnel report seeing multiple UFOs hovering near the base's missile silos. The sightings were captured on radar, and witnesses included both airmen and control tower personnel. This sighting is significant because it occurred at a nuclear weapons facility, which has been a common location for UFO reports, suggesting an interest in nuclear technology by the unidentified craft.
October - In Shag Harbour, Nova Scotia, multiple witnesses, including pilots and fishermen, reported seeing a large, low-flying object crash into the water. Canadian authorities, including the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the Canadian Coast Guard, investigated the event. No wreckage was found, and the event remains unexplained.
It is considered one of the most well-documented UFO crashes, often referred to as "Canada's Roswell."
October - Condon Report is commissioned. The U.S. Air Force tasks physicist Dr. Edward Condon and the University of Colorado to undertake a scientific study of unidentified flying objects (UFOs). This investigation, officially known as the "Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects", was intended to review the UFO cases investigated by the Air Force's Project Blue Book and determine whether the phenomena warranted further investigation.
The study culminated in the Condon Report, published in 1968, which concluded that further UFO study was unlikely to yield scientific advancements, leading to the eventual closure of Project Blue Book.
September 1961 -
Betty and Barney Hill notice a bright light in the sky that seemed to follow their car. As they drove through a remote area, the light approached them, and Barney reportedly saw humanoid figures through binoculars aboard the craft. Frightened, he and Betty tried to flee.
Missing Time: After losing sight of the craft, the couple continued their journey but found that they had lost about two hours of time, during which they couldn't recall what had happened.
Hypnotic Regression: After experiencing strange dreams and anxiety, the couple underwent hypnotic regression therapy with Dr. Benjamin Simon in 1964. Both recalled being abducted by gray-skinned beings and taken aboard a spacecraft
April 1964 - Lonnie Zamora, a local police officer, witnessed what is regarded as one of the most credible UFO sightings.
While pursuing a speeding car, Zamora saw a loud, flame-emitting object in the sky. He followed it off-road and observed an oval-shaped craft with landing gear on the ground, along with two small humanoid figures standing near it. The object soon lifted off with a roar and flame, leaving behind imprints and scorched vegetation.
The excitement came and went, and nothing definitive has ever happened. 1973 was the last of the great UFO flap years. 2024 isn't a patch on that either.
Wanaque Reservoir Sighting - Probable astronomical bodies. Rigel, Sirius, Jupiter and Capella were prominent. Possibly involved scattered clouds. Very tentatively may have involved mirage effects over frozen lake. Sensationalistic stories in a local newspaper and hoaxed photos by August Roberts played a role.
Dexter and Hillsdale, Michigan - Not swamp gas. That was an ad hoc explanation by Hynek who felt pressured to come up with something. Mostly astronomical bodies. Hynek was present when cops in multiple cars, and linked by radio, chased a star. Famous time-lapse photo shows the Moon and Venus as streaks with same length. UFO in this photo was Venus. Most other witness testimony is consistent with bright stars and planets.
Portage County, Ohio UFO Chase - Cops, fooled by parallax effects, chased Venus. Sighting may have been started by bright meteor sighting which got their attention, and they shifted their attention to Venus, assuming it was the same object.
Minot AFB - Witnesses observed bright star(s). Shifted attention to B-52 and assumed it was the same object. Radar observations were unrelated but woven into the narrative.
Shag Harbour, Nova Scotia - Unknown, possibly maritime distress flares. More likely, a bolide. This sighting was later conflated with other unrelated sightings in the general area during a local UFO flap. With that mixture, a single narrative was created which has been given the generic name "Shag Harbour."
The Bigfoot narrative is much akin to the UFO narrative. Stories are woven together. Sightings keep happening but nothing definitive ever happens. People can keep track of individual mountain lions, a very elusive species, but no Bigfoot is ever found. Around 1970 Bigfoot was hypothesized to drift in and out of other dimensions. Very much in line with the Inter-dimensional Being hypothesis. Physical evidence is lacking, but the belief must be preserved. It's natural that Bigfoot and UFOs become related in some hazy way. They both involve other unknown dimensions.
See also:
The logic of the Skunk Ape narrative that bounces back and forth between the notion that they have human level intelligence (but no technology) and they are animals (but have the human-like notion that they must remain hidden): https://www.metabunk.org/threads/mississippi-skunk-ape.12434/#post-271144
That's a great quote. I refer to it as "sum is greater than the parts", but this is a more elegant version. Much of Bigfootery also falls into @Sharon Hill 's term "Scientifical". Tracking animals with telemetry devices is a known scientific practice. Trying to attach a telemetry device to an unknown bipedal hominid with glue and burrs is certainly clever. Calculating the home territory of an unknown hominid based on the positions of a telemetry tracker with no idea what the telemetry tracker is attached to is clearly "scientifical".
The use of telemetry tracking to identify the movements of a creature is useful, but I wonder why they did not use this information to visit the location and directly identify the creature?
This pattern of "not looking too closely" at something when you have data that would allow a closer look pops up regularly. Keeping the mystery alive but not taking the next step toward solving it. Why not send a large camera equipted party out to surround the trackers location? It might spoil the mystery, or at least this specific piece of data about it.
The same applies to people who see mysterious lights in the sky off in a specific direction every night, but who do not, the next night, drive in that particular direction to get a "closer look". Because that closer look might spoil the mystery?
I realize you already listened, but just for record I though it'd be worth having a transcript of that segment because it really does illustrate just how poorly-conducted that interview was.
@57:15
Kathy: One day Daryl [Collier] was all over himself and his goes, "Kathy, you just have to come to this area that we've been doing research in, it's called 'Area X'"
And it's not 'Area X' because it's…mysterious, it just happens to be they had a X, Y and a Z, and this just happened to be the one that panned out that had the X.
Host: Yeah, it's a cool name, though.
Kathy: Yeah, it is, it is. Oh, and you can do so much with that X, it's just really cool.
I'm not sure what any of that even means. Regardless of her academic credentials, that just doesn't strike me as a highly-educated exchange. And if it's decidedly not "mysterious" then why not tell us where it is (or at the very least provided a vague description of the approximate location)?
The use of telemetry tracking to identify the movements of a creature is useful, but I wonder why they did not use this information to visit the location and directly identify the creature?
To be fair, it appears they tried. I'm not sure how experienced they were with the equipment or the process. It seemed to vary by team. Of the 25 "hits" they got, 2 were by air, the rest were at various locations and distances over the course of ~9 months, and at no time did they get close enough to see whatever it was that had the tracker on it.
The claims of Ms. Strain, the NAWAC and there "Tag 7" project could maybe use a thread of its own. This one was about bears and has now derailed into UFOs. Sooner or later Bigfoot and UFOs always get together.
I realize you already listened, but just for record I though it'd be worth having a transcript of that segment because it really does illustrate just how poorly-conducted that interview was. @57:15
Kathy: One day Daryl [Collier] was all over himself and his goes, "Kathy, you just have to come to this area that we've been doing research in, it's called 'Area X'"
And it's not 'Area X' because it's…mysterious, it just happens to be they had a X, Y and a Z, and this just happened to be the one that panned out that had the X.
Host: Yeah, it's a cool name, though.
Kathy: Yeah, it is, it is. Oh, and you can do so much with that X, it's just really cool.
I'm not sure what any of that even means. Regardless of her academic credentials, that just doesn't strike me as a highly-educated exchange. And if it's decidedly not "mysterious" then why not tell us where it is (or at the very least provided a vague description of the approximate location)?
Thanks for that Jack. Reading some of NAWAC stuff, I'd say calling something Area X instead of Browns Valley or Potter's Ravine or whatever mundane actual name appears on the map is to be expected. They like to use terms with a bit of a military vibe to them. Here are some from the tracking report (bold by me):
External Quote:
The photo-capture endeavor, Operation Forest Vigil,
External Quote:
Beginning near the December 10 contact point determined by the airborne team, an NAWAC ground team ("Zeus Team") attempted to relocate radio tag 7
As noted upthread, UFOs are for another topic unless we're going down the Bigfoot/Alien route from The 6 Million Dollar Man:
But the two topics are similar in that there is little to no physical evidence for either. The existence of Bigfoot and alien UFOs is based largely on anecdotes, fuzzy videos/photos and a smattering of hoaxes. The congressional hearings resulted largely in David Grusch telling 2nd hand stories and anecdotes that he had heard and offering NO evidence to back any of it up.
Much the same as Bigfoot groups like the North American Wood Ape Conservancy offer databases of sightings (anecdotes) and conjecture, but NO real physical evidence for the Big Guy.
Much the same as Bigfoot groups like the North American Wood Ape Conservancy offer databases of sightings (anecdotes) and conjecture, but NO real physical evidence for the Big Guy.
We find fossils of microscopically-small critters as well as those of enormous dinosaurs from a hundred million years ago, so one would think the remains of a modern bigfoot or two would turn up occasionally. Worse yet, claimed remains in the form of hairs caught on branches have always turned out to be from something like a bear. I think any new claims that surface need to be treated with extreme skepticism. Yes, that'll inevitably mean that those who are already convinced will see any questioning attitude as rudeness, but I think we just need to tell them that the ball is in their court, and it's time to come up with solid physical evidence before we waste time on the matter.
The use of telemetry tracking to identify the movements of a creature is useful, but I wonder why they did not use this information to visit the location and directly identify the creature?
This pattern of "not looking too closely" at something when you have data that would allow a closer look pops up regularly. Keeping the mystery alive but not taking the next step toward solving it. Why not send a large camera equipted party out to surround the trackers location? It might spoil the mystery, or at least this specific piece of data about it.
The same applies to people who see mysterious lights in the sky off in a specific direction every night, but who do not, the next night, drive in that particular direction to get a "closer look". Because that closer look might spoil the mystery?
Well said!
Just a phototrap would have been enough to identify the animal. They were very ingenious in devising a device who could stick to and track random animals, and then, always ingeniously, they 'forgot' to add a cheap camera to check which animal it was. LIZ data points creation as a form of art.
Well said!
Just a phototrap would have been enough to identify the animal. They were very ingenious in devising a device who could stick to and track random animals, and then, always ingeniously, they 'forgot' to add a cheap camera to check which animal it was. LIZ data points creation as a form of art.
The same applies to people who see mysterious lights in the sky off in a specific direction every night, but who do not, the next night, drive in that particular direction to get a "closer look". Because that closer look might spoil the mystery?
I'm just re-reading Klass's "UFOs: The Public Deceived" and happen to have just read of cases where witnesses did just that... attempted to drive or fly over thataway for a closer look at Venus. Some figured it out, others were astonished that the UFO always managed to stay the same distance away, as if it were backing away when they moved towards it but seemed to stop when they stopped. Disconcertingly, when they gave up and turned around to go back, IT SEEMED TO BE CHASING THEM and no matter how fast they went it kept up easily!
It's easy to laugh about that, but I suppose, given the assumption of a relatively nearby craft under intelligent control, it is a plausible interpretation of what they experienced. It's just that the initial assumption was wrong...
Edit to bring back on topic... I suppose it is similar to the old saw about bigfoot researchers interpreting the "tree knocking conversation" they are having as being with a sasquatch, rather than potentially with the other group of bigfoot hunters out that evening, or interpretting every broken branch or tuft of fur or dislodged rock as being a sign of bigfoot. If the initial assumption that there ARE bigfeet out there to do such things, it is not a totally illogical interpretation. The probelm comes when the assumption is made before the proof is acquired, when rthat happens all sorts of things that have nothing to do with a skunkape can be taken as evidence for there being one in the area -- or there being one at all.
Bigfoot proponents will argue that bigfoot knows that trail cams are there, possibly that he knows what they are and knows to stay out of the field of view. The first part based on assumed ability to see the infrared illumination from the camera (How do we know they can see infrared? Because they know where the cameras are, of course!) or possibly to detect them by smell. How do they know to stay where the camera can't see them? Well, they are very intelligent! But however intelligent they are, they would be ignorant of what a camera is and what it does. I'm pretty intelligent (OK, reasonably intelligent) and I could not tell you when I was in or out of the shot of a trail cam. Meanwhile, trail cams seem able to capture the closest bigfoot analogs we have;
Bigfoot proponents will argue that bigfoot knows that trail cams are there, possibly that he knows what they are and knows to stay out of the field of view. The first part based on assumed ability to see the infrared illumination from the camera (How do we know they can see infrared? Because they know where the cameras are, of course!) or possibly to detect them by smell. How do they know to stay where the camera can't see them? Well, they are very intelligent!
I was just going to comment on this exact perspective.
We've always been given a laundry list of reasons as to how Bigfoot is apparently able to remain elusive, but are we also now supposed to assume that this same hyperaware, psychically-connected, super-being was apparently unaware of a tracking device stuck to its fur? That seems awfully...convenient.
For comparison, this is a picture of a bear. It is clear, in focus, of adequate resolution. You can clearly see what sort of creature it is in the picture. View attachment 72555
How many pictures of bears, this good or better, exist? You can find all you want in seconds with a Google search. But bigfoot footage and stills are proverbially of poor quality, to the extent that it is a recognized trope for humorous bigfoot-related stories (Obligatory link to "Bigfoot: Endangered Mystery" from Futurama) In Metabunk terms, bigfoot is always on the edge of the Low Information Zone. The clear, in focus, high resolution images never show a bigfoot.
As I stated upthread, I've personally taken many, many photos of black bears, and the thing that has been consistent with all those encounters is that they all happened by surprise and quite suddenly. But I still managed to capture them with just an iPhone. And even the ones that were blurry—because I wasn't holding the phone still, or I had to zoom in from a distance (which almost always dramatically degrades the quality of photos when relying on a smartphone)—the end result is still, undeniably, a black bear. Even when they're moving quickly (as the attached video will demonstrate).
One reason I bring this up is because often the most vocal proponents of Bigfoot are the ones who claim repeated contact with such beings, often including tales of regular visits, communication of some sort, and often exchanging of gifts (or at least a positive response to them leaving treats for Bigfoot to enjoy). But never believable or convincing pics.
In contrast to that, these are but a few of the images that I've captured just in the past year or two of black bears. Some of these were through a window (you might notice a reflection from the glass in the foreground), others outside and quite close.
Yes, of course Ms. Strain might be reporting what she believes she experienced/ saw.
But without testable or repeatable evidence, her report is an anecdote.
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence".
What Ms. Strain believes to be true might not be objectively true, what actually physically happened.
Admittedly I'm a bit curious about cryptozoologists/ paranormal investigators/ UFO researchers who, while they are actively conducting a study, see their quarry but for some reason don't have an appropriate, working camera (and, re. cryptozoologists, don't deploy camera traps/ trail cameras where the creature of interest might be likely to go, a tactic which seems to work very well for, um, other zoologists).
Personally, I think it would be wonderful to discover a formerly undescribed species of great ape anywhere in the world;
a "new" species of hominid would be absolutely extraordinary.
But there is a lack of any evidence for Bigfoot- no clump of hair, not a single bone or tooth, no excrement (naturalists/ zoologists do sometimes survey excrement and process DNA within; fossilized turds- coprolites- are also studied).
As with the Yeti, as far as I know all claimed samples have been found to originate with known animals when DNA tested.
We do know that there are Bigfoot costumes in the United States, and people who play practical jokes. As with everywhere else in the world, there are also people who misinterpret events, and people whose vivid imaginations or strongly-held beliefs influence their recall.
And, annoyingly for people interested in unusual events/ mysteries of nature/ strange phenomena, there are hoaxers and con-artists, and this applies to cryptozoology:
Only really debunked 60 years after it was taken; one of the hoaxers died and his personal papers revealed the truth.
The hoaxer who had the photos developed and claimed to have seen the monster, surgeon Robert Kenneth Wilson, served with the Special Operations Executive in WW2 and parachuted into occupied France, and Netherlands, and behind enemy lines in Sarawak (Borneo) in what we'd now call a special forces role; after the war he worked as a doctor in Papua New Guinea for 6 years, so I guess he payed his debt to society!
The authors (IIRC) proposed that lake monsters, sasquatches, phantom dogs etc. are somehow causally connected to UFOs.
I can't remember the exact connection, which is strange because I'm sure it made lots of sense when I read it.
We've always been given a laundry list of reasons as to how Bigfoot is apparently able to remain elusive, but are we also now supposed to assume that this same hyperaware, psychically-connected, super-being was apparently unaware of a tracking device stuck to its fur? That seems awfully...convenient.
Even though it's not the true origin of the title, I like to view these as "Just So Stories". All their contrivances have to fit together just so, else their story falls apart. How convenient. (The actual origin of the term is that Kipling's neice demanded the bedtime stories be told absolutely verbatim, not a word out of place, otherwise she'd complain.) The fact that the Just So Stories were pure Lamarkism, and thus scientifically bogus, is just the cherry on the cake.
I think a slightly different pop music cultural tangent works. As I was looking for this photo in the Patterson-Gimlin film thread I remembered that when I first found it, I had to actually watch through an old episode of The Six Million Dollar Man on YouTube looking for Bigfoot. Something I remembered from '70s TV. One thing I noticed as how slow and boring it was, even though I remembered it as action packed, I mean this is Steve Auston, the bionic man, battling an alien robot Bigfoot!
I don't know if the show ever made it across the pond or elsewhere. The basic plot was former astronaut Steve Auston is horribly mangled in an experimental aircraft crash. The government rebuilds him with bionic legs, one arm and an eye and he becomes a super-agent. Whenever he used his bionic parts beyond normal human abilities, it was in slow motion and accompanied by an iconic sound famously uttered by Chevy Chase in the movie Caddyshack as "Sta-nony-nony-nony, Sta-na-na-na-na".
And not only did he fight and then team up with alien robot Bigfoot, but the actor that played Auston, Lee Majores, was married to every pubescent American male's favorite poster girl and one of Charlie's Angle's, Fara Fawcet.
Anyway, the intro to the show every week started with the aforementioned crash (@Duke will know what stock footage is used) and a voice over saying "We can rebuild him. We have the technology. We can make him better than he was." Followed by a line that I would argue was later be adapted by a pair of helmeted French DJ's:
"Better than he was before. BETTER, STRONGER, FASTER". Which Daft Punk reworked into their hit Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger. Yeah, they threw in "harder" and changed the order of "stronger" and "faster". But come on, listen to the original intro, queued up below as Oscar, the bionic man's government handler says "better, stronger, faster" than listen to the song. Fair warning it's decidedly EDM and electronic with an anime style video about blue aliens becoming humans.
Yeah, have to agree. Somehow, showing a man lift a polystyrene prop in slow motion while playing a sound like suspension springs creaking doesn't have quite the impact it used to have!
"Better than he was before. BETTER, STRONGER, FASTER". Which Daft Punk reworked into their hit Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger. Yeah, they threw in "harder" and changed the order of "stronger" and "faster"
Possibly because they think they are seeing a Bigfoot and they expect it to have a face? We know that if there is one thing the human brain tries very hard to see, it is a face --even if there is not one there!
Because humans misperceive things, including but not limited to seeing a face where there is not one, testimony from witnesses is not very reliable. (This is not even taking into account that memories change over time, or that SOME people make stuff up.) Testimony MAY be very accurate, but then again it might not be, and diffentiating is not possible.
To establish a new species, witness testimony is not sufficient, you need a type specimen. For the previoisly-legendary gorilla, this was and is a skull, you don't even need a whole carcass! But for some reason, Bigfoot remains just aren't ever found...
That does not mean that individuals can't decide that testimony has convinced them. But science can't.
Because a "face" is something people expect to see if they think they're looking at something vaguely human-shaped, especially if that shape is in the Low Information Zone.
Maybe related to the reasons why people describe creatures in Loch Ness with a long neck and a humped back, and alien spacecraft of the 1950's and '60's were often like an upturned saucer with a smaller upturned bowl on top.
Or we know that faeries wear diaphanous or slightly tatty old-fashioned clothing and have translucent wings, have European facial features/ hair even though (like Bigfoot) we haven't got any reliable film or photographs, and we've never found a dead one, perhaps in a kestrel or buzzard's nest. -And we've never found a Bigfoot killed by a bear (or vice-versa).
We know what these things look like from folklore, popular culture and occasional uncorroborated sightings which are perhaps influenced by the former two factors. But many things, including creatures, exist in folklore / popular culture without, realistically, an independent physical existence even if they are sometimes reported.
In cases (and at least some seem likely) where a bear might have been mistaken for an anthropoid ape or hominid, if the details- snout, ears etc. were clearly visible then the witness wouldn't have made their mistake.
The wooded and mountainous areas of the Pacific Northwest are vast. Who knows what might be found there someday?
Against that, we have to consider that a Bigfoot is supposedly a large creature (larger and presumably heavier than a human), and might be expected to have some impact on its environment- it has to eat, excrete, perhaps nest or shelter.
If it's a large primate, it seems likely the mother would have to raise offspring for some years; however the apes most similar to us (chimpanzees and bonobos, then gorillas) are social animals which cooperate to some extent with child-rearing and protection; we have no evidence or credible reports that extended families or troops of Bigfeet have ever been witnessed.
No apes exist, or have existed, naturally in the Americas as far as we know. Others have mentioned the complete absence of physical evidence of Bigfoot.
It saddens me a bit to predict, 5 years from now, or ten years from now, or 25 years etc. etc. we still won't have testable physical evidence of bigfoot, much less a type specimen, a sequenced genome or a troop under study in the wilderness.
I will be absolutely delighted to be proved wrong, so it's a win-win situation if the Bigfoot believers get to point out how silly my predictions were.
Do they? Have you provided any? Please, @alien, this is not how to have a meaningful conversation. You've offered an opinion, without evidence, and then asked others to respond to it. That's not how it works here.
And open-ended question like yours work both ways: Why do people report seeing an animal that there is NO physical evidence it ever existed?
If you have other anecdotes that include "faces" as opposed to "snouts" you could share them as evidence of your claim that "so many witnesses talk about a face".
Ms. Strain, as noted upthread, is part of the NAWAC group. An organization dedicated to proving the existence of a very large non-human bipedal hominid in North America. As such they have a searchable database of sightings like this:
So, one can search for "face" in the summary box and see how many times witnesses claim they saw an animal with a face, which isn't a lot:
In fact, even in these cases the word "face" wasn't used as description for the animal. To be fair, they only have 316 total sightings in their database dating back to around the '60s. And perhaps, simple looking for the "face" isn't very accurate. I read through case #01080001 (see note below)* from the search above.
Here we have what we would consider someone saying it had a "face" as opposed to a "snout":
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First and foremost, I cannot explain enough how human-like this creature was. From its facial features and expression, body language, and walking/running gait, this creature was scarily human other than its other body characteristics.
And the witness notes that he felt the animal was intelligent and very large:
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Even at my age, I could tell that this was an intelligent creature by the way it seemed to be assessing his circumstances.
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With understanding of my own height at the time and after taking that into consideration, I would estimate the creature to stand between 7 1/2 - 8 1/2 feet tall (though I want to say closer to 8 - 8 1/2). He had very broad shoulders and heavy muscle structure. This was a massive creature that I would guess weighed in the vicinity of four to five hundred pounds, but I can honestly see it pushing 600 plus pounds. It was huge and stout. It was also very trim and did not exhibit a pronounced abdominal region as an herbivore will.
However, despite the possibly human like "facial features", at least part of the encounter sounds a lot like a bear (bold by me):
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At about 15-20 yards to my right, it came into view and turned to its right (towards me and parallel to the roadway). It was moving, on all fours, at what I would call a hustled pace, almost as if it was running from something. When it was at about 9-12 yards from me and about two feet off of the roadway, it used a rather large (4ft) wooden fence post to hoist/propel itself into a bipedal progression, using its left arm and hand
It runs on all fours and then uses a fence post to pull its self upright. Again, sounds a lot like a bear. However, the witness then says the animal could also run on two legs:
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Its change in gait or posture did not result in a change in its speed. It then took a few running steps.
This was about the time when the creature started to look back over its shoulder although not in the same direction of my approaching brother. After several seconds he made the move turning back and to his right and took off sprinting on two legs, using his hands to tunnel his way through the thicket.
Concluding:
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I also cannot express enough how fluid this creature was in shifting from a four legged "run" to a bipedal running gait. This creature does not have any problems, or handicap whatsoever, in its gait, ability to walk or run on two legs, or to progress from one to the other while moving at a high rate of speed
From the investigators descripion per the witness:
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The neck was described as appearing powerful, with the muscles of the upper shoulders/back/body tapering up to it, much like a bodybuilder or steroid user might appear. The subject had broad shoulders, and in general the mass of the limbs, body, and head were much greater than that of an average-sized man.
This just seems nearly impossible. A bear runs on all fours and while they can stand up and walk on their hind legs, they don't run. There may be a circus bear somewhere that was trained to go as fast as he could on his hind legs, but not in the wild. A bear's legs, feet and pelvis has evolved as a quadruped that can rear up when needed.
While chimps and gorillas have legs and arms, they still have a pelvis for knuckle walking and grasping feet. They can't really "run" on their legs.
Bipedalism is a highly specialized set of adaptations that has evolved over millions of years. Specifically, our pelvis and feet are unlike any other ape or other animal. As such, we cannot "run" on all fours. Imagine an 8 1/2' tall steroid using body builder with broad shoulders bending over and running on all fours. It doesn't work. Once something has evolved into a biped, it can't also function equally as well as a quadruped, the mechanics of it just don't work.
So, what to make of this report. Yes, it does seem to say the animal had a humanlike face, but it also says it was 8 1/2' tall and could "run" as a quadruped just as well as a biped. There is simply NO physical evidence that has ever been presented to indicate ANY bipedal hominid exists in North America, nor any fossil record for one. Even if this creature is somehow super elusive, the idea that it's equally efficient operating both as bipedal and quadrupedal seems impossible.
Maybe there is a clue in the report:
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At the time of my experience I was 9 1/2 years old. My mother was ill in Houston, and I was sent along with my younger brother and sister to my grandparent?s cabin for the summer.
This investigation was conducted as a result of an incident that allegedly occurred in Marion County, Texas, in June 1989.
The principal witness was aged nine and one-half years old. No other family members were directly involved in the encounter, although the witness's younger brother (seven years) was involved immediately after the subject fled the scene.
There is no date on the report indicating when it was compiled, but it seems to be a recollection by an adult about what he remembers happening when he was ~9 while his mother was ill. And it appears he had heard other stories from his family form before he was born:
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In the early summer of 1976, there was a two week period of experiences that I will not go into, as I was not there to witness them. There are five members of my family that may be willing to explain their stories.
It appears to be an anecdote from childhood, that while mentioning a human like face, also include descriptions of an animal operating in a physically impossible way so it's hard to reconcile.
If there are more instances of witnesses seeing "faces" as opposed to "snouts" please share them.
*Note: It seems strange that a database with 316 entries uses 8-digit numbers to list them. Why so many numbers for a case file? Maybe it sounds more impressive?
Could be. There are some confusing descriptions in the report but as is often the case with groups, they take any account a complete face value, even if it's a youthful recollection from 10-20 years ago. Again, it's unclear when this report was compiled, so it's unknown how much time had passed since the '89 event. Given what we know about the malleability of memory, this statement seems a bit of a stretch:
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One must also take into account the closeness of the encounter (10 feet), and that the witness was by his statement able to clearly see the subject for around 20 - 25 seconds (6 - 7 seconds moving towards him on all fours, 10 - 15 seconds standing upright and still).
'And open-ended question like yours work both ways: Why do people report seeing an animal that there is NO physical evidence it ever existed?'
So your explanation for the many hundreds of witnesses is that they are ALL wrong. It naturally follows that the physical elements, not evidence, such as the footprints and recorded sounds all do not exist.
Then I prefer to agree with Jane Goodall who, like a true scientist, does not rule out its existence.
So your explanation for the many hundreds of witnesses is that they are ALL wrong. It naturally follows that the physical elements, not evidence, such as the footprints and recorded sounds all do not exist.
It's not a matter of ruling something out as much as it is finding reasons to rule something in. Witnesses, time and again, have been shown to be wrong, on Bigfoot, on UFOs, on who committed the crime, on the color of the car that hit them, on every conceivable instance of eyewitness testimony. The fact that some of them have been right doesn't change the fact that some of them are wrong, which is why people want evidence. And the more extraordinary the claim, the stronger the evidence must be. "A cat ran across the road" is not extraordinary. "Bigfoot ran across the road" is, and what you call physical evidence is ephemeral and inconclusive.
To quote somebody or other, "The time to believe something is AFTER the evidence has been presented", and "The plural of 'anecdotes' is not 'evidence'".
I recently watched this video, where a guy who operates a small museum near Mt St. Helens says that in the Pacific Northwest community, everybody sees Bigfoot all the time! But they never report, due to... fear of ridicule?! Seriously, if you've regularly got a Bigfoot rooting through your garbage, put up a little trailcam, collect stray hairs, you'll be the biggest thing in crypto-zoology ever, if you can without a doubt prove the existence of Bigfoot. Nobody ridicules somebody who actually finds something, I would think?
He also says that after the big eruption of Mt St Helens, there were very large, hairy, burned corpses that were quietly and secretly removed by the military. Or "them". That might be interesting to follow up by a serious researcher.
It would be really awesome if Bigfoot existed. But with no corpses, hair, poop,..., it's really not looking good.
