With the right species of mushroom.

NOT by science. It’s like fingernails on a blackboard to hear people continuing to spout this stuff, as if some scientist somewhere will go, by golly, she’s right! (HE found the ’shroom stash.) You may not even have found the worst stuff yet!

For an entertaining picture of just who all is involved in the sas hunt, I’d recommend a book I’m reading now, for the second time: “Where Bigfoot Walks: Crossing the Dark Divide.” It’s written by a superb natural history writer, Robert Michael Pyle, Yale-educated and with a depth and breadth of knowledge that he entertains with, rather than trying to impress you. People that are looking for proof or debunking, look elsewhere. This is an overview of the field, the quest, and what those things have to say about us. (And yes, the pro side is treated with respect, including the note that science isn’t as ignorant or as negative on this topic as some of us — me, before I read this — might think.) I read bad reviews from people who were obviously looking for the wrong things. It’s one book I think everyone in the field should read.

One Bigfoot-hunter species Pyle refers to is one that the late Grover Krantz called “The Professional.” Krantz was NOT being complimentary. See, the Professional does NOT want the sasquatch catalogued; he’s making his notoriety, and maybe his living, off the hunt, not off the result. Professionals love seeing the data marred with all this quack stuff, because it makes the real stuff that much harder to sort out, and scientists that much less likely to do it. (Not sure, but it may be that our skeptic friend Benjamin Radford is a Professional. I stand corrected if I’m wrong. But it has to involve a few rounds. :-D)

I think we have a bipedal animal here; I think it’s probably a primate, and will likely be wedged into the family tree with man and the anthropoid apes, if we ever get lucky and at the moment that appears to be what it will take. I won’t say that the evidence tells me it’s real. What the evidence does tell me is that it is a real stretch, given what’s now known, for anybody to come up with a plausible scenario that makes all of the evidence — or even a substantial portion of it — the result of lie, hoax or misidentification.

There’s one mystery that I confess I can’t figure out.

Will scientific confirmation be good for the sasquatch? Or not?

You could argue strongly both ways. But there’s only one way to know for sure, and I personally would like to see us get there.

This woman belongs somewhere else other than her own home (the psych ward). Probably took waaaay too much acid in her heyday.

And then directly underneath there was a picture that looked like a hairy, psychedelic, sparkly Michael Jackson. These are the kinds of people that help to illegitamize valid research and findings. They even write about “actual” encounters with these “more intelligent” than human Sasquatches and sitting down and having lunch with them, etc. Crazy stuff. Although, I believe that skeptics look more at these crazy views as opposed to the real evidence in order to solidify their negative approach toward the possibility of the existence of such a creature. It’s sad that these crazy people are so self absorbed in their fantasy world that they probably don’t even realize what they are doing to ruin it for those who are actually doing real research.

Reminds me of a guy named John Lear who says he personally knows people who go to the moon and the rest of the planets in the solar system on a regular basis and that the moon actually has a breathable atmosphere (so do the rest of the planets) and that it’s a complete lie that Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are gas giants and that they are actually terrestrial planets and humans have been living on them since the late 60’s. Crazy, insane stuff that some people are actually willing to believe! This is the realm that we (well, not me so much because I’m not a researcher) as researcher and believers or believers in the possibility of Bigfoot are thrown into! And this is just completely unfounded to pigeon hole us with those kinds of nutty people!

The search for this animal (which is most definitely NOT presumed to exist by the scientific mainstream, even though thousands of reports of sightings have been filed) is being conducted 100% by amateurs, i.e., people with day jobs. (Even Jeff Meldrum has a day job, although fortunately it’s tangentially related to Bigfoot, as was Grover Krantz’s, as is John Bindernagel’s).

I see the main problem in Bigfoot research right now, the main one, no qualifier, that no one has the time or funding to do more of this than a weekend at a time. (Scientists GET PAID to study; sas researchers PAY to study.) Now, maybe one major reason for this lack of attention by mainstream science — and I might have to take back what I just said, maybe THIS is the main problem — is the “tabloid-ization” and “paranormal-ization” of the sasquatch, something that has, I think, irreparably soiled the Bigfoot research field, at least until the animal is catalogued. I don’t think it’s realistic to expect that the folks who link the sasquatch to UFOs or the fourth dimension, or make similar nonscientific (I did NOT say loony) connections will ever leave that angle alone; and that angle makes scientists very chary of the field. I for one can understand that, although I think scientists underestimate their power to cut through the BS when they take something seriously.

And this may not be the time or place to say this. But thank you for what you did. And I don’t mean posting here (although thanks for that too). God bless you.

But I’ll grab this part. As you may note from my post above, I don’t believe that any of the physical evidence we have is anywhere near conclusive, because it can’t be tied to a known animal. You can only say: this looks as if an unknown animal may have left it. Of course, until we verify that animal, it could have been faked too.

Prints, scat, hair and other things can serve as pointers to the way an unknown animal may have gone, or as indicators of its possible presence. But it’s like kittenz says. Until we can analyze a real animal of the kind that’s leaving this supposed evidence, we don’t have proof of anything except a lot of interesting stuff going on that may or may not lead to something real.

Ok, here’s where I’m coming from. I’ve been interested in the subject of Sasquatch, Bigfoot, Bukwas, Yeti, pretty every known unknown upright walking hominid that I can think of. Especially recently, I bought every movie/documentary I could find (Sasquatch: The Legend of Bigfoot, Peter Graves Mysterious Monsters, The Legend of Boggy Creek, Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science, Etc.).

Yeah, so for me, belief in such a creature is irrelevant. It is extremely entertaining for me. I think I get the same “rush” out of a Bigfoot movie or documentary as someone does out of watching a horror film.

I don’t know if such a thing exists. I will not “try” to believe in it because I will probably never be able to join in an expedition (lost both legs in Iraq due to an IED). I would like to, but it’ll probably never happen.

Anyhow, I know all about Tom Biscardi and I understand he is a liar and a thief. Apparently this dude who wrote the article didn’t do his homework on who he was dealing with (as most GOOD journalists should). He is just one of those guys who must inflate his ego by belittling those of us/you who understand the possibility of such a creature existing. He’s obviously self absorbed.

Ok, so a few things I’d like to ask if possible. I hope this is the right place to ask. I’ve read many places, included this particular blog that there is evidence that includes hair samples, dna, and tooth that remain inconclusive or point to an unknown primate. How is this evidence legitimized? How is it known to be real?

People can say all they want about evidence, but is there any kind of scientific journal, especially one that can be accessed online to read about these findings? Where is the proof of these findings? Is it just assumed that it exists? I know of Jeff Meldrum, John Bindernagel, Grover Krantz, Loren Coleman. etc. I pretty much believe most of what they have to say. Especially Jeff Meldrum. But I’ve never heard of any physical evidence from any of these scientists besides footprint castings. Is that all this creature leaves is footprints?

Granted, I know about the whole dermal ridging thing and everything. But, there’s got to be more. Somewhere, there’s just got to be more. No matter how elusive a creature is, those creatures, whether they are deer or beer or badgers, leave behind other “artifacts” other than footprints. Are we just not looking hard enough?

Yes, we’ve got the BFRO who obviously has a con-man/lawyer (same thing) running the show and he’s banking. Are there any legit organizations who go on expeditions that last longer than a weekend and publicize their findings? Even if their aren’t findings? Apparently these yahoo’s from the BFRO seem to have experiences EVERYTIME they have an “expedition”. I personally think they are a joke. As I’m sure many of you think as well.

Anyhow, sorry for this rant. Like I said, first blog. Guess I just had a lot to say.

1. Continue arguing over chimeras, until dumb luck or sheer chance puts one in our laps.

2. LOOK in likely locales — suggested by concentrations of sightings — until we find what we’re looking for, or fail under propitious circumstances for so long that we’re gonna have to admit it looks like something weirder than a real animal is going on.

I know which I prefer.

I read a lot of sighting reports. Unlike many, I believe they represent our best chance of confirming the animal. Witness after witness is totally UNambiguous as to what they saw: a large, fast, agile, clearly bipedal manlike/apelike animal (and no that’s not ambiguous; the first photo I ever saw of an orangutan stunned me with how human the animal looked), probably a primate. The picture given by witnesses separated by great distances, not comparing notes (so far as is known), many of them not having heard much more about Bigfoot than the name, many even believing the animal didn’t exist at the time — all these sightings give a picture almost the diametric opposite of the public image of a huge, lumbering, knuckle-dragging mouth-breather. If people were imagining Bigfoot, the animal I’m reading about in sighting reports is in no way the animal they’d imagine. One report says, and in this regard it’s not alone:

“I was struck by the speed more than anything else. Think in terms of cheetah. Envision in your mind, if you will, a cheetah in full sprint leaping from the woods on one side of a small, two-track trail, and landing just on the other side of the trail, only to bound again into the woods. Now, envision that this cheetah is upright and bipedal and roughly six feet tall, and is covered with rusty-red hair or fur. Get the picture? Fast.”

Another completely different report says:

“If it was someone in a suit they must have spent a lot of money cause I could see its muscles moving, and it would have had to been the shortest track and field star in the world to fit in a suit that small, but I don’t even think a track and field star could run that fast.”

The only thing remarkable about these quotes is how often similar descriptions of the animal’s speed, grace and agility turn up in reports. It unambiguously points away from people in ape suits; and it doesn’t square with the media image of the sasquatch, which you’d expect people to report if they were fibbing or mis-identifying. The animal in sighting reports clearly isn’t the public’s picture of Bigfoot. It’s what these people saw, and it doesn’t seem – particularly when one reads the rest of the reports – that ambiguous to me. They either saw this, or they didn’t; and what animal could they confuse with this? (I’ve seen lots of bears; and I’ve never read a sighting report that had a chance of being a bear.)

The ambiguity comes from what science is stuck on right now, and has been for 50 years: a treadmill of footprint follies. Until an animal is confirmed, those prints – and all the other so-called “hard” evidence – can be anything. Until an animal is confirmed, we will never know what they are. They could all have been faked; some were. All of them? Hard to believe. But we’ll never, Meldrum or no Meldrum, confirm an animal from just its tracks. Or just its hair, scat, body cast, or what have you.

On another thread here, Benjamin Radford calls it arrogance for a witness to insist that what she saw is what she saw. It takes a lot of arrogance to dismiss sightings en masse – which the so-called skeptic camp demonstrably does – by saying that people who insist they saw what they saw are being arrogant. Following this to its logical conclusion – actually, simply rephrasing Radford’s statement – daily life is a continuous string of acts of visual arrogance. Because all of us are acting upon sightings, every day in practically every act of our lives. Many of those sightings are of things with which we are unfamiliar; but we need to act on them to live, so we do. We rely on our eyes; and we rely on what people we trust have told us about things they’ve seen or done.

Science is nothing more than sightings and anecdotes, backed by advanced degrees. Peer review at some point has to rest on the reviewer’s belief — it can never be a certainty — that an act he never saw take place actually occurred. How often do the authors of a scientific paper recreate their tests, step by step, subject by subject, for the reviewers? If that always happened, we might be inventing radio any day now. Or maybe I meant the crossbow. At some point, all science, being a cooperative effort, rests on this, as does all cooperative effort: this person seems sound and trustworthy; I can go with what she’s saying/giving me/promising she’ll do. Why, in the case of the sasquatch, is this basic fact of human interaction suddenly discarded and the reputability of the witness given short shrift, in most cases with no personal contact with or knowledge of the witness at all? It almost seems to me as if some people are clinging madly to a blind belief in science as sacred, as Being Above This Topic, and not being simply a reasoned, rational way to deal with what are after all nothing more – or less – than sightings. Science advances only because people trust what they didn’t see other people see, or do.

A moment’s consideration should show that generally speaking, it’s irrational to think a person was seeing things. This isn’t a testable proposition, any more than a sighting is. It’s therefore contrary to science to assert it, as skeptics do as one of the linchpins of their position. It is, in fact, clinging to a cherished belief by one’s fingernails to insist that a person was “seeing things.” Seeing what things? Were you there? How do YOU know? Mis-identification happens, as anyone who’s been shot by a hunter, or any hunter who has committed that mistake, can tell you. (This is why eyewitness testimony can never be used as proof all by itself. One needs to buttress it with other evidence.) But to presume that every sasquatch sighting is such a case, and toss them all out of hand? Science has never advanced on anything but sightings by people whom other people took at their word.

The rational thing to do is this. Are there a collection of sightings? Among the witnesses, are there any whose testimony should be suspect? Why? Drop the suspect ones from the review. Are the remaining witnesses, to all appearances, well-adjusted individuals, whose eyes seem to be getting them through life pretty well? Do their stories of what they saw hold together? No obvious lies or major judgment errors? A clear description of what was seen? (“Big, dark and hairy” isn’t clear.) No clear indication that some of the witnesses are in cahoots, with notes being compared and “straight stories” being concocted? Are the witness’s written and spoken accounts, and those of others present if any, consistent with one another? A concentration of such “clean” sightings in a given geographic area should be all science needs for a testable proposition: something is there that we haven’t explained yet.

Or we can just continue to mull over evidence we can never link to anything real, and believe that it’s pretty arrogant to shave in the morning, because one can’t trust one’s eyes, and one really has no idea where one is going with that razor. Or consider the arrogance of hunting, when no one really has any idea what anyone is shooting at. And while we’re on that, how about the arrogance of war…? Or guns…?

Science’s choice. (Although if we can use irrationality to ban guns and war, irrationality might not be all bad, for the sasquatch or anyone else.)

Didn’t mean to go on like that. But I don’t think that what people are seeing is ambiguous at all. There’s only one question: Did they or didn’t they? Visual evidence gathered by scientists working full time in the field for an extended period is how we’ll find out. We won’t find out from footprints. Too – you said it, kittenz – awfully ambiguous.