79 Responses to “Cryptozoology and UFOs?”

1. DWA responds: January 16th, 2007 at 10:38 am

   Um, good for them, I guess.

   Neither do I personally think that the paranormal — in fact, ANY phenomenon not subject to verification by the current processes of mainstream science — belongs in the same bin with cryptozoology. I think that this link has substantially hurt the crypto field, and I’d like to see it severed.

   Personally.

   Yes, we may get incontrovertible evidence of an extraterrestrial civilization any day now. But I’d consider UFOs, for the moment, paranormal, which for me presupposes “not subject to proof.”

2. jayman responds: January 16th, 2007 at 10:54 am

   What I see these two fields having in common is that they are both out of the scientific “mainstream”, and evidence is simply dismissed out of hand by the scientific community.

   There are people who think UFOs are a paranormal phenomenon, but many others think it is a “nuts and bolts” issue, as most people who come to this blog think BF, if it exists, is a real, flesh and blood animal, not some kind of paranormal being.

3. DWA responds: January 16th, 2007 at 11:09 am

   jayman: point taken.

   I see the problem as the pseudo-linkages people tend to make among varying sorts of non-mainstream phenomena. Too often, the linkages pollute the basic body of information; and that’s what the public hears about.

   Example: Bigfoot, as we all know if we believe what the mass media feed us, is that guy that showed up on a shaky film (which was a man in an ape suit — didn’t they have a TV show that proved that….?), and occasionally at Graceland, and uses UFOs to transcend galaxies, and basically the only people who “believe in him” (don’t you love that phrase?) are nuts.

   The vast majority of the public — even those who “believe in him” — have no idea of the weight and nature of the evidence for the sasquatch.

   And there may well be “UFO people” who feel the same way about their field.

   Personally, I’m just more interested in the sasquatch, because I see science getting off its duff and doing its job — just as it does with known or other strongly-suspected species — potentially resolving the issue.

   Not so sure that’s the case with UFOs. But I know that stirring them both in the same pot is helping neither.

4. richard_from_idaho responds: January 16th, 2007 at 11:18 am

   I have an interest in both subjects. Thanks for the link.

5. alanborky responds: January 16th, 2007 at 11:22 am

   Hmm, so you don’t think Cryptozoology and UFOs have anything in common, eh, Craig? Then won’t you be red faced when a fleet of flying saucers land on the lawn of the White House one of these days, and Bigfoot, Mothman and Nessie emerge and say, “Up yours, Woolheater!”

6. Darkstream responds: January 16th, 2007 at 11:33 am

   One aspect (of many) of the UFO phenomenon that bothers me is the emphasis on conspiracies. It seems to attract a certain type of fan that readily makes believing in UFOs and any evidence these fans gather suspect and laughable.

   When a “secret government official who cannot be named” provides “incontrovertible” evidence my eyes begin to glaze over and I lose immediate interest. Or references to the universal “THEY” - as in some unnamed governmental organization that wants the truth kept from the public. Conspiracies tend to excite some people, and the darker and more dangerous they are, and consequently the more secret and unprovable they are, the happier the conspiracy fans get. Once evidence is removed from the equation, UFO tales become anecdotal stories enlarged into tall tales.

   I have the same problem with some cryptozoology fans. Many I’ve bumped into want to believe in the multi-dimensional, paranormal, invisible, psychic, alien Bigfoot. It seems to answer questions for them, but all it does is take them farther out into the fringe, IMO. Footprints, hair samples, photos, and movies I can deal with, but once you enter the realm of the mystic you might as well believe in faeries and magic while you’re at it.

   I once chatted with Grover Krantz and asked him if he could put me in contact with an Utah investigators of Bigfoot. The gent he put me in contact with lived down in Southern Utah and had crossed over into the paranormal camp, apparently without Krantz’ knowledge. He had tapes of Bigfoot calls I wanted to hear, but when he started up on Bigfoot’s connections with UFOs and used the overtones of grand mysticism he spooked me. I never visited him.

   Of course, this could simply be my narrowmindedness. I already believe in an Eternal Father in Heaven so maybe I just don’t have room for any more unprovable mystical beliefs.

7. steveg3474 responds: January 16th, 2007 at 11:38 am

   Have you guys ever read any books by John Keel? If not do so and you can see where cryptozoo and the UFO phenomena are and aren’t related.

8. Shimizu responds: January 16th, 2007 at 11:44 am

   I agree with the fact the two subjects shouldn’t be linked, however I don’t think its the Ufologists who should take all the blame. Ok they make some pretty obscure references at times to UFO’s and Cryptids however, the mass media’s perception of both subjects and how they treat them doesn’t help either.

9. DWA responds: January 16th, 2007 at 11:49 am

   Well, steveg, call me narrowminded. But when it comes to the sas, I’m not interested in anything by John Keel.

   Reason: scientists aren’t, and pushing this angle has pushed scientists away from what they should be doing here.

   As long as scientists see this sort of stuff going on, the great weight of mainstream science is going to stay away from Bigfoot. Their reputations and careers depend on this, and they know that. Scientists do not want to be associated with the paranormal. That’s the world we live in.

   Which makes the Krantzes and the Meldrums of the world all the more heroic, strength to their arms. But their heroism comes from one thing: they see Bigfoot as a primate, leaving evidence with which science can deal directly. Another animal, no more and no less.

   Me too.

10. MattBille responds: January 16th, 2007 at 11:51 am

    Cryptozoology is a science because it deals in falsifiable hypotheses. e.g., Either there is a long-necked animal in Loch Ness, or there is not. In any given case, there are usually not enough resources available to prove or disprove the hypothesis, but it can logically be done. If one could deploy the US Navy’s most advanced gear into the Loch, you would either find a creature or prove that there isn’t one.

    UFOlogy has a bigger problem. One cannot disprove the hypothesis “there are extraterrestrial intelligences visiting Earth in spacecraft” because a civilization able to cross galactic distances might well be able to keep Earth technology from proving its existence. Phil Klass’ curse on ufologists, “You will never know more about UFOs than you do now” is a variant of this point. You MIGHT be able to PROVE the presence of UFOs if you get lucky and one crashes in New Mexico or wherever, but you cannot disprove their presence.

    Granted, this common theory assumes that UFOs = ET, which is not necessarily true. I personally think we are overlooking some important atmospheric phenomena by consigning all UFOs to the “alien” bin (and therefore to the “most scientists will not even think about it” bin). Still, given our present technology, there is no way to prove there is nothing anomalous out there, and therefore UFOlogy is not going to get classed as a science.

11. Loren Coleman responds: January 16th, 2007 at 11:58 am

    Well, regarding that statement about Keel’s books, it is only true, for certain, within the point of view of John Keel, which often combines his conjectures with his case studies, although the casual readers miss that.

    Broadly, both topics (ufology and cryptozoology) can be safely said to be Fortean - the damned data excluded by science (more often than not).

    Specifically, however, cryptozoology has been more harmed by firm linkages that several writers have tired to force on cryptids as far as them being former occupants of flying saucers or entities similar to ufological-phenomena.

    Cryptomundo will retain it’s zoologically-based focus and UFOmystic can handle the Bigfoot walking through fields with globes of light in their hands after stepping from a UFO, thank you.

12. DWA responds: January 16th, 2007 at 11:59 am

    Matt: correct. Except for one thing.

    If there’s one thing that’s been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, it’s that there are unidentified flying objects. No scientist would contest that point, unles he thought you meant “spaceships.”

    There are UFOs, for sure, all the time. It’s just that, given our current means for figuring out what they are, there’s no way to assess all the possibilities, thus no science.

    Semantics are everything.
    “…there are usually not enough reources avialable to prove or disprove the hypothesis, but it can logically be done.”

    Many a Bigfooter could echo that sentiment.

13. sadisticgreen responds: January 16th, 2007 at 12:07 pm

    Oh such narrow-mindedness from people I had thought so open to possibility! Surely you can’t be thinking that the only intelligent life in the fathomless depths of the universe is mankind?! And after the arrogance of “conventional science” towards cryptozoology I would have thought this little community would have learned a little restraint! Admittedly I myself am with Craig in that I don’t think the two fields are linked but suggesting UFO’s are purely paranormal? For shame DWA!!

14. steveg3474 responds: January 16th, 2007 at 12:16 pm

    I don’t think Keel believes that all sasquatch sitings are paranormal. His contention is that the UFO “entities” have been playing mankind for saps for thousands of years. If the UFO phenomena is reflective as he says then why can’t some sasquatch sightings be a paranormal reflection of a real unknown creature? You should keep an open mind because your asking people to believe in an 8ft. tall 400 pound primate that we have no “real” evidence of.

15. DWA responds: January 16th, 2007 at 12:44 pm

    sadisticgreen: you’re not reading my posts correctly.

    I consider the probability of other intelligent life in the universe to be pretty much 100%. (I’m pretty sure, too, that it’s a lot smarter than us.) And I’d be shocked if any astronomer contested me on that point. Because they know enough — or should — to know better than that. (SETI, in fact, is a purely scientific approach to the issue based on the above assessment.) The statistical likelihood alone is overwhelming.

    What we’re taking about here is the ability to PROVE or DISPROVE it, given the current state of science.

    Big difference.

    I want science to focus on the sasquatch. (Heh heh, I think….). Linking the sas with things that can’t be either proven or disproven is not helping this. In fact it’s hurting it.

    And SETI is all we can do on intelligent life, right now. There is no way to fully analyze UFOs to cover all the possibilities of what they might be.

    Narrowmindedness and realism about the way things are? Two very different things.

16. DWA responds: January 16th, 2007 at 12:51 pm

    steveg: my point is that there is only so open a scientist’s mind can be; his job is to verify existence based on evidence.

    And there is tons — literally — of “real” evidence for the sasquatch, evidence that would be accepted unquestioningly for any other species. It’s just that science hasn’t accepted the sas yet, and so doesn’t accept the evidence. What science needs to do now is follow that evidence where it leads. There is plenty.

    That UFOs are spaceships? No evidence there, and thus nothing scientists can go on.

17. PhotoExpert responds: January 16th, 2007 at 1:18 pm

    Thanks for that information. Although different subjects, I find both of them fascinating. I appreciate the link!

18. jayman responds: January 16th, 2007 at 1:21 pm

    With the UFO question, as with cryptozoology, it is not that there is no evidence, but what is accepted as evidence, and by whom.
    For those who want background on (some) UFOs as real physical objects, I’d suggest books by Richard Dolan, Stanton Friedman, and Paul Hill to start.

19. DWA responds: January 16th, 2007 at 1:26 pm

    jayman: although the identification of UFOs as something might carry some evidence, I’m talking about evidence that they are spacecraft manned (or sent) by intelligent life.

    I would say that there isn’t any evidence on that score. Not of the kind that can be followed up on and confirmed by the tools currently available to science.

    Although like any true skeptic (no Ben Radford, I!) I’m open to having my mind changed.

20. bill green responds: January 16th, 2007 at 1:26 pm

    hey craig & everyone this very interesting article about cryptozoology & ufos. but in my honest opinion i see no real connections between these great phenomenas. thanks bill

21. steveg3474 responds: January 16th, 2007 at 1:48 pm

    I don’t think UFO’s are spaceships. It is something that is tied into poltergeists, ghosts, other cryptobeasts (mothman, dover demon, flatwoods), angels/Mary sightings. Some sasquatch sightings are paranormal. Mainly the ones with “glowing” red eyes and its resistance to bullets.

22. Mnynames responds: January 16th, 2007 at 2:14 pm

    Well, for better or worse, UFO’s and CZ will always be linked in the popular conception, if for no other reason than the one Loren gave- they are “damned” phenomena, much like rocks falling from the sky once was. These disparate phenomena exist just on the fringes of, and sometimes entirely outside of, our current realm of knowledge. That links them right there, plus adds another possible link, if only because we know so little about either that we cannot say that there is not some more tangible link between them. And then you have the Dover Demon, Flatwoods Monster, and good ol’ BF as Ufonaut, which further blurs the lines. To some extent, we should expect this, in much the same way one might see some strange guy walking down the street moments before the power on your block goes out? Could they be connected? Sure. Are they connected? Who knows? Is it worthy of investigation? Certainly.

    My take on it all is this- For all we know, Bigfoot and all his buddies could be nothing more than temporarily physical manifestations of archetypes within the collective human consciousness, maybe even activated by God-like aliens in an attempt to raise the spiritual level of the human race onto a higher plane of existence…BUT THAT’S NOT THE WAY TO BET. To investigate both UFO’s or anything CZ, or frankly anything whatsoever, you must acknowledge probabilities. Hypothesize that all of these sightings are the most probable thing they could be, say black domestic cats instead of black panthers, or planes instead of alien spacecraft. Now, attempt to debunk your hypothesis. If you’re still left with credible evidence, then you need to modify your hypothesis. For those unfamiliar with it, this is known as SCIENCE. The road to having tea with the extra-dimensional Mothmen and whatnot, if such is even the remotest of possibilities, begins with somebody gathering up verifiable, physical evidence for them, analyzing them, and drawing conclusions, or at least new hypotheses, about the phenomena.

    And perhaps here is where Ufologists and Cryptozoologists differ most. CZ evidence is always down here, on the ground, where it is at least passingly accessible to us. UFO evidence is most often “up there” in the skies, where we seldom are, and not often enough or directly enough to be able to really retrieve anything. The best they can do with aerial phenomena is to do spectroscopic analysis of the light given off by their targets, or perhaps have recording devices that pick up IR or UV. In the end though, it’s still just a bunch of photons you’re dealing with. Perhaps that’s why all these people talking about being abducted by aliens generates such interest, because it’s direct contact, and down here where we have a chance of finding some physical evidence.

    In any case, I would say that even if you reject the notion that the 2 topics have anything in common, there SHOULD be little difference between Ufologists and Cryptozoologists, the good ones anyway, because they are using science to collect clear evidence in an attempt to come up with answers, or at least better questions, about little understood phenomena.

23. silvereagle responds: January 16th, 2007 at 2:48 pm

    In order for bigfoot researchers to see the future, all they need to do is follow Hollywood. The movie ET introduced homo sapiens to Extraterrestrials many years ago. Now it is much more widely accepted that UFO’s and ET’s are real. Recently there have been mainstream Hollywood movies on Orbs and The Invisibles. Wait a few years and Hollywood will turn everyone into paranormalists. Once we have those two bookends, then it will be easier for Hollywood to fill in more pieces of the puzzle, and allow “cutting edge bigfoot researchers” to feel more comfortable with believing what the general population has previously grown comfortable with.

24. fuzzy responds: January 16th, 2007 at 2:52 pm

    Let’s get back to the Topic proposed by Craig over 20 Comments ago:

    WHAT DO CRYPTOZOOLOGY AND UFOLOGY HAVE IN COMMON???

    Seems to me if you’re trying to compare two items, you need to start with a list of their similarities, soo…

25. Greg Bishop responds: January 16th, 2007 at 3:24 pm

    Reading through all these posts, I get the feeling that some cryptozoologigts are afraid of being tarred with the brush of UFOs, since to them, it represents a couple of things: First, the tacit association with a group who for the most part have made fools of themselves, and secondly, because they see Cryptozoology as a field which is on the edge of scientific respectability. Also, for some reason, the media tends to pay more attention to UFO events than Cryptid reports.

    UFOs, depending on who you listen to, are most definitely on the edge of “respectability,” but seem to bounce off that edge, and will continue to do so until science evolves in some way to allow the phenomenon to be better studied. Perhaps Cryptozoology is in the same boat to some extent.

    Cryptids have an advantage in that animals are something which we all agree are documented residents of our planet and our daily reality, but would you characterize Mothman or the Dover Demon as animals?

    I don’t think UFOs have been proven to be spaceships from other planets, although I am open to the idea. Some UFOs leave traces of their presence, but like some cryptids, the evidence is inconclusive.

    If you bother to read books by Keel, Jim Brandon, and perhaps even the Sourcebook volumes (with a broad view,) there is a definite connection between UFO sightings and mysterious animals. I believe that this is virtually undeniable. Whether these are important connections is still up for debate.

    Actually, “Mnynames” in the post #22 said almost exactly what I am trying to present here!

26. sadisticgreen responds: January 16th, 2007 at 3:31 pm

    DWA, Point taken fella. I shall take greater care to digest the full extent of posts before making frivilous statements in future!

27. DWA responds: January 16th, 2007 at 3:34 pm

    Sadisticgreen, nothing frivolous about it.

    Remember, real skepticism is challenging conclusions. Any conclusion implied or otherwise about life elsewhere in the universe, given the current state of knowledge, sure needs challenging.

    Keeps the saw honed.

28. Gihdora responds: January 16th, 2007 at 3:39 pm

    It all depends on what you think UFOs are/mean.

    Cryptozoology is a branch of biology -the study of living things. Ufology is the study of big saucers in the sky. I see them as totally different. Cryptozoology is the study of animals which MAY or MAY NOT exist.

    Ufology is the study of a phenomenon which is known to exist, but its source is unknown.

    I consider myself a Cryptozoology-enthusiast. I do not consider myself a UFO enthusiast and do not want others linking the two together.

29. Loren Coleman responds: January 16th, 2007 at 4:33 pm

    Greg Bishop asks: “Cryptids have an advantage in that animals are something which we all agree are documented residents of our planet and our daily reality, but would you characterize Mothman or the Dover Demon as animals?”

    Yes, of course, I would and have. Others have made them fantastic when they really are not, if you read the cases and not just the theories.

    Keel, for example, has taken out-of-context the limited 13-months of reports of a winged weirdie in Point Pleasant. He has placed those accounts into his own cosmos of MIBs, UFOs, and psychics.

    I reject the Keelian view, and have placed these reports in a cryptozoological and zoological context of 100 years of Thunderbird and cryptid Giant Owl sightings for that area and for the Appalachian Mountains. Mark Hall has examined the Mothman reports in his context of “Bighoot” (a giant owl).

    Skeptic Joe Nickell has taken the Mothman and gone one step further and said it was a common, known owl. Others at the time, skeptically mentioned sandhill cranes.

    There is no need to view Mothman but anything other than an animal, either cryptid or known, through the filter of human observation. It became a part of ufology thanks to Keel, but I will continue to wrestle it back to cryptozoology (where it actually started, when Ivan Sanderson and John Keel first talked about in that zoological context).

    As to the Dover Demon, since I was there from the beginning and ufos were absolutely not part of the picture at all, and the events were very down-to-earth, this cryptid too is part of cryptozoology for me.

    I am not sure if I totally agree with my buddy Mark Hall’s notion that it is an aquatic form of a Merbeing. But I sure don’t see any help here from ufology in understanding the Dover Demon.

    Hey, I am biased. I freely admit that.

    With all due respect to ufology, and my friends in the field.
    Loren

30. jayman responds: January 16th, 2007 at 4:36 pm

    Needless to say, many UFOlogists are afraid of being tarred with the brush of CZ too.

    Since we live in glass houses, we have to be careful about throwing stones.

31. DWA responds: January 16th, 2007 at 4:45 pm

    jayman: not sure what UFOlogists are so concerned about. Crypto is obviously legit.
    
    My point is and always will be that oil and water don’t mix. And until there happens something subject to scientific review and confirmation that says otherwise, so will UFOs and crypto be.

32. Ceroill responds: January 16th, 2007 at 5:47 pm

    Ok, here’s my two cents.

    Both are fascinating areas of interest, mostly for different reasons. While cryptozoology is dealing with animals of one sort or another, I am also intrigued by ufos. Then again I am also intrigued by almost any mysterious or anomalous phenomenon. I agree there is likely very little if any real connection between Crypto and most of the rest of them, except perhaps in a sociological, mythological, paleontological or archaeological way. It’s always possible (in my mind) that some of the origins of various myths and beliefs could be linked to cryptos. Likewise, as to ufos, it is possible that some of what is being seen could be similar to what inspired some ancient strangenesses.

    No, I don’t think Sasquatch came down in a flying saucer. I do think both are intriguing mysteries.

33. jayman responds: January 16th, 2007 at 7:34 pm

    One poster implied that the UFO/ET phenomenon started with the movie “ET”. This is no more true than people claiming BF started with the Wallace footprint fakes.

    While the “modern” UFO era is usually dated from about 1947, UFO sightings, like CZ reports, go back centuries.

34. Craig Woolheater responds: January 16th, 2007 at 10:18 pm

    Looks like I opened a can of worms with this one…maybe even a can of Mongolian Death Worms.
    While I didn’t elaborate on my thoughts on cryptozoology and ufology, what I was attempting to say was that to me, it is not good science to try to explain one mystery using another.

    I feel that the majority of what falls under the category of cryptozoology, is just that, zoology; a branch of biology concerned with the classification and the properties and vital phenomena of hidden or unknown animals.

    But what I was really attempting to do, was to announce that UFOmystic, the site pertaining to UFOs that the parent company of Cryptomundo had launched, had gone public.

35. kamoeba responds: January 16th, 2007 at 10:37 pm

    This ain’t UFOmundo.

36. joppa responds: January 16th, 2007 at 10:40 pm

    In my view, I think that Crytozoology can be split in two veins - paranormal and “normal”. UFO studies can be divided along the same lines. Most public views of the studies blur the lines between all four.

    I stay on the normal side of both studies, and find the science involved fascinating enough without invoking mysticism. If Bigfoot exists, what an incredible specimen of natural wonder. If a UFO lands in my backyard, I would be eager to understand the engineering of such a marvel.

    A mystery is either:

    (a) an unknown x that’s part of the natural equation of creation or

    (b) an unknowable x that cannot be defined and forever remains elusive.

    An “unknown” holds the promise of discovery, an “unknowable” leads you in endless circles.

37. silvereagle responds: January 16th, 2007 at 10:47 pm

    Scientific research generally requires an open mind so that all possibilities are considered without cherry picking the observations. The opinions expressed above, tends to reveal the percentage of posters who have real scientific research potential. Nuff said.

38. Enigmatic responds: January 16th, 2007 at 10:56 pm

    Ah, but imagine the cryptoexozoological thrills to come, should some percentage of UFOs turn out to be space- or dimensional-craft piloted by living organisms from elsewhere.

39. vet72 responds: January 16th, 2007 at 11:07 pm

    What do they have in common? A really great question with diverse opinions. Just reading through all the posts was a pleasure. All the opinions are respected and points well taken. Anyway, my personal feeling is that there is no correlation between the two meaning that bf and sas have nothing to do with ufos. The only common thread is their frustating ability to keep every one second guessing to find an answer. Which one will there finally be definitive proof of? I don’t know but I have always found both to be fascinating subjects of study. If and when it does happen the impact will surely be tremendous to say the least. Thank you Craig, Loren and all!

40. Mnynames responds: January 16th, 2007 at 11:31 pm

    Excellent point, Joppa. I happen to be a paranormal enthusiast as much as I am a cryptozoology enthusiast, but I too tend to see them as separate. I try to approach them both scientifically, simply because I think that’s really the only viable approach one can have if one even hopes to have even the slightest chance of finding the truth. Might I add, though, that the more one studies, well, anything really, the more difficult it is to separate it out from everything else. As Charles Fort says, “One measures a circle, beginning anywhere.” To complete the analogy (Or bring it full circle, if you will), let me take a page from popular culture and quote from Big Head Todd & The Monsters, “All life is, is really just a circle.”

    Science loves to catalog and categorize things, to clarify and classify, that’s what it’s good at, and in my opinion, it is the greatest and only real hope we have for finding truth in this confusing world we all live in. But it can also be a shortcoming, as Fort pointed out. The world is so full of so many different things and phenomena, that it can be hard to say just exactly what the cause or origin of something is. And several things could easily be at work, even when only one might be concluded. Bigfoot may be a perfectly ordinary animal in every respect, but who’s to say that some shaman didn’t summon him to Pine Ridge last year? Even if that doesn’t mean Cryptozoologists should run out and study magick and altered states of reality in the hopes of conjuring one (And I’d agree they’d be wasting their time), it may make CZ of interest to those who are involved in those fields. My point here is that no matter how you try to strain it, the waters are thoroughly muddy, just like the rest of life.

    What we seek is there, somewhere, although it may not look exactly as we might suppose (And that shiny thing may be pyrite just as easily as gold), we just have to have patience and keep sifting through all that dirt.

    And that is where we differ most from the mystics, because not only are we going to be non-commital and skeptical (Occam’s razor, and all that) unless we can prove that a shaman summoned that BF, but it’s really besides the point if he did anyway. Proving so brings us no closer to understanding the animal than it would if we were herpetologists and he had summoned frogs. I know my examples are a little out there, but sometimes an exaggeration can make the point more easily, and besides, Einstein liked to imagine bike rides at the speed of light, so I think I have a little leeway here…;)

    Quite a can of worms we’ve opened, indeed. Next question- are they Mongolian Death Worms, Lindworms, or the ones aliens put in your ear to control you?

41. joppa responds: January 17th, 2007 at 12:09 am

    I like the frog analogy Mnynames. Nothing wrong with looking for the “unknowable”, indeed we participate in that search with every prayer we toss to heaven, and sometimes going in a circle is a beautiful ride on a merry-go-round.

42. darkrabbit responds: January 17th, 2007 at 1:17 am

    It’s Matt’s blog. He can do as he pleases.

43. Craig Woolheater responds: January 17th, 2007 at 1:45 am

    It’s Matt’s blog. He can do as he pleases.

    Huh?

44. MBFH responds: January 17th, 2007 at 8:54 am

    Blimey, you’ve kicked something off here Craig! I’d just like to pose a little question if I may: if someone saw a flying creature (giant owl, thunderbird, mothman) that has not yet been scientifically categorised wouldn’t this in itself be an Unidentified Flying Object?!

    Personally, I think we need to keep an open mind. As Loren pointed out, they’re all Fortean phenomena and should be studied scientifically as such, in their own rights. However, I think we’d be foolish to categorically say that there aren’t any links between them: we are dealing with the unknown after all.

    After all, on the UFOMystic website there is a reference to Giant Owls being an explanation for the Hopkinsville Goblin.

    Keep an open mind folks.

45. Gihdora responds: January 17th, 2007 at 9:59 am

    Mnynames made an animorphs reference. That was classic.

46. fuzzy responds: January 17th, 2007 at 11:02 am

    CRAIG ~ 40-plus Comments! Way to go, with your VERY incisive challenge, reaching into the hearts of both subjects!

    I like #43 MBFH’s question about a flying weirdie being classified as a UFO, because it speaks to the Topic: if Mothman overlaps into the UFO category, then Grey Aliens step into the Crypto field, as it were.

    Other commonalities:

    VISIBLE: Creatures and UFOs can be seen, visually and with hi-tech optics and electronics ~ but “they” sometimes seem to disappear!

    AUDIBLE: They can be heard, audibly and with hi-tech gear ~ but sometimes they are silent, even when moving around!

    TANGIBLE: They can be touched, and can touch you, physically and emotionally!

    OLFACTORY: They sometimes smell strongly, and with similar descriptions of the odors.

    LANGUAGE: They seem to be able to “speak” with each other, and to us, audibly and telepathically, in words, gestures and images.

    COMMUNICATIVE: Sometimes we seem to be able to communicate with them, even to influencing their behavior.

    EVIDENCE: They leave indisputable physical traces behind, on both the environment and witnesses.

    NOCTURNAL: Things that go bump in the night.

    NON-IMPERICAL: Their appearances and activities are mostly unpredictable, uncontrollable and unrepeatable, so Scientists have trouble fitting them into their analytical processes.

    PARANORMAL: Their activities sometimes border on (in OUR Science, anyway) the impossible, the mystic, the spectral, almost religious!

    CURIOUS: Our lifestyles apparently are of great interest to them, and they penetrate our private lives to observe and experiment with us.

    INTRUSIVE: They can easily encounter and affect us, then escape back to wherever at will. They can be there and be gone before we even sense them.

    THRILLING: To some witnesses, including animals.

    TERRIFYING: To some witnesses, including animals.

    BOTH: Mixed emotions are common.

    DENIABLE: Some witnesses cannot accept the “reality” of their encounter with these unknowns, refusing to look at or even discuss “them”, and, later, denying the event ever happened!

    CONFUSING: Some astute witnesses behave totally unexpectedly during a sighting, sometimes being affected physically or mentally or emotionally.

    PREOCCUPIED: They seem to have their own agenda, frequently being involved with “normal” or “strange” activities which do not involve the witness.

    SIMILARITY: Evidence shows that they are sometimes, infrequently but undeniably, encountered together.

    TOOLS: Some use tools of various types.

    There are many other commonalities ~ can you add to this list?

    Also, I imagine a similar list could easily be created to show their DIS~similarities, but that’s open-ended and not helpful in the Quest.

    Howzat, Craig?

47. wenonahplace responds: January 17th, 2007 at 11:09 am

    I agree with Loren in that cryptozoology has suffered the incredible long enough. It is not a fringe science, as some boxed in thinkers would have us believe. Its the purest form of discovery, in my opinion.

    We’re not standing in the shadows of the known sciences, we’re rewriting them.

    I for one hold to the evidence, the true science of discovery, until the evidence proves otherwise.

48. Ray Soliday responds: January 17th, 2007 at 11:31 am

    Kudos Fuzzy, I see how you got your name, you have fuzzied the boundries. The “greys” can be just as much a “cryptid” as ole’ Sas can.

49. mystery_man responds: January 17th, 2007 at 12:11 pm

    Well, I don’t know what to say that has not already been said in one way or another here. In my opinion, both cryptozoologists and UFOlogists have two main camps. You have those that believe a lot of far fetched ideas no matter how bizarre and stick to those beliefs despite any thing to the contrary or any evidence or indeed any basis in known reality.

    In this camp, there are the UFOlogists that say aliens are visiting us in spaceships, or are probing us, abducting us, building secret bases on the moon and having tea with the president. Maybe the MIBs will come get you if you look into it too much, and on and on.

    There are also the cryptozoologists who think Bigfoot are having hybrid babies with humans, etc.

    These theories depend a lot on conjecture and rely very little on actual hard evidence. As was said before, some of these theories cannot be falsified either and have the luxury of being beyond anyone’s current ability to prove or disprove.

    Then you have the camps that approach things from a realistic and somewhat less spectacular perspective.

    Some UFOlogists research their phenomena as exactly that, a phenomena to be studied and explained. For these people, UFO’s are not necessarily alien spacecraft, but could be a whole plethora of atmospheric phenomena. If they turn out to be aliens, fine, but that conclusion is not jumped to. Magnetic waves, ball lightning, misidentified aircraft, these are all possibilities other than intergalactic aliens.

    The cryptozoologists in this camp are the same way. Maybe those “black panthers” are large black dogs? Perhaps Nessie is a type of extinct seal or a large eel? Is that a plesiosaur carcass or a dead whale or what? What exactly is Bigfoot? Does it even exist? What is the available evidence?

    I feel this camp is far more likely to explore varying theories and be more open to evidence for or against whatever they are studying. There is more of a willingness to concede that a theory may not hold water.

    Of course this is a broad generalization and most people fall in the middle somewhere but my point is cryptozoology and UFOlogy both have their true believers and their more scientific minded people.

    The latter is pretty much where I myself am coming from. I have a very open mind about these sorts of things however I want to be able to rule out mundane explanations before jumping to the more fanciful ones. Personally, I approach cryptozoology as a branch of zoology. I am interested in researching actual biological entities based on the realities of the world we live in. I am interested in how these cryptids, if they exist, live and adapt to the world around them.

    In that sense, I don’t think the more fringe ideas of aliens visiting Earth, interdimensional beings, glowing eyed horned devils, etc, really fit into my own views of what cryptozoology is.

    They may very well be real, I can’t say, nobody can. If people want to go out and study this stuff, then more power to them. If they prove these things somehow, great. I just hope they do it in a scientifically viable way.

    As for me, I want to know more about the new types of biodiversity that just may exist out there in the untamed forests of the world. I want to know if dinosaurs have indeed survived into modern times and if so, how? I want to know if there is a Thylacine still out there roaming free.

50. mahlerfan responds: January 17th, 2007 at 1:05 pm

    Although some UFO reports do have a cryptid aspect to them, to tie them to cryptozoology I think is a mistake. The UFO phenomenon has been linked to so may different topics that we can’t be sure what is true, what is mis-perception on the part of the witness and what is do to the phenomenon’s attempt to muddle the evidence of it’s own existence. UFOs have been linked to religion, world salvation, time travel, ghost, cattle mutilations, crop circles and cryptozoology. It maybe that the phenomenon has to do with all these things or with none of them, we just don’t know.

    To say that some cryptic species and the UFO phenomenon have something in common maybe a premature conclusion that can only serve to hurt cryptozoology as a whole. While the search for unknown (and known but thought extinct) species is just that, the UFO phenomenon seems to be everything it can be or at least wants us to believe it is.

    We know what cryptozoology is and we can easily describe what it searches for in clear terms to anyone not familiar with it. Not to take anything away from ufologists (who are doing the best they can with the evidence) but they can’t truthfully say if they are searching for space travelers, time travelers, extra dimensional beings, demons, angels or an inconceivable intelligence.

51. DWA responds: January 17th, 2007 at 1:45 pm

    Right, mahlerfan.

    UFOlogists who take a strictly scientific tack may be upset at cryptopollution. And the converse may be true. What upsets each about the other — or should, if you ask me — is the introduction of stuff that simply isn’t subject to scientific review and verification. And stuff that we can all generally (with the obvious exceptions) agree is Just Plain Wackoid.

    People who simply want a scientific explanation for weird sights in the sky get upset at people who claim that sasquatches had to get here somehow, hmmmmmm. By the same token, people who simply think that the sasquatch is an unlisted species of North American primate, leaving copious evidence of its passage that needs more scientific attention, have a right to get a tad teed when the guy right next to them, ostensibly on their side of the argument, starts going on about how they’ve remained undiscovered because they cloud men’s minds; they’re bulletproof; they shapeshift and cross dimensional boundaries; they kill camera batteries and overexpose film with Weird Vibrations; they use mind control to make you forget you have a camera; they use UFOs to travel nationwide; oh, and they say Bigfoot is a “he,” an individual, and not a species, and they make eyes roll, man!
    Here’s my bottom line. If you believe science needs to take your field more seriously, you can help by leaving anything scientists can’t verify out of the discussion. (List provided on request. ) If you don’t care what science thinks, we’ll go grab some more M&Ms and hope you change the subject before the Ph.D with a grant check in his hand walks away.

52. DWA responds: January 17th, 2007 at 1:56 pm

    I should have said Right, mystery_man, too; but I didn’t see your post until I logged on. Didn’t get the email for some reason.

    You couldn’t have stated my tack better. I lean toward the prosaic. If Bigfoot exists, he’s an ape. And if you take all the apes together — and include us — he’s not as weird as most think. He’s almost a Golden Mean ape. Except for the size, of course.

    I don’t read science fiction; the fact of the universe is incredible enough. That’s where I am on crypto, too. Give me the plain facts. Because plain they ain’t.

53. skeptik responds: January 17th, 2007 at 7:36 pm

    There’s done a lot of serious research in both ufology and cryptozoology, while on the other hand both fields have their share of crackpots.

    I agree with DWA above here. Reading Einstein, studying philosophy and reading world history etc. has made me realize how little we know, and how little we know of what we, common-sensically, think we know.

    People should maybe ask themselves more often whether they are making a mockery of their own interests by advocating unfounded views.

    Connecting the two fields?

    Only if the UFO in a given case is a creature, which would make it a UFC, right?

54. fuzzy responds: January 17th, 2007 at 9:19 pm

    Spoken like a true skeptik.

55. mystery_man responds: January 17th, 2007 at 9:46 pm

    I feel it is important to also think about the fact that what cryptozoologists are studying are creatures that are native denizens of this world that live and breathe and fill a biological niche of some sort.

    Bigfoot for example. If it is indeed a hairy bipedal creature, then there is precedence for this. There are large animals such as gorillas that exist, we know that this is a feasible concept. There are fossil records of actual, real hominids. We also know that gorillas went undiscovered for a long time and were once a cryptid themselves, so it can be reasonably argued that this could be the case with Bigfoot. In the end, we are basing Bigfoot on a physically plausible paradigm that already is known to exist, not some far fetched, fantastic imagining. Whatever it is, if it is a creature of this world, it must follow the realities it is presented with. It must eat, sleep, and survive. It is an entity that we are capable of understanding.

    Aliens on the other hand have no known physical precedent based in reality. They can be anything you want them to be. You can say they are shapeshifters, greys, lizard men, and nobody can argue with you because hey, they are aliens! It can be said they are building a huge city on the moon or are studying us and this could be true because hey, they are aliens! Who is to say they couldn’t be doing this?

    This I feel is the problem. Any sort of fanciful idea I can come up with is acceptable because there is nothing we can disprove this with. This can happen in cryptozoology too, but at least we are dealing with living, breathing creatures that can be found and studied and plausibly speculated about due to the existence of similar creatures already known to exist. I am interested in facts and I am interested in real animals of this world and this is where I feel cryptozoology should focus.

56. vet72 responds: January 17th, 2007 at 10:00 pm

    What an engaging and thought provoking post! Read it and learn from it. I most definitely have. You won’t find it better anyplace else on the web except for here. You guys are the best!

57. aastra responds: January 17th, 2007 at 11:30 pm

    “Then you have the camps that approach things from a realistic and somewhat less spectacular perspective.”

    We should remember that the universe has no obligation to satisfy our personal expectations as to what is realistic or unrealistic.

    If Bigfoot is real then believing in Bigfoot is realistic. If aliens who pilot flying saucers are real then believing in aliens who pilot flying saucers is realistic. Believing in the truth is always realistic, no matter how uncomfortable the truth may make us.

    Describe an octopus to somebody who’s never heard of an octopus and you’d likely be accused of spinning tall tales. But the reality of the octopus is not affected just because someone who’s never seen an octopus regards the very notion of such a creature to be spectacular and unrealistic.

    Whether or not a particular human being rates a particular point of fact as spectacular or boring or frightening or anything else has absolutely no relevance. Reality is reality, no matter how comfortable or uncomfortable we are with it, and no matter how much sophistry we might employ to challenge it.

    A true scientist would never twist known facts to fit his concept of reality, or selectively ignore facts that trouble him. What one person regards as spectacular or controversial or terrifying might seem absolutely mundane to somebody else.

    Investigate, establish fact, and let established fact dictate your reality.

    Alas, when investigating reports of cryptids, UFOs, Bigfoot, and the various (allegedly) supernatural phenomena, the facts of the matter can often be very difficult to establish.

    Hence, some people see some commonality.

58. DWA responds: January 17th, 2007 at 11:43 pm

    aastra: couldn’t agree more. As I say to the Ben Radfords of the world, Bigfoot, if he exists, exists independently of what any of us think.

    If you’ve seen a sas or been abducted by aliens, every word of this thread is moot (if not utterly laughable) to you.

    I’m talking about the rest of us who would like to get to what reality IS. We’re no closer to establishing the sas as a real animal now than we were before Patterson shot his film.

    If we’re going to confirm the unconfirmed, the horse to bet on is science. And it’s one of science’s strengths, NOT weaknesses, that it doesn’t accept flying saucers from other worlds as a fait accompli. Science demands evidence. Without evidence followed up to conclusions, only the observers know. When science confirms we ALL know.

    Until of course science gets new facts. But that’s another one of science’s strengths. When it gets hit by a dead mackerel that says, change your mind, well, sooner or later none of us believe that the world is flat.

    Little green men in saucers may exist. But until that is confirmed beyond doubt, we won’t find the sasquatch by waylaying space travelers.

    That’s all I’m saying.

59. darkrabbit responds: January 18th, 2007 at 2:37 am

    “It’s Matt’s blog….”

    A thousand times a thousand pardons, Craig. No double entendre, just a dork-a-zoid mistake on my part.

    Sheesh. And of all things, I proof-read it before submission.

60. MBFH responds: January 18th, 2007 at 7:49 am

    mystery_man, DWA, fuzzy, aastra, skeptik - great comments. This is a real thought provoking debate here. I totally agree with you on the ‘crackpots’ skeptik. There are a fair number in the crypto field as well I’d imagine. What we also need to keep sight of is the number of discoveries that have been made in both fields, through careful observation and scientific technique. Something like 90% of UFO sightings turn out to be identifiable. Discoveries, such as ‘Earth Lights’, continue to account for futher ones. I don’t think that there’s any chance we’ll ever discover everything about this planet, but we need to keep on looking around the edges, and bringing the anomalous into the mainstream.

61. mystery_man responds: January 18th, 2007 at 10:27 am

    Aastra, yes your point is well taken and I agree entirely. What I meant to say by “a more realistic approach” was to say an approach that does not jump to fantastical explainations or conclusions without any sort of foundation in known fact. Looking at the facts, the way things are and not saying, “oh I believe the reason there is coincidence is that there is a mysterious force that controls and binds us all”. Where is the basis for that? No matter how real it may be to someone, is it responsible to jump to these sorts of theories. I was not trying to imply that these things do not exist or are unrealistic in and of themselves. There very well may be aliens living on the moon, who knows? It was the approach to these theories and how they are reached that I was pointing out. Not every science fiction idea that someone has is real no matter how much they want it to be. An octpopus may be strange to someone who has never seen it, but there are people who would look at it, find out what it does, study it and not immediately assume that it is a brain sucking creature from outer space, say. If these fantastic ideas turn out to be true, that is fine by me. But facts are what I am interested in, not novel ideas of how a person thinks the universe might work or what their own beliefs of reality are. Is this making any sense? That is what I meant by a “realistic and less spectucular perspective.” I meant the methods by which they come to their conclusions.

62. fuzzy responds: January 18th, 2007 at 10:58 am

    I think the most important “commonality” between these two “ologies” is US ~ the common, curious, intrigued, mystified intellectually-inspired everyday Searcher.

    We’ve crouched at the end of a long line of Bigfoot prints in the middle of a snow-filled pasture, scant miles from a major metro area. How can these prints just terminate here? Where is the next print - WHERE DID THE CREATURE GO?

    Wait - here they are again, beyond a fence and trees, in a straight line from the others, resuming from nowhere, continuing into the night.

    We’ve watched a shiny something perform “impossible” maneuvers in a mountain afternoon sky, only to have the craft vanish between our eye-blinks. WHERE DID IT GO?

    I’ve chased a large, blinking red light cruising slowly, lowly, over a major Oregon river in the dark, until it just…disappeared! WHERE IS IT?

    The “Vanishing” commonality - and US, the same Searchers.

    It’s the Mystic that fascinates US, drawing us irresistibly into the Search.

    We’ve teased a metal patio table a foot into the air, with only five sets of fingertips touching its top. HOW CAN IT FLOAT LIKE THAT?

    We’ve seen our own Doppelganger walk the length of our living room. WHO IS THA- IT’S ME!!

    We’ve seen a Ouija planchette spell out a friend’s future employer’s name, when she wasn’t even (consciously) looking for a new job. WHAT IS CONTROLLING THIS LITTLE WOODEN TRIANGLE?

    We are open to all kinds of manifestations of the Mystic, because that’s who WE are - Searchers.

    And that’s what ALL these fields have in common - US.

63. mystery_man responds: January 18th, 2007 at 11:10 am

    And before I get some kind of response saying that “people make assumptions and conclusions about Bigfoot all the time”, I should say that I personally am not inclined to do this and have never flatly stated that I think Bigfoot exists without a doubt.

    I must also add that in my opinion, Bigfoot speculation is based on an attention to physical parameters and biological reality as we know it from countless other organisms that inhabit the world with us. I feel there are certain physical factors that we can understand because we have seen it before and we can make reasonable guesses, for example, about how Bigfoot might behave, or what its diet may be, or how much it would need to consume based on body size, the impact it might have on the ecosystem, even what it might be based on comparisons of sightings to fossil evidence,etc.

    So some of these guesses about Bigfoot could be feasible from what we know about life on this planet.

    Some cryptids lack a lot of evidence, but it is different to me from stating that aliens are visiting us from other planets.

    While this may be true, it is a bit of a jump from what we know about the world and has less to base itself upon other than the believer’s certainty that it is so.

    And it may very well be so, but it is going to be harder to go out and prove that this is the case when there is no basis for comparison for it.

    Yes, the universe is strange, we don’t know everything, and we don’t know all we think we know, and so on, but I think all we can do for the time being is work from what we DO know.

    I think anyone studying either of these subjects should approach them with an open mind and see where the facts take them and when they do speculate, make sure that it is based on something that is feasible from what is being observed without any wild conjecture.

    We should not bend the facts to fit our ideas but rather our ideas should fit the facts.

64. skeptik responds: January 18th, 2007 at 11:44 am

    I just wanted to point out that there’s a bit of an illogical jump from ufology to flying saucers (spacecrafts). Ufology is mainly sorting out reports and ending up with a small set of files which remain unidentified. Most observations are completely normal celestial objects (sun, moon, planets, shooting stars).

    “Alienism” presupposes that UFOs = spacecrafts, which is logically unhealthy.

    I like this quote of Feynman: I believe that the reports of flying saucers are the results of the known irrational efforts of terrestrial intelligence rather than the unknown irrational efforts of extra-terrestrial intelligence.

65. mahlerfan responds: January 18th, 2007 at 12:00 pm

    I agree that jumping from the reports of UFOs to space travelers is a stretch, but we can not deny some kind of unknown phenomenon exist. Most UFO reports are explainable, but some of the few that are not, have more information than those easily explained, yet still resist identification. What the phenomenon is we don’t know. UFOlogists are in the dark at present and trying to find a connection with other unknowns is foolish. One has to see things clearly before you can begin to connect the dots.

66. mystery_man responds: January 18th, 2007 at 12:01 pm

    Yes, skeptik, exactly. As I said in my earlier post, there are Ufologists that look at these reports with a scientific mind and are able to see that these may not be anything other than earthly phenomena. It is most certainly illogical to jump to aliens. Love the quote!

67. DWA responds: January 18th, 2007 at 12:19 pm

    Love skeptik’s quote from Feynman.

    But — acknowledging I know nothing about it — wouldn’t it REALLY flow if it were “the unknown RATIONAL efforts of extra-terrestrial intelligence”?

    Just a thought.

68. MattBille responds: January 18th, 2007 at 3:48 pm

    DWA, on your first response to my post:

    There are, without question, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP). I never liked the term UFO, but we’re rather stuck with it, and with its connection to “spacecraft.” A UAP may not be “Flying” and may not be an “Object.” We are stuck at the level of people reporting things they cannot identify.

    Cryptozoology also starts (in some cases) with a sighting of something the witness cannot identify. But we know that, if that something is an unknown animal, that more evidence exists for the finding: scat, hair, kills, prints, what have you. It may be hard to find, but we know it exists for any physical animal.

    For UAP, things are a lot tougher.

69. DWA responds: January 18th, 2007 at 3:56 pm

    Indeed, Matt. When I say semantics are everything, I mean that they can be a cage or the key to the cage door.

    Maybe UFO is a case of the latter.

    Now if we could just figure out what the cage is with the sasquatch. (Maybe there are several. One is called “Weekly World News.”) :-p

70. kittenz responds: January 18th, 2007 at 8:12 pm

    I DO read science fiction and love it -always have. Good science fiction forces you to consider possibilities and expands your mind. And kids who read science fiction often grow up to be the adults who create fantastic technology and make it science fact.

    I have an intense interest in space, and of course I believe that there are many other intelligences in the universe besides our own. I seriously doubt that those intelligences are behind UFO sightings though. I think that if that were the case there would be no doubt of it. They would make themselves known, if only accidentally through their exploration of our planet and their electronic communications transmissions. I believe that UFOs are the product of either human activities, earth phenomena, or local space phenomena. I don’t completely discount the possibility that some UFOs could be alien visitors, but I think that possibility is very remote.

    We’re on the right track with programs like SETI, but given the current state of our technology, the aliens will have to come to us; we can’t yet go to them. But I do not believe in the “Greys”, except as a fascinating artifact of the human subconscious.

    I consider cryptozoology to be a branch of zoology and as such it is just as much a science. Those people who will accept anything and everything as evidence of real cryptids do a disservice to cryptozoology. In order to be taken seriously as scientists, cryptozoologists must set the same high standards for evidence as the more mainstream zoologists. If the cryptid does actually exist, it will be discovered sooner or later, either by accident as in giant squid carcasses washing ashore, or thru concerted scientific effort such as the intense research that finally brought us to the living giant squid in the wild.

71. mystery_man responds: January 18th, 2007 at 9:59 pm

    The more I think about it, the more I think Skeptik had a good point earlier when he said that Ufology is the study of looking through reports to find out what they are, then ending up with a few that are unexplainable, wheres “aliensism” is thinking they are spaceships. It’s a big distinction. I think a lot of us have gone full throttle against the alien theories, but by the definition of Ufology as a way to explain lights in the sky, then it is somewhat similar to cryptozoology. By that definition of Ufology, as taking a scientific view and not jumping to aliens, then they are similar to cryptozoologists in that they are trying to get to the bottom of what is causing these strange sightings in the sky and we are trying to figure out what it is that these cryptids are. In this way, Ufologists might even help science by pointing the way towards previously unknown atmospheric or space phenomena in much the same way that we find out about previously unknown animals. As long as it is being done in a scientific way, with high standards of evidence, and that in the unexplained cases they don’t accept everything as evidence or jump to conclusions, then by that definition of Ufology it could be considered legitimate. I just get a bit exasperated when people jump to far out conclusions without any strong basis, be it in cryptozoology, ufology, or any other science for that matter. I agree with Kittenz above. If we or any other so-called “fringe science” wants to be taken seriously, then we have to conduct ourselves as any mainstream zoologist or paleontologist, any scientist, would. That is the standard that we have to emulate.

72. mahlerfan responds: January 19th, 2007 at 7:45 am

    Serious ufology is more than just studying reports of lights in the sky. Actual crafts have been observed and reported as being picked up by radar. Alleged landing sites have displayed compressed areas that contain soil samples that have been super heated and are devoid of bacterial life. Now this does not mean that beings from some far off planet are visiting the Earth. The evidence is too confusing to jump to that conclusion.

    The evidence for some cryptids is more straight forward. Cryptozoologists are not searching for something that defies explanation. In the case of bigfoot, they are searching for a large animal that leaves footprints which correspond to a primate. Alleged hair samples, although inconclusive, are recognized as belonging to some form of primate. Video of the creature shows an upright primate.

    If in the future, ufologists begin to tie some of the weirdness associated with the UFO phenomenon and can prove conclusively that some cryptids are related to it, then these creatures will no longer be cryptids. They can be handed over to ufology and cryptozoologists can continue their search for actual physical cryptids.

73. skeptik responds: January 19th, 2007 at 8:04 am

    To DWA, with regards to the quote.

    I think Feynman was pointing to the irrationality of trying to contact someone by hiding from them.

    This is not dismissive of the UFO phenomenon altogether, of course, but the unfounded “leaps of faith” (sorry, Kierkegaard).

    Check out The Political Sociology of Alien Encounters by Eric Ouellet at pararesearchers.org. Really interesting reading.

74. fuzzy responds: January 19th, 2007 at 9:34 am

    73 COMMENTS ~ what a great Blog!

    Let’s do it again, Craig.

75. mystery_man responds: January 19th, 2007 at 11:38 am

    I agree. This has been a thoroughly engaging and thought provoking discussion. I am always pleased to see how many intelligent, knowledgable people we have here in the Cryptomundo community. This discussion has been very entertaining and educational. Great post!

76. DWA responds: January 19th, 2007 at 11:59 am

    skeptik: got it.

    Information will set you free.
    Never thought I’d think a thread about UFOs would show up here, or merit my attention. Don’t mean to deride here: it’s just not my interest; animals are. Plain (not!) old earthly animals.

    Like the sasquatch.
    When pilots of alien spacecraft want our attention, I take for granted they’ll get it. ‘Til that day, I’m earthbound. And loving it.

77. iseenem responds: January 20th, 2007 at 12:23 am

    You gotta laugh when people who are bigfoot “fringe” try to rhetorically position themselves as more legitimate than people who are UFO “fringe”. Too funny!

    I am proud to be both. The extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) simply states ’some UFOs are extraterrestrial in origin.’ This seems like a reasonable theory in light of the THOUSANDS of sightings around the world from laymen, pilots, military officers, astronauts, etc. We know that life evolved on this planet, and that there are certainly billions of planets in our galaxy. So it seems reasonable that life evolved elsewhere and has come here for a visit for whatever reasons. Simple enough.

    This is not much different than the basic scientific theory proposed by cryptozoology that basically states ’some big foot sightings are of a bipedal ape or hominid’. We know that the human ape walked across the Bering straight from Asia during the last ice age, and we know that there have been many hominid species that have existed on this planet, including a giant called ‘gigantopithecus”. So it seems possible that people are seeing one of the survivors which appears to be an ape or hominid that also walked here from Asia across the Bering straight.

    Both theories face similar problems in that the observations are, by nature, very ephemeral.

    The observations don’t lend themselves to being reproducible.

    I could go on but, since this is a primarily a zoological site, and therefore biased in the direction, I recommend, in the defense of the ETH, you google “Buzz Aldrin” and “UFO” on either google videos or youtube. He basically comes out and says that they saw a ufo on their way to the moon. ET? he doesn’t say. Air force backup? he doesn’t say. Its a good starting off point for the truly curious mind.

    It’s a fascinating subject that needs good researcher such as those of you in cryptozoology.

78. Mnynames responds: January 20th, 2007 at 9:49 am

    Kittenz- If Greys can be considered artifacts of the human subconscious, couldn’t at least some reports of big hairy wild men? They seem equally archetypal to me. I suppose black panthers could be too, for that matter. Once you open that door, you have to admit the possibility that it could be responsible for other phenomena as well. Just throwing that out there.

    Mahlerfan- Even if Ufologists can prove some cryptids are associated with their phenomena, if they are still flesh-and-blood animals, I would think they would still be of interest to Cryptozoologists. Just my 2 cents.

79. kittenz responds: January 23rd, 2007 at 9:26 am

    IF there are genuine animals associated with UFOs, of course they would be of interest to cryptozoologists. It’s just that I have seen no compelling reason to believe that UFOs are associated with any kind of animal.

    That’s my personal observation and I’m sure that some people would disagree. I respect that; that’s their prerogative.

    And yes, “big hairy wild men” could be an artifact of the human subconscious … but “big hairy wild men” do exist, in the form of gorillas, orangs, and chimps, which were called Wild Men for centuries before they were scientifically described and categorized as apes. I know of no studies of the human brain that have produced illusions of “big hairy wild men”, while studies during which various areas of the brain were stimulated HAVE produced descriptions of imagined entities resembling the “Greys”, which seemed very real at the time to the people who were participating in the experiments.

    Even dragons are proposed by some to be some sort of deeply embedded mammalian memory, from the time when our tiny little pre-human ancestors had to hide from dinosaurs. I find that theory interesting but have no strong opinion about it.

    As to black panthers, you can go to a zoo or animal sanctuary and see black panthers all day long. Yes, it’s easy for the mind to play tricks, and imagine that dark shape seen in the corner of the eye as a panther, when really it was just someone’s alley cat out for a stroll. I believe that most “black panther” sightings are exactly that kind of mistaken identity or wishful thinking. But I have no doubt that blank panthers really exist, and I find it plausible that they might exist in regions other than the regions from which they originated.

    I have no doubt that UFOs exist either. But I think that the vast majority are cause by some sort of natural phenomena.

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