I’d doubt moose.

1. I’ve seen a lot of them. That doesn’t look like a moose. I see what could easily be an arm, and I don’t do blobsquatch. The figure also looks vertically, not horizontally, oriented. (That’s also not the likeliest of places to see a moose. They don’t hang around steep dropoffs on high ridges much.)

2. That’s not what the guy who shot the video said. I doubt this would have made it to ABC News if it could be that easily debunked.

3. We weren’t there. An essential element of the debunker tool kit: you don’t disbelieve the witness if no reason exists to do so. There is none in this case. That doesn’t mean you swallow the witness’s story; it just means you don’t jump to the opposite extreme, with no evidence, to presume the witness was wrong. It does seem odd that so many of us are incapable of suspending judgment. (The witness, btw, did. He said he didn’t know what it was. But his description doesn’t make one think moose.)

4. Look at the ABC video. That track was found near the spot the animal was seen. Doesn’t look like a moose track; and a leading sasquatch proponent – a scientist whose technical specialty is directly relevant to the discussion – thinks it looks like a sasquatch track.

When there is no evidence that it was a moose; when available evidence indicates it might have been something else; and when a major news outlet avoids the usual snickering….well, I’m just inclined to believe that it just might possibly be something else.

Which is how a scientist has to look at it, if he has his skepticals on.

There is always two things that can be analyzed in a filmed Bigfoot sighting. The creature’s physical appearance and its movements or its interraction with the environment. Unlike with the P/G film, there isn’t much to see in this video in terms of physical appearance – just an obscure shadow disappearing behind trees.

The movement, however, is interesting and very Bigfoot-like. It has the Bigfoot signature. I feel as though I’ve seen the same movement pattern in a dozen other Bigfoot videos. It resembles a creep observing you behind bushes and as soon as they sense that you have seen them they make for a casual exit. I swear I have seen the same behavior in other videos.

Because of this I am led to believe that this is probably a genuine video and not a hoax.

1. Keep in mind that the proponents in this game get stretched really thin by their own lack of time to do what they’d like on this and the incredulity of the skeptics. The proponents can be uneven. It’s the evidence I focus on. Enjoy the reads.

2. “Perfect” is never it. It’s knowing which way to bet. Tossing 100% of the evidence without review because it could conceivably not be what it really seems to be is more the “perfect” mentality. As in “enemy of the good.”

3. It’s the concatenation of the vid, the track photo and the leading proponent’s attitude to both that makes me look at this one positively.

4. Nothing like an open mind. Makes life more fun, don’t it?

2. So, do I understand correctly, that it’s not the video per se that’s the biggie here, it’s this footprint, or rather the association of the footprint with the video, that’s key to accepting the subject of this video as a potential Sasquatch? And the footprint has been given, or appears to have been given, the stamp of approval by expert Meldrum, so that’s why this seems so good?

3. I would like to read more about what Meldrum thinks about this footprint. The info from the article was pretty sketchy I thought.

4. DWA: I appreciate your confidence and enthusiasm for your subject. You clearly love this stuff. I can’t fathom, though, being perfect, and by always knowing, that seems to be what you are saying. However, I think we’ll have to agree to disagree on that one.

5. I hope you guys are right, despite my skeptical posts recently. I hope there is a 9 foot tall humanoid out there. That would be interesting. Maybe someday I will be convinced by the evidence, both the extant evidence that I am starting to review and perhaps future evidence coming down the pike (DNA, etc.). From my perspective now, that seems like a tall order, but stranger things have happened.

How many sasquatch videos are there that anyone finds remotely compelling? There are only two that I do.

This wasn’t one of them…but then I saw that track, the photo of which Meldrum – he of the ichnotaxonomy paper, he of the specialty in the directly related field – is holding in his hands in the video. So, given that addition, I might have to add this one. OK, three.

Anyone spending serious time and money on a fake is going to ensure that fake is compelling. They didn’t get all that money for no reason, and they’re going to need all they can spare. (Google Bill Munns!) To presume that a rich person will toss off a bad fake is illogical; the rich are the biggest pennypinchers among us. (How they got rich, people.) To presume that anyone who isn’t rich will do a good fake is even more illogical, if one is in command of the evidence.

Is it conceivable? Sure. Is it the kind of thing that justifies tossing the evidence because it could be? Absolutely positively not, to anyone who thinks logically, and scientists are charged with doing that.

When evidence doesn’t constitute proof, one is required to judge. The logical, mundane judgment on this one?

This is very possibly – one might even now say likely – a sasquatch.

1. The subject appears bipedal. The orientation of the figure is clearly vertical. Bears do not walk like that on their hind legs. They stagger at best. What looks like an arm is way longer than any bear’s front leg would be.

2. We have that track. Two things we are aware of make a track anything like that.

3. There is no logical reason to believe the video shooter was hoaxing, or being hoaxed. Unlikely, in the extreme, as every scinitilla of evidence supports.

On this evidence, and this evidence alone, we suddenly and dramatically have one of the only three compelling sasquatch videos of which I am aware.

Could it be a hoax? Well, that’s the only other thing it could be. And logic dictates it just ain’t likely. Possible, yes. But so unlikely that the focus now is on figuring out what it could be.

If we have somebody ready to go on long-term stakeout to confirm this animal, we may now have a place – one of many, but one of the most compelling – to consider.

If only everybody understood that.

Nowhere in science does anyone expect any single piece of evidence to be proof.

Except here.

Which is only one of many ways the mainstream broacast their ignorance and richly earn my sneers.

Good post.

They apparently went to the site and photographed prints. The one I saw looks to me – and Meldrum – to belong to the ichnotaxon.