I think going quad makes LOTS of sense when negotiating steep banks. I’ve resorted to it myself.

As I mentioned way above, I am a bit skeptical of sasquatch moving around on all fours for the reasons I mentioned concerning the highly specialized adaptations needed for bipedalism above and beyond simple arm length. Sasquatch is overwhelmingly described as being a very bipedal animal, which suggests to me they may have evolved that way to a similar extent as humans. I just do not think it would be very efficient for a true biped to try and get around that way considering how their foot structure, knee structure, hip structure, musculature, skeletal structure, and vertebral column orientation would have developed. It is not easy for a creature evolved this way to get around on all fours, and sasquatch seems to be quite well suited to bipedalism.

That being said, I cannot really say it would be flatly impossible. Sasquatch could be in some sort of transitory evolutionary stage between the two modes of locomotion, retaining some quadrupedal characteristics for when it is needed. After all, apes possess some aspects of both, so maybe sasquatch are like that, more bipedal than the apes, but still somewhat less evolved that way than humans. The only problem is if that were the case I’d think we’d see more reports of it. In the end, we simply don’t know, so I leave the possibility open but it is a very curious detail for me. If the accounts of quadrupedal movement are true, then it certainly poses some very interesting questions on sasquatch evolution.

Crypto-enthused- Yes, sasquatch if it exists, seems uncannily good at avoiding accidents. Some apparently HAVE been allegedly hit, but the lack of any physical evidence left behind such as blood or hair, is suspicious to me. An animal getting hit by a car is going to leave something behind more likely than not. Oh well, who knows, maybe it will happen someday. I hope the people are in a big vehicle. Until then, debates like this go on.

I try not to be TOO harsh on anecdotal evidence, precisely because that’s all it is. I take all of it with a grain of salt, though, which is why I say I’m not convinced – yet. None of it can I take for proof; although the body of it so suggests a real animal that sometimes I wonder why I don’t. Let’s just say that seeing one would help there, a lot.

I thought it might be useful to say a bit more about the animal’s apparent switch to a quadrupedal gait – something for which as I say I’ve seen a number of reports. One Texas witness recalls seeing the animal coming in his general direction, fast, on all fours, and then using a fencepost to hoist itself into a bipedal position, from which it took off – after a significant pause during which they made eye contact, at a distance of about ten feet – at a sprint, equally fast. I would guess, from what’s speculated about sasquatch foot morphology and what has been observed about the length and strength of its arms, that this switch doesn’t pose serious problems, and may be done in stressful situations (a number of reports I’ve read indicate the possibility) or simply as a change of pace. This animal simply seems better adapted to both modes than other primates do. Until we know more, that’s where we’re stuck. I do know this: no report in which quadrupedal activity is described strikes me as any less credible than any report in which it isn’t. In fact, I’m struck specifically by how clear such reports seem on all particulars – maybe because the quadrupedal particular really focused me on the credibility of the rest of the report. In fact, the Texas report above is one of the most detailed I’ve read – and the details are very consistent with the many other “could have beens” that I’ve read.

On with the search. Glad we’re both on board.

Perhaps I am being overly critical and over analyzing this one. The more I think about it, the more I realize that I can sometimes be very harsh on anecdotal evidence. I just want to be as careful and thorough as possible. Chalk it up to my profession, I guess. Hey, at least I think it could maybe be a sasquatch that was reported, which is more than I can say for a lot of others in mainstream science.

We don’t agree completely on everything here, but I definitely see your points and this was an excellent discussion. Hopefully you think so as well.

AAAAAAAAAArrrrrgh!

We agree again! This is like “Groundhog Day!”

Well, we pretty much do. But I did want to say about this:

“You mention a lot about what the case is if sasquatch exists, but have you considered the case if it doesn’t?”

Well, yeah, I have. And I guess what I come down on is this: We don’t know. Which by itself doesn’t make me lean either way. But, there’s a lot more evidence that it’s real – evidence that behaves the way I’d expect it to for a real animal – than there is that everything we have is a concoction that doesn’t point to something real.

So, until I know more, I have to consider “sasquatch” a valid possibility in any report. Particularly when, once again, I read something that sounds like something I have read many, many times.

And I suppose I could say something about this:

“What I don’t really agree with is your black and white view on a witness either being sane and reporting exactly what he saw or completely raving mad if he makes a mistake. Do you really think it is that cut and dried? Witnesses to events make mistakes and overdo what they see all of the time.”

Well, I hope I didn’t really make it sound that way. It’s just that the “mistakes” and “overdoing” don’t seem there with this, or with many other reports I have read. “Mistake” is saying the bear you saw weighed a ton. (I don’t think many people are that good at guessing weights; many don’t know what bears are supposed to weigh.) “Overdoing” is…well, actually, I think I just gave an example. What this guy – and other sasquatch witnesses – seems to be doing is a whole ‘nother smoke. I’m just having trouble with someone of sound mind conjuring up something like this.

So, it’s not that you’re crazy if you err. It’s just …how could a person of sound mind make anything known into something like this? And then go unflinchingly public with it, and stand by his story? Whether I’m correct or not, I have enough trouble with that concept that I don’t put it high on my list of considerations. I think you might have to toss every anecdote if you did. Which, given the nature of the evidence, it doesn’t to me seem wise to do.

I think I misunderstood your “It could be a sasquatch, I’m done” argument. I see what you mean now and that makes sense. You are right in that we could cross reference reports and get an idea from the body of reports as a whole. That process would weed out some that just don’t fit in and that could be our definition of what is tough to believe, but how do we know which things fit if we don’t know which reports to take seriously? That is why I say you have to be very careful with how far you are willing to accept anecdotal evidence. There is no bonafied benchmark sighting. There is subjectivity involved, and I suppose since we don’t know what we are looking for, we need to accept any sighting that doesn’t stretch plausibility too far. You are right that nothing in the report seems completely far fetched if we are dealing with a real animal. But note I said IF. We simply don’t know, and I am very wary of bogus reports tainting the data of good ones.

You make a good point that we cannot throw the baby out with the bath water. Of course I don’t want to do that. What I’m saying is that you also have to be very careful of not including junk with your good stuff. If there is any chance at all that this could have been a bear, that has to be considered from every angle. We simply don’t know if sasquatch exists, but we know that bears do. If that option is thrown out so readily, then you are not putting the sighting up to a rigorous analysis. The bottom line is that some features match a bear, so they have to be considered.

What you said about narrowing the field and not sending scientists out to look for sixty foot giants is exactly what I was getting at before. We agree on that one hundred percent. there has to be a point at which we pick and choose which avenues of inquiry to make.

What I don’t really agree with is your black and white view on a witness either being sane and reporting exactly what he saw or completely raving mad if he makes a mistake. Do you really think it is that cut and dried? Witnesses to events make mistakes and overdo what they see all of the time. I don’t agree that for someone to make a mistake in certain situations or exaggerate what they saw marks them as hallucinating or insane. By your argument, people are either totally accurate with what they reported, or looney, with no grey area. Completely sane people CAN make observational errors, sometimes egregious ones. What about the perfectly sane pilots that report UFOs flying next to them, or the perfectly sane people and even professionals such as cops, that have reported seeing ghosts and goblins, and all manner of things that you might not believe? I’m fairly sure many of them didn’t see those things and yet they are sane. Tiredness, fear, panic, or outright dishonesty can all play a role. Are you going to say they were all insane, or perhaps accept they might have made a mistake or been seeing things under peculiar conditions?

Sane people can lie, they can see things, and they can exaggerate. It is not so cut and dried as he is either insane or he saw exactly what he reported. The human capacity for observation is much, much more complex than that. I think it is a mistake to assume because someone is deemed sane, we can believe everything they claim to have seen. Of course that is obviously not true.

With the smoke and quadrupedal movement described, I still think bear is a candidate. I think it is wrong to discount that based on the testimony given. You mention a lot about what the case is if sasquatch exists, but have you considered the case if it doesn’t? I don’t think bear is as much of a stretch as you do, and I think you are perhaps assuming a little too much that the witness must be telling the truth because he was able to drive, as well as that sasquatch definitely exists.

That’s what we are trying to find out.

But yeah, considering we just don’t know what is going on here and there is nothing that screams that this report is bogus (unless sasquatch doesn’t exist, a possibility I think you may need to keep open more), then it needs to go into the file of possible genuine reports.

I think in many ways we actually agree on this one.

If the person isn’t of sound mind, you can’t count his report. If you decide it’s safe to presume him sane, then you have to consider what that means. I cannot see a sane person, capable of driving a car without avoiding imaginary things to hit real ones, morphing any animal known into what this guy says he saw.

Again, scientists HAVE to make calls like this. If they don’t, then with every report, we’re doing things like “if he had x-ray vision glasses and was smoking weed and using a tennis racquet to drive, this could have been a bear.” Sorry; but I think that this guy turning a bear into something like this requires a stretch like that.

Based only on what is in hand, all I can say is: if we accept his sanity, and the possibility that the sasquatch is real, then a sasquatch has to be a realistic and high-order possibility. Because he clearly describes one.

Beyond that, what can one do?

Accumulate all of these anecdotes, each one equal in weight once you’ve tossed the tough-to-accept, and proceed as I’ve outlined above. But with this particular report, nothing more, unless more comes to light.

My point is: anecdotes usually can’t be analyzed. We only have the witness’s word for it. As I noted, you have to toss any report that has earmarks of having been faked or fantastical. Are you tossing babies with bath water? How do you know? As none of these constitute anything that can be proven (they’re only leads), you are very restricted in what you can do with them.

In other words, unless this guy is grilled from numerous angles or other people who were there come forward, I’ve done all the analysis one can do, and it sounds as legitimate to me as any I’ve read.

If the conditions were really THAT smoky, the guy has an accident, period. I can conceive of no conditions so smoky that they would make a guy report a known animal as a bipedal ape (with a “simian face,” seen from 25 feet away). Normal people don’t do that, and he seems normal. (Is he? Someone would need to find that out, wouldn’t they?)

“Tough to take seriously” is a critical test for any scientist to apply. You say so yourself. The only way to treat anecdotes in a manner that doesn’t have one “throwing scientific caution out the window and accepting any reports like this at face value” is to toss anything that doesn’t sound consistent with the body of reportage. Like it or not, you HAVE to do this; and scientists do it all the time. Otherwise you wind up sending teams out looking for sixty-foot pink sasquatch in silver jumpsuits. Personally, I’d rather not. Because I think it’s a decent bet you won’t find one.

You say that ” “This could be a sasquatch, I’m done”, is not how new things get discovered or explained. It is not how we get to the truth or learn more about the natural world.”

And I couldn’t agree more. How we get to the truth is: taking tons of reports for which the conclusion “This could be a sasquatch” applies; seeing where these reports occur; matching this up with the other evidence to see what that tells us; and starting work on search protocols. What I am “done” with is the INDIVIDUAL ANECDOTE, because I can do no more with it if the witness seems to pass the (subjective) credibility test and his report seems to scan.

We make the mistake of over-analyzing here, using as our main analysis tool our absolute incredulity. Which, if the animal exists, is a prima facie mistake.

All one can say here, barring further evidence of the kind I speak of above, is: this could have been a sasquatch. And it seems a stretch to make it anything else. I could pull any single report I have read, and I can tell you that I wouldn’t be able to find one that – based only on what I can read – is more likely to be the truth than this one. They’re all anecdotes, period. (Even the followup to a report by an investigator is an anecdote, and his personal judgment. It may bring forward new detail from the witness, and it’s important to do. But we still have an anecdote.) All we can say of any anecdote – any piece of evidence, in fact, short of proof – is that it sounds consistent (as this one does) with what many other people have found and reported.

Which is all we’ve done with the best evidence we have.

The next thing that needs to happen is serious scientific attention. We won’t get anywhere analyzing what are, for the moment, people’s personal experiences. Because that’s not where the proof lies. Sooner or later, a scientist has to toss his incredulity and go where the evidence leads him.

I tend to think that the reasons people might fabricate, misidentify, make mistakes, or exaggerate with a Bigfoot sighting are the same basic reasons they would for sightings of weird phenomena like ghosts. I feel just because we know what evidence is out there for sasquatch, doesn’t mean a sasquatch sighting is automatically to be given more weight than other types of sightings simply because the person might not have seen what they claim for the same reasons I’m sure people who see ghosts didn’t actually see what they claim (no matter how reliable they seem).

I think that just because sasquatch has credible evidence pointing at it as a potentially real creature does not mean all sightings of one must be considered just more anecdotal evidence if they COULD be a sasquatch. Although WE know there is solid evidence for sasquatch, the sad fact is that many people still view it as a fantastic, improbable, or supernatural type of creature. Like I said, people claim to see far stranger things and the sasquatch is sometimes lumped with those other things in the popular imagination. People make mistakes and make stuff up with things like ghost reports, why wouldn’t that possibly happen with sasquatch? Those ghost sightings also have the same ridicule factor, so that can’t be used as an argument for the veracity of all sasquatch reports, such as the argument that “they would never come forward if they didn’t really see it” argument. The very fact that the ridicule exists in the first place is because although you may think of sasquatch as a real animal, many people don’t.

I just think if a seemingly reliable person can see, say, an alien in silver coveralls, then chances are there are similar types of people, for whatever reason, claiming to see Bigfoot who didn’t in actuality see one (even though sasquatch is more likely to be actually real based on the evidence that cryptozoologists are aware of), just like there are hoaxes.

So there are likely real reports mixed in with fantastical ones, and it might not always be easy to tell them apart. There’s a very real chance you could be throwing a lot of junk in with the potentially genuine reports if you take any report that comes in as another feather in the cap of proponents. That is not a scientific way. Each sighting has to be critically looked at just because until sasquatch is proven as a real animal, there are going to be bogus reports and over active imaginations in some people seeing, say, a bear, under certain conditions (just like mundane objects seen as alien spacecraft). It’s a fact of life in this field. Scientific objectivity and caution are very important, in my opinion.

I’d prefer any scientists pursuing this to be as sure as possible that a report is potentially legitimate before following it as a lead.