I just try out the reverse reasoning sometimes, and imagine how out of this world weird the orang and gibbon would seem if we had confirmed the sasquatch and yeti first.

You make good points, although I think “ability to remain undiscovered” might owe more to another ape’s astonishing propensity for seeing things as it wants to rather than as they are.

But, yeah, could the skeptics please stop talking about all the money to be made from an animal no one believes if you say you saw one?

I know why Patterson did what he did, wrong or no: he was incredulous at the reaction his film got, and decided to manufacture some credibility. Which, yeah, just saying it tells you what a good idea it was.

If sasquatch are indeed real, and are even apes at all (I don’t think we can say with any certainty), then they are a very unique type of ape. Completely bipedal like humans, larger than any known living ape, and living in North America, which is not known to harbor apes in the first place. There are no known living examples of apes in North America or animals related to something like a sasquatch, and no solid fossil records of such creatures (although you know I don’t think that means they don’t exist), let alone one that does all of the things sasquatch can purportedly do. Also, the sasquatch would be unique among apes and in fact primates in general in that it inhabits temperate zones. If the sasquatch is real, its apparent range would encompass the most northern known habitat of any primate (other than man, of course), a record currently held by the Japanese macaque.

This isn’t even all of the things I am considering, but you get the picture that there are quite a a few things that I think stand out here. These are all points that when taken together would make the sasquatch a very unique, extraordinary, and paradigm busting animal indeed. This is why finding sasquatch (or perhaps more accurately, proving it) would be such a groundbreaking discovery for biology and zoology. There would be some serious re-thinks and shifting of paradigms with regards to what we think we know.

This is where I think ridicule comes in, because the sasquatch is so far outside of the percieved norms of what to expect in an ape or within wildlife in North America. All things considered, I don’t think the orangutan or gibbon are really as bizarre as the sasquatch seems to be, and this is bound to raise some eyebrows.

It has been discussed again and again here that, no, as far as biology is concerned no one thing about the sasquatch is IMPOSSIBLE. The bipedalism, range, size, ability to remain undiscovered, and other prominent characteristics all have a possible basis in science. Such properties are all plausible to a degree, but when taking in all of the characteristics present, it is hard to deny that sasquatch certainly would be extraordinary when compared to the precedents we have and the living apes we see today.

So is sasquatch at least theoretically possible? Yes. JUST another ape? I don’t really think so. Of course there are unique species among apes and I don’t think ANY of them are just another ape, but I do think that sasquatch would be something pretty special.

You said- “Why the shyness about cashing in…? Hmmmmm….CONSPIRACY!!! Well, good point; Patterson died rich rich rich!”

This is a great point. I think most people in the field of bigfootery could tell you that this is not exactly an area to pursue if getting rich is your desire. Even the tops of the field who publish extensively, such as Loren, aren’t raking in the cash. For anyone to say that Bigfoot is a cash cow, well, that’s just obviously not true. This is not a goldmine for anyone here. Second of all, it doesn’t matter because the people within cryptozoology, those out there doing the research and the fieldwork, do this out of passion rather than a desire for financial gain.

In fact, I’d say the only people who are making any serious money off of Bigfoot are the ones spectacularly hoaxing it. Those who are out to decieve rather than truly enlighten are seeing the biggest monetary gains. It is unfortunate that the people making the most money off of the field of cryptozoology seem to be the ones that are showing the least respect for the work others are trying to do and holding it back from becoming a respected, legitimate science.

Maybe I’m worng and there are respected, dedicated cryptozoologists making loads of cash, but I don’t know of any.

So yeah, saying that Bigfoot is a goldmine is pretty silly.

“Gimlin suffered considerable ridicule for telling his tale. His wife almost divorced him. Maybe it was fear of public MOCKERY that kept him from speaking out more all those years???”

Exactly. That’s the most logical and immediately self-evident explanation, because as we all know, ridicule and sasquatch go together like snow and winter.

The most inexplicable plank in the platform of the “bigfoot skeptics” is the one that goes: Bigfoot is a gold mine. Why the shyness about cashing in…? Hmmmmm….CONSPIRACY!!! Well, good point; Patterson died rich rich rich!

Um, no. One gets sick of being made fun of. That extraordinarily simple. Hey, extraordinary claims, extraordinary evidence. Besides, what is so extraordinary about this animal that lots and lots of people see? (Sounds like a plain ol’ ape to me. The gibbon? Now that’s weird. I want proof on that one. And the orangutan? No WAY something that big lives in THE TOPS OF TREES. Come ON here. What kind of fool do you think I am? An ape that big should be on the ground, and bipedal. Like, you know, us. Talk about weird.)

“Bigfoot skeptics” is an intentional pejorative, hence the quotes. (Plus one gets tired of “scoftic” occasionally, despite its handiness and summing-up quality, and wants to try something else.) “Bigfoot skeptics” aren’t skeptical at all; anything that furthers their non-case, they swallow hook line sinker rod and fisherman. If you really listen to them, credulous conspiracy theorists is more how they come off.

Meet Gimlin and you know the likelihood this sucker got faked. As in, don’t bet it.

(Who would go to all this ridiculous trouble to fake an APE?)

No, it’s more a matter of “fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me”.

Gimlin suffered considerable ridicule for telling his tale. His wife almost divorced him .Maybe it was fear of public MOCKERY that kept him from speaking out more all those years???

Alanborky: Great tale. And sadly, all too true.

And of course the skeptics – still looking for their first piece of evidence that their loony conspiracy theory of hominology holds water – will be all over this one.

I’m still with Dahinden: what’s on the film?

No one’s come up with a dot of evidence pointing to anything other than 100% authenticity; the tracks lifted from the site are as valid as any found anywhere; and that’s where it is, until the animal is confirmed. At least we can safely presume that, given the skeptics’ success so far.

Patterson’s slip-up can be easily understood: he couldn’t believe the across-the-board dismissal of the film effectively without analysis. He almost certainly had some sort of profit in mind; and this was his way of manufacturing the credibility he should never have been denied in the first place. Anybody who dwells on this, beyond tsk-tsk (and yes it was a rotten thing to do) is grasping at straws, which a true skeptic should never do but “bigfoot skeptics” seem exceedingly good at.

Korollocke: “The prints look like they were pressed straight down and then lifted straight up; what walks like that?”

Um, I do, lots of people do, practically everyone on earth in fact, most of the time, and tracks look like that unless the striding foot pulls through the substrate to leave drag marks, which usually doesn’t happen unless you are exhausted or the substrate (e.g. snow) is deep. Most tracks I have seen – and you don’t want to compare tracks seen with me – are “pressed straight down and then lifted straight up,” no matter what makes them. Drag marks happen frequently, but they simply aren’t in most tracks.

OK. What’s on the film?

Sorry about that, Bob. Durn shame. It is the easiest thing in the world for me to understand, with what he’s had to endure, why it took him so long to start showing up at squatchfests. I might have quit them entirely, for life, if I were him.

A Number of other Islamic scholars demanded he be put on trial and proceeded to hammer him from every angle with questions intended to convict him as a heretic.

When he answered everything they threw at him, their leader said, “If you have had any confidence in your arguments and been a true scholar, like us, you’d've set them down in a series of learned tomes, extensively quoting your references, thus allowing us to take them away to critique at length.”

“As it happens, gentlemen…” said the Sufi, clapping his hands, “Here is precisely what you demand,” whereupon his students filed in and set down countless hundreds of documents. “The small pile is a faithful record of what I teach my students, the other considerably larger pile is of all the authorities of Islam I use to source those teachings.”

The committee’s leader now triumphantly proclaimed, “Ha! The very fact you felt the need to so extensively quote others to justify your position proves you have no confidence whatsoever in what you teach!”

Or, as Bart Simpson would say, “You’re damned if you do, and you’re damned if you don’t…”