An experienced observer with a lot of years in the field could be - and apparently sometimes is - motivated to use that experience to no good end. Money and recognition have long been seen to be adequate motivation for all kinds of wrongdoing.

Most of the people seeing this ape (and yep, hairy bipedal and eight feet tall is enough ID for me! :-D) have less than no motivation to report it, from what you frequently read in their reports. Many of them were so afraid of ridicule that they were hesitant to even post, anonymously, to a website.

Even though the question, why should your sighting be different from all the rest? is still valid….maybe we should approach that question from a different angle, hmmm? If all those people are all that scared…and make the report anyway….isn’t this saying something?

If the animal isn’t known to exist, period, then I guess the question is: what makes your report different from all the other ones science doesn’t seem to have bought?

That’s the problem, I think.

I’m convinced that the Patterson film is “fuzzy” not visually, but through the CULTURAL lens through which we’re viewing it. When it “can’t” exist, it’s fuzzy. If a funded expedition had brought that film back…well, at the moment it looks better than the evidence for a certain Australian parrot.

Hate always inviting the sasquatch to these things. But he’s a great example and he looks hilarious in those pointy hats.

In 1946 a pair of gulls, common to New England, but never before seen in the state, were reported in New Jersey. In 1966, another pair of even rarer northern gulls were spotted in NJ. At the time, I’m sure they were considered an oddity, a fluke. But today, the birds of 1946, Herring Gulls, are probably the dominant form of gulls in NJ, able to outcompete any other shorebird, except perhaps for the even larger gulls of 1966, the Black-Backed Gulls, which are now common, if not overwhelmingly abundant like the Herring Gulls.

A similar example would be the Canada Geese that began staying in NJ year-round back in the 1980’s rather than migrating through. A similar trend seems to be occuring today amongst the Brant, a close relative of the Canada Goose.

The times, they are a’changin’, and unlike other animals like polar bears, birds have a greater ability to expand their ranges, unimpeded by such things as mountain ranges and large bodies of water…

Apparently some white pelicans - not normal - are wintering at Blackwater Refuge in MD for the second straight year. (Two visits and I haven’t seen them yet.) I got a preview a few Octobers ago, though - two of them, high over the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal. No chance of mistaking them; they’re as distinctive as bald eagles. Maybe more so.

A few years ago, a lake near me, in College Park, MD, had three common loons in breeding plumage - not normal - for like a month. They eventually left. But not before I saw them on several visits.

As Peterson said: Birds have wings, and they do things.