A sighting is A sighting is A sighting. The problem comes when many people, like thousands, and that’s only the ones who actually come forward and say something, with no preconceptions, are all seeing the same thing, over and over and over. (R!S!R!) NOPE, NO preconceptions. Your theory about people’s sightings “reflecting their ideas” presupposes that they had “bigfoot on the brain,” which (R!!!!!!!!!!!S!!!!!!!!!!!R!!!!!!!!!!!) most sighters most assuredly did not, as their accounts make crystal clear. (Or else, sure, mmmmmhmmm, they’re all deranged, or liars, or jokers, or deranged joker liars.)

In other words, we’re arguing past each other. I care not a fig for a sighting. (Particularly if I’m a scientist.) I go for MANY of them, forming a PATTERN that tells me there is a CONSISTENT something there, external to the viewer. Fairies, fail. Aliens, fail. Nessie, fail. (Lake monsters in general, fail.) Thunderbirds, fail. Orbs, fail. Ghosts, fail. Saquatch/yeti….BINGO.

(If anyone who’s up on any of those labeled failures knows more than me, I await enlightenment. All I can say is this: one thing has me talking hairy hominoids. The EVIDENCE.)

I keep saying this. And since I have been on this site, it has remained my mantra, my unbudgeable Bottom Line, my Golden Mean, my Fermat’s Last Theorem, my …you get the pic.

RSR. When you’re done, and I can tell you when that is if you need any guidance, hint, I ain’t done with it yet myself, give me a coherent explanation, of all of them, that makes sense in terms of all relevant topics, most specifically in terms of human behavioral and perceptual psychology. (Because if it ain’t a real animal there’s something even stranger going on.)

Or I’m not sure what we’re discussing.

(Oh, your spider. You got startled, and….never ever adjusted your understanding of what you saw…?)

I think the eyewitness issue is fascinating and not explored enough in the writings of cryptozoologists (lay and professional). Folks more knowledgeable than I, like the late Dr. John Napier, thought there had to be some credible sightings of bigfoot in all the numerous published accounts. On the other hand, studies into eyewitness accounts have cast doubts about the efficacy of such events. Many examples from my own experience in life cause me to question the total reliability of eyewitnesses.

My Sighting

I give this example of a cryptid sighting to highlight the problems with eyewitnesses. It happened to me.

On a bright summer day, I was hiking through some woods and patchy open country. It was hot and I moved from the bright sun to shade under an oak tree. As I moved from sunlight to deep shade, I walked face first into a substantial spider web. I immediately wiped the web from my face, feeling a little creepy. Then I looked straight ahead and saw the largest spider in my life, a giant garden spider. It was larger than any tarantula. Its body was at least the size of a standard lamp bulb, its legs at least six or seven inches long.

I was scared and turned and walked away as fast and far as I could. Later, I thought: “Did I really see what I thought I saw? Are there giant garden spiders unknown to science? Did I just have an encounter with something mysterious and unknown?”

Did I really see a giant spider? Or did I merely imagine it because the spider web put in my mind
the idea of a spider? Did I see an odd, truncated tree limb and think something else? Did I see a normal garden spider that I magnified in my mind? Did my eyes play tricks on me as I moved from bright sun to shade? Or is there a very large spider out there, one that I witnessed, but is unknown to science and common knowledge? Which scenario is most likely?

“How many of the sightings have seriously been investigated?”

Well, isn’t that the problem? (Yes.) It certainly doesn’t take anything away from them. If by “seriously” you mean by mainstream scientists, isn’t that shame on them? (Yes.) If you just mean by intelligent people who have a good grasp of what they’re doing, some of whom just happen to be in clearly relevant fields (and actually some of them ARE mainstream scientists), MANY sightings have been seriously investigated. Many are debunked (by proponents, I should note, not by “skeptics.”) Many, many remain that, well, haven’t been.

“If sightings are supremely important, then why do so many folk discount fairies, ghosts, aliens, and so on, all entities with far larger catalogs of sightings than bigfoot.”

A read of the catalogs for each might supply the answer to that question. (If you could even point to a serious database for the others, of which there are several for the sasquatch.)

” (The rejoinder to this statement is usually of the “but bigfoot sightings are more consistent” than alien sightings, for instance. Well, this rejoinder is not strictly true; most people have a general idea of what a bigfoot looks like and their sightings reflect their ideas. And, anyway, a sighting is a sighting is a sighting, be it of a bigfoot or a dead Elvis).”

Um, heh, not really. All sightings are NOT created equal. It’s what’s being seen and who is seeing it - and their willingness to stand by it. How many scientists are willing to vouch for dead Elvis sightings? Several wildlife biologists and physical anthropologists will vouch for the sas, publicly. And the consistency has nothing to do with a “general idea” of what the sas looks like. Legions of details of physique, diet and behavior - very few of which appear, at all, in the public image of Bigfoot - show up time and time and time again in the sas data.

Why do folks keep coming on here with stuff like this, when all they have to do is read and get educated? Just wondering there. Anyone who wants to point me to the reality of fairies and ghosts and goblinsBOO! SCARED YA! please go ahead. I’m ready. Just point me there. But first, let me point YOU:

texasbigfoot.org
bfro.net.

R!S!R!

Nessie sightings, as opposed to bigfoot sightings, are suspect because there are multiple effects on water that mimic “monster” sightings. All one needs to add to the mix is a belief in lake monsters (or an active imagination) to transform an ambiguous event into a “monster” sighting report. To suggest that “lake monster” sightings should harbor our concern, and even doubt, is not an outrageous position to take.

Bigfoot sightings are of a different type. I am doubtful that people are having clear views of bears and mistaking them for ape men. Certainly, the Roe account can not be one of mistaken identity (either Roe saw what he said he saw, or else a hoax was perpetrated).

Yet, doubt can and should persist in dealing even with the heavily “documented” bigfoot sightings. How many of the sightings have seriously been investigated? If sightings are supremely important, then why do so many folk discount fairies, ghosts, aliens, and so on, all entities with far larger catalogs of sightings than bigfoot. (The rejoinder to this statement is usually of the “but bigfoot sightings are more consistent” than alien sightings, for instance. Well, this rejoinder is not strictly true; most people have a general idea of what a bigfoot looks like and their sightings reflect their ideas. And, anyway, a sighting is a sighting is a sighting, be it of a bigfoot or a dead Elvis).

Getting back to Dr. Rines. His underwater pictures, not enhanced, do not appear to be of an animal at all. Look at the above photos again. If these photos had been just recently released and made their debut at Cryptomundo, most folks here would probably dismiss them out of hand.How do Rines’ advocates reconcile the “head” photo with the “body and neck” photo (to present only one problem). I think the only reason his photos are defended now: they have become part of the Ness lore, virtually doctrinal.

I wrote: “Anyone who knows anything about psychology and human perception knows, with absolute certainty, …..[that i]t is not only possible, but indeed extremely likely, that many people in North America have seen an uncatalogued species of ape, and convinced themselves it’s just a bear…”

Well, of course not. Let’s not get carried away. All kinds of experts can get poopooh off-the-cuff dismissive; I’m sure that most psychologists would scoff at most cryptids.

What I MEANT to say is that “anyone who knows anything about psychology and human perception knows” that when you see something, you don’t make a leap - wishful or otherwise - into the unknown. You attempt to categorize it in terms of what you know. You are NOT going to see a bear and go, APE! Not if you are functioning according to the norms of our species, you aren’t. If you see an ape in a place you are not supposed to see one, you are going to make damn sure it’s an ape before you go yapping to someone about it. And if it’s an inconclusive glimpse? Your conclusion will be, bear.

Unless, of course, you want to deliberately mislead. And given what happens, generally, to folks who go tell their friends they saw Something Everyone Knows Doesn’t Exist, I think it’s unlikely, in the extreme, that anyone will do that, in person, to folks they know.

On websites looking for reports, where one can report anonymously? Sure, there are probably tons. (BFRO says they dump over 80% of what they get.) But that still leaves way too many for a conventional explanation - or any combination, permutation, or concatenation of reasonable conventional explanations - to cover. Take the word of someone who reads them. Or look yourself.

THAT’S what I meant.

See what happens to us reasonable people when blockheaded obstructionist thinking gets to us?

Couldn’t agree more, gavinfundyk. It is, in fact, wishful thinking, this automatic-debunk mode scientists tend to get in when things they don’t acknowledge are under discussion.

Anyone who knows anything about psychology and human perception knows, with absolute certainty, two things. (I’m using my favorite example.)

1. It is virtually impossible for a sane, functioning person in North America to see a bear, or any other known North American animal, and think it’s an ape. Much less be CONVINCED that it’s an ape, to the extent that the person REPORTS IT as an ape to people that the person knows will reply: you are a nut!

2. It is not only possible, but indeed extremely likely, that many people in North America have seen an uncatalogued species of ape, and convinced themselves it’s just a bear. (pleasepleasepleasepleaseMAKEitbeabear….)

PEOPLE SEE, FOR THE MOST PART, EXACTLY WHAT THEY THINK THEY DO. The concept of “seeing things” has been expanded, by ignorant laymen and by scientists practicing wishful thinking, far beyond anything that the study of human psychology and visual faculties supports. PEOPLE DO NOT SEE THINGS! Not unless they are (a) mentally ill; (b) physically and psychologically impaired; or (c) momentarily deceived (which they virtually always, almost automatically, correct upon further review).

And yes, I forgot (d) liars and (e) pranksters.

To say that every cryptid sighting is one of the above, and now we’re done with that discussion, is, well, it’s absolutely a flight of fancy. “Wishful thinking,” as it were.

Scientists, well, they need to stop doing that. It’s RESPECT we’re talking about here. Our respect for them, I mean. They gotta stop the harebrain stuff and stick to the science, you know?

Are there other explanations for certain sightings? Of course, and that has been shown by many over the years. Especially by those searching for Nessie.

And the “eyewitness testimony is wishful thinking” comment has been bandied about for a long time. But all scientific evidence has to be “seen” to be considered. The idea that eyewitness testimony is unacceptable on its face is the scientific community’s way of ignoring evidence that doesn’t fit pre-conceived notions.