Dr. John Bindernagel Kicks Off Falcon Project Conference
Posted by: Guy Edwards on June 22nd, 2013
Dr. John Bindernagel starts his presentation with a series of Bigfoot eyewitness illustrations spanning several years and locations Many if the similarities are uncanny; lack of neck, broad shoulders and hanging hair in triceps area.
Below is an excerpt from Dr. John Bindernagel’s Wikipedia page.
John A. Bindernagel (born 1941) is a wildlife biologist who has sought evidence for Bigfoot since 1963.[1][2] He published a book in 1998 entitled North America’s Great Ape: the Sasquatch (ISBN 0-9682887-0-7).[3]
Bindernagel grew up in Ontario, attended the University of Guelph,[4] and received a PhD from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.[5] He moved to British Columbia in 1975[6] largely because the region was a hot spot for Bigfoot sightings.[4] Over the years, he has collected casts of tracks that he believes belongs to Bigfoot. He also claims to have heard the creature near Comox Lake in 1992, comparing its whooping sound to that of a chimpanzee.[7] Bindernagel believes that the Bigfoot phenomena should receive more attention from serious scientists, but has remarked, “The evidence doesn’t get scrutinized objectively. We can’t bring the evidence to our colleagues because it’s perceived as tabloid.”[8]
About Guy Edwards
Psychology reduces to biology, all biology to chemistry, chemistry to physics, and finally physics to mathematical logic.
Guy Edwards is host of the Portland, OR event HopsSquatch.com.
Lots of people address the fringe proponents.
No one addresses guys like this.
Telling.
Yeah. “Chimanzee” is telling in of of itself. BAH! Another charlatan with an ape to grind.
A Chimp Expert, is he?
“Guys like this” DWA? Because he is among the few professionals who put stock in sasquatch I’m supposed to take his word for it? At the end of the day John Bindernagel brings nothing new to the debate except maybe his PhD. He is a wildlife biologist but when I Google his name everything that comes up is bigfoot related, what work has he done outside of sasquatch? If any, why can’t I find it? You stand on the shoulders of people like Bindernagel because they are professionals who believe, but just because your cause has a couple of high profile supporters that does not mean it validates your cause when they don’t have any additional evidence to back it up. At the end of the day your evidence remains the same, no matter who supports it. I really don’t know what Bindernagel knows about wildlife biology, I would hope a great deal given his education but alas, all he talks about is bigfoot. What am I supposed to compare that too?
There are fringe proponents in every field. If you’re familiar with the subject of bird evolution you may know who Alan Feduccia is. He is one of the very VERY few people who does not support the widely accepted notion that birds evolved from dinosaurs and uses bad science to try to back up his argument. Should I follow in his lead because he has a PhD? No, because his science is bull.
So you can listen all you want to Bindernagel but I would rather stand behind the likes of Dr. Todd Disotell (anthropologist), Dr. Don Prothero (mammalian paleontologist) and Dr. Darren Naish (vertebrate palaeontologist) among others. You can dismiss all of them and other skeptics if you like but at least at the end of the day they’ve done REAL work in their respective fields that I can look at and evaluate. The same cannot be said for Bindernagel, at least not to my knowledge.
At the end of the day, all we need is one single bone. Sightings and tracks don’t cut it. Blurry videos don’t cut it. Anyone who wants to see sasquatch properly described and accepted by science needs to simply walk around in the forest until they find just one bone, any bone will do. The fact that this has not happened and no one seems to be looking for them is very telling itself. Sasquatch can run and hide but its bones cannot.
Maz: go home, take two of something and stop the silly rants.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: your arguments aren’t. Now read UP. Then we’ll talk.
OH, Naish! Who thinks P/G is likely authentic. Either you ARE reading, or you AREN’T…if the rest of you know what I mean. 😉
While we are on bad science: there is no lower-return strategy than to look for the bones and teeth of something people are seeing in the flesh. But folks who go outside can tell you that. 😉
Maz:
There. Read SOMETHING. He’s your buddy. Might help.
Your buddy here would tell you to can it with the ill-informed knee-jerk negativity to this subject.
Oh look. I just quoted him.
Punk’d.
DWA, I’m just telling this fine community why I don’t put my stock in Bindernagel like you do. Like I’ve said before, don’t do me any favors, I already know there is nothing useful to learn from you. I’m not going to read Bindernagel’s $50 books on an animal that I feel very certain does not exist. His PhD does not impress me, in the end he is no different from other bigfoot proponents. He brings no evidence to the table. I’ve listened to enough of his talks to know this.
As for Naish, either you are reading or you aren’t. Listen to his recent Tetrapod Zoology podcast where he discusses bigfoot evidence for 98 minutes. He says that prior to the 1950’s the general consensus was that sasquatch was a wild man or lost tribe of natives. Humans, not apes. Patterson appears to have drawn inspiration for his bigfoot on the drawing by William Rowe’s daughter (a drawing identical to Patty) from 1955, what Naish says is the most detailed sasquatch sighting to date at the time. The drawing is identical to Patty and Patterson used it to design his costume. Naish says that there do not appear to be any eyewitness accounts before the 1950’s that describe sasquatch as we know it today, they all describe it as “first nations people”. After the Patterson film, they all become apes. I tried telling you all this before but you laughed it all off and told me I didn’t know what I was talking about. Listen to that podcast, that is my source. Tell Naish he does not know what he is talking about.
Naish goes on to talk about Greg Long’s book “The Making of Sasquatch” which you won’t read because it will counter your near-religious beliefs and discusses Bob Hieronimus. Bob Hieronimus matches closely Patty’s proportions and claims to have been the man in the suit. I’m not saying I believe him but he did in fact know Patterson and Gimlin and as Naish points out “participated in their adventures and features in one of the films Patterson made”. That in itself is awfully telling. Greg Long calls out Patterson’s questionable character and how he was big on “get rich schemes”. Also telling.
So…read up! Or listen up. Really, I mean it, listen to that podcast. Basically Naish says that while sasquatch evidence was compelling a few years back, recently some of the best evidence has “fallen away”. He says and I quote “my opinion in 2006 was rather different than it is now”. He discusses (and discounts) the dermal ridge evidence, Skookum cast and the Patterson film. He even mentions John Bindernagel so you’ll love it.
Looking for bones is a low return strategy? You’re right, it is far better to use our time scrutinizing blurry films and eyewitness accounts that will ultimately lead to nothing. If you took everyone working on finding sasquatch and walked the Pacific northwest you really should find something that would end this. If not an actual animal, than remains or a dead one. I’ve found skeletal material for nearly every mid-sized or large animal in my home state (except bigfoot), don’t tell me looking for bones is a low return strategy. Yup, your methods for finding this thing have really been paying off. Don’t talk to me about bad science, you’re entire argument rests on bad science.
Greg Long’s book is a screed, a screech, and low on facts and evidence. It reads like a jealous rant. Patterson’s character is a non-starter resorted to by people who have already decided what they think and bring no curiosity to this topic whatever.
Nope, it’s by reading the “skeptics” that I know they’re neither skeptical, nor worth much of my time.
Naish is considering all angles, at least. Like most, he’s wrong on some stuff. But he’s right on P/G.
Scientists look for living animals by looking for living animals. Just how it’s done.
Oh and I need to add:
Anyone who takes Bob Hieronymous’s claims seriously has pitched any claim to my attention. It’s more patently absurd than Interdimensional Bigfeet Saucer Pilots. By a lot.
And when I say Naish is wrong on some stuff:
“Naish says that there do not appear to be any eyewitness accounts before the 1950′s that describe sasquatch as we know it today, they all describe it as “first nations people”. After the Patterson film, they all become apes.”
No statement regarding this topic can be more swiftly or conclusively disproven. It’s flat wrong.
READ.
Going with personalities, and Flat Wrong Stuff, and not considering the evidence? The essence of bad science. You have much to learn, grasshopper.
LOL at your last one there DWA. Thanks for posting that seven year old blog post I’ve already read. Maybe listen to that podcast I told you about, something a bit more recent and more reflective of Naish’s CURRENT position on the creature. Again I quote Naish…“my opinion in 2006 was rather different than it is now”.
Punked? LOL!
Yeah yeah, you can dismiss Greg Long. I won’t hold that against you seeing as how I’ll freely dismiss Bindernagel. Given your position on the topic I’m not surprised to say the least. You mention his book being “low on facts and evidence”…I find that funny given what we’re discussing here.
Your remark on Bob Hieronymous’s claim. That couldn’t have been directed at me because I already stated I don’t necessarily believe it but given his bodily proportions and relationship to Patterson I at the moment don’t see a reason to flat out dismiss him.
I’m not “going with personalities”. The only reason I mention these people is because of your love for bigfoot personalities like Bindernagel, Krantz and Meldrum. I find the work done by the skeptics more convincing then theirs and I already stated why in my first post. It was Grover Krantz who said people don’t find bear bones in the forest right? And that bigfoot evolved from Gigantopithecus? Sorry, I cannot take that stuff seriously.
I’ve considered the evidence and had you asked me a decade ago if I thought sasquatch was real I would have told you “yes”. I may even have pro-bigfoot posts on this blog. I don’t anymore, for a variety of reasons. I watched “Sasquatch: Legend meets Science” and was utterly convinced, enough to buy and read Meldrum’s book. The evidence from that book no longer holds up and my opinion has changed, much like Naish’s seems to have. It happens, it is what critical thinking and reasoning does to a person. Maybe someday it will happen to you too. I don’t know how long it will take but someday you may just say to yourself “wow, the evidence for sasquatch is not where it should be, perhaps it is not a real animal”.
All I said about Naish was: he gets some stuff right and some stuff wrong.
I posted where he got it right. The changes in his position are based on stuff he obviously got wrong, as those of us who read and think about P/G can see pretty clearly. Meldrum and Krantz made mistakes too.
It’s never critical thinking when it assumes what it wants to conclude at the beginning. I’m still waiting for the first support for your stance that holds water.
But don’t feel bad. You and the scientific mainstream are on the same low-info island. Happens, is all.
And as I’ve said on another blog today: the first clue that somebody like Long doesn’t have a good answer for P/G is a personal attack on the people involved. Bill Munns doesn’t touch anybody’s character; he just shows how a fake of Patty is so unlikely as to be beneath serious consideration.
(Never mind that researchers in OK are seeing animals the spitting image of Patty, as we speak.)
“It’s never critical thinking when it assumes what it wants to conclude at the beginning.”
That is not the case with me if you’re saying what I think you’re saying. I’ve already stated many times that I was once pro-sasquatch. It was not until recently…2010 or so that I decided otherwise. Honestly it was a bit painful to admit to myself because I would be trilled if sasquatch was found to be a real animal. I would gladly search for the thing if the opportunity presented itself. I’m very pro-biodiversity. So if you’re saying that I have a thought process that decided what I think of the issue before I even gain knowledge about it…you’re wrong. I believe I stated as much in every discussion we’ve had. I’m skeptical by nature but I’m more open minded than you might think, or I wouldn’t be here.
“Never mind that researchers in OK are seeing animals the spitting image of Patty, as we speak.”
That does not surprise me really. Everyone has seen animals that look like Patty since the Patterson film was made public. Do these researchers have any intention of bringing us the hard evidence we need to finally end this?
“I posted where he got it right. The changes in his position are based on stuff he obviously got wrong, as those of us who read and think about P/G can see pretty clearly. Meldrum and Krantz made mistakes too.”
One more thing…this. Did you listen to the podcast? You’re saying he is obviously wrong but I don’t see how and I’m familiar with the pro-sasquatch camps stance on dermal ridges, the Skookum cast and Patty. It is actually far easier to find material that supports sasquatch online than it is material from the skeptics. It sounds to me like Skookum was clearly made by an elk. The dermal ridge creation as a result of the casting process seems legit to me too. Patty is still up in the air but for all those who think it is real there are just as many who think it is not and after this many decades there really is not much new to glean from it. It could be real, I will admit that but it cannot prove the existence of this creature. I certainly cannot prove it is not real but one compelling film by a questionable character that could be fake, hardly cuts it when hard evidence is lacking on a large mammal that spans the globe (I’ve already mentioned that). So basically what I’m saying is…I don’t see how Darren Naish, a well respected man of his field got any of this “obviously wrong”. I wonder if you’re saying this as a critical thinker or just a believer who refuses to accept evidence counter to his position.
As far as the sightings are concerned, you can find out about Operation Relentless here.
Having met and talked to those guys I can tell you that if you saw Alton Higgins across a Wal-Mart parking lot, “scientist” is what you’d think, and the impression only deepens when you talk to him. They’re talking about what they’re seeing, and I don’t see any reason (a) that they shouldn’t or (b) why I should doubt them. No veiled-proof stuff; no pay-to-see BS; nothing but observations, reading which can help one understand that to a society pretty much in denial about this, proof will be problematical. They’re working on it and I’m willing to wait.
If Naish says that all sightings prior to Patterson were of “humans” or “First Nations” or non-ape equivalents, there are more than enough accounts of turn-of- 20th-century sightings to debunk that. “Veritable gorillas” isn’t describing people. And even leaving a crack open for the Hieronymous Theory is, frankly, credulous beyond my usual standard. He can’t keep his own story straight.
If Naish has changed his mind such that “Frame 352, And All That” is no longer relevant to what he thinks, then he’s basing it (and it reads clearly as if he is) based on stuff I can readily discount. If there’s as little evidence as there is – none – that this was faked, my eyes work for me; and that ain’t an ape suit.
I’ve read many skeptics who believed sasquatch was real until such-and-such a date. In every case, it’s that proof wasn’t happening on their schedule. In science, it frequently doesn’t. While I’m as open as anybody to being shown I’m wrong, the evidence indicates I’m not; and the day it indicates otherwise will be the day I change my mind. Nobody is showing me anything prompting me to conclude that thousands of witnesses to these animals and their tracks are wrong; and against that, my personal experience of not having seen one means nothing to me.
“It sounds to me like Skookum was clearly made by an elk.”
Well, it looks to me like this guy didn’t agree with that.
…and until his opinion is debunked, and somebody finds the elk tracks where they would have to be for that elk to stand up, let’s just say I remain skeptical of the ‘elk’ conclusion.
So, I’m not sure I understand. I frequently hear bigfoot proponents stating that bigfoot has not been described because scientists are not looking for it. I find this argument somewhat strange because as you’re pointing out with NAWAC and other organizations like it, people (including some scientists) are indeed looking for it. I can understand them coming up empty handed initially but the search for bigfoot seems to have been ongoing for quite some time. Despite this, and the animal’s global distribution (I’m talking about all the unknown upright primates here), nothing comes up. The best evidence is compelling and interesting but honestly it is not where it should be.
You say society is pretty much in denial about bigfoot but isn’t it something like 30% of the population that believes bigfoot exists? That is a bit more than a society in denial. What is 30% of 313.9 million? Heck, something like 46% of the population doesn’t even believe in evolution!
That NAWAC site mentions 3000 bigfoot reports over 150 years. That is quite a number, I can see why you believe. But that same number you see as evidence, I see as counter evidence. Over 3000 people have seen this thing and none had anything more than an interesting story? Footprint cast? Questionable hair sample? Blurry video? What is the mathematical probability of that? Lets say we took 3000 people that have encountered cougars over the last 150 years, how many of them can we expect would have some kind of evidence to back up their claim? How many would have taken a clear photograph? Gathered hard evidence? How about myself? I live in central NY, How many local species have I seen? How many have I photographed? Collected material from? I’ve seen most of the local animal species that weigh a pound or more (and many smaller animals too). I have seen bald eagles about a dozen times give or take. I’ve managed one good, clear photograph of one. I’ve never photographed a fox but I’ve seen many, some dead, I have a skull from one. I’ve seen 4 coyotes and again, I’ve never photographed one but I have a skull from one of those too. Black bears are fairly new to the area, having returned after being extirpated. I have yet to see one but I have seen tracks and evidence of dumpster foraging. Still, though I have not seen one I have seen the photographic evidence that black bears have returned to central NY within the last few years. There is now a season for them.
I’m not sure where all this is going but I think I’m illustrating my point. I am one person who has seen 12 or so bald eagles, about a dozen or so foxes, 4 coyotes. I have good photographic or hard evidence that I have collected that they all live in my state. I’m no scientist, I’m an “uneducated” nature enthusiast. 3000 eyewitnesses couldn’t do this for sasquatch? All the organizations looking for it?
You say science does not follow a schedule. I agree with you there, but this issue does not rest entirely on the shoulders of science. Like all animals, sasquatch would make itself known regardless how science felt about it. We didn’t need science to discover the cougar, elk or bighorn sheep because…they’re there. We can see them, interact with them, kill them, eat them, look at them alive, find them dead just like me and my eagles, foxes and coyotes. I know you’ll tell me this happens everyday with bigfoot but still, no one brings back the hard evidence. Just more of the same interesting accounts but nothing to prove this animal is actually out there. If I have a family of raccoons living outside my house, I know about it. I may even take their picture or setup a camera trap and I guarantee I will come up with some proof that they’re living there. I’m no scientist but if pressed, I can bring you evidence of what lives outside my house, even if I have to shoot and kill it. Given it’s distribution, sasquatch is more widespread than raccoons and a bit larger too. I realize raccoons are a different sort of creature from sasquatch but I’m just using them as an example. Even “wilderness” species like cougars, elk and brown bear make themselves known and frequently end up in our towns or garbage dumps. I’m sorry but the “science does not work on a schedule” argument just comes across as a poor excuse. It is because of science (and math) that I can say… “because we don’t have the hard evidence to support a globally distributed primate population, it is likely not there at all”. I’m no scientist but that seems to me like a scientific conclusion. I can think of no known examples in the animal kingdom where such a wildly distributed and frequently encountered large animal has survived so long without basically proving to us itself (without our help or our science) that it is in fact there. Animals don’t care about science, if they’re there, they’re there.
I’m going to bring up the saola because it is one of those darlings of cryptozoology. The saola was only recently described by western science as I’m sure you’re aware but though it has been described, it has never to the best of my knowledge been observed in the wild. It was described using skeletal material as a reference. They’ve been caught in snares and traps, killed by locals, eaten no doubt, and photographed on camera traps. One was even caught alive and yet no scientist has observed a wild specimen. How is it that an ape can survive in 21st century North America and elsewhere, is seen by everyone, yet that same evidence that exists for the rare saola does not exist for it? I find that baffling and science be damned…it stretches credulity. I can believe that an unknown ape can survive in places like the Pacific northwest, remote places like where the saola was found, but I cannot bring myself to believe it lives in the lower 48. Jane Goodall herself could tell me she saw one in Central Park but without the evidence, I cannot simply take her for her word and say “Jane Goodall saw it, it must exist”.
As for the Patterson film. It stands as the only good evidence because you’re right, it does look like a real animal. Still, it is the only good photographic evidence out there. We have nothing to compare it to. If someone can bring another film forward that is equally good and shows us an animal similar to Patty that would go a long way towards making the case for bigfoot even without hard evidence. No one has done it. I’ve seen all the other bigfoot films out there, none even come close. The Patty film is intriguing but that is about it. It looks like a real animal but with nothing to compare it to, who can truly say? In the absence of other good evidence it remains compelling but not convincing.
Before you take this post (or me) apart I would like to express gratitude that this discussion has remained civil and productive. Despite what I may say above I do find myself on occasion telling myself this animal could be real. You may have played a part in that.
Well, I’m not going to reply to all that in one post. I’ll take pieces and respond at leisure as it’s worth doing.
I’m glad this has stayed civil too. I didn’t think things were going too well with us at one point. I much prefer this.
First something general.
What I call “primary incredulity” is pretty high regarding sasquatch. With me too. When I first read about P/G and the associated evidence – in a mainstream publication, as sometimes, more than now, happened in the sixties – I read a balanced case, that made the animal plausible. I thought that way until, sometime in the mid-80s, I read that sightings came from every state but Hawaii. My first thought: crap. It’s UFOs. Not Bigfeet Saucer Pilots, but people either off their meds or making stuff up or turning an airplane/bear into a UFO/sasquatch.
Can’t remember exactly when that changed. But it might have been when my wife-to-be and I found tracks, in a more-godforsaken-part-of-CA-there-couldn’t-be. That a hoaxer just left those faded tracks in an area where we saw no humans in one of the most no-rain-no-clouds beautiful weeks I ever spent outside – we weren’t on a current road or trail when we found them, in a decades-old logging-roadbed-to-nowhere – seemed too much to just accept.
The change seems to have had more to do, though, with the BFRO. Not “Finding Bigfoot,” but that database. Anyone reasonably competent can manage a database; and those reports – one could tell by reading them – were coming not only from all over the country but all over the socioeconomic spectrum. And they were just as consistent and just as compelling as anything coming out of the Pacific NW. The people were seeing them that one would expect to: people spending a lot of time outdoors; people driving remote roads; people in houses backing right up on country made-to-order for a large wild omnivore. Fine details of primate anatomy and behavior, generally known only to experts, were being described by people with no experience with wild primates. Except for this.
Then NAWAC (nee TBRC) put its reports up. No overlap …but they read just the same. The sightings were in the same one-would-expect places by the same one-would-expect people. To those who can’t understand this I can only say: consistency is something you feel, not something that translates to someone who hasn’t read the reports. They had the same bootsole authenticity as the BFRO reports; they were describing the same thing.
Then I read Bindernagel’s books, and J. Robert Alley’s. They were consistently describing the same thing; the people one would expect were, again, having encounters in the places one would expect. Copycatting wasn’t happening; people just aren’t in my experience that good. And that folks were comparing notes, or independently wildcat lying or hoaxing or suffering from bad meds, seemed to me, and still does, way less likely than the animal.
The wall-of-groupthink coming from the scientific community, too, smells very familiar. It’s happened in science before, many times. Scientists may seem like a big diverse group, but they behave more like a small club of people who know each other a bit too well. Publish or perish, indeed; and what happens to my reputation if I get close to sniffing distance of publishing this? It’s not hard, at all, for me to see why we are where we are. When something is a priori seen not to be real…well, how many are gonna buck that tide? I give Bindernagel and Meldrum major kudos for publishing their real names and photos.
So I can’t get to secondary incredulity on this. That has to be backed by evidence that I’m wrong about what’s actually happening. But to me, the evidence so far says that I’m not wrong. I have to curb my primary incredulity as long as the evidence tells me that.
And all I have seen from skeptics is basically asking me to believe something for which I’d have to chuck most of what I know, not just about this but about all topics associated with it.
I can’t “believe in” anything. Evolution? What a hoot. God Blinking It All Into Existence is a much easier sell…except that evolution has all the evidence.
A note about saola:
Yeah, weird. So maybe not so weird that almost the precise opposite thing is happening with sasquatch: loads of sightings; loads of footprints; and other than one film and a slew of unclear photos, some of which may be of something interesting, pretty much nothing else.
I mean, allegations of all kinds of stuff – everything from hair and feces to bones and blood – are out there. But nobody’s holding anything that we can say yup, that’s it.
I guess if the situation with saola can be happening, the one with sasquatch can too.
With saola, scientists had hard evidence in hand that told them there was something out there to find. With sasquatch, well, footprints are close but no cigar.
Unless an update is happening while I type, still no scientist has seen a wild saola in the flesh.
Scientists have seen sasquatch though. At least some of them say that.
And about this:
“3000 eyewitnesses couldn’t do this for sasquatch? All the organizations looking for it?”
The eyewitnesses, no. Guaranteed, if I see a sasquatch tomorrow, it will be a long time if ever before anyone (other than maybe a database or two) will find out. History says I am in good (and numerous) company. Such is what science and the media should expect when they react as they do. Besides which I have never read an account by an eyewitness who was ready to do anything with their encounter but experience it and tell it later.
As to “all the organizations,” here’s the comprehensive list:
1) Patterson and Gimlin;
2) NAWAC.
That’s it.
If anyone is aware of anyone, anywhere, who has spent the field time commensurate with those worthies, by which I mean the minimum required to get anything if one is lucky, I am all ears. Meldrum spent I think it was a couple of weeks with a group in Northern CA once. His account is in his book. As one might expect, some very interesting things happened. Which don’t if one isn’t in country long enough.
“So I can’t get to secondary incredulity on this. That has to be backed by evidence that I’m wrong about what’s actually happening.”
But that evidence does not exist and it won’t. The only way it could is if all the people who said they saw this thing admitted they were lying about it or mistook what they had seen.
Eyewitness evidence is compelling but in the end believing these people has as much to do with faith as anything else. Faith that these people are genuine. I hope they are, I really do and I don’t doubt that many saw something but personally, I need more than this. I cannot use faith in these people as evidence.
Again with the saola, it is not really that weird. The bigfoot thing is weird, the discovery of the saola sounds pretty textbook to me. So to me it is very weird that almost the precise opposite thing is happening with bigfoot. I think the saola is a good example of how the process of discovery generally works. I know there are no rules when it comes to discovery but I feel like that is how it typically plays out. I don’t see how a creature such as bigfoot could be undergoing a process the complete opposite of what is typical given that it is a worldwide phenomena. Because it is not just bigfoot either. There is the yowie, yeti, orang pendek, almas and some sort of bipedal ape for every continent and corner of the globe where people live. There is even a British bigfoot and no one can tell me there is any significant wilderness left in Britain for such an animal to hide.
Can all of these mystery primates exist? How can we separate those that may from those that may not? I can believe in a bigfoot in parts of North America. I can believe in a yeti in the Himalayas. I can believe in the orang pendek too. I cannot believe in the yowie in Australia or a European bigfoot. No matter where you seem to go there is a mystery ape or “wild man” that people have seen, has left tracks but for which there is no hard evidence. I don’t know what to make of this. If I can discount a sighting in Australia what makes one from North America any more valid? The locality should, but in both cases the witness may be totally on the level and convinced of what they saw. You have to draw a line somewhere but the evidence is the same everywhere.
What other large species have as large a distribution as bigfoot? The brown bear, elk, reindeer, wolf, golden eagle, northern pike, just to name a few? These and other species that stretch across the northern hemisphere are among the species best known to humans. They were documented since humans learned to paint on cave walls. The same should be said for a large ape that has supposedly lived alongside us since the Pleistocene. Bigfoot is not a regional phenomena (the Pacific northwest), it is not a continental phenomena (North America), it is a global phenomena and there must be an explanation for that because it does not add up.
Gorillas, orangutans and chimpanzees have all been known to science for hundreds of years. Aside from some regional sub-species no new ape has been described since when? The mid 1800’s? How do these large bipedal primates go undiscovered across the globe? Even if I did buy into the eyewitness testimony we’re still left with that question and “science does not work on a schedule” isn’t the answer. I know some skeptics suggest it could be a cultural and physiological phenomena. Whatever the case may be the answer will be interesting but we can never say with 100% confidence this creature does not exist. If it can allegedly exist in Australia then people will still be seeing it when there are no more forests left for it to hide in.
As for “all the organizations”. I feel like there are more than just that one. Doesn’t the BFRO count? How about NESRA? GCBRO? VBRO? Don’t those count? I honestly don’t know but if they’re sending people out to investigate these things I think they should count.
Having seen tracks of the creature I can see why you’re so convinced. I probably would be too, depending of course. I’m always questioning what even I’m seeing so even if I saw a bigfoot I’m not sure I would admit to myself that I did, again…depending on the situation. If I saw the tracks like you did I would probably start looking for the human making them and trying to fool me. I saw a UFO once but I don’t believe aliens are visiting earth, it was just a strange thing in the sky that I could not identify (you know, a UFO). I’ve been trying to come to terms with that ever since but whatever it was (and it was strange), I’m sure there is an explanation I’m not aware of aside from the extraterrestrial visitors answer. I hope I do someday see a sasquatch because ultimately that is what it will take for me to “believe”…that or the hard evidence I feel confident should have been found somewhere by now. Either in Asia, Europe, Australia or North America.
“But that evidence does not exist and it won’t. The only way it could is if all the people who said they saw this thing admitted they were lying about it or mistook what they had seen.
“Eyewitness evidence is compelling but in the end believing these people has as much to do with faith as anything else.”
Well, the way I look at it, I’d have to have faith in a blanket assertion that they’re all somehow wrong, too. And that’s faith I can’t muster, seeing as how there isn’t a pattern of evidence for anything I can identify anything like this that hasn’t been confirmed by science. Not even orang pendek and yeti measure up, those being apparently considered more likely based on the “remote and unpeopled” argument, even though the human populations of those areas are substantial indeed, and that the core habitat for both is pretty cheek by jowl with people.
I’m not convinced of anything. I’m simply not prepared to accept the negative hypothesis without evidence that there’s a lot more field work going on than there is at the moment.
As to that:
“As for “all the organizations”. I feel like there are more than just that one. Doesn’t the BFRO count? How about NESRA? GCBRO? VBRO? Don’t those count? I honestly don’t know but if they’re sending people out to investigate these things I think they should count.”
As I said, if anyone is doing work such as NAWAC is doing – extended stays in habitat, using search protocols that have proven successful in confirming much we didn’t know about other higher primates, if not their actual existence – I’m all ears. Apes – like other animals – seem to clear out for days when humans first appear on scene, only to start probing the perimeters of human presence when it’s firmly established on the ground (e.g. houses that back up on large tracts of what would appear to be good habitat). NAWAC is taking advantage of longer-term occupancy, and they seem to be getting lots of encounters, a number of them visual. (And most of the others by something that likes to beat trees and throw rocks, at all hours of day and night…and is very fast, and very good at staying out of sight, in country with a paucity of trails.) BFRO – as “Finding Bigfoot” and its pay-to-go “expeditions” seem to attest – doesn’t do the kinds of things that I’d expect to turn up much; they simply aren’t on the ground long enough. The others? As I said: all ears. I just haven’t seen indications they’re doing what I think will work.
And yep, purported distribution alone makes one wonder. Don’t really have an answer for that, although a partial one might be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley
Might not be a total fit; but descriptions of sasquatch and at least some of the evidence left, i.e. the footprints, seem closer to us by a lot than chimps and gorillas. And such a thing occurring in North America might be a further bar of disbelief; we just seem more comfortable with these things being tropical. There does seem to be something to the idea that settlers who saw nothing like this at home (I’m skeptical of European ‘wildmen,’ largely because the volume and consistency of reportage doesn’t seem to be there) might have rejected out of hand their compatriots’ sightings of what they believed mythical. And we could just be continuing that oversight.
Again, don’t know. But I think the evidence is worth a closer and harder look than the scientific mainstream has given it thus far.
And I suppose I should add that the Homo floresiensis discovery makes me wonder whether we know everything we think we do about the likelihood of yowie, something else to which I admit more than a dollop of skepticism, but which many people who don’t appear slam-dunk barmy appear to be encountering.
I don’t know if you’ll get this last post because I almost missed yours. I felt pretty sure my last comment ended this conversation. I don’t really have anything new to add, just pointing out that I did indeed read your last submission. This was far more productive than our previous interactions and I hope when we talk again it can remain that way. I can’t say I’m anymore a believer than I already was but I am certainly intrigued enough to do some more research.