August 18, 2009
We all have to balance being openminded, careful and skeptical in our approaches to all evidence presented within the Bigfoot field, of course, as I have discussed before.
But there often are dangers from within that must be observed close at hand.
Take, for instance, what Joshua B. Buhs, in his Bigfoot: The Life and Times of a Legend, says, on page 220:
“Bickering among Sasquatch enthusiasts also proved useful to the skeptics, because they could always find one Bigfooter to criticize another.”
This is especially true about a special group of ex-Bigfooters. The new born-again skeptics and scoffers seem mostly to be one-time “true believers” who feel they have found the correct path to enlightenment through flashes of logic that mean much to them. One writes in today, to share his insights.
Cryptomundo reader and Bigfoot debunker Jerry Wayne Borchardt of Texas, passes along this comment:
I was a Bigfoot enthusiast for many decades. I became disenchanted with Bigfoot advocacy when the Bigfoot phenomena spread from the plausible location of the remote Pacific Northwest to encompass the entire country. This turn of events, the Great Implausibility, seemed to me more an outcome of newly minted myth than a credible biological issue.
I had accepted the Patterson film prior to my disenchantment. After I began to doubt the reality of Bigfoot, I would revisit the Patterson film in an attempt to rejuvenate my “belief” in Bigfoot’s existence. It worked for a while. After time, however, the more I researched and watched the film, the old magic just wasn’t there and I became free to doubt it as genuine.
I present the Patterson Paradox:
1. The film subject is a largely realistic image of an unknown animal.
2. Excluding the film image, virtually every attending issue concerning the film points unmistakably to a hoax.
This paradox has allowed both the advocate and the skeptic to claim the upper hand in the debate over the film’s authenticity. Consider, for example, Greg Long’s interview with Rene Dahinden concerning the P. film. After the skeptical Long challenged the film on the grounds of its lack of provenance and on the issue of Patterson’s honesty, Dahinden yelled his reply: “Just examine the f—— film!” F— Roger Patterson! And f— Bob Gimlin! OK? Ignore the human element. Look at the
f—— film!” (Long’s The Making of Bigfoot, page 193.)
Well, I can’t “ignore the human element” here.
I cannot prove it is a hoax; I’m only going to express my doubts. My doubts center around the tracks, the film image, and Roger Patterson.
Responses?
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
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