Do Bigfoot Witnesses Have Anything in Common?
Posted by: Sybilla Irwin on April 28th, 2016
People who have seen or experienced events connected to Bigfoot truly come from every walk of life. There doesn’t seem to be any one thing in common. It can happen to anyone… A man hunting at his deer lease, to the woman driving home from work late at night. It can happen at any age and at any time of night or day. I have worked with nurses, lawyers, teachers, oil field workers, truckers, carpenters, expert guides, engineers, and people in the military, mothers, fathers, grandparents, children, and more. It doesn’t seem to matter who they are, or what they do… OR whether they believed or didn’t believe in the existence of this creature.
I have talked to hunters and outdoors people that have spent all their lives in a particular area who have told me they have never seen or heard anything out of the ordinary. These people, of course, have the most difficult time accepting that these creatures exist when they come face to face with a living, breathing hairy giant.
One such witness, from Texas, told me he never even entertained the possibility that Bigfoot existed. After his terrifying sighting he was physically sick for days. He had to question everything he believed in. It has taken him months to come to terms with it. Before his sighting, his big concern, while out doing his job, was stepping on a rattlesnake… Now he is looking behind every tree. He is coping but it has changed everything in regards to his job. Fortunately for him he has a supportive boss and co-workers that have backed him and revealed they too had experiences in the same location. He was taken seriously and this factor has helped him deal with his life-changing event.
Another, a nurse, told me that she thought Bigfoot was a joke, and not even on her radar. When she pulled over early one morning to stretch her legs, and wake herself up, she never expected what she saw. And after her encounter she sped away, only to go a few miles before having to stop and vomit. That’s how profoundly affected she was.
It might be that witnesses have very little in common before the sighting, but not After…
Many people never tell a soul what they have witnessed for years. One witness from Oklahoma had absolutely no intention of ever filing a report. He didn’t even tell his hunting partner the day it happened. He worked for the Department of Defense and said it took him 6 months to process what he’d seen. He decided to write the story for this grandchildren and he locked it in a safe. He only shared it after his grown son asked him directly if he’d ever had an experience.
Sometimes those that do talk about their sightings report being laughed at, or called liars by their own family members, and closest friends. My personal belief is that only 1/3 of sightings get reported for this reason. Many professional people don’t want their names used publicly out of fear it will affect their positions within their community, or they could even lose their security clearances and put their jobs at risk. Others are scared that if they file a report, strangers are going to knock on their door with a camera crew and put them on the evening news, or worse…multiple men in jacked-up trucks and camo will arrive with guns blazing to hunting it down!
Read the rest here at my blog!
About Sybilla Irwin
Sybilla Irwin is a Bigfoot Researcher and a Fine Artist reknowned for her work with witness re-creations. She has created hundreds of portraits of sasquatches, as mystifying as they are compelling.
I think they all have one thing in common. They were scoftics until they saw one…or they never thought about it at all.
(OK, most of them, the very vast majority. One old lady, seeing hers out her driver window, simply responded: well well. You’re real, aren’t you. She isn’t totally alone.)
(“Fortunately for him he has a supportive boss and co-workers that have backed him and revealed they too had experiences in the same location. He was taken seriously and this factor has helped him deal with his life-changing event.” That isn’t totally unique, either. And for something that exists, one wouldn’t expect it to be.)
The anecdotes here are why one of the safest assumptions about this topic is that the great majority of encounters remain unreported.
Good comment, DWA (oh, he’s a comment critic now!).
One thing I’ve wondered. Do certain families have a greater propensity for sightings, all other factors being equal? Yeah, I know; that’s the rub: all the other factors will never be equal!
Still, what d’ya think?
one thing is for sure.. there is no “pattern” with the witnesses… they seem to be a cross section of literally everything.
you could possibly toss out 1/3rd… or half or even 80% of the stories for whatever reason you come up with… but even the 10-20% you have left still can’t be explained…
its like someone getting sick and passes (like cancer).. you never think about it, or that it’ll happen to you until it does. Then it shatters your reality. I can only assume it’s similar to seeing one of these things… you never think about it… or that they’re real until you see one… then you’re whole reality about these things… about life etc. is challenged.
There could certainly be some surprising things they all have in common (by “all” I mean “most”). The trick would be to design a questionnaire with enough detailed overlays to discover them.
There are companies and agencies that do actually design such questionnaires. The CIA and NSA certainly could, but they’re in Bigfootery too deeply as is, I suspect. I’d prefer it be done without them.
Goodfoot: Most of the “repeat” experiences I’ve read about are the kind that can happen with any animal when the right things are handy, e.g., tasty garbage, livestock, feeders, etc. For people that have chanced across more than one, rather than having repeat experiences on the homestead, favored road crossings (or maybe the things the people are coming for – game, fish, etc.) might enter into it.
But we don’t know enough about them yet – or about the people interacting with them – to know whether other factors are in play. I sure wouldn’t rule it out.
Hi Sybilla & Posters,
You are correct in the lack of commonality in encounter witnesses. I have notice some of them tend to have aptitudes toward paranormal events but others have none. An encounter is a life changing event much like an NDE. Only one of my five encounters did involve some type of possibly psychic events but they were pretty clear. Watching an unknown object emitting red and green flickering lights fly along a mountain ridge with near perfect terrain following radar and something tried to read my mind.
I’m glad most people can finally reach a balance after an encounter and place it in some kind of context. We still wonder what did we encounter? My best,
Do witnesses of Bigfoot riding a motorcycle have anything in common? More to the point, would the answer depend on whether anyone has actually seen Bigfoot ride a motorcycle, instead of seeing something else they interpret as a Sasquatch on a Harley?
As it stands, alleged eyewitnesses of Bigfoot are just a part of the mass of evidence that, taken together, still falls short of being compelling. Some of the alleged eyewitnesses are lying, some are hallucinating, some are mistaken, and some are the victims of hoaxes — those categories will be populated due to human nature. Whether any sightings exist that do not properly fit into one of those categories is an open question.
Part of what the “witnesses” have in common is they come from a society in which Bigfoot is a well-known idea. The existence of preconceived ideas can shape perceptions — for example, cultures with no words distinguishing “blue” and “green” find it hard to distinguish those colors. More to the point, depending on the cultural background, people can experience sleep paralysis as an incubus, an old hag, or a space alien.
Then there are the people who do NOT say they have seen a bipedal ape, but cryptozoologists insist they HAVE. If American Indians say there is a hair wild man who lives on the mountain, why they have to be taken seriously, because they know the ecology better than anyone — but if they insist that no, it is NOT an animal, it is a wild MAN, we should bear in mind that they’re just ignorant savages! Likewise for the locals who are supposed to have captured the Ocheesee Wild Man. This is a piece of evidence that science must not ignore — there were lots of witnesses! Only science should NOT pay any attention to the fact that all the witnesses described the captive as a MAN, not as an ape.
What cryptozoology needs is BETTER evidence, not MORE of what we already have. Straw cannot be spun into gold (Rumpelstiltskin having retired), and you’ll get nowhere by saying that if you have lots and lots of straw, surely SOME of it must magically transform into gold.
“As it stands, alleged eyewitnesses of Bigfoot are just a part of the mass of evidence that, taken together, still falls short of being compelling.”
To people unacquainted with the evidence, or how to think about it in the way a scientist does, maybe it isn’t compelling. Sure as hell is to the scientifically inclined; and no one has been able to explain to me why every person who has applied science to this question (incredulity is not science! Appealing to the proven is not science!) is a *proponent.*
“Some of the alleged eyewitnesses are lying, some are hallucinating, some are mistaken, and some are the victims of hoaxes”
Those of us acquainted with the evidence know that of all the explanations…that is the LEAST LIKELY, by a very considerable margin. One isn’t getting the consistency one gets with anything like that as an explanation. There may be lies there may be hallucinations (Gimme Break Time, people: Alcohol, NOT A HALLUCINOGEN!) there may be mistakes there may be hoaxes. Great. They do not explain the phenomenon. They do not. Any scientist, applying science to this, would know that.
(What consistency? Try reading them and thinking about them.)
As is usual at the frontiers of science, the only ones with the foggiest of what is going on are the people doing the work. They cannot explain their certainty to people who lack the information or the interest in the subject matter or the mental equipment (or all three) required to do the work. Just doesn’t happen. Just stating a fact, sorry.
The work isn’t white-coat test-tube shuffling. That’s for mere techies. The scientist knows that careful informed thought is what needs to be done here, and that most aren’t doing that. One must read EVERYTHING available; and one must think carefully about it. Should one lack the interest to do that: why Einstein got relativity when no one else was in the ballpark. Interest. (And equipment.)
An emotional response to this that does not include a thorough examination and factual debunking of the entire body of evidence: disqualified. There is no reason to believe sasquatch isn’t real. People are seeing it, loads of them; their descriptions are consistent, in ways that have never been observed by our species for something that is not – precisely – what it appears to be.
Just that too many who haven’t seen one, don’t care. They have that right.
This bears additional comment:
What cryptozoology needs is BETTER evidence, not MORE of what we already have. Straw cannot be spun into gold (Rumpelstiltskin having retired), and you’ll get nowhere by saying that if you have lots and lots of straw, surely SOME of it must magically transform into gold.
This isn’t on “cryptozoology.” This is on ZOOLOGY; the failure is the failure of mainstream science, the evidence and its treatment by the scientific proponents long having made this clear. When the animal is confirmed, it is not the public’s confidence in “cryptozoology” that will be justifiably shaken to its core.
Scientists WITH RELEVANT TRAINING AND EXPERTISE say this is real; they are applying their chops in ways anyone of scientific bent can understand; no one applying that expertise is in disagreement; their opponents have but clouds in their coffee. If you do not address them, and defeat them, you are a banging gong and a clanging cymbal, or whatever that book said.
What is the hard-to-understand part of this?
The sad truth is that the evidence for the reality of Bigfoot is more like the evidence for the reality of Slenderman than the evidence for the reality of the coelacanth. The coelacanth is not accepted because “very reliable” fisherman claim to have seen it, or because the people who claim to have seen it come from a wide variety of backgrounds, or because some fishermen in Florida caught something in the 1800’s that they said was a sturgeon but that was “probably” a coelacanth, or because some travelling act in Minnesota used to have one preserved in ice that — doggone it! — disappeared before it could be properly studied. No one studies the coelacanth for years, only to come to the conclusion that they are interdimensional beings that only occasionally visit our reality, something which has happened a number of times regarding Bigfoot. Nope; Bigfoot evidence is lacking something that coelacanth evidence has, and that is QUALITY. Sometimes the Soviet proverb does not fit, and quantity does not have a quality all its own.
Now you can keep droning on to yourself about how unfair it is that Bigfoot is not acknowledged by science, but more words will not supply what is lacking. You can keep making up childish names for people who don’t agree with you, and all that will do is make people less likely to pay any attention to you, and nothing will change regarding the status of Bigfoot. Bigfoot will be accepted when better quality evidence emerges, and not before. The easy shortcut you want simply does not exist.
Well, that was refreshingly fact-free.
I’m not looking for an easy shortcut. You are; and you’ve taken it, not doing the work you have been told to do to get up to speed and be treated as an equal in the discussion. We’re talking about what the heck could possibly be motivating people like you on another site. Care to join?
(That cool moment when you realize the two posts you previously made are the slam-dunk reply…to the post “replying” to them. That cool moment.)
guys… Scientists don’t believe, they observe and report.
to further prove the point…
there are only 100 something Florida Panthers in the wild and we have evidence of their existence, yet nobody has ever found any evidence of 8000 giant apes in the Northwest. (Cliff Barackman claims there are 10000 of them or so)
also…
There are about 250 Sumatran Rhinoceroses in the wild spread out over 3 or 4 countries and there are photographs of them, not grainy or blurry ones either.
How can you estimate the numbers of something that there’s zero evidence for?
extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. An undiscovered large primate that can conceal all evidence of its existence is quite an extraordinary claim. Yet the evidence isn’t even ordinary, it’s non existent.
like it or not folks, thats the facts.
Wrong. But I just need to stop trying to explain to people who aren’t paying attention.
Everything we have as much evidence for as we do for Sasquatch and yeti is proven. Except for Sasquatch and yeti. And the only reason is that no one wants to follow the overwhelming evidence to its very obvious conclusion.
THAT is the facts. If one is interested, which one appears not to be, which, well, no skin off mine.
DWA…. the ball is in your court my man.
you have the ability to post links in your comments… feel free to post the evidence you keep talking about but have yet to show.
See… anyone can google photos of the rare florida panther… AND the rare sumatran rhino’s…. clear photos… with less than 300-400 animals combined in the world.
no mystery there… we have crystal clear photos.
we KNOW they exist.
Anyone can look this stuff up and see for themselves.
show me the same for the 10,000 estimated bigfoot population the “experts” claim… 10k primates and not one crystal clear photo?
sorry, that doesn’t add up my man.
Like I said earlier… An undiscovered large primate that can conceal all evidence of its existence is quite an extraordinary claim. Yet the evidence isn’t even ordinary, it’s nonexistent.
you’re saying they are real and you have this mountain of evidence.
Ok..
Post the links…
Post the photos you keep rambling on and on about (but have yet to show.)
no more excuses.
Show us the mountain of evidence you keep alluding to…
Your misperception that there isn’t a mountain of evidence drives all your other misperceptions. Happens.
I’ve laid out here, many times, in detail, the precise nature of the mountain of evidence. I have done all I have to do here. Remember: in science the onus is on the individual to investigate the evidence.
If I know where I am on this, and have comprehensively shown why, the onus is on those who disagree to show me I’m wrong. It doesn’t do to talk about all we have confirmed. In fact that only bolsters my case; everything that has provided us the evidence we have for sasquatch and yeti, we have confirmed. Except sasquatch and yeti.
The only thing missing here…is the effort. The evidence is there. No skin offa mine what people want to do with that. I’ve done the work. You just need to.
LOL… DWA… all I’m seeing is more useless nonsense and excuses my man…
more mumbo jumbo…
more dancing around the subject…
And yet you STILL fail to lay out your “mountain of evidence” you allude to…
weak excuse, really weak… it takes 2 minutes to post links… to post photos… just like I did.
in the time it took you to write up your post, you could have EASILY posted links to your “mountain of evidence”…
EASILY.
“time to put up or shut up” my man.
each time you fail to “put up”, you just look worse and worse… and your position becomes weaker than it already is.
I had hope you’d WANT to show your “mountain of evidence” you keep alluding to… if I had it, I’d be telling everyone and posting it.
but I guess if you don’t have it, and its just concocted in your head, you can’t really post it, eh? 🙂