May 26, 2006

Bigfoot Research: Failures in the Field

The following is a quote from Rick Noll that I wholeheartedly agree with.

"I will say one thing right now – I am getting pretty tired of listening to the wild speculations about Bigfoot’s intelligence and very little disclosure as to really just how much time and effort was or is being placed on the task. It seems to be the hot excuse for a lot of researchers…these things are too intelligent, they know what a gun is, a camera, they can see infrared, have super hearing, blah, blah, blah."

Here are my reasons for all the failures:

1. No one is spending enough time in the woods on the search,
2. Not many know what to do in searching, overlooking things, or vice-versa, seeing things that aren’t significant to the task,
3. There are not many of these animals around,
4. They, like most animals who live in the forest, know how to camouflage themselves quickly and easily,
5. Most encounters with humans are probably mistakes on the part of the Bigfoot, yet researchers are trying to fill in the picture with them as to being something significant.

– Rick Noll

Far too many people repeat these things as facts, when the fact of the matter is, as I have been quoted, "We are not looking for a needle in a haystack, we are searching for a moving needle in a whole field of hay."

I’m sure you’ve heard these things. "Bigfoot can see in the infrared spectrum." Really? Where is the precedent for this in the primate family? While we are at it, where is the precedent for this in the animal kingdom?

Some snakes, the pit vipers, which in North America include rattlesnakes, copperheads and cottonmouths, are able to detect infrared radiation, but thay can not "see" in the infrared spectrum.

The pit organ is located between the nostril and the eye on each side of the head. It is supplied with nerves and blood vessels and is partially enclosed in a cavity in the side of the maxillary, a bone of the upper jaw. The pit has a thermoreceptor function and is sensitive to infrared radiation; it is capable of responding to changes in temperature of only fractions of a degree. Thus pit vipers can detect the presence of animals with body temperatures only slightly different from that of the environment. In experiments where the eyes, nose, tongue, and taste-sensitive Jacobson’s organ were put out of order, some pit vipers still responded to warm or cold objects placed in front of them.

Source: All About

What is needed is a well-funded, protracted search for these animals. It took Jane Goodall months before she ever saw the chimps at Gombe.

Filed under Bigfoot, Bigfoot Report, Cryptozoology, Evidence, Expedition Reports, Eyewitness Accounts, Sasquatch