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Bigfoot a extant north american mammal
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13-04-2010 12:18am#1
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steddyeddy wrote: »right basically i find the foot prints, the video evidence (patterson film), dna extracted from hairs and eyewitness reports convincing enough for me to find the creature real.
I've seen several footprints, and they vary considerably, which is the real one? Some are really broad, some have narrow heels, some have 5 toes, some have 4, some just look like human feet. There's been dozens of hoaxes too, so how do you distinguish between the real and fake?
I don't see how anyone can find the Patterson film convicing, but I'll just post it for others to look at:
It could easily just be a man in a suit. It's not even good quality footage (I know it's from the 70's), so it's even less reliable.
Do wild primates tend to turn their heads mid-gait, and upon seeing intruders continue in their stride without skipping a beat?
I'd like to see the DNA evidence, I'm not familiar with any.
Eye-witness reports are so unreliable it's ridiculous.steddyeddy wrote: »ill start on the eye witness reports, most people describe a simular creature, sometimes involing multiple witnesses, wildlife biologists or trained individuals like police officers.
Of course people describe broadly similar creatures, the myth has been around since the 19th century! There isn't a person in North America that doesn't know about bigfoot and that couldn't give you a description of what he might look like.
Multiple witnesses may be (a) lying/jokes/pranks/hoaxes (very common), (b) mistaken (say they saw a bear out of the corner of their eye for example), or (c) embellishing (maybe they saw another animal's arse sticking out and started connecting dots).
You put multiple witnesses together and they start filling in each other's stories.
I'll grant you wildlife biologists, but police officers? They're no better than you or I at seeing a bigfoot. People say the same about police officers seeing UFO's. They're just as prone to misconstruing and misinterpretting, and are subject to the same bias and perceptive flaws as anyone else.steddyeddy wrote: »the behaviour described also is quite simular to known behaviours attributed to the great apes , like wood knocking,stone throwing and charging.
Again that's not strange, everyone knows bigfoot is supposed to be a big primate, what else would they have him doing? Swimming?
I'm not a zoologist, but is it normal behaviour for a wild primate to see two people in its area, and not even break its stride?0 -
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I've seen several footprints, and they vary considerably, which is the real one? Some are really broad, some have narrow heels, some have 5 toes, some have 4, some just look like human feet. There's been dozens of hoaxes too, so how do you distinguish between the real and fake?
I don't see how anyone can find the Patterson film convicing, but I'll just post it for others to look at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ol8ifMrFN9U
It could easily just be a man in a suit. It's not even good quality footage (I know it's from the 70's), so it's even less reliable.
Do wild primates tend to turn their heads mid-gait, and upon seeing intruders continue in their stride without skipping a beat?
I'd like to see the DNA evidence, I'm not familiar with any.
Eye-witness reports are so unreliable it's ridiculous.
Of course people describe broadly similar creatures, the myth has been around since the 19th century! There isn't a person in North America that doesn't know about bigfoot and that couldn't give you a description of what he might look like.
the myth has been part of American Indians folklore for thousands of years with the very first reports from native Americans to the colonists matching the descriptions given today, it would be ridiculous of me or any scientist to dismiss reports of a creature because they are similar i would be less likely to believe it if they weren't.
Multiple witnesses may be (a) lying/jokes/pranks/hoaxes (very common), (b) mistaken (say they saw a bear out of the corner of their eye for example), or (c) embellishing (maybe they saw another animal's arse sticking out and started connecting dots).
You put multiple witnesses together and they start filling in each other's stories.
I'll grant you wildlife biologists, but police officers? They're no better than you or I at seeing a bigfoot. People say the same about police officers seeing UFO's. They're just as prone to misconstruing and misinterpreting, and are subject to the same bias and perceptive flaws as anyone else.
Again that's not strange, everyone knows bigfoot is supposed to be a big primate, what else would they have him doing? Swimming?
I'm not a zoologist, but is it normal behaviour for a wild primate to see two people in its area, and not even break its stride?
you cant for definite but a anthropologist called grover crantz and a expert in bipedal locomotion called jeff meldrum have devised a way to spot hoaxs and indeed have blown the lid on a few.
some human feet have broad heels and some have narrow heels within a species there is variation due to age, size ect.
i personally think the four toed tracks were either not cast properly or a hoax as do the gentlemen above, actually only the hoaxed ones look like human feet the anatomy is not that of a enlarged human foot, they show dermal ridges which run along all primate feet however the ones on most of these casts are unique to these tracks, a latent dermal ridge print expert called jimmy chillcut has declared that the prospect of these being a hoax is extremely unlikely.
most prints also have a feature called a mid tarsel break which is unique to some non human primates, put simply its a break in the foot which offers a different form of bipedalism than we use, this feature is known to about a half dozen anthropologists in the us and when tracks were first been collected no one knew about it, yet its being reproduced accurately again and again.
Im half and half on this one (im sorry if people expected me to be a complete believer but im a scientist) but the film has been analyzed several times, and the height and bulk has been shown to be well above average, the technology for a suit that fitted so well was not available in the sixties and according to costume designer bill munns could not be a man in a suit.
yes primates do turn there head mid stride for example humans do it, what i find accurate is the fact the "creature" turns its entire torso to look around as the gorilla does rather than just its neck.
what would you expect a bipedal primate to do? of course its going to walk away.
Again eye witness reports are crucial to zoology and there is often very little variation between the descriptions, it does not match up that so many people saw different things bear ect and describe/draw the same creature which happens to fit in with the tracks and mythology of the region. the exact same arguement was given agiant the existence of the gorilla, giant panda ect and they were reported many times before thier discovery and the reports were accurate i dont see how they would not be in this circumstance.
the myth has been part of American Indians folklore for thousands of years with the very first reports from native Americans to the colonists matching the descriptions given today, it would be ridiculous of me or any scientist to dismiss reports of a creature because they are similar i would be less likely to believe it if they weren't.
well when it was reported hundreds of years ago no one knew what a primate was, yet the features they were describing were primate features, what basis had they got to make it up? bearing in mind the gorilla was not discovered until 1847 and the fact that apes wood knock to communicate was only recently discovered.0 -
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steddyeddy wrote: »you cant for definite but a anthropologist called grover crantz and a expert in bipedal locomotion called jeff meldrum have devised a way to spot hoaxs and indeed have blown the lid on a few.
Good to know, but as you say, you can't be definite. There's some pretty good hoaxers around. Do you have any further information on the methods used to distinguish real from fake?steddyeddy wrote: »some human feet have broad heels and some have narrow heels within a species there is variation due to age, size ect.
So that would suggest -- and presumably since you later refer to Native American sightings, you do believe this -- that there are many generations of bigfoot roaming around the woods in North America.
How is it possible then that none have been killed/captured?
And I think more obviously, why has no skeleton ever been found?
North America isn't exactly a wilderness, there are lots of lumberjacks and hunters that you would expect might stumble upon a skeleton or two in the hundreds of years Europeans have been there.steddyeddy wrote: »i personally think the four toed tracks were either not cast properly or a hoax as do the gentlemen above, actually only the hoaxed ones look like human feet the anatomy is not that of a enlarged human foot, they show dermal ridges which run along all primate feet however the ones on most of these casts are unique to these tracks, a latent dermal ridge print expert called jimmy chillcut has declared that the prospect of these being a hoax is extremely unlikely.
most prints also have a feature called a mid tarsel break which is unique to some non human primates, put simply its a break in the foot which offers a different form of bipedalism than we use, this feature is known to about a half dozen anthropologists in the us and when tracks were first been collected no one knew about it, yet its being reproduced accurately again and again.
Can't say I know anything about the foot features and the likes so can't comment, but I do know that there have been dozens of foot prints and tracks created using carved wood and the likes. Whether the mid tarsel breaks and dermal ridges can be faked, I'll have to plead ignorance. I'm not prepared to dig through all the photos to try to determine when a photo was taken, and when these foot features were discovered.steddyeddy wrote: »Im half and half on this one (im sorry if people expected me to be a complete believer but im a scientist) but the film has been analyzed several times, and the height and bulk has been shown to be well above average, the technology for a suit that fitted so well was not available in the sixties and according to costume designer bill munns could not be a man in a suit
I've seen this asserted too, but lots of people seemingly disagree
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patterson-Gimlin_film#Hoax_allegations
Look at these monkey suits from 2001: A Space Odyssey:
Obviously they don't look the same, but the quality is just as good. Considering the Patterson film is at a distance and the quality is poor, I don't see why it couldn't be a similar constume.steddyeddy wrote: »yes primates do turn there head mid stride for example humans do it, what i find accurate is the fact the "creature" turns its entire torso to look around as the gorilla does rather than just its neck.
what would you expect a bipedal primate to do? of course its going to walk away.
Maybe it's difficult to turn the neck in the suit?
I'd have expected a startled ape to show some evidence that it's surprised. Can't say I know much about primate behaviour though.steddyeddy wrote: »Again eye witness reports are crucial to zoology and there is often very little variation between the descriptions, it does not match up that so many people saw different things bear ect and describe/draw the same creature which happens to fit in with the tracks and mythology of the region. the exact same arguement was given agiant the existence of the gorilla, giant panda ect and they were reported many times before thier discovery and the reports were accurate i dont see how they would not be in this circumstance.
I'm sure loch ness monster researchers use the same argument as well, it doesn't follow that just because gorillas and giant pandas were discovered in similar circumstances that therefore every myth should be regarded as though it's true also.
Just like Nessie and UFO's, there's such a mythology surrounding Bigfoot that you'd have to be weary of reports.
I'll give you an example that supports this idea:If further evidence is needed, consider a case that transpired in Rotterdam in 1978. A small panda had escaped from a zoo, whereupon officials had issued a media alert. Soon panda sightings—around one hundred in all—were reported across the Netherlands. However, a single animal could not have been in so many places in so short a time; in fact, no one had seen the panda, because it had been killed by a train when it reached railroad tracks near the zoo. How do we explain the many false sightings? The answer is, people’s anticipations led them to misinterpret what they had actually seen—a dog or some wild creature—as the escaped panda. (The publicity generated by the case may even have sparked some hoax calls [Nickell 1995, 43].) If such misperceptions could happen with pandas, surely they could also occur with aquatic cryptids.
And the same could apply to people visiting areas where bigfoot sightings have been reported. It wouldn't surprise me if there were towns in N America that advertise themselves as bigfoot towns, and draw revenue from tourists visiting the area.steddyeddy wrote: »the myth has been part of American Indians folklore for thousands of years with the very first reports from native Americans to the colonists matching the descriptions given today, it would be ridiculous of me or any scientist to dismiss reports of a creature because they are similar i would be less likely to believe it if they weren't.
well when it was reported hundreds of years ago no one knew what a primate was, yet the features they were describing were primate features, what basis had they got to make it up? bearing in mind the gorilla was not discovered until 1847 and the fact that apes wood knock to communicate was only recently discovered.
Well I'm just glancing through this thread('Native American myths/traditions support Bigfoot? A critical look') on another forum, and it seems it's not as clear-cut as you make it seem.
Native Americans have hundreds of stories of mythical creatures -- all ancient cultures do. It wouldn't surprise me if a few of them were close to the description of bigfoot that we have today. All the description has to say is "large, scary beast", and that would probably be a match for you wouldn't it? "Hairy, upright animal", maybe that's one too. Maybe it's a bear though.0 -
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steddyeddy wrote: »This man has detailed the anatomy of the foot based on a series of footprints he thinks unlikely to be fake, his article is here http://home.clara.net/rfthomas/papers/anatomy.html, hes is also one of two men including jeff meldrum who claim to be able to spot the hoaxes, the criteria will never be released as to how they assess them as hoaxes because if they did that then the hoaxes would become a lot more biologically convincing.
Come on, that's hardly compelling is it? Those two guys are able to spot hoaxes thanks to some secret method, and nobody else is allowed to know? So we have to run every example past these fellas and they'll tell us whether it's a hoax or not, and we have to take their word for this?
That's ridiculoussteddyeddy wrote: »Yes of course i would not believe in bigfoot if it was implied to be a single creature indeed many juvenilles were seen, some were reported as female and infant and others again were reported of various sizes, including some with limps and apparent injuries.
Well that makes the next point rather implausible...steddyeddy wrote: »to my knowledge none have been reported to have been killed or captured theres no time limit on species discovery in zoology this is stranger to me than the issue of a skeleton, in the wild you will rarely if ever find the body of a primate, in fact the fossil record of chimps is three teeth, gorillas are absent from the fossil record, in 43 months in a research project the remains of one chimp was found in a area thought to contain a tribe of over 150 chimps.
It's one thing taking a long time to find a giant panda during the 19th century in rural China. It's quite another in the 21st century in North America. Even if it was Alaska I'd find it implausible, but here's a sightings map, and it spans the entire country pretty much:
It's extremely unlikely that there's an entire species of 10 foot mammal roaming around all of those areas and nobody has managed to even find a body for us to examine. Any that are found turn out to be hoaxes, like this one:steddyeddy wrote: »As regards the foot features a search through pictures isnt neccasery just look up articles on the foot print anatomy by dr.jeff meldrum, another cast of the lower portion of a alleged bigfoot body is the skookum cast which convinced skeptics of the reality of the creature, scientists such as dr.jane goodall, dr daris swindler and jack napier of the cretures existence look up any of these scientists and youll see they have a good record in the zoological world.
It seems not everyone agrees with their assessment, some people say that it's an elk.
http://www.bigfootencounters.com/articles/skookum_hokum.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skookum_cast
Wasn't there elk and bear hair identified in it?steddyeddy wrote: »Again eyewitness reports are of huge value to the scientific world and i was referring to the reports of animals like the gorilla, bonobo, giant panda ect rather than the myths of the native people of those areas.
Are all eyewitness reports unreliable? as you said earlier many hunters, loggers ect work in the wilderness areas of north america (most of the reports, foot prints ect are in the pacific north west) and these men report Bigfoot more than other people.
there are 3000 eye witness reports often multiple witnesses, for several minutes not just fleeting glimpses, as several biologists and hunters maintain what i saw was not a bear,elk ect it looked like a large hairy man with caveman/primitive features, i realize that the eyes play tricks but rarely in the same way for 3000 people and for several minutes.
Have these 3000 cases passed the secret test you mentioned earlier? Or could they all be hoaxes for all we know?
What about the recent Marian apparition in Knock?
What about all the UFO sightings?
What about all of the Elvis sightings?
Loch-Ness Monster?
Do you take all of them at face value also?
As I described earlier about the red panda that escaped from Rotterdam zoo, any observer is liable to be lying, mistaken, embellishing, etc. If you're expecting to see something then you're more likely to see it.
Eyewitness reports might be of value in some circumstances, but they're not reliable, that's why we need a specimen.steddyeddy wrote: »If you used the logic your using as regards eye witness reports whose to say that people are seeing any aniamls at all you could use that logic to dismiss all wildlife reports, you cant throw several eyewitness reports out because they dont describe a animal you agree exists! your using one set of rules for discovered aniamls and another set of rules for the undiscovered ones.
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence", think Carl Sagan said that. If something is so highly implausible then it's gonna require some good evidence to support it.
Just like say if one doctor recommended giving aspirin to someone at risk of heart attack, because it thins the blood, and another recommended a homeopathic pill, because like cures like and water has memory, you'd be inclined to go with the former.
If someone says they saw an exceptionally large silverback gorilla in the African jungle, you might think that's quite plausible. If someone says they saw a dragon flying through downtown New York, then you'd think it's not.
The bigfoot story is so polluted with mythology, hoaxes, movies, etc., that you'd be less inclined nowadays to pay any attention to eye witness reports of it.
Just like UFO reports tend to take a spike when movies like Independence Day come out, I'll bet bigfoot reports took a spike after Harry and the Hendersons (great movie btw) came out
steddyeddy wrote: »all i can say to to the thread you posted is that the thread creator is trying to say that he knows more about native american mythology than a native American mythology researcher.
He disagrees with her views, i think ill put more faith in her who has spent decades researching the creature your evidence for it not being clear cut is a thread on a internet board.
there are many books/articles that state that the creature is part of native mythology.
Can you give some specific examples of these, ones that couldn't possibly be a bear?
How do you distinguish between mythical creatures that are fictional, and those that are based on real animals? Every culture tends to have dozens of mythical creatures/beastmen.
Take your pick!0 -
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