Earlier this year I had to write an article on Bigfoot. I started out not believing in Bigfoot but then I had a long talk with Dan Schmidt in our department at Duke University and he is not entirely convinced by the evidence – and there is a lot of evidence by the way, hundreds of footprints, pieces or hair that don’t belong to any known animal. But Dan’s point is that we can’t say for certainty that Bigfoot does not exist, any more than we can say that there is no life on other planets.
I spoke to some Bigfoot fanatics for that article and they are serious believers. If I had to guess what Bigfoot looked like, I would guess he looked like this.
13 comments:
Awesome photo! I don't know much about Bigfoot, but I always figured it was akin to snipe hunting. ;-)
s.
Actually the sasquatch is very interesting to study for a behavioural psychologist! Numerous sightings are investigated and collected on some serious websites like http://www.bigfootencounters.com/ and http://www.bfro.net/ The sasquatch is simply described as a race of hominidae which has apparently come from Asia through the Behring strait when it was an ithmus at the end of the Eocene era, or perhaps the beginning of the Pleistocene, just like man's ancestor did. Paleontologists are divided on the potential ancestry of the sasquatch, from a Gigantopitecus Blackii (of China) or even a Neanderthalensis family member. Mt St-Helens is still the area where most sightings of sasquatches happen today.
Ancestry is discussed at: http://www.bigfootencounters.com/biology/reed.htm "The ancestry of sasquatch by Chas Reed - 1984."
They are omnivorous and have a very territorial attitude (see the number of cases where they through big rocks close to human hunters going through their territory to scare them away), no substantiated case of human death resulted from the sasquatch since 1950. Same for abduction cases, they appear unlikely. On the other hand, two cases of a sasquatch saving a human who had accidental leg fracture in the woods by bringing him to the closest road. So yes it exists and the BFRO organization is serious in its study as much as they can, although some of their members are trigger-happy hunters that may not be the men I would send to make contact to another race of hominidae. This organization investigates each sighting, some being hoaxes obviously. Still thousands of people have seen this hairy giant and are being changed forever! This beast is huge and strong, although benevolent. It is at the top of the food chain, undoubtedly, since it was seen attacking the largest male caribous, elks, yaks in Nepal and Tibet, and countless deers. Some people in Georgia claimed recently that they found a dead body of a sasquatch and will reveal it to the world on September 1st. Many people think it is another hoax, but follow your newpapers on Sept 1 and 2nd! One of these days it will happen.
Meganthropus and Bonobo research are essential components for true study toward (of) Bigfoot or Yeti hominids. Individuals' worldwide aren't stupid: having empirical knowledge won't bring anyone else to believe: just never kill/murder one of out other-kind. Australia to California, Alaska to Kamchatka: we've much to learn of the outdoors, but won't as hide and speculate in a city. 'Bonobo Handshake' then holds great promise
The following URL mentions someone finding some "Yeti" hairs and giving them to some Uni for analysis in the last few days. The gorilla/ape researcher Ian Redmond is in the photo, which is interesting.
http://www.oxfordmail.net/news/headlines/display.var.2408905.0.yeti_hairs_examined.php
Try again:
(http://www.oxfordmail.net/news/headlines/display.var.2408905.0.yeti_hairs_examined.php)
Damn! just won't allow me to give the bloody web address.
Try 'Yeti hairs' examined. in a search engine..*sigh*
Very cool! I love hearing about the bonobos behaviors!
Andrew Holtzclaw
American's for the Awareness of Primates as Bushmeat
www.freewebs.com/aapb
It does sound fascinating to believe in a story of an elusive creature, one that roams the woods, mates, forages, etc. And, yet, no one has been able to offer any concrete evidence for it.
So, Big Foot either exists or not. I don't doubt that there are serious & honest people who believe in its existence, but that doesn't make it true. There are far greater number of people who believe in magic, angels, Santa Claus, unicorn, and the flying spaghetti monster (well, maybe not that one).
The bottom line is that people often would choose something interesting that excites the senses to plain reality. Let's not forget that those who claim something also have the burden of proof.
I'm open minded person, and I'd love to see something new discovered, but....
By the way, anyone got the latest on Loch Ness monster?...
As an aspiring primatologist, I'd absolutely love it if bigfoot were real – an unstudied species to study, 'eh? That said, wanting to believe in something doesn't make it true.
There's plenty of hair, but those that can be DNA tested (you've gotta have a bit of flesh at the base) have never been the DNA of an unknown hominid. There are plenty of footprints, but they are easily faked, and the ridges in them that some ascribe to wrinkles in the feet are simply an artifact of drying plaster. There are plenty of photographs, but they are almost universally in the visual range so that it's clear what you're looking at (a big, hairy hominid), but not close enough that you can make out any details (look at stills of the classic Patterson film to see what I'm talking about).
And bottom line, in a nation (in this case, America) with little enough wilderness left, and that regularly criss-crossed by backpackers and other outdoor enthusiasts (like myself), how could you have a population of sufficient size to be healthy and stable without a body or skeleton ever having been found? It's not that hard for a researcher to get his hands on the body of an animal, even one as famously shy as, say, the Florida Black Bear
There is no way that you can be sure that there is no such thing as bigfoot (you can't prove a negative), but the odds at this point are so far against it, that the idea can be safely discounted. Barring any hard, solid evidence IN FAVOR of the existence of a bigfoot animal, it exists at the same level as the idea that there's an invisible, immaterial dragon in my garage: no positive evidence, and no way of disproving, so safely ignored.
And before folks start playing the "close-minded" card, with one body that DNA tests confirm to be a new hominid, you will convince virtually every skeptic on the face of the planet, myself included.
Tristan: I have no doubt that there are places in the United States that have not seen a human presence in decades, if not centuries. There is a lot of rugged wilderness off the usual trails and roads. Not many hikers want to brave such places.
Are you telling me that literally every square inch of this country sees a human presence on a regular basis? if so, where do animals live? Most wild animals try to avoid human presence, so they would have nowhere to go if humans were constantly moving through their territory.
If Bigfoot exists (I lean in that direction, but, obviously, I need to see some clear proof to go all the way), how do we know they don't bury or hide their dead? If they're out there, they likely live in social groups and protect each other.
So, if their home base is in a very remote area, and they hide or bury their dead, what are the odds of finding a body before the wilderness reclaims it? And as for fossils, don't forget that the only chimp fossils in existence are some teeth that were found a couple years ago. Woods and jungles are terrible for fossil preservation, since they break down organic matter very quickly.
RE footprints: No, you can't fake those easily, at least not the kind of footprints that will fool someone like Jeff Meldrum, who is an expert in primate locomotion. Sure, you could probably fool him, but you would need to do more than cut a fake foot out of some wood and stamp it into the dirt. A lot more.
Oh, and people have blown up stills from the Patterson film. You can see the eyes, mouth, and nose pretty well. It's not on par with the kind of video quality available today, obviously, but it's also very clear that if the film is a fake, the costume that Patterson created was a very sophisticated one. He didn't just rent a gorilla costume and stick it on someone.
But, yes, one has to wonder why, in this era, no one has managed to capture what he did: footage of a supposed Bigfoot walking across a clearing in broad daylight. With today's technology, the video quality would be 100 times better, and it would be obvious whether or not it was a costume.
I found your offhanded reference to Bigfoot "fanatics" somewhat disturbing. Granted, there certainly are "believers"... but there are also serious-minded individuals who feel that there is enough evidence to warrant further study of this phenomenon and who spend a lot of personal resources doing just that: both laypersons like myself and learned scientists like Dr. Jeff Meldrum, Associate Professor of Anthropology at ISU. Just because mainstream science has not had the foresight to delve into what could be one of the most pertinent mysteries of our time does not mean that the subject is simply fodder for overactive imaginations or a "fanatical" following.
Good posting!
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