Simple Challenge For Bigfoot Supporters

[Huntster]

Originally Posted by Huntster
You'll find that the aerial game counting and assessments are either done with small aircraft and a couple of sets of eyes, or with high altitude aircraft photography and infrared.

You'll also find that such methods are used in appropriate habitat. It is not used in dense rainforest habitats for what should be obvious reasons.

Last night I was at a post-Xmas party with family and longtime friends. One of those friends is a pilot who contracts annually with the Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game, providing flights for biologists for (primarily) moose counts in Game Management Unit 14. He hold me they didn't do the count this year. The snow came late (the snow helps visibility on the ground, so you can more easily see the moose), and by the time the snow came, many of the bulls had dropped their antlers (thus the biologists couldn't get the bull/cow ratio).

The count was called off this year.

Thus goes "science". Like everything else, it is limited......

I remember reading in a national geographic about animals being counted by satilite on the African plains - can't quote volume number though - it was in a doctors waiting room

Aerial tracking in open African savannah would be quite possible for certain species. In dense, rainforest habitat?

No way.

Most tracking these days is done with GPS satilities. The CSIRO in Australia does quite a bit of it. With Australia being such a large country, it makes it a lot easier

Much "tracking" is done after the subject animal is fitted with collars or chips. Caribou here in the north are tracked that way, but then caribou inhabit open tundra, not dense forest. Even fish can be tracked this way.

Game counts are different. No "tracking" is involved.

You have to admitt though, with no fossil record it's a bit hard to make bigfoot totally beleiveable

There is plenty of fossil record of bipedal hominids, even of the size sasquatches are reported to be:

Paranthropus
If an animal like Sasquatch has ever existed in North America, it has been argued that a likely candidate would be a species of Paranthropus, such as Paranthropus robustus, which would have looked very much like Sasquatch, including the crested skull and naturally bipedal gait. This was suggested by Napier and by anthropologist Gordon Strasenburg.


[edit] Meganthropus
There is also a little known subspecies of the Homo erectus, called Meganthropus, which reputedly grew to enormous proportions, though most recent remains of the hominid are more than 1 million years old, and are only to be found several thousand miles away from North America.

What's more:

Sasquatch is not represented in the fossil record, but neither are gorillas nor chimpanzees. Coleman and Patrick Huyghe note that "no one will look for such fossils, if the creatures involved are not thought to exist in the first place. But even with recognized primates, fossil finds are usually meager at best" (Coleman and Huyhge, 162). However, it is worth noting that gorillas, chimpanzees and most other primates live in tropical rain-forests where conditions are unsuitable to create fossils, and in areas where few or no archeological studies were undertaken.

I wouldn't put to much faith in Indian legends. Big hairy men crop up in most people's legends.

Funny about that, huh? Ever wonder why that is, especially since we know "big, hairy" bipedal creatures have existed in the past?

I think that at the end of the day we can go back and forth about what can and can't be proved. Perhaps one day.......

I agree. Today we have "evidence". What we lack is "proof."

It has been a pleasure discussing this topic with you

Thanks for the kind words. The pleasure has been all mine.

 

[SimonD]

Funny about that, huh? Ever wonder why that is, especially since we know "big, hairy" bipedal creatures have existed in the past?

There is much speculation about this. Humans in our current form have been around for about 50 000 years. A lot of discriptions of "monsters" or "spirits" from the "dream-time" (Australian Aborigines) match those of pre-historic creatures. I have seen cave paintings of animals long extinct from the main land

Our ancestors also came into contact with neanderthal man. Some records indicate as early as 10 -15 thousand years ago. There is even speculation that was interbreeding, though this has yet to be proved.

It wouldn't surprise me if Bigfoot was some sort of 'memory' (for the want of a better word) from this time.

 

[Huntster]

There is much speculation about this. Humans in our current form have been around for about 50 000 years. A lot of discriptions of "monsters" or "spirits" from the "dream-time" (Australian Aborigines) match those of pre-historic creatures. I have seen cave paintings of animals long extinct from the main land

These descriptions and legends are amazingly similar throughout human cultures, including cultures that have had no interaction like we know it today for thousands of years.

Our ancestors also came into contact with neanderthal man. Some records indicate as early as 10 -15 thousand years ago. There is even speculation that was interbreeding, though this has yet to be proved.

That is all true. Even if it was 10 - 15 thousand years ago, that's almost within written history.

It's virtually yesterday.

It wouldn't surprise me if Bigfoot was some sort of 'memory' (for the want of a better word) from this time.

It wouldn't surprise me if this memory isn't that old.

And in some areas of the world (like where modern human habitation is low or virtually non-existent), that "memory" might be really fresh.

 

[William Parcher]

It wouldn't surprise me if this memory isn't that old.

It wouldn't surprise me if this memory is very old.

And in some areas of the world (like where modern human habitation is low or virtually non-existent), that "memory" might be really fresh.

And in some areas of the world (like where modern human habitation is low or virtually non-existent), that "memory" might be really stale.

 

[Huntster]

Originally Posted by Huntster
It wouldn't surprise me if this memory isn't that old.

It wouldn't surprise me if this memory is very old.

How old can oral tradition be?

There has been very little written history discovered in the New World, yet sasquatch legends are well established throughout indigenous American peoples.

Quote:
And in some areas of the world (like where modern human habitation is low or virtually non-existent), that "memory" might be really fresh.

And in some areas of the world (like where modern human habitation is low or virtually non-existent), that "memory" might be really stale.

Stale:

–adjective
1. not fresh; vapid or flat, as beverages; dry or hardened, as bread.
2. musty; stagnant: stale air.
3. having lost novelty or interest; hackneyed; trite: a stale joke.
4. having lost freshness, vigor, quick intelligence, initiative, or the like, as from overstrain, boredom, or surfeit: He had grown stale on the job and needed a long vacation.
5. Law. having lost force or effectiveness through absence of action, as a claim.
–verb (used with object), verb (used without object) 6. to make or become stale.

That appears to be an invalid statement.

If an area of the world is low in human habitation, the information from that area would be fairly fresh.

At least to you.

You do live in an area saturated with humans, don't you?

 

[William Parcher]

How old can oral tradition be?

There has been very little written history discovered in the New World, yet sasquatch legends are well established throughout indigenous American peoples.



Stale:



That appears to be an invalid statement.

If an area of the world is low in human habitation, the information from that area would be fairly fresh.

At least to you.

You do live in an area saturated with humans, don't you?

I don't know what the limits are for oral tradition. All living humans represent unbroken lineages all the way back to the first organisms. What would prevent oral tradition from having been taken "out of Africa" or anywhere at any time?

That there are no (or few) written records is meaningless, because we are talking about talking (oral transmission of information).

My comment about supposed Bigfoot "memories" being stale is a universal, but I just chose the word to be the opposite of fresh. It doesn't matter if the info comes from areas with little population, as nearly all Americans have already been exposed to the Bigfoot myth. Nearly all of the witnesses are thinking that they saw a Bigfoot. The only way they can think that is if they already have a mental image of what a Bigfoot is. That was given to them by modern oral tradition (or now it may be written). The BF myth seems to work like any other myth. It only requires people to say that BF exists to cause others to think the same way. It is self-perpetuating. The question that intrigues me is "What could or would cause a world of people to stop believing that Bigfoot exists, if it does not exist?"

 

[Huntster]

Originally Posted by Huntster
How old can oral tradition be?

There has been very little written history discovered in the New World, yet sasquatch legends are well established throughout indigenous American peoples.

I don't know what the limits are for oral tradition. All living humans represent unbroken lineages all the way back to the first organisms. What would prevent oral tradition from having been taken "out of Africa" or anywhere at any time?

Nor do I know the limits of oral tradition. However, I'd like to point out that they are not uniform.

Take this example I've pointed out in the past. Want to take a stab at addressing it?:

Originally Posted by Huntster
.....I had compared sasquatch reports on Prince of Wales Island in SE Alaska to Kodiak Island. Both islands are large (#2 and #3 largest under the U.S. flag), both islands have significant salmon runs, have a similar population, and that population is predominately native.

POW Island is densely forested, has a very high density of sasquatch reports, as well as native lore about them, has no brown bears at all, and has one of the highest black bear densities in North America.

Kodiak Island is not densely forested, has one of the highest brown bear densities on Earth, has no black bears at all, has no sasquatch reports, and no native sasquatch lore.

I still await a "skeptic" to explain why all those things are true.

That there are no (or few) written records is meaningless, because we are talking about talking (oral transmission of information).

How about when both oral and written frequencies vary wildly in similar areas?

The question that intrigues me is "What could or would cause a world of people to stop believing that Bigfoot exists, if it does not exist?"

Maybe nothing. You can't prove a negative.

 

[William Parcher]

Take this example I've pointed out in the past. Want to take a stab at addressing it?

The Bigfoot myth is self perpetuating. But fabricated sightings are not necessarily going to be evenly distributed. The hoaxer wants the sighting to be believable and so they will design it to be such. You make your claim for an area that has other historical claims. A claim for a "new" area runs the risk of skepticism. You yourself might be skeptical of a sighting on Kodiak Island because nobody else has made a claim for that location.

Bigfootery itself sort of defines what is believable and what is not when it comes to Bigfoot and its range. The hoaxers use that information to customize their tale for maximum believability to the believers. It helps to say that your Bigfoot stunk to high heaven, but that's not necessary to be taken as legit.

There is a kind of natural selection going on with the myth. Bigfootery defines what BF is like and the hoaxers adapt to it, like wolves pacing a herd of caribou. It's a "dance" that forms the nature of Bigfootery and hoaxery. The hoaxers force the believers to adapt the imagined animal to their "design" (the mid-tarsal break and wacky longitudinal dermal ridges) - and the believers force the hoaxers to focus on certain key elements that they become fond of.

 

[kitakaze]

Why don't we just start a pool and wait far a localised rash of sightings and then cut Mantracker loose on 'em? (Anybody seen Mantracker?)

Seriously, with so many 'credible' reports especially from less than remote areas I find it a stretch that a rather stupid, confused, or rather bitchy sasquatch doesn't stroll into the wrong place at the wrong time and fit hits the shan.

Can someone tell me what seems to be the ever persistent difficulty with identifying a hot spot and getting something more than lacking evidence yielded so far? Huntster, you're gonna say the PGF, I just know it.

 

[Huntster]

... Huntster, you're gonna say the PGF, I just know it.

Wrong:

......Can someone tell me what seems to be the ever persistent difficulty with identifying a hot spot and getting something more than lacking evidence yielded so far?

1) A lack of funding
2) A lack of preparedness (funding can solve this)
3) A lack of full-time status for quick responders (funding can solve this)
4) A lack of qualified personnel and the necessary assets (funding can solve this)
5) People who oppose funding a quick response capability (Reason and cooperation should be able to solve this, but this forum proves that to be unattainable with some folks...............)

 

[I less than three logic]

Wrong:



1) A lack of funding
2) A lack of preparedness (funding can solve this)
3) A lack of full-time status for quick responders (funding can solve this)
4) A lack of qualified personnel and the necessary assets (funding can solve this)
5) People who oppose funding a quick response capability (Reason and cooperation should be able to solve this, but this forum proves that to be unattainable with some folks...............)

How much funding do you think it would take? Also, when do you think a reasonable cut off date would be if one had all the funding they asked for but obtained absolutely no results?

 

[kitakaze]

Wrong:



1) A lack of funding
2) A lack of preparedness (funding can solve this)
3) A lack of full-time status for quick responders (funding can solve this)
4) A lack of qualified personnel and the necessary assets (funding can solve this)
5) People who oppose funding a quick response capability (Reason and cooperation should be able to solve this, but this forum proves that to be unattainable with some folks...............)

I remember a while back we were talking of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest and a coastal effort along isolated areas of BC as something we discussed as good place to concentrate a funded search effort.

I guess as time progresses I find the factors you outline above as being increasingly questionable. It just seems that it just takes a few particularily fervent and motivated proponents to be on the ball in the right place and right time in a particular rash of reports incidence for the whole thing to get some light on it. I doubt we're at a lack of such people.

 

[kitakaze]

How much funding do you think it would take? Also, when do you think a reasonable cut off date would be if one had all the funding they asked for but obtained absolutely no results?

Under the two scenarios that Huntster and I discussed previously concerning timespan, a year habitating the targeted environment however unreasonable that may seem to some would be what one would hope for.

Now who was it that suggested using guile in conducting a search as tabling it as someother type of study? Correa? For that matter what kind of studies have occurred/are occurring that one would think might produce encounters with sasquatch?

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

There are no sasquatches in African savannahs.

Or anywhere else.

C'mon, at least 30 years of pretty concerted big-foot searching, and all you've got is footprints?! Not one body or skeleton, or bone fragment or dropping or hair or anything else with DNA, and you still think it exists because of FOOTPRINTS?

A large primate native to North America would be an Earth-shaking discovery--it would turn upside down all sorts of current science. It would raise many many questions. And you're willing to accept it based on FOOTPRINTS?

I think the OP is on to something here--that if the only thing believers have is footprints, they'd better make darn sure that they even know something about footprints. If their claim is that they can 1) sort out bigfoot prints from real animals (including humans) and 2) sort out real bigfoot prints from fakes, then they must be able to do exactly what's proposed: identify real bear (and other animal) prints, and separate fake prints from real prints (I think human, bear and others are fair to test, since the claim covers knowledge of all these things).

As the OP points out, this is a testable claim. Maybe, as with other pious frauds (dowsers notably), such a test would make thoughtful bigfoot believers re-think the "evidence".

 

[kitakaze]

Or anywhere else.

C'mon, at least 30 years of pretty concerted big-foot searching, and all you've got is footprints?! Not one body or skeleton, or bone fragment or dropping or hair or anything else with DNA, and you still think it exists because of FOOTPRINTS?

Ugh... OK, just so we stay accurate we're quite established here that we do have inconclusive hair, poo, DNA. Ask for bones and I think someone might chuck a Gigantopithecus reference your way.

A large primate native to North America would be an Earth-shaking discovery--it would turn upside down all sorts of current science.

Not that I am but there are those that would disagree that for BF to exist requires the toppling of various scientific paradigms.

I say this only in anticipation of a proponent volley of like nature.

 

[Correa Neto]

Under the two scenarios that Huntster and I discussed previously concerning timespan, a year habitating the targeted environment however unreasonable that may seem to some would be what one would hope for.

Now who was it that suggested using guile in conducting a search as tabling it as someother type of study? Correa? For that matter what kind of studies have occurred/are occurring that one would think might produce encounters with sasquatch?

I once sugested somewhere that a "bigfoot project" could be piggybacked (officially or not) at some zoology research project/expedition/field trips at "bigfoot country".

This would not just cut costs but also get people with the required skills. It could be an attempt provide some reliable evidence to back a second stage, a true "bigfoot project".

My question is:
Why we never heard of something like this from the prime bigfoot reseachers?

 

[kitakaze]

I once sugested somewhere that a "bigfoot project" could be piggybacked (officially or not) at some zoology research project/expedition/field trips at "bigfoot country".

This would not just cut costs but also get people with the required skills. It could be an attempt provide some reliable evidence to back a second stage, a true "bigfoot project".

My question is:
Why we never heard of something like this from the prime bigfoot reseachers?

Maybe they don't want to let the cat out of the bag. Guile and all that.

My question is:
For all the reports in hand, in the entire history of the natural study of the North American continent what incidents do we have of, say, spotted owl population researchers or something to that effect stumbling unawares across sasquatches?

I'm sure this tempts proponents to cite innumerable hunter encounters but with the inevitable lack of substantial supporting evidence and subsequent reasonings thereof is it not fairly moot? Simple concept- I spend a bunch of time in the forest counting marmots or whatever and then get harrassed by 8 ft bipedal primate. Anything?

 

[Huntster]

How much funding do you think it would take?

A fraction of what is invested today in either the ivory-billed funding, or what SETI has spent annually.

A rapid response capability (which is primarily on "standby" until a good quality, current sighting event occurs) shouldn't cost much more than a hundred thousand or so to set up, mere pennies to operate annually until an event occurs which justifies a more expensive response.

Then funding (or a "line" of rapidly authorized funding) should be available for:

1) News monitoring, in order to get initial information on any current reports. This really won't cost a nickel. There are plenty of places where volunteers for this type of "armchair research" is already going on. All that is needed is a once per day Google News search, daily BFF and BFRO scan, etc. Anything fresh or promising is acted upon with initial phone interviews. This will require a few long distance phone calls. Intitial phone results that have promise are reported to the fund authorizers, who determine if the media reports/initial phone interviews justify expending funds for 1st Responders.

1) Immediate transportation of "1st Responders", who perform the first face-to-face interviews, on-the-ground investigations, and the "1st Responder" decision of whether or not enough evidence is present to bring in additional assets. This can be accomplished by a two person crew. They would have to be able to go at any time, be able to then perform at location for perhaps two weeks away. These people should have good interviewing skills, good knowledge of Sasquatch historical reports, and decent outdoors/hunting/tracking skills. Costs to transport (RT) and lodge two people and provide basic vehicle rental for a week will run approximately $6,000, and salaries for two qualified 1st Responders per week shouldn't run much more than $8,000.

2) There should be funding set aside for a contract for immediate response for an established and active dog handler who has dogs experienced in tracking bear. The contract should be set up in advance, and the handler prepared to perform ASAP upon a telephone call. Funding should be set aside to provide for the transportation of these dogs and handler to the site. Finding such a dog team and handler will be difficult, and his ability to react quickly might not be possible, especially during the hunting seasons when he is usually busy. Experienced bear hunting dogs are extremely rare on this continent, but I've been told they exist. Just a guess, but round trip transportation might cost $5,000 or so, and a handler with 4 or 5 dogs might cost $500 - $750 per day, to total about $5,000 for a week of operations (only spent when the 1st Respond team thinks their use might bring fruit, ie fresh tracks/reports/ongoing reports). Total amount of about $10,000 in reserve.

3) Funding or a line of funding set aside should be available for any on-site transportation needs which might become necessary; air taxi operators, horse wranglers, ATV/ORV rentals, motorhome rental, etc. This cost will vary widely. A small aircraft can run $250 per hour, but will only be required during an on-site hunt, which has already shown some promise. This can include morning and evening aerial recon in a small airplane for a few days up to a contract for a one-time overflight with an IR equipped aircraft with a firm experienced in game counting for Fish and Game organizations.

4) There should be some equipment purchased and stored for a response event:

* A dozen or so top quality trail game cams
* At least two top quality night-vision goggles
* A couple of top quality tree stands
* A couple top quality pair of binoculars and a spotting scope
* One full top quality outfitting for a professional wildlife photographer, both still and moving, day and night, with zoom capability.

All this equipment is purchased and stored until a response event. It would be prepared to be shipped (crated/boxed/etc.) simiultaneous with the 1st Responder's deployment. All this might cost $25,000.

So, maybe a total of $50,000 to initially set up, $10,000 per year for phone/administrative/equipment storage/etc. per year, a funding reserve/commitment of $14,000 per week of 1st Responder operations (which I don't think would happen more than twice per year),

Also, when do you think a reasonable cut off date would be if one had all the funding they asked for but obtained absolutely no results?

Twenty five years for a response capability.

I also think an initial electronic interview of all current government biologists should occur along with a simple policy change.

A mass emailed poll/questionnaire to all state and federal biologists in Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, Montana, Colorado, Wyoming, Texas, Ohio, and Florida should be conducted, asking if any of them have ever had an experience, found any possible evidence, or had any hunter or other public user report anything to them.

Also a policy change which simply required the reporting of any possible sasquatch activity or evidence to the Response organizers would be in order.

Cost of that?:

Virtually nothing.

 

[Huntster]

I remember a while back we were talking of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest and a coastal effort along isolated areas of BC as something we discussed as good place to concentrate a funded search effort.

I think just picking a spot and spending a lot of money combing through it might not be cost effective. But if such a search was to be conducted, I'd do it from a boat along the BC/Alaska coastline.

I guess as time progresses I find the factors you outline above as being increasingly questionable. It just seems that it just takes a few particularily fervent and motivated proponents to be on the ball in the right place and right time in a particular rash of reports incidence for the whole thing to get some light on it. I doubt we're at a lack of such people.

* Those "few particularly fervent and motivated proponents) need to be able to move quickly, have the assets to search effectively, and time to do so

* They need the "right place and right time": ie, that right "rash of reports".

 

[Huntster]

Originally Posted by Huntster
There are no sasquatches in African savannahs.

Or anywhere else.

Allow me to rephrase myself:

There are no reports of sasquatch in African savannahs.

There are lots of reports elsewhere (especially in particular locales).

C'mon, at least 30 years of pretty concerted big-foot searching, and all you've got is footprints?!

"Pretty concerted"?

Please provide evidence of that.

And no, I haven't got them because I haven't been searching. Somebody else does.

Damned few somebody elses", because damned few people are actually searching "concertingly".

Not one body or skeleton, or bone fragment or dropping or hair or anything else with DNA, and you still think it exists because of FOOTPRINTS?

Footprints are one aspect that lends me to believe that they exist.

As the OP points out, this is a testable claim. Maybe, as with other pious frauds (dowsers notably), such a test would make thoughtful bigfoot believers re-think the "evidence".Or anywhere else.

Bullspit.

Tricking a "tracker" a couple of times (because you cannot produce true sasquatch tracks) with various hoaxed footprints doesn't prove that sasquatch prints aren't out there.

Thanks for the attempted shell game, Mr. "Juggler", but I'll pass...........