Bigfoot - The Patterson-Gimlin Film

[kitakaze]

I remember the flood and I wasn't grossed out. I don't remember the one you showed me. Do you still have it?

Contrary to popular belief, I do not spend 24/7 hanging out on forums. I may have missed it.

I've already stated sick and dying animals tend to hole up. That means they're not easy to find even if someone is looking. The scavenger system in all that marketable timber is extremely efficient and a dedicated bone hunter would have to arrive quickly on the scene to find anything recognizable.

The photo of the dead bear I showed you was in post you quoted me asking for bears dead of natural causes.

This post:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=4052463#post4052463

This photo:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ex_magician/1959113727/

This bear:



This photo was taken by a trail runner in Klamath County, Oregon (prime BF territory). It is not road kill.

Another close-up photo:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ex_magician/1959124979/in/photostream/

ETA: BTW, for clarity, this is a photo of a bear that appeared to have been killed by a poacher.

 

[LONGTABBER PE]

Hooo. That is high confidence. Do I recall correctly that you once took a shot at one with a duck gun?

Well, it would be more correctly stated that we took a shot at "something" but that incident needs to be put in perspective.

This was coastal SC ( no established bear population but factually a rogue bear does make it there every few years and gets popped by someone) but on the down side, I was a kid who at the time dont remember if I had ever even heard of BF then. ( this was like 72-73 ish) ( I do remember thinking it was a bear and at the time a BF never even entered our thought process)

It wasnt until several months later that the paper had a story of a BF sighting with tracks along the Pee Dee River ( maybe 10 miles from where we were) that BF even came into the picture as a possibility. At that time, I had never seen a bear in person ( other than a zoo) so had zero knowledge of how they sound or act in the wild. It didnt sound like any bear I've heard since and given the approximate sillouette, it didnt appear to be 4 legging it.

Also, it was at "stand to" so vision was still adjusting to daybreak and thick swamp foliage ( we never did get a clear unobstructed view)

Also, I didnt have the knowledge,experience etc I have this day ( coloring the event by the mindset of a young adult then the "fear factor" on top of that)

so, accounting for memory degradation, lack of any meaningful investigation et al with all things being equal- I'm comfortable with saying it could be either a bear or BF ( 50-50) simply because I'm not aware of any other animal ( real or imagined) of that size and speed and makes that howl.

That incident alone wouldnt make me a "believer" but it was coupled with #2

At that time I WAS an experienced observer, vet and had a team of like people who witnessed the same thing for an extended period of time. It also showed up in NV as well as thermals. This "thing" never went 4 legging and even stooped down like it was picking up stuff. We also has 2 size references ( deuce and trackless APC) to gauge realistically the approximate size ( somewhere between 7-8 feet max) and none of us thought it was anything BUT a "man" ( probably drunk or either hiding contraband on the range) until it went by the vehicles.

Its the combination of the 2 that take me to about 90% but in the same breath I state that my figure is meaningless as anything beyond my personal opinion because I dont have the first legitimate fact at my command and theres a realistic possibility ( even probability) that both were legitimate misidentifications and it was a bear and a tall dude.

Thats why you dont hear me whistling "woo" or take the typical stance. I acknowledge a strong probability of error in my assessments of my experiences.

 

[kitakaze]

(snip)

Its the combination of the 2 that take me to about 90% but in the same breath I state that my figure is meaningless as anything beyond my personal opinion because I dont have the first legitimate fact at my command and theres a realistic possibility ( even probability) that both were legitimate misidentifications and it was a bear and a tall dude.

Thats why you dont hear me whistling "woo" or take the typical stance. I acknowledge a strong probability of error in my assessments of my experiences.

Longtabber, I remember reading your second account at BFF but it was quite some time ago and my recollection is vague. I think what I have seen of your participation at BFF is consistent critical thinking. That said, I don't think you can realistically combine those completely separate incidents to come up with that figurative 90% certainty. I think you have said best yourself in the part above that I bolded. JMHO but I think you can take that and the fact that you never had a detailed unambiguous sighting of a Bigfoot and reduce that percentage quite a bit. Of course we are just being figurative and it's a matter of personal choice if you choose to do so.

 

[William Parcher]

I acknowledge a strong probability of error in my assessments of my experiences.

Yet you still put your confidence level at 90%. And I believe you mentioned that that level is based on your own personal experience(s). Maybe you do consider 10% to be a "strong error probability".

Putting that aside, let's assume that both things actually were Bigfoots. Look at how close you were to confirming the existence of a non-human bipedal primate for the very first time in recorded history. One good shot in either incident would have done it.

But you are one single man who had two encounters that were only seconds away from answering the "big mystery" question. Try to imagine the many thousands (if not more) of other people on this continent who must have been in the same situation (one good shot confirms the creature) as you were. For Bigfoot to remain unconfirmed, not a single one of those other encounters resulted in a kill shot with subsequent scientific confirmation, either. The odds of that being true seem vanishingly small.

It seems absurd to think that nobody has ever accomplished this when you yourself had two opportunities to do it.

It is these kinds of things (realities) that show that the deck is always stacked in favor of the strong Bigfoot skeptic.

 

[William Parcher]

Agreed, KKZ. I was composing my post when you submitted yours. Same thinking.

 

[LONGTABBER PE]

Longtabber, I remember reading your second account at BFF but it was quite some time ago and my recollection is vague. I think what I have seen of your participation at BFF is consistent critical thinking. That said, I don't think you can realistically combine those completely separate incidents to come up with that figurative 90% certainty. I think you have said best yourself in the part above that I bolded. JMHO but I think you can take that and the fact that you never had a detailed unambiguous sighting of a Bigfoot and reduce that percentage quite a bit. Of course we are just being figurative and it's a matter of personal choice if you choose to do so.

Basically yes- that percentage is more a "colloquial" one rather than a quantified one as it reflects personal opinion

Now, if you asked my "Vulcan half" it would be a solid 1% in favor of me believing it to exist and that would be quantifiable.

0 factual proof or reliable non anecdotal evidence to the positive + a statistical extremely low probability given the knowns of other species/ the simple fact that mathmatically its possible and cannot be proven it doesnt exist= a solid 1% probability that it does.

Its hard for me to convince myself to go to bat to defend a factual premise that has a 1% chance of being true.

 

[RayG]

If you've seen LMS, you tell me how it opens and what eyewitness accounts are included (if any) and in what context.

LAL, a anecdote is simply a story about something. I've never seen the DVD of LMS, but I do have the book on a bookshelf next to the computers. The introduction alone is filled with anecdotes, like the one where nature film producer Doug Hajicek, cameraman in tow, follows but fails to FILM immense, crisp, clear, detailed, and enormous humanlike footprints with distinct toes they supposedly found.

Doug Hajicek, nature film producer, took a break from shooting with his cameraman, and wandered near the shoreline of Selwyn Lake, nearly 800 miles north of Winnipeg, on the border of the Saskatchewan and Northwest Territories, Canada. In the Arctic to film giant lake trout, they had flown into this remote location in the early 1990s. Along the isolated beach they encountered a crisp 17-inch footprint. The print was exceptionally clear and detailed, and excluding enormous proportions, clearly humanlike in form, with distinct toes and a broad rounded heel. Some 40 inches farther ahead was another similar footprint, followed by another, and so on trailing alternately into the distance...

Hajicek's curiosity was piqued, and together with his cameraman, they followed the advancing line of footprints. For over a mile they traced the creature's enormous strides, before deciding that they didn't actually want to catch up to whatever behemoth had left the immense tracks clearly and deeply impressed in the frosty tundra soil.

Why wouldn't film producer Hajicek film these once in a lifetime tracks? Meldrum gives the excuse that it's the early 90's and Hajicek was "unfamiliar with sasquatch". What remote planet was Hajicek living on?

Meldrum dishes out further anecdotes in the introduction, from chasing around with Freeman, to the night in the bush where he's awakened by his guide to hear,

"...a trailing cry some ways off in the night... the sound of footsteps and popping brush circling our little camp, and a clacking sound, of rocks or perhaps teeth, in rapid succession... a clackity-clack of Mark's pack frame bumping against the tree trunk it was leaning against... the footfalls returned. Their pace quickened and seemed to approach my tent with a rapid pad-pad-pad. The sound of footsteps passed along the side of my small tent and something bumped one of the poles, jostling it... As I slung my pack off, a softball-sized rock sailed onto the trail a mere few feet away... it had been lobbed.. there was that subjective, but inescapable sense of being watched... That night I was again awoken by the sound of Mark's backpack clanging against a tree trunk... there was a pad-pad of heavy footfalls running between our adjacent tents and the sweeping sound of something brushing along the length of my tent's rain fly... I was confident that no human was responsible for the events of those nights. I was equally convinced that we were not dealing with the antics of a marauding bear."

The scientific method in action? I think not. Remember, these examples are just in the introduction. Meldrum offers many more throughout the rest of the book, and if you've read it you know what I'm talking about. Dahinden, Krantz, Green, Meldrum... they all use anecdotes. Do you have a bigfoot story that isn't an anecdote?

Krantz, Meldrum, Green, et al have actually done some research. Why not read them?

I've read them and others. What's your point, that I should believe them because they wrote a book? Sorry, science doesn't work that way.

RayG

 

[LONGTABBER PE]

Yet you still put your confidence level at 90%. And I believe you mentioned that that level is based on your own personal experience(s). Maybe you do consider 10% to be a "strong error probability".

Putting that aside, let's assume that both things actually were Bigfoots. Look at how close you were to confirming the existence of a non-human bipedal primate for the very first time in recorded history. One good shot in either incident would have done it.

But you are one single man who had two encounters that were only seconds away from answering the "big mystery" question. Try to imagine the many thousands (if not more) of other people on this continent who must have been in the same situation (one good shot confirms the creature) as you were. For Bigfoot to remain unconfirmed, not a single one of those other encounters resulted in a kill shot with subsequent scientific confirmation, either. The odds of that being true seem vanishingly small.

It seems absurd to think that nobody has ever accomplished this when you yourself had two opportunities to do it.

It is these kinds of things (realities) that show that the deck is always stacked in favor of the strong Bigfoot skeptic.

In my world, a 10% error probability would be a red alert and would be a stopping point- thats why I assigned the word "strong" to it ( I have to get it to a fractile before I can go forth in my world)

I actually have considered your above scenario and I agree completely. We arent the "jnugles" of the Amazon and the number of people in the woods V the "alleged" number of BF's out there would almost have to have produced something by now and the fact it hasnt is unquestionably ( from a statistical perspective) solidly in the skeptic's corner.

Then theres random chance- for example had that been a DEER hunt rather than a duck hunt- the question would have been answered that day. ( bear of BF and the issue resolved) or had that been a combat mission rather than a training exercise, it would have been answered then too.

 

[William Parcher]

Basically yes- that percentage is more a "colloquial" one rather than a quantified one as it reflects personal opinion

Now, if you asked my "Vulcan half" it would be a solid 1% in favor of me believing it to exist and that would be quantifiable.

0 factual proof or reliable non anecdotal evidence to the positive + a statistical extremely low probability given the knowns of other species/ the simple fact that mathmatically its possible and cannot be proven it doesnt exist= a solid 1% probability that it does.

Its hard for me to convince myself to go to bat to defend a factual premise that has a 1% chance of being true.

This post, summarized in the bolded last statement, shows that you have done what I suggested Bigfoot believers should do. Find a way to explain and agree that your belief is irrational. You did it.

Bigfoot does not exist.

 

[kitakaze]

Basically yes- that percentage is more a "colloquial" one rather than a quantified one as it reflects personal opinion

Now, if you asked my "Vulcan half" it would be a solid 1% in favor of me believing it to exist and that would be quantifiable.

0 factual proof or reliable non anecdotal evidence to the positive + a statistical extremely low probability given the knowns of other species/ the simple fact that mathmatically its possible and cannot be proven it doesnt exist= a solid 1% probability that it does.

Its hard for me to convince myself to go to bat to defend a factual premise that has a 1% chance of being true.

This is excellent, we understand eachother perfectly.

 

[William Parcher]

Verne Langdon is back on BFF.

 

[kitakaze]

LAL, a anecdote is simply a story about something. I've never seen the DVD of LMS, but I do have the book on a bookshelf next to the computers. The introduction alone is filled with anecdotes, like the one where nature film producer Doug Hajicek, cameraman in tow, follows but fails to FILM immense, crisp, clear, detailed, and enormous humanlike footprints with distinct toes they supposedly found.



(snip)



I've read them and others. What's your point, that I should believe them because they wrote a book? Sorry, science doesn't work that way.

RayG

I have both the LMS book and the DVD. While the book is littered with anecdotes and both have their share of bad science there is little in the way of relating of anecdotes as we see abounding in Hajicek's MonsterQuest series. There is a reference to 400 sightings per year, the anecdotes regarding the presentation of the Freeman footage(no acknowledgement of his status as an admitted hoaxer) and Memorial Day Footage and Henner Fahrenbach's statistical analysis of sightings and footprint data.

Here's an LMS DVD anecdote:

My brother ordered it for me and sent it to Japan. He and his wife watched it before they sent it and thought it was terrible. After getting it I started popping it in whenever I felt like I needed a nap. It would knock me right out and I would rarely make it past Meldrum discussing the Skookum cast. It's very soothing.

 

[manofthesea]

Not the Type to Leave Loose Ends

I think Bitter Monk summed it up best in that thread:

Originally Posted by Bitter Monk at BFF
If properly nurtured this could be the greatest jnugle of all time.

Here's some of the fantastic work of the researcher you used to impune me: http://www.bigfootforums.com/index.php?showtopic=19725&st=0&p=406458&#entry406458

Remember when I thought you and him were the same? Rockinkt too.

I could dig up some of the various descriptions of you posted by various people on this very thread. But I'm not like that.

 

[LAL]

The photo of the dead bear I showed you was in post you quoted me asking for bears dead of natural causes.
<snip>

ETA: BTW, for clarity, this is a photo of a bear that appeared to have been killed by a poacher.

I only skim your posts now; I didn't bother to click. What is there to indicate how the bear died?

Killed by poachers is hardly a "natural" way to die. Black bears are killed ny grizzlies, too - an eaten.

What's your point? Bears get shot and die in accidents and are sometimes found and photographed? Yes, I know.

 

[tyr_13]

Lu, are you really arguing that it is difficult to find things that died naturally in the forest? Things fall of of cliffs and die all the time, and then thousands of years later are found. Funny how no dead bigfoot end up at the bottom of cliffs. Black bears are killed by grizzlies huh? Do they eat the skeleton? Yes the skeleton can be destroyed, but not always.

You wanted pictures, there are pictures. What possible bearing on does the cause behind the death of the subject of the photo have to do with bigfoot being immune to death and a subsequent snapshot?

 

[LONGTABBER PE]

Lu, are you really arguing that it is difficult to find things that died naturally in the forest? Things fall of of cliffs and die all the time, and then thousands of years later are found. Funny how no dead bigfoot end up at the bottom of cliffs. Black bears are killed by grizzlies huh? Do they eat the skeleton? Yes the skeleton can be destroyed, but not always.

You wanted pictures, there are pictures. What possible bearing on does the cause behind the death of the subject of the photo have to do with bigfoot being immune to death and a subsequent snapshot?

Denial

 

[tyr_13]

Denial

Care to explain, or just want silly comments?

 

[kitakaze]

Here's some of the fantastic work of the researcher you used to impune me: http://www.bigfootforums.com/index.php?showtopic=19725&st=0&p=406458&#entry406458

Remember when I thought you and him were the same? Rockinkt too.

I could dig up some of the various descriptions of you posted by various people on this very thread. But I'm not like that.

A link to a wood-knocking thread at BFF, a reference to a couple of the people you've thought I am, and an allusion to ad homs.

Do you have something other than non sequitur chit chat in regard to your Bigfoot tales inspired by one to many viewings of a certain Robert McKimson Looney Tunes short?

As I have shown by your own description of the story, WP's summation of it can not be fairly described as a "trammeling of the truth."

Animals fleeing, forest destruction, jet plane roars - I think if your Bigfoot could have spoken he might have said "why for you bury me in the cold, cold ground?"

 

[kitakaze]

Care to explain, or just want silly comments?

Tyr 13, I'm pretty sure Longtabber's comment of "denial" was in reference to your asking LAL what relation the cause of the bear's death has with finding a dead Bigfoot.

As in LAL's particular reaction to seeing a photo of a dead bear could be characterized as denial. I'm pretty sure that is the way it was meant but I can also easily see how one would not quite catch that.

 

[LONGTABBER PE]

Tyr 13, I'm pretty sure Longtabber's comment of "denial" was in reference to your asking LAL what relation the cause of the bear's death has with finding a dead Bigfoot.
As in LAL's particular reaction to seeing a photo of a dead bear could be characterized as denial. I'm pretty sure that is the way it was meant but I can also easily see how one would not quite catch that.

you would be correct

it wasnt a remark to Tyr 13 but to the question he posed.

I am often astonished by those hoping and wanting "science" to acknowledge them using evidence that borders on "heresy" to make their point.

I have made my opinion of BF "science" and the "experts" in the field quite clear here and on the BFF.