Moderated Bigfoot- Anybody Seen one?

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I'm a pretty avid camper / hiker, and have been to wilderness areas all over the place. I can tell you without a doubt that ABP is totally correct: there is almost nowhere that man has not gone in our forests. I've hiked for hours and hours into the woods, only to find someones shoes, or a beer can, or cigarette butts. Ive been sure I was "miles from anything" only to find out while looking at google earth later on that I was mere yards from a road. What seems like "endless forest" only seems that way because you lack a birds eye view.

Oh, and in all my travels I've never seen Bigfoot. Alligators, bears, snakes, birds, bugs and lizards yes. Bigfoot no.
 
Deacondark said:
I'm a pretty avid camper / hiker, and have been to wilderness areas all over the place. I can tell you without a doubt that ABP is totally correct: there is almost nowhere that man has not gone in our forests. I've hiked for hours and hours into the woods, only to find someones shoes, or a beer can, or cigarette butts. Ive been sure I was "miles from anything" only to find out while looking at google earth later on that I was mere yards from a road. What seems like "endless forest" only seems that way because you lack a birds eye view.

Oh, and in all my travels I've never seen Bigfoot. Alligators, bears, snakes, birds, bugs and lizards yes. Bigfoot no.
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maybe you look on google maps first......... research is your friend.
 
Deacondark said:
I'm a pretty avid camper / hiker, and have been to wilderness areas all over the place. I can tell you without a doubt that ABP is totally correct: there is almost nowhere that man has not gone in our forests. I've hiked for hours and hours into the woods, only to find someones shoes, or a beer can, or cigarette butts. Ive been sure I was "miles from anything" only to find out while looking at google earth later on that I was mere yards from a road. What seems like "endless forest" only seems that way because you lack a birds eye view.

Oh, and in all my travels I've never seen Bigfoot. Alligators, bears, snakes, birds, bugs and lizards yes. Bigfoot no.
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I once sat on a small island in the middle of a lake in the middle of what is now Nunavut. I was "miles from anything." Then I noticed I was sitting in a ring of rocks, a tent ring. Then I saw, what ho, stone arrowheads. These were left by The People of the Deer, or the Caribou Inuit, and were maybe at most a hundred years old. They used the islands to scout for the Caribou, then set off to the appropriate ambush point.

This was in a tundra moonscape that looked as lonely and uninhabited as any place on Earth, but obviously not.
 
parnassus said:
Yes, there is a science to it.
This brings up another issue, which is the probability issue. To a man/woman, footers have no sense of what probability is about, and how it applies to this "bigfoot" idea. This is perhaps the single distinguishing characteristic between people with a scientific mind, and people with a superstitious mind.

The latter are perfectly happy to believe that an entire species (or several species!!) of huge animal and its fossils can evade detection for 400 years. The former understand the exceedingly overwhelmingly entirely completely tiny probability that this could happen, given the nature of North America and its inhabitants during that time.
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Parn, I don't disagree with this. It's hard to reconcile, with the exception of the fossil issue.
 
Deacondark said:
I'm a pretty avid camper / hiker, and have been to wilderness areas all over the place. I can tell you without a doubt that ABP is totally correct: there is almost nowhere that man has not gone in our forests. I've hiked for hours and hours into the woods, only to find someones shoes, or a beer can, or cigarette butts. Ive been sure I was "miles from anything" only to find out while looking at google earth later on that I was mere yards from a road. What seems like "endless forest" only seems that way because you lack a birds eye view.

Oh, and in all my travels I've never seen Bigfoot. Alligators, bears, snakes, birds, bugs and lizards yes. Bigfoot no.
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That would make two of us, I haven't seen a bigfoot either, and I hope I never do.
 
Well now that we have it settled that there is no magic wand to conjure up a bigfoot I think I will be able to sleep better at night. I do have a few questions for Bush.

I'm not sure how you can determine what scat came from what animal spread out over 500,000 plus acres. How do the wildlife enumerators do that? I know you can look at the content if it isn't digested and I know what deer scat looks like, but everything else?? I'm not sure it's so easily identifiable.

I don't think the wildlife enumerators are going everywhere in these places, at least not in the Smokies, because there are areas that are not easily accessible by foot in those mountains. It might be easy to do from the air during winter but not all wildlife are out and about during the winter months. Winter here means no foliage for about four months out of the year, but it is by no means sparse like the landscape you have in your pics. It would be difficult to assess from the air because of the tree cover and underbrush. It would probably all have to be done on foot. But rather than guess at it, I'll ask one of my friends that works in the park how many are employed to do this and how it is done.
 
Has a few what? Wildlife enumerators? They would have to do their surveys by boat.
 
Jodie said:
I'm not sure how you can determine what scat came from what animal spread out over 500,000 plus acres. How do the wildlife enumerators do that? I know you can look at the content if it isn't digested and I know what deer scat looks like, but everything else?? I'm not sure it's so easily identifiable.
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The important thing is to always come down on the side of bigfoot: It is so much more reasonable to assume professionals who are paid to count poop cannot tell the difference between a ten pound raccoon poop and a thousand pound buffalo. I feel the same way about the periodic table of the elements. I look at one thing like Fe and another like N - and they're both just letters, so what's the difference? How could Steven Hawking tell one from the other?

I don't think the wildlife enumerators are going everywhere in these places, at least not in the Smokies, because there are areas that are not easily accessible by foot in those mountains. It might be easy to do from the air during winter but not all wildlife are out and about during the winter months. Winter here means no foliage for about four months out of the year, but it is by no means sparse like the landscape you have in your pics. It would be difficult to assess from the air because of the tree cover and underbrush. It would probably all have to be done on foot. But rather than guess at it, I'll ask one of my friends that works in the park how many are employed to do this and how it is done.
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It's funny how my google works and yours does not. Now that you have had the incredible revelation that people count the animals professionally for Fish and Game departments the right thing to do is ask a hot dog vendor or a maintenance guy what he thinks about it.

This is the same way 'footers go about looking for bigfoot. See how I spent a whole hour with this film crew shooting off fireworks?

I entered into google "deer population estimates great smoky mountains" and came up with boatloads of articles, and also some on elk. But I'll just wait to hear your report from the maintenance guy because it seems so much more authoritative.

I'll bet though that you are really handy with google looking for defense of bigfoot, and acquiring factoids like how much land it would take to house every person on earth if they lie on top of one another ten deep.
 
I'm actually trying to get the basics down first before making the psychological leap to the low probability for the existence for bigfoot. My point is to try to dissect the fine points of the argument as much as can possibly be done. That's why I drifted over to JREF, I want to hear what you have to say. If you are right, I will conceded your point. I'm not that committed to my POV these days.

It makes no logical sense for me to consult a hot dog vendor about wildlife other than to ask about the quality of the meat in the hot dogs, likewise with maintenance. I also found my own links that support both of our points if you are interested in reading them.

I'm not seeing much of the intelligent discussion from your end that you insisted I provide. Don't hold someone to higher standards than you are willing to live up to, that's rather hypocritical. I'm trying to give you what you asked for but if you aren't interested, that's OK too, because it makes no difference to me if it is you or another poster that's willing to discuss the topic.
 
Jodie said:
I'm actually trying to get the basics down first before making the psychological leap to the low probability for the existence for bigfoot. My point is to try to dissect the fine points of the argument as much as can possibly be done. That's why I drifted over to JREF, I want to hear what you have to say. If you are right, I will conceded your point. I'm not that committed to my POV these days.

It makes no logical sense for me to consult a hot dog vendor about wildlife other than to ask about the quality of the meat in the hot dogs, likewise with maintenance. I also found my own links that support both of our points if you are interested in reading them.

I'm not seeing much of the intelligent discussion from your end that you insisted I provide. Don't hold someone to higher standards than you are willing to live up to, that's rather hypocritical. I'm trying to give you what you asked for but if you aren't interested, that's OK too, because it makes no difference to me if it is you or another poster that's willing to discuss the topic.
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Jodie: I'm curious what evidence for bigfoot specifically (*if any*) do you feel is authentic and why?
 
River said:
Jodie: I'm curious what evidence for bigfoot specifically (*if any*) do you feel is authentic and why?
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At this point, I've seen zip, nada, and I work in medicine so it's hard to switch gears and just blindly accept what you are told or read when there are no facts established.

The only thing that gives me pause is my father's anecdotal story, and since I have no way to dig into that 70 years after the fact, all it remains is a story from someone I trust. Yet again, trust is never the most reliable indicator for veracity.
 
Jodie, regarding your father's bigfoot sighting story, please keep in mind that the following are known, documented and studied phenomena of the human mind: misidentification of extant animals; hallucination (both visual and auditory); victimization of fraud; perpetration of fraud.
 
Jodie said:
At this point, I've seen zip, nada, and I work in medicine so it's hard to switch gears and just blindly accept what you are told or read when there are no facts established.

The only thing that gives me pause is my father's anecdotal story, and since I have no way to dig into that 70 years after the fact, all it remains is a story from someone I trust. Yet again, trust is never the most reliable indicator for veracity.
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Jodie: No evidence doesnt mean nothing is there, but its a good indicator that it's not for sure. Especially when concerning a large primate that would have certain caloric requirements and other biological and environmental impacts on any area where they might be present. The fact that nothing has been scientifically vetted says more than any of the threads here or at the BFF.

Also, your father may have seen something he thought was bigfoot. It happens. People claim to see ghosts too, and they are dead serious about it. (pun intended? lol) Sailors have seen mermaids, and I could go down a more credulous path but you get the idea. It doesn't discount your fathers memory, only serves as another reminder that just because people have seen something they thought was real, or thought was something else does not make "that thing" any more real than the unicorns people claim to see.

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That said, here is my official welcome to the JREF. Hope you enjoy your stay, and get to know some cool people. I've learned a lot from my short time here. There are many sections to the forum that cover a broad spectrum of subjects. It's quite enjoyable to discuss things here IMHO.
 
Vortigern99 said:
Jodie, regarding your father's bigfoot sighting story, please keep in mind that the following are known, documented and studied phenomena of the human mind: misidentification of extant animals; hallucination (both visual and auditory); victimization of fraud; perpetration of fraud.
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I can't rule out misidentification, but he was face to face with this thing, I don't think it was a hallucination. I've looked for records of any kind of primate ownership or possible escape back in that time for that area. I can't find any documentation if it exists. They may not have kept records for such things back then. This was the only thing I found that was even remotely interesting but probably not related:

http://www.deq.state.ms.us/mdeq.nsf/pdf/Main_OctoberNewsletter08ext/$File/Vol.%205%20Issue%2010ext.pdf?OpenElement

Teilhardina magnoliana was characterized in a Carnegie Museum of
Natural History press release as a tiny primate weighing approximately
28 grams or about one ounce. Like other small primates it was an
“acrobatic leaper and proficient climber, and it probably ate insects,
fruits, sap and gum.” The discovery in Meridian has generated much
national media attention this year. The Pittsburgh Tribune Review
(March 4, 2008) described T. magnoliana as a wide-eyed primate
small enough to fit in the palm of a child’s hand. The Boston Globe’s website (March 3, 2008) said the animal was so tiny that one could loll in a tablespoon. The New York Times (March 4, 2008) cited Beard as saying it was about the size of the pygmy mouse lemur of Madagascar, the tiniest living primate. The paper also cited Peter Wilf, a paleobotanist at Penn State who studied fossil leaves at the Meridian site, as describing the ancient landscape in which the primate lived as “a subtropical forest of shrubs and tall trees, flowering plants and ferns, sassafras and sumac.” The San Diego Union-Tribune (March 6, 2008) compared the appearance of T. magnoliana with that of “the big-eyed tarsiers of Southeast Asia or a small monkey.” Based on the numerous press accounts, one can see that Mississippi is a happening place for paleontology and for scientific research.
 
Jodie said:
Parn, I don't disagree with this. It's hard to reconcile, with the exception of the fossil issue.
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The fossil thing has been gone over time and again. It's just like all the rest of the ad hoc* "bigfoot" arguments. There are no large animals in North America that do not have a fossil record. I challenge you or anyone to tell us one. Bears supposedly have the same habitat as 'bigfoot" and we have plenty of bear fossils.

*ad hoc: since A could only be true if B is true, then since we assume A is true, then B must be true. And since B is true, then A can be true. The problem is, we have no proof for either A or B. Some call it bootstrapping.
Now you will say, oh, but what about the chimpanzee? only recently were fossils of chimps found....
That is pseudoscience. Grabbing a factoid which is off point and pretending it applies. It doesn't apply because chimps don't live in North America, they do not have a near universal distribution across a continent in a wide variety of soils and geologic history in a temperate climate where thousands of rockhounds and scientists and hikers and boy scouts and 5th graders live and find interesting things at regular intervals, inclding a fossil record of every extant large animal. Even Jeff Meldrum has done it. (And besides, we DO have chimp fossils).

Saskeptic and others have explained this repeatedly at BFF and are met with the fingers in the ears/can't read response. Here it is again:
with the exception of the fossil issue.
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Capiche?
 
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