Moderated Bigfoot- Anybody Seen one?

[Jodie]

It's good to know you concede the possibility that your father might have mistaken some other animal -- say, a bear -- for a bigfoot. Concluding that indeed, a claimant might simply be mistaken is the beginning of rational, critical thought regarding bigfoot sighting reports.

Before you reject the next possibility, namely hallucination, may I suggest that you do some reading on the topic?

Without knowing more about your father's sighting report, I can't offer much more guidance than that.

However, you've neglected to address the other possibilities: namely, victimization of fraud and perpetration of fraud.

And while you may be reluctant to concede this point, it is also possible that your father fabricated the story, and/or exaggerated a real event. Lying is, again, a known and documented phenomenon, whereas bigfoot, to date, is not.



I fail to understand how reports of a tiny, palm-sized primate from 2008 bear any relevance to a bigfoot sighting report from 70 years ago.

He saw something like a primate. The damage it did after he left the area convinced my grandfather that he wasn't lying or hallucinating, but I can't say for certain what he saw.

Unkempt homeless people can look pretty wild but the hands and eyes that he described weren't human. I think the chances of someone wearing a gorilla suit in rural Mississippi in the 1940's would be pretty remote.

That's what I was looking for in the archives in Hattiesburg, any kind of records for a circus, side show, etc. All they had were records related to truly historical events or places, not records like that.

I thought the tapir story interesting because I'ld always heard there were no primates native to NA besides us, and us being recent additions relatively speaking. It has no significance, it had just happened and the archivist mentioned it while I was there.

 

[Jodie]

Whatta ya got? Might as well cut to the denoument.

Here you go:

http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/course/fw353/Estimate.htm

http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/fhw06-nc.pdf

http://www.coopunits.org/North_Carolina/Cooperators/

http://www.ncwildlife.org/Conserving/Programs/WildlifeDiversityProgram/ProjectsEventsandPartnerships.aspx

The scat issue came to mind because of the number of visitors. I'm sure some of the visitors have to answer the call of nature on the trails, along with their dogs, I doubt they are all fastidious enough to bury or pick it up.

He's right about most of it but no one is gridwalking every square inch of this specific park. They may be doing that in his area. It depends on state funding.

The same cover that would prevent surveillance by air would also contribute to misidentification. From what I could tell, most of the surveillance had to do with fishing so enumerators are at water sources. They should see sign, if not something out of place.

 

[Jodie]

Jodie – a bit off-topic; but do you mind my asking -- ? (Not meaning to be snotty, am just genuinely interested.) You say this – also say in a previous post, which I can’t seem to find, that you have no wish to see a bigfoot unless it’s dead. Why do you wish thus? The world’s fauna are to me, endlessly fascinating, even if scary. I don’t know of any potentially dangerous animal which can’t be secured so as to make it, at the time of viewing, not dangerous; plus, if bigfoot exists, such experience as there is would suggest that in the main, it does not offer physical violence to humans.

If the creature exists, I would love to have a first-hand bigfoot encounter (I almost certainly never will – am on the wrong side of the Atlantic, for one thing). There’s almost no creature, known or “problematic”, shall we say, that I would not wish to encounter first-hand. Perhaps the dog-sized or pony-sized spiders which some on the “crypto” scene speak of in certain tropical-forest locations; but then I’m arachnophobic. (Not saying that I necessarily believe in the existence of these monster arachnids, or indeed that it’s possible for them to exist.)

I don't put much stock into other people's sighting claims. The vast majority of those claims are fleeting glimpses from cars at night, or they see it walking away from a distance.

The only reports I've had any interest in are the ones where an extended encounter is claimed. Not all of those are pleasant. My father's encounter was hostile.

If bigfoot exists, it is huge by all accounts. We know nothing about it and therefore we can't predict it's responses. I think it's a good idea to keep that in the back of your mind with any wild animal encounter.

 

[Jodie]

Most likely if a person says he was face to face with a bigfoot, he is either lying or hallucinating. Since we know that all people lie, and that only a small minority hallucinate, then without more detail, I would say that lying is more likely. One of the struggles of growing up is realizing/admitting that your parents do things you'd rather not think about. Lying is one of those things. Again, the issue is probability, which is a mathematical way of looking at Occam's Razor, an expression that footers have somehow appropriated to their use/abuse, while not understanding its meaning or how to apply it. To a footer, Occam's Razor means "if someone tells you they saw a monster, then they saw a monster. Can't get any simpler than that. Occam's razor. QED."

Pseudoscience.

He wasn't lying, he wasn't hallucinating, whether he really saw what he saw, I can't say. Misidentification is the only option that sounds reasonable to me.

 

[Vortigern99]

He saw something like a primate. The damage it did after he left the area convinced my grandfather that he wasn't lying or hallucinating, but I can't say for certain what he saw.

But human beings do damage all the time, all over the world, at every moment of every day. So do bears in their respective habitats (though it depends on what you mean by "damage", exactly). There is no evidence that a giant non-human North American primate has ever damaged anything. Chimps and gorillas (the only non-human primates that could be mistaken for a bigfoot) do not "do damage" to natural or man-made areas, apart from eating vegetation and/or making bedding. The more rational and parsimonious conclusion, then, is that a human being did the damage your grandfather reported seeing.

Unkempt homeless people can look pretty wild but the hands and eyes that he described weren't human. I think the chances of someone wearing a gorilla suit in rural Mississippi in the 1940's would be pretty remote.

He described inhuman hands and eyes, but his perception might have been distorted by the shock of the event. (You might want to investigate Tube's links to information about false memories, upthread.) Or the figure your father saw had birth defects, diseases or injuries that caused malformation of the limbs and eyes. Or it was a guy in a suit. All of these are known, studied and documented phenomena, whereas bigfoot, to date, is not.

That's what I was looking for in the archives in Hattiesburg, any kind of records for a circus, side show, etc. All they had were records related to truly historical events or places, not records like that.

If you have no evidence of a travelling circus and you have no evidence of a giant non-human primate roaming the wilds of North America whilst leaving no bones, scat or hair, whereas we know and have documented that travelling circuses exist, the more rational and parsimonious explanation is that a travelling circus was somehow involved -- either by providing an escaped chimp or gorilla, or a guy in a suit.

I thought the tapir story interesting because I'ld always heard there were no primates native to NA besides us, and us being recent additions relatively speaking. It has no significance, it had just happened and the archivist mentioned it while I was there.

A tapir? A tapir is a pig-like South American herbivorous mammal. The quote you supplied was discussing a tarsier, a palm-sized primate which inhabited the southern US 50 million years ago.

 

[Vortigern99]

He wasn't lying, he wasn't hallucinating, whether he really saw what he saw, I can't say. Misidentification is the only option that sounds reasonable to me.

How can you possibly know this? You're engaging in the logical fallacy called argument from incredulity. You're rejecting perfectly rational possibilities for which there is no contraindication simply because you personally, subjectively cannot incorporate the idea into your cherished belief system.

 

[Jodie]

Especially as we get older and the details of what we remember from 40 years ago change and morph, and if someone tells a tall one for a long time it may become a real memory in his or her mind.

I'm still trying to figure out if multiqoute is possible here.

To Tube, that could be a possible explanation in that he remembers a "monster" or "gorilla, when it was in fact a human. That is a strong possibility.

As for wishing bigfoot was real, not really. If they exist, I don't think they are so benign despite what the bigfoot proponents will tell you.

 

[fleabeetle]

I don't put much stock into other people's sighting claims. The vast majority of those claims are fleeting glimpses from cars at night, or they see it walking away from a distance.

The only reports I've had any interest in are the ones where an extended encounter is claimed. Not all of those are pleasant. My father's encounter was hostile.

If bigfoot exists, it is huge by all accounts. We know nothing about it and therefore we can't predict it's responses. I think it's a good idea to keep that in the back of your mind with any wild animal encounter.

Thanks -- I see where you're coming from. Would still welcome an encounter of my own. In the IMO fairly unlikely event of its proving for me fatal or highly injurious -- I've had most of my biblical span anyway.

 

[Jodie]

How can you possibly know this? You're engaging in the logical fallacy called argument from incredulity. You're rejecting perfectly rational possibilities for which there is no contraindication simply because you personally, subjectively cannot incorporate the idea into your cherished belief system.

This is the gist of the story, he went to a neighbor's muscadine vineyard and was confronted with something he said looked like a naked hairy black man. It was on all fours in front of him, he says he remembers the hands being different in that the fingers were short and stubby in relation to the palms. The eyes had no whites similar to a dog's eyes.

He ran, the thing pursued, swatted him on the butt, but Dad never looked back. He told my grandfather what happened. Pa went to the neighbor's to see if he could see what caused the problem. The vines and posts (rail road ties) were ripped from the ground and it was his opinion that a 10 year old could not do that.

So it could be an adult human that did the damage. Maybe the person was asleep under the vine cover, got startled, and hadn't gotten completely up yet to explain why it was on all fours. I don't have an explanation for the hands, eyes, or the fact that he was naked other than false memory as Tube pointed out.

 

[Jodie]

A tapir? A tapir is a pig-like South American herbivorous mammal. The quote you supplied was discussing a tarsier, a palm-sized primate which inhabited the southern US 50 million years ago.

Sorry, typing fast.

 

[DennyT]

I don't put much stock into other people's sighting claims.

Except that you do.

 

[tube]

He wasn't lying, he wasn't hallucinating, whether he really saw what he saw, I can't say. Misidentification is the only option that sounds reasonable to me.

Jodie; you dismiss false memory because....?

Or did you not read and consider what I previously posted?

Why are you taking the time to engage skeptics unless you are willing to take the time and mental energy to listen?

 

[Jodie]

Jodie; you dismiss false memory because....?

Or did you not read and consider what I previously posted?

Why are you taking the time to engage skeptics unless you are willing to take the time and mental energy to listen?

I read what Parn wrote before I read your response. If not expecting anything at all, I can see how the false memory thing could work in this case.

 

[GT/CS]

This is the gist of the story, he went to a neighbor's muscadine vineyard and was confronted with something he said looked like a naked hairy black man. It was on all fours in front of him, he says he remembers the hands being different in that the fingers were short and stubby in relation to the palms. The eyes had no whites similar to a dog's eyes.

He ran, the thing pursued, swatted him on the butt, but Dad never looked back. He told my grandfather what happened. Pa went to the neighbor's to see if he could see what caused the problem. The vines and posts (rail road ties) were ripped from the ground and it was his opinion that a 10 year old could not do that.

So it could be an adult human that did the damage. Maybe the person was asleep under the vine cover, got startled, and hadn't gotten completely up yet to explain why it was on all fours. I don't have an explanation for the hands, eyes, or the fact that he was naked other than false memory as Tube pointed out.

Swatted him on the butt????

There's a potential red flag if you're looking for one.

 

[Jodie]

Except that you do.

I don't recall you ever asking me before about what I thought about sighting reports. At one time I might have given more credence to some of them more so than I do now but there really are not a lot of reports out there to consider. I came to that conclusion when I started reviewing some of them while working on the new sightings data base over at the BFF.

I think it took that kind of exercise to make me see it, tearing things apart piece by piece. As you pulled the reports apart, you had more questions than answers, why didn't the person creating the report ask those questions or provide that information?

I asked how we were going to vet the reports. I was told there was no mechanism. That would mean the data entered isn't reliable, therefore anything you might pull out of the database would also be unreliable. It was an exercise in futility, so I dropped it. If that was pointless, then all of it was pointless since that is what the proponent stance is based upon, it was time to let it go.

 

[Jodie]

Swatted him on the butt????

There's a potential red flag if you're looking for one.

Wave it proudly because it is, a human might do that though.

 

[Vortigern99]

This is the gist of the story, he went to a neighbor's muscadine vineyard and was confronted with something he said looked like a naked hairy black man. It was on all fours in front of him, he says he remembers the hands being different in that the fingers were short and stubby in relation to the palms. The eyes had no whites similar to a dog's eyes.

He ran, the thing pursued, swatted him on the butt, but Dad never looked back. He told my grandfather what happened. Pa went to the neighbor's to see if he could see what caused the problem. The vines and posts (rail road ties) were ripped from the ground and it was his opinion that a 10 year old could not do that.

So it could be an adult human that did the damage. Maybe the person was asleep under the vine cover, got startled, and hadn't gotten completely up yet to explain why it was on all fours. I don't have an explanation for the hands, eyes, or the fact that he was naked other than false memory as Tube pointed out.

Okay, but you're not addressing any of the points I raised in post #4845 or 4846. You said you wanted intelligent discussion, and several of us (including me, I think) are attempting to give you that, but you're not responding in kind.

So let me ask again: How can you possibly know your father wasn't fabricating, exaggerating or hallucinating what he claims to have seen? How can you be so certain that he was not hoaxed by a man in a suit?

Further, am I to understand from your description of the account that your father was ten years old at the time of the sighting?

 

[Jodie]

Okay, but you're not addressing any of the points I raised in post #4845 or 4846. You said you wanted intelligent discussion, and several of us (including me, I think) are attempting to give you that, but you're not responding in kind.

So let me ask again: How can you possibly know your father wasn't fabricating, exaggerating or hallucinating what he claims to have seen? How can you be so certain that he was not hoaxed by a man in a suit?

Further, am I to understand from your description of the account that your father was ten years old at the time of the sighting?

Yes, he was 10. Sorry, I'm trying to respond to everyone. After CT said something about the swat on the butt something dawned on me that has never occurred to me before.

I don't think he hallucinated the encounter but he may very well have sublimated some of the details if the truth was worse. I do know that happens, I've dealt with it in my profession.

What if he was molested by this vagrant and the hairy naked black man that wasn't exactly human became bigfoot? It might be easier to deal with a monster encounter than the other alternative. It was the 1940's, no one would ever report something like that.

It never occurred to me to search records for any escaped mental patients, arrests for vagrancy, or what have you for the area back in that time. It's a sickening possibility but I can't ignore it.

And all this time it was presented to me like a monster story, why would any of my family members even talk about it like that? They are all dead now, I'll never know the answer to that one. I guess the story is done, I don't know what else I can or would want to say about it.

 

[AttorneyTom]

In Breaking News....

The "Genuine Skookumchuck Lake Sasquatch/Bigfoot Hair" specimen received 21 bids on ebay before selling today for $15.51 to the lucky nut j.. um..bidder. This was lot no. 14 of , of course, of a limited available 100 lots that will be offered.

hmm... $1500

Lot No. 15 is now being offered starting at one cent.

Back to you, Chet...

 

[GT/CS]

Yes, he was 10. Sorry, I'm trying to respond to everyone. After CT said something about the swat on the butt something dawned on me that has never occurred to me before.

I don't think he hallucinated the encounter but he may very well have sublimated some of the details if the truth was worse. I do know that happens, I've dealt with it in my profession.

What if he was molested by this vagrant and the hairy naked black man that wasn't exactly human became bigfoot? It might be easier to deal with a monster encounter than the other alternative. It was the 1940's, no one would ever report something like that.

It never occurred to me to search records for any escaped mental patients, arrests for vagrancy, or what have you for the area back in that time. It's a sickening possibility but I can't ignore it.

And all this time it was presented to me like a monster story, why would any of my family members even talk about it like that? They are all dead now, I'll never know the answer to that one. I guess the story is done, I don't know what else I can or would want to say about it.

It doesn't need to be that sinister. To a kid anyone over 6'-6" or so would look like a giant so if he was startled by a very tall person in that instant his mind could make up all sorts of things.
Imagine a ten year old kid unexpectedly meeting Shaq in a dark alley or in the woods.