Simple question for Bigfoot enthusiasts: Why no unambiguous photos/videos?

[Jodie]

At the bottom right-hand corner of each post, there are four buttons: Link, Quote, ' ' (pair of inverted commas), Reply.

Left-click on the "inverted commas" button on each post in turn, that you'll want to quote from. Scroll down to bottom of page; left-click on Post Reply button at bottom left-hand corner of page. That gives content of each post, in your "reply" window.

Thanks Flea!! Just now getting to your reply after posting a few times.

 

[Jodie]

This assumes good trackers are available not just within bigfootery but also for each particular alleged bigfoot track case you wish to bring forward as non-hoaxed. Given the standards of bigfootery's usual practices and investigators' skills...

Absolutely agree there, but those kinds of contacts can be cultivated. If I thought the trackway was good enough I would certainly make every effort to find one. But it's not just that, if police investigators can gather forensic evidence why can this not be a learned skill for the serious bigfoot hunter? You would think they would make learning good investigative technique a priority since they scream and holler about science not accepting what they find as evidence.

And there's another problem- possible evidence for forgery (say, knee marks besides each print) could be discounted or "explained" by the hoaxer as being the result of his/hers "investigation" of the tracks by the time it was found.

A bigfoot hunter who was serious about establishing credibility for the find would know better than to do that, or they should.



Do not forget that "hoax" is not the only explanation. Mistakes also happen (example: overstepping bear tracks).

This is true, but bear tracks are usually closer together than the ones I would think had possibility.

 

[Vortigern99]

If purported unicorn tracks were held up as evidence of unicorns, would you call for an investigation of the site for signs of hoaxing? Would you claim that anyone not calling for such an investigation was not being properly skeptical or engaging in suitably critical thinking?

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Jodie,

Can you think of any other animal for which tracks are presented as evidence of it's existence, rather than evidence of it's presence? ( recent or otherwise.. )

Just something to think about..

 

[Jodie]

If purported unicorn tracks were held up as evidence of unicorns, would you call for an investigation of the site for signs of hoaxing? Would you claim that anyone not calling for such an investigation was not being properly skeptical or engaging in suitably critical thinking?

I would be interested in trying to figure out what they saw but since there are very few reports of unicorn sightings I am biased in thinking unicorns don't exist. I would not accuse someone else of not being a critical thinker because they had no interest in investigating the claim. If I went to the effort of looking, I would at least take someone with me who was familiar with the tracks of local wildlife.

 

[Jodie]

Jodie,

Can you think of any other animal for which tracks are presented as evidence of it's existence, rather than evidence of it's presence? ( recent or otherwise.. )

Just something to think about..

No , I can not. That's an excellent point and one that I made earlier in that you can't prove what something is with the tracks, but you can prove what it isn't with proper investigation.

 

[GT/CS]

Whether you mean to or not you're talking in circles.
What is a proper investigation? Are you saying that we haven't found bigfoot because no-one has launched a proper investigation?

 

[Skeptical Greg]

No , I can not. That's an excellent point and one that I made earlier in that you can't prove what something is with the tracks, but you can prove what it isn't with proper investigation.

A proper investigation of tracks requires a specimen of the object that made them; in this case a foot.

Bigfootery wants to be excused from this requirement.

A professional tracker can't prove a print is not a Bigfoot print, unless they have a Bigfoot foot, to compare it to ..

Bigfooters go through all kinds of contortions to ignore the rules of evidence that science requires..
They point to things like, how hard it is to find missing aircraft in the Pacific Northwest, while ignoring that any missing aircraft can be shown to have been an existing entity, before it went missing..

We can go on and on ...

 

[Jodie]

Whether you mean to or not you're talking in circles.
What is a proper investigation? Are you saying that we haven't found bigfoot because no-one has launched a proper investigation?

I'm saying until someone puts serious thought into the best way to do this, possibly treating it like a crime scene, then anything gleaned from an investigation really can't be used as evidence for either stance. I would rather see several years of well thought out investigations, even if only ten of those were unexplainable, than the several thousand useless reports that the BFRO has of supposed bigfoot sightings. I don't think bigfoot can be proven to exist without a body, but the interest to look depends on the quality of what is found. I think the pseudo researchers have done more to make the topic look silly than any of the folks out in left field that have made what are clearly unbelievable claims. At least you can summarily dismiss the psychic bigfoot network.

 

[GT/CS]

Who is going to fund such research and why would he or she do so?
It's an imaginary creature and everyone knows it. That's why all we have are goof balls (one of them apparently coked up) running around the forests pretending to be researchers.

 

[Jodie]

A proper investigation of tracks requires a specimen of the object that made them; in this case a foot.

Bigfootery wants to be excused from this requirement.

A professional tracker can't prove a print is not a Bigfoot print, unless they have a Bigfoot foot, to compare it to ..

Bigfooters go through all kinds of contortions to ignore the rules of evidence that science requires..
They point to things like, how hard it is to find missing aircraft in the Pacific Northwest, while ignoring that any missing aircraft can be shown to have been an existing entity, before it went missing..

We can go on and on ...

I absolutely agree with you, but you can say whether the print isn't a bear or isn't a human's, fake or an actual large human's footprint, and support that with any other evidence found in the area. But that has to come from someone objective enough to look first who does not immediately jump to the bigfoot conclusion. I don't think they look because they will find the human or bear presence.

 

[Jodie]

Who is going to fund such research and why would he or she do so?
It's an imaginary creature and everyone knows it. That's why all we have are goof balls (one of them apparently coked up) running around the forests pretending to be researchers.

No one at present for exactly the reasons you stated.

There are plenty of real animals that can be mistaken for any number of mythological creatures, why it has to always be an ape man is beyond me, but I would like to know what it is that people think they are seeing. You would think you would get all kinds of weird animal reports if it was just random misidentification or plain crazy. Am I wrong to think that way?

 

[Skeptical Greg]

You can say a print is not a million things, but you can't say it's not a Bigfoot foot, until you have one with which to compare...

It's pointless.. I'm sure you are aware of the problem of proving a negative.. ( ? )

 

[Jodie]

You can say a print is not a million things, but you can't say it's not a Bigfoot foot, until you have one with which to compare...

It's pointless.. I'm sure you are aware of the problem of proving a negative.. ( ? )

I don't think you could say that it was an authentic bigfoot footprint for the same reason, only a body will prove the existence of bigfoot.

 

[River]

It has been proven that men leave bigfoot prints. It has never been proven bigfoot does. Until someone proves such a thing exists, the logical explanation seems to be that modern humans are making these prints, and leaving this DNA. Doesnt seem like much of a mystery.

 

[Jodie]

It has been proven that men leave bigfoot prints. It has never been proven bigfoot does. Until someone proves such a thing exists, the logical explanation seems to be that modern humans are making these prints, and leaving this DNA. Doesnt seem like much of a mystery.

It's not, if they are by the side of a road, or in some place that humans travel regularly. On rare occasions you get these trackways, or maybe a print or two, in some odd places that would make it difficult to forge. I think if they looked for another explanation they might find it, if not, it could go in the very small file of unexplained footprints. I don't think that those that supposedly take it seriously are that thorough. That is my point.

I can't remember if I said it here or in another bigfoot thread but I would rather see a monumental amount of proven hoaxes or misidentification with these reports, with maybe a handfull that couldn't be disqualified, than the thousands of useless reports in the BFRO database.

 

[Resume]

I can't remember if I said it here or in another bigfoot thread but I would rather see a monumental amount of proven hoaxes or misidentification with these reports, with maybe a handfull that couldn't be disqualified, than the thousands of useless reports in the BFRO database.

Given the dearth of any corroborating footie evidence I think one can indeed provisionally dismiss these "unexplained" footie footprints. Pending further data of course.

 

[Correa Neto]

Absolutely agree there, but those kinds of contacts can be cultivated. If I thought the trackway was good enough I would certainly make every effort to find one. But it's not just that, if police investigators can gather forensic evidence why can this not be a learned skill for the serious bigfoot hunter? You would think they would make learning good investigative technique a priority since they scream and holler about science not accepting what they find as evidence.

As you know, their efforts are concentrated in attempts to make science lower its evidence quality standards. This happens because the evidence is of low quality and bigfootery is nothing but a pseudoscientific faith-based culture. Applying rigid scientific methods at the evidence presented to back bigfoot has always resulted in "no bigfoot" answer. Not even a "hmm... Interesting... Maybe we should put some serious effort on this" answer can be obtained from the material presented. Note that a single good image (the very theme of this thread) would do the trick.

A bigfoot hunter who was serious about establishing credibility for the find would know better than to do that, or they should.

You know if there are any of these around?
The best bigfoot investigators I am aware of reached the "no bigfoot" conclusion.

This is true, but bear tracks are usually closer together than the ones I would think had possibility.

Part of the problem lies within the words "usually" and "I would think". Mistakes and misinterpretations are favored to happen when conditions deviate from what is usually expected. Add to this a dosis of bias and you've got a recipe for failure.

At last but not least, while considering track evidence, remember that what you actually have are some casts and descriptions of the tracks. Quite often second- or third hand descriptions, with lots of loose details. The tracks are actually claimed to exist, claimed to have a give shape, claimed to have a given print separation, claimed to have a given location, etc. Note also that lots of them, including some claimed to be the best ones, are not located at some rough distant unreachable terrain, but actually quite close to someone's backyard or a road. So, it all boils down to the fact that actually there are no solid, reliable evidence for the existence of these mysterious tracks as they are described, as they are sold by bigfoot enthusiasts.

 

[Jodie]

Absolutely well said Correa and what I'm getting at.

After two years spent with proponents and fence sitters, I started to get frustrated with every topic that came up. I did experience the bad side of the faith based culture but the main thing was I did not see the difference between the photographic evidence gathered by the so called serious researchers and the photos posted by those I had my doubts about.

No matter how they adjusted the photos, I simply saw nothing, it didn't matter whose photos they were. Melissa Hovey's photo is the clearest I've seen but it's the back of something and the provenance isn't given, why bother publicizing something like that? I don't understand the point of the blob squatches or making something public that you have no background knowledge of.........

 

[Castro]

...why bother publicizing something like that? I don't understand the point of the blob squatches or making something public that you have no background knowledge of.........

To make the headlines without having to answer the hard questions ?