Moderated Bigfoot- Anybody Seen one?

[The Shrike]

Ouch! (We missed you, Rock.)

Man you guys are right about what a sad state of affairs it is over at the ole' BFF 2.0. I'm really just checking in on the Ketchum Thread these days, and the past few days it's been a one-stop-shop for conspiracies about "the government taking our bigfoots." Every time I think it's comedy gold over there, I find that I can't laugh because it's far more sad than it is funny.

 

[Castro]

It looks like it's time for bigfootery to find an exit strategy for that Ketchum/DNA fiasco and a government conspiracy theory would be an easy one.
It reminds me of an interview of J. Smeja by R. Lindsay:

"RL: Do you believe that there is a coverup of Bigfoot evidence by the government?
JS: Not really. I don’t believe in a coverup. That goes too far.
RL: But there must be, right? I mean think about it. In the last 45 years, how many of these things have been hit and killed by cars, shot by hunters, killed by government people, found dead in the woods and investigated by government people? It must have happened. It had to. If there’s no coverup, then there’s no Bigfoot. It’s that simple.
JS: Well, if you believe in Bigfoot, you pretty much have to believe in some sort of a coverup because as you say, these things are just animals, and they do get killed sometimes, and government officials are obviously on the scene in some of these cases."

Ironically, Smeja, who claims to have killed 2 bigfoots, doesn't seem to be sure to be a believer.

 

[Jodie]

I don't know what to think about that story anymore. It's so convoluted I can't tell who is hoaxing who, or if all are hoaxing each other, or everyone is just mistaken. I quit trying to figure it out.

Yes things were going down hill fast at the BFF when I left, either that, or it was just me getting bored with the discussion that became repetitive waiting on something new to happen with the DNA study. I hope Sykes actually finds something regardless of the results, just anything concrete to publish would make me happy at this point.

 

[The Shrike]

I don't know what to think about that story anymore.

See SY's signature line. I rarely make emphatic statements like that about alleged bigfoot evidence, but I just can't see any way this Smeja character shot two bigfoots - DEAD - and all he has to show for it is a piece of skin and hair collected sometime later.

 

[GT/CS]

Which SY?

 

[Jodie]

Yes, I don't get that either. The pic of the drawing that is supposed to be the little one that he shot does not look human to me, which was why he said he panicked and did not retrieve the body. It makes no sense in anyway you look at the details.

 

[The Shrike]

Which SY?

"southernyahoo." There's another SY?

Anyway, southernyahoo was so affected by this post of mine in response to the Ketchum/Smeja stories that he rather quickly adopted it into his signature line:

"The "bear hunter's" story is complete b.s., and this guy will never prove that he's killed 1, let alone 2 bigfoots. He also hasn't killed anywhere near 1000 bears...Saskeptic"

Now months later, I haven't seen anything that would encourage me to modify that statement.

 

[GT/CS]

"southernyahoo." There's another SY?

See my signature.

 

[Jodie]

What makes an opinion an agenda? Just wondering.....

I never noticed you having one but then I was never a " them/us" kind of person anyway.

 

[Castro]

Smeja just wrote a good story that was supposed to remain on a taxidermy forum. Then Bigfootery took it and the show began. I hope he made some money with it, because if the story is ever debunked, he will be the only one to pay.

 

[Jodie]

What could they do to him for lying about shooting a bigfoot? I know what happened in Georgia but this is a bit different since it did not hit main stream news.

 

[davefoc]

I grew up in Eastern Washington, outside of Spokane. No one I knew ever saw a Bigfoot. More than that, with as much hunting as occurs out there, someone would have shot one accidentally long before now if they existed.

This argument by the way is just as baseless as the argument from people that say Bigfoot must exist because there are so many legends and sightings from people. It's an argument based on probabilities stated as fact.

This statement is just as factual: If all of these hoaxers existed, someone would have accidentally shot one long before now if they existed.

I'm not saying Bigfoot exists, but let's keep both sides of the argument honest and call B.S. when warranted, shall we? Group-think and self-backpatting of skeptics can be just as foolish and dangerous as it is for the believers - just ask Galileo.

There were several posts critical of what musketsatdawn wrote. I found at least some of musketsatdawn's post reasonable. It is easy to get in bandwagon mode in these kind of threads since the view of most of the people participating in them is that one side is implausible in the extreme. However that doesn't mean that every piece of evidence or argument is valid if it supports the general consensus.

musketsatdawn's point wasn't that bigfoot existed or that there wasn't overwhelming evidence that bigfoot didn't exist. His claim is only that jhunter's argument was not probative on the issues.

And I agree with him to a degree. The fact that jhunter and his friends have not seen one is weak evidence that bigfoot doesn't exist at best. The bigfoot-exists folks usually believe that bigfoot is a very rare animal and maybe jhunter doesn't have enough friends of the right kind living in the right place to make a sighting likely. If jhunter went on to explain why he or his friend's observations were particularly relevant on this the evidence would have been stronger. Perhaps some of his friends are biologist's who routinely place remote automatically triggered cameras. Even so the argument isn't a particularly strong one. The fact that no one has ever captured images of a bigfoot type creature with a game camera or any other kind of camera is strong evidence that bigfoot doesn't exist and I suspect that jhunter was making an allusion to that kind of argument.

Jhunter's claim that somebody would have shot one by now if bigfoot existed seems a bit of a stronger argument to me although I wasn't sure exactly how strong. In California mountain lions are fairly rare and yet over the years there have been a number of them killed by gun shot. I am not sure that a bigfoot population that was much smaller than the population of mountain lions in California would be viable. The fact that there is no known carcass of a bigfoot killed by gun shot given that even very rare animals are occasionally killed by gun shot seems like it is a good argument to me that bigfoot probably doesn't exist. So I might disagree with musketsatdawn a bit on that aspect of musketsatdawn's post.

 

[Castro]

What could they do to him for lying about shooting a bigfoot? I know what happened in Georgia but this is a bit different since it did not hit main stream news.

Well, I suppose he would be fired from the O.P. and rejected by his new friends, don't you think?

 

[Jodie]

That would be a given, but I meant "real" trouble. I don't think anything will happen to him other than possibly civil suits for the cost of the DNA testing maybe?

 

[Castro]

I really don't know...any lawyer out there?

 

[The Shrike]

See my signature.

Oh yeah. I usually ignore that one but when I have to I just refer to him as "Sweaty."

 

[DennyT]

There were several posts critical of what musketsatdawn wrote. I found at least some of musketsatdawn's post reasonable. It is easy to get in bandwagon mode in these kind of threads since the view of most of the people participating in them is that one side is implausible in the extreme. However that doesn't mean that every piece of evidence or argument is valid if it supports the general consensus.

musketsatdawn's point wasn't that bigfoot existed or that there wasn't overwhelming evidence that bigfoot didn't exist. His claim is only that jhunter's argument was not probative on the issues.

And I agree with him to a degree. The fact that jhunter and his friends have not seen one is weak evidence that bigfoot doesn't exist at best. The bigfoot-exists folks usually believe that bigfoot is a very rare animal and maybe jhunter doesn't have enough friends of the right kind living in the right place to make a sighting likely. If jhunter went on to explain why he or his friend's observations were particularly relevant on this the evidence would have been stronger. Perhaps some of his friends are biologist's who routinely place remote automatically triggered cameras. Even so the argument isn't a particularly strong one. The fact that no one has ever captured images of a bigfoot type creature with a game camera or any other kind of camera is strong evidence that bigfoot doesn't exist and I suspect that jhunter was making an allusion to that kind of argument.

Jhunter's claim that somebody would have shot one by now if bigfoot existed seems a bit of a stronger argument to me although I wasn't sure exactly how strong. In California mountain lions are fairly rare and yet over the years there have been a number of them killed by gun shot. I am not sure that a bigfoot population that was much smaller than the population of mountain lions in California would be viable. The fact that there is no known carcass of a bigfoot killed by gun shot given that even very rare animals are occasionally killed by gun shot seems like it is a good argument to me that bigfoot probably doesn't exist. So I might disagree with musketsatdawn a bit on that aspect of musketsatdawn's post.

see my post upstream. The fact that no bigfoots have ever been killed by man is very strong evidence. Proof, again, depends on probability as perceived in the mind of the individual. One can always argue that NOTHING is EVER PROVED to a complete certainty, but where does that lead? Bigfoot is as likely to exist as unicorns, fairies, leprechauns, and flying spaghetti monsters. If you want to argue that it is possible that none of these things have been proven not to exist, feel free to waste your time.

By the way, mountain lions are VERY common in California. Dozens are sighted every year in the Bay Area, and certain hiking trails are closed at times, espec. late in the summer. They mostly live in the East Bay Hills ad the Santa Cruz mountains and foothills. They come down to populated areas in the watercourses. Not uncommonly they come all the way into cities. Every once in a great while they attack someone. Mostly they kill deer and a few domestic pets. Could we kill them is we wanted to? of course. But we don't want to. There would be an uproar if someone tried to kill them. They belong here, and they serve a function. They are cool. But they have occasionally been killed, photographed, killed by cars, and have been known since the beginning of recorded history, not only here but around the continent. In short, they exist, and we know they are amongst us, even though they are a truly nocturnal and stealthy animal.

 

[AttorneyTom]

In other news....

No BF Sightings this week. Many other mammals though. Land beavers, chipmunks, white tailed deer, cows, pigs, and a Beaver.

Oh.. and a Raccoon !

 

[davefoc]

see my post upstream. The fact that no bigfoots have ever been killed by man is very strong evidence. Proof, again, depends on probability as perceived in the mind of the individual. One can always argue that NOTHING is EVER PROVED to a complete certainty, but where does that lead? Bigfoot is as likely to exist as unicorns, fairies, leprechauns, and flying spaghetti monsters. If you want to argue that it is possible that none of these things have been proven not to exist, feel free to waste your time.

By the way, mountain lions are VERY common in California. Dozens are sighted every year in the Bay Area, and certain hiking trails are closed at times, espec. late in the summer. They mostly live in the East Bay Hills ad the Santa Cruz mountains and foothills. They come down to populated areas in the watercourses. Not uncommonly they come all the way into cities. Every once in a great while they attack someone. Mostly they kill deer and a few domestic pets. Could we kill them is we wanted to? of course. But we don't want to. There would be an uproar if someone tried to kill them. They belong here, and they serve a function. They are cool. But they have occasionally been killed, photographed, killed by cars, and have been known since the beginning of recorded history, not only here but around the continent. In short, they exist, and we know they are amongst us, even though they are a truly nocturnal and stealthy animal.

I noticed I called it fairly rare and very rare in my post. I actually intended fairly rare. I just looked it up and there was a guesstimate available on-line of about 4000 creatures. But of course they're not spread evenly over the state so maybe in some areas they are moderately common so maybe my use of mountain lions as an analog for a very uncommon animal was flawed. Still, I think that my point was not without some merit. We have quite a bit of photographic evidence, track evidence, even killed animal evidence of a fairly rare, moderately secretive animal. If one even assumed a bigfoot population with similar secretive habits as a mountain lion but a tenth as common there would still be a lot of evidence for bigfoot and there would be no dispute as to its existence. And if you assumed a bigfoot population that was 1% as large as the mountain lion population in California it is very likely that there would be some evidence and yet there is none. Since 40 animals must be very close to the lower limit for any population of a large mammal to be sustained over a long period of time I think the lack of any evidence for a bigfoot population in California suggests strongly that there is no California bigfoot population. I think similar logic might be applied to the expectation of physical evidence for a bigfoot population in the PNW if it existed.

Essentially I am agreeing with you here in case I didn't make that clear. It is also true that a lack of physical evidence for a live population is only one of the lines of argument that bigfoot doesn't exist. If the lack of physical evidence argument is combined with the other arguments against bigfoot existence, it is reasonable to conclude that the possibility that bigfoot exists is negligibly close to zero.

As an aside, I saw some mountain lion tracks on a small mud flat in Orange County, California recently.

 

[DennyT]

Man you guys are right about what a sad state of affairs it is over at the ole' BFF 2.0. I'm really just checking in on the Ketchum Thread these days, and the past few days it's been a one-stop-shop for conspiracies about "the government taking our bigfoots." Every time I think it's comedy gold over there, I find that I can't laugh because it's far more sad than it is funny.

Posted Today, 09:13 PM

View Postludo, on 24 June 2012 - 03:30 PM, said:
OK. I've had the knowledge dropped on me earlier in this thread. So there is a conspiracy which exists to keep an American primate secret. How does it work? How can Dr. Ketchum, Jimmy Chilcutt, Jeff Meldrum, the BFRO, FB/FB, Finding Bigfoot on Animal Planet and the Bigfoot Forums be allowed to operate utterly unmolested?

Mulder replies:

There are a three major possible answers to that, and I make no claims as to which might be the case in the event the conspiracy is real:

Possibility 1: The individuals, groups, etc that you mention are legitimate , but to date have been ineffective at changing public opinion. The PTB (powers that be) are content to allow them to continue to operate so long as that remains the case. The purpose would be to make people ask the very question you did: "How can there be a conspiracy if it's being openly talked about by [insert list]?"

Should anyone start making serious inroads towards changing the status quo, the PTB have multiple options for dealing with that potentiality with varying degrees of subtlety, ranging from arranging for the work to be discredited by the perceived referees of truth (journals, institutions, etc), to a quiet visit to the persons, groups, etc to "make them an offer they can't refuse" in order to silence them, to truly brute force tactics up to and including "eliminating" the problem entity as a consideration by destroying their reputation or in some cases literally.

Possibility 2: None of the entities are legitimate, and are all part of a carefully crafted disinformation campaign to give the appearance of openness on the issue while strictly controlling any real progress or information disclosure.

Possibility 3: A mix of the above.

.....

Every time I think it's comedy gold over there, I find that I can't laugh because it's far more sad than it is funny.