Merged Bigfoot follies

[Gamolon]

So you must not actually believe that it's real bigfoot poo or you would've collected some and proven your point and made a stinking pile of money from it long ago.

Intentional or not, this made me laugh.

 

[Vortigern99]

They all do for one reason or another. You [Northern Lights] are the only posting Bigfoot believer here on JREF. They come, they post and they leave or simply stop posting.
That pattern was fully established long before ABP came here. It's also unlike some of the other woo here where you have proponents with a perpetual presence and posting.

If you don't stop posting then you will be the first of your kind.

If no one else will own to it, then I suppose that makes me the sole exception to the highlighted "rule". I came here sincerely believing in the possibility of bigfoot... and was sincerely persuaded otherwise after being confronted by a steady stream of evidence (or lack thereof), some two months into my membership.

And I'm still here 5 years later. Surely I'm not the only former-believer-now-ardent-skeptic on the JREF! I was under the impression that most or many of us came to bigfoot initially as believers, or at least intrigued by the possibility, only to be disabused of our folly on closer examination. That's not just me, is it?

 

[William Parcher]

I came here sincerely believing in the possibility of bigfoot...

I'm talking about people who come here and say that Bigfoot exists.

 

[Vortigern99]

Fair enough. I never said that, never had a sighting, was never a "knower". I was just impressed by the PGF -- can you imagine? -- and was carried away by a romantic notion that a North American ape might be out there. But I was a "believer" in the sense of acknowledging a possibility. Kinda like Jane Goodall in that way.

 

[William Parcher]

Goodall may not be a good example because in the same interview she said "I'm sure that they exist" and "maybe they don't exist". But I understand that you mean you had a romantic desire for Bigfoot.

 

[William Parcher]

More recently she has said that she is "fascinated" with Bigfoot and can't rule out their existence and would love it if they do exist. She seems to have dropped the idea that they certainly do exist

 

[Slowvehicle]

If no one else will own to it, then I suppose that makes me the sole exception to the highlighted "rule". I came here sincerely believing in the possibility of bigfoot... and was sincerely persuaded otherwise after being confronted by a steady stream of evidence (or lack thereof), some two months into my membership.

And I'm still here 5 years later. Surely I'm not the only former-believer-now-ardent-skeptic on the JREF! I was under the impression that most or many of us came to bigfoot initially as believers, or at least intrigued by the possibility, only to be disabused of our folly on closer examination. That's not just me, is it?

First round's on me, next time you're in this neck o' the woods...

 

[EHocking]

...What have I ever done to you or anyone here to deserve this? I've been polite and respectful in ever post and now this insinuation of me harming my kids by teaching them to deceive others...

That was not the insinuation.

The insinuation as I read it was that you were using your children as a "shield" by claiming your financial commitment to your children's future was the excuse for not pursuing getting DNA tests on the irrefutable proof you have of the existence of bigfoot.

e.g.,

Originally Posted by Spektator

Your claim, your responsibility. So your dough.

Three kids, first one off the college in a month, so it's not a priority.

ABP
If it is true that you need money for the children and you are so certain bigfoot poop is all over the place then go ahead and get rich off bigfoot poop DNA.

 

[John Nowak]

What have I ever done to you or anyone here to deserve this? I've been polite and respectful in ever post and now this insinuation of me harming my kids by teaching them to deceive others.

Frankly, it's because you seem to be deceiving others (unsuccessfully) and it's logical your kids are learning lessons from that.

Instead of picking a hobby like camping, or fishing, or bird watching or cougar-spotting - something that involves real, extant animals; or picking a hobby that involves a known and acknowledged fantasy like the way I spend my downtime launching pretend little green astronauts to pretend planets on pretend rockets, you've decided to spend yours failing to find an imaginary nine foot ape, beclowning yourself with comments about finding bigfoot poo but didn't bother to take a sample.

I mean, come on. That's just stupid.

I don't want to talk for anyone else, but I suspect everyone's laughing at you, not with you.

 

[William Parcher]

I don't want to talk for anyone else, but I suspect everyone's laughing at you, not with you.

Funny for me because it's just too obvious as a case of pretending to believe. Bigfoot hoaxing needs to ramp up so that evidence appears authentic and that believers appear to not be pretending.

The upside is that believers are not necessarily gullible or even unintelligent but rather that they have chosen a bizarre fantasy-type hobby.

 

[Drewbot]

I don't think the Footers can do a regional network of hoaxing.

If I was a hoaxer, I would start a network of skeptical hoaxers, possibly with Footer double agents, relaying info about Bigfoot expeditions to us, that would allow us to place good hoax material in the vicinity of the Footers' expeditions.

Think of the value of this to the Footers. They would be clean of hoaxing, someone setting up an expedition, makes a call to the Network, the Network places some hoaxy stuff in the vicinity of the expedition, maybe even with a specific location relayed back to the contact, and boom, the whole expedition happens to wander up on a stick shelter with pristine footprints, and some Dog poo strategically placed.

Could be a money maker. NPI. Charge a percentage of the Expedition fees etc...

 

[William Parcher]

some Dog poo strategically placed.

That's an unsophisticated non-starter because dog poop always looks and smells exactly like dog poop.

You need genuine primate poop for a good hoax. The easiest is human poop but you need to accumulate a quantity so that it looks like it came from an 800 lb. wild ape. Better would be using chimp or gorilla poop if you can get that stuff. Placing ape hairs inside the stick shelter would be the cherry on top.

That hoax would zoom to the Bigfootery heights.

 

[Drewbot]

Yes, or even if you did stompers with a deformity, it would be elevated as a special footprint, no one would ever think to hoax that.

 

[William Parcher]

Better would be to get a guy with really huge feet to walk around. Then you might have dermals show up.

But it's just a shelter built by a homeless guy with no shoes. Nope, we've got ape hairs and poop that came from no man's butt.

 

[Drewbot]

Get a long golf ball retriever pole, and scoop up some Howler monkey doo at the zoo.

 

[Spektator]

Years and years ago, before ever becoming a poster here, I had a fascination with lots of weird things, bigfoot included. I never bought into it, though--did lots of reading of anecdotes, books about the subject, speculative articles, and what not. None of them were enough, really, to convince me.

The first time I saw the Patterson/Gimlin film (on TV) I thought "It looks fake," but in those days I couldn't rewind and watch it again and again...doing so only nails down the "fake" diagnosis, as far as I'm concerned.

I had a couple of encounters--or bigfooters would consider them that, I suppose. On a drizzly, foggy night as I drove a back road, I saw a gray creature coming toward me. It was tall and had no neck and a tiny head, and its gait was unsteady. If I'd sped up, I might still be wondering, but as I came to almost a full stop, the creature resolved as a tall guy with a toddler on his shoulders, straddling his neck. He'd thrown a long gray raincoat over the little boy's head. Another time as I was hiking I kept hearing the strangest animal cry. It was dismal and spooky, and with a little imagination it might have been bigfoots singing each to each, like the mermaids in Eliot's poem. I actually went off the trail to see if I could find the source. Peacocks nesting in a tree behind a farmhouse. They sound really bizarre.

Partly because of my grandfather, who was a medical man who had helped in early research on blood typing, I'd learned to question myself and my perceptions. In a way, I'd love for bigfoot to be real, but really? No, they're not out there.

Mind you, I could be persuaded, with some actual evidence.

 

[William Parcher]

Get a long golf ball retriever pole, and scoop up some Howler monkey doo at the zoo.

Why? It's going to look like Yorkshire Terrier sausages that came from a tiny butthole.

 

[Drewbot]

You could form it into substantial Bratwurst size poos with your hands.

 

[William Parcher]

Bleh. And when the DNA comes back as Howler monkey the Bigfooters are stuck because they can't claim that it is Bigfoot or that Bigfoot is closely related to that monkey.

Great ape poop is what you need to use and you don't have to form it with your hands. You leave the sausages as they are but you accumulate a large quantity and place it all in one pile. You want to simulate a single bowel movement that weighs 4 lbs. and came from a big butthole. When the DNA comes back as specific great ape (human, chimp, gorilla, orang... whatever you use) you will cause the Bigfooters to argue that that is Bigfoot and Bigfoot is very, very closely related to that ape but it still isn't that ape.

You need to present a constellation of evidence that is unavoidably convincing to Bigfooters. So even if the DNA says chimp, they will say that it cannot be a chimp because look at the footprints and look at the ground shelter with a roof and look at the enormous bowel movement and how does it survive any winter and and and...

 

[snoop_doxie]

If no one else will own to it, then I suppose that makes me the sole exception to the highlighted "rule". I came here sincerely believing in the possibility of bigfoot... and was sincerely persuaded otherwise after being confronted by a steady stream of evidence (or lack thereof), some two months into my membership.

And I'm still here 5 years later. Surely I'm not the only former-believer-now-ardent-skeptic on the JREF! I was under the impression that most or many of us came to bigfoot initially as believers, or at least intrigued by the possibility, only to be disabused of our folly on closer examination. That's not just me, is it?

No, it is not just you. I signed up in May of the same year and I think I read
every word written by you and all the responses.
I learned quite a bit from those exchanges.

I came to the forum with a belief in the possibility (of BF), but not from the PGF.
Just a general "can't have explored all the wilderness in NA."

I was also a believer in all things ghostly until I started to read the forums
for Paranormal State and Ghost Hunters.
Wow, the hosts of those shows are ridiculous. Ludicrous.
I asked myself, why are they so damn defensive about their methods and
results?
Because it is all faked.
Plus, why is it the only thing these damn ghosts can do is move a chair?
blow out a candle? Where is the message from beyond?

I wasn't to afraid to let go of Bigfoot, that was kind of a cartoon belief for me.

Letting go of religion (raised Catholic) that took a little more time, but I feel
free of the responsibility of meeting impossible demands from the scary man in the
sky. I was young (13) when I stopped going to mass, but the belief and dogma
stayed long after.

Anyway, I have come a long way in five years.
Thinking for myself, that's a good thing.
Thank you Vortigern99, for all your questions.