Bigfoot from a different perspective.

cloudshipsrule said:
....(snip)....Why is it important for some people to continue to believe there is a bigfoot out there? Does it make people feel better believing there is an innocent creature out there, still untouched by human's impact on the planet?....(snip)....
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Bigfoot is a beautiful symbol of humility, and he leaves big tracks without saying a word.
 
cloudshipsrule said:
Personally I don't care if bigfoot exists or not. In my opinion, based on the evidence (or lack thereof) I have seen, I do not believe a bigfoot creature exists.
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I find this a fascinating subject - but not fascinating enough to read through 10,000 pages of the "Bigfoot challenge" thread.

cloudshipsrule said:
That aside:

Why is it important for some people to continue to believe there is a bigfoot out there? Does it make people feel better believing there is an innocent creature out there, still untouched by human's impact on the planet?
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I think that question is the same as these:

Why do most people believe in gods?
Why do some people think crop circles are made by aliens, despite knowing that they're made by humans?
Why do some people believe water can hold a memory which makes homeopathy work?

And all the others...

People just want to believe in something and I personally find the belief in sasquatch to be the most harmless belief there is.

That said, I will at least give the bigfoot guys the credit of having actual evidence on their side. Yes, most of the evidence is pathetically poor, but have you seen how much evidence the RCC has, yet still has 2 billion adherents?

cloudshipsrule said:
What is the psychology behind wanting to believe in something that probably isn't true or that really doesn't have any SOLID evidence to back it up?
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Ditto the above points, but there is another element to Bigfoot which is stronger than UFOlidiots, christians and homeopaths have - eyewitness sightings of a bigfoot* and actual plaster prints of .... big feet!

I see pictures of Jesus on toast and a dog's ass, but other than a bloke I know in Morrinsville who chats to Jesus every morning in his cow paddock, I know nobody who claims to have Jesus in either the wilds of Wyoming, Central Park, NY, or even Auckland, NZ. Lots of people claim to have a personal relationship with Jesus, but none of them can claim to have seen him taking a leak behind a tree.

Nobody has his footprint cast in plaster, either.

I guess UFOlidiots are the only other group which can claim similar types of evidence, but I don't know of anyone claiming to have been butt-####ed by Sasquatch. (In any case, I'm pretty sure that the P-G film one is a female, according to the "experts".) They don't have ET's footprint, either, but then again, they don't [I think] claim that aliens have size 25 human-shaped feet.


*Eyewitness sightings are particularly unreliable and sightings of things in the forest can very easily be completely wrong, as even highly experienced bushmen find out, far too frequently at the expense of their very lives.

cloudshipsrule said:
I suppose being a believer in bigfoot is similar to the beliefs held by someone who is a budding astronomer. An amateur astronomer has a fascination of the unknowns of space. "What might be out there that we haven't seen yet?" "Will I be the first to find it?"

Bigfooteans may be in the same category. Bigfoot is an unknown to them, A mystery. Maybe it's the mystery of it all that intrigues them and not really whether or not bigfoot actually exists?
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I don't think so. From what I've seen of bigfoot "researchers" they genuinely want [expect?] to be the one who either hauls back a dead one, or brings unmistakeable evidence of its existence back to the world. They are quite genuine and not many of them seem to be as irrational as other brands of mass-delusion.

cloudshipsrule said:
I know there are a lot of questions in this thread. They don't need to be answered. Just trying to start conversation on the workings of the mind of a bigfoot believer....
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That's probably the subject which intrigues me the most as well. I'm a member at Bigfoot forum and I find the people there to be a vast difference from the rabidly-insane twats who use psychic/UFOs/astrology.

I was surprised to find that instead of lapping up every "sighting" and footprint, lots of members at that forum are actually quite sceptical of a lot of the evidence and do try to be scientific in their approach.

One of the other big things about bigfoot is that it would actually be quite a stunningly cool thing if one were out there. I sincerely doubt that there is, but it's one wild hope I'm happy to see live on.
 
LTC8K6 said:
Well, it would be fantastic if sasquatch was real.

Alas...

Now then, there is a group of footers who insist that an elk is a sasquatch. Elkers?
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No, no - Anne Elk (Miss) had a new theory about the brontosaurus.
 
I think Bigfoot, by its very nature as a 'natural' legend, tends to attract a different type of follower than the UFO crowd. You're going to get more tree-huggers than Trekkies because of the subject matter, if you'll forgive a horrible comparison.

One of the things that bugs me about the majority of Bigfoot researchers is the way they treat the Patterson-Gimlin Film like the holiest of holys. It's far from conclusive, but to many in the BF community it's absolute proof. They see beyond the dubious motives of the guy that made it and see a giant female homonid. Take that film away and you have some ancient legends and some footprints, some created by hoaxers and the rest probably natural in origin. Weird noises in the forest at night? Wow, that never happens unless there's a bigfoot population, right? I think they're deluding themselves, and they get rather wound up when we dont share that comforting delusion.
 
The Atheist said:
...snip...I guess UFOlidiots are the only other group which can claim similar types of evidence, but I don't know of anyone claiming to have been butt-####ed by Sasquatch. (In any case, I'm pretty sure that the P-G film one is a female, according to the "experts".) They don't have ET's footprint, either, but then again, they don't [I think] claim that aliens have size 25 human-shaped feet.
...snip...
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I once was part of both communities (cryptofolks and UFOfolks). Bot have their share of übernuts. If cryptofolks have those who believe mystery animals are paranormal phenomena, UFOfolks have the esoteric ufologists. There are two main differences, I think. The first one is the size of the communities; being UFObuffs more numerous, the number of... uhm... How could I say... Extremists is larger. The second is that the nature of UFO phenomena (better say the nature of its "alien" interpretation) is more open to sheer speculation and fantasy than a giant bipedal apen roaming in the forests. You can't expect say, deep revelations about the universe and the cure of cancer from bigfoot (OK, chances are that some folks do).

Most footers from BFF are quite like the "scientific UFOlogists" I met (and once was). In this sense, they try to move away from what they consider to be the most unreal, unlikely or bogus aspects of the phenomena.

The nature of the evidence is quite similar. I dare say identical- eyewitnesses reports, questionable movies and stills. Footers have casts of feet, hands and butts? UFObuffs have UFO landing sites (no, not the crop circles) with landing gear impressions and claims of radiation and electromagnetism anomalies; they also have alleged radar contacts. They even have alleged pieces of UFOs. All this stuff with the same reliability level of bigfoot evidence- a slightly deeper dig shows the very same flaws. Oh, they do claim have alien footprints. Posted a link to this somewhere...

Not to mention that much to the embarrassment of footers, there is a transition zone between bigfeet and UFOs, since some reports associate them...
 
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