LAL writes, among other things, "Marx found the long trackway with Dahinden nearby. "
A guy with a widespread reputation for fraud found a trackway, and what do you know, it had really convincing tracks in it.
And you really wonder why bigfoot research has so little credibility?
The presence of fraud does not disqualify the pursuit of bigfoot, but it ought to disqualify evidence produced by the people known to have committed fraud. Evidence "discovered" by a known hoaxer cannot be assumed to "speak for itself," no matter how compelling it appears.
How widespread or rife fakery is in the bigfoot community is arguable, of course, but you cannot argue that it isn't there, and it's reasonable to guess that given the amount of fraud that has been discovered, a certain amount remains undiscovered. Some people seem to have been doing it for a long time, and it would be surprising if they had not honed their skills by now. As long as bigfoot researchers are willing to apply an "innocent until proved guilty" approach to evidence even from the most suspicious sources, their work will remain marginal and their attempts at science will remain a joke.
The accumulated evidence so far for bigfoot, even after all these years, is insufficient to get mainstream scientists very interested, but the problem is not in the quantity but the quality. Who could find the pony in that pile of ****? But if people like LAL are right that they are out there, the best thing any serious bigfoot researchers could do now would be to discard ALL the current evidence, convincing or not, clean house, and start looking again, accepting nothing but the best forensic techniques for recording evidence, and trusting no-one but themselves. My guess is that if they do this with honesty and healthy skepticism they will find nothing that satisfies the criteria, but if they DO, then they'll have bigfoot in the bag.
