Moneymakin'! The BFRO Bigfoot Expeditions Thread.

[comncents]

Sightings databases are contaminated in many ways. To start with, the investigators are almost exclusively believers. If Finding Bigfoot is an example of how “investigations” are conducted, then they are just a bunch of leading questions and positive reinforcement. “ was it really tall?, did it smell bad?, was it hairy?....dude – you saw BIGFOOT!”
The Bigfoot researcher investigates a siting report with this basic premise:
True = they really saw Bigfoot.
False = they didn’t see Bigfoot.
Since Bigfoot doesn’t exist, True = 0% and False = 100%
When someone reports seeing a bigfoot, the premise should be:
True = they saw a NON-bigfoot something, but reported seeing a bigfoot.
False = they didn’t see anything but reported seeing a bigfoot.
So, if True, what NON-bigfoot things could someone see and then report as bigfoot.
A hallucination, a person if a costume, a person, an animal (bear or?) a tree. I assume a hallucination would come across as extremely realist with as many details as the mind wants to create. A person in a costume would have to in just the right place to give enough of a view to reveal some details, but not enough to get exposed as a hoax. Anything else just means that the person didn’t see the object clearly enough to identify it as a known animal or object, but somehow convinced themselves it was a bigfoot. For me, someone seeing a NON-bigfoot object, but being convinced that it was a bigfoot is just not a very realistic scenario.
This leads me with the “False = they didn’t see anything but reported seeing a bigfoot.” answer as the most likely. In other words, most sightings reports are just lies.

 

[AlaskaBushPilot]

Anyone is really at a disadvantage if they try to estimate the "percentage" of honest misidentifications as compared to fabricated (hoax) encounters that are reported.

We hear of "several thousand" Bigfoot reports coming from some databases such as BFRO and Green and others. We can sit down and read these reports and for some we can say to ourselves "well that could have been a bear or maybe a homeless person or a hiker according to what they said" and for some we can say "well that couldn't really have been a bear or a person according to what they said." Maybe at some point a person reflects on the databases and gives an estimated percentage that are likely to be hoaxes as compared to mistakes and such.

But again the problem is that the Bigfooter community has always aggressively censored (excluded) the reports that they think are fabrications. These would amount to thousands over the years. This means that we are all deprived of data that would reveal the real nature of the "Bigfoot phenomenon". What is happening is that Bigfootery is actively creating a false public character for itself. It doesn't want the world to know what it really is. Bigfoot believers don't want you to look at Bigfootery and see a myth. So they hide and cover up the reality of Bigfootery. They DO NOT want you to know that hoaxing Bigfoot is a kind of national pastime for over 50 years!

You can't properly estimate the percentage of "honest errors" when you have never seen or accounted for even a fraction of the "dishonest errors". It's like throwing away the misses and only recording the hits. The databases are flawed because they are only what Bigfoot promoters want you to see and know about. They are censored specifically to make it look like Bigfoot is a serious and legitimate subject. The censorship is meant to deprive skeptics and others from seeing what is really there.

It's like shaking a camera so that the audience doesn't easily see that it is a guy in a costume.

You've talked about this before, but this is a great rendition of it.

The framing they put on this is doing an "investigation" where in their infinite experience with real bigfeets they determine which ones are "Class A" and which ones are "Class B" sightings.

But I made a report to the BFRO myself and they didn't even investigate. It would have been obvious to anyone following this forum here that it was from me. I should not have said I was a skeptical bushpilot from Alaska.

No skeptics are allowed on the BFRO "expeditions". There is a thorough vetting for that before you are permitted to go. Likewise, with any sighting reports they are vetting for true believer status. Seems to me that is more important than the story itself.

 

[Drewbot]

Somebody is making money off of Bigfoot, I just wish it was whoever designed this:

http://www.zazzle.com/squatching_hat-148953645384275586

 

[HarryHenderson]

...No skeptics are allowed on the BFRO "expeditions". There is a thorough vetting for that before you are permitted to go. Likewise, with any sighting reports they are vetting for true believer status. Seems to me that is more important than the story itself.

To quote the late great Johnny Carson, "I did not know that." It's either True Believer or No Bigfoot For You huh?! I've often wondered why somebody from here, for instance, hadn't covertly/overtly gone on one of their insane fart hunts just to report back on how bad the smell really was. I vote William Parcher to go. He could change his name to William Tell.

On that same matter, I've recently heard that the first thing Moneymaker does with any potential "expedition" employee is audition them by having them recite the line "Hi guys, what did I miss?" as he has them 'act' like they're walking back into camp realizing they'd just missed out on the Bigfoot that ran through that same camp not 5 minutes earlier. The really good 'actors' at this usually get to stay at Matt Moneymaker's beach house every other weekend, usually with both Matt and Bernie. And as a bonus they get to take care of Moneymaker's 5 illegitimate children on the off weekends for free because that's how the slaves did it and as MM says, "So can they." Just another win-win for, umm, only Matt Moneymaker. But seriously, very few people know how much the guy just gives and gives and gives until he can't give no more and then he just gives some more. And then gives even more after that. The Award Winning Platinum Rated Giving the Gift of Bigfoot Bastid™ that he is!

 

[Jodie]

You've talked about this before, but this is a great rendition of it.


But I made a report to the BFRO myself and they didn't even investigate. It would have been obvious to anyone following this forum here that it was from me. I should not have said I was a skeptical bushpilot from Alaska.

Don't give yourself so much credit, it probably had more to do with your remote location.

 

[tsig]

To quote the late great Johnny Carson, "I did not know that." It's either True Believer or No Bigfoot For You huh?! I've often wondered why somebody from here, for instance, hadn't covertly/overtly gone on one of their insane fart hunts just to report back on how bad the smell really was. I vote William Parcher to go. He could change his name to William Tell.

On that same matter, I've recently heard that the first thing Moneymaker does with any potential "expedition" employee is audition them by having them recite the line "Hi guys, what did I miss?" as he has them 'act' like they're walking back into camp realizing they'd just missed out on the Bigfoot that ran through that same camp not 5 minutes earlier. The really good 'actors' at this usually get to stay at Matt Moneymaker's beach house every other weekend, usually with both Matt and Bernie. And as a bonus they get to take care of Moneymaker's 5 illegitimate children on the off weekends for free because that's how the slaves did it and as MM says, "So can they." Just another win-win for, umm, only Matt Moneymaker. But seriously, very few people know how much the guy just gives and gives and gives until he can't give no more and then he just gives some more. And then gives even more after that. The Award Winning Platinum Rated Giving the Gift of Bigfoot Bastid™ that he is!

Make that William No-Tell.

 

[William Parcher]

By censoring (excluding) encounter reports of Paranormal Bigfoots the BFRO has chosen to proceed in a non-scientific manner because they throw away data and evidence. There would be hundreds or thousands of Paranormal Bigfoot encounters including invisibility, shape shifting, mind control, close association with alien spacecraft, etc. But the BFRO and other sighting databases don't want the audience to know about that.

Once you have thousands of Paranormal Bigfoot reports you can say "they can't all be wrong or hoaxes." So the BFRO doesn't want to get painted into that corner. They would say "yes even with many thousands of reports it is possible that every single one of them is a lie or a mistake."

Anyone who says no way to Paranormal Bigfoot is a Denialist and therefore knows that there is a time and place for Denialism and a complete out-of-hand dismissal of the presented evidence.

 

[Northern Lights]

No skeptics are allowed on the BFRO "expeditions". There is a thorough vetting for that before you are permitted to go.

This is not true, at least for the expeditions in the upper Midwest. I've been on over 10 BFRO expeditions and helped organize three of them so I'm speaking from experience.

 

[dmaker]

NL, how did you identify skeptics during an expedition? Or are you challenging the notion of vetting potential expedition members?

 

[GT/CS]

If I remember correctly Drew went on one of their adventures.

 

[Resume]

This is not true, at least for the expeditions in the upper Midwest. I've been on over 10 BFRO expeditions and helped organize three of them so I'm speaking from experience.

Was it on one of these expeditions that someone handed you a thermal cam on which you proceeded to see a bigfoot?

 

[Drewbot]

If I remember correctly Drew went on one of their adventures.

Nope.
Never on a BFRO adventure.

I would be afraid. I think Cliff has a contract out on me.

 

[rockinkt]

Don't give yourself so much credit, it probably had more to do with your remote location.

Don't let your personal animus towards ABP cloud your judgement.

The BFRO has always used long distance phone-calls to be their primary source of "investigations".
Depending on the BFRO bozo "investigator" - 50 miles could be too far to go look in person.
Telephone, email, smoke signals, it doesn't matter if the story sounds like it's remotely plausible to these fools.
More than likely there are just too many stories to "investigate" in a timely manner given the propensity of people to lie about sasquatch. APB's story just hasn't made the top of the list yet.

 

[William Parcher]

Drew visited the Michigan Recording Project which had an extreme amount of very close and loud and very consistent Bigfoot encounters. Their claims were of unquestionable Bigfoot habitation. He found that they had absolutely nothing at all.

 

[CORed]

I can't think of anything more tedious and boring than sitting out in the woods waiting on something to happen. The fact that you expect bigfoot would predispose you to interpreting bigfoot with every pine cone falling from a tree, every fox call, every woodpecker knocking on wood.....there just comes a time when you have to question, "Where's the poop?" I mean has anyone ever claimed to hear a bigfoot fart? If they eat that much vegetation it's bound to happen.

No poop, no farts, no dead bigfeets, no bones, no clear photos or videos. Just footprints (with incredible variation in size and structure for prints supposedly from a single species of animal), garbage photos and videos and campfire stories. I think the existence of bigfoot will be proven at about the same time the the existence of the jackalope is proven, i.e. the 33rd of Nevember.

 

[AlaskaBushPilot]

This is not true, at least for the expeditions in the upper Midwest. I've been on over 10 BFRO expeditions and helped organize three of them so I'm speaking from experience.

This is exactly what I am saying, as evidenced by their website:

Most of the participants of BFRO expeditions are prior attendees (members and non-members) who have attended every BFRO trip in their state/province for several years. They tend to sign up quickly, which leaves fewer slots open for new people

Just like you. My God - every BFRO trip in their state for years! Talk about preaching to the choir. There is a pretty involved sign-up process that requires people to communicate on a private, password protected message board. You have to confirm you have read all the rubbish Moneymaker put out on that website. Look at the "little green men analogy" for example - how ludicrous. This IS a vetting process by definition. Sensible people reading that kind of stuff are not going to pay five hundred dollars to drive into a park that is free.

They don't actually have a number of predetermined attendees on these trips, nor the exact fees. There is negotiation going on back and forth... just an awful lot of secrecy and negotiating that doesn't happen on most above-board outdoor trips. They say the fees and registration process ensure:

only those people with a serious interest in the subject will be the trip.

My, my - so much secrecy. You can't get details on where the car-camping/motel trip is beforehand, and they won't say afterwards. All people can know outside the vetted circle of longtime bigfoot groupies is a general region like "Daniel Boone National Forest".

There can be no doubt that with such uber-secrecy and tight control on what gets outside the chosen circle of groupies that the same is true for who gets in. A lot of the work is actually done FOR them through self-selection. You'd have to be a pretty dedicated skeptic to pay this kind of money, fake your way into an expedition, and be so outnumbered by longtime groupies.

 

[eerok]

I've been on over 10 BFRO expeditions and helped organize three of them so I'm speaking from experience.

No BFRO expedition has ever found a bigfoot. This is a fact simply because no bigfoot has ever been found by anyone ever in the history of always. Does this cause you to consider that maybe you're wasting your time?

 

[LTC8K6]

The secrecy also allows actors to be brought in to throw things at people, and return sasquatch calls, and beat on tree trunks, etc.

It prevents installation of game cams that might photograph interesting goings on, etc.

 

[AlaskaBushPilot]

The secrecy also allows actors to be brought in to throw things at people, and return sasquatch calls, and beat on tree trunks, etc.

It prevents installation of game cams that might photograph interesting goings on, etc.

Excellent point. In conjunction with that, they prohibit firearms, claiming there is no "need" for them. So, on the one hand you have to read all of this rubbish about how scary and dangerous bigfoot is, but on the other hand you can't defend yourself against them as you would a rabid coyote, mother bear with cubs charging, poisonous snakes, or whatever.

But obviously they don't want actors shot when they are throwing things at people. There is another thread where the liability for such a thing is discussed. If you are on a bigfoot expedition with guides insisting they are looking for dangerous animals that throw rocks then it is Moneymaker who goes to prison for criminal negligence when a rock-throwing actor is shot.

 

[Jodie]

More than likely there are just too many stories to "investigate" in a timely manner given the propensity of people to lie about sasquatch. APB's story just hasn't made the top of the list yet.

Which one?