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LAL · 9th June 2005, 07:25 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by LTC8K6
LAL, you just bring us those proper scientific studies of some good evidence and I am sure we will all be glad to look at them.

No more opinions of Bigfoot fans, please.

Ah. I just found out there's an ignore feature on this board while uploading the scan of one of my watercolors. (I can't figure out why it's so blurry.) I may try that out.

I take it you dismiss the opinion or Dr. Daris Swindler because he switched from being a sceptic to becoming a "Bigfoot fan" after objectively examining the Skookum Cast, in your opinion?
You might want to read something by Dr. Meldrum, or does he qualify as a fan too because he's applied his excellent methodology to a serious study instead of rejecting it out of hand as so many do?

Goodall and Schaller are out too because they think scientific investigation is warranted, huh? May I use Sarmiento, at least?

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Healed scars? Are there any other kind?

I was referring to the kind of tucking under that occurs breaking the dermal ridge pattern. The BFF board is down right now, but someone may have done a capture. It's hard to describe without a photo. Chilcutt illustrated this nicely on LMS, but I can't upload the DVD.

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Gee, I have no idea how a person would know what a "healed scar" looks like. Golly, I just can't figure that out. Must not be a hoax then.....

Have you any idea what you're talking about?

>snip<

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The idea that no one made any money is ridiculous.

Are you into conspiracy theories too?
Please present some evidence that anyone profitted from this incident.

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Besides that, believing you are going to make money is the point, not whether you actually made any.

I see. It doesn't matter that you don't actually make any money (or receive any publicity), it's the risk of getting shot at that appeals.
The Bossburg tracks have never been proven to be faked. Even Pickens didn't claim to have made the Cripplefoot tracks, although much has been made of his confession about making some near Colville (not Bossburg).
Much has also been made of Marx' later hoaxing too, as though his mere presence throws the whole episode into question, but those tracks remain some of the best evidence.
Again, there were incidents in SW Washington that same year. Same hoaxers or different animals?
Here we have two prime candidates for hoaxing, but no evidence either faked any of the tracks that were found. Frankly, given the quality of the hoaxing they did do, neither was smart enough.
Is there some mysterious bankroller behind all this? Is he (or his family, since this goes back generations) financing the thousands of incidents or did he fund some unknown hoaxer on just this one? Or did he merely offer a reward for tripping up Dahinden?
Did he work for the CIA, or was he, perhaps, the gunman behind the fence?

Do a reality check when you have the time.

It's quite reasonable to assume large hominid primates account for the tracks, sightings and figures in the films, that they leave tracks, scat and hair and may twist off branches for nest building or territorial marking. The reported throwing behaviour is like that of other Great Apes.
Are people resistant to this idea because it's a hominid species? There were many species of bipedal "apes" millions of years ago. Why assume all are extinct, leaving only wonderful us to rule the planet?
To try to account for all this as a series of hoaxes stretches credulity to the breaking point.
It's one thing to be sceptical; it's another to be willfully ignorant, or, as a cyber friend of mine puts it, butt-chunk stupid.

LAL · 9th June 2005, 07:56 AM

Be sure to let me know when a proper journal decides to publish one of the studies that has been done.

Hm. I forgot Mittermeier. He's mildly sceptical. May I use him?

Sunday, January 05, 2003

Bigfoot Believers: Legitimate scientific study of legend gains backing of top primate experts

By Theo Stein
Denver Post

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunday, January 05, 2003 - EDMONDS, Wash. - After enduring decades of ridicule, Bigfoot researchers are enjoying support from some of the world's most respected scientists in their efforts to prove the hulking creatures of legend are no myth.

The persistence of reported sightings of Bigfoot-type creatures in North America and elsewhere has convinced leading researchers on primates - including Jane Goodall, made famous by her studies of chimpanzees in Tanzania - to call for something never seriously considered before: a legitimate scientific study to determine whether the greatest apes that ever lived persist in the world's moist mountainous regions.

Skeptics, who include those in the scientific mainstream, scoff at such ideas. They say reported Bigfoot encounters, tracks and other evidence are either hoaxes or mistakes, and that people who believe such nonsense are soft-headed.

But dedicated amateurs and a smattering of professionals are trying to change that attitude. Using accepted scientific methods, they believe they can show at least some of the claimed evidence for Bigfoot - footprints, hair, voice recordings and a 400-pound block of plaster known as the Skookum Cast - are authentic traces of a rare giant primate.

Recently they have received support from a handful of the field's top experts.

Daris Swindler, for example, is not the typical Bigfoot believer.

When he retired in 1991 after more than 30 years at the University of Washington, Swindler was an acclaimed expert in the arcane study of fossilized primate teeth.

His book, "An Atlas of Primate Gross Anatomy," went through several printings and was among the standard references in the field.

So it comes as a surprise to some of his peers that Swindler believes that the Skookum Cast, discovered by amateur Bigfoot researchers in 2000, is a genuine record of a hairy giant that sat down by a mudhole to eat some fruit.

"Daris said that?" asked Russell Ciochon, a prominent paleoanthropologist and professor at the University of Iowa. "He's an important figure. But I still don't think Bigfoot exists in any form."

Mythical giant apes lurk in the traditions of nearly every Native American linguistic group and in legends handed down through the ages from Europe and Asia. Each year, Bigfoot or similar creatures are reported by hundreds of hunters, hikers, motorists and others from central Asia to the central Rockies. But no one has provided the minimum proof required by science: a type specimen or remains that researchers can pick up, measure and argue over.

Nevertheless, Goodall is intrigued.

"People from very different backgrounds and different parts of the world have described very similar creatures behaving in similar ways and uttering some strikingly similar sounds," she said. "As far as I am concerned, the existence of hominids of this sort is a very real probability."

George Schaller, director of science at the Wildlife Conservation Society, has spent 40 years studying rare animals in remote places, including pioneering studies of Central Africa's mountain gorilla, which Western scientists first discovered in 1903.

THE SCIENTISTS:
JANE GOODALL

A world-famous primate researcher and author, she revealed, in studies of chimpanzees in Tanzania's Gombe National Park, surprising behaviors in humanity's closest living relative. Goodall has won numerous international awards for her contributions to conservation, anthropology and animal welfare. Currently affiliated with Cornell University, she serves as the National Geographic Society's explorer-in-residence.

GEORGE SCHALLER

International science director for the Wildlife Conservation Society. His pioneering field studies of mountain gorillas set the research standard later adopted by Goodall and gorilla researcher Dian Fosse. Schaller's 1963 book, "The Year of the Gorilla," debunked popular perceptions of the great ape and reintroduced "King Kong" as a shy, social vegetarian.

Schaller's studies of tigers, lions, snow leopards and pandasalso advanced the knowledge of those endangered mammals.

In 1973, he won the National Book Award for "The SerengetiLion: A Study of Predator-Prey Relations," and in 1980 wasawarded the World Wildlife Fund Gold Medal for his contributionsto the understanding and conservation of endangered species. During the past decade, he has focused on the little-knownwildlife of Mongolia, Laos and the Tibetan Plateau.

RUSSELL MITTERMEIER

A trained primatologist, herpetologist and biological anthropologist, he has discovered five new species of monkey, including two last year. Mittermeier has conducted fieldwork in more than 20 countries around the tropical world, with special emphasis on Brazil, Guyana and Madagascar.

Since 1989, Mittermeier has served as president of Conservation International, which has become one of the most aggressive and effective conservation organizations in the world during the last decade. His publications include 10 books and more than 300 scientific papers and popular articles.

DARIS SWINDLER

Emeritus professor of anthropology at the University of Washington, Swindler is a leading expert on living and fossil primate teeth and one of the top primate anatomists in general. His book, "An Atlas of Primate Gross Anatomy," has become a standard reference in the field. A forensic anthropologist, Swindler worked on the Ted Bundy and Green River murder cases along with hundreds of others.

ESTEBAN SARMIENTO

A functional anatomist affiliated with the American Museum of Natural History, Sarmiento focuses on the skeletons of hominids. In 2001, he participated with George Schaller in a search for Congo's Bili ape, a possible species super-chimp reported by natives but unknown to Western science. Sarmiento has also studied the Cross River gorilla, a critically endangered subspecies on the Nigeria-Cameroon border whose population is thought to be numbered in the hundreds. He has taught in the U.S., South Africa and Uganda.

Schaller remains troubled by the fact no Bigfoot remains have been produced, nor have any samples of feces whose DNA can be chemically poked and prodded to unlock the identity of their maker. And he is mindful of hoaxing.

But he, too, considers Bigfoot an open question.

"There have been so many sightings over the years," he said. "Even if you throw out 95 percent of them, there ought to be some explanation for the rest. The same goes for some of these tracks."

"I think a hard-eyed look is absolutely essential," he concludes.

The most common evidence allegedly left by these animals are the footprints: big prints in remote locations, some deeply pressed in sand or gravel firm enough for a grown man to pass without leaving a trace. Some footprints, like those Ray Wallace's family claim he left near Bluff Creek, Calif., in the late 1950s, are hoaxed. Many more are too vague to be conclusive. But a few are so detailed and anatomically accurate that they baffle the experts.

"Either the forgers are spending an awful lot of time on this, or there is reason to give this evidence another look," said primate researcher Esteban Sarmiento of the American Museum of Natural History. "I think a serious scientific inquiry is definitely warranted."

Skeptics argue that large mammals, particularly great apes, simply aren't discovered anymore. Not true, says Russell Mittermeier, vice president of Conservation International, who has co-authored scientific papers describing five new primates.

Since the 1990s there have been several spectacular finds, he said, including the antelope-like spindlehorn from Vietnam and a South American peccary thought to have gone extinct thousands of years ago.

"I'm not one to pooh-pooh the potential that these large apes may exist," Mittermeier said. "I guess you could say I'm mildly skeptical but guardedly optimistic. Whoever does find it will have the discovery of the century."

Words of encouragement like these are music to Bigfoot researchers' ears.

"My whole motivation has not been to convince anybody of the existence of the animal, but to convince them that there's a body of evidence begging for further consideration," said Idaho State University professor Jeff Meldrum, whose expertise in primate locomotion led him to become one of the few academics openly researching Bigfoot tracks.

"This is immense," said author John Green, who has tracked Bigfoot reports for almost half a century from British Columbia and investigated some of the most famous sightings and track finds. "The possibility that there could be a real animal behind it just didn't occur to scientists 20 years ago."

The flap over recent claims of Bigfoot hoaxing has not deterred Swindler. But the lack of a body plus the acknowledgment of at least some hoaxing adds up to too many questions for Ciochon.

Like that of Swindler, Ciochon's work focuses on fossilized primate teeth, but of a very special species: Gigantopithecus blacki, the giant Asian ape of the Miocene epoch, which lasted from about 24 million to 5 million years ago.

Most Bigfoot supporters advance Gigantopithecus, or Giganto for short, as the likely ancestor of Bigfoot, if not the hairy beast itself. It's a tantalizing but entirely unproven link that drives Ciochon to distraction.

Ciochon thinks his study subject, which co-existed with the human ancestor Homo erectus for hundreds of thousands of years, may well be the archetypal inspiration for the "boogeyman" and other nocturnal monsters that populate the traditions of aboriginal cultures from Nepal to North America.

But he vigorously rejects any suggestion that Giganto, which he thinks was a specialized, bamboo-eating vegetarian, could persist today.

And he worries that the hotly contested grants that fund his work overseas may go elsewhere if the stigma of the shambling sasquatch of Native American lore attaches to his study subject.

"My biggest problem is there's no evidence, other than conjectural hair and these footprints, some of which we know are faked," Ciochon said.

"If someone finds a skeleton, I'll be there in a nanosecond," he said. "But that's what it's going to take to get me to change my mind."

"There are so many problems," agrees Swindler, who six years ago told a USA Today reporter to count him among the skeptics.

But as he examines the Skookum Cast on a rainy December afternoon in this Seattle suburb, Swindler points out landmarks in the lumpy landscape: a hairy forearm the size of a small ham, an enormous hairy thigh, an outsized buttock, and a striking impression he feels confident was made by the Achilles tendon and heel of a creature that is not supposed to exist.

"Whatever made this was very well adapted to walking on two feet," he said. "It's not conclusive, but it's consistent with what you'd expect to see if a giant biped sat down in the mud."

Swindler hopes that his assessment of the Skookum Cast, and a Discovery Channel documentary set to air Thursday, will generate support for further research.

The key, Schaller said, will be finding dedicated amateurs willing to spend months or years in the field with cameras. "So far, no one has done that," he said.

It was a group of dedicated amateurs that discovered the Skookum Cast. A team of volunteers from the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization had spent two days in Washington state's Gifford Pinchot National Forest, putting out pheromone-basted plastic chips during the day and blasting sasquatch calls at night in an attempt to attract an animal.

On the second night, researchers heard a powerful reply to their broadcasts, said Richard Noll, an aerospace toolmaker who has spent 30 years researching the mystery. The next morning, Noll was stunned to realize that an unusual impression of a large animal on the edge of a mudhole near their camp could have been left by their elusive quarry.

"An elk will gather their feet under them when they get up," he said. "But there are no elk hoofprints in the center of the cast."

Meldrum and Swindler concur there are only two logical explanations for the cast: Bigfoot and elk. And they have also ruled out elk.

John Mionczynski, a wildlife researcher who has spent 30 summers studying bighorn herds in Wyoming's Wind River Mountains, has his own reasons for believing in Bigfoot.

On a moonlit summer night in 1972, he backhanded an animal he thought was a bear as it sniffed at a bacon stain in his tent, then watched as the silhouette of a giant, shaggy arm with a broad hand at the end swept toward his tent, collapsing it on him.

"That hand was three times as wide as mine and had an opposed thumb that stuck out as plain as day," Mionczynski said.

He spent the rest of the night huddled by the fire with a revolver in his hand as the creature lobbed pine cones at him from the dark woods behind his tent.

"That pretty much eliminated bears," Mionczynski said.

Mionczynski is working on a contraption of tiny hooks and barbed wire that he intends to place near seasonal foods he thinks sasquatch depend on. He hopes the snare will let him get a DNA sample.

North of Seattle, Noll is collaborating with Owen Caddy, a former Ugandan park ranger who studied chimpanzees in the mid-1990s.

For the last 18 months, they've scoured certain sandbars on a north Cascades river, documenting more than 30 suspected sasquatch footprints they believe were made by a mother and two young. They hope to identify the animals' food sources and travel corridors, then set out a picket line of infrared camera traps.

"I feel the animal is out there, and I don't hedge on that," Caddy said. "I've found physical evidence myself, and I'm confident in my analysis of it.

"Something is making these tracks, and it's not people."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bibliographical Information:
Front Page of the Sunday Edition of the Denver Post.
By Theo Stein, Denver Post Environment Writer

Red Siegfried · 9th June 2005, 09:23 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by LAL
And I don't consider looking into it a waste of time. I do the same with Cosmology, Genetics, Paleoanthropology..........I'm always up for a new learning experience. Keeps me from getting Alzheimer's.

Well, you're right there. Exercising the mind is never a waste of time.

LAL · 9th June 2005, 09:43 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Red Siegfried
Well, you're right there. Exercising the mind is never a waste of time.

Thank you for not giving me another broadside. I've been getting a little traumatized here, frankly. I'm sorry if I've seemed testy today.

Each piece of evidence should be examined objectively, IMO.

The trick is getting that to happen, and when it's happened, how to get the information to the public. I can't really fault people for knowing so little about all this given the lack of coverage by the media.
I think Meldrum's book will go far toward rectifying that situation, provided people read it. He's certainly come up with new insights and he's about as far from a wild-eyed fanatic as it's possible to get.

Amazingly, his interest in Sasquatch is now on his website. Could it be this area of interest is now gaining some acceptance, at least at Idaho State?

http://www.isu.edu/bios/Professors_Staff/meldrum_d.htm

(Why is my Chickadee blurry? It scanned beautifully and is clear and crisp on my computer. Is someone trying to imply my thinking is fuzzy by blurring my avatar?

)

LTC8K6 · 9th June 2005, 09:46 AM

QUOTE]The Bossburg tracks have never been proven to be faked.[/quote]

Ummmm.....when were they proven to be "real"?

Well, when the Bossburg tracks are proven to be from Bigfoot, get back to me.

A study composed of anecdotes?

Well, I could put down a bunch of anecdotes that aren't in support of Bigfoot, but what's the point?

Of course Jane Goodall would be interested in a possible Bigfoot. I'm interested in one too. So what? I've even conceded that it's possible for Bigfoot to exist. That doesn't mean I believe in Bigfoot, or any of the evidence put forward in support so far.

Folks making money from Bigfoot are all over the place, books, videos, tickets to symposiums, museums, etc., etc., and a specific example of profit from the cripple tracks was already given to you.

Bigfoot has been big business for a long time, no doubt about it.

I see things like this conference as ridiculous, and they are why I don't believe in Bigfoot as anything other than an overhyped opportunity to sell crap:

http://www.texasbigfoot.com/prereg4.html

I just have to get a tape of this:

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Understanding Sasquatch Behavior
Sue will talk about her sightings in Washington, California, and Oregon. She will discuss Bigfoot behavior, juvenile, adolescent and adult, and logical reasons they do what they do. Sasquatch intelligence and sense of humor, and her food and beer experiments. She will discuss how to use knowledge of their behavior to entice them into your camp or to your truck in order to see/ photograph them

Are the beer experiments where you get drunk and see bigfoot?

I just can't wait to register for the next conference.

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Because of over-ordering the Conference t-shirts in the past, all t-shirts will be sold by pre-order only.

More like they ordered too many and got stuck with them last time......

turtle · 9th June 2005, 09:49 AM

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Originally posted by LAL
I didn't say that.

Sorry for any confusion; all I meant to say was that, because there have been some hoaxes, it does not mean all are hoaxes, or, that there are no Bigfoot.

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Thank you.

LAL · 9th June 2005, 09:54 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by turtle
[/i]
Sorry for any confusion; all I meant to say was that, because there have been some hoaxes, it does not mean all are hoaxes, or, that there are no Bigfoot.

[/b]

I may have caused confusion. I was just reaffirming I've never said nothing can be faked and you didn't say I did. You said I didn't and I didn't.

LTC8K6 · 9th June 2005, 10:17 AM

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"Humans don't constitute any threat to Sasquatch," Krantz said. "Once in a while I'll run across somebody who believes early Homo sapiens might have killed off Sasquatches in some areas." The professor scoffed. "Sure. With a bow and arrow they're gonna bring down a Sasquatch. When we can't do it with a goddamn gun!" (This was, of course, a reference to the notorious "battle" between miners and Sasquatches around Mount St. Helens in 1924, among other incidents.)

Even more than his belief in the existence of Bigfoot, Krantz's conviction that it was acceptable to shoot a Sasquatch attracted vehement criticism. Discussing the issue, Krantz seemed motivated more by manly admiration for the ape's prowess than by specimen lust. "If you drop a Sasquatch with a gun," he warned, "the first thing you want to do is reload." Once you fire, your main problem won't be dragging a quarter-ton carcass out of the forest; it'll be reaching the truck alive. "Start throwing rocks at it," he said. "If you don't have rocks, get a long stick and poke it. You want to make sure it's dead." And even if the beast is dead, its mate may charge out of the trees and kill you.

In Bigfoot culture's raging ethical debateâ€”Should we shoot a Sasquatch?â€”Krantz unapologetically defended his loaded-for-bear position. "I wouldn't want a live one captured," he told me. "That would be the cruelest thing I can imagine. Shoot one. Being dead never hurt anybody."

That attitude didn't endear him to missing-linkists, who believe Bigfoot may be as much human as ape. It struck others, including most members of the BFRO, as an unsporting method of specimen collection. But Krantz had an arm's-length relationship with the BFRO anyway; he contributed his expert opinions from time to time, but he was not a member. Even after inspecting the Skookum Cast three times, his opinion of it was tempered by a cranky ambivalence.

"I don't know what it is," he told me. "I'm baffled. Elk. Sasquatch. That's the choice."

I'll go with elk. This guy is not a guy I would trust to have been objective about bigfoot. He sounds rather obsessed to me.

http://outside.away.com/outside/news...asquatch_1.adp

LAL · 9th June 2005, 10:20 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by LTC8K6
QUOTE]The Bossburg tracks have never been proven to be faked.

Ummmm.....when were they proven to be "real"?

Well, when the Bossburg tracks are proven to be from Bigfoot, get back to me.

Try to understand this:

http://www.isu.edu/~meldd/fxnlmorph.html

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A study composed of anecdotes?

NASI/Glickmann, Fahrenbach, Krantz, Meldrum..... Studies of physical evidence are not studies of anecdotes.

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Well, I could put down a bunch of anecdotes that aren't in support of Bigfoot, but what's the point?

Go ahead.

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Of course Jane Goodall would be interested in a possible Bigfoot. I'm interested in one too. So what? I've even conceded that it's possible for Bigfoot to exist. That doesn't mean I believe in Bigfoot, or any of the evidence put forward in support so far.

http://www.rfthomas.clara.net/papers/bindernagel.html

Quote:

Folks making money from Bigfoot are all over the place, books, videos, tickets to symposiums, museums, etc., etc., and a specific example of profit from the cripple tracks was already given to you.

Bigfoot has been big business for a long time, no doubt about it.

It wasn't in 1969, no doubt about it.

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I see things like this conference as ridiculous, and they are why I don't believe in Bigfoot as anything other than an overhyped opportunity to sell crap:

http://www.texasbigfoot.com/prereg4.html

I just have to get a tape of this:

Save your money and get the Willow Creek Symposium DVD instead.

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Are the beer experiments where you get drunk and see bigfoot?

I just can't wait to register for the next conference.

I'll link you to a thread on the recent one in Bellingham when BFF is back up.

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More like they ordered too many and got stuck with them last time......

People sell T-shirts with pictures of Einstein looking like the stereo-typical mad scientist. Does this discredit Einstein's work?

No one's doubting the lunatic fringe gets drawn, but to try to use that to debunk the whole effort is a red herring, at best.

LAL · 9th June 2005, 10:33 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by LTC8K6
I'll go with elk. This guy is not a guy I would trust to have been objective about bigfoot. He sounds rather obsessed to me.

http://outside.away.com/outside/news...asquatch_1.adp

"The cast has been investigated by leading bigfoot researchers, including John Green and Grover Krantz, who believe the cast to be authentic, and solid evidence of the existence of bigfoot."

http://www.answers.com/topic/skookum-cast

He was soon to die of pancreatic cancer. Who are you to judge what kind of "guy" he was?
Read the book.

I wouldn't go with elk, if I were you. Elk was ruled out.

The Odd Emperor · 9th June 2005, 04:03 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by turtle
This might be derailing the thread but there's certainly the "kill/no kill" argument. Personally, I have no interest in going out and killing a BF just to prove it exists. I'm against killing BF. Some BF researchers disagree, but for myself, I say leave it be.

No; youâ€™re correct. Although Iâ€™m squarely part of the â€œbring me some evidence crowdâ€, I think it would be terrible if someone had to shoot one to prove they exist. However; A huge pile of plaster prints is just a pile of plaster prints, a box of blurry photos is just a box of blurry photos. Lots of really poor evidence cannot prove the existence of a new animal. Thatâ€™s the sad truth.

A good photo or series of photos, irrefutable physical evidence that could not be faked or a specimen are the only things that separate Bigfoot from becoming a real creature and not remaining a myth.

LAL · 9th June 2005, 09:58 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by The Odd Emperor
No; youâ€™re correct. Although Iâ€™m squarely part of the â€œbring me some evidence crowdâ€, I think it would be terrible if someone had to shoot one to prove they exist. However; A huge pile of plaster prints is just a pile of plaster prints, a box of blurry photos is just a box of blurry photos. Lots of really poor evidence cannot prove the existence of a new animal. Thatâ€™s the sad truth.

A good photo or series of photos, irrefutable physical evidence that could not be faked or a specimen are the only things that separate Bigfoot from becoming a real creature and not remaining a myth.

There is a very good photo, or rather film, and it amazes me some people can convince themselves it's a man in a suit. The film and tracks from that one event should have settled it close to four decades ago. The Ivory Bill footage is three seconds long, but since we know there were once Ivory Bills, that's sufficient.

There is actually some very good evidence in addition to about a thousand casts of footprints, and several scientists really thought the Skookum Cast should have been conclusive.

If more scientists would actually look into this in an unbiased sort of way, there would be no need for amateurs to organize conferences. I haven't been to one, but I went to the first ever Bigfoot Daze in Carson, Washington. Roy Crowe, Peter Bryne and a fair collection of casts could have made it quite educational, but the mock trial turned it into a fiasco, and little was accomplished besides the selling of Bigfoot burgers. It was organized by a friend, too. His scepticism ruined the day.

If they're a real animal, they can't remain a myth because they never were a myth to begin with and they can't become a real creature because they already are.

There are at least two organizations trying to raise money for the sophisticated photographic equipment required for those really clear photos everyone would like to see. If anyone is interested in helping with this effort, I suggest you buy a T-shirt.

If you are a qualified researcher ready to examine the Skookum Cast, bring the family.

"Since no large creatures except primates have dermal ridges at all, there is no possibility that any animal other than a higher primate could have made the heel imprints. Each species of higher primate has a different pattern, and none has a heel this large. Further, Dr. Meldrum, who is a professor of anatomy, was able to determine the position of the joints for some of the limbs, establishing that the bones were 40 to 50 percent longer than those of a 6-foot human.

The evidence that this imprint was made by a very large, unknown, higher primate is, in my opinion, compelling. I would not anticipate that every qualified person who examines would come to the same conclusion, but I feel sure that the vast majority would have to, whatever their preconceptions."

(John Green)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you are a qualified scientist or forensic specialist (either active or retired) in any relevant discipline, and you would like an opportunity to examine this cast in Washington State, please contact the BFRO at Cast@bfro.net

Friends or family members, or students of people who are considered qualified, may accompany them to view the cast in person.

http://www.bfro.net/news/bodycast/green_statement.asp

LTC8K6 · 9th June 2005, 10:26 PM

LAL, when you* have proven that those footprints are from an unknown primate generally referred to as Bigfoot or sasquatch, it will be the end of all of my objections.

Since you can't really even show this, let alone prove it, the tracks don't really mean much to me. To be honest, I actually dismiss them entirely as worthless.

The same goes for the skookum cast.

If I still believed in Bigfoot, I would probably accept these casts. I don't though.

I still haven't made up my mind about the PG film. It sure looks good, and when I was a kid I was awestruck by it.

I do not accept any of the opinions of Krantz, Meldrum, Chilcutt, etc., (basically all of the people you keep quoting) To me, they are just believers who lost their objectivity. It's like quoting Billy Meier on UFO's, imo.

Useless.

I don't even read anything by them anymore if I can help it.

I think I am done here. I am not learning anything new about bigfoot.

* Or anyone.

LAL · 10th June 2005, 05:59 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by LTC8K6
LAL, when you* have proven that those footprints are from an unknown primate generally referred to as Bigfoot or sasquatch, it will be the end of all of my objections.

Since you can't really even show this, let alone prove it, the tracks don't really mean much to me. To be honest, I actually dismiss them entirely as worthless.

The same goes for the skookum cast.

If I still believed in Bigfoot, I would probably accept these casts. I don't though.

I still haven't made up my mind about the PG film. It sure looks good, and when I was a kid I was awestruck by it.

I do not accept any of the opinions of Krantz, Meldrum, Chilcutt, etc., (basically all of the people you keep quoting) To me, they are just believers who lost their objectivity. It's like quoting Billy Meier on UFO's, imo.

Useless.

I don't even read anything by them anymore if I can help it.

I think I am done here. I am not learning anything new about bigfoot.

* Or anyone.

It's a bit difficult to prove anything on a message board, isn't it? Being able to upload photos is nice, but I can't have you handle actual casts. I wouldn't be able to upload a body, either.

So left me get this straight:
When legitimate scientists investigate and reach conclusions you don't like, you think they've lost their objectivity. Rather than investigate anything they say you're not going to read anything more by them.

I've offered expert opinion on the authenticity of some of the evidence and you drag in Billy Meier. I hope you're not this close-minded in other areas of your life.

I haven't seen a worthwhile contribution from you yet, so if you're done here, I won't be missing much. Saves me the trouble of putting you on ignore, in fact.

Come back when you can successfully debunk the best evidence, or when you've finished high school, whichever comes soonest.

LAL · 10th June 2005, 06:19 AM

Is it possible for the rest of us to debate without sidebars on crop circles and UFO's?

Seems the Cree have continued to investigate in Manitoba. This could have been the chance of the century to get confirmation and instead we get another dropped ball.

Frustrating.

The Odd Emperor · 10th June 2005, 07:41 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by LAL
There is a very good photo, or rather film, and it amazes me some people can convince themselves it's a man in a suit. The film and tracks from that one event should have settled it close to four decades ago. The Ivory Bill footage is three seconds long, but since we know there were once Ivory Bills, that's sufficient.

There is actually some very good evidence in addition to about a thousand casts of footprints, and several scientists really thought the Skookum Cast should have been conclusive.

If more scientists would actually look into this in an unbiased sort of way, there would be no need for amateurs to organize conferences. I haven't been to one, but I went to the first ever Bigfoot Daze in Carson, Washington. Roy Crowe, Peter Bryne and a fair collection of casts could have made it quite educational, but the mock trial turned it into a fiasco, and little was accomplished besides the selling of Bigfoot burgers. It was organized by a friend, too. His scepticism ruined the day.

If they're a real animal, they can't remain a myth because they never were a myth to begin with and they can't become a real creature because they already are.

There are at least two organizations trying to raise money for the sophisticated photographic equipment required for those really clear photos everyone would like to see. If anyone is interested in helping with this effort, I suggest you buy a T-shirt.

If you are a qualified researcher ready to examine the Skookum Cast, bring the family.

"Since no large creatures except primates have dermal ridges at all, there is no possibility that any animal other than a higher primate could have made the heel imprints. Each species of higher primate has a different pattern, and none has a heel this large. Further, Dr. Meldrum, who is a professor of anatomy, was able to determine the position of the joints for some of the limbs, establishing that the bones were 40 to 50 percent longer than those of a 6-foot human.

The evidence that this imprint was made by a very large, unknown, higher primate is, in my opinion, compelling. I would not anticipate that every qualified person who examines would come to the same conclusion, but I feel sure that the vast majority would have to, whatever their preconceptions."

(John Green)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you are a qualified scientist or forensic specialist (either active or retired) in any relevant discipline, and you would like an opportunity to examine this cast in Washington State, please contact the BFRO at Cast@bfro.net

Friends or family members, or students of people who are considered qualified, may accompany them to view the cast in person.

http://www.bfro.net/news/bodycast/green_statement.asp

Well, this seems to get us into the arena of â€œwhyâ€ some people wonâ€™t accept the evidence that Mr. Green feels is compelling. Itâ€™s quite simple really.

1) Bigfoot enthusiasts ask for people to accept *less* evidence than is needed to classify a new insect. This to accept the existence of mega-fauna on the North American Continent.
2) Most people (myself anyway) have no experience with plaster casts, DNA sampling etc so we really canâ€™t judge evidence except by what we can research on our own. DNA evidence alone should settle the matter but there seems to be all this quibble in the background. Most DNA evidence seems to become â€œindeterminableâ€ or â€œunknown,â€ that which is not clearly human, animal or artificial. Photos could be compelling but Iâ€™ve never seen a really good photo of these creatures and even if I did, I (knowing something about photographic evidence) would severely question the pedigree(s) of the photos(s). Who took them, what equipment, what were the processing-enhancement steps and so on.
3) The default position for any such determination should be â€œprobably a myth" (but let us see the evidence.)

And a possible addendum; where is Mr. Green coming from (whatâ€™s his credentials.) The only thing Iâ€™ve found in my not so extensive research is that he was a â€œnewspaper man.â€ That makes him qualified to analyze plaster casts how?

Itâ€™s not that people donâ€™t want to believe, itâ€™s that people really want to know and understand. I could look at a thousand plaster casts, by the end of that time I would know far more about plaster casts than I do now and *maybe* I would be convinced that some mega fauna (other than a fellow human) made the tracks. Since I canâ€™t really do that I have to reserve judgment on any statement based on that kind of evidence, itâ€™s just not compelling to me.

The Odd Emperor · 10th June 2005, 07:54 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by LAL
Is it possible for the rest of us to debate without sidebars on crop circles and UFO's?

Seems the Cree have continued to investigate in Manitoba. This could have been the chance of the century to get confirmation and instead we get another dropped ball.

Frustrating.

Those things are all related insomuch as enthusiasts would like people to accept *less than* acceptable levels of evidence. Unless and until the people who are evangelizing these kinds of things can produce the same evidence that, say someone with a new type of electronic circuit or a new chemical compound could produce, they are simply not being convincing.

There are people running around screaming that this kind of thinking is closed minded. It seems strange that saying â€œI donâ€™t know what is in that photoâ€ or â€œitâ€™s improbable that an alien species traveled millions of miles to crush some farmerâ€™s barley field as a form of communicationâ€ is closed minded. To me, saying that there is only one possible conclusion to any problem *is* closed minded.

I donâ€™t know if Bigfoot is a myth or a real animal. I havenâ€™t seen evidence that itâ€™s either. Is that closed minded?

LAL · 10th June 2005, 08:49 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by The Odd Emperor
Well, this seems to get us into the arena of â€œwhyâ€ some people wonâ€™t accept the evidence that Mr. Green feels is compelling. Itâ€™s quite simple really.

1) Bigfoot enthusiasts ask for people to accept *less* evidence than is needed to classify a new insect. This to accept the existence of mega-fauna on the North American Continent.
2) Most people (myself anyway) have no experience with plaster casts, DNA sampling etc so we really canâ€™t judge evidence except by what we can research on our own. DNA evidence alone should settle the matter but there seems to be all this quibble in the background. Most DNA evidence seems to become â€œindeterminableâ€ or â€œunknown,â€ that which is not clearly human, animal or artificial. Photos could be compelling but Iâ€™ve never seen a really good photo of these creatures and even if I did, I (knowing something about photographic evidence) would severely question the pedigree(s) of the photos(s). Who took them, what equipment, what were the processing-enhancement steps and so on.
3) The default position for any such determination should be â€œprobably a myth" (but let us see the evidence.)

And a possible addendum; where is Mr. Green coming from (whatâ€™s his credentials.) The only thing Iâ€™ve found in my not so extensive research is that he was a â€œnewspaper man.â€ That makes him qualified to analyze plaster casts how?

Itâ€™s not that people donâ€™t want to believe, itâ€™s that people really want to know and understand. I could look at a thousand plaster casts, by the end of that time I would know far more about plaster casts than I do now and *maybe* I would be convinced that some mega fauna (other than a fellow human) made the tracks. Since I canâ€™t really do that I have to reserve judgment on any statement based on that kind of evidence, itâ€™s just not compelling to me.

Green bought a newspaper in British Columbia in 1957 and began collecting reports. He actually examined tracks in the Bluff Creek area prior to the Patterson/Gimlin filming. He and Bob Titmus were among the first to conduct any kind of investigation. He's been following this for close to sixty years. He's a very sharp man.

http://www.rfthomas.clara.net/papers/jgreen.html

Goodall didn't have a PhD in primatology when she started her research, and Fossey never did get hers.

The cast was also examined by Krantz, Meldrum, Sarmiento and Swindler, who reversed thirty years of scepticism after seeing it.
They all have or had PhD's in anatomy and anthropology and two are leading primatologists, Swindler being a giant in the field. Meldrum is an expert in primate locomotion.

See if you can make out the details here.

http://www.bfro.net/news/bodycast/images.asp

It's difficult to see much from photos, I know, but the heel is very clear on the LMS DVD as Swindler points out the tendon of Achilles.
The casting medium was Hydrocal B-11. It took 150 pounds to cast the impression.

There are imprints of hair, and some hairs were found embedded in the imprint that do not match elk, coyote, bear, human............
DNA or no, there has been much microscopic examination. The fact that they're not a match for any known animal might indicate they come from an unidentified animal.
They are real hairs.

Have you seen a good copy of the P/G film? Muscles and tendons are evident, the fingers articulate, there are even areas that appear to have sparse hair.

There have been several "man-in-the-suit" claims. None have held up.

"After watching the film many times, I told Patterson about some its technical consistencies that were evident to me. With most of these he already knew what was involved or quickly caught on. But when I talked about some of the more technical details of bio-mechanics, he soon showed the familiar blank look of a student who had lost the drift of the explanation, but was still trying hard to pay attention. Yet he must have known all of these details in order to create the hoax (assuming he knew of a hoax). For instance, he could see the anterior position of the front of the shin, but how that related to foot leverage was quite beyond his understanding. Also he had originally estimated that it weighed only half of what was settled on later, yet all the details were calculated to fit with the greater weight. I think that a hoax is most unlikely on these grounds alone." -Dr. Grover Krantz

Here's the BBC's attempt to duplicate it.

http://www.bfro.net/REF/THEORIES/pgfdebunkings.asp

Even with top make-up men and a lot of money, they didn't come close.

If the "hoax hypothesis" is falsified, what's left?

In Dakota wisdom, if you find you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount.

Hitch · 10th June 2005, 09:32 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by LAL
Have you seen a good copy of the P/G film? Muscles and tendons are evident, the fingers articulate, there are even areas that appear to have sparse hair.

I have never seen a "good" copy of this film. Since the late 60's all I've seen are blurry, grainy, jumpy, out-of-focus versions of this film. If the "good" version is so convincing, why do the Woos insist on hiding it?

The Odd Emperor · 10th June 2005, 12:21 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by LAL
Green bought a newspaper in British Columbia in 1957 and began collecting reports. He actually examined tracks in the Bluff Creek area prior to the Patterson/Gimlin filming. He and Bob Titmus were among the first to conduct any kind of investigation. He's been following this for close to sixty years. He's a very sharp man.

http://www.rfthomas.clara.net/papers/jgreen.html

Goodall didn't have a PhD in primatology when she started her research, and Fossey never did get hers.

Dian Fossey? (Sorry, anthropology is not really my â€˜thang.) She did get a PhD (not sure in what, it might have been in Occupational Therapy.)

I really do hate this â€œI studied a phenomena for X many years and that automatically makes me an expert just -cuz.â€ Getting real credentials doesnâ€™t teach anyone about a subject, it teaches people how to do real research as apposed to crackpot research. Fossey and Goodall did real field work, lots of it. They got degrees and wrote papers. Iâ€™m much more impressed with these people than someone who just had an interest, wrote a book and now thinks he or she is the end all of the subject. The hoops you have to jump through to get academic standing are there for a purpose and when people short circuit them they donâ€™t do themselves any favors.

Quote:

Originally posted by LAL

Here's the BBC's attempt to duplicate it.

http://www.bfro.net/REF/THEORIES/pgfdebunkings.asp

Even with top make-up men and a lot of money, they didn't come close.

If the "hoax hypothesis" is falsified, what's left?

In Dakota wisdom, if you find you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount.

(Big heavy sigh)

Thatâ€™s not how it works. You can never completely falsify the hoax hypothesis. Even if Pattie the Bigfoot is interviewed on Larry King -- tells him that she was the one in the film, there will still be some possibility that it was a guy in a suit. Itâ€™s almost impossible to prove or disprove anything from a piece of video.

(I hate to bring this up again but,) People disbelieve the Apollo landings and they have thousands of feet of high quality movies-- and just about any media available at the time. Plus physical evidence, plus eye witness testimony from tens of thousands of people involved, plus hardware. You canâ€™t tell me that Iâ€™m being too skeptical because I reserve judgment over a smidgen of blurry film.

I remember that BBC piece and I donâ€™t believe they attempted to duplicate the P/G film, they simply used similar equipment and made a known â€œfakeâ€ to be used as a baseline. Besides, that was not a scientific attempt to do anything except get viewers to watch, I never understood why this is dangled out from time to time as evidence to prove the P/G film was real. It doesnâ€™t really prove anything.

One thing they (I believe) pointed out is how close Patterson actually was to his subject, like about one hundred feet away, almost close enough to spit on it. That part alone makes me wonder about the veracity of that piece of evidence. Not to mention the strange lack of investigation of basic stuff like how tall was the figure etc.

No; the whole thing is skewed. You really want to prove Bigfoot is a real animal not prove skeptics donâ€™t understand what you are talking about.

LAL · 10th June 2005, 02:22 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by The Odd Emperor
Dian Fossey? (Sorry, anthropology is not really my â€˜thang.) She did get a PhD (not sure in what, it might have been in Occupational Therapy.)

She started in pre-vet and switched to OT. No advanced degrees that I know of.
Since there are no degrees offered, to my knowlege, in hominidology (there's no such field), where was Green supposed to go to get his training? He was a pioneer, and one of the very few people to invest his time and money in actually checking this out. He also did his best to get credentialled people interested, and still does.

I'm reminded of an IDer claiming Richard Leakey didn't deserve his honorary degrees because he dropped out of high school. His parents were pioneers in paleoanthropology and he learned to excavate at his mother's knee. No school of the time could have given him training like that.

Quote:

I really do hate this â€œI studied a phenomena for X many years and that automatically makes me an expert just -cuz.â€ Getting real credentials doesnâ€™t teach anyone about a subject, it teaches people how to do real research as apposed to crackpot research.

And Krantz had the real degrees, and called in other experts and even consulted Dr. Tim White of Berkeley. He did field research. He had his full duties at Washington State, so this could only be a sideline, as it is with Dr. Meldrum, who also does field research. He wasn't world famous, like Dr. Swindler is, but he was a respected anthropologist.

Quote:

Fossey and Goodall did real field work, lots of it. They got degrees and wrote papers. Iâ€™m much more impressed with these people than someone who just had an interest, wrote a book and now thinks he or she is the end all of the subject. The hoops you have to jump through to get academic standing are there for a purpose and when people short circuit them they donâ€™t do themselves any favors.

Krantz' field work wasn't real? He wrote his book after extensive study and after having at least one paper on this accepted by the American Association of Anthropologists. Do you think he risked his career just to write a book? He was one of the scientists leading the fight for the right to study Kennewick Man. If he was such a crackpot, how come they won? He didn't short circuit anything. If mainstream journals won't publish articles such as this

http://www.rfthomas.clara.net/papers/dermal.html

what was he supposed to do. He published in Cryptozoology, was was peer-reviewed, just not by those stodgy grant seeking scientists we discussed earlier.
Dr. David Daegling wrote a book too. Evidently he just had an interest, wrote a book and now thinks he or she is the end all of the subject. Or is that okay since he's a sceptic?

Quote:

(Big heavy sigh)

(Ditto)

Quote:

Thatâ€™s not how it works. You can never completely falsify the hoax hypothesis. Even if Pattie the Bigfoot is interviewed on Larry King -- tells him that she was the one in the film, there will still be some possibility that it was a guy in a suit. Itâ€™s almost impossible to prove or disprove anything from a piece of video.

Nor can you absolutely prove anything in science. There's always the possibility of that little piece of new evidence that can topple accepted thinking. That happens a lot in paleoanthropology.

Strange, many people believe Bob Heironimus when he says he's the man in the suit. I don't know if he was on Larry King Live, but he sure made the news. (The fact that he's changed his story several times didn't.) Even arch-sceptic Dennett didn't swallow it all.

Much has been proved and disproved from that film.
Despite the mockery about the computer graphic skeleton, it is clearly not human. The knee shows a rotating motion and the gait may be slightly compromised from the rupture on the thigh.
And then there's the IM index.

Quote:

(I hate to bring this up again but,) People disbelieve the Apollo landings and they have thousands of feet of high quality movies-- and just about any media available at the time. Plus physical evidence, plus eye witness testimony from tens of thousands of people involved, plus hardware. You canâ€™t tell me that Iâ€™m being too skeptical because I reserve judgment over a smidgen of blurry film.

And some people believe in psychic phenomena, O.J.'s innocence, Michael Behe and the Loch Ness monster.
I care about what the evidence shows.
If you can, beg, borrow or steal (or even buy) LMS. The film not only is on the show, it's in the extras. I've seen it on an excellent screen and the movement is as fluid as my cat's. It's really not that blurry.

Quote:

I remember that BBC piece and I donâ€™t believe they attempted to duplicate the P/G film, they simply used similar equipment and made a known â€œfakeâ€ to be used as a baseline. Besides, that was not a scientific attempt to do anything except get viewers to watch, I never understood why this is dangled out from time to time as evidence to prove the P/G film was real. It doesnâ€™t really prove anything.

I didn't see it, but it sounds like Packham was out to debunk it.

"The production money from the BBC was given to Packham and Appleby based on Packham's script, which confidentally proclaims success in recreating the hoax. The script was written a long time before they actually tried to make a matching costume. Packham and Appleby assured BBC executives they could easily do it. There was no concern about them failing.

The script was approved and locked down by the BBC long before it was obvious that they couldn't make a matching costume. When the show was delivered to the BBC, the matching costume element couldn't be cut out, because it's the crux of the debunking argument. All Packham and Appleby could do at that stage is try to emphasize other lesser important conjecture, and distort peripheral facts to make some kind of circumstantial case for a hoax."

It proves making a convincing Sasquatch suit isn't a piece of cake.

Quote:

One thing they (I believe) pointed out is how close Patterson actually was to his subject, like about one hundred feet away, almost close enough to spit on it.

Step off 100 feet and see how far you can spit.

Quote:

That part alone makes me wonder about the veracity of that piece of evidence. Not to mention the strange lack of investigation of basic stuff like how tall was the figure etc.

That was all investigated. It always is. Best estimates are 6'5"-7'. Green did a recreation a year later before the area changed and had a 6'5" friend walk the same route. The overlay can be seen on LMS.
Was that Patterson's estimate or actual measurement?

Quote:

No; the whole thing is skewed. You really want to prove Bigfoot is a real animal not prove skeptics donâ€™t understand what you are talking about.

I don't have to prove sceptics don't understand what I'm talking about. Most do a good job of that without any help from me.
There are people investing time and money and showing there really is an unidentified species in North America. The evidence is really overwhelming if you consider it all and not just a piece here and there. I'm doing my best to present it.

LAL · 10th June 2005, 02:47 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Hitch
I have never seen a "good" copy of this film. Since the late 60's all I've seen are blurry, grainy, jumpy, out-of-focus versions of this film. If the "good" version is so convincing, why do the Woos insist on hiding it?

My understanding is that the original was lost, but there are several good second generation copies. The film was tied up in copyright problems for years.
The best I've seen is on LMS. It's jumpy because Patterson was running. The horses were spooked and Gimlin was trying to control them. If the camera had been on a tripod and in perfect focus, I'd be suspicious.
Please drop the derogatory term. No one's hiding anything.

"How Not to Plan a Hoaxed Filming
By Roger Knights

There are many obviously objectionable points associated with the Patterson/Gimlin film. Some skeptics have seized on these as handy sticks with which to pummel it. But one could turn their case on its head and argue the opposite: that even rudimentary planning would have eliminated such predictably problematic stuff. To wit:

â€œRed-flagâ€ behavior by Patterson, Gimlin, or â€œPattyâ€;
Bells & whistlesâ€”these are costly & troublesome. (Keep It Simple, Stupid.)
Thus, the very fact that so many easy-to-foresee red flags and unnecessary complications were involved implies a lack of foresight, which implies a lack of planning, which implies the absence of a commercially motivated hoax.

Suppose youâ€™re planning how NOT to film a successful Bigfoot hoax. Youâ€™d be well advised to incorporate these red-flags and risky/costly bells-and-whistles:

Donâ€™t buy the camera you use. (Although itâ€™ll become a valuable artifact.)
Allow the rental period on the camera to be exceeded, and be jailed for not returning it on time. (Thatâ€™ll add to your credibility!)
Use a better-than necessary (16 mm) camera that reveals objectionable details, like uniform hair length, too long-foot length, etc. [Thanks to Bigfoot Forums (BFF) member â€œToe Toe.â€]
Ask along a second witness, greatly complicating things (if he is unwitting), or adding to the expense (if he is â€œwittingâ€).
Ask along two third witnesses (ditto). (Track Record #35, p. 4, and #97, p. 2.)
Boast that youâ€™re going to film a Bigfoot, making your encounter seem non-accidental.
Use horses. (They complicate the story, could fail to rear, and add expense.) [Thanks to BFF member â€œHarryHendersonâ€]
Have the two witnesses disagree on many details, such as the creatureâ€™s smell, stride, and height, and whether or not Pattersonâ€™s horse fell on him, or he slid off it (according to Gimlin). (See Barbara Wassonâ€™s Sasquatch Apparitions, p. 68.) â€œLetâ€™s get our stories straightâ€â€” someone amongst every group of plotters utters that classic line, both in countless popular thrillers, and in the real world. Virtually all commercially motivated plotters rehearse. But not P or Gâ€”so perhaps they plotted nothing. (Noteâ€”the differences in P & Gâ€™s stories were not forced out of them cross-examined separately, which is the way suspicious contradictions emerge in the tales of conspirators, but popped up the first times they were asked merely to tell their stories by interviewers (e.g., on radio interviews together). Nor were they about minor aspects of the tale they hadnâ€™t anticipated being asked about, but were about its central aspects.)
Estimate the creatureâ€™s weight at half of what would be a reasonable guess, and a few years later revise your estimate, causing skeptics to accuse you of unreliability.
Donâ€™t photograph a human or stick to provide scaling. (Doubt is the result.)
Stage the event at a site with the reassuring name of Bluff Creek.
Film in a location near a road, where someone might stumble on the crew.
Film in an awkward, out-of-the-way part of the country, and hang around the site for over two weeks before the shotâ€”a waste of resources and time.
Include characteristics in the suit that scientists are sure to object to, such as:
Features not encountered among female apes, such as a sagittal crest, large hairy breasts, a bulky, heavily muscled torso, and a bold, dominating stride.
A human-like stride, not the â€œlumberingâ€ gait friendly scientists expected, and not different at first glance from the walk of an actor in an ape-suit.
A foot length that doesnâ€™t agree with the length of stride for a human.
No strong directional grain to the hair and little irregularity in hair-length.
A light-colored foot-sole, wrapping slightly up around the edges of the foot.
A rear-projecting heel.
An unlikely, half-human face, like nothing in art or nature.
Any type of face. (Showing it would only raise objections, and in any event would be difficult to make realistic. [Thanks to BFF member â€œCochiseâ€ for the last point.])
Fail to contact scientists who believe in hominids, like Boris Porshnev.
Add oddities like a hernia on the thigh and a large skin tag (or tumor) on the breast.
Claim a Friday filming, making it impossible to process the film over the weekend.
Claim to have done so anyway.
Be penny-wise and have the film developed by an unnamable moonlighting camera-shop employee. (Although a â€œclear chain of custodyâ€ is a must.)
Show the film on Sunday, an almost-impossibly short time-line, despite the lack of any need for a speedy showing.
Show the original print repeatedly to visiting BF buffs, so it will get scratched and scuffed, instead of making viewing copies of the film immediately.
Put the priceless film in the mail, instead of hand-carrying it to a developer.
Donâ€™t invite the press to the dramatic first showing, or to the filmâ€™s processing.
Forget the filming speed. (Another gold star on your credibility score-sheet.)
Lose the original copy of the first reel, and also all copies of the second reel."

http://www.bigfootproject.org/articl...t_to_plan.html

Red Siegfried · 10th June 2005, 08:39 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by LAL
My understanding is that the original was lost, but there are several good second generation copies. The film was tied up in copyright problems for years.
The best I've seen is on LMS. It's jumpy because Patterson was running. The horses were spooked and Gimlin was trying to control them. If the camera had been on a tripod and in perfect focus, I'd be suspicious.
Please drop the derogatory term. No one's hiding anything.

Agreed, LAL. Although I think we disagree quite a bit here, I agree that no one is really trying to hide anything. Evidence for that? Don't have any, that's just the impression I get from what I've studied about this.

LAL · 10th June 2005, 08:57 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Red Siegfried
Agreed, LAL. Although I think we disagree quite a bit here, I agree that no one is really trying to hide anything. Evidence for that? Don't have any, that's just the impression I get from what I've studied about this.

Will wonders never cease? I'm glad we agree on something.

There's been another sighting near Norway House, Manitoba, and tracks photographed (they're online). Seems no one is following up besides the Cree.
Can't CSICOP at least send Michael Dennett?

The Odd Emperor · 11th June 2005, 09:16 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by LAL

Krantz' field work wasn't real? He wrote his book after extensive study and after having at least one paper on this accepted by the American Association of Anthropologists. Do you think he risked his career just to write a book? He was one of the scientists leading the fight for the right to study Kennewick Man. If he was such a crackpot, how come they won? He didn't short circuit anything. If mainstream journals won't publish articles such as this
[/b]

I wasnâ€™t really calling anyone in the Bigfoot Biz a crackpot- just lamenting the method in general. If someone got a paper published in the AAA Journal than Iâ€™d call it a step in the right direction. Many self styled experts donâ€™t bother to even try.

Quote:

Originally posted by LAL

http://www.rfthomas.clara.net/papers/dermal.html

what was he supposed to do. He published in Cryptozoology, was was peer-reviewed, just not by those stodgy grant seeking scientists we discussed earlier.
Dr. David Daegling wrote a book too. Evidently he just had an interest, wrote a book and now thinks he or she is the end all of the subject. Or is that okay since he's a sceptic?
[/b]

No itâ€™s not OK, I never suggested that it was.

Quote:

Originally posted by LAL

Nor can you absolutely prove anything in science. There's always the possibility of that little piece of new evidence that can topple accepted thinking. That happens a lot in paleoanthropology.
[/b]

Of course this is trueâ€”part of the beauty of science. You can always change your mind based on a preponderance of evidence.

Quote:

Originally posted by LAL

Strange, many people believe Bob Heironimus when he says he's the man in the suit. I don't know if he was on Larry King Live, but he sure made the news. (The fact that he's changed his story several times didn't.) Even arch-sceptic Dennett didn't swallow it all.
[/b]

I donâ€™t necessarily believe or disbelieve Bob Heironimus. Itâ€™s an interesting story and inevitable if the P/G film is a hoax. In all probability the fellow is lying for. If the film were of a real BF heâ€™s undoubtedly not one of those. If the film is a hoax it doesnâ€™t necessarily follow that heâ€™s the fellow in the suit. He might have heard the story long ago and appropriated it. He might have just made the whole thing up. Proving the P/G is a hoax is as difficult as proving it real (IMO.) I donâ€™t know what would be compelling to me, the suit itself (complete with water bags etc) in some abandoned storage unit?

BTW, love the term â€œArch-Skeptic.â€ I need to start working on plans for an arch-skeptic convention. They can all sit around with snifters of brandy -- twirl their mustaches.

Quote:

Originally posted by LAL

Much has been proved and disproved from that film.
Despite the mockery about the computer graphic skeleton, it is clearly not human.
[/b]

(snip)

I canâ€™t be so positive. It would take me years of study, a complete re-tool of my expertise set. A boatload of practical experience (animatronics animal design say.) or a real degree in some Bio or Anthro sub strata before I could make such an absolute statement. But than again Iâ€™m comfortable with the idea that I canâ€™t know for sure, until Patti the Bigfoot is interviewed on Larry King.

Quote:

Originally posted by LAL

I didn't see it, but it sounds like Packham was out to debunk it.

"The production money from the BBC was given to Packham and Appleby based on Packham's script, which confidentally proclaims success in recreating the hoax. The script was written a long time before they actually tried to make a matching costume. Packham and Appleby assured BBC executives they could easily do it. There was no concern about them failing.

The script was approved and locked down by the BBC long before it was obvious that they couldn't make a matching costume. When the show was delivered to the BBC, the matching costume element couldn't be cut out, because it's the crux of the debunking argument. All Packham and Appleby could do at that stage is try to emphasize other lesser important conjecture, and distort peripheral facts to make some kind of circumstantial case for a hoax."

It proves making a convincing Sasquatch suit isn't a piece of cake.
[/b]

No I donâ€™t agree. Making a successful Sasquatch suit is quite easy. Taking some bogus footage is somewhat more difficult. Getting people to believe itâ€™s genuine? *Very* easy.
Duplicating the P/G film? Almost impossible.

Quote:

Originally posted by LAL

Step off 100 feet and see how far you can spit.

[/b]

If I have a following wind?

[quote]Originally posted by LAL

That was all investigated. It always is. Best estimates are 6'5"-7'. Green did a recreation a year later before the area changed and had a 6'5" friend walk the same route. The overlay can be seen on LMS.
Was that Patterson's estimate or actual measurement?

[quote]Originally posted by LAL

Seen it, I can't tell from the photographs where the figure was standing in relation to the fellow with the yard-stick. I see the conclusions but I donâ€™t really see the connection. But 6-5 to SEVEN FEET? Thatâ€™s the difference between a fairly tall man and a freakishly tall one. If the creature was truly about one hundred feet away they should have (one would think) gotten that estimate down to a few inches.

Didnâ€™t P/G have still cameraâ€™s with them (I think I read that somewhere.) They could not even have one of the other stand on the figureâ€™s track, take a photo from where Patterson was filming the creature and draw a baseline from that?

[quote]Originally posted by LAL

I don't have to prove sceptics don't understand what I'm talking about. Most do a good job of that without any help from me.

[quote]Originally posted by LAL

Heh! Some of them understand exactly what you are talking about, they simply donâ€™t agree with you--not quite the same thing.

Quote:

Originally posted by LAL

There are people investing time and money and showing there really is an unidentified species in North America. The evidence is really overwhelming if you consider it all and not just a piece here and there. I'm doing my best to present it. [/b]

I appreciate that.
I donâ€™t think the evidence is exactly overwhelming, interesting yes but I still have problems making a judgment based on the enthusiasm of others. I prefer to wait for that really excellent series of videos or photographs, or a specimen. If Bigfoot is a real creature these things are inevitable.

LTC8K6 · 11th June 2005, 10:34 PM

LAL, the resort to the personal attack is very revealing....

Quote:

So left me get this straight:
When legitimate scientists investigate and reach conclusions you don't like, you think they've lost their objectivity. Rather than investigate anything they say you're not going to read anything more by them.

I've offered expert opinion on the authenticity of some of the evidence and you drag in Billy Meier. I hope you're not this close-minded in other areas of your life.

I haven't seen a worthwhile contribution from you yet, so if you're done here, I won't be missing much. Saves me the trouble of putting you on ignore, in fact.

Come back when you can successfully debunk the best evidence, or when you've finished high school, whichever comes soonest.

It's called skepticism. Get used to it if you plan to hang around here long.

I'll still be here waiting patiently when bigfoot believers have something new to show me. Maybe they will finally get some actual evidence next time.....

Maybe bigfoot will trip and fall face first into a mud wallow next time. The Fuquay-Varina cast!!!

LAL · 12th June 2005, 06:51 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by LTC8K6
LAL, the resort to the personal attack is very revealing....

It's called skepticism. Get used to it if you plan to hang around here long.

I'll still be here waiting patiently when bigfoot believers have something new to show me. Maybe they will finally get some actual evidence next time.....

Maybe bigfoot will trip and fall face first into a mud wallow next time. The Fuquay-Varina cast!!!

Suggesting I'm being obtuse was a personal attack, IMO. I'm still wiping off the virtual spitballs.

Sorry, son, but you started it.
I'm very used to it and have yet to see convincing arguments from the sceptics' side, although there are some interesting points made by sceptics which are worthy of discussion.

There's plenty of sophmoric humor, though. Perhaps that's why I took you for a sophmore.

LTC8K6 · 12th June 2005, 08:50 PM

Quote:

There's plenty of sophmoric humor, though. Perhaps that's why I took you for a sophmore.

I learned to spell sophomore long before I graduated from high school.

LAL · 13th June 2005, 04:02 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by LTC8K6
I learned to spell sophomore long before I graduated from high school.

Evidently I didn't.

LAL · 13th June 2005, 04:32 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by The Odd Emperor
I wasnâ€™t really calling anyone in the Bigfoot Biz a crackpot- just lamenting the method in general. If someone got a paper published in the AAA Journal than Iâ€™d call it a step in the right direction. Many self styled experts donâ€™t bother to even try.

Dr. Meldrum has had two abstracts accepted by the American Ass'n of Physical Anthropologists with "very good dialogue". Also the Northwest Anthropological Conference, the Idaho Academy of Science, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (Pacific Division). He's working on manuscripts for publication as well.

Quote:

No itâ€™s not OK, I never suggested that it was.

Daegling's use of Cliff Crook, who is a self-styled "expert" of the worst order, was enough for me.

Quote:

Of course this is trueâ€”part of the beauty of science. You can always change your mind based on a preponderance of evidence.

Yep. Science is self-correcting.

[quote][b]I donâ€™t necessarily believe or disbelieve Bob Heironimus. Itâ€™s an interesting story and inevitable if the P/G film is a hoax. In all probability the fellow is lying for. If the film were of a real BF heâ€™s undoubtedly not one of those. If the film is a hoax it doesnâ€™t necessarily follow that heâ€™s the fellow in the suit. He might have heard the story long ago and appropriated it. He might have just made the whole thing up. Proving the P/G is a hoax is as difficult as proving it real (IMO.) I donâ€™t know what would be compelling to me, the suit itself (complete with water bags etc) in some abandoned storage unit?[quote][b]

One of Heirinimus' suggestions was sandbags. He seems to be making it up as he goes along.

Quote:

BTW, love the term â€œArch-Skeptic.â€ I need to start working on plans for an arch-skeptic convention. They can all sit around with snifters of brandy -- twirl their mustaches.

(snip)

Quote:

I canâ€™t be so positive. It would take me years of study, a complete re-tool of my expertise set. A boatload of practical experience (animatronics animal design say.) or a real degree in some Bio or Anthro sub strata before I could make such an absolute statement. But than again Iâ€™m comfortable with the idea that I canâ€™t know for sure, until Patti the Bigfoot is interviewed on Larry King.

I think she's dead. Estimated lifespan is about forty years and she was obviously mature in 1967.
I'm comfortable with letting the experts do all that work.

I'm familiar enough with human skeletons to spot the obvious differences immediately. I do quibble about the skull - I don't see the sagittal crest. The animator left that out, possibly because some think the peak may be hair.

Quote:

No I donâ€™t agree. Making a successful Sasquatch suit is quite easy.

I don't agree. The shoulder joints on "Patty" are a foot farther apart than on a man of comparable size, the IM index is between human and ape, and somehow a prosthetic device would have to be used to get the proper arm length and still have the fingers move. And then there are the legs, with muscle movement and visible tendons.

Quote:

Taking some bogus footage is somewhat more difficult. Getting people to believe itâ€™s genuine? *Very* easy.
Duplicating the P/G film? Almost impossible.

I agree with that last statement.

See the rent-a-suit below:

LTC8K6 · 13th June 2005, 06:44 AM

Well, that outfit is not even close to being as good looking as the possible creature in the p/g film.

It could fool a lot of people though. In the distance with a not too clear shot or video.....

Hitch · 13th June 2005, 11:27 AM

Quote:

I think she's dead. Estimated lifespan is about forty years and she was obviously mature in 1967.

And what, praytell, was that estimate based on? How do you estimate the lifespan of an unknown species?

Am I alone in feeling we are firmly in the realm of Woo?

Cleon · 13th June 2005, 11:57 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Hitch
And what, praytell, was that estimate based on? How do you estimate the lifespan of an unknown species?

Or maturity, for that matter.

I think it's things like this that make it difficult for skeptics to take Bigfoot seriously. You want to provide evidence of an unknown primate, great, but when that evidence is provided along with a bunch of ridiculous suppositions (lifespan, diet, evolutionary heritage, etc), it's difficult to take the evidence seriously--even if the evidence is valid!. It's a bit like publishing an article positing the existence of a new subatomic particle and hypothesizing that it's the basis of psychic powers. With that kind of thing coming out of left field, nobody's going to take your evidence seriously. If you're going to approach something scientifically, you have to be clinical about it, and chalk unknowns up to unknowns.

Ripley Twenty-Nine · 13th June 2005, 12:51 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by LAL
I think she's dead. Estimated lifespan is about forty years and she was obviously mature in 1967.
I'm comfortable with letting the experts do all that work.

LAL, serious question.

Do you believe with the amount of evidence for and against Bigfoot today, that the Sasquatch should be added to the list of known species, incorporating such facts as the approximate 40-year lifespan, etc?

LTC8K6 · 13th June 2005, 01:36 PM

A scientist should not believe in bigfoot. That's what I mean.

All of these degree holding folks quoted throughout this thread should not believe in bigfoot, yet they give every appearance of accepting bigfoot as fact, when they haven't got anywhere near enough solid evidence.

They talk as if bigfoot is accepted fact, and they spread this idea to others.

When a supposedly objective scientist all but tells me that bigfoot is real, all I can do is wonder where his objectivity went.

It's perfectly fine for a scientist to write sceptically of bigfoot.

There is no double standard here.

A scientist should be sceptical of bigfoot.

Cleon · 13th June 2005, 01:54 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by LTC8K6
A scientist should not believe in bigfoot. That's what I mean.

All of these degree holding folks quoted throughout this thread should not believe in bigfoot, yet they give every appearance of accepting bigfoot as fact, when they haven't got anywhere near enough solid evidence.

They talk as if bigfoot is accepted fact, and they spread this idea to others.

When a supposedly objective scientist all but tells me that bigfoot is real, all I can do is wonder where his objectivity went.

It's perfectly fine for a scientist to write sceptically of bigfoot.

There is no double standard here.

A scientist should be sceptical of bigfoot.

Double-standard, no. At least not by definition.

But this is circular logic.

If a scientist examines the evidence and comes to the conclusion Bigfoot is real, you conclude he's lost his objectivity and thus his opinion is invalid. You base your opinion of his "objectivity" based on the conclusion, not based on his methodology.

In short, you'll only listen to scientists who share your opinion. Anyone else has "lost their objectivity." It's ok for a scientist to write skeptically of Bigfoot, but not for them to write in support (no matter how cautiouis) of the idea.

To be quite frank, if Randi operated like this, he'd have to go back to doing magic shows. Show the flaws in their methodology if you like, show how they made mistakes or deluded themselves, but don't dismiss them outright because they came to a different conclusion than you did. Arguably, they're in a better position to evaluate the evidence.

(This is why appeals to authority are typically a bad idea.)

LTC8K6 · 13th June 2005, 06:28 PM

Quote:

If a scientist examines the evidence and comes to the conclusion Bigfoot is real

That would be fine with me.

That will certainly happen if some evidence ever shows up.

LAL · 13th June 2005, 08:34 PM

I've given you the names of several well-respected scientists who have reached the conclusion they're a real animal based on the evidence.

The lifespan is a good guess based on the lifespans of other great apes.
Does the Patterson creature look like a juvenile?

LAL · 13th June 2005, 08:37 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Cleon
Double-standard, no. At least not by definition.

But this is circular logic.

If a scientist examines the evidence and comes to the conclusion Bigfoot is real, you conclude he's lost his objectivity and thus his opinion is invalid. You base your opinion of his "objectivity" based on the conclusion, not based on his methodology.

In short, you'll only listen to scientists who share your opinion. Anyone else has "lost their objectivity." It's ok for a scientist to write skeptically of Bigfoot, but not for them to write in support (no matter how cautiouis) of the idea.

To be quite frank, if Randi operated like this, he'd have to go back to doing magic shows. Show the flaws in their methodology if you like, show how they made mistakes or deluded themselves, but don't dismiss them outright because they came to a different conclusion than you did. Arguably, they're in a better position to evaluate the evidence.

(This is why appeals to authority are typically a bad idea.)

(does little Snoopy dance)

LAL · 13th June 2005, 09:05 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Ripley Twenty-Nine
LAL, serious question.

Do you believe with the amount of evidence for and against Bigfoot today, that the Sasquatch should be added to the list of known species, incorporating such facts as the approximate 40-year lifespan, etc?

Actually, quite a bit of information has been gathered on eating habits from reports and scat. They probably eat what bears eat........... namely, everything.
I've mentioned tracks of the same individual being spotted twenty years apart and the animal was mature the first time.

A new monkey species was recently classified from photos alone, I've read, but there seems to be a bit of balking when the new species is eight feet tall.

I wouldn't want the job of classifying it, or even naming it. Should it be Gigantopithecus krantzii, Australopithecus sandersonii, or even Ardepithecus takethatmichaeldennettii?

I'm willing to wait for a specimen for that, but I think funding ought to be available to help make it a known species with proper observation or even collection. As it is, some fortune hunter's apt to bag one and blow any chance for examination in situ .

What would be evidence against them?

9th June 2005, 07:25 AM	#321
LAL Illuminator Join Date: May 2005 Location: Waynesville,NC Posts: 3,257	Quote: Originally posted by LTC8K6 LAL, you just bring us those proper scientific studies of some good evidence and I am sure we will all be glad to look at them. No more opinions of Bigfoot fans, please. Ah. I just found out there's an ignore feature on this board while uploading the scan of one of my watercolors. (I can't figure out why it's so blurry.) I may try that out. I take it you dismiss the opinion or Dr. Daris Swindler because he switched from being a sceptic to becoming a "Bigfoot fan" after objectively examining the Skookum Cast, in your opinion? You might want to read something by Dr. Meldrum, or does he qualify as a fan too because he's applied his excellent methodology to a serious study instead of rejecting it out of hand as so many do? Goodall and Schaller are out too because they think scientific investigation is warranted, huh? May I use Sarmiento, at least? Quote: Healed scars? Are there any other kind? I was referring to the kind of tucking under that occurs breaking the dermal ridge pattern. The BFF board is down right now, but someone may have done a capture. It's hard to describe without a photo. Chilcutt illustrated this nicely on LMS, but I can't upload the DVD. Quote: Gee, I have no idea how a person would know what a "healed scar" looks like. Golly, I just can't figure that out. Must not be a hoax then..... Have you any idea what you're talking about? >snip< Quote: The idea that no one made any money is ridiculous. Are you into conspiracy theories too? Please present some evidence that anyone profitted from this incident. Quote: Besides that, believing you are going to make money is the point, not whether you actually made any. I see. It doesn't matter that you don't actually make any money (or receive any publicity), it's the risk of getting shot at that appeals. The Bossburg tracks have never been proven to be faked. Even Pickens didn't claim to have made the Cripplefoot tracks, although much has been made of his confession about making some near Colville (not Bossburg). Much has also been made of Marx' later hoaxing too, as though his mere presence throws the whole episode into question, but those tracks remain some of the best evidence. Again, there were incidents in SW Washington that same year. Same hoaxers or different animals? Here we have two prime candidates for hoaxing, but no evidence either faked any of the tracks that were found. Frankly, given the quality of the hoaxing they did do, neither was smart enough. Is there some mysterious bankroller behind all this? Is he (or his family, since this goes back generations) financing the thousands of incidents or did he fund some unknown hoaxer on just this one? Or did he merely offer a reward for tripping up Dahinden? Did he work for the CIA, or was he, perhaps, the gunman behind the fence? Do a reality check when you have the time. It's quite reasonable to assume large hominid primates account for the tracks, sightings and figures in the films, that they leave tracks, scat and hair and may twist off branches for nest building or territorial marking. The reported throwing behaviour is like that of other Great Apes. Are people resistant to this idea because it's a hominid species? There were many species of bipedal "apes" millions of years ago. Why assume all are extinct, leaving only wonderful us to rule the planet? To try to account for all this as a series of hoaxes stretches credulity to the breaking point. It's one thing to be sceptical; it's another to be willfully ignorant, or, as a cyber friend of mine puts it, butt-chunk stupid.
	__________________ Lu https://librarylu.wordpress.com/

9th June 2005, 07:56 AM	#322
LAL Illuminator Join Date: May 2005 Location: Waynesville,NC Posts: 3,257	Be sure to let me know when a proper journal decides to publish one of the studies that has been done. Hm. I forgot Mittermeier. He's mildly sceptical. May I use him? Sunday, January 05, 2003 Bigfoot Believers: Legitimate scientific study of legend gains backing of top primate experts By Theo Stein Denver Post -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday, January 05, 2003 - EDMONDS, Wash. - After enduring decades of ridicule, Bigfoot researchers are enjoying support from some of the world's most respected scientists in their efforts to prove the hulking creatures of legend are no myth. The persistence of reported sightings of Bigfoot-type creatures in North America and elsewhere has convinced leading researchers on primates - including Jane Goodall, made famous by her studies of chimpanzees in Tanzania - to call for something never seriously considered before: a legitimate scientific study to determine whether the greatest apes that ever lived persist in the world's moist mountainous regions. Skeptics, who include those in the scientific mainstream, scoff at such ideas. They say reported Bigfoot encounters, tracks and other evidence are either hoaxes or mistakes, and that people who believe such nonsense are soft-headed. But dedicated amateurs and a smattering of professionals are trying to change that attitude. Using accepted scientific methods, they believe they can show at least some of the claimed evidence for Bigfoot - footprints, hair, voice recordings and a 400-pound block of plaster known as the Skookum Cast - are authentic traces of a rare giant primate. Recently they have received support from a handful of the field's top experts. Daris Swindler, for example, is not the typical Bigfoot believer. When he retired in 1991 after more than 30 years at the University of Washington, Swindler was an acclaimed expert in the arcane study of fossilized primate teeth. His book, "An Atlas of Primate Gross Anatomy," went through several printings and was among the standard references in the field. So it comes as a surprise to some of his peers that Swindler believes that the Skookum Cast, discovered by amateur Bigfoot researchers in 2000, is a genuine record of a hairy giant that sat down by a mudhole to eat some fruit. "Daris said that?" asked Russell Ciochon, a prominent paleoanthropologist and professor at the University of Iowa. "He's an important figure. But I still don't think Bigfoot exists in any form." Mythical giant apes lurk in the traditions of nearly every Native American linguistic group and in legends handed down through the ages from Europe and Asia. Each year, Bigfoot or similar creatures are reported by hundreds of hunters, hikers, motorists and others from central Asia to the central Rockies. But no one has provided the minimum proof required by science: a type specimen or remains that researchers can pick up, measure and argue over. Nevertheless, Goodall is intrigued. "People from very different backgrounds and different parts of the world have described very similar creatures behaving in similar ways and uttering some strikingly similar sounds," she said. "As far as I am concerned, the existence of hominids of this sort is a very real probability." George Schaller, director of science at the Wildlife Conservation Society, has spent 40 years studying rare animals in remote places, including pioneering studies of Central Africa's mountain gorilla, which Western scientists first discovered in 1903. THE SCIENTISTS: JANE GOODALL A world-famous primate researcher and author, she revealed, in studies of chimpanzees in Tanzania's Gombe National Park, surprising behaviors in humanity's closest living relative. Goodall has won numerous international awards for her contributions to conservation, anthropology and animal welfare. Currently affiliated with Cornell University, she serves as the National Geographic Society's explorer-in-residence. GEORGE SCHALLER International science director for the Wildlife Conservation Society. His pioneering field studies of mountain gorillas set the research standard later adopted by Goodall and gorilla researcher Dian Fosse. Schaller's 1963 book, "The Year of the Gorilla," debunked popular perceptions of the great ape and reintroduced "King Kong" as a shy, social vegetarian. Schaller's studies of tigers, lions, snow leopards and pandasalso advanced the knowledge of those endangered mammals. In 1973, he won the National Book Award for "The SerengetiLion: A Study of Predator-Prey Relations," and in 1980 wasawarded the World Wildlife Fund Gold Medal for his contributionsto the understanding and conservation of endangered species. During the past decade, he has focused on the little-knownwildlife of Mongolia, Laos and the Tibetan Plateau. RUSSELL MITTERMEIER A trained primatologist, herpetologist and biological anthropologist, he has discovered five new species of monkey, including two last year. Mittermeier has conducted fieldwork in more than 20 countries around the tropical world, with special emphasis on Brazil, Guyana and Madagascar. Since 1989, Mittermeier has served as president of Conservation International, which has become one of the most aggressive and effective conservation organizations in the world during the last decade. His publications include 10 books and more than 300 scientific papers and popular articles. DARIS SWINDLER Emeritus professor of anthropology at the University of Washington, Swindler is a leading expert on living and fossil primate teeth and one of the top primate anatomists in general. His book, "An Atlas of Primate Gross Anatomy," has become a standard reference in the field. A forensic anthropologist, Swindler worked on the Ted Bundy and Green River murder cases along with hundreds of others. ESTEBAN SARMIENTO A functional anatomist affiliated with the American Museum of Natural History, Sarmiento focuses on the skeletons of hominids. In 2001, he participated with George Schaller in a search for Congo's Bili ape, a possible species super-chimp reported by natives but unknown to Western science. Sarmiento has also studied the Cross River gorilla, a critically endangered subspecies on the Nigeria-Cameroon border whose population is thought to be numbered in the hundreds. He has taught in the U.S., South Africa and Uganda. Schaller remains troubled by the fact no Bigfoot remains have been produced, nor have any samples of feces whose DNA can be chemically poked and prodded to unlock the identity of their maker. And he is mindful of hoaxing. But he, too, considers Bigfoot an open question. "There have been so many sightings over the years," he said. "Even if you throw out 95 percent of them, there ought to be some explanation for the rest. The same goes for some of these tracks." "I think a hard-eyed look is absolutely essential," he concludes. The most common evidence allegedly left by these animals are the footprints: big prints in remote locations, some deeply pressed in sand or gravel firm enough for a grown man to pass without leaving a trace. Some footprints, like those Ray Wallace's family claim he left near Bluff Creek, Calif., in the late 1950s, are hoaxed. Many more are too vague to be conclusive. But a few are so detailed and anatomically accurate that they baffle the experts. "Either the forgers are spending an awful lot of time on this, or there is reason to give this evidence another look," said primate researcher Esteban Sarmiento of the American Museum of Natural History. "I think a serious scientific inquiry is definitely warranted." Skeptics argue that large mammals, particularly great apes, simply aren't discovered anymore. Not true, says Russell Mittermeier, vice president of Conservation International, who has co-authored scientific papers describing five new primates. Since the 1990s there have been several spectacular finds, he said, including the antelope-like spindlehorn from Vietnam and a South American peccary thought to have gone extinct thousands of years ago. "I'm not one to pooh-pooh the potential that these large apes may exist," Mittermeier said. "I guess you could say I'm mildly skeptical but guardedly optimistic. Whoever does find it will have the discovery of the century." Words of encouragement like these are music to Bigfoot researchers' ears. "My whole motivation has not been to convince anybody of the existence of the animal, but to convince them that there's a body of evidence begging for further consideration," said Idaho State University professor Jeff Meldrum, whose expertise in primate locomotion led him to become one of the few academics openly researching Bigfoot tracks. "This is immense," said author John Green, who has tracked Bigfoot reports for almost half a century from British Columbia and investigated some of the most famous sightings and track finds. "The possibility that there could be a real animal behind it just didn't occur to scientists 20 years ago." The flap over recent claims of Bigfoot hoaxing has not deterred Swindler. But the lack of a body plus the acknowledgment of at least some hoaxing adds up to too many questions for Ciochon. Like that of Swindler, Ciochon's work focuses on fossilized primate teeth, but of a very special species: Gigantopithecus blacki, the giant Asian ape of the Miocene epoch, which lasted from about 24 million to 5 million years ago. Most Bigfoot supporters advance Gigantopithecus, or Giganto for short, as the likely ancestor of Bigfoot, if not the hairy beast itself. It's a tantalizing but entirely unproven link that drives Ciochon to distraction. Ciochon thinks his study subject, which co-existed with the human ancestor Homo erectus for hundreds of thousands of years, may well be the archetypal inspiration for the "boogeyman" and other nocturnal monsters that populate the traditions of aboriginal cultures from Nepal to North America. But he vigorously rejects any suggestion that Giganto, which he thinks was a specialized, bamboo-eating vegetarian, could persist today. And he worries that the hotly contested grants that fund his work overseas may go elsewhere if the stigma of the shambling sasquatch of Native American lore attaches to his study subject. "My biggest problem is there's no evidence, other than conjectural hair and these footprints, some of which we know are faked," Ciochon said. "If someone finds a skeleton, I'll be there in a nanosecond," he said. "But that's what it's going to take to get me to change my mind." "There are so many problems," agrees Swindler, who six years ago told a USA Today reporter to count him among the skeptics. But as he examines the Skookum Cast on a rainy December afternoon in this Seattle suburb, Swindler points out landmarks in the lumpy landscape: a hairy forearm the size of a small ham, an enormous hairy thigh, an outsized buttock, and a striking impression he feels confident was made by the Achilles tendon and heel of a creature that is not supposed to exist. "Whatever made this was very well adapted to walking on two feet," he said. "It's not conclusive, but it's consistent with what you'd expect to see if a giant biped sat down in the mud." Swindler hopes that his assessment of the Skookum Cast, and a Discovery Channel documentary set to air Thursday, will generate support for further research. The key, Schaller said, will be finding dedicated amateurs willing to spend months or years in the field with cameras. "So far, no one has done that," he said. It was a group of dedicated amateurs that discovered the Skookum Cast. A team of volunteers from the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization had spent two days in Washington state's Gifford Pinchot National Forest, putting out pheromone-basted plastic chips during the day and blasting sasquatch calls at night in an attempt to attract an animal. On the second night, researchers heard a powerful reply to their broadcasts, said Richard Noll, an aerospace toolmaker who has spent 30 years researching the mystery. The next morning, Noll was stunned to realize that an unusual impression of a large animal on the edge of a mudhole near their camp could have been left by their elusive quarry. "An elk will gather their feet under them when they get up," he said. "But there are no elk hoofprints in the center of the cast." Meldrum and Swindler concur there are only two logical explanations for the cast: Bigfoot and elk. And they have also ruled out elk. John Mionczynski, a wildlife researcher who has spent 30 summers studying bighorn herds in Wyoming's Wind River Mountains, has his own reasons for believing in Bigfoot. On a moonlit summer night in 1972, he backhanded an animal he thought was a bear as it sniffed at a bacon stain in his tent, then watched as the silhouette of a giant, shaggy arm with a broad hand at the end swept toward his tent, collapsing it on him. "That hand was three times as wide as mine and had an opposed thumb that stuck out as plain as day," Mionczynski said. He spent the rest of the night huddled by the fire with a revolver in his hand as the creature lobbed pine cones at him from the dark woods behind his tent. "That pretty much eliminated bears," Mionczynski said. Mionczynski is working on a contraption of tiny hooks and barbed wire that he intends to place near seasonal foods he thinks sasquatch depend on. He hopes the snare will let him get a DNA sample. North of Seattle, Noll is collaborating with Owen Caddy, a former Ugandan park ranger who studied chimpanzees in the mid-1990s. For the last 18 months, they've scoured certain sandbars on a north Cascades river, documenting more than 30 suspected sasquatch footprints they believe were made by a mother and two young. They hope to identify the animals' food sources and travel corridors, then set out a picket line of infrared camera traps. "I feel the animal is out there, and I don't hedge on that," Caddy said. "I've found physical evidence myself, and I'm confident in my analysis of it. "Something is making these tracks, and it's not people." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bibliographical Information: Front Page of the Sunday Edition of the Denver Post. By Theo Stein, Denver Post Environment Writer
	__________________ Lu https://librarylu.wordpress.com/

9th June 2005, 09:23 AM	#323
Red Siegfried Muse Join Date: Jun 2004 Posts: 585	Quote: Originally posted by LAL And I don't consider looking into it a waste of time. I do the same with Cosmology, Genetics, Paleoanthropology..........I'm always up for a new learning experience. Keeps me from getting Alzheimer's. Well, you're right there. Exercising the mind is never a waste of time.
Red Siegfried Muse Join Date: Jun 2004 Posts: 585	__________________ Books are from the Devil and TV is twice as fast. -Master Shake

9th June 2005, 09:43 AM	#324
LAL Illuminator Join Date: May 2005 Location: Waynesville,NC Posts: 3,257	Quote: Originally posted by Red Siegfried Well, you're right there. Exercising the mind is never a waste of time. Thank you for not giving me another broadside. I've been getting a little traumatized here, frankly. I'm sorry if I've seemed testy today. Each piece of evidence should be examined objectively, IMO. The trick is getting that to happen, and when it's happened, how to get the information to the public. I can't really fault people for knowing so little about all this given the lack of coverage by the media. I think Meldrum's book will go far toward rectifying that situation, provided people read it. He's certainly come up with new insights and he's about as far from a wild-eyed fanatic as it's possible to get. Amazingly, his interest in Sasquatch is now on his website. Could it be this area of interest is now gaining some acceptance, at least at Idaho State? http://www.isu.edu/bios/Professors_Staff/meldrum_d.htm (Why is my Chickadee blurry? It scanned beautifully and is clear and crisp on my computer. Is someone trying to imply my thinking is fuzzy by blurring my avatar? )
	__________________ Lu https://librarylu.wordpress.com/

9th June 2005, 09:49 AM	#326
turtle Critical Thinker Join Date: Apr 2004 Posts: 342	Quote: Originally posted by LAL *I didn't say that.* Sorry for any confusion; all I meant to say was that, because there have been some hoaxes, it does not mean all are hoaxes, or, that there are no Bigfoot. Quote: Thank you.
turtle Critical Thinker Join Date: Apr 2004 Posts: 342	__________________ <a href="http://ufobits.blogspot.com/">U.F.O. Bits Blog</a> <a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Forteans_and_Skeptics/">Join us at Forteans and Skeptics!</a>

9th June 2005, 09:46 AM	#325
LTC8K6 Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Directly under a deadly chemtrail Posts: 12,755	QUOTE]The Bossburg tracks have never been proven to be faked.[/quote] Ummmm.....when were they proven to be "real"? Well, when the Bossburg tracks are proven to be from Bigfoot, get back to me. A study composed of anecdotes? Well, I could put down a bunch of anecdotes that aren't in support of Bigfoot, but what's the point? Of course Jane Goodall would be interested in a possible Bigfoot. I'm interested in one too. So what? I've even conceded that it's possible for Bigfoot to exist. That doesn't mean I believe in Bigfoot, or any of the evidence put forward in support so far. Folks making money from Bigfoot are all over the place, books, videos, tickets to symposiums, museums, etc., etc., and a specific example of profit from the cripple tracks was already given to you. Bigfoot has been big business for a long time, no doubt about it. I see things like this conference as ridiculous, and they are why I don't believe in Bigfoot as anything other than an overhyped opportunity to sell crap: http://www.texasbigfoot.com/prereg4.html I just have to get a tape of this: Quote: Understanding Sasquatch Behavior Sue will talk about her sightings in Washington, California, and Oregon. She will discuss Bigfoot behavior, juvenile, adolescent and adult, and logical reasons they do what they do. Sasquatch intelligence and sense of humor, and her food and beer experiments. She will discuss how to use knowledge of their behavior to entice them into your camp or to your truck in order to see/ photograph them Are the beer experiments where you get drunk and see bigfoot? I just can't wait to register for the next conference. Quote: Because of over-ordering the Conference t-shirts in the past, all t-shirts will be sold by pre-order only. More like they ordered too many and got stuck with them last time......

9th June 2005, 09:54 AM	#327
LAL Illuminator Join Date: May 2005 Location: Waynesville,NC Posts: 3,257	Quote: Originally posted by turtle [/i] Sorry for any confusion; all I meant to say was that, because there have been some hoaxes, it does not mean all are hoaxes, or, that there are no Bigfoot. [/b] I may have caused confusion. I was just reaffirming I've never said nothing can be faked and you didn't say I did. You said I didn't and I didn't.
	__________________ Lu https://librarylu.wordpress.com/

9th June 2005, 10:17 AM	#328
LTC8K6 Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Directly under a deadly chemtrail Posts: 12,755	Quote: "Humans don't constitute any threat to Sasquatch," Krantz said. "Once in a while I'll run across somebody who believes early Homo sapiens might have killed off Sasquatches in some areas." The professor scoffed. "Sure. With a bow and arrow they're gonna bring down a Sasquatch. When we can't do it with a goddamn gun!" (This was, of course, a reference to the notorious "battle" between miners and Sasquatches around Mount St. Helens in 1924, among other incidents.) Even more than his belief in the existence of Bigfoot, Krantz's conviction that it was acceptable to shoot a Sasquatch attracted vehement criticism. Discussing the issue, Krantz seemed motivated more by manly admiration for the ape's prowess than by specimen lust. "If you drop a Sasquatch with a gun," he warned, "the first thing you want to do is reload." Once you fire, your main problem won't be dragging a quarter-ton carcass out of the forest; it'll be reaching the truck alive. "Start throwing rocks at it," he said. "If you don't have rocks, get a long stick and poke it. You want to make sure it's dead." And even if the beast is dead, its mate may charge out of the trees and kill you. In Bigfoot culture's raging ethical debateâ€”Should we shoot a Sasquatch?â€”Krantz unapologetically defended his loaded-for-bear position. "I wouldn't want a live one captured," he told me. "That would be the cruelest thing I can imagine. Shoot one. Being dead never hurt anybody." That attitude didn't endear him to missing-linkists, who believe Bigfoot may be as much human as ape. It struck others, including most members of the BFRO, as an unsporting method of specimen collection. But Krantz had an arm's-length relationship with the BFRO anyway; he contributed his expert opinions from time to time, but he was not a member. Even after inspecting the Skookum Cast three times, his opinion of it was tempered by a cranky ambivalence. "I don't know what it is," he told me. "I'm baffled. Elk. Sasquatch. That's the choice." I'll go with elk. This guy is not a guy I would trust to have been objective about bigfoot. He sounds rather obsessed to me. http://outside.away.com/outside/news...asquatch_1.adp

9th June 2005, 10:20 AM	#329
LAL Illuminator Join Date: May 2005 Location: Waynesville,NC Posts: 3,257	Quote: Originally posted by LTC8K6 QUOTE]The Bossburg tracks have never been proven to be faked. Ummmm.....when were they proven to be "real"? Well, when the Bossburg tracks are proven to be from Bigfoot, get back to me. Try to understand this: http://www.isu.edu/~meldd/fxnlmorph.html Quote: A study composed of anecdotes? NASI/Glickmann, Fahrenbach, Krantz, Meldrum..... Studies of physical evidence are not studies of anecdotes. Quote: Well, I could put down a bunch of anecdotes that aren't in support of Bigfoot, but what's the point? Go ahead. Quote: Of course Jane Goodall would be interested in a possible Bigfoot. I'm interested in one too. So what? I've even conceded that it's possible for Bigfoot to exist. That doesn't mean I believe in Bigfoot, or any of the evidence put forward in support so far. http://www.rfthomas.clara.net/papers/bindernagel.html Quote: Folks making money from Bigfoot are all over the place, books, videos, tickets to symposiums, museums, etc., etc., and a specific example of profit from the cripple tracks was already given to you. Bigfoot has been big business for a long time, no doubt about it. It wasn't in 1969, no doubt about it. Quote: I see things like this conference as ridiculous, and they are why I don't believe in Bigfoot as anything other than an overhyped opportunity to sell crap: http://www.texasbigfoot.com/prereg4.html I just have to get a tape of this: Save your money and get the Willow Creek Symposium DVD instead. Quote: Are the beer experiments where you get drunk and see bigfoot? I just can't wait to register for the next conference. I'll link you to a thread on the recent one in Bellingham when BFF is back up. Quote: More like they ordered too many and got stuck with them last time...... People sell T-shirts with pictures of Einstein looking like the stereo-typical mad scientist. Does this discredit Einstein's work? No one's doubting the lunatic fringe gets drawn, but to try to use that to debunk the whole effort is a red herring, at best.
	__________________ Lu https://librarylu.wordpress.com/

9th June 2005, 10:33 AM	#330
LAL Illuminator Join Date: May 2005 Location: Waynesville,NC Posts: 3,257	Quote: Originally posted by LTC8K6 I'll go with elk. This guy is not a guy I would trust to have been objective about bigfoot. He sounds rather obsessed to me. http://outside.away.com/outside/news...asquatch_1.adp "The cast has been investigated by leading bigfoot researchers, including John Green and Grover Krantz, who believe the cast to be authentic, and solid evidence of the existence of bigfoot." http://www.answers.com/topic/skookum-cast He was soon to die of pancreatic cancer. Who are you to judge what kind of "guy" he was? Read the book. I wouldn't go with elk, if I were you. Elk was ruled out.
	__________________ Lu https://librarylu.wordpress.com/

9th June 2005, 04:03 PM	#331
The Odd Emperor Critical Thinker Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 254	Quote: Originally posted by turtle This might be derailing the thread but there's certainly the "kill/no kill" argument. Personally, I have no interest in going out and killing a BF just to prove it exists. I'm against killing BF. Some BF researchers disagree, but for myself, I say leave it be. No; youâ€™re correct. Although Iâ€™m squarely part of the â€œbring me some evidence crowdâ€, I think it would be terrible if someone had to shoot one to prove they exist. However; A huge pile of plaster prints is just a pile of plaster prints, a box of blurry photos is just a box of blurry photos. Lots of really poor evidence cannot prove the existence of a new animal. Thatâ€™s the sad truth. A good photo or series of photos, irrefutable physical evidence that could not be faked or a specimen are the only things that separate Bigfoot from becoming a real creature and not remaining a myth.
	__________________ The Odd Emperor "cave quid dicis, quando, et cui" The Empire of the Odd

9th June 2005, 09:58 PM	#332
LAL Illuminator Join Date: May 2005 Location: Waynesville,NC Posts: 3,257	Quote: Originally posted by The Odd Emperor No; youâ€™re correct. Although Iâ€™m squarely part of the â€œbring me some evidence crowdâ€, I think it would be terrible if someone had to shoot one to prove they exist. However; A huge pile of plaster prints is just a pile of plaster prints, a box of blurry photos is just a box of blurry photos. Lots of really poor evidence cannot prove the existence of a new animal. Thatâ€™s the sad truth. A good photo or series of photos, irrefutable physical evidence that could not be faked or a specimen are the only things that separate Bigfoot from becoming a real creature and not remaining a myth. There is a very good photo, or rather film, and it amazes me some people can convince themselves it's a man in a suit. The film and tracks from that one event should have settled it close to four decades ago. The Ivory Bill footage is three seconds long, but since we know there were once Ivory Bills, that's sufficient. There is actually some very good evidence in addition to about a thousand casts of footprints, and several scientists really thought the Skookum Cast should have been conclusive. If more scientists would actually look into this in an unbiased sort of way, there would be no need for amateurs to organize conferences. I haven't been to one, but I went to the first ever Bigfoot Daze in Carson, Washington. Roy Crowe, Peter Bryne and a fair collection of casts could have made it quite educational, but the mock trial turned it into a fiasco, and little was accomplished besides the selling of Bigfoot burgers. It was organized by a friend, too. His scepticism ruined the day. If they're a real animal, they can't remain a myth because they never were a myth to begin with and they can't become a real creature because they already are. There are at least two organizations trying to raise money for the sophisticated photographic equipment required for those really clear photos everyone would like to see. If anyone is interested in helping with this effort, I suggest you buy a T-shirt. If you are a qualified researcher ready to examine the Skookum Cast, bring the family. "Since no large creatures except primates have dermal ridges at all, there is no possibility that any animal other than a higher primate could have made the heel imprints. Each species of higher primate has a different pattern, and none has a heel this large. Further, Dr. Meldrum, who is a professor of anatomy, was able to determine the position of the joints for some of the limbs, establishing that the bones were 40 to 50 percent longer than those of a 6-foot human. The evidence that this imprint was made by a very large, unknown, higher primate is, in my opinion, compelling. I would not anticipate that every qualified person who examines would come to the same conclusion, but I feel sure that the vast majority would have to, whatever their preconceptions." (John Green) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you are a qualified scientist or forensic specialist (either active or retired) in any relevant discipline, and you would like an opportunity to examine this cast in Washington State, please contact the BFRO at Cast@bfro.net Friends or family members, or students of people who are considered qualified, may accompany them to view the cast in person. http://www.bfro.net/news/bodycast/green_statement.asp
	__________________ Lu https://librarylu.wordpress.com/

9th June 2005, 10:26 PM	#333
LTC8K6 Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Directly under a deadly chemtrail Posts: 12,755	LAL, when you* have proven that those footprints are from an unknown primate generally referred to as Bigfoot or sasquatch, it will be the end of all of my objections. Since you can't really even show this, let alone prove it, the tracks don't really mean much to me. To be honest, I actually dismiss them entirely as worthless. The same goes for the skookum cast. If I still believed in Bigfoot, I would probably accept these casts. I don't though. I still haven't made up my mind about the PG film. It sure looks good, and when I was a kid I was awestruck by it. I do not accept any of the opinions of Krantz, Meldrum, Chilcutt, etc., (basically all of the people you keep quoting) To me, they are just believers who lost their objectivity. It's like quoting Billy Meier on UFO's, imo. Useless. I don't even read anything by them anymore if I can help it. I think I am done here. I am not learning anything new about bigfoot. * Or anyone.

10th June 2005, 05:59 AM	#334
LAL Illuminator Join Date: May 2005 Location: Waynesville,NC Posts: 3,257	Quote: Originally posted by LTC8K6 LAL, when you* have proven that those footprints are from an unknown primate generally referred to as Bigfoot or sasquatch, it will be the end of all of my objections. Since you can't really even show this, let alone prove it, the tracks don't really mean much to me. To be honest, I actually dismiss them entirely as worthless. The same goes for the skookum cast. If I still believed in Bigfoot, I would probably accept these casts. I don't though. I still haven't made up my mind about the PG film. It sure looks good, and when I was a kid I was awestruck by it. I do not accept any of the opinions of Krantz, Meldrum, Chilcutt, etc., (basically all of the people you keep quoting) To me, they are just believers who lost their objectivity. It's like quoting Billy Meier on UFO's, imo. Useless. I don't even read anything by them anymore if I can help it. I think I am done here. I am not learning anything new about bigfoot. * Or anyone. It's a bit difficult to prove anything on a message board, isn't it? Being able to upload photos is nice, but I can't have you handle actual casts. I wouldn't be able to upload a body, either. So left me get this straight: When legitimate scientists investigate and reach conclusions you don't like, you think they've lost their objectivity. Rather than investigate anything they say you're not going to read anything more by them. I've offered expert opinion on the authenticity of some of the evidence and you drag in Billy Meier. I hope you're not this close-minded in other areas of your life. I haven't seen a worthwhile contribution from you yet, so if you're done here, I won't be missing much. Saves me the trouble of putting you on ignore, in fact. Come back when you can successfully debunk the best evidence, or when you've finished high school, whichever comes soonest.
	__________________ Lu https://librarylu.wordpress.com/

10th June 2005, 06:19 AM	#335
LAL Illuminator Join Date: May 2005 Location: Waynesville,NC Posts: 3,257	Is it possible for the rest of us to debate without sidebars on crop circles and UFO's? Seems the Cree have continued to investigate in Manitoba. This could have been the chance of the century to get confirmation and instead we get another dropped ball. Frustrating.
	__________________ Lu https://librarylu.wordpress.com/

10th June 2005, 07:41 AM	#336
The Odd Emperor Critical Thinker Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 254	Quote: Originally posted by LAL There is a very good photo, or rather film, and it amazes me some people can convince themselves it's a man in a suit. The film and tracks from that one event should have settled it close to four decades ago. The Ivory Bill footage is three seconds long, but since we know there were once Ivory Bills, that's sufficient. There is actually some very good evidence in addition to about a thousand casts of footprints, and several scientists really thought the Skookum Cast should have been conclusive. If more scientists would actually look into this in an unbiased sort of way, there would be no need for amateurs to organize conferences. I haven't been to one, but I went to the first ever Bigfoot Daze in Carson, Washington. Roy Crowe, Peter Bryne and a fair collection of casts could have made it quite educational, but the mock trial turned it into a fiasco, and little was accomplished besides the selling of Bigfoot burgers. It was organized by a friend, too. His scepticism ruined the day. If they're a real animal, they can't remain a myth because they never were a myth to begin with and they can't become a real creature because they already are. There are at least two organizations trying to raise money for the sophisticated photographic equipment required for those really clear photos everyone would like to see. If anyone is interested in helping with this effort, I suggest you buy a T-shirt. If you are a qualified researcher ready to examine the Skookum Cast, bring the family. "Since no large creatures except primates have dermal ridges at all, there is no possibility that any animal other than a higher primate could have made the heel imprints. Each species of higher primate has a different pattern, and none has a heel this large. Further, Dr. Meldrum, who is a professor of anatomy, was able to determine the position of the joints for some of the limbs, establishing that the bones were 40 to 50 percent longer than those of a 6-foot human. The evidence that this imprint was made by a very large, unknown, higher primate is, in my opinion, compelling. I would not anticipate that every qualified person who examines would come to the same conclusion, but I feel sure that the vast majority would have to, whatever their preconceptions." (John Green) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you are a qualified scientist or forensic specialist (either active or retired) in any relevant discipline, and you would like an opportunity to examine this cast in Washington State, please contact the BFRO at Cast@bfro.net Friends or family members, or students of people who are considered qualified, may accompany them to view the cast in person. http://www.bfro.net/news/bodycast/green_statement.asp Well, this seems to get us into the arena of â€œwhyâ€ some people wonâ€™t accept the evidence that Mr. Green feels is compelling. Itâ€™s quite simple really. 1) Bigfoot enthusiasts ask for people to accept less evidence than is needed to classify a new insect. This to accept the existence of mega-fauna on the North American Continent. 2) Most people (myself anyway) have no experience with plaster casts, DNA sampling etc so we really canâ€™t judge evidence except by what we can research on our own. DNA evidence alone should settle the matter but there seems to be all this quibble in the background. Most DNA evidence seems to become â€œindeterminableâ€ or â€œunknown,â€ that which is not clearly human, animal or artificial. Photos could be compelling but Iâ€™ve never seen a really good photo of these creatures and even if I did, I (knowing something about photographic evidence) would severely question the pedigree(s) of the photos(s). Who took them, what equipment, what were the processing-enhancement steps and so on. 3) The default position for any such determination should be â€œprobably a myth" (but let us see the evidence.) And a possible addendum; where is Mr. Green coming from (whatâ€™s his credentials.) The only thing Iâ€™ve found in my not so extensive research is that he was a â€œnewspaper man.â€ That makes him qualified to analyze plaster casts how? Itâ€™s not that people donâ€™t want to believe, itâ€™s that people really want to know and understand. I could look at a thousand plaster casts, by the end of that time I would know far more about plaster casts than I do now and maybe I would be convinced that some mega fauna (other than a fellow human) made the tracks. Since I canâ€™t really do that I have to reserve judgment on any statement based on that kind of evidence, itâ€™s just not compelling to me.
	__________________ The Odd Emperor "cave quid dicis, quando, et cui" The Empire of the Odd

10th June 2005, 07:54 AM	#337
The Odd Emperor Critical Thinker Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 254	Quote: Originally posted by LAL Is it possible for the rest of us to debate without sidebars on crop circles and UFO's? Seems the Cree have continued to investigate in Manitoba. This could have been the chance of the century to get confirmation and instead we get another dropped ball. Frustrating. Those things are all related insomuch as enthusiasts would like people to accept less than acceptable levels of evidence. Unless and until the people who are evangelizing these kinds of things can produce the same evidence that, say someone with a new type of electronic circuit or a new chemical compound could produce, they are simply not being convincing. There are people running around screaming that this kind of thinking is closed minded. It seems strange that saying â€œI donâ€™t know what is in that photoâ€ or â€œitâ€™s improbable that an alien species traveled millions of miles to crush some farmerâ€™s barley field as a form of communicationâ€ is closed minded. To me, saying that there is only one possible conclusion to any problem is closed minded. I donâ€™t know if Bigfoot is a myth or a real animal. I havenâ€™t seen evidence that itâ€™s either. Is that closed minded?
	__________________ The Odd Emperor "cave quid dicis, quando, et cui" The Empire of the Odd

10th June 2005, 08:49 AM	#338
LAL Illuminator Join Date: May 2005 Location: Waynesville,NC Posts: 3,257	Quote: Originally posted by The Odd Emperor Well, this seems to get us into the arena of â€œwhyâ€ some people wonâ€™t accept the evidence that Mr. Green feels is compelling. Itâ€™s quite simple really. 1) Bigfoot enthusiasts ask for people to accept less evidence than is needed to classify a new insect. This to accept the existence of mega-fauna on the North American Continent. 2) Most people (myself anyway) have no experience with plaster casts, DNA sampling etc so we really canâ€™t judge evidence except by what we can research on our own. DNA evidence alone should settle the matter but there seems to be all this quibble in the background. Most DNA evidence seems to become â€œindeterminableâ€ or â€œunknown,â€ that which is not clearly human, animal or artificial. Photos could be compelling but Iâ€™ve never seen a really good photo of these creatures and even if I did, I (knowing something about photographic evidence) would severely question the pedigree(s) of the photos(s). Who took them, what equipment, what were the processing-enhancement steps and so on. 3) The default position for any such determination should be â€œprobably a myth" (but let us see the evidence.) And a possible addendum; where is Mr. Green coming from (whatâ€™s his credentials.) The only thing Iâ€™ve found in my not so extensive research is that he was a â€œnewspaper man.â€ That makes him qualified to analyze plaster casts how? Itâ€™s not that people donâ€™t want to believe, itâ€™s that people really want to know and understand. I could look at a thousand plaster casts, by the end of that time I would know far more about plaster casts than I do now and maybe I would be convinced that some mega fauna (other than a fellow human) made the tracks. Since I canâ€™t really do that I have to reserve judgment on any statement based on that kind of evidence, itâ€™s just not compelling to me. Green bought a newspaper in British Columbia in 1957 and began collecting reports. He actually examined tracks in the Bluff Creek area prior to the Patterson/Gimlin filming. He and Bob Titmus were among the first to conduct any kind of investigation. He's been following this for close to sixty years. He's a very sharp man. http://www.rfthomas.clara.net/papers/jgreen.html Goodall didn't have a PhD in primatology when she started her research, and Fossey never did get hers. The cast was also examined by Krantz, Meldrum, Sarmiento and Swindler, who reversed thirty years of scepticism after seeing it. They all have or had PhD's in anatomy and anthropology and two are leading primatologists, Swindler being a giant in the field. Meldrum is an expert in primate locomotion. See if you can make out the details here. http://www.bfro.net/news/bodycast/images.asp It's difficult to see much from photos, I know, but the heel is very clear on the LMS DVD as Swindler points out the tendon of Achilles. The casting medium was Hydrocal B-11. It took 150 pounds to cast the impression. There are imprints of hair, and some hairs were found embedded in the imprint that do not match elk, coyote, bear, human............ DNA or no, there has been much microscopic examination. The fact that they're not a match for any known animal might indicate they come from an unidentified animal. They are real hairs. Have you seen a good copy of the P/G film? Muscles and tendons are evident, the fingers articulate, there are even areas that appear to have sparse hair. There have been several "man-in-the-suit" claims. None have held up. "After watching the film many times, I told Patterson about some its technical consistencies that were evident to me. With most of these he already knew what was involved or quickly caught on. But when I talked about some of the more technical details of bio-mechanics, he soon showed the familiar blank look of a student who had lost the drift of the explanation, but was still trying hard to pay attention. Yet he must have known all of these details in order to create the hoax (assuming he knew of a hoax). For instance, he could see the anterior position of the front of the shin, but how that related to foot leverage was quite beyond his understanding. Also he had originally estimated that it weighed only half of what was settled on later, yet all the details were calculated to fit with the greater weight. I think that a hoax is most unlikely on these grounds alone." -Dr. Grover Krantz Here's the BBC's attempt to duplicate it. http://www.bfro.net/REF/THEORIES/pgfdebunkings.asp Even with top make-up men and a lot of money, they didn't come close. If the "hoax hypothesis" is falsified, what's left? In Dakota wisdom, if you find you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount.
	__________________ Lu https://librarylu.wordpress.com/

10th June 2005, 09:32 AM	#339
Hitch Muse Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 861	Quote: Originally posted by LAL Have you seen a good copy of the P/G film? Muscles and tendons are evident, the fingers articulate, there are even areas that appear to have sparse hair. I have never seen a "good" copy of this film. Since the late 60's all I've seen are blurry, grainy, jumpy, out-of-focus versions of this film. If the "good" version is so convincing, why do the Woos insist on hiding it?
Hitch Muse Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 861

10th June 2005, 12:21 PM	#340
The Odd Emperor Critical Thinker Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 254	Quote: Originally posted by LAL Green bought a newspaper in British Columbia in 1957 and began collecting reports. He actually examined tracks in the Bluff Creek area prior to the Patterson/Gimlin filming. He and Bob Titmus were among the first to conduct any kind of investigation. He's been following this for close to sixty years. He's a very sharp man. http://www.rfthomas.clara.net/papers/jgreen.html Goodall didn't have a PhD in primatology when she started her research, and Fossey never did get hers. Dian Fossey? (Sorry, anthropology is not really my â€˜thang.) She did get a PhD (not sure in what, it might have been in Occupational Therapy.) I really do hate this â€œI studied a phenomena for X many years and that automatically makes me an expert just -cuz.â€ Getting real credentials doesnâ€™t teach anyone about a subject, it teaches people how to do real research as apposed to crackpot research. Fossey and Goodall did real field work, lots of it. They got degrees and wrote papers. Iâ€™m much more impressed with these people than someone who just had an interest, wrote a book and now thinks he or she is the end all of the subject. The hoops you have to jump through to get academic standing are there for a purpose and when people short circuit them they donâ€™t do themselves any favors. Quote: Originally posted by LAL Here's the BBC's attempt to duplicate it. http://www.bfro.net/REF/THEORIES/pgfdebunkings.asp Even with top make-up men and a lot of money, they didn't come close. If the "hoax hypothesis" is falsified, what's left? In Dakota wisdom, if you find you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount. (Big heavy sigh) Thatâ€™s not how it works. You can never completely falsify the hoax hypothesis. Even if Pattie the Bigfoot is interviewed on Larry King -- tells him that she was the one in the film, there will still be some possibility that it was a guy in a suit. Itâ€™s almost impossible to prove or disprove anything from a piece of video. (I hate to bring this up again but,) People disbelieve the Apollo landings and they have thousands of feet of high quality movies-- and just about any media available at the time. Plus physical evidence, plus eye witness testimony from tens of thousands of people involved, plus hardware. You canâ€™t tell me that Iâ€™m being too skeptical because I reserve judgment over a smidgen of blurry film. I remember that BBC piece and I donâ€™t believe they attempted to duplicate the P/G film, they simply used similar equipment and made a known â€œfakeâ€ to be used as a baseline. Besides, that was not a scientific attempt to do anything except get viewers to watch, I never understood why this is dangled out from time to time as evidence to prove the P/G film was real. It doesnâ€™t really prove anything. One thing they (I believe) pointed out is how close Patterson actually was to his subject, like about one hundred feet away, almost close enough to spit on it. That part alone makes me wonder about the veracity of that piece of evidence. Not to mention the strange lack of investigation of basic stuff like how tall was the figure etc. No; the whole thing is skewed. You really want to prove Bigfoot is a real animal not prove skeptics donâ€™t understand what you are talking about.
	__________________ The Odd Emperor "cave quid dicis, quando, et cui" The Empire of the Odd

10th June 2005, 02:22 PM	#341
LAL Illuminator Join Date: May 2005 Location: Waynesville,NC Posts: 3,257	Quote: Originally posted by The Odd Emperor Dian Fossey? (Sorry, anthropology is not really my â€˜thang.) She did get a PhD (not sure in what, it might have been in Occupational Therapy.) She started in pre-vet and switched to OT. No advanced degrees that I know of. Since there are no degrees offered, to my knowlege, in hominidology (there's no such field), where was Green supposed to go to get his training? He was a pioneer, and one of the very few people to invest his time and money in actually checking this out. He also did his best to get credentialled people interested, and still does. I'm reminded of an IDer claiming Richard Leakey didn't deserve his honorary degrees because he dropped out of high school. His parents were pioneers in paleoanthropology and he learned to excavate at his mother's knee. No school of the time could have given him training like that. Quote: I really do hate this â€œI studied a phenomena for X many years and that automatically makes me an expert just -cuz.â€ Getting real credentials doesnâ€™t teach anyone about a subject, it teaches people how to do real research as apposed to crackpot research. And Krantz had the real degrees, and called in other experts and even consulted Dr. Tim White of Berkeley. He did field research. He had his full duties at Washington State, so this could only be a sideline, as it is with Dr. Meldrum, who also does field research. He wasn't world famous, like Dr. Swindler is, but he was a respected anthropologist. Quote: Fossey and Goodall did real field work, lots of it. They got degrees and wrote papers. Iâ€™m much more impressed with these people than someone who just had an interest, wrote a book and now thinks he or she is the end all of the subject. The hoops you have to jump through to get academic standing are there for a purpose and when people short circuit them they donâ€™t do themselves any favors. Krantz' field work wasn't real? He wrote his book after extensive study and after having at least one paper on this accepted by the American Association of Anthropologists. Do you think he risked his career just to write a book? He was one of the scientists leading the fight for the right to study Kennewick Man. If he was such a crackpot, how come they won? He didn't short circuit anything. If mainstream journals won't publish articles such as this http://www.rfthomas.clara.net/papers/dermal.html what was he supposed to do. He published in Cryptozoology, was was peer-reviewed, just not by those stodgy grant seeking scientists we discussed earlier. Dr. David Daegling wrote a book too. Evidently he just had an interest, wrote a book and now thinks he or she is the end all of the subject. Or is that okay since he's a sceptic? Quote: (Big heavy sigh) (Ditto) Quote: Thatâ€™s not how it works. You can never completely falsify the hoax hypothesis. Even if Pattie the Bigfoot is interviewed on Larry King -- tells him that she was the one in the film, there will still be some possibility that it was a guy in a suit. Itâ€™s almost impossible to prove or disprove anything from a piece of video. Nor can you absolutely prove anything in science. There's always the possibility of that little piece of new evidence that can topple accepted thinking. That happens a lot in paleoanthropology. Strange, many people believe Bob Heironimus when he says he's the man in the suit. I don't know if he was on Larry King Live, but he sure made the news. (The fact that he's changed his story several times didn't.) Even arch-sceptic Dennett didn't swallow it all. Much has been proved and disproved from that film. Despite the mockery about the computer graphic skeleton, it is clearly not human. The knee shows a rotating motion and the gait may be slightly compromised from the rupture on the thigh. And then there's the IM index. Quote: (I hate to bring this up again but,) People disbelieve the Apollo landings and they have thousands of feet of high quality movies-- and just about any media available at the time. Plus physical evidence, plus eye witness testimony from tens of thousands of people involved, plus hardware. You canâ€™t tell me that Iâ€™m being too skeptical because I reserve judgment over a smidgen of blurry film. And some people believe in psychic phenomena, O.J.'s innocence, Michael Behe and the Loch Ness monster. I care about what the evidence shows. If you can, beg, borrow or steal (or even buy) LMS. The film not only is on the show, it's in the extras. I've seen it on an excellent screen and the movement is as fluid as my cat's. It's really not that blurry. Quote: I remember that BBC piece and I donâ€™t believe they attempted to duplicate the P/G film, they simply used similar equipment and made a known â€œfakeâ€ to be used as a baseline. Besides, that was not a scientific attempt to do anything except get viewers to watch, I never understood why this is dangled out from time to time as evidence to prove the P/G film was real. It doesnâ€™t really prove anything. I didn't see it, but it sounds like Packham was out to debunk it. "The production money from the BBC was given to Packham and Appleby based on Packham's script, which confidentally proclaims success in recreating the hoax. The script was written a long time before they actually tried to make a matching costume. Packham and Appleby assured BBC executives they could easily do it. There was no concern about them failing. The script was approved and locked down by the BBC long before it was obvious that they couldn't make a matching costume. When the show was delivered to the BBC, the matching costume element couldn't be cut out, because it's the crux of the debunking argument. All Packham and Appleby could do at that stage is try to emphasize other lesser important conjecture, and distort peripheral facts to make some kind of circumstantial case for a hoax." It proves making a convincing Sasquatch suit isn't a piece of cake. Quote: One thing they (I believe) pointed out is how close Patterson actually was to his subject, like about one hundred feet away, almost close enough to spit on it. Step off 100 feet and see how far you can spit. Quote: That part alone makes me wonder about the veracity of that piece of evidence. Not to mention the strange lack of investigation of basic stuff like how tall was the figure etc. That was all investigated. It always is. Best estimates are 6'5"-7'. Green did a recreation a year later before the area changed and had a 6'5" friend walk the same route. The overlay can be seen on LMS. Was that Patterson's estimate or actual measurement? Quote: No; the whole thing is skewed. You really want to prove Bigfoot is a real animal not prove skeptics donâ€™t understand what you are talking about. I don't have to prove sceptics don't understand what I'm talking about. Most do a good job of that without any help from me. There are people investing time and money and showing there really is an unidentified species in North America. The evidence is really overwhelming if you consider it all and not just a piece here and there. I'm doing my best to present it.
	__________________ Lu https://librarylu.wordpress.com/

10th June 2005, 02:47 PM	#342
LAL Illuminator Join Date: May 2005 Location: Waynesville,NC Posts: 3,257	Quote: Originally posted by Hitch I have never seen a "good" copy of this film. Since the late 60's all I've seen are blurry, grainy, jumpy, out-of-focus versions of this film. If the "good" version is so convincing, why do the Woos insist on hiding it? My understanding is that the original was lost, but there are several good second generation copies. The film was tied up in copyright problems for years. The best I've seen is on LMS. It's jumpy because Patterson was running. The horses were spooked and Gimlin was trying to control them. If the camera had been on a tripod and in perfect focus, I'd be suspicious. Please drop the derogatory term. No one's hiding anything. "How Not to Plan a Hoaxed Filming By Roger Knights There are many obviously objectionable points associated with the Patterson/Gimlin film. Some skeptics have seized on these as handy sticks with which to pummel it. But one could turn their case on its head and argue the opposite: that even rudimentary planning would have eliminated such predictably problematic stuff. To wit: â€œRed-flagâ€ behavior by Patterson, Gimlin, or â€œPattyâ€; Bells & whistlesâ€”these are costly & troublesome. (Keep It Simple, Stupid.) Thus, the very fact that so many easy-to-foresee red flags and unnecessary complications were involved implies a lack of foresight, which implies a lack of planning, which implies the absence of a commercially motivated hoax. Suppose youâ€™re planning how NOT to film a successful Bigfoot hoax. Youâ€™d be well advised to incorporate these red-flags and risky/costly bells-and-whistles: Donâ€™t buy the camera you use. (Although itâ€™ll become a valuable artifact.) Allow the rental period on the camera to be exceeded, and be jailed for not returning it on time. (Thatâ€™ll add to your credibility!) Use a better-than necessary (16 mm) camera that reveals objectionable details, like uniform hair length, too long-foot length, etc. [Thanks to Bigfoot Forums (BFF) member â€œToe Toe.â€] Ask along a second witness, greatly complicating things (if he is unwitting), or adding to the expense (if he is â€œwittingâ€). Ask along two third witnesses (ditto). (Track Record #35, p. 4, and #97, p. 2.) Boast that youâ€™re going to film a Bigfoot, making your encounter seem non-accidental. Use horses. (They complicate the story, could fail to rear, and add expense.) [Thanks to BFF member â€œHarryHendersonâ€] Have the two witnesses disagree on many details, such as the creatureâ€™s smell, stride, and height, and whether or not Pattersonâ€™s horse fell on him, or he slid off it (according to Gimlin). (See Barbara Wassonâ€™s Sasquatch Apparitions, p. 68.) â€œLetâ€™s get our stories straightâ€â€” someone amongst every group of plotters utters that classic line, both in countless popular thrillers, and in the real world. Virtually all commercially motivated plotters rehearse. But not P or Gâ€”so perhaps they plotted nothing. (Noteâ€”the differences in P & Gâ€™s stories were not forced out of them cross-examined separately, which is the way suspicious contradictions emerge in the tales of conspirators, but popped up the first times they were asked merely to tell their stories by interviewers (e.g., on radio interviews together). Nor were they about minor aspects of the tale they hadnâ€™t anticipated being asked about, but were about its central aspects.) Estimate the creatureâ€™s weight at half of what would be a reasonable guess, and a few years later revise your estimate, causing skeptics to accuse you of unreliability. Donâ€™t photograph a human or stick to provide scaling. (Doubt is the result.) Stage the event at a site with the reassuring name of Bluff Creek. Film in a location near a road, where someone might stumble on the crew. Film in an awkward, out-of-the-way part of the country, and hang around the site for over two weeks before the shotâ€”a waste of resources and time. Include characteristics in the suit that scientists are sure to object to, such as: Features not encountered among female apes, such as a sagittal crest, large hairy breasts, a bulky, heavily muscled torso, and a bold, dominating stride. A human-like stride, not the â€œlumberingâ€ gait friendly scientists expected, and not different at first glance from the walk of an actor in an ape-suit. A foot length that doesnâ€™t agree with the length of stride for a human. No strong directional grain to the hair and little irregularity in hair-length. A light-colored foot-sole, wrapping slightly up around the edges of the foot. A rear-projecting heel. An unlikely, half-human face, like nothing in art or nature. Any type of face. (Showing it would only raise objections, and in any event would be difficult to make realistic. [Thanks to BFF member â€œCochiseâ€ for the last point.]) Fail to contact scientists who believe in hominids, like Boris Porshnev. Add oddities like a hernia on the thigh and a large skin tag (or tumor) on the breast. Claim a Friday filming, making it impossible to process the film over the weekend. Claim to have done so anyway. Be penny-wise and have the film developed by an unnamable moonlighting camera-shop employee. (Although a â€œclear chain of custodyâ€ is a must.) Show the film on Sunday, an almost-impossibly short time-line, despite the lack of any need for a speedy showing. Show the original print repeatedly to visiting BF buffs, so it will get scratched and scuffed, instead of making viewing copies of the film immediately. Put the priceless film in the mail, instead of hand-carrying it to a developer. Donâ€™t invite the press to the dramatic first showing, or to the filmâ€™s processing. Forget the filming speed. (Another gold star on your credibility score-sheet.) Lose the original copy of the first reel, and also all copies of the second reel." http://www.bigfootproject.org/articl...t_to_plan.html
	__________________ Lu https://librarylu.wordpress.com/

10th June 2005, 08:39 PM	#343
Red Siegfried Muse Join Date: Jun 2004 Posts: 585	Quote: Originally posted by LAL My understanding is that the original was lost, but there are several good second generation copies. The film was tied up in copyright problems for years. The best I've seen is on LMS. It's jumpy because Patterson was running. The horses were spooked and Gimlin was trying to control them. If the camera had been on a tripod and in perfect focus, I'd be suspicious. Please drop the derogatory term. No one's hiding anything. Agreed, LAL. Although I think we disagree quite a bit here, I agree that no one is really trying to hide anything. Evidence for that? Don't have any, that's just the impression I get from what I've studied about this.
Red Siegfried Muse Join Date: Jun 2004 Posts: 585	__________________ Books are from the Devil and TV is twice as fast. -Master Shake

10th June 2005, 08:57 PM	#344
LAL Illuminator Join Date: May 2005 Location: Waynesville,NC Posts: 3,257	Quote: Originally posted by Red Siegfried Agreed, LAL. Although I think we disagree quite a bit here, I agree that no one is really trying to hide anything. Evidence for that? Don't have any, that's just the impression I get from what I've studied about this. Will wonders never cease? I'm glad we agree on something. There's been another sighting near Norway House, Manitoba, and tracks photographed (they're online). Seems no one is following up besides the Cree. Can't CSICOP at least send Michael Dennett?
	__________________ Lu https://librarylu.wordpress.com/

11th June 2005, 09:16 PM	#345
The Odd Emperor Critical Thinker Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 254	Quote: Originally posted by LAL Krantz' field work wasn't real? He wrote his book after extensive study and after having at least one paper on this accepted by the American Association of Anthropologists. Do you think he risked his career just to write a book? He was one of the scientists leading the fight for the right to study Kennewick Man. If he was such a crackpot, how come they won? He didn't short circuit anything. If mainstream journals won't publish articles such as this [/b] I wasnâ€™t really calling anyone in the Bigfoot Biz a crackpot- just lamenting the method in general. If someone got a paper published in the AAA Journal than Iâ€™d call it a step in the right direction. Many self styled experts donâ€™t bother to even try. Quote: Originally posted by LAL http://www.rfthomas.clara.net/papers/dermal.html what was he supposed to do. He published in Cryptozoology, was was peer-reviewed, just not by those stodgy grant seeking scientists we discussed earlier. Dr. David Daegling wrote a book too. Evidently he just had an interest, wrote a book and now thinks he or she is the end all of the subject. Or is that okay since he's a sceptic? [/b] No itâ€™s not OK, I never suggested that it was. Quote: Originally posted by LAL Nor can you absolutely prove anything in science. There's always the possibility of that little piece of new evidence that can topple accepted thinking. That happens a lot in paleoanthropology. [/b] Of course this is trueâ€”part of the beauty of science. You can always change your mind based on a preponderance of evidence. Quote: Originally posted by LAL Strange, many people believe Bob Heironimus when he says he's the man in the suit. I don't know if he was on Larry King Live, but he sure made the news. (The fact that he's changed his story several times didn't.) Even arch-sceptic Dennett didn't swallow it all. [/b] I donâ€™t necessarily believe or disbelieve Bob Heironimus. Itâ€™s an interesting story and inevitable if the P/G film is a hoax. In all probability the fellow is lying for. If the film were of a real BF heâ€™s undoubtedly not one of those. If the film is a hoax it doesnâ€™t necessarily follow that heâ€™s the fellow in the suit. He might have heard the story long ago and appropriated it. He might have just made the whole thing up. Proving the P/G is a hoax is as difficult as proving it real (IMO.) I donâ€™t know what would be compelling to me, the suit itself (complete with water bags etc) in some abandoned storage unit? BTW, love the term â€œArch-Skeptic.â€ I need to start working on plans for an arch-skeptic convention. They can all sit around with snifters of brandy -- twirl their mustaches. Quote: Originally posted by LAL Much has been proved and disproved from that film. Despite the mockery about the computer graphic skeleton, it is clearly not human. [/b] (snip) I canâ€™t be so positive. It would take me years of study, a complete re-tool of my expertise set. A boatload of practical experience (animatronics animal design say.) or a real degree in some Bio or Anthro sub strata before I could make such an absolute statement. But than again Iâ€™m comfortable with the idea that I canâ€™t know for sure, until Patti the Bigfoot is interviewed on Larry King. Quote: Originally posted by LAL I didn't see it, but it sounds like Packham was out to debunk it. "The production money from the BBC was given to Packham and Appleby based on Packham's script, which confidentally proclaims success in recreating the hoax. The script was written a long time before they actually tried to make a matching costume. Packham and Appleby assured BBC executives they could easily do it. There was no concern about them failing. The script was approved and locked down by the BBC long before it was obvious that they couldn't make a matching costume. When the show was delivered to the BBC, the matching costume element couldn't be cut out, because it's the crux of the debunking argument. All Packham and Appleby could do at that stage is try to emphasize other lesser important conjecture, and distort peripheral facts to make some kind of circumstantial case for a hoax." It proves making a convincing Sasquatch suit isn't a piece of cake. [/b] No I donâ€™t agree. Making a successful Sasquatch suit is quite easy. Taking some bogus footage is somewhat more difficult. Getting people to believe itâ€™s genuine? Very easy. Duplicating the P/G film? Almost impossible. Quote: Originally posted by LAL Step off 100 feet and see how far you can spit. [/b] If I have a following wind? [quote]Originally posted by LAL That was all investigated. It always is. Best estimates are 6'5"-7'. Green did a recreation a year later before the area changed and had a 6'5" friend walk the same route. The overlay can be seen on LMS. Was that Patterson's estimate or actual measurement? [quote]Originally posted by LAL Seen it, I can't tell from the photographs where the figure was standing in relation to the fellow with the yard-stick. I see the conclusions but I donâ€™t really see the connection. But 6-5 to SEVEN FEET? Thatâ€™s the difference between a fairly tall man and a freakishly tall one. If the creature was truly about one hundred feet away they should have (one would think) gotten that estimate down to a few inches. Didnâ€™t P/G have still cameraâ€™s with them (I think I read that somewhere.) They could not even have one of the other stand on the figureâ€™s track, take a photo from where Patterson was filming the creature and draw a baseline from that? [quote]Originally posted by LAL I don't have to prove sceptics don't understand what I'm talking about. Most do a good job of that without any help from me. [quote]Originally posted by LAL Heh! Some of them understand exactly what you are talking about, they simply donâ€™t agree with you--not quite the same thing. Quote: Originally posted by LAL There are people investing time and money and showing there really is an unidentified species in North America. The evidence is really overwhelming if you consider it all and not just a piece here and there. I'm doing my best to present it. [/b] I appreciate that. I donâ€™t think the evidence is exactly overwhelming, interesting yes but I still have problems making a judgment based on the enthusiasm of others. I prefer to wait for that really excellent series of videos or photographs, or a specimen. If Bigfoot is a real creature these things are inevitable.
	__________________ The Odd Emperor "cave quid dicis, quando, et cui" The Empire of the Odd

11th June 2005, 10:34 PM	#346
LTC8K6 Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Directly under a deadly chemtrail Posts: 12,755	LAL, the resort to the personal attack is very revealing.... Quote: So left me get this straight: When legitimate scientists investigate and reach conclusions you don't like, you think they've lost their objectivity. Rather than investigate anything they say you're not going to read anything more by them. I've offered expert opinion on the authenticity of some of the evidence and you drag in Billy Meier. I hope you're not this close-minded in other areas of your life. I haven't seen a worthwhile contribution from you yet, so if you're done here, I won't be missing much. Saves me the trouble of putting you on ignore, in fact. Come back when you can successfully debunk the best evidence, or when you've finished high school, whichever comes soonest. It's called skepticism. Get used to it if you plan to hang around here long. I'll still be here waiting patiently when bigfoot believers have something new to show me. Maybe they will finally get some actual evidence next time..... Maybe bigfoot will trip and fall face first into a mud wallow next time. The Fuquay-Varina cast!!!

12th June 2005, 06:51 AM	#347
LAL Illuminator Join Date: May 2005 Location: Waynesville,NC Posts: 3,257	Quote: Originally posted by LTC8K6 LAL, the resort to the personal attack is very revealing.... It's called skepticism. Get used to it if you plan to hang around here long. I'll still be here waiting patiently when bigfoot believers have something new to show me. Maybe they will finally get some actual evidence next time..... Maybe bigfoot will trip and fall face first into a mud wallow next time. The Fuquay-Varina cast!!! Suggesting I'm being obtuse was a personal attack, IMO. I'm still wiping off the virtual spitballs. Sorry, son, but you started it. I'm very used to it and have yet to see convincing arguments from the sceptics' side, although there are some interesting points made by sceptics which are worthy of discussion. There's plenty of sophmoric humor, though. Perhaps that's why I took you for a sophmore.
	__________________ Lu https://librarylu.wordpress.com/

12th June 2005, 08:50 PM	#348
LTC8K6 Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Directly under a deadly chemtrail Posts: 12,755	Quote: There's plenty of sophmoric humor, though. Perhaps that's why I took you for a sophmore. I learned to spell sophomore long before I graduated from high school.

13th June 2005, 04:02 AM	#349
LAL Illuminator Join Date: May 2005 Location: Waynesville,NC Posts: 3,257	Quote: Originally posted by LTC8K6 I learned to spell sophomore long before I graduated from high school. Evidently I didn't.
	__________________ Lu https://librarylu.wordpress.com/

13th June 2005, 04:32 AM	#350
LAL Illuminator Join Date: May 2005 Location: Waynesville,NC Posts: 3,257	Quote: Originally posted by The Odd Emperor I wasnâ€™t really calling anyone in the Bigfoot Biz a crackpot- just lamenting the method in general. If someone got a paper published in the AAA Journal than Iâ€™d call it a step in the right direction. Many self styled experts donâ€™t bother to even try. Dr. Meldrum has had two abstracts accepted by the American Ass'n of Physical Anthropologists with "very good dialogue". Also the Northwest Anthropological Conference, the Idaho Academy of Science, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (Pacific Division). He's working on manuscripts for publication as well. Quote: No itâ€™s not OK, I never suggested that it was. Daegling's use of Cliff Crook, who is a self-styled "expert" of the worst order, was enough for me. Quote: Of course this is trueâ€”part of the beauty of science. You can always change your mind based on a preponderance of evidence. Yep. Science is self-correcting. [quote][b]I donâ€™t necessarily believe or disbelieve Bob Heironimus. Itâ€™s an interesting story and inevitable if the P/G film is a hoax. In all probability the fellow is lying for. If the film were of a real BF heâ€™s undoubtedly not one of those. If the film is a hoax it doesnâ€™t necessarily follow that heâ€™s the fellow in the suit. He might have heard the story long ago and appropriated it. He might have just made the whole thing up. Proving the P/G is a hoax is as difficult as proving it real (IMO.) I donâ€™t know what would be compelling to me, the suit itself (complete with water bags etc) in some abandoned storage unit?[quote][b] One of Heirinimus' suggestions was sandbags. He seems to be making it up as he goes along. Quote: BTW, love the term â€œArch-Skeptic.â€ I need to start working on plans for an arch-skeptic convention. They can all sit around with snifters of brandy -- twirl their mustaches. (snip) Quote: I canâ€™t be so positive. It would take me years of study, a complete re-tool of my expertise set. A boatload of practical experience (animatronics animal design say.) or a real degree in some Bio or Anthro sub strata before I could make such an absolute statement. But than again Iâ€™m comfortable with the idea that I canâ€™t know for sure, until Patti the Bigfoot is interviewed on Larry King. I think she's dead. Estimated lifespan is about forty years and she was obviously mature in 1967. I'm comfortable with letting the experts do all that work. I'm familiar enough with human skeletons to spot the obvious differences immediately. I do quibble about the skull - I don't see the sagittal crest. The animator left that out, possibly because some think the peak may be hair. Quote: No I donâ€™t agree. Making a successful Sasquatch suit is quite easy. I don't agree. The shoulder joints on "Patty" are a foot farther apart than on a man of comparable size, the IM index is between human and ape, and somehow a prosthetic device would have to be used to get the proper arm length and still have the fingers move. And then there are the legs, with muscle movement and visible tendons. Quote: Taking some bogus footage is somewhat more difficult. Getting people to believe itâ€™s genuine? Very easy. Duplicating the P/G film? Almost impossible. I agree with that last statement. See the rent-a-suit below:
	__________________ Lu https://librarylu.wordpress.com/

13th June 2005, 06:44 AM	#351
LTC8K6 Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Directly under a deadly chemtrail Posts: 12,755	Well, that outfit is not even close to being as good looking as the possible creature in the p/g film. It could fool a lot of people though. In the distance with a not too clear shot or video.....

13th June 2005, 11:27 AM	#352
Hitch Muse Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 861	Quote: I think she's dead. Estimated lifespan is about forty years and she was obviously mature in 1967. And what, praytell, was that estimate based on? How do you estimate the lifespan of an unknown species? Am I alone in feeling we are firmly in the realm of Woo?
Hitch Muse Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 861

13th June 2005, 11:57 AM	#353
Cleon King of the Pod People Moderator Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Atlanta, GA Posts: 20,610	Quote: Originally posted by Hitch And what, praytell, was that estimate based on? How do you estimate the lifespan of an unknown species? Or maturity, for that matter. I think it's things like this that make it difficult for skeptics to take Bigfoot seriously. You want to provide evidence of an unknown primate, great, but when that evidence is provided along with a bunch of ridiculous suppositions (lifespan, diet, evolutionary heritage, etc), it's difficult to take the evidence seriously--even if the evidence is valid!. It's a bit like publishing an article positing the existence of a new subatomic particle and hypothesizing that it's the basis of psychic powers. With that kind of thing coming out of left field, nobody's going to take your evidence seriously. If you're going to approach something scientifically, you have to be clinical about it, and chalk unknowns up to unknowns.
	__________________ "People like me are what stand between us and Auschwitz." - Newt Gingrich

13th June 2005, 12:51 PM	#354
Ripley Twenty-Nine Muse Join Date: May 2005 Location: London, Ontario Posts: 867	Quote: Originally posted by LAL I think she's dead. Estimated lifespan is about forty years and she was obviously mature in 1967. I'm comfortable with letting the experts do all that work. LAL, serious question. Do you believe with the amount of evidence for and against Bigfoot today, that the Sasquatch should be added to the list of known species, incorporating such facts as the approximate 40-year lifespan, etc?
	__________________ Ripley 29 "Professor, without knowing precisely what the danger is, would you say it's time for our viewers to crack each other's heads open and feast on the goo inside?" "Yes I would, Kent."

13th June 2005, 01:36 PM	#355
LTC8K6 Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Directly under a deadly chemtrail Posts: 12,755	A scientist should not believe in bigfoot. That's what I mean. All of these degree holding folks quoted throughout this thread should not believe in bigfoot, yet they give every appearance of accepting bigfoot as fact, when they haven't got anywhere near enough solid evidence. They talk as if bigfoot is accepted fact, and they spread this idea to others. When a supposedly objective scientist all but tells me that bigfoot is real, all I can do is wonder where his objectivity went. It's perfectly fine for a scientist to write sceptically of bigfoot. There is no double standard here. A scientist should be sceptical of bigfoot.