Bigfoot Skepticism

[Col. Tartleton]

I find it strange that scientists are willing to accept (if not universally) a number of extinct species based on a tooth or jawbone fragment while the Sasquatch as shown in the Patterson-Gimlin film has been basically shown to be untampered with, and according to at least a fair number of authorities shows a bipedal primate that isn't (and couldn't be) a human. Obviously there should be some skeptics until there is better documentation, but I would think at this point they would err on the side of caution and presume there is a bipedal primate potentially a hominid and make some effort to conserve it.

If it is real it most likely would be almost extinct seeing how rarely they're encountered and how large they are. I mean I doubt there are millions of them in the wild. The Lake Champlain (Whale?) Monster is protected as an endangered species although it hasn't been confirmed it's growing increasingly likely there's some sort of large animal population in the lake. After all, Champlain used to be a full sized sea as little as 10,000 years ago.

There are some very rare large animals in the world like bear subspecies numbering a few dozen animals which are considered relicts such as the Gobi Bear and given all the varieties of apes and hominids in the last few hundred thousand years you'd think this would be taken more seriously.

I mean we've potentially got an almost extinct species of great ape walking around in the woods and given how smart and rare gorillas and the other apes are that's kind of a national crisis. I mean no offense to everyone worried about the Polar Bears, but us Apes should put our fellow Apes first.

[Claudius Gothicus]

Science works on publicly verifiable evidence. Not theoretical ''possibility'' based on an amateur film of dubious quality.

Also, if the animal exists there needs to be skeletons and bones... which haven't been conclusively found. It's up to the cryptozoologists to convert said ''crypto'' into an actual citizen of the animal world.

[Phier]

Someone has been watching the "history" channel too much.

The bigfoot experts validating the Patterson film remind me of the crop circle experts.

They want it to be real and they refuse to look at anything objectively and claim it couldn't have been faked. Its funny when it happens with crop circles because often after they say its real someone shows them a film on how it was made.

When I was a kid I saw that film and thought "man in ape costume" as an adult with a intimate understanding of physiology I think "man in ape costume".

The odds of a great ape living in the north woods with absolutely zero physical evidence left is pretty much nil.

[Sphere]

The story behind the Patterson-Gimlin hoax is fairly well documented. The manufacturer of the suit is known, the wearer of the suit is known, and it is also well known that Patterson was filming a for-profit Bigfoot documentary, and had met with a known Bigfoot hoaxer in the area.

That doesn't stop continual "expert indepth anaylsis" of the film, but none the less, there's little reason to believe it was anything more than a hoax that earned Patterson a few grand from his screening his documentary, selling the rights (multiple times which is a legal no-no) and giving interviews.

[Armatus]

Someone has been watching the "history" channel too much.

There's actually a fairly recent documentary 2011ish? (I don't know what else you'd call it) with a small group of the "experts" challenging each other with their own theories for what the phenomenon might actually be attributed to beyond placing the blame entirely on "crazy folk". I thought they treated the subject quite well, and the best explanation in my view were the various Native American cultures who still practice shamanism and as a prerequisite these shamans in training are expected to live alone in the wild for up to 10 years before returning to their people.

The story behind the Patterson-Gimlin hoax is fairly well documented. The manufacturer of the suit is known, the wearer of the suit is known, and it is also well known that Patterson was filming a for-profit Bigfoot documentary, and had met with a known Bigfoot hoaxer in the area.

That doesn't stop continual "expert indepth anaylsis" of the film, but none the less, there's little reason to believe it was anything more than a hoax that earned Patterson a few grand from his screening his documentary, selling the rights (multiple times which is a legal no-no) and giving interviews.

Interesting, I've honestly never heard of the story behind "the hoax" I'd be interested if you could point me where to read more about all these details.

[Col. Tartleton]

You'd have to show me hard evidence of the actual suit existing and prove the guy wore it. Then recreate it, for me to believe that. I haven't seen anything that looked the same.

Science works both ways.





Look a guy in a suit... oh wait, that's an actual gorilla walking on it's hind legs...

[John I Tzimisces]

You'd have to show me hard evidence of the actual suit existing and prove the guy wore it. Then recreate it, for me to believe that. I haven't seen anything that looked the same.

Science works both ways.





Look a guy in a suit... oh wait, that's an actual gorilla walking on it's hind legs...

I'm going to go with neither of those things are obligate bipeds (and it's obvious), and the guy in a bigfoot suit looks a guy in a bigfoot suit, and until bigfoot enthusiasts produce anything other than a video of a guy in a bigfoot suit or faked casts like say "a tooth or jawbone fragment" then there's no reason to believe bigfoot exists. Or ever existed.

I'd also like to add that eyewitness testimony is rightly considered the lowest form of scientific evidence.

[Phier]

You'd have to show me hard evidence of the actual suit existing and prove the guy wore it. Then recreate it, for me to believe that. I haven't seen anything that looked the same.

Science works both ways.

Actually it doesn't work that way.

X-BEHOLD a video of bigfoot!

Y-It looks like a guy in a costume.

X-Until you find the costumes, both ideas are equally valid!

Ummm no.

[Col. Tartleton]

Actually it doesn't work that way.

X-BEHOLD a video of bigfoot!

Y-It looks like a guy in a costume.

X-Until you find the costumes, both ideas are equally valid!

Ummm no.

By default it's an animal unless it can be proven to be a human.

If I see a picture of what appears to be a lion you'd have to prove it's a tiger disguised as a lion. Otherwise it's probably what it looks like, a lion.

A guy shoots a film that he claims is of animal he took in the wood. Qualified analysts say it is based on their expertise a real animal, certainly not a guy in a suit, staking their reputation on it. Skeptics argue that it's a hoax because it "looks like a guy in a suit."

If someone filmed a Tasmanian Tiger roaming around in Van Diemen's Land I'd believe them until someone could prove it was fake.

[Copperknickers II]

By default it's an animal unless it can be proven to be a human.

If I see a picture of what appears to be a lion you'd have to prove it's a tiger disguised as a lion. Otherwise it's probably what it looks like, a lion.

A guy shoots a film that he claims is of animal he took in the wood. Qualified analysts say it is based on their expertise a real animal, certainly not a guy in a suit, staking their reputation on it. Skeptics argue that it's a hoax because it "looks like a guy in a suit."

If someone filmed a Tasmanian Tiger roaming around in Van Diemen's Land I'd believe them until someone could prove it was fake.

And if someone filmed a unicorn, you'd believe that too, until someone proved it was fake? There is absolutely no evidence of an indigenous American ape species, not so much as a gibbon. The only ape ever to have set foot in America is homo sapiens. Reports of chinese and indian bipedal apes is more convincing, since there are vast remote areas not frequented by climbers and, more importantly, fossil evidence of gigantopithecus from a mere 300,000 years ago. We know for a scientific fact that Homo Rhodesiensis was alive at the same time as giant bipedal ape species and we suspect that predecessors such as homo erectus probably met with them in Asia. Most American folklore however is copied from older cultures. Even the Native Americans did not arrive that long ago, perhaps they inherited the myth of the apeman from their Asian ancestors.

[Col. Tartleton]

And if someone filmed a unicorn, you'd believe that too, until someone proved it was fake? There is absolutely no evidence of an indigenous American ape species, not so much as a gibbon. The only ape ever to have set foot in America is homo sapiens. Reports of chinese and indian bipedal apes is more convincing, since there are vast remote areas not frequented by climbers and, more importantly, fossil evidence of gigantopithecus from a mere 300,000 years ago. We know for a scientific fact that Homo Rhodesiensis was alive at the same time as giant bipedal ape species and we suspect that predecessors such as homo erectus probably met with them in Asia. Most American folklore however is copied from older cultures. Even the Native Americans did not arrive that long ago, perhaps they inherited the myth of the apeman from their Asian ancestors.

Yeah, if something seems legit to me I'll believe it, sure. Ultimately I'm not sure what else a tape of the thing would look like. I mean what do you expect to see, it's a crappy video taken by a startled filmer of an animal in the woods.

Have you seen the special effects they used in film from 1967? The best they could do then would look like a bad Halloween costume now.

It's an animal. You can see the muscles moving under it's fur... If they had a suit that good they wouldn't have filmed it that badly. Furthermore they identified it as male when clearly it's a female.

There are other films of them as well that seem legitimate, but obviously they aren't the body you guys need... They show an ape that can walk, leap on it's hind legs, runs on all fours, and is arboreal to the point it's leaping through the trees.

[Phier]

By default it's an animal unless it can be proven to be a human.

No, by default its simply a bad image that could be many things. Oh I'm sure its an animals, because people are animals and there were not animatronics for that back then.

If I see a picture of what appears to be a lion you'd have to prove it's a tiger disguised as a lion. Otherwise it's probably what it looks like, a lion.

I saw two lions in the flesh yesterday. I have examined lion bones. I know that lions either exist or I'm living in the Truman show. Being I think the world is real, I'm going with lions exist and its not an elaborate lie to confuse me. Bigfoot doesn't get this being the only 'evidence' of bigfoot is very weak.

A guy shoots a film that he claims is of animal he took in the wood. Qualified analysts say it is based on their expertise a real animal, certainly not a guy in a suit, staking their reputation on it. Skeptics argue that it's a hoax because it "looks like a guy in a suit."

I'm a qualified analyst. Seriously I am. I have two years of kinesiology training, comparative anatomy study, and I passed two courses on human anatomy, including an advanced course which was harder than the basic med school one. It looks like a guy in an ape suit to me. No one is trained in 'does it look like a guy in a suit' study. What they did was look and say SEE IT TURNS ITS TORSO A HUMAN DOESN'T DO THAT! Well of course they don't, unless of course they are wearing a suit. In that case you need to shift your torso. The fact they found a couple of idiots who say it couldn't be human for some documentary you saw doesn't mean even a sizable minority of qualified people think it is bigfoot. There are a lot of quacks out there.

If someone filmed a Tasmanian Tiger roaming around in Van Diemen's Land I'd believe them until someone could prove it was fake.

Well first, no guy could fit in that suit (cue Monty Python skit) and secondly we have physical evidence for Tasmanian tigers. Now if there was absolutely NO proof of a Tasmanian tiger in recorded history and someone had a video, it would be logical to assume it was someone who oddly colored a dog of some kind. BTW in comparative anatomy one of their FAVORITE things to do was give you the skull of a Tasmanian devil or tiger replica and trick you into saying its a dog skull (very easy to id once you know the tricks).

[Garbarsardar]

Thank you oh Thread. I am not skeptical about Bigfoot anymore.

Next: Nazi Spaceships Skepticism- real or hoax?

[MathiasOfAthens]

Gorillas and Chimpanzees do walk on two legs. Gorillas have been seen to be doing it more frequently now but its generally accepted it has been an ability for thousands of years.

Chimps though routinely walk through water, same with monkeys. Its not that crazy that they can walk really. Ive even seen Gorillas run.

And a bear standing up is also common and has been documented numerous times. They stand up mostly to see farther. Its the same how dogs ears flick up and their head goes erect.

[Kanaric]

A Bigfoot thread? Lmao.

White people have lived in america since the 1600s. If they haven't been found by now they don't exist.
I would like even a modicum of evidence.

[Sphere]

You'd have to show me hard evidence of the actual suit existing and prove the guy wore it. Then recreate it, for me to believe that. I haven't seen anything that looked the same.

Science works both ways.

Extraordinary claims require extraoridinary evidence.

There is nothing terribly extraoridinary in the idea of some guy who is making a bigfoot documentary deciding he needs footage of a bigfoot... one way or another. A costume store owner claiming he sold an ape suit to Paterson through the mail, and a local man claiming Paterson paid him to wear the suit overtop of some football pads (a suggestion the costume store owner says he mentioned to Patterson) is enough in my opinion.

What is much harder to believe is that the one piece of footage of bigfoot happened to be captured by a rented 16mm camera lugged into the woods by some guy back in 1967 whose sole purpose for being in the woods was to "find" a bigfoot to put into his for-profit documentary. Yet, in the proceeding 45 years there has been nothing of the sort, even as video cameras have become ubiquitous.

[Col. Tartleton]

Extraordinary claims require extraoridinary evidence.

There is nothing terribly extraoridinary in the idea of some guy who is making a bigfoot documentary deciding he needs footage of a bigfoot... one way or another. A costume store owner claiming he sold an ape suit to Paterson through the mail, and a local man claiming Paterson paid him to wear the suit overtop of some football pads (a suggestion the costume store owner says he mentioned to Patterson) is enough in my opinion.

What is much harder to believe is that the one piece of footage of bigfoot happened to be captured by a rented 16mm camera lugged into the woods by some guy back in 1967 whose sole purpose for being in the woods was to "find" a bigfoot to put into his for-profit documentary. Yet, in the proceeding 45 years there has been nothing of the sort, even as video cameras have become ubiquitous.

I'd argue that there's nothing extraordinary about a north american great ape. This isn't trying to find proof of aliens or God, it's looking for a rare subspecies of gorilla or something akin to it (perhaps Gigantopithecus, probably not), in the whole of the United States and Canada... Given how big an area that is and that it would theoretically be out in remote areas (and the legends about the animal speak of it's elusive nature), odds are people aren't going to be running into them all the time.

Even if upwards of 95% of the sightings could be ruled out to be made up or bears, that still leaves the possibility of there being apes out there. Lets not forget the Gorilla is named for a mythical tribe of hairy women that Carthaginian traders had found and told the Greeks about. Gibbons, Chimpanzees, and Orangutans likewise were the stuff of myths. And there are similar stories all over the place.

I mean the scientific theory of how New World monkeys arrived in the Americas among other places is... a raft of vegetation. Which is quite possible, but that's a pretty incredible claim. But it seems likely to be the case, as it's almost certainly the reason for lemurs in Madagascar.

Obviously they need better documentation that a what? 50 year old film?, but even Jane Goodall is a proponent of the animal's existence, and I think it's fair to say she's an actual scientist.

So given what we know I'd say there's a solid theory for the Bigfoot.

I mean it's like denying the existence of dinosaurs because they're just rocks. Which they are. There are no dinosaur bones. Just rocks. No primordial plants. Just rocks. No trilobites. Just impressions in rocks. And since bigfoots are in theory modern creatures you'd get impressions in mud.

How many chimps and gorillas and orangutans have been hit by cars?

[Lord Rahl]

So given what we know I'd say there's a solid theory for the Bigfoot.

Except that we don't "know" anything. A theory should be based on substantial scientific evidence. What evidence is there for Bigfoot beyond a disputed video and countless but unverified eyewitness sightings?

I mean it's like denying the existence of dinosaurs because they're just rocks. Which they are. There are no dinosaur bones. Just rocks. No primordial plants. Just rocks. No trilobites. Just impressions in rocks. And since bigfoots are in theory modern creatures you'd get impressions in mud.

It's funny you mention fossils and bones, because no one has found bones or fossils of a Bigfoot, ever.

[The Despondent Mind]

If big foot's existed some hunter or a car would have killed it or anything that happens to any other animal in which existence we don't doubt .

[Admiral Piett]

I personally think there is greater evidence for the existence of chupacabra (just not the bizarre reptilian creature of folklore) than there is for bigfoot. At the very least, hunters and farmers in Texas have successfully killed the animal which was killing their livestock and taken photos of it and sent the body in for analysis. A couple turned out to be mangy foxes or raccoons. But for the others, Chupacabra was inferred likely a subspecies of coyote which has a preference for piercing the abdomen or neck and draining the blood of their prey. Or the other likely possibility of coyotes suffering from an unknown disease - but that doesn't explain the uniform descriptions of their modus operandi of killing cattle. Most reports indicate that their livestock are killed by puncture wounds and the animal being partially or entirely drained of fluids.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: