A silly poll about Bigfoot

In My Humble Opinion
41

Well, this obviously proves that Bigfoot can fly. It’s always good to have real scientists weigh in on these matters. :smiley:

I’m one of those never-say-never people, but I’ll only accept the existence of Bigfoot (since “belief” doesn’t play a role, thankyouverymuch) when someone brings in a body.

Unfortunately, lots of the people who do believe in Bigfoot (a) fall into the “true believer” category, and (b) are either stunningly ignorant of the scientific method or are downright hostile toward science. For example, last year I went to a Bigfoot conference out of morbid curiosity. One guy (Matt Crowley, who used to perform with Jim Rose) gave a really interesting talk showing that the “dermal ridges” in footprint casts were most likely artifacts from poorly-mixed plaster. During the Q&A session afterwards, one lady promptly asked to see any plaster casts that people had brought, as she could read palms and wanted to see what the dermal ridges had to say about Bigfoot’s personality. :smack:

It gets worse–there are people who think that Bigfoot comes from UFOs. Or from the hollow earth. Or can psychically disguise themselves. And so on.

42
  1. Of course it doesn’t exist. If we adjust the terms to mean a big wooly man-ape - well, maybe. But Bigfoot as he is currently designed, no way.

And no way would I kill it unless it was coming right for me.

43

I’m a very solid 2, leaning towards 1. There is actually a ton of evidence (mostly footprints, but also some hair that can’t be identified as any known animal) that shows the creature may exist. To say that only scat or bones will convince you is rather like the creationists who won’t believe in evolution until we come up with a “missing link” that meets their definition.

An excellent book for those with open minds is Dr. Jeff Meldrum’s book, “Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science”. Dr. Meldrum is an Associate Professor of Anatomy and Anthropology at Idaho State University. He’s done some fascinating work, like this.

And yes, I would shoot one if I had the chance (if I were convinced it wasn’t some idiot in a costume). The only way to provide some protection for the creature is to prove it exists. And if you think the spotted owl was tough on the logging industry, wait until this sucker gets listed as an endangered species! :slight_smile:

44

[QUOTE=Q.E.D.]
Count me as another who doesn’t understand what you mean by this. Oh, I know what the words mean, but I’m not getting your point. You can’t have a bigfoot ecology without individual bigfoots (bigfeet?), right?
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I think I managed to confuse everyone by voting for 1 when I meant to vote for 3. Xbuckeye gives a fuller explanation of what I meant. Note to self: read the OP more carefully next time.

45

[QUOTE=Colibri]
As big as an Ivorybill is, there’s still a world of difference between its detectability and that of an 800 pound terrestrial primate. Arboreal birds, unlike terrestrial mammals, can’t be tracked. And intensive searches for the Ivorybill have only been going on for a couple of years.
[/QUOTE]

Plus, the ivorybill is still just a bird. It could have been spotted hundreds of times by people who didn’t know how rare it was supposed to be.

One does not ignore Bigfoot.

I’m going to 3. 2.5 perhaps for the Himalayan Yeti, since there is a stronger local mythology about the thing and it’s not so densely populated as North America.

46

Not only is the idea of a bigfoot, in any incarnation, preposterous without the slightest good evidence like a skeleton, but with increasing human population and investigation sophistication turning up no strengthening evidence, the chance of existence is rapidly decreasing from a very small number down to zero, asymptotically.

In other words, #3.

47

I don’t believe that Bigfoot does, or has ever, existed; it just ain’t possible for a population of eight-foot-tall humanoids to have existed in hiding anywhere in North America; certainly not today, and probably not even a hundred years ago either. Ironically, the movie **Harry and the Hendersons ** got it exactly right in that regard: if they did exist, sooner or later one would wind up embedded in the grille of a Kenworth.

On the other hand, I also don’t think that people who claim to have seen Bigfoot are all lying or crazy either. On the contrary, the legend of Bigfoot almost certainly originated from garbled descriptions of the Florida Skunk Ape. Consider: Bigfoot is traditionally described as a huge, hirsute humanoid; this is practically a perfect description of the Skunk Ape, allowing for a certain exaggeration of size. The huge tracks commonly attributed to Bigfoot might also be explained by the disproportionately large, flat feet of the Skunk Ape, although other tracks are clearly hoaxes.

It seems plain that, over the years, Skunk Apes have been accidentally transported from Florida to other areas of the country, probably inside containers of citrus fruit. Once they escaped into their new environment, they were spotted by locals (who obviously would have no familiarity with the creature). From these scattered accounts, the mythical being known as “Bigfoot” was born.

48

[QUOTE=xbuckeye]
Where are the Bigfoot bones? Even if you believe that Bigfoots are supremely intelligent, you have to conceed that dead Bigfoots aren’t smart enought to hide. So, if you believe in Bigfoots, you have to believe that they somehow perminantly dispose of their dead, which requires them to live in groups, which makes them more easily seen.
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Someone else already mentioned that the Bigfeet might be intelligent and therefore bury their dead which explains why we never find any bones (but does NOT explain the curious lack of headstones and hearses).

But the animals are actually even much smarter that THAT. The creature is so intelligent, in fact, that to keep its species’ existence secret, the Bigfeet actually not only bury their dead, but also their* living, * and even their yet-to-be concieved!

49

This morning on CNN they reported a Bigfoot sighting in Wisconsin (I think). At one in the morning a man reported a Bigfoot reached into his car (or truck). The woman reading the report couldn’t keep a straight face and had to struggle to get it out.

I’ve just searched the CNN site, and did not find a reference.

50

[QUOTE=Thalion]
I’m a very solid 2, leaning towards 1. There is actually a ton of evidence (mostly footprints, but also some hair that can’t be identified as any known animal) that shows the creature may exist. To say that only scat or bones will convince you is rather like the creationists who won’t believe in evolution until we come up with a “missing link” that meets their definition.
[/QUOTE]
If one were to posit that any major species–say, Homo sapiens–suddenly, and without any precursor evolved from a much smaller, proto-hominid ape without any record of intermediate forms, then yes, there would be a substantial reason to doubt the veracity of that claim. There is, and I repeat, no fossil or residual evidence of any large, bipedal hominid in the Americas which uses plantigrade locomotion and is quite apparently derived from family Hominini. None whatsoever.

Furthermore, for such a species to exist historically, it should have been in competition with the Black Bear (Ursus americanus), and judging by their retiring behavior, in roughly the same numbers. We have a vast amount of evidence of the manifesetly extant Black Bear in record, but yet absolutely none of the sasquatch. And to claim that a large, upright mammal–as large and massive as the largest mammals in the Americas, short of mastadons and mammoths–still exists but remains completely hidden to even determined, if amaturish, searches and incidential evidence is an extraordinary claim, requiring equivilent evidence. Muddy, improperly cast, and often deliberately faked footprints are evidence of nothing but the willingness of people to be led by their own preconceptions. Any creature that lacks sufficient stealth to leave footprints should be easily tracked by an experienced outdoorsman. Any large herbivorous mammal is going to leave regular evidence of its existance (tracks, spoor, consumed or damaged follage). Marlon Perkins (who did join Hillary on one of his treks to find traces of the Yeti in the Himalayas) would have had that sucker on film and chasing it around with a helicopter like a lioness circling a herd of wildebeasts.

Either we have to believe that the best naturalists, zoologists, paleontologists, trackers, hunters, enthusiasts, et cetera have all collectively failed to find more than a few footprints and some fur that allegedly “can’t be identified as any known animal” (can’t be identified by whom? using what methods?) 'cause it’s so incredibly stealthy, or it doesn’t bloody exists. Lord of Occam’s razor tells us that the solution that requires fewer leaps of logic or evidence is likely to be the correct one, and I see no reason why that principle shouldn’t apply here.

[QUOTE=Terrifel]
On the other hand, I also don’t think that people who claim to have seen Bigfoot are all lying or crazy either. On the contrary, the legend of Bigfoot almost certainly originated from garbled descriptions of the Florida Skunk Ape. Consider: Bigfoot is traditionally described as a huge, hirsute humanoid; this is practically a perfect description of the Skunk Ape, allowing for a certain exaggeration of size.
[/QUOTE]
Ah, the Skunk Ape, a.k.a. the Swamp Ape. “Robert McKee killed the Swamp Ape.”

Stranger

51

[QUOTE=lokij]
Proof positive with a body to examine would be a scientific marvel and lead to protection and further study.
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[QUOTE=Thalion]
The only way to provide some protection for the creature is to prove it exists.
[/QUOTE]

Protection from what? Or whom? The evidence is overwhelming that humans have yet(i) to harm a hair on Bigfoot’s head. I think I can state absolutely without fear of contradiction that Bigfoot is the most protected animal on the planet. He seems to be impossible to find, smart enough to bury his dead in such a way as to be impossible to find, adapted to extreme temperature and climate conditions without the need for shelter, and in competition with no other species for food. He’s darn near indestructable.

52

[QUOTE=Contrapuntal]
Protection from what? Or whom? The evidence is overwhelming that humans have yet(i) to harm a hair on Bigfoot’s head. I think I can state absolutely without fear of contradiction that Bigfoot is the most protected animal on the planet. He seems to be impossible to find, smart enough to bury his dead in such a way as to be impossible to find, adapted to extreme temperature and climate conditions without the need for shelter, and in competition with no other species for food. He’s darn near indestructable.
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Habitat loss. Bigfoot sightings seem predominately concentrated in or around large old growth forests in hilly or mountainous terrain. If we knew without a doubt there was an American primate living there I’m sure quite alot more of it would be set aside and protected.

53

[QUOTE=lokij]
Habitat loss. Bigfoot sightings seem predominately concentrated in or around large old growth forests in hilly or mountainous terrain. If we knew without a doubt there was an American primate living there I’m sure quite alot more of it would be set aside and protected.
[/QUOTE]
Don’t you have to establish that a creature actually has a habitat before you can set aside that habitat? What would the disection of one individual of a species tell you about it’s habitat, in the absence of any other data whatsoever?

54

[QUOTE=lokij]
Habitat loss. Bigfoot sightings seem predominately concentrated in or around large old growth forests in hilly or mountainous terrain. If we knew without a doubt there was an American primate living there I’m sure quite alot more of it would be set aside and protected.
[/QUOTE]

Oh, my. You’re sure, are you?

All I can say is that I urge you to learn as much as you can about the very real animals whose extinction is threatened as a result of habitat loss. The idea of someone wasting time looking for imaginary creatures to hypothetically protect when there are so many in such danger right now is…well, why I feel professional Bigfoot bothering isn’t completely harmless.

55

[QUOTE=Stranger On A Train]

Ah, the Skunk Ape, a.k.a. the Swamp Ape. “Robert McKee killed the Swamp Ape.”

Stranger
[/QUOTE]
Holy cow, I can’t read that whole thing. How did he kill the Swamp Ape?

56

[QUOTE=lokij]
Habitat loss. Bigfoot sightings seem predominately concentrated in or around large old growth forests in hilly or mountainous terrain.
[/QUOTE]

On the other hand, there are lots of sightings or other “'evidence” from places like Ohio (188), Indiana (47), New Jersey (32), Texas (158), and even North Dakota (5). It seems to me that the evidence indicates that Bigfoot is quite a habitat generalist, and is able to survive well even in the midst of farmland and on the outskirts of large cities.

57

I have this vision of Bigfoot having had specialist forces training. :eek:

Pick up your droppings in plastic bags; always move using camouflage and stealth; conceal your dead; observe humans only from sniper positions…

58

The funny thing about Bigfoot, is that there are almost no indian legends, and almost NOTHING at all in the way of sightings or anything until the late 1950’s. In otehr words, no one saw a Bigfoot until then (OK, there was a 1924 story- but that wasn’t reported until 1957!).

Very very dubious.

Here’s a cite with a list of “cryptids”

I have hopes (faint, but still there) for the Thylacine.

Otehr than that, the rest are either bogus, or in some cases, just odd veriosn or bad sightings of animals we already know.

Sure, I guess Bergman’s bear could have been a sub-species. Finding a “new” sub-species in a far-remote population is possible even today. Even amoung large mammals (they found one in Viet-nam less than a decade ago). Hell, if they “discovered” a “new” sub-species of Gibbon, for example, I wouldn’t be shocked. In fact they are now discussing several possible “new” chimpanzee sub-species.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?
cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=9237749&dopt=Citation

In fact, some though the Bonobo was just a sub-species of Chimp in my lifetime, thus one can say that a “new species of great ape was discoved recently”.

Of the others:

The Marozi is almost certainly just a variation. Maybe, possibly, it was a “population” even. Once.

A Large fish in an Alaskan lake? Sure. Why not? But the “Lake Iliamna Monster” is far more likely a sturgeon or a similar known species than some sort of unknown “monster”.

59

[QUOTE=Ensign Edison]
Oh, my. You’re sure, are you?

All I can say is that I urge you to learn as much as you can about the very real animals whose extinction is threatened as a result of habitat loss. The idea of someone wasting time looking for imaginary creatures to hypothetically protect when there are so many in such danger right now is…well, why I feel professional Bigfoot bothering isn’t completely harmless.
[/QUOTE]

Uh,… dude.. in my first post I said I was a strong 2, almost 3. I don’t believe in Bigfoot. Rest assured though if by some arbor day miracle I did run across one while armed, he’d be perforated. That goes for unicorns, yetis, the Loch Ness monster, champie, mermaids, fairies, nixies, trolls and elves of all kinds. My rationale for taking them out for study is the very real threat from habitat loss that is experienced by REAL and well studied animals.

60

My comment had nothing to do with whether you believe in Bigfoot, but with your certainty that finding yet another rare animal would somehow induce people to start protecting habitats.