Now I can’t even figure out what you’re trying to say.
Let’s start with the really basic: who said “‘keeping an open mind’ means believing any cockamamie story that comes along as equally scientifically credible,” and where did he or she say it?
Yea me too. I have dim hopes about maybe finding something similar if shorter elsewhere.
Good heavens man!!* Did I step on your dogma? I answered your question honestly, and clearly said I was making a subjective judgement. I said I was not trying to make a case for existance of these things, only that I preferred to keep an open mind. In an earlier post I even said it was “unlikely”.
Care for another subjective opinion? I think your arrogance and personal insults were completely out of line. Uncalled for. Absolutely over the top.
SS
*or ma’am, as the case may be.
I’ve seen one. It wasn’t a mountain lion. It wasn’t a bob cat. It was the most awesome thing I ever saw.
According to all wisdom, they are extinct.
If there are panthers, there could be other things in the desert/woods. That short sighting made me rethink my thoughts about bigfoot.
Time to check your subjective judgement. I asked for evidence, any good evidence, to support ANY reasonable possibility of these creature’s existance, and all you can give us is “keep an open mind” and anecdotes like “why would anyone lie”? Did you ever consider that lack of evidence is very strong evidence that bigfoot is 100% fictional? Does “grasping at straws” mean anything?
If you don’t think these claims have any validity after all, why are you getting so upset? Why don’t you bring us all that good evidence that appears to have convinced you that the claim must be re-evaluated even after centuries of nothing at all? Good heavens, Man, does gullibility have no limits?
How about these cockamamie links, supplied by Seldomseen. Are they enough to counter the total lack of bones, carcases and the opinion of expert zoologists that a breeding population of these creature is highly unlikely?
Musicat you do realize no one has said they believe in bigfoot? SeldomSeen has done nothing more than say:
And then said that certain eyewitness accounts had the ring of truth “to him”, and in that same line he goes on to say he recognizes that is no form of reliable evidence at all.
I guess even such disclaimers that any rational person would recognize aren’t good enough for you, so you had to enter a righteous crusade to convince SeldomSeen bigfoot doesn’t exist when he’s never said he believes they exist in the first place. I imagine most people, probably even a few that can go off like a crazy person over no provocation at all just like you, would say lots of things are “possible.”
Like it’s possible when we die we each get to rule over our own planet, or we become fig trees in another dimension. Do I believe that? No, but I won’t say it’s impossible, either.
“It pays to keep an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out.” — Carl Sagan
I will. That’s impossible. Prove me wrong.
SeldomSeen said reports from “law enforcement officers, Forest Service personnel, etc” were credible, or at least more than nothing. I say they total zero.
SeldomSeen, when asked for any evidence at all, gave "multiple sightings on consecutive days by independent witnesses, a couple of whom were well-regarded businessmen…the consistant descriptions by reputable witnesses with no vested interest do seem more credible than the run-of-the-mill reports of, say alian abductions, Roswell rods, etc. “More credible”? This indicates that there is something there that needs to be considered or investigated. I say nothing of the sort.
SeldomSeen said “Also impressive is the sheer number of reports dating back 200 years or more, and the repeated reports from certain ‘hot spots’, notably Wasco Co. OR, the Mt. St. Helen’s region of WA, and Southwestern BC…” So these were impressive to this poster. “Impressive” doesn’t mean “I think they are worthless,” just the opposite. I don’t think wild tales are impressive of anything except imagination.
Quotes like that don’t indicate an open mind, but a closed one that refuses to evaluate the quality of evidence and recognize that there is absolutely nothing there, but continues way beyond all reasonableness to insist that everything hasn’t yet been considered. 9/11 Truthers do the same thing – “I’m not a believer, I’m just asking…”
If anyone has anything better, bring it on and we can discuss it. Otherwise, as Lumpy says.
No.
Okay.
No, you’re actually being deliberately deceptive here. SeldomSeen was not responding to a “request for evidence.” He was responding to you requesting he state which accounts were most credible. Take 5 eye witness reports of bigfoot, even if you believe all of them are totally fabricated, lack any credibility at all, if someone held a gun to your head and said “rank them from 1 to 5 in order of how credible they are” you could probably do so.
I’ve not really ever believed an eyewitness account of bigfoot or alien abductions. However, if I was asked to rank them in terms of credibility, I certainly could. Namely because I’d rank the deliberately deceptive stories cooked up by people who just wanted to get their names in the papers as being less credible than stories from people who may genuinely believe they have seen a bigfoot or been abducted by aliens (of course with bigfoot all it takes is an active imagination, you probably need to be on drugs or have some form of mental illness to genuinely believe you were carried off by aliens.)
Sure, nothing wrong with you and him having different opinions.
Here’s the thing, you’re like a guy at a cocktail party that doesn’t understand how to have a casual conversation. This thread isn’t in GD or GQ, pretty much no one other than yourself really thinks SeldomSeen is a closet bigfoot believer. I think he’s just someone who, in a fairly casual-thread has said “I think it’s possible, and there’s a few people who have said they’ve seen one who seemed credible.”
I’m reminded of a dinner party I had a few months ago in which a friend’s wife mentioned an urban legend that has long been thoroughly debunked on the internet, and stated it as fact. If I had responded then as you have responded now, the equivalent act would have been for me to have broken my glass over her head, kicked her repeatedly after she crumpled to the ground, and then spit on her unconscious body while telling her how wrong she was.
I don’t think anyone in this whole thread has come out as a believer in bigfoot, people are just (understandably) shocked by how quickly you took this thread nasty and mean spirited.
I could even support it as “fighting ignorance” if it was really obvious that someone was advocating belief in bigfoot, but you can’t even justify your behavior under that guise since no one has done that.
I would advise you to stay away from those kind of parties. Or people. Let them stay ignorant, because you won’t be helping out.
Maybe Bigfoot lives with Jim Morrison in Oregon?
Ugh I hate this fallacious logic. It assumes not demonstrated means impossible.
If it wasn’t a mountain lion, then it wasn’t a panther, since these are two different names for the same animal (also known as cougar or puma). And Arizona is one of the states in which they are most common.
They are indeed the same thing. But “black panther” is a common term used to describe any of several large cats that have a melanistic color varient. This is not known to happen with cougars, but does occur in leopards and in jaguars. Jaguars mostly range in Latin America, but there have been confirmed sightings in Arizona. It may be that this is what** flatlined** saw.
wikipedia entry on black panthers
SS
You are 100% correct. Arizona does indeed have mountian lions (which I’ve only seen in zoos). What I saw wasn’t a mountain lion. It wasn’t buff colored, its coat was dark brown and its body shape was different. I checked online, and it might have been a jaguar. It was stunningly beautiful. I only saw it for a couple of minutes and was afraid to move lest I scared it away, so no pics I’m afraid.
SS, thank you for that.
I did use the wrong name and deserved to be corrected.
I don’t really know what I saw. It was a big, beautiful feline that wasn’t a mountain lion or a bobcat. I looked at your link and the pic showed something very close to what I saw. Its coat didn’t look black, it was more a dark chocolate brown. The dirt in that area is reddish, which could explain the difference in coat color.
Maybe it was a space alien with a bad cover story? We do have space aliens out here 
What part of Arizona are you in? Those could just be Minutemen.
That must be it. Minutemen who are looking for undocumented Latin American jaguars who are only here to do the jobs that American cougars won’t do!
I saw a black bear once, on Rock Island, one of the wilder places near me.
A bear wouldn’t be impossible, but not likely these days. But three of us on the hike saw it clearly, leaning over in the path in front of us a few hundred feet. Instantly, we stopped and watched, then approached it carefully.
It was a big tree stump.