Of course. It’s a movie of a *fake * Bigfoot, not one of the *real * ones.
It always looked that way to me too. But then I’m no primate expert. Supposedly, according to the show, the thing in the picture walks with some rather unique characteristics (they did a bunch of modeling things, putting a modeled bone structure and such superimposed with the image)…and not very easily done by a human. In fact this film was one of the big points they made FOR the existance…saying that its walking patterns were consistant with a non human upright primate. Something about how the knees moved.
In any case, if someone has admitted they wore the suit then its a moot point and the show was wrong. Its funny that they didn’t mention that key fact. 
-XT
Isn’t it just a wee bit too convenient that Bigfoot happened to turn and look at the camera while they were shooting? The whole thing looks so staged it’s embarrassing.
Hey, I would LOOOOVE for there to be some undiscovered upright ape living in North America, or anywhere in the world for that matter. But if any of these legends has even a remote possibility of being true (or at least being based on some factual evidence), it’s Orang Pendek. That animal might have originated from sightings of Home floresienses, or something similiar. Probably in the distant past, though.
The Florida Skunk Ape, OTOH, is undeniably real!
You have to be very careful about the kinds of people presented as scientific authorities on The Discovery or History Channels. If you pay close attention you’ll see that many of them are identified quite vaguely as “investigators” or “researchers” or the like without any proffered credentials as scientists. When it comes to Bigfoot and ghosts and UFOs and so forth, these shows tend to be quite deliberately misleading about the legitimacy or expertise of people who are really nothing more than amateur enthusiasts, crackpots and con artists. Sometimes people are called “doctors” without any elaboration as to what they have doctorates in and it is not uncommon for such people to either have doctorates in unrelated fields (a medical doctor or mathematician who believes in Noah’s Ark) or even worse, mail order doctorates from fake correspondence schools. I’ve seen them offer up complete and utter frauds like Ron Wyatt as credible scientists without so much as a blink.
Occasionally a real scientist will make a real statement about something which legitimately falls into his area of exertise. In the case of the Bigfoot show it seems we have an accustic expert claiming that an audiotape is a legitimate audiotape of a legitimate noise. It seems this audio expert has said it could be an undiscovered species of primate, but of course, this is really saying nothing at all since he is not an expert in primate noises and is no position to rule out anything. If asked, he would also have to concede that it might be a werewolf.
The credibility of these networks has become so poor on these shows that it makes me question he legitimacy even of shows that do not relate to the supernatural or the “mysterious.”
I’m not convinced that Bigfoot exists, but I must point out that many of the arguments that have been made here were also made in regards to the mountain gorilla.
Also, here is a link that says Jane Goodall believes that Bigfoot exists. That is a pretty prominant scientist. My connection is too slow though to listen to the interview, so I’m not sure if they are properly quoting her. I would be interested in reading or hearing her words on the subject though.
I think there is more proof of leprechauns than of 'Bigfoot". after all, the Irish claim they exist…and what about “Lucky charms” cereal-they feature leprechains!
Here’s another good thread. We even had the (in)famous cryptozoologist, Loren Coleman, posting in it.
See the Staff Report that spawned that thread here:
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mcryptozoo.html
The main issue is not that it’s definately impossible that such creatures could exist. At least with some, they would fit into the biological world in a fairly plausible manner. The problem is that the evidence is so scanty, and the advocates so bizarrely desperate that they’ll spin vast conspiracy stories to explain the lack of good evidence.
There are countless neat beasts out there that we’ve never seen. But the important part is that there are countless more POSSIBLE beasts that we can imagine that don’t exist. The trick is showing that one of the possible ones is real. And there are many more ways to be wrong in trying to do so than there are to be right.
A myth. It was unknown to westerners because westerners had not been to mountain gorilla habitat. The locals, of course, knew of its existence. In the case of Bigfoot, we westerners are the locals.
The link doesn’t work, but I’ve seen her interviewed on the subject and I only remember her saying they might exist. Besides, she’s done ZERO research in Bigfoot habitat, so she’s in no position to speak on the subject with any authority.
I believe that all Goodall really said was that she believed there were still undiscovered primates. If she said she specifically believed in Bigfoot then she said it without the benefit of any scientific evidence or research (and it would be odd if a primatologist thought there was any reason to believe that undiscovered primates existed on a continent where no primatesof any kind have ever been indigenous). She’s a bit eccentric anyway. If I recall correctly, she is an advocate for granting a legal status of “personhood” to primates. I think she might have spent a little too much time in the bush.
I don’t know if anyone bothered reading any of the links I posted this morning, but I was wondering folks thoughts on this (and what the debunk is):
In my defense of watching The Discovery Channel…Mythbusters is also shown there.
-XT
It doesn’t look like they actually named any of these scientists or bothered to acknowledge the fact that the guy in the monkey suit admitted he was a guy in a monkey suit. I have to give the link a big fat :dubious:
Well, I’m finding it hard to track down the ‘scientists’ as well…at least via the web. Wish I had recorded the show so I could at least post the ‘scientists’ to see what they actually are.
I also agree its kind of fishy with reguards to Elvis’s Wiki link that they didn’t mention that someone has claimed to have put on a monkey suit as part of a hoax.
As for the link, they did name the accoustics guy. ‘Dr. Robert Benson, a leading acoustics expert throughout the world’. Anyone know anythin gabout Robert Benson? IS he a leading acoustics expert? He claimed to be…and also an expert on primate sounds.
-XT
One thing that always bothers me is we are quick to dismiss thousands of people who have claimed to see something - and equally quick to embrace one man’s claim that he was in the monkey suit. How much proof does he bring? Where is the monkey suit?
I read that one. So, there’s a bulge on the leg? They don’t say what evidence or logic would lead to the conclusion that this bulge is a hernia. Occam’s razor suggests it’s justs a bulge in a fur suit. Is it poor tailoring? Is the bulge coming unstitched? Is the bulge due to some object carried in the pants of the guy in the fur suit? I can’t say. There is not enough evidence. But considering all the evidence we do have, I can say that it’s a guy in a fur suit. So, there’s a bulge in the fur suit? So what?
We dismiss because of the thousands, nobody has produced hair, bones, or usually even pictures of an unknown primate.
We embrace because in the one film IT TOTALLY LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE A GUY IN A MONKEY SUIT.
I believe that they saw something. I do not believe that something was bigfoot.
Nobody said anything about a monkey suit. We said fur suit. The film is obviously a man in a fur suit.
Did you read the Wikipedia article on him?
Again, fur suit. Secondly, it doesn’t matter. Could the men have produced a fur suit that would look like the one in the film? You bet they could. Occam’s razor cuts their way.
The subject of the film walks like a man. It does nothing a man could not do. The conclusion that it is a man in a fur suit fits all the available facts without inventing new entities.
What happened to the suit afterwards is irrelevant. The suit itself is nothing special. It is the fact that such a suit could be made which matters.
Folks have produced hair, and feces. Analysis always yields that these are the hair and feces of a known animal.
No, it doesn’t. A monkey suit would have a long tail. It’s either an ape suit, or a primate suit. I prefer fur suit. It covers all the possibilities and avoids taxonomical quibbles.
Really? Can we see your evidence that similar arguments were ever made in regards to maintain gorillas.
Scanning this thread there only seem to be 4 claims made outside of jest:
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The film shows a guy in a suit. I doubt anyone has ever made such a claim regarding footage of mountain gorillas.
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The ancestors of large apes leave fossil remains, and none have been found. I doubt anyone made such a claim regarding mountain gorillas since we already had living apes in the same region in addition to numerous fossils.
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Large mammals leave large scats, large carcasses, large amounts of hair etc. None has been found despite intensive searches and testing of specimens collected from sighting locales. I would like to see evidence that someone made such a claim regarding mountain gorillas. As xstime points out, the locals knew about these things and hunted them regularly. I find it hard to believe they would have had trouble finding hair or scat.
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The continent of North Amerca has not yeilded any new species of large animal for over 150 years, how could one as obvious as a carniivorous ape escape detection. While I would still like to see your evidence that such a claim was ever made, if anyone did make this claim WRT mountain gorillas they were lying. The continentof Africa, and even central Africa, has regularly been yielding large mammal species unknoewn to science for thge last 300 years. So I doubt anyone made such a cliam WRT mountain gorillas, but if they did it was clearly untrue.