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I'll believe in bigfoot when I see bigfoot. I have seen UFO's, on one occasion at close range in broad daylight, so I do believe those are here, but I've yet to see a bigfoot, and until I do I remain skeptical.
LOL: as well you should. Everyone needs a cause or hobby, though.
This one is up there with flying saucer conspiracies. No evidence whatsoever that passes the scientific method sniff-test.
"Absence of proof implies a government cover-up and/or conspiracy" is my personal favorite rebuttal to such fare...also used by the "gang stalking" crowd.
To the matter at hand: I've prowled PacNW wilderness for years. Strangest things out there are people, by a long shot. They're easy enough to spot, and can't easily be avoided.
I'm sure, however, I've missed a lot by not turning on my "game eye", so to speak. What I've seen that is plain as day has been interesting enough, though nothing radically weird: mostly deer, and invariably running away. Have not seen a cougar, though they're out there. I figure they have better things to do than hunt me.
I've seen bear, coyote, and deer scat. They're not shy about leaving it around. Bigfoot, though? Nuh uh. Nor any other signs.
At all.
Ever.
"That doesn't prove it doesn't exist," but again: going to top of my comments, such thinking is conspiracy theory / wacko nonsense along the lines of "alien visitations." Out in Nevada, when younger and roving the desert (mining geologist, 1990s), I did with my own eyes see some rather odd vehicles flying around...and 100.0% belonged to the U.S. Air Force, btw. A B-52 flying at 2,000' above the deck, or F-117 Wobbly Goblins, or U.S. fighters in Soviet Union garb mixing it up with F-15s during Red Flag exercises was weird enough. These things, I've seen.
Flying Saucers carrying Bigfoot, or whatnot: not so much.
I am a firm believer in Bigfoot. I think we have SO MUCH unused, really unexplored land in this country that many of us cannot fathom because a lot of us live in high urban cities, and that Bigfoots mainly stick to this land. I also think that Bigfoots are quite rare, maybe only 500-1000 in the US? So, do I think A LOT of the stories are either fabricated or scared-misidentification? Yes, of course. I would say only about 1/10th of stories sent to sites like the BFRO are legit. However, I will say this, I think Bigfoots are smarter than humans and thus can outsmart us. They know where to die so we don't find them and they are smart enough to not get hit by moving vehicles. Just a thought...
As i have said several times over. In this sport YMMV. The thrill of hearing one scream is priceless. Seeing large trees shaken like a 6ft Christmas tree, having rocks thrown at you. When these things happen or you actually see one you have a priceless experience. Something circling camp in the dark and tramping down brush so thick that you know that no man could be doing that.
I love it. Not for the faint at heart.
I know that feeling... there was nothing like living in a bona fide haunted house to turn this skeptic into a believer of a bigger universe than I had ever imagined before.
If you chase the thing though and if it exists, you can pretty much guarantee you aren't dealing with a natural creature from our reality. That changes the rules of the game *a wee bit*. Just sayin'.
Maybe "Bigfoot" is something more than a hairy missing link. Maybe they're the descendants of the Nephilim of the Bible, the union of Angels and man, what were called Giants. They might have supernatural powers and can go unseen or can cloud mens minds. They might be nearly immortal as well. Weren't they made to be outcasts, exiled to the wilderness?
If Bigfoot exists as a flesh-and-blood large mammal, it's subject to the same laws of nature as other large mammals. That includes many more factors than just the availability of food resources (which is what most Bigfoot conversations on this forum seem to revolve around).
Suppose Bigfoot came across the Asian land bridge with humans back at the last ice age. What has it faced as a species since then? Fragmentation of habitat; as humans conquered the continent it has become more of a patchwork of natural and managed habitat, rather than the vast swaths of stable, climax ecosystems that once characterized the continent.
The major areas of Bigfoot activity seem to be in the Pacific Northwest, regions of Oklahoma, and the Big Bend area in Texas. You might add Florida to this, though my suspicion is that what you have there is a breeding population of feral chimps escaped from captivity. There would be little or no genetic exchange between these major areas of population; from an evolutionary perspective, they're islands. Those who claim there are Bigfoots everywhere are most likely kidding themselves; if they exist, they're probably not walking hundreds of miles through heavily populated lands to look for a mate because of the danger involved.
Isolated populations must have more than a certain number of individuals to be viable, both due to the larger effect of perturbations like disease and natural disasters, and the effects of genetic drift in an isolated interbreeding population. Ecosystems and species require genetic diversity to survive. The field of conservation biology provides mathematical models for calculating this number. The question then becomes: if it requires N Bigfoots to have a healthy breeding population that can last for thousands of years, do the "islands" they inhabit produce enough biomass (and of the right types) to support them?
Then there's the question of competition. If you put two species that overlap in their diets and living habits in the same area, they'll either evolve away from each other or one will go extinct. That's why as you go up in a forest canopy you find different species living at different levels in the trees ... and why if two species depend on the same resources, they'll likely hunt those resources at different times of the day (or in different seasons), or one will shift its strategy to differentiate from its competitor.
What all this suggests is, if flesh and blood Bigfoot really exists, it's in isolated populations all of which may very well be on the edge of extinction. All of the questions implied above could be analyzed using Bigfoot reports, and the calculations routinely made by conservation biologists to determine species viability. Has this sort of analysis been done? As far as I know, no it hasn't (though a well-known professor of ecology suggested to a fellow grad student and me back in the 70s that an ecological study of the Pacific Northwest to investigate the viability of a Bigfoot population there could probably be funded, if we chose to pursue it). Instead, we have little more than ambiguous evidence, and personal testimonies. Which are nice, but they're not evidence from the perspective of science.
Location: Subconscious Syncope, USA (Northeastern US)
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Thing is, there isnt that much wilderness left. Im not saying bigfoot isnt real but...how come we have no proof of them really? Only debateable, and often grainy and shadowy film and castings.
We have proof dinosaurs existed, although none of us have ever seen one in the wild. We have museums full of their bones.
Hunters have encountered them, and there are even tales of them becoming violent and destroying cabins while people slept inside, yet in all this time no hunter has ever killed or trapped one?
No bigfoot graves ever? They exist perpetually? No natural disaster, large predator, or even ilness befalls them? They would never get hit by a train or truck? No old age?
Asian monks claimed to have a Yeti scalp hat, which proved to be made from the hump of an ox.
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Sightings have been mapped out, and mostly coincide with prime bear habitat. You'd think there would be some competition, that occasionally there would be fights to the death leaving either mauled bears or Squatch corpses, and eventually bones. And as mentioned above, in all the history of automobiles, especially logging trucks in those areas, at least one or two of them should have been killed. But there have been no bones found, even though as Coney notes we have zillions of dinosaur fossils, and the bones of every other species, including primates, and Neanderthals who buried their dead ...... as have humans going back for tens of thousands of years. Yet we've found plenty of bones of Neanderthals and humans that had been carefully buried, as Squatches are presumed to do to avoid detection.
"They know where to go to die"?! Even when they've been killed instantly, say by a truck or a hunter? If I knew where I was going to die, I simply wouldn't go there. Ever.
"They know where to go to die"?! Even when they've been killed instantly, say by a truck or a hunter? If I knew where I was going to die, I simply wouldn't go there. Ever.
What I was saying was that they are too smart to be killed by a hunter. I believe they are more intelligent than us. And hunters have had their rifles scoped on a bigfoot before but couldn't shoot, it was just too human-like.
What I was saying was that they are too smart to be killed by a hunter.
Quote:
yet in all this time no hunter has ever killed or trapped one?
Not true. One hunter has claimed to have shot and killed two, one being a young one which he and his mate buried. When they went back to recover the remains, only some hair was left which was allegedly sent to a lab for analyses. I don't remember the outcome. That story was on a documentary. Total BS or some truth? Who knows?
As for bio-viability, how many deer are there running around in the US? Several million I should think. No shortage of food out there. Speaking of deer, how many deer bones are found lying around in the dense, wet forests? Bones decay very fast in wet environments plus they get buried or covered and dragged away.
Location: Subconscious Syncope, USA (Northeastern US)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 303Guy
Not true. One hunter has claimed to have shot and killed two, one being a young one which he and his mate buried. When they went back to recover the remains, only some hair was left which was allegedly sent to a lab for analyses. I don't remember the outcome. That story was on a documentary. Total BS or some truth? Who knows?
As for bio-viability, how many deer are there running around in the US? Several million I should think. No shortage of food out there. Speaking of deer, how many deer bones are found lying around in the dense, wet forests? Bones decay very fast in wet environments plus they get buried or covered and dragged away.
Im not a hunter, but I think any hunter would have something like that taxidermied. Who has a bigfoot in their 'stuffed animal' collection? Maybe someone does, I dont know. Imagine the value of such a prize though. I dont think Im an overly intelligent person either, but I would think any number of institutions would be interested in such a thing for anything from research to displays in museums or even private collections.
In many states that have had bigfoot sightings, Kentucky as an example, there are mountains, with large networks of caves. Those caves are damp, but associated mineralization has a way of fossilizing rather than destroying even flesh. I believe in Luray Caverns in VA the body of a boy that proved to be thousands of years old was found in a sitting position, as if he had gotten lost, and died where he sat. Perhaps gases overtook him. Often times animals and even people will retreat to caves to die, yet again, no bigfoot has been found by splunkers or miners in such a fossilized state.
Okay, I guess one could say no bigfoot is dumb enough to get lost in a cave. You could even theorize they have ESP or something to help them find each other.
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