Jump to content
Join the Unexplained Mysteries community today! It's free and setting up an account only takes a moment.
- Sign In or Create Account -

Bigfoot: real or myth? -- Why? -- Why not?


pokingjoker

Recommended Posts

Now im a fan of cryptids and the what if thought line, and i personally believe bigfoot, sasquatch, yeti, yowie, or whatever name you want to give them are a real possibility. Just because you dont see something doesnt mean it isnt real. i mean cultures all around the world from early man to modern man have tales of sightings, stories, of these creatures, similar to the great apes of africa which we didnt think existed all that long ago. But i digress my reason for posting is simple, id like to get a feel for the people thoughts. So do you think bigfoot exists, why, why not. Please no bashing on others thoughts. thanks!

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Are there gay bigfoots that are better groomed and smell nicer than the usual stinky ones?.... is summat I've been wondering. Bigfoot with a quiff, that sort of thing.

  • Like 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

You said, a 'real possibility' while I would downgrade that to 'a possibility'.

People that live in an urban setting can't perceive that a creature such as that couldn't have been found yet. I live near the end of the road, next to the great unknown. Believe me, there's still a lot of land out there.

That's why I believe that it's still a 'possibility'.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Now im a fan of cryptids and the what if thought line, and i personally believe bigfoot, sasquatch, yeti, yowie, or whatever name you want to give them are a real possibility. Just because you dont see something doesnt mean it isnt real. i mean cultures all around the world from early man to modern man have tales of sightings, stories, of these creatures, similar to the great apes of africa which we didnt think existed all that long ago. But i digress my reason for posting is simple, id like to get a feel for the people thoughts. So do you think bigfoot exists, why, why not. Please no bashing on others thoughts. thanks!

There are cultures all over the world stretching back to early man that also had folklore about dragons. Are we then to believe that dragons are real? Personally I don't put much stock in folklore depicting real or true events or creatures. Chinese whispers alter a story just between a small handful of people, imagine how much a story changes through generations of telling and re-telling.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

There are cultures all over the world stretching back to early man that also had folklore about dragons. Are we then to believe that dragons are real? Personally I don't put much stock in folklore depicting real or true events or creatures. Chinese whispers alter a story just between a small handful of people, imagine how much a story changes through generations of telling and re-telling.

(Off topic regarding dragons) Were the Chinese maybe speaking about dinosaur remains that they knew to be real? Aren't Komodo Dragons real, which were unimaginable until western cultures authenicated them, just a couple hundred years ago?

I don't believe, definitavely, that there are Sasquatch, just in the possibility that there may be.

Edited by Likely Guy
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

While I do see where your coming from. many cultures did indeed perceive a dragon type animal alive and out there why...the obvious answer is there were many skeletons and bones found of dino and newer but unexplained to them. a society that has no real notion of time....stories passed from great great great grandfathers versus thousands to millions of years, so bones must come from a creature of now. Science believes dragons are an instinctual fear of giant snakes and birds of prey combined. Stories of bigfoot date back centuries and persist into to todays modern society and cultures.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bigfoot is nonsense. Firstly, there is no contemporary evidence for it. A few pieces of shaky footage, some footprints and hair samples that don't have DNA in them or are contaminated are not evidence. Secondly, we have no evidence from the fossil record that any ape-like creatures existed in North America. We have a pretty good idea, for instance, about the pleistocene fauna, but there is no bigfoot in the La Brea tar pits, not even a monkey.

Thirdly things about it just don't make sense. Thousands of people have been looking for it in the last fifty or so years, without any success. Let's compare this with another large ape, the Bili Ape. One researcher went to the Congo in the mid-1990s to investigate native stories about a large ape that's not a chimpanzee or a gorilla. On his first trip, he found a skull and managed to buy perfect quality trail camera photos (This one: http://img180.imageshack.us/img180/8696/bondoapenormqi5.jpg compare it with the blobsquatches), take casts of footprints and collect fecal samples. He gathered more evidence in one trip that exists about bigfoot altogether. In 2000, he went back and found ground nests belonging to the animals. After the end of the civil war, yet another trip saw the animals, confirmed them to be an anomalous, isolated population of huge chimpanzees that have been studied ever since. Why was Karl Ammann successful? Because the animals he was looking for were real.

But there are other things that make no sense about bigfoot, all of which have been discussed ad nauseam on these boards. Every anima (including humans)l in the US is hit by cars from time to time, but not bigfoot. There is no sign that bigfoot eats anything, because our understanding of the ecosystem doesn't seem to have an ape-shaped gap. Most bigfoot sightings are near large population centres, which suggests that someone would have taken at least a clear photo of it. Everyone has cameras now.

And I don't really buy that cultures all over the world have such stories. There is a "hairy wild man" archetype in folklore, but its existence doesn't have to refere to anything real (animals are hairy and are wild, so a wild man would also be hairy, to distinguish it from just "man"). I also believe that bigfoot proponents consciously and unconsciously interpret all such stories as bigfoot-like, while in reality there aren't many similarities between the stories, they just project their biases onto these tales.

  • Like 7
Link to comment
Share on other sites

While I do see where your coming from. many cultures did indeed perceive a dragon type animal alive and out there why...the obvious answer is there were many skeletons and bones found of dino and newer but unexplained to them. a society that has no real notion of time....stories passed from great great great grandfathers versus thousands to millions of years, so bones must come from a creature of now. Science believes dragons are an instinctual fear of giant snakes and birds of prey combined. Stories of bigfoot date back centuries and persist into to todays modern society and cultures.

Actually there are modern sightings and stories of dragons, they persist as well. The point is that tribal folklore or legend is often allegorical and doesn't necessarily mean that the 'characters' are real. To use such stories in support of a real creature doesn't lend the mythology any credence in my opinion. The stories are nice but we have no way of knowing if they are anything other than just stories.

Furthermore I believe that it is no coincidence that since the airing of 'crypto' creature shows on channels like Discovery there has been a marked increase of sightings. Since people are thinking about these creatures consciously or subconsciously it tends to 'color' their perception. What would have been a glimpse of some animal has now been transformed into a Bigfoot sighting by way of introduced bias. The psychological aspect of cryptozoology is by far the most fascinating part of it to me.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Trappers were in NW America as early as 1790. The reason they were there was to make money by killing things and selling the hides. No one will ever convince me that these guys would hesitate to shoot and kill a large primate they came across. The rivers and streams were thick with trappers for about 60 years. No bodies, no sightings, no nuttin.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

i don't believe bigfoot exists. by now we would have found a body, a grave, a shelter, something! it's ridiculous to think that they could stay so hidden in so many places around the world.

eyewitness accounts are feeble at best, and one only has to watch the videos offered as proof to know it's a big joke.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

i know a cop in PA and he saw one of these things years ago they are very real.

if something dies in the woods it will be eaten with in a week.

i saw this on a tv show they put a dead deer in the woods with a camera and it was goone in 4 days

Edited by coolguy
Link to comment
Share on other sites

They're real, it's just hard to pin them down when they use dimensional portals to come and go as they please.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Trappers were in NW America as early as 1790. The reason they were there was to make money by killing things and selling the hides. No one will ever convince me that these guys would hesitate to shoot and kill a large primate they came across. The rivers and streams were thick with trappers for about 60 years. No bodies, no sightings, no nuttin.

Don't forget all of the other frontiersmen and cartographers during that era as well. North America has been fairly well covered by man at some point, even the remote areas. :tu:

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bigfoot is nonsense. Firstly, there is no contemporary evidence for it. A few pieces of shaky footage, some footprints and hair samples that don't have DNA in them or are contaminated are not evidence. Secondly, we have no evidence from the fossil record that any ape-like creatures existed in North America. We have a pretty good idea, for instance, about the pleistocene fauna, but there is no bigfoot in the La Brea tar pits, not even a monkey.

Thirdly things about it just don't make sense. Thousands of people have been looking for it in the last fifty or so years, without any success. Let's compare this with another large ape, the Bili Ape. One researcher went to the Congo in the mid-1990s to investigate native stories about a large ape that's not a chimpanzee or a gorilla. On his first trip, he found a skull and managed to buy perfect quality trail camera photos (This one: http://img180.images...oapenormqi5.jpg compare it with the blobsquatches), take casts of footprints and collect fecal samples. He gathered more evidence in one trip that exists about bigfoot altogether. In 2000, he went back and found ground nests belonging to the animals. After the end of the civil war, yet another trip saw the animals, confirmed them to be an anomalous, isolated population of huge chimpanzees that have been studied ever since. Why was Karl Ammann successful? Because the animals he was looking for were real.

But there are other things that make no sense about bigfoot, all of which have been discussed ad nauseam on these boards. Every anima (including humans)l in the US is hit by cars from time to time, but not bigfoot. There is no sign that bigfoot eats anything, because our understanding of the ecosystem doesn't seem to have an ape-shaped gap. Most bigfoot sightings are near large population centres, which suggests that someone would have taken at least a clear photo of it. Everyone has cameras now.

And I don't really buy that cultures all over the world have such stories. There is a "hairy wild man" archetype in folklore, but its existence doesn't have to refere to anything real (animals are hairy and are wild, so a wild man would also be hairy, to distinguish it from just "man"). I also believe that bigfoot proponents consciously and unconsciously interpret all such stories as bigfoot-like, while in reality there aren't many similarities between the stories, they just project their biases onto these tales.

Excellent post.

I would also add, if you believe the Bigfooters, these creatures shouldn't be that rare or even that hard to find.

According to Bigfooters, these things live in every single state/province in North America - and even in many other parts of the world. That would necessitate a breedign population in the tens of thousands to maintain such a diverse population. Where are they? Where do they live? What/where do they eat? Where do they ****? There's just no evidence of these things anywhere.

Do a little test - google "rarest mammal in North America". You'll be taken to information about the Black Footed Ferret. There's roughly 1,000 of these little buggers currently living in the wild. But look what else you find - thousands of pages of really good scientific information on them, their habitat, their lifestyle, mating habits, etc. etc. And, I might add, more than 100,000 crystal clear photographs and videos.

You'll find the same thing with other rare animals, but not Bigfoot.

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bigfoot is nonsense. Firstly, there is no contemporary evidence for it. A few pieces of shaky footage, some footprints and hair samples that don't have DNA in them or are contaminated are not evidence. Secondly, we have no evidence from the fossil record that any ape-like creatures existed in North America. We have a pretty good idea, for instance, about the pleistocene fauna, but there is no bigfoot in the La Brea tar pits, not even a monkey.

If this were a criminal investigation being discussed, everything you just mentioned would be submittable as evidence, however, it is only after the examination by qualified individuals, who have the proper knowledge, training and experience to examine the type of evidence at hand, can it be determined if the evidence is of sufficient quality to be usable, and if so, what that evidence reveals.

Dentists have a high degree of scientific training and education for their line of work, but no one would give them shell casings to examine and then ask for their expert analysis.

In the case of this 'anthropology' investigation, the experts who should be examining the evidence are those who have experience and knowledge in certain fields, including but not limited to; anthropology, primatology, ecology, evolutionary biology, and biomechanics. There are people with such experience who have examined, and continue to examine, the evidence; Jeffrey Meldrum, Grover Krantz, Geoffrey Bourne, John Napier and Jimmy Chilcutt to name a few. They tend to agree that there is an undocumented large primate in North America, but of course a specimen is needed to document it.

Individuals who wish to discount their analyses are free to do so, but it does not refute their analyses in anyway. Those interested in refuting them, should review the same evidence, and be someone with at least the same experience and knowledge, and then detail their own analysis. If not, any statement made is really a personal opinion, and does not lend much.

Thirdly things about it just don't make sense. Thousands of people have been looking for it in the last fifty or so years, without any success. Let's compare this with another large ape, the Bili Ape. One researcher went to the Congo in the mid-1990s to investigate native stories about a large ape that's not a chimpanzee or a gorilla. On his first trip, he found a skull and managed to buy perfect quality trail camera photos (This one: http://img180.images...oapenormqi5.jpg compare it with the blobsquatches), take casts of footprints and collect fecal samples. He gathered more evidence in one trip that exists about bigfoot altogether. In 2000, he went back and found ground nests belonging to the animals. After the end of the civil war, yet another trip saw the animals, confirmed them to be an anomalous, isolated population of huge chimpanzees that have been studied ever since. Why was Karl Ammann successful? Because the animals he was looking for were real.

Ironically, this is an example of a large non-human primate, previously undocumented by science, being recently discovered, is it not?

But there are other things that make no sense about bigfoot, all of which have been discussed ad nauseam on these boards. Every anima (including humans)l in the US is hit by cars from time to time, but not bigfoot.

There are reports of Sasquatch passing in front of vehicles, nearly being hit, and at least two reports of vehicles hitting them.

From the North American Bigfoot Search records.

  • 1996-08-00; FL, Gadsden; road crossing bigfoot hit by state trooper's car and tourists on a bus watch it go into the woods.
  • 1977-08-00; FL, Collier; police car hits a bigfoot, blood, hair found.

While unfortunately no bodies or samples were recovered it seems, these type of accidents have been reported.

There is no sign that bigfoot eats anything, because our understanding of the ecosystem doesn't seem to have an ape-shaped gap.

I am not certain what you are trying to say here.

Most bigfoot sightings are near large population centres, which suggests that someone would have taken at least a clear photo of it. Everyone has cameras now.

While sightings may occur near large population centres, most of them, if any, do not occur within them. Most sightings take place in heavily wooded, or rugged areas, the type of environment most people do not routinely go to. It is not too surprising that many sightings are reported by hunters, campers, or hikers. They are in the right environment.

Contrary to what may be widely believed that everyone owns either a digital camera or some type of mobile device with a built in camera, the fact is, not everyone does.

InfoTrends reported that in 2009, 95% of the cameras purchased were purchased by households that already had one.

Experian reported that in 2011, 227 million people owned a cell phone, but doesn't state if these are devices with cameras or not. If you want to assume they are, then given that the population of the USA was around 311 million in the middle of 2011, that gives about 73% of people owning a cell phone with a camera at the time.

In 2003 only 30% of USA households owned a digital camera.

I do agree that a majority of the population does have either a phone or device capable of imaging, but saying everyone has one is not accurate.

Even when someone has a sighting, not everyone walks around with the device already filming or ready to snap a photo that instant. Sightings that do get captured on film or other imagery, the viewers often had their device out for other reasons.

And I don't really buy that cultures all over the world have such stories. There is a "hairy wild man" archetype in folklore, but its existence doesn't have to refere to anything real (animals are hairy and are wild, so a wild man would also be hairy, to distinguish it from just "man"). I also believe that bigfoot proponents consciously and unconsciously interpret all such stories as bigfoot-like, while in reality there aren't many similarities between the stories, they just project their biases onto these tales.

Have you made a study of these cultural stories and done comparative research, or at least read any comparative research done by other individuals?

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

In the case of this 'anthropology' investigation, the experts who should be examining the evidence are those who have experience and knowledge in certain fields, including but not limited to; anthropology, primatology, ecology, evolutionary biology, and biomechanics. There are people with such experience who have examined, and continue to examine, the evidence; Jeffrey Meldrum, Grover Krantz, Geoffrey Bourne, John Napier and Jimmy Chilcutt to name a few. They tend to agree that there is an undocumented large primate in North America, but of course a specimen is needed to document it.

Individuals who wish to discount their analyses are free to do so, but it does not refute their analyses in anyway. Those interested in refuting them, should review the same evidence, and be someone with at least the same experience and knowledge, and then detail their own analysis. If not, any statement made is really a personal opinion, and does not lend much.

And what of their peers who say that Bigfoot doesn't exist? Are we to ignore their professional opinion in favor of these few? An appeal to authority can go both ways.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

And what of their peers who say that Bigfoot doesn't exist? Are we to ignore their professional opinion in favor of these few? An appeal to authority can go both ways.

Have they reviewed the same evidence? By review, of course, do their own analysis, vs. reading others and discounting it at first glance.

Edited by Insanity
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

i must confess when i started this thread i wasn't sure what type of responses i would get. I would like to thank everyone for the time and thought they have thrown into this. One would think that yes with so many people in america someone would have taken a great photo, or video or proof of some such. I would like to point out one fact. Bigfoot is an wild animal if it exists. Humans are not. We could not compete with a creature in the wild, With that being said there are a few humans who could hunt track survive out there, but our senses are diluted to living in safe communities with many others for safety, while a bigfoot would be solitary, or some believe small family type groups, survival means not being seen heard etc.... I myself use to be an avid outdoorsman, personal injury limited my time outdoors the last few years. you can have a deer or bear or any animal literally 5 feet in front of you and never know it, not always but by the time you bring up the gun the animal is gone, so what difference is a camera vs gun? obviously not always or id be a p*** poor hunter huh., but a successful hunt is done why? knowledge passed throughout the years, observing the animals, outthinking them. now WHAT IF the animal is just as smart as us? or smarter?

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Have they reviewed the same evidence? By review, of course, do their own analysis, vs. reading others and discounting it at first glance.

The inconclusive DNA evidence and the like? What evaluation is there to be made from inconclusive DNA? The hair samples that haven't yielded anything substantial? The depressions in the soil that might be from an actual creature? I'm not even going to bother mentioning the photographic evidence.

Let's not forget the closely guarded evidence that proponents say is definitely conclusive yet those who hold it won't release any of it for independent verification or study. I'm really not seeing anything substantial as far as evidence goes. I do however see people looking to cash in on the myth around every corner. That's not to say that there aren't legitimate researchers out there but one has to wonder how much of the evidence has been flat out fabricated.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

i must confess when i started this thread i wasn't sure what type of responses i would get. I would like to thank everyone for the time and thought they have thrown into this. One would think that yes with so many people in america someone would have taken a great photo, or video or proof of some such. I would like to point out one fact. Bigfoot is an wild animal if it exists. Humans are not. We could not compete with a creature in the wild, With that being said there are a few humans who could hunt track survive out there, but our senses are diluted to living in safe communities with many others for safety, while a bigfoot would be solitary, or some believe small family type groups, survival means not being seen heard etc.... I myself use to be an avid outdoorsman, personal injury limited my time outdoors the last few years. you can have a deer or bear or any animal literally 5 feet in front of you and never know it, not always but by the time you bring up the gun the animal is gone, so what difference is a camera vs gun? obviously not always or id be a p*** poor hunter huh., but a successful hunt is done why? knowledge passed throughout the years, observing the animals, outthinking them. now WHAT IF the animal is just as smart as us? or smarter?

Perhaps, but let me point out that there are an awful lot of wild animals that get strapped across truck hoods, hung on living room walls, and carved up at the dinner table each and every year.

If Bigfoot is just as smart or smarter than us, he would still be found. There just aren't enough places left to hide in North America anymore - particularly given (and I'm beginning to sound like a broken record here) this thing is reportedly SEEN EVERYWHERE.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

i must confess when i started this thread i wasn't sure what type of responses i would get. I would like to thank everyone for the time and thought they have thrown into this. One would think that yes with so many people in america someone would have taken a great photo, or video or proof of some such. I would like to point out one fact. Bigfoot is an wild animal if it exists. Humans are not. We could not compete with a creature in the wild, With that being said there are a few humans who could hunt track survive out there, but our senses are diluted to living in safe communities with many others for safety, while a bigfoot would be solitary, or some believe small family type groups, survival means not being seen heard etc.... I myself use to be an avid outdoorsman, personal injury limited my time outdoors the last few years. you can have a deer or bear or any animal literally 5 feet in front of you and never know it, not always but by the time you bring up the gun the animal is gone, so what difference is a camera vs gun? obviously not always or id be a p*** poor hunter huh., but a successful hunt is done why? knowledge passed throughout the years, observing the animals, outthinking them. now WHAT IF the animal is just as smart as us? or smarter?

None of this is evidence supporting the existence of bigfoot.

I can not imagine an animal as smart or smarter than me that does not use tools or build dwellings. It's the natural progression of things.

We can find millions of year old fossils, we can find 1000's of year old bones, middens, scat, foundations for buildings, arrow heads, stone, bone, wooden and antler tools of all kinds. But we can't find one single bone from a bigfoot?

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think there's something there, a creature we've not yet totally discovered. There's been so many sightings that I personally feel the need to keep an open mind about.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

They're real, it's just hard to pin them down when they use dimensional portals to come and go as they please.

I agree

Link to comment
Share on other sites

i must confess when i started this thread i wasn't sure what type of responses i would get. I would like to thank everyone for the time and thought they have thrown into this. One would think that yes with so many people in america someone would have taken a great photo, or video or proof of some such. I would like to point out one fact. Bigfoot is an wild animal if it exists. Humans are not. We could not compete with a creature in the wild, With that being said there are a few humans who could hunt track survive out there, but our senses are diluted to living in safe communities with many others for safety, while a bigfoot would be solitary, or some believe small family type groups, survival means not being seen heard etc.... I myself use to be an avid outdoorsman, personal injury limited my time outdoors the last few years. you can have a deer or bear or any animal literally 5 feet in front of you and never know it, not always but by the time you bring up the gun the animal is gone, so what difference is a camera vs gun? obviously not always or id be a p*** poor hunter huh., but a successful hunt is done why? knowledge passed throughout the years, observing the animals, outthinking them. now WHAT IF the animal is just as smart as us? or smarter?

If the animal was smarter than us, why would a smarter larger and stronger animal allow us to take the lead? To my understanding, that is not how an apex predator behaves. Would Bigfoot not want a nice house with a fridge, a warm winter fire and a plasma telly?

And if not smarter, why not scavenge our waste like every other animal on the planet?

Y0510E01.jpg

I think if humans found themselves in the wild that they would band together as they always have done to overcome obstacles.

Edited by psyche101
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.