(12-19-2023, 12:30 AM)putnam6 Wrote: Not arguing good to have you here BTW, just discussing so Jeff Meldrum is completely unequivocally wrong. What about the Elkins Creek footprints or the cripple foot casts? both would take more than a rudimentary knowledge of how the foot works down to the dermal ridges and the skeletal structure of the foot.
Thousands of carved wooden or faked footprints? Just takes one pair for it to exist
I appreciate your life experiences but how convinced are you? Would you bet your house, on it being a complete myth? 10 years ago the consensus was the government would never acknowledge UFOs/UAPs.
Alaska is #8 in sightings per capita, but admittedly their diversity of fauna would no doubt lead to some misidentifications on the other hand Alaskans mostly know their shit when it comes to the great outdoors.
I think where I started to look at the possibility came from reading Raincoast Sasquatch some very compelling stories from times and places before the subject became so monetized and popular.
a podcast recounts lots of stories from the book...
[Video: https://youtu.be/3m70O6lL_6s?si=14XbAXHdX3IAZmfS]
I do apologize, but I'm not really set up to watch video. I listen to it sometimes but transcripts are more useful.
And yes, I disagree, as I've said, as do many others (although I am not an associate professor of anthropology, I have a graduate degree in anthropology and I've taught human anatomy to medical students). Jane Goodall (in the interview that he did with her) said she had a "romantic belief" that Bigfoot existed. I don't sneer at romantic beliefs - but I treat them more like I do Native American religious stories... i.e. I don't believe that the stars were placed in the sky by an infinitely huge Coyote tossing them out of his blanket. I believe in coyotes (I've seen and heard them), I believe multiple Native Americans have stories of a spirit called Coyote and that one could essentially "call that spirit inside oneself" similar to the way that loas ride the believers in a Voodoo (religion) ceremony.
So... a psychology that helps one. I can even see that one might see Coyote in a dream or a trance.
But I don't believe that a humanoid deity with a coyote head is out there walking around, causing trouble and shanking things up.
So... why not?
Tons of manufactured evidence. Inconsistent evidence. Lack of physical evidence. Improbable biological niches. Inconsistent behavior.
I think we can agree that there's tons of fakes out there.
But if you look at real (proven) rare animals, you don't find people faking sightings. They don't need to. There's evidence in markets, for instance (skins, carcasses, meat (here's one:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/anima...0as%20meat.)
And Bigfoot's around the size of a bear... so it'd be rather hard to miss as wildlife corridors shrink and cities and farmland expands. There should be complete pelts, for instance (like the Okapi... another legendary animal that turned out to be real).
Instead, we get fake artifacts.
DNA evidence... the ones that have been studied by multiple teams (including teams of skeptics) have only turned up things that weren't Bigfoot (like bear hair, goat, etc
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/1....2014.0161)
It'll get worse. I just found out (by searching) that there's lots of "Bigfoot track maker" shoes and footwear out there:
https://metro.co.uk/2012/04/17/animal-fo...ow-391441/ There's even an "Instructables" for making your own plaster cast Bigfoot foot print, and it looks a lot like the fakes we've seen before:
https://www.instructables.com/Bigfoot-footprint-cast/
It's not in a single environment, but in multiple environments that are fairly incompatible -- so it's somehow global (like humans and cockroaches) without adaptations to survive in those areas (try running around the Louisiana swamps in a fur coat and you'll see what I mean.)
Its behavior depends on who's hunting it (here I'm thinking of the discovery of "nests" and so forth.)
The woods and plains of America (and other places) have been extensively hunted by professional hunters (and loads of amateurs) for hundreds of years and no body/pelt has ever been turned in that was genuine. This is unlikely... if you read tales of true discoveries, you'll find that some of the people indigenous to the area knew about the animals and had been hunting them for a long time (hence finding them in "bush meat markets.") So there should have been (from more than a hundred years ago) verifiable evidence of them.
The idea that scientists would hide evidence isn't plausible. The first person to prove Bigfoot is going to go down in history. They (or their institution) will be flooded with money for more research. There would be international efforts to preserve them in their habitat and discussions about how to integrate them with human society. The scientist(s) who proved it would be on talk shows and tv and ... heck, everywhere. Their books (no matter how badly written) would be international bestsellers.
Anyway, that's why I don't find it plausible.
But we can discuss specific points if you like; examine some of what you think is strong evidence.