bigfoot... do YOU believe?

[Tenshi no Ai]

So in my anthropology class we had a short discussion on big foot, being this the province in Canada where he's been sighted around, including our southward American neighbours...

Do you believe? More specifically, WHAT do you think it really is?

He's been spotted just out of my town here too, and in some cases been sighted in the middle of nowhere, where it seems like a dumb idea of waiting in the middle of the woods in a monkey suit for many days, waiting for people to fish...

According to my ant teacher, he's found some print and sure, maybe it IS a person who has GIANT feet and well, really hairy too :/ But he also thinks it's the extinct GIANT ape called "gigantopithicus" or whatever it's called. Well whatever it is, the model in the textbook showed it looking like the mass of 2 gorillas in one :/

As for other myths, I don't believe in aliens, (even though werid objects were foudn in town here and filmed, but I have yet to see it) and well, even though a dead plesiosaur was found off the coast of Japan, doubt any would still live in the B.C. interior/Scotland lakes (maybe still in the ocean, who knows...) but as for bigfoot... still scratching my head on that one :/ Definately not some "prehistoric human ancestor" though^^

[Mr. SmartyPants]

Forgive me for saying this... it's quite repetative. But nethertheless 100% true

It's actually Chuck Norris

[Mithrandir]

How ironic. I don't believe in bigfoot as a lost species. I do, however, believe in aliens. Mostly out of my terrible need to try and be humble. Who am *I* to believe the purpose of the universe was to give me a place to play?

Hmm... Now that I think about that, let's not go off on theological tangents here. Don't answer that question. And don't go playing the "Other sheep that are not of this flock/pasture" card either. I'm watching you...

hefts clue-by-four - looks at MSP.

[ChristianKitsune]

I saw on the History Channel once that it's actually very possible that the "Loch Ness Monster" could still be alive..but really just be a dinosaur that got trapped during the ice age...*shrugs* meh.. I think it would be cool if it were real...

Big Foot...hmm...maybe someone just has really bad back hair...all over the place? O.o

[Tenshi no Ai]

Actually, my best guess is that they saw this guy (and no, he's NOT wearing a shirt)

[Puritan]

Other sheep.....I'm so confused Mithrandir. Anyway, I don't know how to evaluate the evidence, but I would suspect "Bigfoot" is a combination of sightings of a number of animals. It seems farfetched to believe there is a new amazing creature hiding in Canada as the area is too well populated for that type of thing to remain unnoticed for this long, in my opinion.

[Joshua Christopher]

Bigfoot sightings are really just BEARS!

And Bears are the number-one threat to America.

[Tenshi no Ai]

It seems farfetched to believe there is a new amazing creature hiding in Canada as the area is too well populated for that type of thing to remain unnoticed for this long, in my opinion.

Well actually, there are wolves in this province but it is VERY hard and rare to ever spot any. They like they're space^^ Yet, I doubt a population of giant monkey-things can go unnoticed, no :/

[Scribs]

I am firmly of the belief that Bigfoot is just a guy in a large monkey suit that got filmed by his friend.

Aliens could exist, but I would suspect that they would be highly unadvanced (as in pond scum.) Why couldnt God have made things like that on other planets?

[Debitt]

I don't really believe in Bigfoot as "the missing link" or anything like that, nor do I particularly believe in him in general. There is a possibility that a creature like that exists - we've only documented a fraction of the animals on the planet, after all.

[SnoringFrog]

I believe Bigfoot could exist, after all, people doubted the existence of the gorilla and the pygmy hippopotamaus too befre they were proved.

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

I'm of the belief that it could be a prehistoric creature like a very small giant sloth or something. After all with the world being only about 6,000 years old there are sure to be a number of 'old' species still existing today. Even if they are small and in isolated areas.

[CDLviking]

I've been in Oregon (his U.S. stomping grounds) for 3 years, and have yet to see or hear from him. I do not particularly believe in him, nor do I particularly doubt his existence. I don't particularly believe or disbelieve aliens either.

[Arnobius]

Well, things like Bigfoot and Nessie, given how long people saw sightings, the creature would have to be either really old, or a species living there. How likely is the species thing? too be self sustaining, it would have a population large enough to have been discovered by now.

I think more likely that the myth is self fulfilling. People see something and atribute it to the creature, add in hoaxes and you can have a real self perpetuating story without evidence.

Remember the crop circles in England that turned out to be a hoax.

[Nate]

And considering the guy who took the first picture of the Loch Ness Monster said on his deathbed that the photo that started the craze was faked...

[White Raven]

I’m on the fence about bigfoot but I love Cryptozoology and I thought this was kinda interesting.
http://bfro.net/news/silver_star_mountain.asp

[Sammy Boy]

When thinking about the existence of entities such as these, I think it'd be good for us to think about what knowledge or evidence we have concerning them.

I have read some websites regarding Bigfoot sightings by various people (including those who hunt game regularly). But I'm not a hunter or an expert in animal identification myself, have never lived in parts of the world where Bigfoot sightings have occurred, so anything I say about them is pretty much based on ignorance.

My personal opinion is that they could exist, as I think it is still possible for undiscovered animals (even fairly large ones) to roam this earth.

[Mr. SmartyPants]

\And don't go playing the "Other sheep that are not of this flock/pasture" card either. I'm watching you...

hefts clue-by-four - looks at MSP.

XDD sorry sorry

On a more on-topic note: You know all those books and interet websites with pictures of "bigfoot" and stuff. I guess they could either be: 1. Faked with a guy in a costume. 2. Some other funky monkey-type thing. or... possibly there is a big-foot? I guess the same would apply with The Loch Ness Monster. I think it would be cool if there was a real bigfoot and loch ness monster though.

[Stephen]

The truth is, Bigfoot is Chuck Norris, when he takes his shirt off. (And those who know the second part of that joke...DON'T say it)

[Silvanis]

Bigfoot could exist I suppose, as an undiscovered species or something. I don't think it's some sort of supernatural thing though.

[mitsuki lover]

People didn't believe that the Mountain Gorilla existed either until they discovered them living in Africa.
The fact that there are several similiar creatures(Sasquatch,Winnebago,
Yeti,etc.)all over the world makes it hard not to believe there is something in the tales.I mean it would be hard to believe that people from so many different cultures would deliberately create similiar tales of hairy ape men
without there being something behind it all.
True there is yet to be found a carcass or other physical remains of a Bigfoot but remember these creatures are spotted out in the wilds where it is usually hard to get to.
Any evidence would be destroyed by wild animals,especially scavangers such as wolves and coyotes looking for a meal.
As far as aliens go.
Yes,I believe it is possible that there are other humanlike creatures else where in the universe.Then again I also believe that we might in fact be living in a Multiverse instead of just one single universe.

[Nate]

As far as dinosaurs, I find it EXTREMELY unlikely that they would exist today, because I find it hard to believe they would've lived through the Ice Age. Not saying it's impossible, just unlikely.

[Tenshi no Ai]

As far as dinosaurs, I find it EXTREMELY unlikely that they would exist today, because I find it hard to believe they would've lived through the Ice Age. Not saying it's impossible, just unlikely.

http://groups.msn.com/talkorigins/20thcenturydinosaurs.msnw
(Check out a couple of those carcass pics) Not so much the first two, cause they could easily be an awkward shaped log floating around (I think that's what it was, wasn't it?)

Kinda funny though cause we have a lake here and with this log that was poking out of the water, and some guy decided to stick moose antlers on it (and from far away it DID look like a moose in the water, but we knew it was a log). Of course there's no moose on the island here, but torists thought it would be fun to take pictures of it^^

[Tommy]

It`s the actor that played Chewbacca. Yes, the actor that played Chewbacca was selected for his appearence.

I`m just kidding obviously, but did you know the actor that played Chewbacca became a US citizen this last year? XD

[Technomancer]

And don't go playing the "Other sheep that are not of this flock/pasture" card either. I'm watching you

I had some lamb meatballs for dinner last night. Does that count? They were very good.

As far as the existence of the sasquatch goes, I've never seen any convincing evidence and eyewitness reports are notoriously unreliable. The area of the pacific northwest is fairly well mapped and settled, and is also the site of numerous extensive logging operations. The notion that such a large animal (however intelligent) would someone evade scientific notice, and leave no unambiguous traces of its existence would seem hard to credit. Keep in mind also that there are no human or hominid finds in North America that predate the late Pleistocene, so there are some very serious costraints on when/how such a creature could have arrived on this continent particularly if it does not make or use tools at least as sophisticated as those dating from the upper Paleolithic.

As far as Nessie goes, it is likely that it does not exist. Various side-scan sonar surveys have been done of the area, as well as less sophisticated observations and again, there is no clear evidence of its existence. Many of the purported photos of the monster are known to be fakes, and others can be explained on the basis of more mundane things. Given that during the last ice age, the region would also have been under a large ice cap, it is also unlikely that any large animals would have survived.

edit: Please note that the carcass pic of the supossed Pleisosaur is generally believed to be a basking shark, which is known to decay in that fashion.

[Nate]

http://groups.msn.com/talkorigins/20thcenturydinosaurs.msnw
(Check out a couple of those carcass pics) Not so much the first two, cause they could easily be an awkward shaped log floating around (I think that's what it was, wasn't it?)

Sorry, I'm a skeptic, those pictures aren't enough to convince me.

Also, plesiosaurs aren't technically dinosaurs. So even if that WAS a plesiosaur carcass, my statement that dinosaurs wouldn't have lived through the Ice Age still stands.

(P.S. Any site that has a picture of the Loch Ness Monster, which by now is a known hoax, also loses credibility points in my book)

EDIT: And whoa, basking sharks are pretty freaky looking. o.o;;

[Fionn Fael]

Honestly, I have no idea whether or not Bigfoot (AKA Sasquatch, The Yeti, etc.) actually exists. I find it unlikely that it would survive so long without coming into human contact more often, but I suppose it's possible. Anything's possible, right?

As for aliens and the Loch Ness Monster... Well, I find it highly more plausible that extra-terrestrials would exist somewhere than the other two creatures discussed, but I don't know if I believe that they're real, either. Bottom line- it would be incredibly cool(but maybe a bit scary) if all three were, in fact, real!

[Alice]

I "believe" in "undiscovered" species, such as dinosaurs (mokele-mbembe, for one), and "bigfoot." ("Believe," as in think they are real and not hoaxes. "Undiscovered" as in not widely acknowledged by scientists.)

I like to watch the National Geographic Channel. I found their program on Bigfoot especially helpful. There was an expert on animal footprints who examined several bigfoot footprint castings from years apart and different parts of the US. In his expert opinion, the patterns on the footprint would have been nearly impossible to fake, and were from no known animal -- but appeared to be from a primate. (I wish y'all could see the program! It was very interesting.)

The show solidified my belief that large, unknown primates could easily exist, yes, even in America. (I'm sure that was not the intent of the show, though. And if "Bigfoots" do exist, they are almost certainly as intelligent as gorillas, and probably an endangered species.)

The National Geographic Channel takes a much dimmer view of living dinosaurs (such as Nessie).

But from my own research, reading, and personal beliefs, I think they exist. Mokele-mbembe is acknowledged as real by native peoples in Africa, but because western scientists don't have the dead body of one, it *must* be superstitious nonsense, right??

As someone else said earlier, scientists thought gorillas were fake for a long time, too. (The natives *must* have made it up!)

On one National Geographic program (about non-Nessie lake-monsters) one guy who "believed" in them said, "If eyewitness reports are so unreliable, there's not a jury in the world that should be able to convict." And he had a point. We learn things from eyewitness reports. They are not enough to prove things to "science," but they are enough to say we should be investigating these things more.

And one of the main reasons "we" (i.e. "science") doesn't, is in my opinion because of evolution! One of the main arguments for no dinosaurs surviving today is because "they couldn't possibly have survived unchanged for millions of years." (Even though there are other creatures who have, such as the coelacanth.) In my opinion, this is plain narrow-mindedness. The coelacanth alone should be enough to prove that theory (that nothing could have survived) wrong.

I also think that dinosaurs were mentioned in the Bible. Although the word "dinosaur" hadn't been invented yet, the word "dragon" had. Read the description of the creature Leviathan in Job 41. (I use the KJV because it is one version that doesn't try to pretend the creature is one known today.) Read the description of it and tell me that's a hippo -- or anything else it's popularly translated as!

Also -- cultures all over the earth have had dragon legends, and stories of dragons, for a long, long time, often with remarkably similar creatures in them. (Although the motives of the creatures often varied. But that has more to do with cultural interpretations of animals than with science.) A scientist once tried to explain all these remarkably similar legends by saying that people probably saw dinosaur fossils, and made up legends about the creatures they came from. Please. Isn't it at least reasonable to say that some of our ancestors may have had contact with actual dinosaurs, which they called dragons?

And isn't it possible that some of those dinosaurs could have survived? Granted that they are mostly large, and probably cold-blooded, they would probably need large, warm areas of undisturbed wilderness to survive in. Mokele-mbembe in the jungle in Africa is one creature that could easily be discovered as being a modern-day dinosaur, if it was not so easily dismissed by "science."

Since I'm confining this post to cryptozoology, I just want to add that I think grouping aliens, bigfoot, and Nessie together is one of the reasons cryptozoology gets so little respect. Next comes ESP, out-of-body experiences, and astrology. I think the subject should be kept to cryptozoology or aliens -- or whatever -- not several subjects clumped together. They can't be investigated together, so why do people clump them together as if they were one and the same thing?

(I'm talking about popular culture, not you guys doing it -- I'm just complaining that they often clumped together!)

Note to Kaemmerite: The "doctor photo" of Nessie didn't start the craze. It actually came about when a newspaper hired a famous animal tracker to get a photo of the animal because sightings had been reported so much! The photographer faked footprints using a hippo foot, and was later found out. He got mad at the paper, and decided to get even. He enlisted the help of his friend, a doctor who loved practical jokes, and thus came about that famous, faked photo. (Source National Geographic Channel, again, although I'm sure it could be authenticated elsewhere as well.)

[Nate]

The "doctor photo" of Nessie didn't start the craze. It actually came about when a newspaper hired a famous animal tracker to get a photo of the animal because sightings had been reported so much!

The first recorded modern sighting occurred on May 2, 1933. The newspaper Inverness Courier carried a story of Mr. and Mrs. John Mackay, who reportedly saw "an enormous animal rolling and plunging on the surface." The report of the "monster" (a word chosen by the editor of the Courier) became a media sensation with London papers sending reporters to Scotland, and a circus even offering a reward of £20,000 for capture of the monster. It was at this point that the belief in a monster-inhabited Loch Ness first began to take form.

Sightings hadn't been reported "much." It was two people who reportedly saw an animal.

Also...

In July 2003, the BBC reported an extensive investigation of Loch Ness by a BBC team, using 600 separate sonar beams, found no trace of any "sea monster" (i.e., any large animal, known or unknown) in the loch.

Mythical as it may be, if it's an animal, it can't avoid sonar beams, which proves that Nessie is complete myth. Not that it's a bad thing, or that people should just say, "It's not true, move on with your life." I mean, it's like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. No real harm in believing in them. They're not real, of course, but if people want to believe in a fantasy creature, that's fine.

Also, it is not my intention to start a debate about Biblical translations, but I thought I would comment on this as well.

Read the description of the creature Leviathan in Job 41. (I use the KJV because it is one version that doesn't try to pretend the creature is one known today.)

The KJV also translates a Hebrew word for oxen as "unicorn." If you don't believe me, pull out your KJV and read Numbers 23:22, Numbers 24:8, Deuteronomy 33:17, Job 39:9...there's a whole lot more. If one were to read the Bible with little knowledge of the original text, they might think the Bible was referring to the one-horned horse of legend!

Therefore, I still stand by my belief that Job does not refer to a dinosaur at all, and that dinosaurs and people never coexisted.

One of the main arguments for no dinosaurs surviving today is because "they couldn't possibly have survived unchanged for millions of years."

And as I mentioned, the Ice Age. It's highly doubtful that cold-blooded creatures could have lived through such extreme temperatures. Do a little research on cold-blooded animals and you'll see why. It's logic as to why dinosaurs died out millions of years ago, not because of a theory.

As for Mokele-mbembe, it has a little more credence to its theory than other sightings because 1) the climate in the rainforests could have allowed for dinosaurs to survive and 2) there is a lot more hiding space for dinosaurs there than in other areas. I don't dismiss Mokele-mbembe, because there is no evidence one way or the other, but I am skeptical as to it truly being a dinosaur (though I will not say that it definitely isn't).

Finally, you can't blame science for being so skeptical. Science is a system of acquiring knowledge – based on empiricism, experimentation, and methodological naturalism. Is something can't be verified in an experiment, science really can't do much with it. It's the way of science, and it isn't their fault.

[Technomancer]

[B][size=100]And one of the main reasons "we" (i.e. "science") doesn't, is in my opinion because of evolution! One of the main arguments for no dinosaurs surviving today is because "they couldn't possibly have survived unchanged for millions of years." (Even though there are other creatures who have, such as the coelacanth.)

That is entirely incorrect]no such thing[/i]. What evolutionary theory tells us is that in the absence of selective pressure (e.g. a static environment), then there should be no substantial changes in the population. However, our knowledge of earth history shows that there have been major environmental shifts not only involving asteroid impacts, but also through continental drift, and ice ages. As I mentioned previously, some of these events place serious constraints on where certain creatures might be expected to have lived.

Combine these events with the total absence of hard evidence supporting the existence of such creatures, and the reason for biologists' skepticism becomes clear. It is not through "narrow-mindedness", or idealogical persuasions that scientists have hithero looked askance at the claims of so-called crypto-zoologists, but rather through the utter failure of these proponents to furnish even a single shred of physical evidence to support their claims.