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Tyranos
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Topic: Forensic Expert Says Bigfoot Is Real Posted: 15-Oct-2007 at 08:48 |
Dont know if this has been posted before, this is from 2003, but a interesting piece:
Forensic Expert Says Bigfoot Is Real
Stefan Lovgren for National Geographic News
October 23, 2003
It's been the subject of campfire stories for decades. A camera-elusive, grooming-challenged, bipedal ape-man that roams the mountain regions of North America. Some call it Sasquatch. Others know it as Bigfoot.
Thousands of people claim to have seen the hairy hominoid, but the evidence of its existence is fuzzy. There are few clear photographs of the oversized beast. No bones have ever been found. Countless pranksters have admitted to faking footprints.
Yet a small but vociferous number of scientists remain undeterred. Risking ridicule from other academics, they propose that there's enough forensic evidence to warrant something that has never been done: a comprehensive, scientific study to determine if the legendary primate actually exists.
"Given the scientific evidence that I have examined, I'm convinced there's a creature out there that is yet to be identified," said Jeff Meldrum, a professor of anatomy and anthropology at Idaho State University in Pocatello.
Thousands of Sightings
Sasquatch stories go back centuries. Tales of mythical giant apes lurk in the oral traditions of most Native American tribes, as well as in Europe and Asia. The Himalaya has its Abominable Snowman, or the Yeti. In Australia, Bigfoot is known as the Yowie Man.
Bigfoot advocates hypothesize that the primate is the offspring of an ape from Asia that wandered to North America during the Ice Age. They believe there are at least 2,000 ape men walking upright in North America's woods today.
An adult male is said to be at least 8 feet (2.4 meters) tall, weigh 800 pounds (360 kilograms), and have feet twice the size of a human's. The creatures are described as shy and nocturnal, and their diets consist mostly of berries and fruits.
Matt Moneymaker had been searching for Bigfoot for years. In the woods of eastern Ohio, he claims he finally came eye to eye with the elusive primate.
"It was 2 o'clock in the morning and the moon was a quarter full," recalled Moneymaker. "Suddenly, there he was, an eight-foot-tall creature, standing 15 feet away, growling at me. He wanted to let me know I was in the wrong place."
Moneymaker, who lives in Dana Point in southern California, is a lawyer who runs his own marketing agency. In his spare time, he leads the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, a network of more than 3,000 people who claim to have seen the Sasquatch.
Unfortunately, no one has been able to snap a clear picture of the beast.
Perhaps the most compelling photographic evidence of Bigfoot is a controversial short film shot by Roger Patterson in 1967, which appears to document a female Bigfoot striding along a riverbank in northern California.
"It certainly wasn't human"
Now, Bigfoot advocates are increasingly turning to forensic evidence to prove the existence of the giant creature.
Investigator Jimmy Chilcutt of the Conroe Police Department in Texas, who specializes in finger- and footprints, has analyzed the more than 150 casts of Bigfoot prints that Meldrum, the Idaho State professor, keeps in a laboratory.
Chilcutt says one footprint found in 1987 in Walla Walla in Washington State has convinced him that Bigfoot is real.
"The ridge flow pattern and the texture was completely different from anything I've ever seen," he said. "It certainly wasn't human, and of no known primate that I've examined. The print ridges flowed lengthwise along the foot, unlike human prints, which flow across. The texture of the ridges was about twice the thickness of a human, which indicated that this animal has a real thick skin."
Meldrum, meanwhile, says a 400-pound (180-kilogram) block of plaster known as the Skookum Cast provides further evidence of Bigfoot's existence. The cast was made in September 2000 from an impression of a large animal that had apparently lain down on its side to retrieve some fruit next to a mud hole in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in Washington State.
Meldrum says the cast contains recognizable impressions of a forearm, a thigh, buttocks, an Achilles tendon and heel. "It's 40 to 50 percent bigger than a normal human," he said. "The anatomy doesn't jive with any known animal."
A few academics believe Meldrum could be right.
Renowned chimpanzee researcher Jane Goodall last year surprised an interviewer from National Public Radio when she said she was sure that large, undiscovered primates, such as the Yeti or Sasquatch, exist.
The Skeptics
But the vast majority of scientists still believe Bigfoot is little more than supermarket tabloid fodder. They wonder why no Bigfoot has ever been captured, dead or alive.
"The bottom line is, they don't have a body," said Michael Dennett, who writes for Skeptical Inquirer magazine and who has followed the Bigfoot debate for 20 years.
Bigfoot buffs note that it's rare to find a carcass of a grizzly bear in the wild. While that's true, grizzlies have not escaped photographic documentation.
Hair samples that have been recovered from alleged Bigfoot encounters have turned out to come from elk, bears or cows.
Many of the sightings and footprints, meanwhile, have proved to be hoaxes.
After Bigfoot tracker Ray Wallace died in a California nursing home last year, his children finally announced that their prank-loving dad had created the modern myth of Bigfoot when he used a pair of carved wooden feet to create a track of giant footprints in a northern California logging camp in 1958.
Dennett says he's not surprised by the flood of Bigfoot sightings.
"It's the same kind of eyewitness reports we see for the Loch Ness Sea Monster, UFOs, ghosts, you name it," he said. "The monster thing is a universal product of the human mind. We hear such stories from around the world."
Edited by Tyranos - 15-Oct-2007 at 08:49
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Knights
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Posted: 15-Oct-2007 at 08:55 |
I'm still not convinced I must say. It'd be interesting if it does exist though.
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Siege Tower
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Posted: 16-Oct-2007 at 01:41 |
Is there a photo that can prove their existance, because i am still not convinced.
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Crystall
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Posted: 16-Oct-2007 at 03:56 |
All the bigfeet, werewolves, chupacabras, and the loche ness monster are hiding in one cave.. waiting for us to find them : )
I think they can exsist (well not werewolf), but only if body/actually caught
Edited by Crystall - 16-Oct-2007 at 03:56
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Adalwolf
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Posted: 18-Oct-2007 at 01:03 |
Of course bigfoot exists. There are sightings all over Canada and the US, and of Bigfoot like creatures all over the world.
They are real.
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Seko
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Posted: 18-Oct-2007 at 01:52 |
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Adalwolf
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Posted: 18-Oct-2007 at 02:01 |
Haha, Seko, I'm eating some Jack Links right now!
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cattus
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Posted: 22-Oct-2007 at 20:55 |
Im convinced. One day we all will know.
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Seko
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Posted: 22-Oct-2007 at 21:09 |
A few of the popular Bigfoot names: Sasquatch (pacific northwest), Yeti - abonimable snowman (himilayas), Foucke Monster (Arkansas), Skunk Ape (everglades), Yowie (australia), Old Yellow Top (Canada), Orange Mawas (Malaysia), Momo (Missouri), The Wild Woman Of The Navidad (Texas),
Seems that the history channel has gone bonkers with a bunch of Bigfoot shows lately. Fun stuff. Some wild noises on record, foot casts, hair samples and hand prints. Yet nothing difinitive and conclusive is summarized in thhose shows.
I would like to see a Bigfoot at the zoo, museum or even a video from the world news. Being a skeptic is safe. I don't think I would want to run into one in the woods though. Messin' with mystery is better than the real thing.
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pekau
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Posted: 23-Oct-2007 at 02:23 |
I do not dismiss it as out of possibility, but I don't think they are still alive. It is entirely possible that they lived many years ago, but I doubt if any of them are still alive.
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Adalwolf
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Posted: 23-Oct-2007 at 02:34 |
Why? There are sightings every year all over the world. They exist. I have talked with people (on bigfoot forums, so take it with a grain of salt), read accounts, and seen interviews on tv with people who have seen bigfoot. From hunters who have had a bigfoot in their crosshairs to everyday people going hiking. They exist. Do some research and read all the info on the internet. Some is bs, but the sheer volume of sightings suggests something is out there.
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Penelope
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Posted: 23-Oct-2007 at 07:05 |
Well, the largest ape to have ever existed, is the Gigantopithecus. Estimated at being 9 feet tall, and weighing 700 to 1100 pounds. This creature's huge molars are regularly dug up, and ground into a powder, to be sold in traditional medicine shops in China. Some cryptozoologists have claimed that a race of Gigantopithecines are the legendary primates being discussed in this thread. The Bigfoot, Yowie, Skunk Ape, and Yeti.
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Adalwolf
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Posted: 23-Oct-2007 at 07:09 |
Very true, Penelope.
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sunnyspot
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Posted: 23-Oct-2007 at 08:43 |
Who here thinks that Chewbecca of Star Wars would be a pretty accurate likeness of the Sasquatch (as I like to call him/her/it)?
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Tyranos
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Posted: 26-Oct-2007 at 12:23 |
Originally posted by Penelope
Well, the largest ape to have ever existed, is the Gigantopithecus. Estimated at being 9 feet tall, and weighing 700 to 1100 pounds. This creature's huge molars are regularly dug up, and ground into a powder, to be sold in traditional medicine shops in China. Some cryptozoologists have claimed that a race of Gigantopithecines are the legendary primates being discussed in this thread. The Bigfoot, Yowie, Skunk Ape, and Yeti. |
Yes, I agree with this. I think perhaps some of this species survived somehow, least up until historical times, where the memory would be fresh.
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Adalwolf
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Posted: 26-Oct-2007 at 13:23 |
Or would it have had to have survived until historical times? Many people are afraid of snakes and reptiles...a feat that has been passed on through mammals for millions of years...
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Tyranos
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Posted: 26-Oct-2007 at 15:28 |
Originally posted by Adalwolf
Or would it have had to have survived until historical times? Many people are afraid of snakes and reptiles...a feat that has been passed on through mammals for millions of years... |
Well same can be said about the other possibilty, the "terror bird" being a source for the tales of "Thunderbirds" and maybe other beasts, like Roc's. Also these sightings are very frequent to this day as well.
Supposedly now however some scientists have been revising their theories with the Terror Birds and human contact, claiming instead of their deaths 10,000 years ago they're being pushed back some 2 million years.
The Argentavis Magnificens(or Teratorns), is also another giant bird, one that which flew.
Edited by Tyranos - 26-Oct-2007 at 15:36
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vulkan02
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Posted: 27-Oct-2007 at 04:59 |
Of course the biggest problem about this is that a dead Bigfoot body or at least bones have not been found yet. If they are so common why has no one been able to find some real evidence, or are the people who find them so ignorant or unconcerned that they fail to give them up to anthropologists?
Its strange that today scientists can estimate and asses how many Mountain Gorillas there are in the remote wilds of Uganda or Orangutans in Indonesia because they are social animals and live in certain pockets of forest. Bigfoots, being primates like the above, would also logically live in groups and not wonder around aimlessly like asocial animals such as some species of cats. Add to that the fact that they allegedly live in one of the most technologically advanced nations with the available equipment to find them, makes this phenomenon seem like a very big hoax.
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Knights
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Posted: 27-Oct-2007 at 05:07 |
It is indeed quite baffling why no solid evidence has been uncovered. Mysterious. While most primates are social, there are a few exceptions to the rule. Douracoulli for example live in monogamous (supposedly) pairs, and Orangutans are solitary, seldom found in groups other than at very fruitful times. I haven't heard the suggestion of Big foot as a social animal, but being a primate (again, supposedly), then it is likely. Good point.
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Tyranos
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Posted: 29-Oct-2007 at 21:08 |
Here's another recent headline in the news, we really need definitive evidence.
Pa. hunter's images stir Bigfoot debate
RIDGWAY, Pa. - It's furry and walks on all fours. Beyond that, about the only
thing certain about the critter photographed by a hunter's camera is that some
people have gotten the notion it could be a Sasquatch, or bigfoot. Others say
it's just a bear with a bad skin infection. Rick Jacobs says he got the pictures from a camera with an automatic trigger
that he fastened to a tree in the Allegheny
National Forest, about 115 miles northeast of Pittsburgh,
hoping to photograph deer.
"We couldn't figure out what they were," Jacobs said of the images captured
on Sept. 16. "I've been hunting for years and I've never seen anything like
this."
He contacted the Bigfoot Research Organization, which pursues reports of a
legendary two-legged creature that some people believe lives in parts of the
U.S. and Canada.
"It appears to be a primate-like animal. In my opinion, it appears to be a
juvenile Sasquatch," said Paul Majeta of the bigfoot group.
However, the Pennsylvania
Game Commission has a more conventional opinion. Agency spokesman Jerry
Feaser said conservation officers routinely trap bears to be tagged and often
see animals that look like the photos.
"There is no question it is a bear with a severe case of mange," Feaser told
The Bradford Era.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071028/ap_on_fe_st/odd_bigfoot_in_pa_2
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