…and this is a 
The recent bigfoot flap…a little late
Category: Weirdness
Posted on: August 29, 2008 1:54 AM, by PZ Myers
I've spent my evening curled up with a wracking cough and nasty pains in places I didn't know I could hurt — I think I sprained my diaphragm — and while stumbling dumbly through the web, I belatedly found the story of the recent Georgia bigfoot. I know, it's last week's news, but I'm feeling a little addled.
Anyway, it brought back old memories. Way back when I was a teenager, I used to build balsa wood model airplanes in my grandparents' attic. It was a good deal: my family didn't have to deal with the smell, I didn't have to worry about my brothers and sisters stomping on a delicate wing, and Grandma would bring me cookies and milk. There was also a stack of my grandfather's manly men magazines to browse while I was waiting for that last coat of dope to dry. I don't know if the genre is still around today, but in the 60s and 70s, at least, there were these magazines like Argosy and Saga that were full of manly stories of manly fellows braving dangers and hunting and exploring, with the occasional woman in a bikini lolling on the beach as the manly frogmen fought vicious sharks, and such like. One of the stories I recall most vividly was the Minnesota Iceman, which the article claimed was the most amazing evidence for the existence of bigfoot ever. There were several accompanying photographs of the poor guy in full color, frozen in a defensive pose, one arm thrown up over his head, with a bright splash of red over one eye, where he had been purportedly shot.
It made an impression. I recall reading up on cryptozoology quite a bit after that, trying to figure out whether it was real or not. I regretfully came to the conclusion eventually that it was a complete fraud, largely because I couldn't find any legitimate scientific sources that had anything to say about it, and even in my teens I knew that Argosy was not a credible source of scientific information. Curiously, I now learn that creationists haven't figured that out; Answers in Genesis uses the Minnesota Iceman as an example of scientific fakery ala Piltdown Man, accusing "experienced zoologists and scientific journals" of going out on a limb for a bogus missing link. At least now I can place their scientific expertise as somewhere significantly below mine…at the age of 15.
The Minnesota Iceman was a fake by a disreputable carnie. What about the Georgia Bigfoot? The lesson learned there is that people have gotten stupider since the 1960s. This bigfoot corpse was a graceless fake that was exposed within hours by the clever dicks at the JREF, and was concocted and promoted by a pair of blustering oafs named Rick Dyer and Matt Whitton, who have taken the unfortunate Southern redneck stereotype and amplified it into an embarrassment. It's a rubber suit stuffed with dead animal parts. If I'd seen the photos of this thing at an impressionable age, I would not have been at all impressed — they were pathetic. The most thorough (if rather rambling) account is at a bigfoot site, and it's damning. The creators weren't just con-artists, they were stupid, incompetent con-artists…and people still fell for it. That's the most depressing part of this story. The frauds don't even have to try anymore, and the suckers line up to give them their money.
Comments
Posted by: Kel | August 29, 2008 2:08 AM
It's quite scary to think that something that is so obviously fraudulent could be headline news around the world; in many reputable journals of news. It had fake written on it from the beginning, but that didn't stop it from getting attention.
How much is it the media's reponsibility to just ignore stunts like this? Instead we have our most reputable journals reduced to nothing more than trivia pushers, concerned only with readership rather than investigative truth. It's so pathetic!
Posted by: llanitedave | August 29, 2008 2:22 AM
I fear that it will get worse. A growing number of people simply don't, and probably never will, have even the most cursory experience of nature beyond a TV or video game. In the age of the high-rise condo, a huge number of peole don't even have yards with grass or bushes. They are completely separated from all other life forms, any hint of landscapes or even stars in the sky, and therefore ignorant of them.
But at the same time, that lifestyle is a necessity of our growing population and shrinking energy supplies. Without the economies of scale that such population-dense living provides, the economy and the environment would be even worse off than they are.
I see no way out of this quandary, until the population has shrunk to low enough levels where people can once again live on the ground and near the country. That won't happen in our lifetimes.
Posted by: Noadi | August 29, 2008 2:45 AM
That the really sad thing about it is that it was such as awful fake. Now if it had been a realistic, creative, quality fake then I'd at least be able to appreciate that part of it (I rather enjoy a good hoax) but instead it was just a cheap costume.
Posted by: DLC | August 29, 2008 2:57 AM
Well, it can join the ranks of the "alien autopsy" and hundreds of UFO pictures in the gallery of fakes.
Just wondering: how many of you folks out there had similar experiences, and did these have any effect on leading you toward the career you are in now, or at least toward developing your critical thinking skills ?
For me, it was ghosts and UFO investigations.
Posted by: John C. Randolph | August 29, 2008 3:34 AM
Umm... Who fell for it? I don't remember anyone saying it was real besides the promulgators.
-jcr
Posted by: Michael X | August 29, 2008 3:38 AM
My artistic and executive director believes in bigfoot. You can't imagine the tongue biting that occurs when the subject is mentioned. But I have to say: there is nothing like being on the edge of the wilderness, full of large animals in the dark, to prod the imagination of an artist into thinking that something rare and interesting is going on in your backyard. Curse of the gift I suppose. I only wish more of my colleagues could get over it.
Posted by: Stefan | August 29, 2008 3:39 AM
Well, I wish Bigfoot existed because... Okay, it would just be really cool.
But at the same time, how the hell would a primate like that survive in America's forests. Would there be a enough food? Somehow, I don't think so.
Posted by: SSiE | August 29, 2008 3:46 AM
Wracking cough? Nasty pains? Ecuadorian lung rot from a few posts ago? You'd better watch out - the holy-molies might start thinking that they are witnessing some sort of cracker-related Old Testament Smiting in progress ;-)
Posted by: dave | August 29, 2008 3:48 AM
The media needs to check out their stories better beforehand, but I bet they made money off all the attention anyway. Hey - I'm hairy and have big feet. Maybe I could generate a media frenzy!
Posted by: Arnosium Upinarum | August 29, 2008 3:49 AM
Alas, the fine art of hoaxmanship has withered away to join other esteemed skills into extinction. It's no longer necessary to be subtle or even slightly convincing. Suggestion and a cheap prop is all that is required.
It is disturbingly easy: with such an attentive and gullible audience, anyone who hasn't any skill whatsoever in ANYTHING can play now. What used to be the exclusive province of the elite specialists, masters of deception and skilled craftsmen (note Piltdown Man) is now trammeled by rank amateurs. What a sad commentary.
Posted by: BobC | August 29, 2008 3:59 AM
Again Answers in Genesis proves beyond any doubt they're a bunch of lying assholes. The next time a creationist retard tells me to read answersingenesis.org I'm going to shove this story into his face.
Posted by: PurpleTurtle | August 29, 2008 4:06 AM
Best quote from the bigfoot site...
Posted by: Anders | August 29, 2008 4:13 AM
Personally I think it's kind of heart warming that good old low-tech, carnie-style, money making scams like this are still around. Adds a bit of color to life. And they are so easy to debunk that they probably don't cause much damage.
On the topic of cryptozoology, how about the recent news story on yeti hair being DNA tested:
http://www.physorg.com/news136468651.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7525060.stm
Probably nothing to it, but it would be kind of cool if they actually discovered another big primate...
Posted by: Mike O'Risal | August 29, 2008 4:34 AM
You've missed something. Dyer and Whitton did skeptics a tremendous favor, and they may even have intended to do so. Have you heard the voicemail message from their tip hotline?
Listen to it and tell me you can think that they took this seriously.
The only person Whitton and Dyer really conned was a self-styled bigfoot expert who has now been discredited even in the eyes of the gullible. They demonstrated that "bigfoot experts" are experts in precisely nothing.
Posted by: Matt Heath | August 29, 2008 4:54 AM
Speaking of bigfoot: http://www.boingboing.net/2008/08/28/bigfootatheist-tshir.html .
pfft
Posted by: Nick Gotts | August 29, 2008 5:17 AM
In my early teens, I read Bernard Heuvelmans' On the Track of Unknown Animals. Heuvelmans, I'm convinced, was perfectly sincere, and reasonably knowledgeable, but rather credulous: basically, his default was to assume reports were honest and reliable in the absence of clear evidence to the contrary. So far as I know, none of the beasts he dealt with have subsequently turned up, although there are some intriguing parallels between a reported "Pithecanthropus" in Sri Lanka, and Homo floresiensis.
Posted by: Dana Hunter | August 29, 2008 5:27 AM
PZ, you're the big, bad, cephalopod overlord. What are you doing letting a piddly little (okay, huge vicious) cold kick your arse? Tell it it'll get what the cracker got if it lingers!
Posted by: shonny | August 29, 2008 5:28 AM
Why is it with some people that they WANT to believe all sorts of crap?
The other thing is that the US seems to have got more than their fair share of these gullible zombies.
Imagine if Robert G. Ingersoll had been elected president in his day. Public skepticism in the US would have been at least at the best European level today!
Posted by: Michael | August 29, 2008 5:32 AM
I remember watching a movie called; Sasquatch, the Legend of Bigfoot. I believe that was back in the 1970s. The movie almost but not quite, but almost had me thinking there might be something to this bigfoot after all. Many of my friends at the time believed in bigfoot. As the years went by, many frauds were revealed, and the legend seemed to have disappeared...
Posted by: Greta Christina | August 29, 2008 5:38 AM
Apropos of not much... but I love those men's adventure magazines. They're hilarious! Did you know that the title of the Frank Zappa album "Weasels Ripped My Flesh" comes from a story in one of them?
Posted by: Megapoda | August 29, 2008 5:41 AM
How about finding out that you have friends that believe in bigfoot, huh? When this story hit I wrote to a friend of mine so we could make fun of it as we did most of the other silly things that happen in the world. Next thing I know, I am gettin' the cold shoulder. It turns out he had his fingers crossed, and was as wide-eyes as a 7 year old on Christmas Eve!
One friend actually tried to use the ol' Patterson film as evidence, even though a guy already admitted to being in the suit when they filmed it. These Bigfoot fanatics ignore all the obvious signs of the guy wearing a suit in the film and make outrageous claims about such a suit being impossible to build now, never mind in the 60s. They are so sure of this, that when Bob Heironimus, the guy who claims he wore the suit, passed a lie detector test, they stated, "He is in a delusional state, and now, believes his lie." Talk about being immune to evidence, eh?
Jane Goodall is used most often as their expert backer, as she believes fully in the beasties existence due to interviews with American Indians. I myself have never really seen Jane as a real detached scientist. Her observations have broken away from the empirical long ago, and have steadily moved into the "Jungle Fever," mode.
I must admit, however, I was a bit envious of those who did not know this was a pure hoax. I truly wish I could have sat there wondering if, "This is the big one!?" while waiting for the results. Though science dictates I always keep an open mind, even if it is only open a smidgen, reality had long explained to me that this issue is dead.
Posted by: CS | August 29, 2008 6:01 AM
There is a fun podcast of the Bigfoot press conference at http://radio.seti.org/
Posted by: Doug | August 29, 2008 7:09 AM
Bigfoot is real! He was the product of a genetic experiment at Area 51 using technology saved from the Illuminati from the time when aliens built the pyramids. Bigfoot was used for undercover operations and was behind 9/11. It's all true because I just thought of it. Now debunk that smart guy.
Posted by: Jen | August 29, 2008 7:26 AM
Didn't all this happen in the county that just lost it's school accreditation?
Posted by: Cannabinaceae | August 29, 2008 7:27 AM
I can't remember when, nor how abrupt it was, but I've changed. Nowadays my BS meter is so poised to be pegged that I'm ready to dismiss almost any claim. In former times I was usually ready to give benefit of doubt. My friends now consider me an "establishment type," because I call bullshit at the first hint of flakiness.
Guess it's 'cause I'm an actual scientist-in-training now rather than merely a hyperliterate fanboy. Makes it easy to feel depressed when I experience the credulity of the masses.
Posted by: Alan Kellogg | August 29, 2008 7:30 AM
All three men (don't forget Tom Biscari) have a bad reputation in the Bigfoot community. Biscari is well known as a hoaxter, while the two Georgians have had an ongoing feud with the Bigfoot Field Research Organization">. Even went to far as to start up a bigfoot expedition business in competition with the BFRO's trips.
If you want a scientist looking into the sasquatch question, a Dr. Meldrum is associated with the BFRO. He wrote the first response by a bigfoot researcher to the claim, and he was not at all kind to the trio.
It was fraud, pure and simple, and a fraud committed with the aim of bilking the populace of money. As far as I can see, that makes it a criminal act worthy of prosecution and incarceration upon conviction.
That said, a forgery does not render evidence false ipso facto. So long as a phenomenon is possible in our reality, any evidence for its existence must be examined honestly and not rejected out of hand. Solid bodies floating through walls are not possible, large animals living in areas we haven't seen them before is possible, so the first can be safely dismissed as a fantasy, but not the second. Saying that something cannot be because you've never heard of such a thing is not science, it is merely denial.
Which thinking is leading me to a question of framing. Namely, how could the bigfoot community frame its response to claims of evidence hoaxing to best get the critics to consider the evidence presented? But since this is a no-framing zone, I shan't continue that cogniwalk here.
1st Pharireader: Is 'cogniwalk' a word?
2nd Pharireader: It is now.
1st Pharireader: Is 'pharireader' a word?
2nd Pharireader: Don't encourage Alan.
Posted by: Fernando Magyar | August 29, 2008 7:31 AM
Posted by: llanitedave @ #2,
I agree with the first part of that but I wouldn't bet on the last.
For a preview keep your eye on the double whammy of Gustav and Hanna now brewing in hurricane alley, pay close attention to the oil rigs and refineries in it's path. Oh, and then watch the response of the current administration partying at the Republican convention. Should be interesting indeed.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT | August 29, 2008 7:38 AM
I was at least in some part expecting this to be some publicity stunt to launch a movie or video game or some product viral video style.
Instead it just turned out to be a couple of dumb rednecks.
I should have known better to expect something more complicated than "Hey ya'll watch this".
Posted by: Senecasam | August 29, 2008 7:42 AM
Whitton and Dyer are sure to show up anytime to reclaim their Bigfoot, return to North Georgia and barbecue the poor beast.
If you baste it, they will come.
Posted by: Nick Gotts | August 29, 2008 7:57 AM
So long as a phenomenon is possible in our reality, any evidence for its existence must be examined honestly and not rejected out of hand. - Alan Kellogg@26
That would be true if we had unlimited resources. We don't. The "evidence" for Bigfoot fits perfectly into the "frame" I have for "Claims not worth taking seriously": repeated cycles of excitable news reports, which either fade without trace, or are found to be based on hoaxes; groups of dedicated believers convinced "the truth is out there", and that there's an establishment conspiracy or failure of imagination; long-term failure of solid evidence to appear; failure to ask the serious questions about plausibility. You seems to think Bigfoot "could be there", but how likely is it really that a population of very large, conspicuous animals has persisted for decades in well-populated parts of the USA, without producing convincing evidence? Answer: it's very, very unlikely. OK it's harmless nonsense, and I quite like harmless nonsense (I'm a regular reader of Fortean Times) but isn't this particular item getting rather old to even be amusing any more?
Posted by: tachyonman | August 29, 2008 8:00 AM
DLC ...
I can remember when I figured out that this stuff is a load of dingo's kidneys. I read the book, "Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science" by Martin Gardner. Although I was a mere tyke at the time, this book showed me the truth summed up in the statement "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence".
Posted by: Ethan | August 29, 2008 8:09 AM
First off, let me say that I lurk here often and love this site. I don't usually have much to say in response to posts, because I'm not a scientist, I'm an illustrator, so I totally agree with #6. But this topic is something sort of near and dear to me for a couple of weird reasons.
As a kid, I loved cryptozoology. I once told a guidance councilor that that was what I wanted to be when I grew up. (They had no idea what I was talking about, and I later realized guidance councilors know very little about making career decisions because they have chosen a career in guidance counciling.)
I was discouraged, but it did give me the beginnings of an interest in science. I started to read more on biology because I was trying to judge for myself how realistic claims about things like bigfoot were. I don't think that that made me a stupid kid, for believing or wanting to believe in an undiscovered 8 foot primate. In fact I recall being very young and deciding that a large air breathing creature in a scottish lake was just not happening.
My father, is religious. He's a smart guy, he's just never going to be able to break out of it. My interest in science at such an early age (I'd say about seven or eight) I think definitely sort of innoculated me against a lot of later indoctrination, and is responsible for my current atheism. And he would bring up all the time, this idea of bigfoot being so unrealistic, and why is it that I could believe in bigfoot, but not a god. And this is why I'm posting. It was this argument that kept me unsure, off my balance, for a long time growing up. I couldn't counter him. Until much later on I figured out, things are not equally probable or improbable. It isn't an on/off kind of thing. A deity is not equally probable to the survival of some sort of relict hominid. We know that something like bigfoot COULD be true, it just isn't particularly likely. But a god is just way off the other end of the scale of possible.
I saw that gorilla suit last week and immediately saw it for what it was. But I do think that maybe somewhere, in some remote place, there might still be primates to discover. And I don't think that's being credulous or gullible.
I think it's true that a lot of people WANT to believe in something like that. I know the eight year old boy in me wants to very badly. And if it helps people to begin an interest in science--that isn't a bad thing either. It certainly sparked my interest growing up. And while an appeal to an open mind might be difficult for many to swallow, this is one instance where I do have an open mind. I don't think bigfoot is stalking trailer parks in the pacific northwest, but I do find it interesting that almost every culture on earth that has lived near wilderness at some point has stories about such creatures, even in places as unlikely as Australia. Maybe it's psychological--a memory of the fossil apes we know existed in the not so distant past.
In any case, I had to post when I saw.
Posted by: aarrgghh | August 29, 2008 8:26 AM
i once asked a friend why he believed in astrology and he said, "cause it's fun!"
i suspect that no small part of the attraction for things supernatural, spiritual, paranormal and extraterrestrial comes from the woo factor alone.
i suppose woo has its place, but it's too bad that too many actually substitute woo for rational thought.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT | August 29, 2008 8:32 AM
Yeah that's a good thing. But once one becomes an adult and has had time to mature and be educated it becomes pretty silly.
Posted by: craig | August 29, 2008 8:42 AM
In 7th grade I helf a brief fascination for bigfoot stories, along with ghosts, ghosts ships (love those ghost ships!), nessie, UFOs, etc.
I ordered several books on this crap aimed at kids, sold through the scholastic books flyers my homeroom teacher passed around.
My fascination didn't last. After reading a few of these books it became clear that it was all complete bullshit. Not that you should get the impression that these "scholastic" books sold through the school presented a skeptical view - no, they represented all of their stories as being factual. They were selling the bullshit to kids.
I've just always had a pretty good bullshit detector.
Posted by: Graculus | August 29, 2008 8:46 AM
i once asked a friend why he believed in astrology and he said, "cause it's fun!"
A 6 day drinking binge is fun. Going to a Motorhead concert with a pound of chocolate covered espresso beans is fun. Playing D&D is fun.
Worrying about the triune of Mercury is yea, about as much fun as watching golf.
Posted by: craig | August 29, 2008 8:49 AM
"These Bigfoot fanatics ignore all the obvious signs of the guy wearing a suit in the film and make outrageous claims about such a suit being impossible to build now, never mind in the 60s."
Yes. "Harry and the Hendersons" was a documentary.
Posted by: SC | August 29, 2008 8:58 AM
OMG! I remember that movie! Nostalgia!
That reminded me of a movie about the search for Noah's Ark (can't remember the title) that I saw either with a church group or on the recommendation of my pastor. I don't remember how skeptical I was about the whole deal when I was a kid, but it did make the work look cool and exciting. I'm not an archaeologist (yet? :)), but I do historical research. I think that film played a role.
Posted by: Julian | August 29, 2008 9:12 AM
The frauds have never had to try; gullibility is a natural part of the human condition.
Posted by: SC | August 29, 2008 9:16 AM
Ah - found it:
http://www.amazon.com/Search-Noahs-Ark-Brad-Crandall/dp/630229682X
Highly recommended - the recreation was a trip. Now I'm thinking of throwing an In Search of Noah's Ark party...
Posted by: Mr P | August 29, 2008 9:22 AM
Liars for bigfoot!!1!!!1!
@#14 I have read on other blogs that the men may have pulled this stunt just to show how stupid people really are and how little the 'bigfoot experts' really know.
Anywho, I grew up in the 70's and loved shows like In Search of and Project Blue Book. Even now I have many adult friends that like to watch Monster Quest and Ghost Hunters. I think there is some entertainment value in these shows, but some people just want to believe in the very unlikely.
Has anyone read the news article where it may be genetic, that religous people who do not attend church as much as they would like to tend to belive more in ufos, bigfoot and the like?
P
Posted by: NoniMausa | August 29, 2008 9:27 AM
Now I'm retired, but in high school and college I was a member of Ivan Sanderson's SITU, and was blessed to visit the Sandersons about a year before Ivan passed away, and at a time (I found out later) that his wife was dying in hospital. Their courtesy and generosity to a visiting fangirl has set my model of hospitality ever since then -- and western New Jersey was awfully pretty, too.
Their approach to the unexplained was one of enthusiastic curiosity and a willingness to both listen to possible oddities and listen and look for disproofs as well as proofs, and embrace those disproofs when those were proven. They were grand, fun people to be around.
Back to the main topic -- I regret saying this, but I have given up on the crypto-hominids. I can't believe in a world where all the indigenous people must know the crazy white people would pay big bucks for bigfoot bits, that no one has come forward with an abominable tooth, a hank of hair, hell, even with a pile of crap. We can pull DNA out of poo, so where's the poo?
In civilization, people die in hospitals. In the wild, creatures die everywhere, and youngsters more than adults. Where are the dead juveniles, drowned or frozen or fallen off a rock ledge? Believers say, oh, they are too shy and canny to ever be seen. Let's allow this, but still, where are the skunk-bitten rabid ones or aged or disabled starving ones, too crazed to notice they are crossing the Yellowhead Highway at 2 pm on Labour Day weekend?
So for now, I have given up. But man, the first fresh molar or steaming pile of bigfoot-cookies, and I'll be right on it.
Noni
Posted by: NoniMausa | August 29, 2008 9:31 AM
...metaphorically.
ewwwwww
Posted by: Paul | August 29, 2008 9:36 AM
I am not surprised that people buy into this stuff hook line and sinker despite the fact that there is no evidence to even begin to substantiate the claims. Heck I knew that this was nothing more than a publicity scheme the minute I started reading about this. It had all the components of every other debunked claims in the past too. Utter nonsense.
The thing that angers me though is that the press gave these nuts attention. The news media should not be about selling publications by giving idiots like bigfoot hunters any credibility. Where is the investigative journalism? Its a sad state of affairs when the news media cares more about eyes and ears over accurate reporting.
Posted by: llewelly | August 29, 2008 9:39 AM
Ethan, #32:
Perhaps all of these bigfoot / goblin / sasquatch stories evolved from derogatory stories about competing tribes. To me this is a simpler theory because it is based on things known to exist - every tribe has derogatory stories about competing tribes, and we know stories can mutate greatly over time.
Posted by: crossbuck | August 29, 2008 9:50 AM
PZ,
You were lucky you were into Argosy and Saga. For me it was standing at the magazine counter at Thrifty reading True Detective and other crime magazines. Made me rather paranoid reading graphic details of the LaBianca murders. I might've preferred Bigfoot (which I didn't ever really believe) to thinking the Manson family was gonna get me.
Posted by: CosmicTeapot | August 29, 2008 9:52 AM
Graculus @36
"Worrying about the triune of Mercury is yea, about as much fun as watching golf."
Yeah, but it sure used to pull the women ;)
Posted by: Graculus | August 29, 2008 10:01 AM
Yeah, but it sure used to pull the women ;)
So does a pound of chocolate covered espresso beans at a Motorhead concert.
just sayin'
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | August 29, 2008 10:01 AM
Wow, I saw the Minnesota Iceman! South Hills Village mall, in the hills south of Pittsburgh, must have been 1972 or 73 or something like that. According to the links in PZ's OP, it may well have been the touring replica. Talk about making an impression! Formative.
Posted by: migg | August 29, 2008 10:03 AM
About DNA being tested - but it was done, and published. And this great example of convergent evolution can be found in PubMed.(Coltman & Davis "Molecular cryptozoology meets the Sasquatch" Trends Ecol Evol 21 (2006):60-1 [PDF]).
Ditto for yeti ((Milinkovitch et al. "Molecular phylogenetic analyses indicate extensive morphological convergence between the 'yeti' and primates", Mol Phylogenet Evol 31 (2004): 1-3 [PDF])
Posted by: amphiox | August 29, 2008 10:08 AM
If I heard that someone somewhere in Asia had found evidence for Yeti, I'd be slightly more inclined to consider the claim with more credulity, simply because at least there is known evidence that large nonhuman primates did in fact once live there.
But with bigfoot, we have no such paleontological evidence, nor even a mildly plausible mechanism for a potential migration.
And with everything we already know about large primates,with regards to their habits, needs, and ecological requirements, the only reasonable thing I can say about bigfoot is that if it ever did exist, it is most certainly dead now.
(I have also wondered sometimes whether European legends about dwarves and trolls might be some cultural memory of Neanderthals, or an ancient Chinese legend about hairy forest humanoids with "pointy" heads might have originated from contact with H. erectus, but only when my brain is in science fiction mode.)
Posted by: Ethan | August 29, 2008 10:17 AM
@49--
No shit! I used to actually work in that mall in college!
Posted by: tachyonman | August 29, 2008 10:17 AM
Comments regarding the role of the media brings to mind the ever increasing amount of pure, unadulterated fantasy presented as fact on various cable channels. Ghosts, thunderbirds, and even Bigfoot are regular fare. there appears to be no lack of gullible folks out there. I just checked "Monsterquest" discussion on the History channel site. According to these nutcases, there IS DNA evidence, hair evidence, and besides, all the sightings just COULDN'T be wrong. Just depressing - and many of these folks will be voting in November.
Posted by: AJ Milne | August 29, 2008 10:20 AM
That's the most depressing part of this story. The frauds don't even have to try anymore, and the suckers line up to give them their money.
The question for me here is: is there really a measurable difference in gullibility between contemporary populations and earlier ones? Are people becoming bigger suckers, or are they just more or less as suckerish as they've always been? I kinda suspect it's just as likely to be the latter. I mean, remember, around the early 1800s, you could say you were reading coded messages with special glasses given to you by an angel, and succeed in founding your own religion. And more or less the same con appears to have passed muster somewhere 'round 1,500 years ago. Also, people have been paying priests, psychics, tarot card readers and mediums (media?) of various descriptions for millenia for stories of worlds beyond their vision. Tulipmania in the 1840s, the dot com bubble in the 1990s, I dunno... looks like the same colour of stupid to me, really, and at more or less the same concentrations...
My suspicion is: people are more or less consistently gullible, but fashions shift around; certain cons play on specific, contemporary ignorances; Bigfoot, as some have noted above, may play now in the US context because of a host of factors, including urbanization...
What might actually help, if anything would, would be really, really steady and concerted effort in education specifically to teach people how easy they are to fool, and how to avoid being fooled. Science education tends to do some of this; I'd say do more of that, mix in maybe a little more practical and historical material on how and why cons works and delusions form. Science education with material from JREF on cold reading, and so on. The working assumption being: yes, people will want to believe the fantastical, naturally. There's always gonna be parts of 'em susceptible to cons, for this and other reasons. Warn them better about it, more systematically, give them the tools to defend themselves and each other. Don't expect that aspect of human psychology to change, just teach people better how to watch themselves for this.
Posted by: yeti | August 29, 2008 10:23 AM
You think I'm abominable?
You should see my wife.
Posted by: Paul Burnett | August 29, 2008 10:45 AM
"It's quite scary to think that something that is so obviously fraudulent could be headline news around the world..." - Kel, #1
I did a doubletake there...it sounded for a moment that Kel was talking about intelligent design creationism instead of bigfoot.
Posted by: S.Scott | August 29, 2008 10:49 AM
OT - McCain picks Sarah Palin
(That's the news - nothing more - only click the link if you want to know my opinion)They are just about to make the announcement on CNN.
Posted by: Alan Kellogg | August 29, 2008 10:50 AM
Amphiox, #50
So tell me, how did the horse get from North America to Asia?
Not knowing how something happened does not mean it could not happen. You want to ask how the yowie got to Australia, you've got a much better case. Primates didn't exist when Australia last had a land bridge to the rest of the world. But go over the history of North America and Asia sometime, and learn how often Beringia has been dry land since the K/T event.
Posted by: gex | August 29, 2008 11:06 AM
"But at the same time, how the hell would a primate like that survive in America's forests. Would there be a enough food? Somehow, I don't think so."
Well, if Bigfoot took the Eric Rudolph approach (bomb abortion clinics, gay bars, and the Olympics in the name of Jeebus) then he'd have the support of the locals and could remain undiscovered and well fed for quite some time.
Posted by: CosmicTeapot | August 29, 2008 11:06 AM
A J Milne @53
"I mean, remember, around the early 1800s, you could say ..."
Man, you're old if you can remember that far back!
Posted by: clinteas | August 29, 2008 11:19 AM
//I've spent my evening curled up with a wracking cough and nasty pains in places I didn't know I could hurt//
We evil physicians refer to it as manflu:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYME7l7tXTk
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | August 29, 2008 11:44 AM
It's time to get some hollywood SFX guy to make a really good alien corpse and do a Randi "project alpha" style sokalling. See how far it'd go. (Next on Fox news at 7: ILLEGAL ALIEN THREAT)
Posted by: rgb | August 29, 2008 11:49 AM
Actually it's been fun seeing that even the believer sites were the first to rip the story, leaving CNN to feebly explain why they gave it so much attention.
Bigfoot has inspired Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Ale, with is a pretty good thing.
I guess I have a personal stake in hoping he's not found, my wife told me (playfully???) that she wants bigfoot's baby.
Posted by: Barklikeadog | August 29, 2008 11:57 AM
I know of one primate that did, and quite successfully I might add. Some of them were my ancestors.
Posted by: Qwerty | August 29, 2008 1:08 PM
I am disappointed. Not in the Minnesota Iceman, but in the fact that I've never heard of him and I've lived in Minnesota most of my adult life.
Oh, this happened in the late '60s and early '70s. That's the time I spent serving my country in the Navy. Oh, well, I'll have to wait for the next hoax.
P.T. Barnum lives!
Posted by: AJ Milne | August 29, 2008 1:10 PM
Man, you're old if you can remember that far back!
Yeah, but those were the days. You could buy a chocolate bar and a decent walkup place in Manhattan fer twenty-five cents. But then again, we had to carry on our flame wars in Morse code...
Times shore have changed, I tells ya.
Posted by: Patricia | August 29, 2008 1:25 PM
Back in the dark ages, when I was in jr. high school, we had the Peter Burn Bigfoot Research Center in a single wide trailer here in the ol' home town. He had plaster footcasts and maps, etc. But what we all thought was really FUN, was to call the place from the pay phone at the local grocery store just to hear the receptionist say, "Peter Burn." ;)
Posted by: Ethan | August 29, 2008 2:02 PM
"I know of one primate that did, and quite successfully I might add. Some of them were my ancestors."
...Awesome.
Posted by: Alan Kellogg | August 29, 2008 2:18 PM
Do we really know the world as well as we say we do? I have to say no. We have a tendency to overestimate how good we are, how much we know. We take a snapshot and think we've filmed a movie. Read up on Beringia and you get the impression the land bridge was only around during the ice ages. Apparently tyrannosaurids and ceratopsians got from Asia to North America by taking ferries across the Bering Strait.
We don't investigate bigfoot because we don't think it's worth our time. We don't think it's worth our time because clowns like Biscari and co-conspirators pull their idiot stunts. Which, in turn, leads to people who should know better rejecting all claims out of hand because they're tired of the hoaxing.
I remember when people said the giant squid didn't exist, and that it wasn't worth anyone's time to look for evidence of it. We learned differently. The problem here, really, is that people don't know what constitutes an extraordinary claim. Being able to see objects on the other side of an opaque barrier without assistance is an extraordinary claim, because there is no known mechanism that would allow it, and no evidence it has ever happened. Saying there is a large hominoid living in the North American wilds is not an extraordinary claim, because it is quite possible primates did make it from Asia to North America when Beringia was dry. And keep in mind that we already know about a cold weather adapted primate, Homo neanderthalensis.
The claims of non-existence are due more to hoax fatique than any other cause. But being sick of frauds is no excuse to ignore any possibility. You prove a negative the same way as your prove any other proposition, you perform research. You observe, you test, you do experiments. You gather evidence relevant to your case, pro or anti, and you put it all together to support or destroy your case. And you take the time necessary, disregarding nothing you may run across just because some people insist it has to be fake.
Many a doubter has said we should've found something by now. Discoveries aren't made because they were supposed to happen, discoveries are made when they happen. A discovery might be happenstance, a discovery might happen after long and diligent searching, but you can never make a discovery happen when it's supposed to happen.
The bigfoot discovery? It happened long before most of you were born. Our first specimen appeared in a short piece of 16mm film taken by a pair of men who had no idea just what they were doing. The scientific community declared it a fraud because they'd been hoaxed prior to the event, and they had fraud fatigue. Some authorities said it was a man in an ape suit, and other people have been relying on appeals to those authorities ever since.
I saw the footage on the local news back in 1967. I'd also seen people in ape costumes pretending to be apes. It looked nothing like those costumes, acted nothing like those actors. I've seen actors in ape costumes since then, and none of them have ever come close to Patty. You've ever seen a gorilla in real life, you'd know even the best gorilla costumes ever produced are nothing more than a bad joke.
If seen the film, I've seen the animal in action. I've seen the expressions. We can't do realistic expressions today, and 31 years ago was no different.
No, what it really comes down to is that years ago certain parties got sick of the hoaxes and declared it all a hoax. Today we keep insisting it's a hoax because we're afraid to admit we're wrong. Even the hint of a rumor of the vague possibility we might have misspoken gives us the heeby-jeebies. Thus we put the lie to our claims of dispassionate scientific interest.
And you say you have absolutely nothing in common with the creationists.
Wish to prove me wrong? Then you head into the mountains of Georgia, to some out of the way place. You live there for years on end, day in and day out. You observe, you make records, you take evidence. You take pictures, video, and audio. Plaster casts of prints of all kinds. You learn the difference between a bear's prints in fresh mud, and that of a human or sasquatch. And you make all the evidence you gather open to the scientific community. A dead body you take to the nearest university. A live body you take to the nearest zoo. But one thing you don't do is ignore and abandon any evidence pointing to the existence of bigfoot because you're afraid of the ridicule.
You get that evidence tested, and you announce the results honestly. Because science is about pressing forward in the face of ignorant ridicule. Not worth your time? Learning, discovering is always worth your time. Anybody who tells you any different is a fool.
Posted by: Sili | August 29, 2008 2:25 PM
Well, the Minnesota Iceman certainly was a manly man if ever there was one: Who else could possibly maintain an erection under those conditions?
I'm pretty sure I was older than that before I grew out of the whole Bermuda Triange/Chariots of the Gods phase ... I always was gullible.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT | August 29, 2008 2:29 PM
Just so I understand you. You've seen the film and seen the animal in action or is that one in the same.
More directly have you seen a Bigfoot / sasquatch in the person?
Posted by: Nick Gotts | August 29, 2008 2:38 PM
Wish to prove me wrong? - Alan Kellogg
Not really. Certainly not enough to waste years of my life on it. You want to believe this harmless nonsense - go right ahead. No skin off my nose.
Posted by: Ichthyic | August 29, 2008 3:20 PM
Highly recommended - the recreation was a trip. Now I'm thinking of throwing an In Search of Noah's Ark party...
hmm, that sparked a memory about an english version of the old "Chariots of the Gods" 'documentary' I recall seeing in the early 70's. I wonder if copies of that are still around?
as to hoaxes, i still think nothing surpasses the humor value of the old "Cardiff Giant" hoax:
http://www.historybuff.com/library/refbarnum.html
Posted by: Ichthyic | August 29, 2008 3:22 PM
Do we really know the world as well as we say we do?
Allan is bucking to be the narrator for the next History Channel "cryptozoology" series.
good luck, Alan!
I'll look for you after the next "Ice Road Truckers" season premiere.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | August 29, 2008 3:29 PM
Hell yes! I love that stuff. Every sip's a little journey of flavors.Posted by: Mike O'Risal | August 29, 2008 3:48 PM
Well Alan, I'll tell you what. I never lived in Georgia, but I did spend five years in the backwoods of North Florida, and for three of those I lived on their edge, too. I can tell the difference between different animal tracks and in all the time I was there never saw anything that made me think, "Hey, bigfoot." In fact, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone, backwoods as you like, who seriously thinks that giant apes are roaming North Florida/South Georgia.
I also know a thing or two about ecology, and I can tell you that even bears are harder and harder to come by, and the ones that are there are no mystery. People see them and their tracks. We have plenty of evidence that they exist, even though their numbers aren't huge, and that's the case because even what looks like deep woods these days is fragmented habitat crossed by roads. That demonstrably reduces resources, and if black bears have a hard time of it, then it's even more unlikely that seven foot apes are out there. There's not a scrap of evidence that there is such a thing.
Ecologically, no, there are no seven foot apes in Georgia. Or Florida. Or California, Washington and Oregon, for that matter. If there were, they'd be raiding garbage cans at homes and campgrounds -- like bears do now -- and you'd have more than rubber monkey suits and blurry photos to show.
In other words, you're spouting nonsense.
Posted by: migg | August 29, 2008 4:02 PM
to commenter no. 13 but bigfoot sequencing was already done.
And it was a great example of convergent evolution.
I think my first try for this comment was stopped as spam 'cause of too many links, so this time just the citations: Coltman & Davis Trends Ecol Evol 21 (2006):60-1
ditto for yeti:
Milinkovitch et al., Mol Phylogenet Evol 31 (2004): 1-3
pdfs can be googled too. have fun.