Finding Bigfoot tv show (ghost)

[fisheye]

Originally Posted by Vasily

I suspect many or most bigfoot sightings are misidentifications (bears, hunters or pranksters in ghilli suits) and there are some frauds mixed in there. But there is a minority that are not so easily dismissed. Although three legged bears may explain a small percentage of sightings, I don't think they explain most of them

You still have to get past why there are no new good pictures or a carcass. Hunters have trail cameras set up all over the US. They are scoping out the territory that they might want to hunt. Plus, today, almost everybody has a cell phone with a good camera - pick your nose and it will be on YouTube tomorrow! It is almost impossible to hide anything today. Then you have no carcass with our busy roads. When I made my mountain lion report, to my Game Commission, they did not believe me because they have no solid evidence (of course they did not take the time to come out and investigate). But they do have a good argument that they don't exist because they have no carcass from a road kill or natural death.

I think there might be one other argument against Big Foot - reproduction. In nature, when there is an abundance of food, species flourish - they reproduce. Animals also follow their food source. If, lets say, Big Foot was a vegetarian; would they not hang around an orchard or vineyard? If they did; their population would increase and chances are they would not escape detection.

Big Foot makes a good TV show - but they have a long ways to go before they will get me in the audience.

[Vasily]

Originally Posted by fisheye

You still have to get past why there are no new good pictures or a carcass. Hunters have trail cameras set up all over the US. They are scoping out the territory that they might want to hunt. Plus, today, almost everybody has a cell phone with a good camera - pick your nose and it will be on YouTube tomorrow! It is almost impossible to hide anything today. Then you have no carcass with our busy roads. When I made my mountain lion report, to my Game Commission, they did not believe me because they have no solid evidence (of course they did not take the time to come out and investigate). But they do have a good argument that they don't exist because they have no carcass from a road kill or natural death.

I think a counter-argument might be possible … If bigfoots are out there, we know next to nothing about them … if their intelligence is somewhere between the chimp and homo sap, *and* they're rare (not like the tens of thousands claimed by the Finding Bigfoot guys … more likely they'd be classified as endangered if they exist), they might be smart enough to do a good job of avoiding us including our devices like trail cams … and perhaps even place their dead where they won't be found. A hominid that has existed side by side with us for tens of thousands of years may have learned how to stay out of our way (rather than mating into our species, which appears to be the neanderthal's strategy … the highest proportion of neanderthal DNA is found in the areas where they lived in western Europe). Plus, bodies in the wild are disposed of by scavengers pretty quickly and the rest decomposes quickly.

However, there are no other upright hominids out there today, so it's not clear from the growing fossil evidence of our ancestors where such a relative might fit. To me the upright posture doesn't fit with the hypothesis that they're descendants of gigantopithecus, which apparently were just really really big apes. But who knows? Until there's a body or convincing biological material found, they're just a story.

I think there might be one other argument against Big Foot - reproduction. In nature, when there is an abundance of food, species flourish - they reproduce. Animals also follow their food source. If, lets say, Big Foot was a vegetarian; would they not hang around an orchard or vineyard? If they did; their population would increase and chances are they would not escape detection.

Here's my thinking … Animals reproduce up to the carrying capacity of the environment, and the rate of increase to that level depends on the rate of reproduction of the species (Verhulst-Pearl equation). When they approach the carrying capacity, the growth rate levels off due to the negative effects of overcrowding. Carrying capacity for species of fish intelligence or greater is related to food and other resource availability, as well as behavioral factors like territoriality.

Species from fish up to mammals tend to be either social animals or territorial and more or less solitary. Song birds are territorial as are birds of prey, and penguins are social animals. Per bird sites, the range of a songbird is small: a mated robin pair is about a third of an acre, for example. The hunting range of a golden eagle is up to 162 square miles, on the other hand. On the primate side, the territory of the orangutan is 0.4 to 2 square miles.

Herd animals move around a lot to follow their food source. Animals that live in small family groups like the orangutan or solitary animals like the golden eagle typically move when another individual kicks them out of their territory. So the question is: is bigfoot a herd or solitary animal? If all the reports are to believed, it looks like they're more on the solitary side … small family groupings. I haven't heard the kids on Finding Bigfoot talk about running into groups of five or ten big foots. Given their size. their territory is likely to be quite large. But they do talk about them communicating and supposedly talking in some kind of bigfoot language which indicates a society beyond the family group … but the reports they present on their show don't suggest any kind of larger "society" above the family group level so this doesn't add up.

Regarding hanging around an orchard or vineyard, tree fruit and grapes are available for a short period of time, and an intelligent animal will weigh its desire for this seasonal treat against the danger of exposure to the dreaded landowners. The kind of areas in North America where these things supposedly live tend to be resource rich, so there's no reason for them to hang around a plot of land that bears fruit for a fairly short portion of the year. And a territorial animal isn't likely to hang around a plot of land with resources and reproduce until they're all over the place, particularly when doing so is dangerous.

If these things exist and the stories told on the Finding Bigfoot show are accurate, they're creatures of the deep woods, and their forays into human territory are relatively infrequent. They don't seem to be what are called ecotonic species which prefer the "edges" between biomes. As I recall, a lot of the species we see around our populated areas … deer, possums, raccoons, coyotes, robins, etc. … are ecotonic species. That ain't bigfoot.

That at any rate is how I think about the bigfoot issue … and why I haven't yet given up hope that they might be out there.

[fisheye]

Originally Posted by Vasily

they might be smart enough to do a good job of avoiding us including our devices like trail cams …

Many of the trail cams are infrared. There is no flash to scare off the animals. We have human criminals that cannot avoid every camera - they are caught everyday. I once knew a security guard that that thought he knew were every camera was located - the one he didn't know about caught him stealing. Some of our camera companies are now loosing business because smart phones have better cameras - many humans now have great cameras on them at all times. Then you also have the aerial photography - that has also improved with better technology.

What I am saying is that our world continues to shrink and good hiding places are vanishing. As far as concealing their dead: Even murderers try to conceal their dead and it doesn't always work.

Originally Posted by Vasily

Here's my thinking … Animals reproduce up to the carrying capacity of the environment, and the rate of increase to that level depends on the rate of reproduction of the species (Verhulst-Pearl equation).

Yes and when humans alter that environment; animals are very quick to take advantage of an abundance. Animals do not starve to death if they have a choice. They also don't willingly leave known food sources except for primal needs like reproduction or flight for survival.

Over a decade ago we were out West during a terrible draught. In Flagstaff the police were busy trying to chase a very large bull Elk out of town. It apparently came down for the water in the swimming pools.

Survival in the wild boils down to taking advantage of the opportunities and availability of natural resources. Sometimes bird lovers will feed wild birds and hawks will take advantage of the abundance (not to mention domesticated cats). It is not our intention to feed the cats and hawks - but they take advantage of the concentration of their prey. In nature, without human interference, they would have to travel great distances for the same opportunity.

[ghostrider7811]

Originally Posted by Vasily

Suppose bigfoot exists, and is some sort of hominid. If they're intermediate in intelligence between the chimp and humans and have some level of language, I'd think they'd be adept at avoiding cars, only cross roads at times of the night when there are few cars on the road, and avoid interstate highways that are busy most of the time. I'd think by now they'd be aware there are a lot of "squatchin" groups running around looking for them and doing things like wood knocks and howls.

My personal position? Like Jane Goodall and a well-known university biologist I used to know who had a whole file cabinet full of bigfoot/yeti material but didn't talk about it much because of the possible consequences, I hope they do exist.

Transcript of Dr. Jane Goodall's Comments on NPR Regarding Sasquatch

For those who haven't seen the show, here's a synopsis:

Matt Moneymaker or Bobo: "I do believe there's a squatch in these woods."
Ranae the biologist: "Guys, without further information, that sound could have been almost anything."
Matt and Bobo look at each other knowingly and roll their eyes in disgust at the skeptic.
The squatchers then run madly after the sound they heard hoping apparently that the "squatch" will wait patiently for them to show up and film it or maybe clip a lock of its hair.

That's pretty much the whole show.

^^^^^^
This is spot on.
I do enjoy Bigfoot shows.
The old Patterson and Gimlin Film started my interest and still remains the best evidence.
Back to the ( Not ) Finding Bigfoot show. They are loosing me quickly.
I am not sure what could happen on the series other than finding a BF that can keep me watching much longer.

[HappyDogToday]

I love the show and don't have any problem accepting the fact that there is an unidentified species, call it big foot, yeti, sasquatch, whatever seen all over the globe. Been seen for 100s of years and documented among many cultures.

And yes, I've seen one myself and I am not crazy or making it up.

[TXNGL]

Originally Posted by brokencrayola

I have watched several of these episodes, but am certainly not a big fan. I have no idea if Bigfoot is real or not, The thing about this show though that makes me nuts is that EVERY single show they hear Bigfoot. It doesn't matter where they go someone hears it. Ok, lets be real, even if Bigfoot was real there would probably not be a ton of them or we would have real evidence by now. So the odds are almost nill that they would hear Bigfoot everywhere they went. I think that really takes away a lot from the show. As far as I am concerned, I will believe in Bigfoot when a hunter shoots one or they find a preserved dead one somewhere and they can then prove its existance.

Yep. I've always loved the myth of Bigfoot, but in this day and age there would be better proof if it existed. It's always this "awwww, just missed it!" phenomena going on. I think most encounters are misidentification. It's dark, you see something creepy and hear noises. What drives me nuts about the show is when they say, that's not a coyote! And, having heard coyotes myself, it very well could be a coyote!

[fisheye]

Originally Posted by TXNGL

Yep. I've always loved the myth of Bigfoot, but in this day and age there would be better proof if it existed. It's always this "awwww, just missed it!" phenomena going on. I think most encounters are misidentification. It's dark, you see something creepy and hear noises. What drives me nuts about the show is when they say, that's not a coyote! And, having heard coyotes myself, it very well could be a coyote!

Thirty years ago, when we first moved into our house, we had a bobcat as a neighbor. In the middle of the night it would let out blood curdling screams. It liked to perch itself on top of an old dog house that the previous owners left behind. We thought that it was maybe a mating call? His call sounded something like the next door neighbor's wife was being strangled. We eventually got rid of the old dog house and the bobcat moved on to a better perch.

As far as this show and people running around in the middle of the night screaming their heads off: Big Foot (if it existed) has to be stupid. Why would any animal answer one of these calls? Even if they would answer; why not answer the call during the daylight hours when they can more clearly see what they answering. Hunters call animals both day and night. Calling animals, that you never see at night; only creates more myth. Creating a show based on the unseen and superstition is nothing more than SciFi - it is not reality.

[LibertyandJusticeforAll]

Let me summon up this show.... run, noise, run, a noise, oooo wait what was that? did you hear that?... look some hair that we planted, some tracks that look "human" but!!!!

no big foot, no surprise, come back next week to see us repeat this farce.

[Teddy52]

Originally Posted by Vasily

I think a counter-argument might be possible … If bigfoots are out there, we know next to nothing about them … if their intelligence is somewhere between the chimp and homo sap, *and* they're rare (not like the tens of thousands claimed by the Finding Bigfoot guys … more likely they'd be classified as endangered if they exist), they might be smart enough to do a good job of avoiding us including our devices like trail cams … and perhaps even place their dead where they won't be found. A hominid that has existed side by side with us for tens of thousands of years may have learned how to stay out of our way (rather than mating into our species, which appears to be the neanderthal's strategy … the highest proportion of neanderthal DNA is found in the areas where they lived in western Europe). Plus, bodies in the wild are disposed of by scavengers pretty quickly and the rest decomposes quickly.

However, there are no other upright hominids out there today, so it's not clear from the growing fossil evidence of our ancestors where such a relative might fit. To me the upright posture doesn't fit with the hypothesis that they're descendants of gigantopithecus, which apparently were just really really big apes. But who knows? Until there's a body or convincing biological material found, they're just a story.



Here's my thinking … Animals reproduce up to the carrying capacity of the environment, and the rate of increase to that level depends on the rate of reproduction of the species (Verhulst-Pearl equation). When they approach the carrying capacity, the growth rate levels off due to the negative effects of overcrowding. Carrying capacity for species of fish intelligence or greater is related to food and other resource availability, as well as behavioral factors like territoriality.

Species from fish up to mammals tend to be either social animals or territorial and more or less solitary. Song birds are territorial as are birds of prey, and penguins are social animals. Per bird sites, the range of a songbird is small: a mated robin pair is about a third of an acre, for example. The hunting range of a golden eagle is up to 162 square miles, on the other hand. On the primate side, the territory of the orangutan is 0.4 to 2 square miles.

Herd animals move around a lot to follow their food source. Animals that live in small family groups like the orangutan or solitary animals like the golden eagle typically move when another individual kicks them out of their territory. So the question is: is bigfoot a herd or solitary animal? If all the reports are to believed, it looks like they're more on the solitary side … small family groupings. I haven't heard the kids on Finding Bigfoot talk about running into groups of five or ten big foots. Given their size. their territory is likely to be quite large. But they do talk about them communicating and supposedly talking in some kind of bigfoot language which indicates a society beyond the family group … but the reports they present on their show don't suggest any kind of larger "society" above the family group level so this doesn't add up.

Regarding hanging around an orchard or vineyard, tree fruit and grapes are available for a short period of time, and an intelligent animal will weigh its desire for this seasonal treat against the danger of exposure to the dreaded landowners. The kind of areas in North America where these things supposedly live tend to be resource rich, so there's no reason for them to hang around a plot of land that bears fruit for a fairly short portion of the year. And a territorial animal isn't likely to hang around a plot of land with resources and reproduce until they're all over the place, particularly when doing so is dangerous.

If these things exist and the stories told on the Finding Bigfoot show are accurate, they're creatures of the deep woods, and their forays into human territory are relatively infrequent. They don't seem to be what are called ecotonic species which prefer the "edges" between biomes. As I recall, a lot of the species we see around our populated areas … deer, possums, raccoons, coyotes, robins, etc. … are ecotonic species. That ain't bigfoot.

That at any rate is how I think about the bigfoot issue … and why I haven't yet given up hope that they might be out there.

( last sentence )..........why do you ..."hope that they might be out there " ?

[Osito]

I saw an episode of Paranormal Witness where a sheriff in Oregon recounted his supposed encounter with bigfoot. Apparently there have been quite a few alleged sightings in Oregon.