Hi folks,

I thought some of you might be interested to know that I just gave an hour-long lecture on bigfoot to the graduate students' lunchtime seminar series at a major research university. It was well attended and well received. I gave them pretty basic stuff: evidence for and evidence against. Few, if any of them had ever really considered the totality of evidence, so it was fun presenting information that was, to them, new. At the very least, there are now about 25 current and future wildlife biologists out there who will never just dismiss the topic out of hand.
~Saskpetic

Congratulations! I wish I could have heard it!

Excellent - you do not have to be a "believer" or even proponent to find this subject interesting. :icon14:

Edit - better thought out wording

Sweet, thats just the attidute that the world could use. Excellent!

Very cool! Care to share which major research university this was? Wish mine had Sasquatch lectures! :eek3dance:

I love it! I would have attended such a lecture, if was offerred at my school.

Did you get asked to do the lecture specifically about sasquatch, or was that topic your idea?

Where's the youtube video :biggrin:

Great! I too wish I could have heard it!

Major research university? Which one? :new_tiredsmiley:

Did you record it ?

I'm sure we could get it hosted ....

Now don't read too much into this folks. I only had four faculty show up, and I certainly didn't present anything new - just new to them. I was asked by the graduate students to make the presentation because they are fascinated by the topic and they know that I am relatively well-versed on the subject. (They also hadn't had anybody else sign up for the first slot of the new semester.)

I prefer to keep my true identity on the down low, so am reluctant to identify the university. One one hand, I like the fact there are people out there who think I look like Ernst Mayr. Also, if I reveal my workplace, I'll run the risk of losing credibility with some on the BFF: "Those guys?! They're not major!"

Thanks for the kind words - it's always fun to come here with some demonstration that wildlife biologists are indeed open to the idea of sassy.

I wish I could have heard that!! Please say you got a recording.....

Indeed.

The TBRC has three wildlife biologists among its ranks.

When I read the first sentance I knew that this was going to be a fair discussion of the subject. With both sides given an even oppertunity. Why you are peoples favorite skeptic.

Everyone needs to keep somethings secret. And I do understand why you want to keep your place of employment under your hat.

I too would like to hear your lecture. Even if it has "bleeps" when your name and the name of your university comes up. :laugh:

Very cool, dude. You must come from a very liberal and tolerent neck o' the woods if your lecture was that well received. I can't even talk about the possibility around here without being bombarded with laughter and mockery.

We all respect your desire to be anonomous, but could you instead post your lecture transcript here?

Agreed Fred

Yeah, I'd like to read a transcript as well if possible.
Saskeptic, I enjoy reading your posts, and a balanced view in my opinion is the only way to get BF out of the tabloids and accepted as a possiblity, let alone if the animal/creature/being is even real.

Me too. If you have it on your computer, please just cut and paste. If you were just speaking extemp. from an outline or 3X5 notecards, oh well, too bad for us I guess.

I'll post the meat of the presentation here in the next couple of days, but I think y'all will be disappointed. It's the same stuff I've posted here on the BFF hundreds of times. I'm really not trying to be evasive, I just think that the level of detail I presented would be, for you folks, about kindergarten level.

That would be great, I would have liked to have heckled heard your lecture. :biggrin: I suspect that the material would probably not be a million miles off what a scientifically oriented "believer" would commit to paper if he forced himself to be absolutely rigourous and honest, when faced with an audience of enquiring minds.

With apologies for length, here are the talking points from my lecture the other day:

North America’s other native hominid?
Why the legend of Bigfoot is stronger than ever.

My objectives
– Provide an update for “bigfoot” evidence collected since 1967
– Provide an objective consideration of said evidence - arguments for and against
– Why I think you should care about this phenomenon

The problem:
• Due to its association with the paranormal and frequent appearance on supermarket tabloids, “bigfoot” is career-ending poison for the serious scientist (or so most people assume).
• Many cases of well-documented hoaxes blur the line between fact and fiction.
• Still, dozens of otherwise credible people who apparently have nothing to gain from going public with their story report encounters with creatures like this every year.
• It’s easy to explain it all away . . . until you are the person that sees one cross the road ahead of you on a dark night, or finds a print way out in the boonies.

Bigfoot in history:
• “Sasquatch” and related creatures are well represented in Native American folklore, with little distinction between beings considered “spirit” vs those identified as literal creatures.
• In North America, accounts from white settlers range from at least 1811 to the present day. This is NOT a new phenomenon.

Bigfoot: a typical field encounter
• 1-2 people in very remote location - hunting, backpacking, etc.
• Encounters may last for several days - interpreted as territorial defense
• Howls, wood knocks, and rocks thrown at the witness(es)
• Eventually escalates to creatures approaching more closely and briefly showing themselves
• Witness(es) leave ASAP, and often claim that they no longer enjoy hunting, backpacking, etc.

Bigfoot: a typical roadway encounter
• Motorist driving a remote highway during the night
• Sees something big, tall, dark, and hairy cross the road in front of them - on TWO feet.
• “in the middle of nowhere”
• Very tall - usually at least 7’ - and muscular
• Frequently - though not always - associated with a gag-inducing stench
• Witness shaken, unbelieving

Bigfoot in the US:
• Thousands of reports from almost every state.
• Most concentrated in the Pacific Northwest, but other hotspots include Texas, Florida, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Ohio.
• Range basically approximates that of black bear, although probably less dependent on forest than bears
• Population estimated to be about 3000-4000. Some say
• < 1000; others as many as 10,000.

Bigfoot around the world: showed map of sas-type creatures (e.g., yeti, yowie, orang-pendek), then showed some artist’s conceptions of said creature, ending with story out of Johor.

What to make of these reports?
Options:
• “Witness” is lying
• Witness was victim of hoax (whether the intended target or not)
• Witness misidentified another species, e.g. a bear
• Witness was hallucinating due to impairment
• Witness was hallucinating due to a complex combination of bigfoot-like creatures deep in the human psyche and our brains filling in details that aren’t really there
• Witness actually observed a living creature fitting the description of a “bigfoot”

Could there really be such creatures out there, right now, all over the world but without a single piece of definitive physical evidence?

Maybe:
• Really no fossil record for chimps or gorillas either
• Gorillas only recently discovered after many years of Western scientists pooh-poohing tales of these magnificent creatures - same goes for several recent “discoveries” of large mammals in Vietnam
• While almost every square inch of the planet is influenced by human activities, there is still A LOT of land out there that only rarely gets visited by humans.
• Many planes are lost in the PNW - crashes that are never found despite intensive searches
• Bigfoots are smart - and don’t want to be found

If there is such a thing, what could it be?
Is there any precedent for living creatures matching this description?
Gigantopithecus?
• Right size - est. 600-1000 lbs; up to 10’ tall
• Can’t tell from meager fossil evidence if it was bipedal
• Known from late Pleistocene, though no evidence in fossil record for dispersal across Beringia

Bigfoot: Homo erectus?
• Definitely bipedal.
• Recognizably human.
• Homo erectus meganthropus was the right size and shape, but there are no remains in fossil record in the last million years.
• Hard to imagine significant loss of technology during evolutionary history - bigfoot not observed with advanced tools or using fire

Footprint evidence:
• Literally thousands of such prints
• Many - obviously – hoaxed
• But if just one is authentic, then as scientists we’ve got “some ‘splainin’ to do.”
• “cripplefoot” tracks
• mid-tarsal breaks
• Dermal ridges

The Skookum Cast:
• Reputed bigfoot butt-print in soft mud
• Some experts claim is the real thing; others say it was left by an elk

Indirect evidence:
• Howls
• Tree twists
• Wood knocks
• Thrown rocks

The Patterson/Gimlin film – background
• Oct. 20, 1967 - Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin film an apparent female bigfoot from the Bluff Creek valley of northern California
• Also made plaster casts of footprints left by the creature
• Either the best evidence for bigfoot ever OR a pretty good hoax. The film remains inconclusive.

The Patterson/Gimlin film -
evidence for Patty:
• She’s large - about 6 and a half feet and very bulky
• She has arms proportionately longer than ours
• Moves with a fluid gait
• She has hair-covered, pendulous breasts
• Her hair moves as she walks - I.e., shakes on impact from her steps
• Apparent muscle movement -esp. in the flexion of the calf
• Fingers are seen to curl in one frame but stretch out in another
• All parties have stuck to their story for almost 40 years - despite a falling out that left Gimlin with no royalties from the film
• All attempts to recreate a “gorilla suit” as convincing have been unmitigated failures
• Skeptics generally dismiss it without really analyzing it – proponents definitely have been analyzing it and their work bolsters their belief.

The Patterson/Gimlin film -
evidence against Patty
• “Fishier than a Friday during Lent“
• Patterson was a rodeo cowboy who was involved in numerous shady activities
• He became obsessed with bigfoot, and had set out in 1967 specifically to film one. (Pretty amazing luck, eh?)
• Patterson had tried to make his own (legitimate) bigfoot movie, and did have connections to Hollywood special effects guys
• The creature looks pretty good, but still strikes me as a guy in a suit. (Here I pointed out Patty’s “diaper butt” but also acknowledged Jack’s recent work that seems to show two independent glutes.)

What’s in the peer-reviewed literature on this stuff?
• Nothing, really.
• Claim editorial bias - can’t publish in anything other than “specialty” journals that deal with cryptozoology, UFOs, etc.
• I say if your “proof” is good enough, you can publish it!
• After discovery of Homo floresiensis in 2004, Nature editor Henry Gee pronounced that other such creatures may be “founded on grains of truth”. Gee symbolically opened the door to mainstream publication of cryptozoology research.

Your personal story: why should you care about the bigfoot phenomenon?
• We are zoologists - if there’s any kernel of truth to this thing, then we should be the ones to know about it.
• When the general public comes to us with something wacky like a bigfoot story, are we prepared to give an informed opinion, and treat the witness with respect?

Bigfoot: why a “real, scientific study” won’t shed any light on this:
• Where to do it? Oregon, Texas, Kentucky, Ohio, Malaysia, Caucasus, China, Australia? Bigfoot is everywhere and nowhere.
• How could, say, a graduate student on a 2-3 year project come back from the field with definitive proof when others have devoted decades to fruitless searching?
• Implications of discovery: ESA, habitat protection, logging restrictions . . .

Topics we discussed in depth:
• Patty – I concluded by saying that (to my knowledge) there has been no serious analysis of the film by “mainstream” science – just closed-minded people dismissing it out of hand while proponents analyze it to death and have produced a laundry list of features that point to the film subject’s authenticity. Still there are lots of little red flags surrounding Patty, and she still just looks like a guy in a suit to me. Conclusion: inconclusive.
• Footprints – if just one is the real deal, then that breaks the case wide open. Many of these are fakes or misidentifications, but experts in this sort of evidence think that at least some of the prints show features that would be near impossible to hoax. Conclusion: inconclusive.
• Why no good photo? – It’s dark, it happens quickly, you’re scared out of your mind . . .
• Why none shot yet? – It’s huge and you’re not sure you can kill it; you don’t know how many others might be watching you; if you killed it, how would you get it out of there; can’t be sure it’s not a guy in a suit; if you can tell it’s not a guy in a suit, it is frequently described as looking too “human” to shoot.
• Would a photo be good enough to describe it? Maybe, the highland mangabey provides some possible precedent for describing a species from a photo, but that description was also followed up with a type specimen. The systematists in the crowd knew all about this issue, and indicated that it was still a matter of much debate, i.e., if the mangabey record was really valid before they obtained a specimen.

That's all, folks. Thanks for the hard work so many of you do that has educated me about this stuff since i've been active on the BFF.
~Saskeptic

Excellent. I would have liked to have attended.

This is an article from 1793:

"Monday, July 01, 1793

[Bald Mountain Article]

Boston Gazette



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Charleston, S.C. May 17, 1793

A Gentleman on the South Fork of the Saluda river in a letter of the 23rd sends his correspondent in this city the following description on the Bald Mountains in the Western Territories. This animal is between twelve and fifteen feet high, and in shape resembling a human being, except the head, which is in equal proportion to its body and drawn in somewhat like a tarapin; its feet are like those of a negroe, and about two feet long, and hairy, which is of a dark dun colour; its eyes are exceedingly large, and open and shut up and down its face; the hair of its head is about six inches long, stands straight like a negroe's; its nose is what is called Roman. These animals are bold, and have lately attempted to kill several persons - in which attempt some of them have been shot. Their principal resort is on the Bald Mountain, where they lay in wait for travellers - but some have been seen in this part of the country. The inhabitants call it Yahoo; the Indains, however, give it the name of Chickly Cudly."

http://www.bfro.net/GDB/show_article.asp?id=293

Thanks for posting that Saskeptic. Would have loved to have heard the lecture -- sounds like it was well balanced, and had the potential to ignite an interest in this subject.
I know I was a hard-nosed skeptic until I heard someone speak on BF, and he was a person who claimed to be "just past the half way point" in accepting BF is real.

Bottom line Saskeptic is that you took the time to present a look at the "WHOLE PICTURE", not just the accepted and biased academic view. Even if none of those students decide to even consider this a topic they wish to pursue, they still learned something. You've opened the door for them to open their minds and not just accept teachings at face value without giving all sides of the equation equal consideration. For that I commend you, and I truly hope that each and every one of those that attended your lecture realize what a great gift you've given them.

:appl:

Would that more in academia were so thorough in their unbiased presentation!

Sounds really good. Presenting 'points against' honestly is important to being taken seriously.

Indeed. Despite my sekptical persona here, I knew I had to speak from the "pro" side as much as possible to make a stimulating presentation and do the topic justice. The closest I came to giving my actual opinion (other than my specific troubles with the PGF) was when pressed at the very end by this question: "Do you think it's plausible?" My answer was something like "No, but people keep seeing them and keep finding prints, so who knows?"

I have never given a lecture that has generated this much buzz. The only negative reactions I've received have been from people who were ticked off that they missed it.

Hey, welcome back Robo! Stick around this time will ya?

Nice lecture. Fair summarization of the Bigfoot phenomenon as it stands today. If that didn't stir up some curiosity I don;t know what would.

Update - September 2007.


I just gave this lecture again following a groundswell of interest from our students. I delivered it last night to kick off the year's events for the student chapter of The Wildlife Society. This time, the room was larger and held 60-70 undergrads, grads, and a few faculty. I left more time for Q&A than when I first gave this talk last January, and the response has been terrific. So that's now 60-70 more educated people (mostly future wildlife biologists) who will never dismiss a bigfoot encounter out of hand.

Very cool! Looks well thought out.

Did anyone record you? If so, maybe you could get a copy and convert it so that we could hear it.

Of course, you could always burn some CDs and sell it too.

I particularly appreciate your dispassioned, well reasoned, and insightfull perspective and would look forward to a copy of your presentation.
Just curious...is your current avatar appears to be a portrait by or in the style of Thomas Gainsborough. An historical character of note?

Oh... and I've found that after public speaking on a topic, it's not uncommon for members of the audience who have relevant information but are, as are most members of the species, terrified of talking to an audience, will sometimes introduce themselves to the speaker. Did you have attendees who had previous undisclosed experiences?

It's John James Audubon.

Good on ya, Mate!


Yeah I found this portrait of Audubon that I had never seen before, and I took a shine to it. It really conveys his energy and wanderlust, and I think that's cool. So yes, a historical figure of some note.

Thanks for the kind words, y'all.

I modified things a bit for this presentation, drawing some on a recent thread to expound on what role governments should play in the search. I promise I was fair-handed, Huntster!

This is actually a lot of fun for me. For every goofy bigfoot story I relate for comedic effect, I also present stuff that still puzzles me, and it's awesome to see the crowd reaction turn on a dime from giggles to absolute pin-drop silence. You can tell in that moment that people are thinking "Holy crap - what if this is real?!"

In my concluding statements, I'm very clear to tell them that some people believe they are seeing something, and who am I to tell them that they didn't?

Dogu4, yes. At least two people approached me last night with stories of relatives or acquaintences who've had some kind of an encounter. One is a former student of mine who said he's actually doing a weekend campout with his family to investigate an area where (I think) his uncle found a print or something.

Kudos to you Saskeptic!

Awesome!

See what you have done? You have created at least one new field researcher. Keep it up!

Im actually surprised that there was no "Without your full name, address, and telephone and the same for the university I must dismiss all of this out of hand." kinda stuff. Good job folks.

A class act indeed!