Around 11:30 tonight est I thought I may have gotten lucky on Gator Rd.off of St.Rd.72,I first noticed an incredibly horrific smell which I couln't quite pinpoint because of the wind,night vision in one hand with camcorder in the other.I started walking in large circular patterns and nearly stepped on a dead skunk.it at the same time taught me something and made me wonder something.what it taught me was is that there are skunks in Fl.(did not know this before,but now I firmly believe in their existence )and what it made me wonder about was how many reports I've read that involved only smell,no sighting,no tracks and no sounds just a report of a strong pungeant odor.and how many of these"skunk like smells"were actually just that a skunk or some other dead and decaying animal?after reading the posts on other threads from earlier today(about heresay and gland secretions,well done I might add )it made me wonder all the more.I started asking myself can I be a believer and a skeptic at the same time?a believer in what I myself saw(or think I saw) and a skeptic about what I've heard or read?sorry its late and I rant on and on anyways half the time.what do you guys think?

Excellent questions! I struggle with that all the time. I think to be a truly productive 'believer' you also need to be a skeptic. This is what separates us from the folks drawing state outlines on pictures of trees. We not only need to approach new reports and evidence with a skeptical eye, but also our own experiences. In fact, since we'd all love to see a bigfoot, we probably need to be even harder on ourselves than we would be on someone who doesn't believe...

Great post, jim!

Thanks B.gotta admit though, your mind can really tend to wander when your by yourself out in the middle of a bunch of overlyflooded swamps and grasslands.what got me really thinking about it is that some of the noises really make you jump if your not sure what they are.I never considered myself brave but not a coward either,but if you want nervous try taking a leak on the road side next to a swamp where you can hear the gators"talking"it make it seem like a looooonnng potty break .but every shadow and every noise out there not to mention smell sends your senses into overdrive.It may be that I'm still trying to adjust to swampy flatlands after with a greater diversity if wildlife than I'm used to,as opposed to the rolling hills,forrest and farmland that I've been around all my life.and a Q for the guys who have lived in florida longer than I.What kind of frog or bird makes a sound that sounds like a steraming series of clicks(best I can describe it,sorry)its a really annoying sound

Ain't no way I'm taking a leak next to no snapping gators! No way, no how, nope, not going to happen!

I'd rather not either but Mother Nature didn't leave me much choice at the time.

I know that tree frogs can make a noise similar to what you're referring to. And there's also a "pond" frog (real neat coloration, by the way) that makes a similar noise also.

LOL @ the nature call. I had a buddy that got bitten one night by an eastern diamondback because he inadvertantly took a leak on it. I suppose you could say that snake was p*ssed! Fortunately for him, it was a dry bite (no venom injection) so he didn't have too bad a problem with it.

Bit where, exactly...

LOL!

One the side of his leg. About shin high.

Punch line to an oooollllldddddd joke...

Lone Ranger: Tonto, what did the doctor say?

Tonto: Doctor say, you gonna' die!

No thanks I'll pass,one snakebite in this life time is enough for me thanks for the info on the frog sounds Fishy,I'm trying real hard to learn the sounds and signs of the wildlife around here and the Audobons guide to Fl.only really has pisc and descriptions.

It would be insane to file a "bigfoot" report based on odor only and I really havent seen any legit ones like that. The odor is usually related as part of the whole scenario of seeing the creature or footprints or hearing something.....I totally agree that that would be ludicrous to suggest any foul smell is a bigfoot.....

All my years of hiking, horseback riding, even riding on the quadrunner I run into yucky smells all the time. Dead or live skunks, (I get that in my backyard and garage, too )dead animals (deer, rodents, wild horses, fish), garbage that someone has dumped illegally, and swampy mud all stink really bad. The dead smell always makes me jumpy....one of my worst fears when I used to ride horses everyday into the mountains was of finding a body... I know it sounds funny, but when you smell that smell you get that tingling up your spine and think "what am I going to find if I go looking"? Usually it was a poached animal or garbage or the swampy ground.

A few years ago a body WAS found where I often rode my horse. It had been there for a year....if I was still riding up there it would have been me that found it ...and all the abandoned mines around here have been dumping grounds more than once for human remains I stay clear of them, too.....

Not that we have alot of murders here, but the desert or mountains are often where the body is disposed of after

It also goes back to strange screams and such being reported as "bigfoot"....we already talked about lions making bizarre screams and barred owls sound freaky, too...I imagine all kinds of wildlife make noises unfamiliar to the average hiker.....elk sound weird, too. So, yes you really have to question everything..... :roll:

I was going to mention that things are misidentified all the time. Around here people will think they have had a run in with a rattlesnake when they actually saw a young gopher snake. Gopher snakes look almost exactly like a rattlesnake to the average person. A young one will curl up and hiss and "rattle" his non-existant rattle to mimic a rattlesnake and freak you out....they are perfectly harmless, but it works

Like bipto, Arky and others have said, just because a person says they saw something doesn't mean they saw what they thought....

This would be the only way to go on it I believe. Of course you have to have a balance...stay skeptical of what you read and hear, but keep an open mind and leave room for the development of ideas.

I would never take smell alone as proof of a bigfoot nearby. There would have to be other indicators as well, like MsFit pointed out. But I would definitely pay attention to unidentified smells and be on the alert just incase there is more to come....