http://www.newsweek.com/id/189294

Very true and the issues raised happen far more often than one would think. My dad, who as a lawyer has done family law and criminal defense, has always told me that eyewitness testimony is often given the greatest regards by juries, but is also the most problematic.

I agree that eyewitness reports are unreliable. Yet, we have to consider the context. The article deals with identifying humans, but we're talking about BF here.

I think that it's harder to confuse a human with a BF. We could argue that eyewitnesses are confusing Bf with bears, but bears don't walk on two legs for an extended period.

How many people see an alleged bigfoot walking around for an extended period?

I can see the point when we are talking about uninformed and untrained people....misidentifing....But you cant explain away the informed and trained personal with alot more to lose than gain by telling fanciful stories...

1)People make mistakes.
2)People lie.

If you are referring to Law Enforcement professionals - refer to 1 & 2 above.

rock - Agreed to 1 and 2. But not 100% of all eyewitness reports are 1 and 2. Just saying...

People absolutely lie and make mistakes, there is no doubting that. Our criminal justice system is flawed for it, but there are also a high number of successes with witness ID'ing. If a study were done on cases with eyewitness identification of perpetrators AND corroborating DNA evidence linking the perp, and cases where they don't match up, I think it would be found that the positive ID rate was substantial, if flawed for statistical reliability.

There are a lot of cases that come up in the news that share the same storyline. Guy imprisoned for long period of time, DNA evidence gets tested, results indicate the jailed guy is innocent, the guy gets released. But what of all the cases where DNA evidence is available (but not used due to date of conviction predating decent, quick testing, or strength of case otherwise), eyewitness testimony sent someone to jail, and the eyewitness was right? We don't hear about those because 1. it isn't newsworthy (the unusual tends to get over-reported) 2. the DNA doesn't get tested because the prisoner doesn't clamor day after day to find a lawyer or foundation help them prove their innocence.

At even a 10% reliability rate, eyewitness reports need to be looked at in regards to sasquatch sightings. But I'd surprised if that many were either complete fabrications or misidentifications. 50 percent? Sure, that wouldn't shock me--heck, even 75 percent wouldn't--but I'd guess 20-25 percent have seen something very out of the ordinary.

There is no way I can say for certain that all eyewitness reports are 1 and 2 either.
I was just making a point that so-called "trained professionals" do make mistakes and they can and do lie.
There are cops in jail in Canada and in the US in cells next to preachers and school teachers and bank managers and Indian chiefs.
NO PROFESSION gives anyone a leg up on credibility when it comes to investigating extraordinary claims. IMHO.

Can anyone remember a certain rather famous case about a hoaxed BF captured in a state beginning with G where one of the perps was a "trained professional" law enforcement officer?