BigFoot Track

gogittum · November 2021

This topic came up in my HorseFly Lake thread, so I went looking. I have dozens of stories I sent friends, of hikes all over the country, but esp. in SW New Mexico. I'm pretty pleased with memory and filing system - I found it in less than 5 minutes:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/17CMeGpIbbzZyi6OlnWCnUrzZTOiEag_yHlkLJ1pCIn0/edit?usp=sharing

I decided to publish the whole story to keep it all in context and to give an idea of how I went about things there. I love to get off-trail and take off cross-country to explore and see what I can find. Possibilities are endless. Same as in Palm Springs - frequently when I told local people of things/places I'd found they didn't believe me till I showed them pictures.

On very local hikes, I sometimes saw a very few other people. Farther out and way back of beyond, I never saw another soul on any hikes.

tankered · November 2021

I like to think there are undiscovered critters out there but like you said, there's just so many people and cameras out there these days that one would think some solid evidence would have surfaced by now.

I do enjoy reading the stories of your travels.

dave44 · November 2021

Ummmm. Good story.
But did you just dog whistle!

😂 (if you say big foot, he’ll be here)

pottydoc · November 2021

All kinds of folks claiming big foot exists for years and years now. Lots of pics, but somehow, even with the very good, and easy to use cameras of today, every one of them is blurry, or a tree is in the way, and a bunch of other things that makes the pic impossible to see clearly. Literally 10's of 1000's of trail cameras in the woods all over the US without a single clear pic. 100's or thousands armed hunters that spend multiple days in the woods, and not one ever shot a big foot. The reason for all those things is simple. There isn't any such thing as a big foot.

As far as it goes, there's no such thing as a black panther (the cat kind, not human) either.

Florida Bullfrog · November 2021

pottydoc said:

All kinds of folks claiming big foot exists for years and years now. Lots of pics, but somehow, even with the very good, and easy to use cameras of today, every one of them is blurry, or a tree is in the way, and a bunch of other things that makes the pic impossible to see clearly. Literally 10's of 1000's of trail cameras in the woods all over the US without a single clear pic. 100's or thousands armed hunters that spend multiple days in the woods, and not one ever shot a big foot. The reason for all those things is simple. There isn't any such thing as a big foot.

As far as it goes, there's no such thing as a black panther (the cat kind, not human) either.

There is such a thing as a black panther. They're black color morphs of jaguars and leopards. There's just no reason to believe they're found in Florida in any breeding population.

Image: https://mymodernmet.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/leopard-panther-couple-mithun-h-6.jpg

I've written a small novella on my thoughts to Bigfoot in another topic a while ago. If you remove 99% of Bigfoot sightings and only go with the top 1% most credible sightings, you're still left with thousands of eyewitness accounts that can't be easily dismissed. People go to prison for life or get executed on less evidence.

The very strong eyewitness testimony is contradicted by no solid physical evidence. The lack of physical evidence cannot cancel out the validity of credible sightings, nor can the existence of several thousand strong sightings cancel out the lack of physical evidence. A satisfactory explanation has to take into account and explain both why there's strong eyewitness sightings but no conclusive physical proof that can't be faked.

I think the best theory that takes into account both elements is that there were never many Bigfoots living in the modern era. Apes have long lifespans. It wouldn't take very many living Bigfoots to account for 1% of the reported sightings. A dozen on the low end, maybe a hundred individual specimens at most. If they have a lifespan of 60-80 years as other apes do, a single Bigfoot living in an isolated pocket could be responsible for several dozen sightings over several decades, yet as one individual its tracks and scat wouldn't be found that often by humans or recognized for what it was. When it dies of old age its remains are not likely to be found being just one individual in a vast wilderness of thousands of square miles.

Many large mammal species exist today in worldwide populations of less than 50 or 100 individuals. Its not healthy for an animal to live in such low population numbers, but that has nothing to do with the biological reality that many large animals so live in such critically low numbers.

I think by now Bigfoots are extinct in all but the most remote areas of the world. I think there was a handful of them left in north Florida into the 1990s.

All a "Bigfoot" is is any species of ape that is currently unknown to science or ape species known from the fossil record that survived into the modern era undocumented. There were probably many species of Bigfoots around the world in 1700, of which we probably knew most of from the fossil record. I think today there's only a few left in the remote parts of Asia.

**** floresiensis was probably a Bigfoot and we probably grossly over-dated the age of the bones found on Flores, given that the bones were found because the locals told the scientists that the scientists should look in that particular cave because the locals' great grandfathers killed some little harry monster people with fire and buried the creatures back in the cave. Its far more likely the local's account was of a real event their recent ancestors witnessed than it is that the locals made up a Bigfoot story and the discovery of little Bigfoot bones where the locals said they would be was a simple coincidence.

Florida Bullfrog · November 2021

JohnnyBandit said:

Florida Bullfrog said:

pottydoc said:

All kinds of folks claiming big foot exists for years and years now. Lots of pics, but somehow, even with the very good, and easy to use cameras of today, every one of them is blurry, or a tree is in the way, and a bunch of other things that makes the pic impossible to see clearly. Literally 10's of 1000's of trail cameras in the woods all over the US without a single clear pic. 100's or thousands armed hunters that spend multiple days in the woods, and not one ever shot a big foot. The reason for all those things is simple. There isn't any such thing as a big foot.

As far as it goes, there's no such thing as a black panther (the cat kind, not human) either.

There is such a thing as a black panther. They're black color morphs of jaguars and leopards. There's just no reason to believe they're found in Florida in any breeding population.

I've written a small novella on my thoughts to Bigfoot in another topic a while ago. If you remove 99% of Bigfoot sightings and only go with the top 1% most credible sightings, you're still left with thousands of eyewitness accounts that can't be easily dismissed. People go to prison for life or get executed on less evidence.

The very strong eyewitness testimony is contradicted by no solid physical evidence. The lack of physical evidence cannot cancel out the validity of credible sightings, nor can the existence of several thousand strong sightings cancel out the lack of physical evidence. A satisfactory explanation has to take into account and explain both why there's strong eyewitness sightings but no conclusive physical proof that can't be faked.

I think the best theory that takes into account both elements is that there were never many Bigfoots living in the modern era. Apes have long lifespans. It wouldn't take very many living Bigfoots to account for 1% of the reported sightings. A dozen on the low end, maybe a hundred individual specimens at most. If they have a lifespan of 60-80 years as other apes do, a single Bigfoot living in an isolated pocket could be responsible for several dozen sightings over several decades, yet as one individual its tracks and scat wouldn't be found that often by humans or recognized for what it was. When it dies of old age its remains are not likely to be found being just one individual in a vast wilderness of thousands of square miles.

Many large mammal species exist today in worldwide populations of less than 50 or 100 individuals. Its not healthy for an animal to live in such low population numbers, but that has nothing to do with the biological reality that many large animals so live in such critically low numbers.

I think by now Bigfoots are extinct in all but the most remote areas of the world. I think there was a handful of them left in north Florida into the 1990s.

All a "Bigfoot" is is any species of ape that is currently unknown to science or ape species known from the fossil record that survived into the modern era undocumented. There were probably many species of Bigfoots around the world in 1700, of which we probably knew most of from the fossil record. I think today there's only a few left in the remote parts of Asia.

**** floresiensis was probably a Bigfoot and we probably grossly over-dated the age of the bones found on Flores, given that the bones were found because the locals told the scientists that the scientists should look in that particular cave because the locals' great grandfathers killed some little harry monster people with fire and buried the creatures back in the cave. Its far more likely the local's account was of a real event their recent ancestors witnessed than it is that the locals made up a Bigfoot story and the discovery of little Bigfoot bones where the locals said they would be was a simple coincidence.

LOL No....

Just No.....

Yes there are black Jaguars..... And Yes there are black Leopards......

Neither of those are Panthers...

There has never been a documented example.... of a Puma, Mountain Lion, Cougar, Painter, Catamount, Panther in any subspecies of the Puma concolor.....

So No.... There is no such thing as a black panther...

There are black Leopards and black Jaguars.... But no black panthers...

Unless you are talking about...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYxwfMI9j0w

The term "black panther" is what black leopards and jaguars are called and have been for hundreds of years. The term "panther" comes from the Greek and Latin and was the word for "leopard" in those languages and was adapted in the Romantic languages of Europe. To call a cat a "panther" in the old European languages simply meant you were calling it a leopard, and then to add "black" to it simply means you were calling it a "black leopard." Later in the English we started only using panther to describe the black leopards and jaguars.

A black panther is the melanistic colour variant of the leopard (Panthera pardus) and the jaguar (Panthera onca). Black panthers of both species have excess black pigments, but their typical rosettes are also present. They have been documented mostly in tropical forests, with black leopards in Kenya, India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Thailand, Peninsular Malaysia and Java, and black jaguars in Mexico, Panama, Costa Rica and Paraguay. Melanism is caused by a recessive allele in the leopard, and by a dominant allele in the jaguar.

That Florida Crackers also called our native cougars "panthers" is a coincidence or a misuse of the term "panther" by our backwoods forefathers. Crackers got to calling our cougars "panthers" probably by butchering the term "painter cat" with their heavy accents. Painter cat was apparently a common name for cougars in the East early in the nation's history. Or they may have simply been calling the big cats "panthers" because that's what any non-Lion, non-Tiger, big predatory cat was called (leaving only the leopards/jaguars)in antiquity and they had just enough learning to pull the term "panther" from a book. An eastern cougar may have seemed more like a leopard in how they slinked to the settlers of the day. Just as out west they call them "lions," but cougars aren't really lions any more than they are panthers.

Here, as you can see, black panthers have their own wikipedia article that identifies them as black leopards and jaguars:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_panther

The term "black panther" was used in English to describe black jaguars/leopards far longer in history than Floridians called our mountain lions "panthers." Because panther means leopard.

Panthera pardus: Leopard
Panthera onca: Jaguar

The word panther derives from classical Latin panthēra, itself from the ancient Greek pánthēr (πάνθηρ).[8] The phonetically similar Sanskrit word पाण्डर pând-ara means 'pale yellow, whitish, white'.[9]

You know what cat isn't included in the Panther family scientifically? Florida panthers (cougars).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panthera

Panthera used to only include jaguars and leopards, then in the early 1900s lions and tigers were grouped in.

Cougars/Florida panthers are their own group and not a part of the real panther group.

kellercl · November 2021

Everybody has a high definition camera in their pocket.... yet not a single good picture or video exists... the answer is obvious.

Oh and there isn't a single fossil... I mean we have fossils of dinosaurs that lived millions upon millions of years ago... but no fossils of Bigfoot.

That simple folks. Obviously Bigfoot isn't real. Thinking otherwise is some odd pseudo religion.

Florida Bullfrog · November 2021

kellercl said:

Everybody has a high definition camera in their pocket.... yet not a single good picture or video exists... the answer is obvious.

Oh and there isn't a single fossil... I mean we have fossils of dinosaurs that lived millions upon millions of years ago... but no fossils of Bigfoot.

That simple folks. Obviously Bigfoot isn't real. Thinking otherwise is some odd pseudo religion.

Any fossils or bones of an upright walking ape, of which there were many species, is a potential Bigfoot candidate. Most Bigfoot creatures from around the world are described as being smaller than 6ft tall, just as most extinct ape fossils are, and there are even a few species of extinct apes we know of that exceeded the size of how the larger Bigfoots are described.

We also find many of these extinct ape fossils and bones in regions that have Bigfoot legends. As I already mentioned, h. floresiensis was discovered due to a local bigfoot legend describing where little bigfoot bones were buried, killed by villagers when one of the little bigfoots killed a child a couple of generations previous. There are several large extinct ape species that we know of from the Himalayan and Indian subcontinent regions, where yeti legends come from that would match the description of a yeti. We also have an account from a German mercenary in the middle ages of a yeti being captured and gifted to a Mongol warlord and it would pretty much match the description of a couple of ape species known to have lived in the area.

All the Bigfoot debate is really about is whether any of those ancient, upright walking, ape species survived into the modern era and were seen by man. That’s all a Bigfoot is if they are real. An ape that we thought was extinct that isn’t or at least wasn’t until the modern era.

John McKroid · November 2021

gogittum said:

This topic came up in my HorseFly Lake thread, so I went looking. I have dozens of stories I sent friends, of hikes all over the country, but esp. in SW New Mexico. I'm pretty pleased with memory and filing system - I found it in less than 5 minutes:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/17CMeGpIbbzZyi6OlnWCnUrzZTOiEag_yHlkLJ1pCIn0/edit?usp=sharing

Glad you were able to find this, I find it fascinating. Thanks for sharing.

kellercl · November 2021

Florida Bullfrog said:

kellercl said:

Everybody has a high definition camera in their pocket.... yet not a single good picture or video exists... the answer is obvious.

Oh and there isn't a single fossil... I mean we have fossils of dinosaurs that lived millions upon millions of years ago... but no fossils of Bigfoot.

That simple folks. Obviously Bigfoot isn't real. Thinking otherwise is some odd pseudo religion.

Any fossils or bones of an upright walking ape, of which there were many species, is a potential Bigfoot candidate. Most Bigfoot creatures from around the world are described as being smaller than 6ft tall, just as most extinct ape fossils are, and there are even a few species of extinct apes we know of that exceeded the size of how the larger Bigfoots are described.

We also find many of these extinct ape fossils and bones in regions that have Bigfoot legends. As I already mentioned, h. floresiensis was discovered due to a local bigfoot legend describing where little bigfoot bones were buried, killed by villagers when one of the little bigfoots killed a child a couple of generations previous. There are several large extinct ape species that we know of from the Himalayan and Indian subcontinent regions, where yeti legends come from that would match the description of a yeti. We also have an account from a German mercenary in the middle ages of a yeti being captured and gifted to a Mongol warlord and it would pretty much match the description of a couple of ape species known to have lived in the area.

All the Bigfoot debate is really about is whether any of those ancient, upright walking, ape species survived into the modern era and were seen by man. That’s all a Bigfoot is if they are real. An ape that we thought was extinct that isn’t or at least wasn’t until the modern era.

All great and dandy... except for the complete lack of evidence. There simply is no evidence walking apes existed in the modern Era. No pics, no videos, no carcass, no dna.... literally nothing.

Bigfoot is a cool story, but a story it is.

And eye witness accounts mean nothing, just ask all the people who saw Elvis last year.

Florida Bullfrog · November 2021

kellercl said:

Florida Bullfrog said:

kellercl said:

Everybody has a high definition camera in their pocket.... yet not a single good picture or video exists... the answer is obvious.

Oh and there isn't a single fossil... I mean we have fossils of dinosaurs that lived millions upon millions of years ago... but no fossils of Bigfoot.

That simple folks. Obviously Bigfoot isn't real. Thinking otherwise is some odd pseudo religion.

Any fossils or bones of an upright walking ape, of which there were many species, is a potential Bigfoot candidate. Most Bigfoot creatures from around the world are described as being smaller than 6ft tall, just as most extinct ape fossils are, and there are even a few species of extinct apes we know of that exceeded the size of how the larger Bigfoots are described.

We also find many of these extinct ape fossils and bones in regions that have Bigfoot legends. As I already mentioned, h. floresiensis was discovered due to a local bigfoot legend describing where little bigfoot bones were buried, killed by villagers when one of the little bigfoots killed a child a couple of generations previous. There are several large extinct ape species that we know of from the Himalayan and Indian subcontinent regions, where yeti legends come from that would match the description of a yeti. We also have an account from a German mercenary in the middle ages of a yeti being captured and gifted to a Mongol warlord and it would pretty much match the description of a couple of ape species known to have lived in the area.

All the Bigfoot debate is really about is whether any of those ancient, upright walking, ape species survived into the modern era and were seen by man. That’s all a Bigfoot is if they are real. An ape that we thought was extinct that isn’t or at least wasn’t until the modern era.

All great and dandy... except for the complete lack of evidence. There simply is no evidence walking apes existed in the modern Era. No pics, no videos, no carcass, no dna.... literally nothing.

Bigfoot is a cool story, but a story it is.

And eye witness accounts mean nothing, just ask all the people who saw Elvis last year.

I agree the lack of good pictures in the trail camera era is very problematic, that’s why I theorize they’re mostly extinct today. I was merely refuting your claim there are no fossils.

As for eyewitness testimony, that’s what the vast majority of criminals are convicted on and always have been. Its somehow good enough to deprive humans of live and liberty but not good enough to acknowledge the existence of a species or animal?

It is helpful to know that many other species have been officially recognized with less physical evidence than what exists for bigfoot. The reason the scientific community requires more for bigfoot than they do other animals has a lot to do with pride and also the ramifications that bigfoot would have towards general credibility of the scientific community and our understanding of the natural world. I think many skeptics are at this stage would be upset if bigfoot were proven true because they’ve staked so much reputation on bigfoot being obviously a fable.

It is also helpful to understand that the quality of physical and eyewitness evidence is generally higher prior to the 1960s before bigfoot became an urban legend. Anyone can fake or project a bigfoot sighting today because everyone knows the ingredients for making the claim. 200 years ago it doesn’t make sense why uneducated Indians and settlers who had never seen an ape before were drawing, carving, and describing apes as living animals in North America. They weren’t describing random boogymen. The animals they described were apes in appearance and behavior.

Some of the plaster cast evidence is strong, especially for those very realistic and flexible tracks that were cast before the invention of latex and other moldable and flexible materials.

Floyd · November 2021

Many people claim there is no evidence of bigfoot, but that is just because they are unaware of the hundreds of reports where the evidence has been hidden or dismissed by government personnel. When there is evidence, such as a dead bigfoot, local police notify wildlife agents who notify some government agency that deals with these creatures and the whole thing is covered up in a number of ways.

Why are they covering this up? There are a number of theories, but you can read testimony from aging government researchers who have had enough of the coverup and are starting to talk about what the government knows.

I saw the Patterson-Gimlin film of the bigfoot many years ago and I figured that if it was real another film or more evidence would surface...but it didn't, or at least it wasn't big news, so I kind of ignored the subject. I eventually found that there are dozens of researchers creating shows on Youtube that you can watch and learn about bigfoot despite the lack of any acknowledgement from official sources.

After reading about them for a couple of years, here's a few of the things I've learned about bigfoot:

1. They aren't all the same. There are at least 7 varieties in the US, and there are many other varietals all over the world, and they didn't get there by a land-bridge.

2. Over 30 Indian cultures in the US have a name for bigfoot, and an oral history of them, though they often don't like to talk about them.

3. They aren't just undiscovered apes. Their DNA is half human/half "other", with no ape DNA. Most labs will not accept "bigfoot" DNA for testing.

4. They have amazing physical and mental abilities.

---For example, their eyes are able to see a much wider spectrum that we can, which allows them to see in the dark. There are many reports of them also being able to generate some near-infrared light of their own. They are able to see and hear game cams and avoid or defeat them.

---They also have great strength, able to lift heavy trees or break big logs or lift heavy construction equipment.

---They are omnivorous, and can eat almost anything that will provide nourishment.

---They are able to live in the winter without clothing, which probably indicates that they have a highly variable metabolism.

---they can communicate with mental telepathy, both between themselves, and often to humans. There are wide variations among us for this ability.

---they can project fear and dread to frighten people into moving along, though the most common response is that people feel like they are being watched. Some of the more sensitive people have had their life changed by such contact, or suffer from a type of PTSD afterwards that can last for a lifetime. Lifelong hunters may stop hunting after a single sighting/contact and never go into the woods again.

---they have multiple vocal systems and are able to project over a wide range of frequencies and volume. It is often reported that people "feel" their scream/roar throughout their bodies.

There is much more to be learned, and many people believe that the government will be releasing a soft-disclosure about their existence, similar to what they did with the UFOs last summer.

If you want to listen to some personal experiences, go to SasquatchChronicles.com , where there are interviews with hundreds of witnesses.

And for those who are convinced that bigfoot doesn't exist, remember that

"Absence of proof, is not proof of Absence".

kellercl · November 2021

Lol, I love Bigfoot advocates.

Gardawg · November 2021

Florida Bullfrog · November 2021

Floyd said:

Many people claim there is no evidence of bigfoot, but that is just because they are unaware of the hundreds of reports where the evidence has been hidden or dismissed by government personnel. When there is evidence, such as a dead bigfoot, local police notify wildlife agents who notify some government agency that deals with these creatures and the whole thing is covered up in a number of ways.
Why are they covering this up? There are a number of theories, but you can read testimony from aging government researchers who have had enough of the coverup and are starting to talk about what the government knows.
I saw the Patterson-Gimlin film of the bigfoot many years ago and I figured that if it was real another film or more evidence would surface...but it didn't, or at least it wasn't big news, so I kind of ignored the subject. I eventually found that there are dozens of researchers creating shows on Youtube that you can watch and learn about bigfoot despite the lack of any acknowledgement from official sources.
After reading about them for a couple of years, here's a few of the things I've learned about bigfoot:
1. They aren't all the same. There are at least 7 varieties in the US, and there are many other varietals all over the world, and they didn't get there by a land-bridge.
2.   Over 30 Indian cultures in the US have a name for bigfoot, and an oral history of them, though they often don't like to talk about them.
3. They aren't just undiscovered apes. Their DNA is half human/half "other", with no ape DNA. Most labs will not accept "bigfoot" DNA for testing.
4.   They have amazing physical and mental abilities.
---For example, their eyes are able to see a much wider spectrum that we can, which allows them to see in the dark. There are many reports of them also being able to generate some near-infrared light of their own. They are able to see and hear game cams and avoid or defeat them.
---They also have great strength, able to lift heavy trees or break big logs or lift heavy construction equipment.
---They are omnivorous, and can eat almost anything that will provide nourishment.
---They are able to live in the winter without clothing, which probably indicates that they have a highly variable metabolism.
---they can communicate with mental telepathy, both between themselves, and often to humans. There are wide variations among us for this ability.
---they can project fear and dread to frighten people into moving along, though the most common response is that people feel like they are being watched. Some of the more sensitive people have had their life changed by such contact, or suffer from a type of PTSD afterwards that can last for a lifetime. Lifelong hunters may stop hunting after a single sighting/contact and never go into the woods again.
---they have multiple vocal systems and are able to project over a wide range of frequencies and volume. It is often reported that people "feel" their scream/roar throughout their bodies.

There is much more to be learned, and many people believe that the government will be releasing a soft-disclosure about their existence, similar to what they did with the UFOs last summer.
If you want to listen to some personal experiences, go to SasquatchChronicles.com , where there are interviews with hundreds of witnesses.
And for those who are convinced that bigfoot doesn't exist, remember that
"Absence of proof, is not proof of Absence".

One difference in where you and I may start our analysis is that where you may take most contemporary accounts at face value, I reject most modern sightings as being valid. I think most otherwise honest and non-crazy sightings are a result of bigfoot being on our brains so to speak. For example, if I was sleeping alone in the woods on a semi-bright night and a largest figured moved by my camp as I lay half asleep, my mind is already steeped in bigfoot lore. Therefore my brain may fill in details that aren’t there and make the figure seem like a classic sasquatch.

200 years ago before any white person knew what a sasquatch was, my observations of the same event would carry more weight if I observed ape traits such as a pointed head, arms down to the knees, a bent legged stance, calling through howls and whistles, hitting tree trunks with wood limbs, ect. All physical and behavioral traits associated with apes but noted by someone who doesn’t know anything about apes, much less “Bigfoot.” That’s a more likely sighting that someone today observing the same traits where today the internet and goofy reality shows have engrained on almost everyone what a bigfoot sighting should be like.

I have noticed that bigfoot encounters seem to make some people crazy after the fact. Les Stroud aka Survivorman believes some very odd things about bigfoot, such as that they are supernatural intelligent beings that can cloak themselves (turn invisible) and possibly phase in and out of reality. He also believes he has telepathically communicated with them. I dig Les Stroud and I don’t think less of him because he believes that. I do think his thoughts on the subject are conflated with his spiritual beliefs that may basically involve some sort of nature worship or shamanistic religion.

The head prospector who gave the famous ape canyon sighting in the 1920s also went crazy later in life and said that he telephonically communicated with bigfoots. Seems to be a common theme where people begin to think they have a special bond with bigfoots.

If you believe most bigfoot sightings are real then you almost have to accept some sort of supernatural explanation of the bigfoot phenomenon to explain why the “Bigfoots” can live all over the US in large numbers and never appear on trail camera or get hit by a car. Or you’d have to believe in a coverup.

I think the simplest explanation is to discount most modern sightings and simply take bigfoots as being hyper rare. That would cut through the lack of trail camera or vehicle collision evidence.

Florida Bullfrog · November 2021

If bigfoots are not real and never were, there would have to be some sort of biological explanation as to why humans from different cultures all over the world project false visions of upright walking apes in the wild places. Something built into the human brain to so falsely see such creatures, as where there doesn’t seem to be such a mechanism to see say unicorns or dragons. Hardly anyone argues that they’ve seen a dragon or a unicorn.

Florida Bullfrog · November 2021

JohnnyBandit said:

Billions of people in the world believe in things there is zero proof exists.

Right, but when it comes to specifically claiming to eyewitness a particular animal that lives in the local forest, you don’t have widespread claims across cultures and time to see fantasy animals from mythology in the same way “ape men” seem to prevalent. For instance, no one seriously sights centaurs. Yet a lawman in Washington state, a shepherd in the Himalayas, and a prominent biologist in Sumatra, may all sincerely claim to have seen an ape-man in their respective wildernesses. There is no commonalities in culture or background. Just a commonality of remote wilderness. Or perhaps there are biological commonalities in brain chemistry we don’t know about.

Either there was or is a group of animals causing such sightings or there is something wired in the human brain to project such visions. Either way the phenomenon is worthy of study.

kellercl · November 2021

Florida Bullfrog said:

If bigfoots are not real and never were, there would have to be some sort of biological explanation as to why humans from different cultures all over the world project false visions of upright walking apes in the wild places. Something built into the human brain to so falsely see such creatures, as where there doesn’t seem to be such a mechanism to see say unicorns or dragons. Hardly anyone argues that they’ve seen a dragon or a unicorn.

People all over the world also claim to have seen ghosts.

mplspug · November 2021

Bigfeet is aliens, Wookies if you will. Hence no fossil records. And they smart. The only glimpses we get is when the cloaking technology has a hiccup.

Florida Bullfrog · November 2021

kellercl said:

Florida Bullfrog said:

If bigfoots are not real and never were, there would have to be some sort of biological explanation as to why humans from different cultures all over the world project false visions of upright walking apes in the wild places. Something built into the human brain to so falsely see such creatures, as where there doesn’t seem to be such a mechanism to see say unicorns or dragons. Hardly anyone argues that they’ve seen a dragon or a unicorn.

People all over the world also claim to have seen ghosts.

All cultures generally have a belief in spirits and an afterlife. One could argue that humans are preconditioned to expect to see “spirits.”

Ape-men, on the other hand, are an oddly specific thing to see. And hallucinations generally don’t leave tracks that can be cast with plaster of Paris.

conchydong · November 2021

Big Foot = Big Candy = Figment of one's imagination
Most indigenous cultures used some sort of hallucinogenics. They eventually shared them with white man.

tankered · November 2021

kellercl said:

Florida Bullfrog said:

If bigfoots are not real and never were, there would have to be some sort of biological explanation as to why humans from different cultures all over the world project false visions of upright walking apes in the wild places. Something built into the human brain to so falsely see such creatures, as where there doesn’t seem to be such a mechanism to see say unicorns or dragons. Hardly anyone argues that they’ve seen a dragon or a unicorn.

People all over the world also claim to have seen ghosts.

I have. The old lady in the road. Another fairly common one around the world.

You'll never convince me she wasn't there, or that it was just an actual person. I've never seen any old lady with long flowing hair that stood well over 6' tall.

Florida Bullfrog · November 2021

JohnnyBandit said:

Florida Bullfrog said:

kellercl said:

Florida Bullfrog said:

If bigfoots are not real and never were, there would have to be some sort of biological explanation as to why humans from different cultures all over the world project false visions of upright walking apes in the wild places. Something built into the human brain to so falsely see such creatures, as where there doesn’t seem to be such a mechanism to see say unicorns or dragons. Hardly anyone argues that they’ve seen a dragon or a unicorn.

People all over the world also claim to have seen ghosts.

All cultures generally have a belief in spirits and an afterlife. One could argue that humans are preconditioned to expect to see “spirits.”

Ape-men, on the other hand, are an oddly specific thing to see. And hallucinations generally don’t leave tracks that can be cast with plaster of Paris.

You like to research things.....

Look up Dermal Ridges and Jimmy Chilcutt in reference to plaster casts of bigfoot prints.

I’m very familiar with his work. I’m also familiar that a lot of his statements on dermal ridges in relation to bigfoot casts have been discredited in recent years as its been proven that many of the alleged dermal ridges were just casting artifacts. Which is unfortunate because the dermal ridges are otherwise some of the best evidence to the legitimacy of bigfoot track casts.

Florida Bullfrog · November 2021

https://skepticalinquirer.org/newsletter/experiments-cast-doubt-on-bigfoot-evidence/

Florida Bullfrog · November 2021

JohnnyBandit said:

Florida Bullfrog said:

JohnnyBandit said:

Florida Bullfrog said:

pottydoc said:

All kinds of folks claiming big foot exists for years and years now. Lots of pics, but somehow, even with the very good, and easy to use cameras of today, every one of them is blurry, or a tree is in the way, and a bunch of other things that makes the pic impossible to see clearly. Literally 10's of 1000's of trail cameras in the woods all over the US without a single clear pic. 100's or thousands armed hunters that spend multiple days in the woods, and not one ever shot a big foot. The reason for all those things is simple. There isn't any such thing as a big foot.

As far as it goes, there's no such thing as a black panther (the cat kind, not human) either.

There is such a thing as a black panther. They're black color morphs of jaguars and leopards. There's just no reason to believe they're found in Florida in any breeding population.

I've written a small novella on my thoughts to Bigfoot in another topic a while ago. If you remove 99% of Bigfoot sightings and only go with the top 1% most credible sightings, you're still left with thousands of eyewitness accounts that can't be easily dismissed. People go to prison for life or get executed on less evidence.

The very strong eyewitness testimony is contradicted by no solid physical evidence. The lack of physical evidence cannot cancel out the validity of credible sightings, nor can the existence of several thousand strong sightings cancel out the lack of physical evidence. A satisfactory explanation has to take into account and explain both why there's strong eyewitness sightings but no conclusive physical proof that can't be faked.

I think the best theory that takes into account both elements is that there were never many Bigfoots living in the modern era. Apes have long lifespans. It wouldn't take very many living Bigfoots to account for 1% of the reported sightings. A dozen on the low end, maybe a hundred individual specimens at most. If they have a lifespan of 60-80 years as other apes do, a single Bigfoot living in an isolated pocket could be responsible for several dozen sightings over several decades, yet as one individual its tracks and scat wouldn't be found that often by humans or recognized for what it was. When it dies of old age its remains are not likely to be found being just one individual in a vast wilderness of thousands of square miles.

Many large mammal species exist today in worldwide populations of less than 50 or 100 individuals. Its not healthy for an animal to live in such low population numbers, but that has nothing to do with the biological reality that many large animals so live in such critically low numbers.

I think by now Bigfoots are extinct in all but the most remote areas of the world. I think there was a handful of them left in north Florida into the 1990s.

All a "Bigfoot" is is any species of ape that is currently unknown to science or ape species known from the fossil record that survived into the modern era undocumented. There were probably many species of Bigfoots around the world in 1700, of which we probably knew most of from the fossil record. I think today there's only a few left in the remote parts of Asia.

**** floresiensis was probably a Bigfoot and we probably grossly over-dated the age of the bones found on Flores, given that the bones were found because the locals told the scientists that the scientists should look in that particular cave because the locals' great grandfathers killed some little harry monster people with fire and buried the creatures back in the cave. Its far more likely the local's account was of a real event their recent ancestors witnessed than it is that the locals made up a Bigfoot story and the discovery of little Bigfoot bones where the locals said they would be was a simple coincidence.

LOL No....

Just No.....

Yes there are black Jaguars..... And Yes there are black Leopards......

Neither of those are Panthers...

There has never been a documented example.... of a Puma, Mountain Lion, Cougar, Painter, Catamount, Panther in any subspecies of the Puma concolor.....

So No.... There is no such thing as a black panther...

There are black Leopards and black Jaguars.... But no black panthers...

Unless you are talking about...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYxwfMI9j0w

The term "black panther" is what black leopards and jaguars are called and have been for hundreds of years. The term "panther" comes from the Greek and Latin and was the word for "leopard" in those languages and was adapted in the Romantic languages of Europe. To call a cat a "panther" in the old European languages simply meant you were calling it a leopard, and then to add "black" to it simply means you were calling it a "black leopard." Later in the English we started only using panther to describe the black leopards and jaguars.

A black panther is the melanistic colour variant of the leopard (Panthera pardus) and the jaguar (Panthera onca). Black panthers of both species have excess black pigments, but their typical rosettes are also present. They have been documented mostly in tropical forests, with black leopards in Kenya, India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Thailand, Peninsular Malaysia and Java, and black jaguars in Mexico, Panama, Costa Rica and Paraguay. Melanism is caused by a recessive allele in the leopard, and by a dominant allele in the jaguar.

That Florida Crackers also called our native cougars "panthers" is a coincidence or a misuse of the term "panther" by our backwoods forefathers. Crackers got to calling our cougars "panthers" probably by butchering the term "painter cat" with their heavy accents. Painter cat was apparently a common name for cougars in the East early in the nation's history. Or they may have simply been calling the big cats "panthers" because that's what any non-Lion, non-Tiger, big predatory cat was called (leaving only the leopards/jaguars)in antiquity and they had just enough learning to pull the term "panther" from a book. An eastern cougar may have seemed more like a leopard in how they slinked to the settlers of the day. Just as out west they call them "lions," but cougars aren't really lions any more than they are panthers.

Here, as you can see, black panthers have their own wikipedia article that identifies them as black leopards and jaguars:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_panther

The term "black panther" was used in English to describe black jaguars/leopards far longer in history than Floridians called our mountain lions "panthers." Because panther means leopard.

Panthera pardus: Leopard
Panthera onca: Jaguar

The word panther derives from classical Latin panthēra, itself from the ancient Greek pánthēr (πάνθηρ).[8] The phonetically similar Sanskrit word पाण्डर pând-ara means 'pale yellow, whitish, white'.[9]

You know what cat isn't included in the Panther family scientifically? Florida panthers (cougars).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panthera

Panthera used to only include jaguars and leopards, then in the early 1900s lions and tigers were grouped in.

Cougars/Florida panthers are their own group and not a part of the real panther group.

LOL

I knew I could get two thousand words out of you on this....

And as usual you are putting your own spin on thing...

Panthera is a scientific name for a family of felines.

Black Jaguars and Leopards are still jaguars and leopards...

And we all know what a person in North America that claims they have seen a black panther is claiming they saw.....

I’m not spinning anything. Panthers are leopards. That’s the historic meaning of the term. A black panther is a black leopard or jaguar. Black panthers are real to the extent that black leopards or jaguars are real. I also said there is no reason to believe there are black panthers in Florida as any sort of breeding population. That’s all I ever said. I think you didn’t read my statement carefully the first time and projected a bunch of things on me I never said or implied. I never reference Florida cougars or said that Florida cougars come in black. Indeed a “Florida panther” is a Florida adapted cougar and isn’t a panther at all in a scientific sense. What I said is beyond dispute correct.

So are you man enough to admit I am right and you are wrong?

kellercl · November 2021

Aliens 👽 built the pyramids

2amigo · November 2021

JohnnyBandit said:

Florida Bullfrog said:

kellercl said:

Florida Bullfrog said:

If bigfoots are not real and never were, there would have to be some sort of biological explanation as to why humans from different cultures all over the world project false visions of upright walking apes in the wild places. Something built into the human brain to so falsely see such creatures, as where there doesn’t seem to be such a mechanism to see say unicorns or dragons. Hardly anyone argues that they’ve seen a dragon or a unicorn.

People all over the world also claim to have seen ghosts.

All cultures generally have a belief in spirits and an afterlife. One could argue that humans are preconditioned to expect to see “spirits.”

Ape-men, on the other hand, are an oddly specific thing to see. And hallucinations generally don’t leave tracks that can be cast with plaster of Paris.

You like to research things.....

Look up Dermal Ridges and Jimmy Chilcutt in reference to plaster casts of bigfoot prints.

Phfftt. I got a pic of the real thing not just a cast. Apparently this skunk ape was coming out of the nail salon …….

Tony Roma · November 2021

kellercl said:

Aliens 👽 built the pyramids

I thought Moses and a million Jews built the pyramids.

conchydong · November 2021

JohnnyBandit said:

Florida Bullfrog said:

JohnnyBandit said:

Florida Bullfrog said:

JohnnyBandit said:

Florida Bullfrog said:

pottydoc said:

All kinds of folks claiming big foot exists for years and years now. Lots of pics, but somehow, even with the very good, and easy to use cameras of today, every one of them is blurry, or a tree is in the way, and a bunch of other things that makes the pic impossible to see clearly. Literally 10's of 1000's of trail cameras in the woods all over the US without a single clear pic. 100's or thousands armed hunters that spend multiple days in the woods, and not one ever shot a big foot. The reason for all those things is simple. There isn't any such thing as a big foot.

As far as it goes, there's no such thing as a black panther (the cat kind, not human) either.

There is such a thing as a black panther. They're black color morphs of jaguars and leopards. There's just no reason to believe they're found in Florida in any breeding population.

I've written a small novella on my thoughts to Bigfoot in another topic a while ago. If you remove 99% of Bigfoot sightings and only go with the top 1% most credible sightings, you're still left with thousands of eyewitness accounts that can't be easily dismissed. People go to prison for life or get executed on less evidence.

The very strong eyewitness testimony is contradicted by no solid physical evidence. The lack of physical evidence cannot cancel out the validity of credible sightings, nor can the existence of several thousand strong sightings cancel out the lack of physical evidence. A satisfactory explanation has to take into account and explain both why there's strong eyewitness sightings but no conclusive physical proof that can't be faked.

I think the best theory that takes into account both elements is that there were never many Bigfoots living in the modern era. Apes have long lifespans. It wouldn't take very many living Bigfoots to account for 1% of the reported sightings. A dozen on the low end, maybe a hundred individual specimens at most. If they have a lifespan of 60-80 years as other apes do, a single Bigfoot living in an isolated pocket could be responsible for several dozen sightings over several decades, yet as one individual its tracks and scat wouldn't be found that often by humans or recognized for what it was. When it dies of old age its remains are not likely to be found being just one individual in a vast wilderness of thousands of square miles.

Many large mammal species exist today in worldwide populations of less than 50 or 100 individuals. Its not healthy for an animal to live in such low population numbers, but that has nothing to do with the biological reality that many large animals so live in such critically low numbers.

I think by now Bigfoots are extinct in all but the most remote areas of the world. I think there was a handful of them left in north Florida into the 1990s.

All a "Bigfoot" is is any species of ape that is currently unknown to science or ape species known from the fossil record that survived into the modern era undocumented. There were probably many species of Bigfoots around the world in 1700, of which we probably knew most of from the fossil record. I think today there's only a few left in the remote parts of Asia.

**** floresiensis was probably a Bigfoot and we probably grossly over-dated the age of the bones found on Flores, given that the bones were found because the locals told the scientists that the scientists should look in that particular cave because the locals' great grandfathers killed some little harry monster people with fire and buried the creatures back in the cave. Its far more likely the local's account was of a real event their recent ancestors witnessed than it is that the locals made up a Bigfoot story and the discovery of little Bigfoot bones where the locals said they would be was a simple coincidence.

LOL No....

Just No.....

Yes there are black Jaguars..... And Yes there are black Leopards......

Neither of those are Panthers...

There has never been a documented example.... of a Puma, Mountain Lion, Cougar, Painter, Catamount, Panther in any subspecies of the Puma concolor.....

So No.... There is no such thing as a black panther...

There are black Leopards and black Jaguars.... But no black panthers...

Unless you are talking about...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYxwfMI9j0w

The term "black panther" is what black leopards and jaguars are called and have been for hundreds of years. The term "panther" comes from the Greek and Latin and was the word for "leopard" in those languages and was adapted in the Romantic languages of Europe. To call a cat a "panther" in the old European languages simply meant you were calling it a leopard, and then to add "black" to it simply means you were calling it a "black leopard." Later in the English we started only using panther to describe the black leopards and jaguars.

A black panther is the melanistic colour variant of the leopard (Panthera pardus) and the jaguar (Panthera onca). Black panthers of both species have excess black pigments, but their typical rosettes are also present. They have been documented mostly in tropical forests, with black leopards in Kenya, India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Thailand, Peninsular Malaysia and Java, and black jaguars in Mexico, Panama, Costa Rica and Paraguay. Melanism is caused by a recessive allele in the leopard, and by a dominant allele in the jaguar.

That Florida Crackers also called our native cougars "panthers" is a coincidence or a misuse of the term "panther" by our backwoods forefathers. Crackers got to calling our cougars "panthers" probably by butchering the term "painter cat" with their heavy accents. Painter cat was apparently a common name for cougars in the East early in the nation's history. Or they may have simply been calling the big cats "panthers" because that's what any non-Lion, non-Tiger, big predatory cat was called (leaving only the leopards/jaguars)in antiquity and they had just enough learning to pull the term "panther" from a book. An eastern cougar may have seemed more like a leopard in how they slinked to the settlers of the day. Just as out west they call them "lions," but cougars aren't really lions any more than they are panthers.

Here, as you can see, black panthers have their own wikipedia article that identifies them as black leopards and jaguars:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_panther

The term "black panther" was used in English to describe black jaguars/leopards far longer in history than Floridians called our mountain lions "panthers." Because panther means leopard.

Panthera pardus: Leopard
Panthera onca: Jaguar

The word panther derives from classical Latin panthēra, itself from the ancient Greek pánthēr (πάνθηρ).[8] The phonetically similar Sanskrit word पाण्डर pând-ara means 'pale yellow, whitish, white'.[9]

You know what cat isn't included in the Panther family scientifically? Florida panthers (cougars).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panthera

Panthera used to only include jaguars and leopards, then in the early 1900s lions and tigers were grouped in.

Cougars/Florida panthers are their own group and not a part of the real panther group.

LOL

I knew I could get two thousand words out of you on this....

And as usual you are putting your own spin on thing...

Panthera is a scientific name for a family of felines.

Black Jaguars and Leopards are still jaguars and leopards...

And we all know what a person in North America that claims they have seen a black panther is claiming they saw.....

I’m not spinning anything. Panthers are leopards. That’s the historic meaning of the term. A black panther is a black leopard or jaguar. Black panthers are real to the extent that black leopards or jaguars are real. I also said there is no reason to believe there are black panthers in Florida as any sort of breeding population. That’s all I ever said. I think you didn’t read my statement carefully the first time and projected a bunch of things on me I never said or implied. I never reference Florida cougars or said that Florida cougars come in black. Indeed a “Florida panther” is a Florida adapted cougar and isn’t a panther at all in a scientific sense. What I said is beyond dispute correct.

So are you man enough to admit I am right and you are wrong?

LOL Okay...

You are right and I am wrong.....