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Bossburg Tracks

This Is True Inormation from the Lab of U of M. I see that the Bossburg tracks--famous because one of the track-maker's feet seems to have suffered from some sort of clubbing deformity--are mentioned, but the discussion of the subject is limited to the usual "where and when the trail was found" info and then the well-known (at least in bf circles) quote about nobody being "sick" enough to have hoaxed it, etc. I have an article from Skeptic magazine, though, about how there were some suspicious aspects to its origin, the seemingly non-sensical path the tracks took, as well as the fact that someone had hoaxed a film of an injured, limping bigfoot either before or after the discovery (a significant distinction I need to recheck); in any case, the Bossburg incident is more complicated than presented in the Evidence article. For the longest time, I thought the whole thing represented very compelling evidence--if not the *most* compelling evidence--supporting Bigfoot's existence, but there actually *is* a cogent "hoax" counter-argument. Should this be summarized and included? Massofspikes 14:40, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

For this article, I would suggest a brief mention of the tracks, perhaps a pic to go with it, but a more-detailed "pro-con" entry in the separate evidence page that texasandroid created. Personally, I don't think the tracks are enough to prove Bigfoot at all. Although I believe in the existence of the animal itself, I have to agree with scientists who expect a lot more...namely a body. Carajou 15:05, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Okay, now I'm starting to get a bit confused. I was under the impression that, for the main article, we were going to say, in a short and introductory paragraph, basically, "Evidence exists, but is disputed, blah blah," and then provide a link to an "Evidence" page wherein we get into more detail; this is as it stands now. *My* point was that, on the "Evidence" page, where we get into those details, it doesn't present much regarding the Bossburg tracks save the usual "it would be difficult and weird to fake tracks like this" argument, with no counter-argument. I know they'll never take the place of a corpse, but the Bossburg tracks were pretty influential in that they were one of the key pieces of supposed evidence that turned Dr. Krantz into a believer. He was certainly their most vocal proponent. Anyway, the hoax argument is what I'm volunteering to provide since I have an article on hand that explains it. (If I had to break down, percentage-wise, the degree to which I believe it exists vs. the degree to which I don't, I'd say I'm stuck at something like 51%/49%; and, I, like you, know that the conundrum will never be resolved to everyone's satisfaction, regardless of *what* is found or filmed, until that something is a corpse. And even if such an animal *does* exist, I'm not so sure that'll ever happen. Then again, who says its existence *should* be verified? Would sasquatch benefit from being discovered, or would man, as is typically the case, cause it more pain than help? I, for one, would never want to see one behind bars at a zoo...) Massofspikes 16:14, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Please please put in the skeptical response. It would make for a more balanced Evidence regarding Bigfoot article. Totnesmartin 18:03, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Can do, though I still think Evidence regarding Bigfoot is a poor title for the page, no offense to anyone. 70.114.11.160 22:05, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Write in your material as well as you can; provide as much detail as you can. Carajou 05:02, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Evidence regarding Bigfoot is the least awful title we could think of; we had to avoid POV issues and over-wordiness. Totnesmartin 12:45, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I think a more appropriate title for articles supplementing Bigfoot would be the have "Bigfoot" first, then the additional, i.e. "Bigfoot: supportive evidence"; "Bigfoot: evidence against", etc. I would also think that since there is a large history and supportive evidence of the tracks alone, that it could qualify as a separate article in its own right. Carajou 17:36, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Okay. Let's not worry about the title. It'll keep. And I think the article itself does a good job of presenting both the evidence & "problems" with that evidence. What *I'll* do is add a sub-sub-heading, 3.8.3, and call it "Hoaxing of physical evidence" and use it to deal with the Bossburg tracks, with a "for example" as means of segueing into it. Yes, there *is* a sizable history behind the tracks, but there are moderately lengthy histories behind *many* of the supposedly "great" evidentiary finds. That Skookum body cast, for example, could reasonably warrant its own page (uh...it doesn't actually have one, right?), but perhaps we shouldn't overly complicate things with too, too many links...at least for now. Massofspikes 20:10, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually there is a Skookum Cast page. It's just that the C is capitalised so Wikipedia doesn't find it when you write "cast". Totnesmartin 20:21, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, I'll be a son-of-a-sasquatch: I see the Skookum cast DOES have its own page. (Good timing, Totnesmartin.) I'd argue that it doesn't need it, though, given that its description could just be fleshed out a little more on the evidence page...this and the fact that, on its *own* page, the only "skeptical" response is a single sentence w/o a citation. In any case, I had this idea: merge "Absence of fossil evidence" w/ "Inconclusive evidence." THEN there could be a 3.8.2 called "Hoaxing" or "Hoaxes," etc., because, save for that little mention of "hoaxing at worst" under "Inconclusive evidence" (a clause that could be removed), there's no mention at all of hoaxes as a "problem." It's under this hypothetical 3.8.2. that I could intro hoaxing with a sentence or two, then segue into the Bossburg tracks as an example of a possible hoax of what had long been considered a pretty good piece of evidence. Massofspikes 20:34, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

There's an exact analogy on Loch Ness monster, actually. I created a section on Hoaxes, but left out the iconic "Surgeon's photograph" as it had already been treated elsewhere in the article. The similarly-iconic Bossburg tracks could have the same treatment. Totnesmartin 20:38, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Just FYI, before I commit it to Wiki: Looking at my source material, it offers no claim as to *how* the cripple-tracks were made, just that the tale as usually told ends with the "so sick" quote by John Napier and goes no further. What this source gives, is the *rest* of the story--that of an individual by the name of Ivan Marx who, along with Rene Dahinden (who'd moved a trailer onto Marx's property so the two could search for tracks together), were the ones to come upon the tracks. Well, actually, it was Marx who found the tracks and relayed the discovery to Dahinden. Dahinden was a little suspicious at first, though, thinking it too good to be true that such remarkable prints were along his regular search route, but they couldn't resist what seemed to be the greatest and longest trail ever--featuring a seemingly validity-endorsing deformity, to boot--even if whatever made it appeared to wander about absurdly with no rhyme or reason other than to leave over 1,000 tracks in the snow. Dahinden eventually left, but Marx kept telling Dahinden about how he'd continued finding tracks, handprints, etc., and then, if that weren't enough, that he'd videotaped the crippled bigfoot, itself. It didn't take long for the video to be exposed as a hoax, though. So the evidence of the Bossburg tracks being fraudulent is, at its core, circumstantial. Granted, there IS the chance that the tracks were real and the faked video concocted as an afterthought, but the claim is that the whole thing is tainted given the fact that Marx not only found the tracks to begin with, but was later revealed to be a person not averse to deception and hoaxing. Also, this same article in Skeptic throws a *little* bit of doubt on Krantz's statement that the remains of bears that have died natural deaths are never found: a wildlife biologist, Dr. Bindernagel, tells the magazine that he's found two bear skulls himself, but that there's no way to know if they died of natural causes or by human action. From this, the article postulates that, since bears occasionally ARE killed by humans and their bones found, the same should have happened with bigfoot by now, as well. Hmmm...I don't know about that. A bigfoot, should it prove to be real, isn't the same thing as a bear. I've read about people coming upon a bigfoot, convincing themselves somehow that this bipedal thing off in the distance isn't a human, having the cool and quickness to raise a gun in time, and *seeming* to shoot it, only to have it then lope off as if unhurt. I'm not so sure that a single shot with your typical rifle could fell something as supposedly large as a bigfoot. If such a wound occured, it might kill it eventually, but, by then, the animal would have done what a great many animals do when they're hurt or dying: gone into hiding. I mention this because I'm not sure whether it's even an argument worth including. To me, it's a lot like the "why are the pictures always blurry?" "argument" put forth by skeptics who ask the knee-jerk question but don't give it a lot of thought. Massofspikes 23:12, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Etymology entry removed

I'll let others be the judge as to the nature of this entry, apart from it's grammar and spelling:

In spring of 2005 scientist conducted a study which proved bigfoot to be an actual being, more or less human but actualy a desendant of the bible figure Cane, who killed his brother Able and was cursed to walk the earth for the rest of his days. Scientist came to this conclusion after 3 years of intensive RNA research on a clump of hair. They found that Bigfoot is actualy a cross between a human and an ape. they are not yet sure how this unuseual breeding came about. After confirming the existance of the creature they furthured their research and estimate there to be anywhere from 600 to 3,000 in the continental United States with even more in Canada. they are still conducting research and are studying the habits of a family of these cretures in northern Montana. see CIA report 486 document 17 artice 12

I'm trying to figure if it's a half-witted attempt at vandalism...? Carajou 19:36, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I like the way "scientist" is the plural of "scientist" there. Perhaps he was referring to this Scientist? Totnesmartin 19:47, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Also, CIA report number is entirely spurious. CIA Report No.CS - 311/04439-71 came out in 1971[1], so report number 486 must go way back. And he misspelt Cain and Abel. Totnesmartin 19:57, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Please put the great 47-item discussion back on this page

And of course it's a messy discussion. Real human discussions tend to be. I guess that's both their strength and their weakness.

And yes, you can still get to it by going through "archives," but I'm not a great fan of this kind of drilling down and overly hierarchical web page design.

In my view, let the main article be cleaned up, streamlined, flowing, and well-footnoted. And let the discussion page be big, sprawling, and messy.

And let new comments go at the bottom. And let people sign their names. And let pages be short enough to fit onto smaller browsers, like it says in WP:SIZE. Totnesmartin 23:04, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

And let me stop procrastinating and get on to writing that "Physical Evidence / Hoax" section mentioning the Bossburg tracks...I shall do it tomorrow, for sure. And while we're at it, let there be light!Massofspikes 04:00, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Make sure to cite it. It sounds kind of weird to me. Mermaid from the Baltic Sea 04:34, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

What about it sounds weird? Massofspikes 16:18, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

So far, I get the impression that the Bossburg tracks are considered to be among the strongest evidence by serious scientists with an open mind towards Bigfoot, and we get a lot of "hoax" additions to the Bigfoot article that don't cite a WP:V source that calls whatever it is a hoax. So, if you want to move a well-regarded incident into a hoax section, make sure you cite someone who calls it a hoax in print (otherwise, pretty much everything about Bigfoot would be in a hoax section). Mermaid from the Baltic Sea 04:05, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, as I'm sure you've read above in my brief synopsis of the issue, the tracks were found by an individual under what you'd call either serendipitous or suspicious circumstances, depending on your beliefs. Not long after they were discovered, the very same person orchestrated what is considered by almost everyone in the bigfoot community to be a hoax: a video of a crippled bigfoot. Additionally, I've since discovered that somebody cited in the main Bigfoot article an online transcript of a magazine article that theorizes the means by which such a cast might have been made--in other words, a refutation of Krantz's claim about it being well-nigh impossible that the tracks be hoaxed--but only used the article ("Cripple-Foot Hobbled," I believe it was called) to glean the basics of the tracks' discovery. In other words, the find is not quite as "well regarded" as you think. Did you know about this Marx character and the circumstances surrounding the discovery of the Bossburg tracks prior to my brief summary? No, the Skeptic magazine issue I'm using as my primary source doesn't come out and say, specifically, "so, then, the Bossburg tracks are without a doubt a hoax. The End." It only mentions the discovery's many suspicious aspects and comes to the conclusion that this incident doesn't do a very good job in passing the "extraordinary-claims-require-extraordinary-evidence" test. Just as with the Patterson Film, their validity will be forever argued. Nobody made a deathbed confession regarding the Bossburg tracks, if that's what you're looking for, and Krantz (one of your "serious scientists," I'm guessing) had been fooled before. He mentions in his very own book, Bigfoot Sasquatch: Evidence, his coming upon (or being told about) footprints seeming to ascend a steep and snowy hill with a stride between them that appeared impossible for a human wearing carvings to duplicate. Once again, he thought had a sure thing. That is, until a student athlete confessed to donning fake feet, putting them on *backwards*, and running *down* the hill. In any case, when it comes to the Bossburgs, something other than the idea that "these footprints Dr. Krantz trumpeted as being real are so unique and unprecedented that they seem to validate the claim of Bigfoot-as-actual-animal like nothing else" needs to be mentioned. Massofspikes 07:52, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

You don't need to explain your reasons to all of us on the talk page. Just cite someone who calls it a hoax, and no problem. It's that simple. Mermaid from the Baltic Sea 00:08, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I felt I had to explain my reasons because, to your understanding, the Bossburg tracks represent "well regarded" pieces of evidence among the "strongest" in existence. Apparently, you'd not heard the argument questioning their validity. As for your criterium, nobody can out-and-out call them hoaxes. There's no way to make that determination with 100% accuracy--everyone originally involved in the tracks' discovery and immediate analysis is dead. One source explains WHY it very likely *WAS* a hoax given the circumstances involved. Another explains HOW it could have been done. This isn't enough, though, to add to the evidence section as an example of how even the holiest and most revered of bigfoot "evidence" can turn out to be, if nothing else, highly questionable? Maybe the whole thing should be written about in the "inconclusive evidence" section instead...or, as someone suggested, given its own page. Massofspikes 01:08, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

None of that is really necessary. Nobody can call it real either. All people can do is cite discussions, researchers and points that have already been published. Our personal chains of reasoning don't really matter. We don't call things hoaxes or real in Wikipedia. We just cite published researchers who call them hoaxes or real. If published material points both ways, we cite them both; for example "so-and-so says it is a hoax for such-and-such reasons, while so-and-so's opponent says it is real for such-and-such reasons". Mermaid from the Baltic Sea 15:00, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Picture

Since the article is semiprotected, please add Image:Pie Grande.jpg --84.20.17.84 11:29, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Very cool picture. I will try adding it to the article and see how people like it. The photo that now starts the article is not in the common domain and it is not really a picture of Bigfoot, but almost certainly a human in a Bigfoot suit. While yours is a picture of Bigfoot, real or imaginary. Steve Dufour 12:39, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

The picture is not mine, but adding it to the article is a good idea. --84.20.17.84 15:18, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Are there any other opinions? Steve Dufour 15:39, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

The picture is a bigfoot. Anubiz 18:28, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
The picture is not a bigfoot. Engr105th 21:34, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Photos

I have photos on my photobucket.com account and I am personally not the photographer for who took these photos. I wish I had taken notes on the actual person and the precise location for where these photos were taken. I pulled these off the Internet and I simply enhanced them. I welcome those who click on these photos to make their own evauluation and judgement
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Berniethomas68 18:25, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b155/Summerblynk/002.jpg

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b155/Summerblynk/001.jpg

A guy in a gorilla suit. Carajou 03:04, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Bigfoot Trap in Oregon: is it indicated in this section?

Maybe I missed it, but is there a reference to the Bigfoot Trap on this Bigfoot page? Its in Oregon, just about 3 miles from the southern border. Anybody familiar enough with this page to know if a link to the Bigfoot trap is included or not? Maybe someone who has edited this section, could add a reference to that trap page.

It's easy to find, just search "Bigfoot Trap". Its already got a spot on Wikipedia, but may not be fully cross-referenced.Mdvaden 09:32, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

big foot paper from a year ago

There is a study: Molecular cryptozoology meets the Sasquatch by Dave Coltman and Corey Davis in TRENDS in Ecology and Evolution Vol.21 No.2 February 2006. It concludes:

"There are several possible explanations for these results. First, as suggested from molecular analysis of hair from a suspected Yeti [1], the Sasquatch might be a highly elusive ungulate that exhibits surprising morphological convergence with primates. Alternately, the hair might have originated from a real bison and be unrelated to the Sasquatch. Parsimony would favor the second interpretation, in which case, the identity and taxonomy of this enigmatic and elusive creature remains a mystery."

It has one plausable origin of big foot; bipedal bisons that can just return back to all fours to escape detection. I don't know if that is interesting to anyone, though.

the papers citations are:

"References 1 Milinkovitch, M.C. et al. (2004) Molecular phylogenetic analyses indicate extensive morphological convergence between the ‘yeti’ and primates. Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. 31, 1–3 2 Dung, V.V. et al. (1993) A new species of living bovid from Vietnam. Nature 363, 443–445 3 Jones, T. et al. (2005) The highland mangabey Lophocebus kipunji: a new species of African monkey. Science 308, 1161–1164 4 Shields, G.F. and Kocher, T.D. (1991) Phylogenetic relationships of North American ursids based on analysis of mitochondrial DNA. Evolution 45, 218–221 5 Altschul, S.F. et al. (1990) Basic local alignment search tool. J. Mol. Biol. 215, 403–410" Mike 12:48, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

film

I think it would be worth it if someone put the Patterson- something film on this page, or a link Wikizilla ^{(Signme!)Talk} 20:45, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Is existence everything?

I see that most of the article is concerned with the question: "Does Bigfoot really exist?" and the debate back and forth about this point. My feeling is that most people, in the USA anyway, don't take Bigfoot seriously at all and consider him a fun folklore figure. A modest proposal: What if the article took the point of view that Bigfoot is mainly a fictional figure and had only a small section at the end on evidence of his possible real existence? At the very least it would be a lot more pleasant to read. As it is you can feel the hostility between the two sides in almost every sentence. Thanks. Steve Dufour 12:23, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm fairly sympatheic with Steve's idea above. A better direction for this phenomenon is not "evidence" proving or disproving (or supporting vs contradicting) Bigfoot; but rather its popular culture effect. Until we find one, and a reasonable number of people can go see it, it remains an entertaining mystery - but only a mystery (same way haunted houses are mysterious, or theres a Blair Witch in the forest in MD:)....Engr105th 21:41, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

List of hoaxes

I removed List of hoaxes from the "See also" section. I don't see what the point is to direct people to this list. If they think Bigfoot is a hoax, or at least not real, why do they need to read a list of other hoaxes? On the other hand, if after reading the whole article they still believe Bigfoot is real what good would reading the list do? By removing this link I was trying to make a small change to the spirit of contention in this article. Thanks. Steve Dufour 13:11, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Devil's advocate bit - if someone believed Bigfoot to be a hoax, and looked it up on that basis, might they not also be interested in other hoaxes? I don't believe Bigfoot (as a whole) is a hoax, but there is hoaxery in the mix. Totnesmartin 14:27, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Opening sentence

It now reads: "Bigfoot, also known as Sasquatch, is an alleged apelike animal said to inhabit remote forests in North America, with many of the sightings occurring in the Pacific north-west of the United States and British Columbia, Canada." Can we take out the word "alleged"? It means the same thing as "said to", which is found 3 words later in the sentence. Or remove "said to"? Steve Dufour 22:17, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I changed "an alleged apelike animal" to what I think is Bigfoot's main claim to fame: "a figure in North American folklore." This is not intended to shut the door totally on the possibility that he is real however. Steve Dufour 18:03, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I've read many books on american folklore, none of which mention Bigfoot. If you can find references to Bigfoot in any published folklore, you are welcome to change the wording. Mdell27 07:15, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Folklore is a wide field. It's impossible to cover every topic in most books. By its definition Bigfoot stories are folklore. If you've read any books on Bigfoot that mention alleged sightings, you've read a book containing folklore on Bigfoot. DreamGuy 20:49, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Infobox Picture

This is just my personal opinion of course, but the pic in the infobox looks pretty cartoonish. I'm not sure of its copywright status, but wouldn't a still from the famous "video footage" be better? or a footprint cast? VanTucky 07:18, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

It used to be a still from the Patterson Gimlin footage, but someone changed it. The comic-book image seems too silly, so I changed it back. -MentosC 23:57, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I was the one who changed the picture before. Here is the "comic-book" picture: Image:Pie Grande.jpg. As you can see the artist said that he or she created it especially for WP, so there is no copyright problem. One reason I like it is that it is a fun picture, and this article needs some more fun. I also made some other comments above when I first added it. Steve Dufour 04:37, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to add the "Pie Grande" picture to the article on Bigfoot in popular culture. I still think it belongs at the head of this article but I have the feeling that most people involved disagree with me. Steve Dufour 19:26, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Honestly I do not know if this is copy righted and I apologize if it is. But I thought I would go ahead and add it any way. I am not sure if fellow Wikipedians can use it to help the article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Berniethomas68 07:02, 6 April 2007 (UTC) File:Swinging breasts.gif

Most?

"Most people consider the Bigfoot legend to be a combination of folklore and hoaxes" <--good luck with a citation for that. Interviewed everybody and came up with a consensus, did we? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.163.0.43 (talk • contribs)

Most people overall would be hard to know, yes. I replaced it with most experts (which should be undeniable) and added the point that some people think otherwise. Even the pro-Bigfoot people must acknowledge that most scientists think there is no Bigfoot... in fact they seem to like to be the rebels. DreamGuy 00:34, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

__________________________________________________________________________________

                                     IT IS NOT AN APE

No, to legend, yes to scientist who "think."

From Wikipedia article:

"Krantz argued that a relict population of Gigantopithecus blacki would best explain Bigfoot reports."

(From MSNBC article based on Wiki )

“Grover Krantz, a scientist specializing in cryptozoology, believes Bigfoot is a "gigantopithecus," a branch of primitive man believed to have existed 3 million years ago. But mainstream scientists tend to dismiss the study as pseudoscience because of ...”

                                     My comment:

Pithecus is the Greek word for ape.

Aegyptropithecus was, long ago, the ancestor we share with all living species of apes. Evolution has provided a variety of pitheceans.

The basic locomotion of Gigantropithecus (an extinct species of giant ape) walked on all fours. Sasquatch reportedly walks upright on two legs and is thus closer to Homo-erectus -humans that walk upright- by virtue of two footed locomotion.

Sasquatch is either a Neopithecean (having survived past their Archeopithecan forerunner, and, likely, separated from Dryopethicus the common ancestor to monkeys, oranges, apes, including chimps) or, perhaps, speculatively, Bigfoot descended from Ramapithicus (the common forerunner of Australopithecus africanus, Australopithecus boisei, Homo habilus with this last group being a forerunner of Homo erectus and of “modern” humans. This makes Bigfoot a species that is either human, ape, or, perhaps, Big foot is truly something different - a unique, and separate, sub-species both as a mix of pithecus and human species (an in-between species) traveling along a separate evolutionary path, thus qualitatively both a homo-robustus hominid and a gigantropus-sapien-robustus-neopithecus that doesn't fit neatly into the current hominid or ape family classification.

Either Bigfoot is a specific branch of the human family or it is an advanced mixed species of human and ape. It could be simply an ape, but I doubt it. There is no evidence that Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and the Yeti are biologically or strictly speaking pitheceans.

Compared to lemurs, monkeys, apes and humans, Bigfoot is large, “robustus” and relatively “gigantic”.

Bigfoot’s behavior, conduct, and species itself is mysterious to us, but this being mysterious can not be the case to itself.

It has survived, against all odds, thus Bigfoot is not like other pithecean species --either in the archaic sense of the species that have devolved out of existence; and, unlike contemporary apes Bigfoot has not been captured, put in a zoo, or hunted to death by it's “sapien” cousins. Bigfoot thus possesses a unique intelligence and a more advanced tactile sense than do contemporaneous apes and monkeys --humans an hunters.

Bigfoots are not known to use tools or to have developed a recognizable technology or industry: in this respect, Bigfoots different from humans but not necessarily from other hominids. The failure to punch a time-clocks makes them no different from most humans or from other branches of low land or highland apes for that matter. And in this respect, not much different from Vemont mountain folk. We do not have the whole story about Bigfoot’s economy and culture and how they go about survival.

Little is known of Bigfoot's social structure; it appears to be solitary much like orangutans but this observation is also uncertain. There are contra-reports of sightings of “groups” and “families” of Bigfoots. But most encounters between Bigfoot and persons are circumstantial, usually taking place between two random individuals in unexpected contact. But nothing is really known about Bigfoot's social interrelationships, habits, customs, or about its group relations.

Human scientists do not even know how long a Bigfoot lives on average. Our genetic knowledge of the Bigfoot species is zilch.

What do we know about this species?

They are large, swift, and stealth.

They survive by ways, arts, lore and knowledge of the forest and the economy of natural bounty.

Bigfoots are not caught or trapped by their human cousins –this in-itself is no mean feat and it indicates that they have a type of superior intelligence they use to avoid capture.

There are persons that claim they have heard Bigfoot singing in the moonlight, hooting in the dark, and even laughing out-loud by human passersbys. They have been known to steal beer from campers and sometimes out of my kitchen refigerator. Eerily human.

~Bruce

heh, for all we know bigfoot and other similar big hairy humanoid creatures that have been reported world wide are an extremely advanced species of aliens that visit earth rarely to do some rith of passage or to spend vacations or play sports or whatever, since an alien race advanced enough to travel across stellar systems or to live so close to us without we finding where they live would likely be a post singularity society, there is no way we could be sure they can't simply flash a phallic device and make people forget about the precise details, and even do some sort of mind control to have people create hoax material for plausible denialbility, but probably besides being some pleasurable (to some) intellectual masturbation material, this is a bit like the "the reality is a computer simulation" thing, even if we could be sure it is there wouldn't probably be anything we coudl do about it, so everything i've just said won't be of any other use than entertainment :/ --TiagoTiago 06:20, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

External links

I removed a number of external links because the section was getting way too long. I specifically removed all the regional-only clubs, as Wikipedia is not a web directory. I also think that a number of the ones that were labeled "science" had nothing to do with science at all, and that having subsections in general just encourages people to add more and more links for no good reason.

I have instead changed things to a pro-Bigfoot and skeptical of Bigfoot list. This is helpful because it lets people know the POV of the sites in question before the person goes there and has to find out on their own. This is also a standard on other articles of this type.

These changes (including other changes on the page) were blind reverted by an editor who seems to be going around and just undoing anything I did across a number of unrelated articles. He claims in his edit comment to not agree with the External links change specifically, claiming that most links are regional (well, yeah, they were, but that's the point, there's no reason for them to be there) and also that supposedly some of the sites a BOTH pro and con (certainly not from my experience with these sites).DreamGuy 00:34, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Before you take the above statement at face value, you should know a couple of facts. The editor above is an editor who often makes large changes to articles in passing, regardless of the trends nutured by editors who spend a lot of time on those articles. He has become quite upset about me partially reverting a handful of his recent edits and seems to be convinced that I'm following him around to revert all his edits (though you can easily see I'm not). More info can be found on my talk page, and on his. I've seen no support so far on this article for the types of changes DreamGuy is pushing here. It isn't a conspiracy I've started against him, it's just the way this page tends to be edited. Mermaid from the Baltic Sea 22:39, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I've been editing this page for far longer than you so I am far more familiar with "trends" of people "spending a lot of time" editing see. And even if I weren't, my edits fall completely in line with the policies telling us to be bold and remove spam and unencyclopdic information, unverified claims, etc. All you are doing is blind reverting most of my changes across a wide number of articles out of spite (and checking the edit history shows that you are, in fact doing so). DreamGuy 03:05, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

I may have been mistaken, but I edit Bigfoot all the time, and I get used to seeing certain names, but I don't remember seeing your name in the history page. Furthermore, if the article contained so much material that you highly disapprove of, and you edit it all the time, why wasn't that material deleted months ago? My summary of your activities was based on an inspection of your edit history. There were a lot of really major organizational changes to pages on a wide variety of topics, with seemingly little staying power for any particular topic. If I'm wrong about this, feel free to point out examples. Also, please stop blind reverting my material while accusing me of blind reverting you, or worse, in your edit summaries. You claim that you've set admins on my trail for supposedly harrassing you. If so, let the admins judge me. If I'm a bad editor, I'm sure I'll get banned or something. If I'm good, I'm sure I'll get let go. Either way, heaping further inflammatory remarks on me in your edit summaries doesn't really improve your position. Mermaid from the Baltic Sea 04:16, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

This kind of rhetorical argument is useless. Comment on content not the person, sayeth WP:NPA. I looked at the two versions. DreamGuy's is by far the better one. --ScienceApologist 12:44, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Mikaella,Amanda<&linsey The opening paragraph makes reference to Bigfoot being an example of Cryptozoology/retardness. Im am removing that /retardness part as I suspect vandalism. I however cannot rewrite the paragraph describing Bigfoot, as I have no idea what an accurate description of the descriptions would be. However, the same moron who opened up on the second paragraph is in the description part. I simply carved half the description off until someone can re-write it.

Signed Scryer_360, whose signing in is as elusive as Bigfoot. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.151.56.175 (talk) 00:18, 11 May 2007 (UTC).

Yes good. Anubiz 00:31, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

The page has a history... it's a simple matter to go back through it and find when that vandalism was added and revert to an earlier version, which I did, which means the cleanup tag is not needed. DreamGuy 00:45, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Sightings

I want to say I was up in Trinty County with Archi Buckley in 1973. He studied Big Foot all his life . what we encountered in are 4 day's there have changed my belief in Big Foot. on our 3rd night we were hanging Salmon in the trees about 8' up as food for Bigfoot it was about 3:10am when we heard noises not to mention a very foul smell in the air. Out of no where I was looking at this figure that stood about 9 feet tall it just stood there looking right at us. you could also see another one behind this one near a large tree. I swear I could see breast on the second one. it looked as tho it wanted to grab the salmon from the tree but wasan't sure what to do. it knew we were there, then Bill another guy who was with us turned the lights on from the Jeep. It startled Bigfoot and they fled. we followed them for another day but the climb got to dangerous for us so we backed off. Now I don't care what anyone say's about real or not. I know what I had seen. It was BigFoot. for awhile I was telling everyone I know about it. Most just said " Yea Right " So I just quit talking about it. Once again I think we should have laws to protect Bigfoot with the way people are they just go out there not realizing what it is and do something stupid... You can believe he is there. I know what I had seen and I don't wonder about it anymore

BOB ( Buckaroo510@yahoo.com ) SAN LEANDRO CALIFORNIA —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.4.244.1 (talk) 16:45, August 23, 2007 (UTC)

I think that the title for that part shoud be Sightings it it more nutral Anubiz 00:31, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

No, it isn't. "Sightings" means that they did, in fact, see something and that they are not hoaxes or mistakes or misreadings of old reports. "Alleged" is necessary to let people know that these are only claimed sightings and may not be real. DreamGuy 00:46, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

DO YOU THINK HE IS REAL? Alleged soundes like it is agenst The Bigfoot is real debate, Sightins sayes they saw somthing. Unlise they are laying. Anubiz 15:19, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

"Alleged" is as neutral as it gets. It means these people claim to have seen The Bigfoot without proving that they have, which is a fact, and therefore neutral. — Dorvaq (talk) 18:46, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Concur. "Hallucinations" or "Bigfoot hoaxers" or such would be negative. KillerChihuahua^?!? 11:11, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Alleged is acceptable to me, and I tend to believe that the existence of this creature is a fair possibility. - Crockspot 17:02, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

IN RE: CITATION NEEDED

In the PROPONENTS section of the article, there is a reference to other prominent scientists who have expressed an interest in the subject.

"Several other prominent scientists have also expressed at least a guarded interest in Sasquatch reports, including George Schaller, Russell Mittermeier, Daris Swindler and Esteban Sarmiento.[citation needed]"

The citation is: Stein, Theo, (2003-01-05), 'Bigfoot Believers,' The Denver Post.

Thanks

Theo Stein TheoStein 22:12, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Done. Totnesmartin 08:10, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

NPOV?

Someone added the tag that the article had POV problems with the edit comment: "Little to none of the evidence favoring the existence of BF is given here, while much is said for skepticism"

Man, if anything I think the article is slanted too far to the side of the true believers, uncritically accepting all sorts of claims about science, giving a "sighting" history that's been cooked up by true believers, etc. NPOV policy does not say that we have to give each side equal time as if they were both valid opinions equally as likely to be true, it says, instead, that we cover the topic like an encyclopedia and quote the respected sources and not give undue weight to the beliefs of fringe groups. In this case, the idea that Bigfoot is not real is far and away the accepted position of the world's scientists, so leaving that part out would make the article slanted to the pro-Bigfoot side. DreamGuy 18:25, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

But the belief that bigfoot is real is far and away the accepted position of people who've seen it. Are scientists always right? Do they even bother looking at the evidence, or do they dismiss it out of hand? And "cooked up" implies that the list of sightings is fraudulent. Is this your belief? "There's no bigfoot, therefore all evidence for it is fake"? Totnesmartin 19:38, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh please, "of people who've seen it" is begging the question, it assumes that there's an "it" to be seen. You've already biased the answer with an improper premise so of course the answer you come up with supports your biased premise.

Scientists may not always be right, but the fact of the matter is Wikipedia goes by what the experts say, not what fringe groups say. Read the WP:NPOV policy before trying to have a discussion on this topic. DreamGuy 19:44, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

So they didn't see anything, as there isn't anything to be seen. Care to comment on what they did see? I've read WP:NPOV and it led me to this guideline on reliable sources: Reliable sources are credible published materials with a reliable publication process; their authors are generally regarded as trustworthy, or are authoritative in relation to the subject at hand. So it comes down to who is trustworthy and who is not. Is a bigfoot researcher in the field less trustworthy than a biologist who refuses to study the evidence? Totnesmartin 20:49, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Loaded question. Scientists don't "refuse" to look at evidence, but they consider additional evidence beyond eye witness accounts, which are about the least reliable type of evidence. They look at things like the local and general fossil record, living patterns of known primates, the nonexistance of convincing material evidence coming out of what is really a well studied area, and the ease with which the existing evidence could be and has been fabricated. These are the type of people Wikipedia uses as reliable sources.--Cúchullain ^t/c 21:06, 11

June 2007 (UTC)

BigFoot is so not true wether you belive it or not!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Proposed merger/reintegration of Evidence regarding Bigfoot and Formal studies of Bigfoot

DreamGuy has proposed that the two above-mentioned sub-articles be remerged into the main article here. I was waiting for him to start the merger discussion before responding, but that has not happened. So that my silence does not get taken as a lack of opposition to this merge, I'm going to go ahead and express my opposition.

I oppose the merger on a purely technical basis that goes back to the reasons that the sub-articles were originally split off. The Bigfoot article was becoming too large, having reached around 75K at it's largest. At the time of the split, it was down to ~ 62K, and the split brought it down to ~ 34K. Today the article is ~ 26K. Very nicely sized. Reintegrating the sub-articles would just bring the size problem back again. Splitting out parts of an article to aub-articles as a way of dealing with overly large articles is a standard way of doing things around the project, and I see nothing out of the ordinary in the split up of the Bigfoot article.

The original discuaaion of the split can be found here, incluing a lot of discussion about what best to name the Evidence sub-article.

DreamGuy will have to give his own reasonings for wanting to re-merge the articles, but I will do an anticipatory response to one point. Just before the merge proposal, DreamGuy redirected the two subs back to the Bigfoot article, labeling them "POV forks" in his edit comments. I took issue to the characterization of the sub-articles, reverted him, and explained on his talk page why I opposed the actions. So I will repeat here what I told him. IMHO, if the sub-articles have problems, if they are broken and POV, then the sub-articles need to be fixed. But IMHO the solution to fixing the sub-articles is not to re-break the main article by making it once again overly large. - TexasAndroid 15:13, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. The sub-articles need some cleanup (and citations need to be clearer), but I can see no reason to merge that content back into this article right now. -- Kesh 00:04, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Oppose - any merge. 71.194.251.218 11:40, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Shall I take the tags off, or is it too early? Totnesmartin 18:17, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Notices have been up for over two months. Several people have posted in opposition, and noone has posted in support. DreamGuy placed tham, and has had plenty of time to come in here and argue his case for merge, and has not done so for whatever reason. No discussion at all in almost a month. At this point, I would consider the merge issue to be pretty well dead. - TexasAndroid 01:08, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

The infobox

While I'd like to remove the entire infobox, I'll guess there'll be no consensus. Describing the habitat of a species not known to exist is silly, but whatever. Using the words "Classification" and "Sub-grouping: Hominid" is not just silly, but irresponsible. Though it's changed somewhat, I wrote the initial disambig at Hominid after a debate on Ape—no one had Bigfoot in mind. The IUCN, MSW3, and Mikko do not list a Homo sasquatchii or a Pan bigfootus (I haven't actually checked so I'll add "or I'll eat my keyboard"). And if you don't want to listen to me, just think of the children. Marskell 13:54, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Why is it silly and irresponsible? Why should "hypothetical species" be devoid of classification? The infobox clearly states it's a "cryptid", so no one should be fooled into thinking it exists. Funkynusayri 16:06, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

It should be devoid of classification because it's never been classified by a scientific authority. It isn't actually anything and even calling it a cryptid is a description of absence. Marskell 16:24, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

You have no idea whether Bigfoot has been classified by a scientific authority. The Federal Government classified Bigfoot as secret, probably before you were born, which was back in the 60's. Reason being that they could not neutralize the subject for human consumption. All of their research was classified, while they simultaneously spoon fed the fact that Bigfoot is real to the public. Various informational experiments took place that flopped, some with ROTC students. Since the Federal Government then could not succeed at informing the public of Bigfoot's existence, they then declared them as secret. Millions of dollars are spent by the Federal Government annually, to maintain that secret by screwing with cutting edge researchers that are on the right path. Which is not more than a handful. They even have deeply embedded supermoles, that have risen to some level of authority, that rat out the progress of those cutting edge researchers so that either their equipment and/or there work can be stolen. That is your tax dollars in action, while our bridges are collapsing and terrorists bring down tall buildings. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.239.166.141 (talk) 16:29, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

For all internet links use {{cite web}}

Most of the footnotes do not incorporates {{cite web}}. This should be done. I've started and added the template under the Bigfoot#Footnotes section. Use it! Her'e it is

<ref>{{cite web|last= |first= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title= |work= |publisher= |date= |url= |format= |doi= |accessdate= |quote = }}</ref>

Nsaa 18:27, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Merge

I suggest merging Bigfoot in popular culture, which is up for AfD, into this one. Needs reduction of lists and material, but the core infomation seems to be a good addition to this article. – Dreadstar † 21:14, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

For the same reasons I opposed reintegrating the Evidence and Formal Studies sub-articles above, I oppose this merge. The article has been battling size issues for a while now. We now have it down to a nice size. If there are problems with one of the sub-articles, then they are the problem of the sub-article. But the solution to the sub-article problems is not, IMHO, to once again break the main article by re-integrating the subs and bloating the main article. - TexasAndroid 21:28, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely not! While the Bigfoot theory is regarded with scorn or mild indulgency from many besserwissers who haven't researched the matters themselves, it is a theory, whose vindicators have a serious intent (mostly – charlatans are everywhere). "Bigfoot in popular culture" is not serious at all, it's entertainment and should be treated as entertainment. Merging these two would be like merging scifi spacecrafts with Apollo spacecrafts, the former an inspiration for the latter, maybe, but still just entertainment. Said: Rursus ☻ 08:52, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Oppose and will remove merge suggestion. 82.71.48.158 18:32, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

The AfD on the pop culture article was closed with no consensus to delete or merge, so while it is not inappropriate to eventually try to build a consensus, at this moment in time, I think the issue is dead, or at least deeply asleep. - Crockspot 18:38, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Nate's Pubes

Can we get a citation needed tag on this. I have not heard about this part of Sasquatch lore.

Got it. - Crockspot 04:45, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

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