Big Foot, Yetties, Loch Ness Monster, the 'missing' ape of South America etc

There is an interesting book by the Belgian zoologist, Bernard Heuvelmans, which discusses the field of crypto-zoology.

What does AR think about the Big Foot?

I think, like the Loch Ness Monster, it is wishful thinking in an increasingly tame, explained world?

Rob, come to British Columbia or Washington and view the available evidence for yourself and then decide. I had an unseen but close encounter in 1981 in the Fraser Canyon. When one gets that close you never ever doubt the tales again even though your remain slightly judgemental of the other people who claim involvement. derf

Derf,

I saw a tv series so long ago, it frightens me. The series was called Arthur C CLarke's Mysterious World. Or something very similar.

Anyway, each week it had a different mystery. The one on "Big Foot" was interesting because of two diametrically opposed threads.

One was the 'film eveidence'. You can guess the type: hand held cine / super 8 home movie of chuck's friend, Butch, shuffling along in a poorly fitting theatrical monkey suit / second hand fur coat.

The film was slightly out of focus etc. one example I remember was filmed just after the Second World War up in NW USA, not far from the Canadian border. I have a vague mememory of it being Oregon / Washington state. Perhaps it was Montana. Anyway, it looked fake to me, even at that tender age.

However, the encounters - feeling / sensing were different. There was this Deputy, who dressed in buckskins like Wild Bill Hickock, who was hunting the beast after one had made a nuisance of itself around a red indian settlement / trailer park.

The unsettling bit was the beast was attracted by menstrual blood. It had been hanging around the caravans of adult females.

Anyway, he went out often, deep into the woods with a .338Win Mag. I remember that bit well because the sheriff / marshall / deputy shot an old dried tree for the benefit of the camera. Strike one old, dry tree.

I remember the law officer had a big moustache. So I guess he was not a red indian himself, although he was a dark / mediterranean looking man.

Other characters, in the nice meaning, included lumber jacks, latter day mountain men and hunters. People who are at ease in the woods and not likely to spook themselves in the solitude / quiet. More importantly, they knew what a bear / moose etc looks, sounds and smells like. No issue of mistaken identity.

I would be paralysed by fear if I came across these humanoid beasties. I get this eerie, uncomfortable feeling when I see gorillas in the zoo. Such big, sad eyes and intelligent expressions. You almost want to reach out and stroke them but then remember you are emotionally attached to your limbs. Just as well there is a moat and bars between you and them.

Anyway, off thread.

What sort of evidence is there? Foot prints? Hair samples on briars, bushes? Bones or skins found? i have vague memory of the Indian legends of a beast called Saskatch / Saskwatch. Is this where the Canadian province of 'Saskachewan' gets its' name?

Many years ago, I spent most of my free time camping and hunting in the forest of the NW, Cascade Mt's, Canada, and Alaska. Something like this would be very discomforting in the wild!! It would make for an interesting day, for sure.

In several years, I never ran across anything like this, not that it couldn't be, just never had a face to face myself. Bear, on many occasions, they can be bad enough. Idiots on occasion, no Bigfoot though.

8mm & more, Derf,

Gentlemen, I have to say, on balance, I do not think so large a beast exists. If there were more of them, there would be more sightings, physical evidence.

As there is so little evidence, and lets accept they exist for the moment, there population density in asuch a remote, forested area would mean the population would not be sustainable. The animals would not meet up sufficiently often to reproduce.

For me, I think this is the clincher - population dynamics. Additionally why are n't there more old reports from the 1810 - 1850 period of mountain men and the Lewis & Clarke expedition exploring the interior?

Robthom,
Actually, there are. The stories of Big Foot and the evidence of gigantic footprints, dung piles, unidentifiable hair go back over 150 years. The position of the California Department of Fish and Game was articulated some years ago when there was a huge media blitz in NorCal with hounds, guys with semi-auto .308's, etc all running all over the place.

To whit, should such a specimen be shot, careful analyisis will be done. If the carcase is determined to be "animal" then it is a non-game animal and the shooter will be prosecuted for poaching. Should it be determined to be "human" in whatever meaning of the word applies, then the violation is first degree murder. After this was announced in the press, all the wouldbe participents went home!

Old Sarge,

I am pleased there has been proper, rational, sober investigation into the phenomenon.

I guessed, if there was truth in the stories, the stories should begin around 1800 - 1825. I figured this was when the first exploration by mountain men, path /trail finders for wagon trains started to enter the region from the East.

The world is becoming smaller, with fewer unknown regions. I think we need room for mystery in our lives: Loch Ness Monster, yetties, ghost stories.

G'day,
Just a thought, Most of these sighting happen in isolated places with thick ground cover, trees, etc? O.K, I hunt deer in some fairly thickly forested country, lots of times all I will see is spoor, no deer. But they are still there, I just don't see them.
Maybe these critters, if they do exist, are the same. Cautious, avioding contact, hiding?
Who knows? I'm not too keen on being the one to find out though!

Cheers, Dave.

quote:

Originally posted by Oldsarge:
Robthom,
Actually, there are. The stories of Big Foot and the evidence of gigantic footprints, dung piles, unidentifiable hair go back over 150 years. The position of the California Department of Fish and Game was articulated some years ago when there was a huge media blitz in NorCal with hounds, guys with semi-auto .308's, etc all running all over the place.

To whit, should such a specimen be shot, careful analyisis will be done. If the carcase is determined to be "animal" then it is a non-game animal and the shooter will be prosecuted for poaching. Should it be determined to be "human" in whatever meaning of the word applies, then the violation is first degree murder. After this was announced in the press, all the wouldbe participents went home!

slight error there.

Nongame animals have no seasons are are not regulated therefore there can be no poaching charge. Groundhogs, yotes, field lions, and also fairytale creatures.

Maybe in NC, but in California, "nongame" animals, unless they are rodents or somehow classed as pests, are protected!

These "yeti" are mostly a blue state happening.

I'm a big fan of "this" one

"Capybarra"

- I have read of these 'mythical' beasties ravaging flocks of sheep, or was it herds of goats somewhere in Latin America.

Was it Mexico?

Something about winged serpent / vampire creature.

Was there something about attacking children / adults, blood sucking and facial disfigurement / mauling?

El Chupacabra is said to attack goats, among other things. Celebrated in at least one X-Files episode and one or more made-for-tv movies.

I guess the fact that El Chupacabra has made it to the X Files says it all.

Is the beast anything more than the product of sunstroke, hangovers and acid indigestion?

I would have thought the Mexican President, Catholic Church, the Police and the Army would be hunting the diabolic creature by now.

You cannot even get the Press and Journal interested in the Loch Ness Monster. News of the World,hmm, possibly!

I am not aware of any objective evidence of the existence of El Chupacabra. But isn't that the essence of mysterious/unknown animals (i.e. cryptozoology)?

Charles,

I would have agreed with you about all these various mysterious animals in the past. But, behind every myth, there might be a small nugget of truth, glimmer of enlightenment.

A cracking little book is Extraordinary animals worldwide by Karl P N Shuker, Robert Hale, London Pubs, ISBN 0 7090 4421 6. Another book by Dr Karl Shuker The Lost Ark, Harper-Collins Pubs, ISBN 0 00 219943 2 is, in my opinion better.

It deals with such imaginary animals, at least to science at the time as the Okapi, the Kouprey, the dinosaur / primitive fish - coelcanth, the giant Nepalese elephant - perhaps a living member of the stegodon, a primitive form of elephant and an ancestor of today's elephants and the extinct Mammoth.

For a cracking good read, and more of an X files type book, Bernard Heuvelmans On the Track of Unknown Animals is interesting. He has written up many mysterious beasts, including the infamous Nandi Bear. My copy was published by Rupert Hart Davis, London. Unfortunately and unusually, the book does not have an ISBN.

I would rate these books as being serious coffee table texts. None the less, they were written by serious zoologists. So, this is the realm of scientific curiosity applied to real animals recently found or trying to explain persistent myths. Not your National Enquirer territoryof alien abductions etc.

I have read several cryptozoology books myself. However, I still say that the lack of objective evidence is one of the hallmarks of the unknowns, as once evidence begins to mount they move out of the unknown realm. Fun stuff to read and about which to speculate. I don't mean to denigrate the zoologists who work in the field, but there is a difference between the search for the Okapi and the search for the Mexican/Puerto Rican Goat Sucker (aka El Chupacabra).

There are myths with a nugget of truth behind them (mermaids and manatees?) and there are some which are so pervasive you suspect some truth, but which might have their grounding in our unconscious rather than reality (vampires, the wild man of the woods). I guess the search is designed to see where each legend falls in the continuum.

Back to El Chupacabra, he does have a following and you can read more here:

elchupacabra.com

More links here.

The Skeptic's Dictionary

We have a series running on the Outdoor Life Network here called Mysterious Encounters which is supposed to be the application of high technology (night vision, trail cameras, aerial cameras, thermal imaging) to cryptozoology. Generally they just spend a week somewhere looking for another Bigfoot spin-off, but it has its moments. We usually wonder why they don't stay in one place long enough to resolve anything, but apparently the series requires them to keep on the move.

Charles,

I was thinking about the Mermaid legends - the Manatee etc. The eye of the beholder / wishful thinking after x months at sea?!

Some of the sea monster legends have proven to be not so far fetched - giant octopus, squid. I belive an American warship (destroyer or submarine) got into a tug of war with some behemoth of the deep.

All written up. When the vessel got home they found the rubberised anti asdic submarine warfare coating to the hull had been badly damaged!

One of my lecturers at University when I read for my first degree was a serious student of lay lines and ghost hunting! He used high tec civil engineering investigative geophysical kit to 'map' occurrences. The sort of kit included magnetometers, resistivity and gravitational measuring devices used to locate bed rock, water filled fault zones etc on construction sites.

They also had very sophisticated night viewing kit (for the time mid 1980s) and thermal imaging / fire fighters rescue type equipment. Plus the sensitive thermometers and humidity meters. Sounds very much like Ghostbusters.

The man's verdict was nearly all the stories were rubbish. Nearly but not all. The lay lines he had investigated appeared to show good correlation with the alignment of deep buried remnant magmatic activity - plutonic intrusions and intrusive swarms. Maybe some people just like homing pigeons are sensitive to small local variations in the Earth's magnetic field caused by these bodies?

He got me thinking about the possibilities etc. there was also some Russian research on haunted houses. They seemed to believe some houses, providing they were built out of appropriate rocks, mineralogy could act like a capacitor, storing emotional energy from a intense moment etc.

Over time, the charge is given out to the environment. I guess that is why haunted houses are damp / humid - you need the 'wiring' to transmit the signal?

I really like these safe experiences. I do not like horror or ghost films. They give me nightmares! I made a big mistake going to see the American remake of the Japanese film - "The Ring". Much too scary for me. I live in an old house.

I enjoy horror movies but most of them are so implausible that they do not even keep you up at night.

For a nicely done ghost story it is hard to beat The Univited from 1944 with Ray Milland and Ruth Hussey. I picked it up on laserdisc several years ago and it is now a favorite of my wife and kids. I don't think it has made it to DVD yet, but it is a truly atmospheric ghost story, relying on plot and suspense more than cheap thrills and gore. You should catch it if it shows up on television.

I live in an old house by Dallas standards (probably pretty new by UK standards) and my wife and oldest daughter swear it is haunted. I must just be oblivious because I don't see the strange goings-on that they do.

I like to believe that there are things out there that we don't know about, because otherwise the world is too civilized and tame. With more people crowding the place every year it becomes less likely, but the idea is still attractive.

Charles,

I used to think if you lived in a new house, say built during the last 30 or 40 years you were safe from ghosts! A child's rationale.

However, as my lecturer at University, he of the lay lines etc, pointed out, the house maybe new but the ground it stands on is tens, if not hundreds, of millions of years old.

Phut, went another security blanket!

You are right, horror films tend to be gross. Generally sick violence with a twist of sex.

I did n't go to see any of the original Japanese "Ring" films. They are just way too scary. But a good characterisation of pure evil. And the first story had a neat twist, no mother, do n't you understand? you helped it escape!

I did n't like, nor go see The Grudge, even though it had Ms. Geller in it.

The funny thing is, I used to like the ghost stories of M R James. He was an nineteenth century Cambridge University academic who told a ghost story each Christmas semester lunch party to his students.

The BBC had a Christmas tradition of making a film of one of his stories each year. There were a number which got to me, but I particularly remember the "Whistle and I will come to thee" story. Quite innocuous, just a story about a whistle and what it summoned up...

I would think the old trails for transporting cattle and the early wagon trains must be a good source of eerie tales. So much drama and tragedy. Then there are all the Apache and Commanche Indian stories: their legends.

In the UK, any isolated location or lonely job like Watchmen or Lighthouse Keeper seem to have stories attached to them.

A 'true' story as they say. I used to live in South Wales as a teenager. Fairly near, within 15 - 20 miles was a place called Llantrisant. On the old coach road etc across the Vale of Glamorgan was a Jacobean or Tudor age house called the Red House on account of the red sandstone it was made of.

People did n't stay there long! Big tough blue collar workers and tradesmen doing work on the house would not work alone in any room within the house. They also arrived late in the morning, when the sun was well up and shadows dispersed and left early in the afternoon before the shadows lengthened.

Although it was an old house and left empty, it did not suffer from squatters, rough sleeping tramps nor theives after architectural features like stone fireplaces and oak pannelling.

I have never seen the house, nor am I sure where it is. I know it is on the old main road through the village / small town. But that is all. I am not interested in seeing the place either.

For some eason, as I write these lines I am thinking of Hotel California by the Eagles, but cannot make the connection.

quote:

Originally posted by robthom:
Charles,

I used to think if you lived in a new house, say built during the last 30 or 40 years you were safe from ghosts! A child's rationale.

Ours is closer to 80 years old, practically new for Europe or even New England, but ancient by Dallas standards. I blame the wiring and plumbing for things, although that does not account for when lights go on or off by the switch moving or when the sound of footsteps is heard on the stairs when no one is on them. I discount these reports as they are made by my wife and kids, not me. There is always a strange noise in an older house, plus plenty of drafts to make things move.

quote:

You are right, horror films tend to be gross. Generally sick violence with a twist of sex.

Not that I am opposed to a bit of gratuitous sex and violence, they just don't make the best horror movies. The Changeling with George C. Scott is another "house with a story" movie that is pretty good.

quote:

The funny thing is, I used to like the ghost stories of M R James. He was an nineteenth century Cambridge University academic who told a ghost story each Christmas semester lunch party to his students.

Thanks for the recommendation. I looked him up on Amazon and put a few titles in the "wish list" to remember him.

quote:

A 'true' story as they say. I used to live in South Wales as a teenager. Fairly near, within 15 - 20 miles was a place called Llantrisant. On the old coach road etc across the Vale of Glamorgan was a Jacobean or Tudor age house called the Red House on account of the red sandstone it was made of.

People did n't stay there long! Big tough blue collar workers and tradesmen doing work on the house would not work alone in any room within the house. They also arrived late in the morning, when the sun was well up and shadows dispersed and left early in the afternoon before the shadows lengthened.

Although it was an old house and left empty, it did not suffer from squatters, rough sleeping tramps nor theives after architectural features like stone fireplaces and oak pannelling.

I have never seen the house, nor am I sure where it is. I know it is on the old main road through the village / small town. But that is all. I am not interested in seeing the place either.

We had a purported "haunted house" in the town where I grew up -- the story being that although it was empty there was always a light on, together with other mysterious happenings. I can personally vouch for the light being on, but no more. Not particularly mysterious, but late at night in a lonely part of town, good enough.

quote:

For some eason, as I write these lines I am thinking of Hotel California by the Eagles, but cannot make the connection.

You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.

What about the seaserpents. There is a atleast 2 lakes here in Norway where they say it is living.

Well the fact why no one has captured the Yeti, is probably thet he sences wery much and is looking over the areas and sees where the enemy is coming from.

But Congo so large as the jungle is there where very few has entered, who knows what is hiding there?

quote:

Indian legends of a beast called Saskatch / Saskwatch. Is this where the Canadian province of 'Saskachewan' gets its' name?

Indeed it is. Saskatchewan is full of the damn things....they live on gophers, and come to Alberta to shop, and scare the bejeezus out of other motorists...

I thought "Sakatchewan" (spelling?), referred to shaking ground, on account of the swampy peat bogs. The ground looks firm enough until you stand on it, and then you sink above your knees etc.

I think that was the official answer, the other one, the Canadian Yeti bit, I remember from a TV program about the Big Foot phenomenon.

Funny, most of these 'stories' appear to originate from 'hippy states', where the locals might just be enjoying the odd 'jazz chemical'!