Bigfoot on the History Channel

August 7, 2009 | Welcome2thejungle

[fso301]

I haven’t caught this much hell on FR since I suggested that Ethel Rosenberg may have been wrongly executed because there was recent exculpatory evidence that her brother, David Greenglass, implicated her in order to spare his own wife

I don't see where you caught any hell on this thread. A few jokes and a few posts pointing out the extreme improbability of such legendary creature being real.

[Welcome2thejungle]

OK ridicule. The videotape aside, there have been too many eyewitnesses to simply dismiss BF out have hand. I think some of the witnesses did see something and they are certain it was not simply a bear walking on its hind legs. Are we to believe that ALL of the witnesses are kooks and liars?

[mickey finn]

I would love to see a bigfoot but I do not think they exist. With todays wildlife cameras a decent photo should be available by now. I live in Oregon and have met several people who claim to have seen them, yet I am still a nonbeliever. Yet I am still enthralled with the whole idea also.

[Welcome2thejungle]

Did the people who claimed to have seen it strike you as being wackos or liars?

[Rockingham]

I do not ‘believe’ in Big Foot, but I believe in the possibility that Big Foot exists. Science and our knowledge of the world are incomplete and flawed. We need to be both skeptical and open-minded. Oddly, most people, even scientists, cannot do that.

[Rockingham]

Some years ago, when Florida panthers were said to be extinct, my brother and I saw one from our family backyard in suburban Orlando. Eventually, due to persistent reports of panthers in the wild, biologists relented and searched for them. Now, there are said to a few dozen free living examples of Florida’s version of the cougar.

[fso301]

OK ridicule. The videotape aside, there have been too many eyewitnesses to simply dismiss BF out have hand. I think some of the witnesses did see something and they are certain it was not simply a bear walking on its hind legs.

Are we to believe that ALL of the witnesses are kooks and liars?

No more than all chupacabra sightings are from kooks and liars. I don't dispute that people saw something, the question becomes one of is what they saw a bigfoot?

Every year during hunting season, some hapless hunter is going to be shot because some other hunter mistook him for a game animal. I remember a case many years ago where a hunter shot another hunter out of a treestand thinking the poor guy was a turkey. After the fact, the grief stricken shooter will swear he was sure it was a game animal.

Furthermore, many of these sightings come from areas where Europeans long ago wiped out the elk, bison and top predators which make modern sightings of a bigfoot all the more suspect.

[buschbaby]

"These BFRO guys seem to exist to sell weekend camping trips all over North America."

That seems to be the belief of independent researchers. My favorite forum to browse (and no I'm not a member I just read there) is The Bigfoot Forums. They have many intelligent discussions and are as nit-picky as FReepers in tearing apart hoaxes.
http://www.bigfootforums.com/index.php?act=idx

[mad_as_he$$]

I spend a great deal of time outdoors. I did not “see” bears and cougars until I retrained myself. I could not figure out why so many kids see them but adults could not. One day I was with a group of kids and three of them spotted a cougar all at once. I realized that they “see” differently than adults. They do not view things with a preconceived idea. I started looking at things in the outback from odd angles etc and now I see bears quite often and cougars when I am hunting them. Many go their whole life and never see a cat - I believed they have all been watched at one time or anther if they go to the “woods”.

As far as BF goes I have been in the woods in Northern Kalifornia quit a bit and have NEVER run across anything or heard anything that even sounds odd. Like I said earlier in the thread. I am sure they are not real because i would of killed one by now.

[fso301]

Some years ago, when Florida panthers were said to be extinct, my brother and I saw one from our family backyard in suburban Orlando.

They were never said to be extinct, only that they existed in South Florida in numbers so tiny that they may no longer be able to reproduce. If panthers were accurately reported to exist up and down the State, drumming up money for Southwest Florida land purchases, hiring wildlife staff and purchasing equipment would have been much more difficult is possible at all. See my post #33. I also saw one in Central Florida.

[mickey finn]

One person I talked to at a small country store on the North Umpqua River in Oregon. His custom plates on his pickup read bigfoot. He claimed that he had encountered them. I did not talk to him long enough to determine mental stability. The other person was someone I worked with years ago. He claim to have seen an heard one on Mt. Adams in Washington. I was never sure what to think of this guy, as he always had some conspiracy theory to tell me.

[sasquatch]

Puleeze dont kill me!
:>

Kim said Lauren was in town...
D.

[Rockingham]

Despite sightings by the public around the state, the Florida Panther was said to be fully or effectively extinct in the mid 1970's. At the time, wildlife officials tended to discount sightings as mistaken or as being of isolated Western cougars who had escaped or been released by owners shedding burdensome illegal pets.

http://www.panthersociety.org/tables.html#table4

When I lived in SW Florida in the late 70's, local outdoors men and environmentalists hoped that the panther would be found to be surviving as a viable and genetically distinct population so as to help spur federal purchase and preservation of the Big Cypress and Golden Gate Estates. And that is what happened when formal studies confirmed the survival of the Florida Panther.

http://www.panthersociety.org/distribution.html

Today, and In retrospect, sightings of panthers around the state are regarded as rare but plausible because as young adults, male panthers tend to range widely in order to establish a territory and find mates. The core panther habitat area though is south Florida.

[mad_as_he$$]

lol you are safe. Gunner is here now. They were in MB and I guess they may have stopped in SC.

[fso301]

Despite sightings by the public around the state, the Florida Panther was said to be fully or effectively extinct in the mid 1970's.

At the time, I had a subscription to "Florida Wildlife" magazine as I loved going to Florida for our annual hunting trips. The panther was a continual subject of articles and as I recall, the concern was that remaining cats may be so geographically separate that they could no longer find each other to breed.

At the time, wildlife officials tended to discount sightings as mistaken or as being of isolated Western cougars who had escaped or been released by owners shedding burdensome illegal pets.

My dad and I phoned in the sighting to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Service. I remember listening in as my dad talked to the officer and the officer said "Yes, even though panthers don't officially exist in that area, we know they are in there".

Today, and In retrospect, sightings of panthers around the state are regarded as rare but plausible because as young adults, male panthers tend to range widely in order to establish a territory and find mates. The core panther habitat area though is south Florida.

Here you have a Florida panther recently killed in Georgia that nobody knew about. No collar, no microchip, no tattoo, no nothing. This essentially means the cat came from a mother no one knew about. It would suck to be the guy who shot the cat but then again, such animals didn't officially exist in Georgia and therefore, he shot it thinking it was a released/escaped cougar.

Another tidbit not mentioned anywhere that never-the-less shook up a lot of people is that genetic testing of the Florida panther reveals it to have no significant difference from any other North American Puma population.

Genomic DNA specimens from 315 pumas of specified geographic origin (261 contemporary and 54 museum specimines) were collected for molecular genetic and phylogenetic analyses of three mitochondrial gene sequences (16S rRNA, ATPase-8, and NADH-5) plus composite microsatellite genotypes (10feline loci). Six phylogeographic groupings or subspecies were resolved, and the entire North American population (186 individuals from 15 previously named sub-species) was genetically homogeneous in overall variation relative to central and South American populations. http://jhered.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/91/3/186.pdf

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

The problem is that you think that the History Channel is a reputable source. It is not. It has flying saucer stories, JFK was killed by LBJ conspiracy shows, and a lot of other trash, along with some valuable and interesting historical documentaries. Being on the channel is no evidence of veracity.

[ConservativeTeen]

The History Channel really has gone down in quality over the past couple of years. It seems that half the time I flip over to the channel, it has some crazy conspiracy stuff.

[Rockingham]

All good points.

[yazoo]

Well, check out IS IT REAL on National Geo next time they run the program. Had tons of witnesses who knew it was him.

[Welcome2thejungle]

My view exactly.