Posted on 02/15/2006 1:12:24 PM PST by Idisarthur
FUNKS GROVE - Researchers have been looking for Bigfoot in Funks Grove, but a local zoologist interested in the elusive creature's lore said he would be very surprised if one is found there.
A report last fall by people who said they saw a large hairy upright creature in a ditch in rural Shirley attracted a team of researchers from Searching for Bigfoot Inc. of Menlo Park, Calif.
Angelo Capparella, a professor at Illinois State University, said he also heard the report and talked to the people at the time.
He said that if there is a Bigfoot - a big if in his book - Central Illinois is not the place to find one. Even though Funks Grove is a wooded area, there just isn't much habitat locally to support or conceal a large primate, Capparella said.
"Illinois ranks 49th out of 50 in the amount of natural vegetation left," he said. Only Iowa has less.
"As a zoologist, it's hard to give a lot of credence," he said.
I saw "Oliver" on the History Channel. Truly amazing, he was much like a human.
I've never seen this documentary/film production. It's called "Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science" . I hope to see it if time permits.
"Heads-up: USA Television -- "Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science" -- Watch or TIVO the documentary on the Discovery Channel on Saturday February 18 11:00 AM ET/PT and again on Wednesday February 22, also at 11:00 AM ET/PT (Check local times in TV Guide) or load the Discovery Channel's episode listings page, search keywords: Legend Meets Science....their website has your local times."
Source: ( http://www.bigfootencounters.com/) under What's New; but look here as well - The Discovery Channel Website - Viewing Schedule:
It would be nice if we can get some TIVO clips uploaded to WWW.Video.Google.Com
Here is a funny one about Bigfoot from Google Video:
Enjoy!
Thank you for putting me on the ping list for a very interesting subject.
Thanks also for the heads-up on the tv show and your various links.
I'm waiting for a FReeper to share a bigfoot sighting with us.
A person I worked with a few years ago who was a shooting buddy of mine told me a story. He was deer hunting in West Virginia. A member of the hunting party was a hunting guide from Germany who had moved to the U.S.
While hunting, my friend and another guy said they saw an ape-like creature going through the woods. They said it was like an ape but not an ape. They were pretty shaken up.
A while later they hooked up with the guy from Germany. He said he had seen a "creature" and asked them if they had seen it too. They related that they had.
My friend said the guy from Germany was very experienced with animals and the guy could only describe what he had seen as a creature, as he had never before seen anything like it and had no idea what it was.
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Posted: 1/16/03
Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science on Discovery Channel for Blaines Doug Haijcek
by L.A. Jones
Life editor
For Blaine resident Doug Haijcek, a 1984 Coon Rapids High School graduate, the legend of Big Foot has turned into much more than a primordial, scientific, film-making experience. It has become a natural extension of his extreme curiosity.
Haijcek, who produced and directed Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science, a documentary that made its debut on the Discovery Channel Jan. 9, Big Foot and the more than 400 personal sitings reported per year of what many believe is an as-yet undiscovered primate has become a series of questions that just have to be answered.
Haijcek was working on a documentary about sub-arctic lake trout in the Pacific Northwest and discovered 18-inch footprints that numbered in the thousands. They were found in a very remote area, continuing from the shoreline across all kinds of terrain, including sand, mud, gravel and grasslands. One set of the prints was in a direct line, with the left and right tracks separated by six-foot sapling trees along the remote sub-tundra landscape.
When you see something like that, you want explanations, he said. There was nobody not anybody who could have articifially produced them because there were thousands of these prints.
The footprints and others taken from other sites were cast and subjected to all kinds of scientific review and research, along with auditory tapes of the supposed sasquatch, high definition reproductions of the infamous Patterson footage taken more than 35 years ago, DNA replications taken from hair and stool samples linked to a Big Foot body cast, and cutting-edge technology used to determine the speed, stride and leg movements of the creature as measured against other known primates and humans, as well as its environment.
The Patterson footage, regarded as the most visible representation of what has been regarded as either Big Foot himself or merely a man dressed in a monkey suit, initially raised no red flags in the scientific community, which remained extremely skeptical of the existence of a large ape-like primate, as yet unidentified.
Now the scientific community is beginning to seriously re-examine this skepticism scoffed at for decades about the sasquatch, because of the magnitude and number of the new findings, according to Haijcek.
One was a bulge or hernia in the thigh of the creature as captured in high definition reproduction of a extremely small sequence of the Patterson footage. The bulge went undetected for almost 35 years, Haijcek said, and now some scientists are concluding because of the hernia, leg movements and stride of the sasquatch, it simply is not possible that what has been seen on film for 35 years was a man dressed in a monkey suit.
It remains unexplained, Haijcek said. Everyone was looking at the face to see if it was real or just a hoax.
We wanted to have all the evidence examined by skeptics, scientists, and surprisingly, they were receptive to it.
The Discovery Channel bought the show because of the science of it, said Joe Frascella, a colleague involved with Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science.
What made the documentary into the piece of scientific review it has now become, according to Haijcek, was the fact that George Schaller, considered the grandfather of primatology, legitimized the show by agreeing to become involved with the project.
After that, our phone was ringing off the hook from other scientists interested in researching the topic, Haijcek said. It was kind of safety in numbers.
A tape of the supposed sasquatch was also subjected to rigorous auditory research and review by Dr. Robert Benson, a leading acoustics expert throughout the world. His conclusion was inconclusive that the sound definitely was not that of any known and existing primate or other animal known to science but that it could have been produced by a human.
The more than 1,000 footprint casts of the sasquatch reviewed and researched by scientists turned up some other very interesting findings, according to Haijcek. Footprints of humans and other primates, in many cases, show dermal images or fingerprints, as well as evidence of injuries to the foot. Almost all of the dermal images examined of the sasquatch had one identifiable characteristic, he said.
In humans, the dermal images run horizontal across the foot; in all primates, they run diagonally. But the dermal images from the sasquatch ran vertically straight up and down the foot, according to Haijcek.
The leg movements, stride and speed of the sasquatch taken together as one body of evidence, as calculated from the Patterson footage, also do not represent the movements of a man nor the movements of any other other identifiable primate, several scientists have agreed.
The DNA evidence taken from the hair and stool samples of the sasquatch could not substantiate whether it was from a known primate, a human or something else a mystery and legend that is now being much more seriously explored among the scientific community.
Haijcek and his colleague for the White Wolf Entertainment/Bosch Media documentary, Frascella, were very skeptical going into the project, and in fact, they remain skeptical.
None of us are advocates of Big Foot, said Haijcek. But there are 347,000 acres of roadless wilderness that have been unexplored in the Pacific Northwest.
Haijcek, who earlier in his career produced Ron Scharas Minnesota Bound before both the rigors of a weekly television series and his curiosity got the best of him, first investigated what occurs in a wild bear den over the winter by positioning a set of cameras in the den and studying the bears activities from both live video and video replay in his home.
That was my first success, he said. It got a lot of national and even worldwide attention. So when I had the time and money, I started doing documentaries, and that allowed me to probe into the hidden world.
His second project probed how mother bears nursed their cubs by installing a 12-foot endoscope with infrared lights underneath a mother bear without her knowledge or recognition. The footage showed hairless cubs being actively nursed by the mother bear, despite previous speculation among scientists that once cubs are born, the mother does not take an active role in nursing them until they are ready to venture out of their den.
His third project scientifically documented muskrats living with beavers in their lodges and actually grooming them, according to Haijcek.
We were so shocked within a half hour of the cameras being there, he said. There were muskrats in there, grooming the beavers and living with them.
If he would have suggested such a thing to the scientific community about two different animal species living together, they would have laughed at him the same way they have scoffed at the existence of Big Foot, according to Haijcek.
His excitement over his discoveries and involvement in the previous documentaries more than piqued his interest when he saw the 18-inch footprints numbering literally in the thousands. Haijcek just had to get some answers, he said.
Although Haijceks documentary did not prove the existence of a sasquatch-like creature, he said, it has led to a new body of evidence and a new line of scientific research and review for the future.
I do have a lot of questions, Haijcek said, and the documentary has answered only some of them.
Until some deer hunter shoots it and actually brings it in, Im not going to believe it, said Frascella.
Don't mean to confuse.
Most excellent post. Thanks.
Until some deer hunter shoots it and actually brings it in, Im not going to believe it, said Frascella.
This was a big point made in the manuscript I have. Why have remains of a bigfoot never been found?
Various reasons. Who ever finds remains of a bear in the woods? Creatures of the woods eat the bones, remains get covered up by leaves, ets.
Then there is that possibility that the creature named bigfoot is a supernatural creature, or from another dimension. In that case no remains will ever be found. The creature has proven to be immune to gunshots in several cases.
The liger? Bred for it's skills in magic? That's pretty much my favorite animal.
I've been to West Virginia once for some Skiing. There are definitely some untame places out there. They even advise tourists to bring well maintained cars as the auto mechanics can be hours away from the place that you have car trouble.
I also venture into the woodlands of Maryland and Virginia. But I could not say how I'd react if I had an encounter.
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On another note, I need to start shooting. I always say that I'm going to do so but that time hasn't arrived.
I often participate in adventure races, mountain biking and I snowboard too often. Maybe an injury from one of these activities will slow me down enough to get me on the range.
Wishful thinking, but some of my first buys will be a 30-30, 30-06., a 38 snub nose and a 9MM.
I don't know much about guns but that is too be discovered.
Cheers
On a personal note: I do not mock crypto threads, nor am I a bigfoot detractor. But I do lable myself skeptically amused from time to time. That being said, I am certain that there are a lot of things on this planet that we haven't discovered yet.
I hear it is impressive. I need to go see just how big this thing is... and I stroll the National Mall often... can't believe I missed this big guy.
David would kick his ass.
I have never seen a UFO or a bigfoot, but I would like to. If I did, probably no one would believe me.
Rockville, huh? I parked my car there and took the Metro to a pro-gun rally in D.C. I've got a good friend who lives in Columbia (MD).
Get into shooting, its a great sport and hobby. Your choices of what to start with are fine.
I'm pretty sure the Discovery Channel 'Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science"is an extremely good show.
I'm pretty sure I saw it recently and was blown away. It followa rwal scientists who arw not flakes, into the field. They are actively involved in running down lewads and actually making detailed hunts in areas of likely habitat.
I felt comfotrable with the science and was not turned off by trash commonly associated with such programs.
They use the phrase Homo gigantus that was new to me
I posted to myself. Shucks!
Look at my post above about the Bible Codes.
Please put me on your ping list!
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