Bigfoot, also known as Sasquatch, is a large and hairy human-like mythical creature alleged to live primarily in forests in North America's Pacific Northwest. Over the last 20 years every state except Hawaii has reported at least one sighting. Despite Bigfoot adherents and believers, no credible evidence has ever been provided. "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, it may not make a sound—but it seems someone will report that a Bigfoot knocked it over." Below are the nine primary evidences debunking the existence of Bigfoot.
Quality and ubiquity of cameras has exploded. Still no compelling evidence:
"In 1967, Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin filmed a few seconds of a hairy creature walking on two legs by the same Bluff Creek—the most famous and contested piece of Bigfoot 'evidence' to this day ….... Skeptics say the animal was a man in costume, while believers argue that the creature’s movements and body proportions cannot possibly have been human. The debate has been raging for half a century, which raises a question of its own. 'How is it that the evidence has not gotten any better despite the exponential increase in the quantity and quality of cameras?' asks Benjamin Radford, a research fellow with the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry."
The irresistible psychology behind Bigfoot belief:
"Some people see these crypto hominids as symbols of pure freedom, living by instinct and foiling every effort to pin them down. To search for Bigfoot in the forest is to taste that freedom. On the trail, you become extra-attuned to nature: the smell of scat, the sounds of breaking branches, the curious impressions in the dirt. As long as there are wild places in America, Bigfoot remains a possibility that, to its most ardent proponents, cannot be disproved.
"The hunt for Bigfoot emulates an earlier mode of discovery, when new knowledge was not the product of advanced degrees and expensive machinery but rather curiosity, bravery, patience and survival. In the 19th century, the American landscape revealed its majesties to ordinary settlers pushing westward into territory unmapped by Europeans. To track Bigfoot today is to channel that frontier spirit (as well as to appropriate Native American traditions)."
Why Do So Many People Still Want to Believe in Bigfoot? https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/why-so-many-people-still-believe-in-bigfoot-180970045/
Memory is often unreliable:
"Eyewitness reports, or sightings, are the most common evidence put forward for the existence of Bigfoot. Unfortunately, these are based on human memories, and memories are not reliable, Live Science previously reported. In crime cases, for example, witnesses can be influenced by their emotions and may miss or distort important details. In the same vein, people also often overestimate their ability to remember things. When it comes to cryptids like Bigfoot, the human brain is capable of making up explanations for events it can't immediately interpret, and many people simply want to believe they exist."
Lack of breeding casts serious doubt (or, where are the children?):
"The study of genetics provides another reason to doubt the existence of Bigfoot. A single creature can't breed and maintain a population, much less a species. For Bigfoot to be viable, it would need to have a population, or populations, large enough to avoid inbreeding and low genetic diversity, or else face extinction."
Where are the dead bodies?
"The existence of multiple Bigfoot increases the chances that one would be killed by a hunter or hit by a motorist on a highway, or even found dead (by accident, disease, or old age) by a hiker or farmer at some point, yet no bodies have ever been found. People do occasionally claim to find bones or other large body parts. For example, a man in Utah discovered what he thought was a fossilized Bigfoot skull in 2013. A paleontologist confirmed that the 'skull' was simply an oddly weathered rock."
Genetic analysis on 36 hair samples:
"When alleged Bigfoot samples are subject to vigorous scientific analysis, they typically turn out to be from ordinary sources. For example, in 2014, a team of researchers led by the late geneticist Bryan Sykes from the University of Oxford in England, conducted genetic analysis on 36 hair samples claimed to belong to Bigfoot or the Yeti — a similar ape-like creature said to exist in the Himalayas. Almost all of the hairs turned out to be from known animals such as cows, raccoons, deer and humans. However, two of the samples closely matched an extinct Paleolithic polar bear. These samples may have come from an unknown bear species or a hybrid of modern bears, but they were from a bear, not a primate."
Bigfoot: Is the Sasquatch real? https://www.livescience.com/24598-bigfoot.html
Skilled animal trackers dismiss Bigfoot:
"Bigfoot tracks would be easy to find by people who know what they’re doing. If Bigfoot is super-rare (as some, though not all, proponents argue that it is), it might follow that its tracks would be rarely encountered and hard to find. That seems reasonable. But the fact is that people who actually track known animal species in a professional or technical capacity are near-universally of the opinion that Bigfoot is not a real animal: (1) they, and their colleagues, don’t find evidence for it themselves, and (2) the evidence they have seen is fraudulent or unconvincing. Note that even some of Bigfoot’s most noted investigators – I’m thinking of the late René Dahinden – never found tracks themselves."
The few dubious footprints cited are inconsistent with those of an animal in the wild:
"They typically look so neat, so clean. The toes are all too frequently neatly placed together in close contact, and the sole and ball of the foot are smooth and mostly featureless. What I’m getting at is that these don’t look like real animal tracks, as they should if Bigfoot were real. In a primate with a human-like foot – especially an enormously big, heavy, bipedal one – the toes should consistently splay apart, as they do in people who go their lives without shoes. And, based on the appearance of wild-living primate feet (humans included), shouldn’t Bigfoot have soles that are gnarly, rough, cracked, wrinkled and fissured? As it is, the soles and balls of Bigfoot tracks look like those of domestic humans who have never walked barefoot outdoors, let alone an animal that lives in forests and mountains, endures freezing outdoor conditions, and walks routinely on rough terrain."
If Bigfoot Were Real https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/if-bigfoot-were-real/
Where are the bones?
"If any of the footprints are real, it raises the question of why no bones have ever been found, (University of Florida anthropologist) Daegling said. 'These so-called footprints belong to an uncatalogued primate for whom we have not a single specimen,' he said. 'If there is something that exists that weighs a ton, is 8 feet tall and roams around the forest, how is it we’ve got museums full of bones from bears, squirrels and badgers, but we don’t have a single Bigfoot bone?'”
UF Study: Bigfoot Myth Persists Because It Depicts Humans’ Wild Side https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/12/041219151013.htm
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Photo: https://fineartamerica.com/featured/bigfoot-hide-and-seek-champion-maya-charlton.html
Jerry De Luca is a Christian freelance writer who loves perusing dozens of interesting and informative publications. When he finds any useful info he summarizes it, taking the main points, and creates a (hopefully) helpful blog post.
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