Occam’s razor says that the simplest explanation or strategy tends to be the best one. Now you tell me, if you find over-sized foot prints complete with dermal ridges that cannot be identified as belonging to any known primate in a remote mountain valley that’s essentially the middle of nowhere, which is the simpler explanation? That there’s an unknown hominid inhabiting the remote reaches of North America (and if you don’t think they’re remote, you’ve never flown over the Pacific Northwest!)? Or that there are people with enough time, resources and expertize to trek to these remote locations without leaving any signs of a human presence except for these “fake” foot-prints in locations where the chances they will be found are extremely slim to non? They would have to place millions of hoax prints in remote locations in order to account for the few that are actually found.
Seems to me that it’s more logical to conclude that it’s possible there’s an unconfirmed hominid out there. But then, I’m just a “crackpot”.

The Green Hand is run by Michelle Souliere who writes the wonderful “Strange Maine” blog and the “Strange Maine Gazette”…sort of a Weird New Jersey for people in northern New England. She does a wonderful job researching all the history, folklore, and other nutty stuff coming out of that state.

Check out her webpage when you get the chance:
http://strangemaine.blogspot.com/

But sadly not the strange new sea cucumbers, transparent-headed fish, or many others that are too weird to be rumors before they were discoveries.

Yes, giant squid. A species known to naturalists for centuries through large amounts of physical evidence despite the fact that it lives in an environment so remote that we’re still only beginning to explore it. And just one of the mysterious, wonderful creatures on our planet that real scientists would love to learn more about.

Not sure what they have to do with Bigfoot though.

As a biologist I feel the same way about cryptozoology. There *are* undiscovered species out there. Biologists realize this. Imagine if instead of obsessing about Bigfoot and Nessie the self-declared “cryptozoologists” went on field trips to the Amazon and helped catalog the actual undiscovered species there. Granted, they are mostly uncharismatic insects, but still they teach us a lot about biodiversity.

People have had sightings for hundreds of years, Native american stories abound ( as well as other cultures like Tibet), and even though the prime hoax period has ended there are still sightings reported.

The main proof is the volume and location of sightings, which are consistent enough not to be possibly hoaxed by any one individual or even groups of individuals. Go to http://www.bfro.net/GDB/newadd.asp. The fact is that people keep seeing them.

No one’s shot one yet because they are terrifying and at the same time mostly humanoid, enough to make people instinctively not want to shoot one.

And I quote “Chewie, is that you?”

It is as if the natural world isn’t good enough, isn’t interesting enough. To be of interest, things have to be big, so-called charismatic megafauna, or they have to be vertebrates, warm-blooded and close to human. The obsession with things almost human strikes me as vanity. There are those who are desperate to see fairies, but who would ignore the splendid little wool-carding bee patrolling his territory that is the patch of mint right outside their doorstep, beating all intruders save for females of his kind. Those he handily seduces. You can have a cup of tea and watch these happenings almost effortlessly. And you don’t have to go to Loch Ness or the Pacific Northwest.

Really, it seems to me to be an insult to the bees in the garden when you insist on believing in the fairies at the bottom of it.

Coleman seems like a nice guy, but I’m curious how the biologists who study those species would feel about being lumped into the same group as jackalope taxidermists and Nessie chasers.

What I don’t understand is why he needs to denigrate the notion of Bigfoot whenever it gets posted on boingboing; I have no great love for steampunk, but I don’t feel a need to post “this is lame” every time there’s some new steampunk gadget here.

Brainspore, if you don’t think cryptozoology (or this particular strain of it) is valid science, fine, but it’s not hurting anybody. Wouldn’t your time be better spent trying to get newspapers to stop publishing astrology columns?

In other words, it’s a matter of opinion, not scientific certainty.

Does that reply sound weird to anyone else? The questioner is clearly asking whether he thinks there’s enough evidence to justify the existence of these cryptids. Coleman’s response was needlessly coy, especially for someone who has been doing this for 50 years.

Then why were they assigned their current scientific taxonomical names in 1869 and 1847, respectively? Those species were fairly well documented even before photography was practical in remote places, and the only reason they held out as long as they did is because they live in remote areas that were still largely unexplored by naturalists.

By contrast, if Bigfoot legends are to be believed then those creatures live in populated areas across North America in an age of cell phone cameras and DNA labs. That’s not just a “shy hominid” level of evasion, that’s some sneaky ghost ninja shit.

Bigfoot legends are fun and I’d love to visit this museum as much as anybody but let’s face it, no species has ever been discovered by a self-described “cryptozoologist.”

Nessie: Very small search area. Several scientific expeditions finding that the loch can barely support fish, let alone a monster. Hundreds of thousands of tourists scouting for signs. Probability approaches zero.

Bigfoot: Vast, uninhabited, heavily forested search area. Number of searchers insignificant compared to search area. Probability remains unknowable, thus 50/50.

Why, just the other night I said to myself “I believe I’ll have a beer.” Then I went to the fridge and found that I was fresh out! The paradox nearly destroyed my entire concept of the universe.