just very curious-i have studied cryotzoology for a number of years-"How many people actually believe in bigfoot?"

yeah there are alot of good stories-but where is the proof.Its always -well i saw it run across the interstate and such.I would really like to hear some convincing sightings for once with photos ,a skull, a tooth --anything besides that old shakey fotage

just thought i would throw that out there.

i think this is in the wrong forum but whatever its not my job to point that out

i can't really form an opinion on his existence because i have no reason not to believe he exists.. i also haven't seen him with my own eyes so its hard to say ..but the stories i've heard and read are actually more convincing then most of the photographs and videos

There is proof, somewhat anecdotal to be sure, but there is some scientific proof that an "unknown primate", or primate of "unknown type" exists. Look up Skookum Cast.

A healthy skepticism is warranted on many of the sighting, or alleged sightings, but taken as a whole...there is considerable smoke. The legends of bigfoot go back thousands of years here in North America, even further back in Asia. People are seeing and encountering something.

Personally? I do believe that there is a population worldwide of creatures that answer to the descriptor given to bigfoot, or Sasquatch. How large a population? Don't know, don't pretend to know...but it doesn't have to number in the millions to be a viable population either.

Small population. Inhabiting unsettled, and largely unvisited by man, areas of North America, and Asia, heck even Europe has unsettled, underpopulated areas. Wood wise, and wary of man and his weapons, add to that an unsettling level of intelligence, or cunning, and you've got the makings of a critter very elusive and hard to find, much less catch.

As I said, a healthy skepticism is warranted, but disbelief? Not so much.

[edit on 23-8-2007 by seagull]

God im sick of people making thread titles like that when there asking the question, please refrain from making titles that seem like your stating a discovery or fact when in fact you are just asking if they are real ect.

And about your question I really dont see why its hard to accept that theres a 20 foot tall ape walking around, never have.

Even Australia has relative of bigfoot - called the 'Yowie' here. Seems to be concentrated in the heavily wooded valleys of the great dividing range and sightings/encounters are regularly reported as more people move into these previously wild areas. There's been lots of credible sightings of these invading properties at night scavenging for food and even taking livestock.

The aboriginals inhabited this place for at least 40000 years and their folklore is full of references to the creature known by names like yowie, dulagarl, thoolagarl, wawee, jurrawarra, noocoonah and tjangara with tales of battles between yowies and humans. They seem to be limited to throwing rocks etc and no evidence of use of fashioned weapons like spears.

Australia has no creatures like bears that could be mistaken for a large hairy apelike biped but no-one has ever announced the discovery of remains of one here which is an ongoing puzzle.

There are some really -great- BF stories out there.

When you hear a solid guy talk about seeing a shadow of a big hand silhouetted against the tarp of the tent, it's easy to believe.

It's not as easy to believe when you realize that how hard it'd be to hide a breeding population unless they were living underground, or had developed some kind of special ability.

It may be that some early stories, back before Columbus' time, among American Indian tribes involved real creatures.

Ask again when you're sitting in the deep Oregon forest at midnight and I know your answer.

Originally posted by foomzz
i have heard from many as to their activities tracking and hunting blah-blah---but where is one little tiny ,itty bitty-shred of evidence-besides grainy pics,and the classic we were camping in in idaho-blah blah-ran threw our camp blah -blah

the best pics i have ever seen are actually the skunk ape of the florida everglades

Well, what evidence is there that Bigfoot doesn't exist? How do you prove that something doesn't exist - especially when there's such an overwhelming indication that something exists.

Do you know why we post "new species discovered" threads in Cryptozoolgy? Because it - time and again - tells us that there are hundreds (if not thousands) of animal species that we are unaware of. Take the Sumatran/Vietnamese Javan rhino for example. It was thought to be extinct for nearly 30 years. No photographs, a handful of odd sightings (thought to be another sub-species), no indication that the animal existed. And then - boom - one day it was captured on motion camera, and so a non-existent animal suddenly came back to life. And we see this happening time and again.

Another great example - the mysterious big cats of the UK. Once thought to be the stories told by drunken farmers in pubs. The amount of evidence that there were in fact Big Cats roaming Britain just became so over-whelming that it couldn't be denied anymore.

Unfortunately, there is a certain "stereo-typing" surrounding Bigfoot/Sasquatch and his followers. They're pretty much called "crazy". This is probably the result of some actual nutcases stating their theories on Bigfoot.

The easiest to way get rid of this "Stigma" surrounding Bigfoot, is to see it as just another - normal - animal species. It's not a visitor from another dimension and planet, time-travelling to give us telepathic messages.