Les Stroud's Effect on Bigfoot Research and Acceptance

Several years ago the Survivorman, Les Stroud had legitimate Bigfoot-like encounters in Alaska and Canada. One of them even occurred while he was filming an Alaska episode. Word spread about his scary stories and it kind of took off like wild fire. He appeared on the Joe Rogan podcast and interest spiked.

Enter Survivorman Bigfoot. Les created 2 specials and 8 episodes about his hunt for Sasquatch. While there were some fantastic ideas put on the table, obviously no creature was taken in. Survivorman Bigfoot had some great moments, but it can't stop here.

What do you all think this means for the field? Will more respected entities like Stroud throw their hats into the ring for a hard-look into the existence of Sasquatch?

I think there's nowhere to go but up for research and acceptance. More and more folks highly respected people are admitting they had an encounter. Jeez, look at the recent Rob Lowe report. People outside of the Bigfoot world are speaking up.

a reply to: DelmarRozan

I always felt like Survivorman doing thise episodes was an attempt at jumping into the growing fad rather than opening up more avenues for legitimacy of the hunt.

people ran his bigfoot videos thru computers, and they are 'enhanced.'

basically, special effects.

even if he faked one video, wham, you cant trust him.

you are either all in for the truth, or anything you say cannot be trusted.

i do like his survivor shows, because they give you good hints on how to make it. but why did he photoshop a bigfoot video?

originally posted by: misfitsquid
a reply to: DelmarRozan

I always felt like Survivorman doing thise episodes was an attempt at jumping into the growing fad rather than opening up more avenues for legitimacy of the hunt.

I don't think I agree with that.

1. How is it a "growing fad" as you call it, Les bringing it up and making some shows about it could have went one of two ways, 1. It could help to promote the fact that someone who has spent so much time in the wilderness has possibly experienced some unexplained things, or 2. It could have really hurt his credibility, which I don't believe it did.

2. Les Stroud Aka Survivorman has spent probably more time in the woods then most people and is a very respected and experienced survivalist, you don't think he has had he fair share of strange encounters while in the back-country. I for one have watched the season in question and I think he does make some very good claims and shares some very good experiences he has had. I the end of the day though it is still going to be one of the most highly questionable things around, still a very interesting watch though.

S&F to the OP, good job.

Side note, Dantanna I did a search for the "fakes" you were talking about I cannot find anything, can you source it please?

Stroud was promoting this BS, while not Les' video, he still featured it on his show.

Credibility 0.

Its all about the $$$$

I would believe this guy over Les.

I think that any media coverage expands the number of people's awareness. For example some of us look into Mars anomalies while some people are just learning that Mars exist.
Stroud is actually a local in my area, if you've seen his Off the Grid show, that's in my home Township. Anyone who grows up around here learns quickly that you have to be an honest straight shooter if you want to survive.
I expect some embellishments were added to the Saskatchewan show to make it more interesting, but I believe Stroud''s experience was real.
I've had my own experience and having others broadcast their own helps spread acceptance.

Interesting thread. Particularly liked the account of seeing a weird body come down the river after the MSH eruption - if that poster reads this, please let's have more details.

Do the American Indians have any stories of Bigfoot-like creatures? If anyone were in a position to encounter such hominids, it would probably be them. And pre-Columbus accounts would be quite persuasive by any reasonable standard.

Yes he proved people can just jump in and cash out on Bigfoot, so of course more people will make even more hoaxes for the easy money.

I used to watch his shows on a regular basis.....But, when one gets to the end of their chosen career, some "cash out". I feel Les was cashing out on the big foot thingy. But give him his due, man will put stuff in his mouth that I want hold in my hand....taught me a great deal about surviving with zero infrastructure to work with. But in the end, I really feel that he felt he was so respected in this particular field that folks would believe without question what he said. IMHO....If Bigfoot was real we would have found the evidence we need to prove the existence.......I mean how many years cars & trucks been around and not a damn soul has hit a Bigfoot? When it seems deer are sacrificing themselves to the "blacktop gods".

a reply to: DelmarRozan

Les is no doubt legit. He goes further back than Survivorman... I strongly recommend fans of his to check out "Snowshoes and Solitude"...

It's a documentary about him and his wife going to live in the Canadian wilderness for quite some time... it was somewhere between 6 months and a year. It was legit. They built a cabin, foraged, his wife had an unfortunate miscarriage, etc...

That got him noticed for the Survivorman gig... which I was under the impression he had to quit because his body just couldn't take it anymore... and he was falling ill regularly. He had some interesting stories quasi-related to a Bigfoot encounter that I heard on some interviews.

Then the Bigfoot show came around... and it most certainly DID feel a bit like jumping on the Squatch craze. It was an entertaining show, and more believable than a lot of the cooky crap going around... but still it was like... really Les?

Can't blame the guy for wanting to make some extra $$$$ .... but... yeah.


Whether he added cred to the field is anyones guess... unless someone knew the right words to punch into the confuser and pull some stats out of the internet abyss...

a reply to: audubon

Virtually every tribe in North America have stories of the wild man of the woods. I don't know of any who don't.

Even some tribes of Pacific Islanders have stories of wildmen--usually small, not gargantuan, but tales none the less.

BF is real - here's a picture of it:



This Black Lemur wasn't discovered until 2017:



Maybe BF isn't the only lost creature. Yeti and Mermaids
have yet to be added to the animal kingdom.

originally posted by: stosh64
Stroud was promoting this BS

Why would he do that? There's two different feed at either two different places or two different times. There's snow everywhere when BF is zoomed in on and I don't see snow anywhere when they're zoomed out.

a reply to: Snarl

They were videos supposedly taken by Todd Standing. They were clips from 2 different videos, Todd has just spliced together. Amazingly, Todd has quite a few "high quality" BF videos and pictures.

Like this one.


Here is Todd's website.
Sylvanic

Read this about Sylvanic and Todd Standing.
He makes "Sasquatch detectives" Hall of shame.
Sasquatchdetective

For example Todd Standing owns a Commercial Production Company, called "OutSTANDING Productions." It is bizarre though that both Todd and his sister, (whom appears to be a partner in the venture) both use aliases.

Personally, I believe 'something' is possible. I just hate it when obvious hoax BS ruins the real research, like what is happening in UFO "research".

Get tired of wading through mountains of BS to find a grain of truth, due to hoaxers making a quick buck.

ETA: As to why would Stroud do it? as others have said...$$$ IMHO

a reply to: DelmarRozan

just my opinion - but its my opinion that mr stroud has realised that the " survivor man " idea has pretty much run it sourse - and the genre is saturated - so he is attempting to find a new " selling point " for his personal " brand " - to boost ratings and his income

yes - i really am such a cynical bestard

audubon

I found one that could potentially be a reference to Bigfoot. It is from the flood myths.

Cheyenne (Minnesota) Creation Story:

The Great Spirit created three kinds of men: red men, white men with hairy heads, and hairy men with hair all over their body. The hairy men went to the barren south and eventually dwindled in numbers and disappeared. The red men went south after the Great Spirit taught them culture. They went north again when the Great Medicine told them the south would be flooded. In the north, they found that the white men had gone and they could no longer talk to the animals, though they could still control them. Later, they went south again, but another flood came and scattered them, and they never came together again. They traveled in small bands to the north, but they found it barren, so they returned south and lived the best they could. One particularly hard winter had earthquakes, volcanoes, and floods which destroyed all the trees. The people spent the long winter in caves and were almost famished the following spring. The Great Medicine, in pity, gave them corn and buffalo. Since then, there have been no more famines or floods.

Creation Story Origins Mapped

There are also stories of men turning into monkeys after the flood. Similar to this:

When the deluge came, some people survived by climbing into the highest trees. Ahau became angry with them and, reversing their faces and hind parts, turned them to monkeys.

So, evidence...maybe not. But still interesting that they were talking about hairy men with hair all over their body back then.

Thanks,
blend57

So far all the available solid Bigfoot evidence has turned out to be bears.

a reply to: stosh64

Not promoting so much as he may not have known just how little credit, as in none, Standing has.

I'd hate to think Stroud would do something like this, save by accident...

Standing and his ilk are why, for the most part, people, like myself, who've had encounters don't tell of 'em. ATS is the only place I've related my encounter.

I believe Les Stroud to be a credible source here. Not so much Tod Standing. Les however risks his years of credibility by doing this. That also leads me to believe he has encountered something abnormal if he is even talking about it. He makes some damn good arguments as to why we have never seen a carcass or have such a hard time tracking and getting credible evidence. In all of his years of living in the bush he says he has never seen a dead bear carcass either.

Personally he doesn't strike me as a man driven by fortune and fame.
Seems to me that Les would be just as comfortable living in the bush off the land the rest of his days as he would be in the civilized world. That's what got him famous after all was not caring about those things.+

I'm pretty positive(because of my own personal experiences) that there is an undocumented highly intelligent and mobile large primate in some of the untouched wildernesses out there. If an omnivore as large as a bear can find enough food to survive so could an animal with many times the mental capacity of a bear.

a reply to: DelmarRozan

The Survivorman reports are awesome, as far as I am concerned. He's a serious outdoorsman, and not afraid of things, as a rule, and he was scared in some of those clips. I found particularly interesting the segment with the vanishing apple. He's more credible because he didn't go in with any preconceived notions, and his goal was not to prove anything. He simply went to see what he could see. Much better method, I'd say!! I'd like to see more from him on the subject.

As for Lowe, he's there to look for one, and claims to have seen one? Maybe, but he does have a motive to fib.