Cryptomundo:Finding Bigfoot on the Jeff Probst Show

On Cryptomundo, a clip of the Finding Bigfoot team on the Jeff Probst Show: Cryptomundo  Finding Bigfoot on the Jeff Probst Show. (I liked what Cliff said about Probst's use of the pronoun "he" to describe Bigfoot. Still wish they'd all stop using the term "Squatch" however.) Also liked what Ranee had to say. And she's the skeptic! :)

Gratuitous Non-Bigfoot Blood Lust

Just my personal little war on a Bigfoot blog that shall not be named nor linked to, but once again I see they have posted footage (vintage TV) of someone killing a deer with his bare hands and drinking its blood, or some such. Details don't matter. What does matter is that this has nothing to do with Bigfoot, and everything to do with animal porn, to drive visitors to their site. Not the first time they've posted this type of blood lust crap; won't be the last. Their excuse, as they once posted, was something along the lines of (paraphrasing, naturally) "Bigfoot probably eats like this in the wild so why not it's all good."Disingenuous bullshit.

You Can Be Bigfoot's Love Slave for Only $49.95

 
Remember Weekly World News? All those great covers of President Clinton meeting with tall grays, Bigfoot news and Batboy? You can still be a part of WWN even though they've left the publishing world a few years ago. And it's only $49.95, if you act now! I Was Bigfoot's Love Slave! Custom Cover - Weekly World News

Monster of Boggy Creak Tarot/Oracle Card

My brother-in-law, now deceased, designed his own Tarot/oracle deck in 1979. He called it The White Goddess deck. He was an astrologer, and as you can see, incorporated astrology into his deck. He didn't do the drawings himself -- those were done by an artist he knew at that time, Ida Foreman.

White Goddess oracle deck, Michael Bear, creator, artist Ida Foreman

I hadn't looked at this deck for several years. I had forgotten that Michael used a number of cryptid, creature type images in his deck. I don't remember Michael Bear being particularly interested or knowledgeable about the topic, especially Bigfoot stories. Here's The Monster of Boggy Creak, and yes, he spelt it creak, not creek. I don't know if the misspelling was intentional, but he was a notoriously awful speller, so who knows.

I noticed in the booklet that came with the deck that there is a Bigfoot card listed, but it isn't in the deck. Maybe it got lost, or it could be it just never made it. I don't remember seeing the card, but again, I don't remember much about the deck overall. Here's how the card is described:

Conscious awareness of, not only, your own beliefs, but those of others.
Reversed: Having to be aware, consciously, of the universal subconscious.

The card is given the number 9, "relating to Neptune, the subconscious, daydreams and nightmares, drugs, alochol, habitations of all kinds." (The missing Bigfoot card is also given the number 9) and placed in the suite of spades. He has astrologically assigned "moon square retrograde Neptune" to the card.

 An interesting piece of family history. As to the aesthetics of the deck or its usefulness -- I've never used it and doubt very much I ever will. I'm too involved in family history, including some of what went on in creating the deck.

"Psychic Sasquatch" ; Inter-Dimensional Vortex League, with Andy Colvin

I really like this. Music and video by Inter-Dimensional Vortex League, with Mothman Photographer's author and researcher Andy Colvin.

The Bigfoot Filmography

Very cool; something I thought of doing a few years back. I'm sure many of us have! I even started collecting DVDs of BF films -- the good, the bad, the ridiculous. But quickly realized I just didn't have the time, and, some of the movies were so bad ... I mean, bad, not "so bad it's good" but just ...bad. Enough about that; visit Dave Coleman's site which gives us a ton of links to Bigfoot blogs and sites, and ordering information on the book. The Bigfoot Filmography

Bigfoot Hunting Preserve Site

Someone went to a lot of work to present a polished looking website all for a "joke": Bigfoot Hunting Preserve Home.

It goes too far. Call me humorless but it isn't funny or smart or witty. It's really pretty sick, in a psychotic way. Taking their cue from canned hunt sites -- which are sadly all too real and not at all a joke -- this site is set up the same way. Here's some of their verbiage from the Select the Hunt That's Right for You page:

*We deemed it necessary to use pointed, jacketed, high-velocity rounds for all our open-range Sasquatch hunts because soft expanding rounds were bouncing off their thick skulls. Soft rounds would only leave them wounded running through the woods holding their heads screaming in agony. It became inconvenient for our guests and guides to chase a wounded animal for hours in the thick brush just to put them out of their misery.
Nightime Hunts
You and your guide start after midnight where you test your tracking skills to locate and target a group of Sasqatches. With the help of night vision goggles you drive them for hours until they reach our prepared shooting zone. Your guide will teach you about wind-direction as it relates to sounds and smell. You will also learn wood-knocking, yells and rock throwing techniques to push the animals into the shooting zone.

They couldn't stop there and had to add an item about a Sasquatch Rodeo. There's more but I don't care.

From North American Bigfoot: A Product for Women, not Sasquatches

This commercial clip posted on PNW Bigfoot researcher Cliff Barackman's blog is, well, disturbing and slighlty funny. I'll leave my whole sexual politics/women and standards of beauty rants aside and just point you to the link: North American Bigfoot: A Product for Women, not Sasquatches.

Honobia Bigfoot Festival 2011 Schedule

Among the speakers and music at the Honobia Bigfoot Festival in Oklahoma: Thom Cantrall, author of The Ghosts of Ruby Ridge. (Which, after all this time, I'm just about finished reading. Just too many books out there; hard to catch up.) You can check out the schedule of events at the festival site: Honobia Bigfoot Festival 2011 Schedule

From Micah Hanks: "Startling Chupacabra Kill, or Merely Another Varmint Vanquished?"

Micah Hanks writes on the chupacabra: Startling Chupacabra Kill, or Merely Another Varmint Vanquished? I've posted here and on my Sasquatch blog Frame 352 about the trigger happy people in the U.S. who happily blast away at creatures they think might be the "chupacabra." Of course, as I and others have pointed out many times, the chupacabra is a spiny backed, red eyed, high jumping creature of the Fortean kind. Stories of the blood sucking cryptid came out of Puerto Rico, migrated to Mexico, Florida, elsewhere in the states and South and Central America, retaining its eerie high strangeness nature. No one spoke of mange ridden canines, or other mundane animals. Until, it seems, maybe three years ago or so, where reports of the latter creatures came in, mainly from the southwest but other states as well. People persisted in calling these poor creatures "chupacabra" and killed one as soon as they saw one.

So now the meme has been firmly planted: chupacabra of the true cryptid high strangeness variety, with all its conspiratorial theories -- government projects gone horribly awry, alien pets, inter-dimensional travelers, etc. -- are forgotten, and blue-gray skinned, hairless canine type creatures, probably foxes and or coyotes, etc. with mange or some type of disease have replaced the chupie of legend.

The fear persists however. Fear at seeing something unfamiliar. And so naming it with a handy pre-labeled moniker (chupacabra) and insisting the creature is unknown, a strange interloper, gives one justification for kill first, ask later.

As Micah correctly points out, the media that gladly reports on these stories, and the people that shoot away, are the same ones who laugh at the subject of cryptids, cryptozoology, and the like. Hanks quotes from a recent Fox "news" segment on a recent killing of a "chupacabra"

The legendary chupacabra has been spied, shot and killed — will bigfoot be next?

And rightfully points out the disgusting exploitative implications:

Wonderful to see that some odd-looking little creature (likely a possum, or perhaps a varmint of some sort, as we’ll get to in a moment) has been shot and killed, rather than the diminutive, lizard-like little monsters from the early Puerto Rican reports back in the 1990s. To be clear, this is not a “chupacabra” in the truest sense by any means. However, before we go any further with the report from today, is it too much to ask also that the word “Bigfoot” be capitalized? To quote Loren Coleman, author of Bigfoot: The True Story of Apes in America, since “words like Sea Serpent, Nessie, Bigfoot, Yeti, and related forms all have not been technically ‘accepted’ by systematic zoology, as of this date, the capitalized form (should) be employed.” (Curiously, the same does not typically apply to the use of the term chupacabra in Fortean literature, hence my use of the lower case… but I digress)

Startling Chupacabra Kill, or Merely Another Varmint Vanquished? | Mysterious Universe
Thank you Lesley at The Debris Field for link.

Endless PG Debate; Yeah, But There's Just One Thing . . .

For some perverse reason, I found myself once again lurking on the JREF message board in the surreal and looooooooooooooooonnnngggg (oh, so very long) thread Calling All Skeptics! Help Kitakaze End PGF Controversy - Pitch to Discovery Channel. As usual, I was struck by the bizarre and pathological - obsession of skeptics and debunkers to discuss, mock, and argue the non-existence of Sasquatch. And in particular, as on the above mentioned thread, the Patterson-Gimlin footage. "Kitakaze," as we know, has been on that hobby horse for some time; his crusade has been, well, interesting, as well as unnerving. (For example, see Melissa Hovey's comments about this on her blog The Search for Bigfoot.)

So, reading the last couple of pages in this thread, the sheer number of which boggles the mind -- it's what, around elevenity-million or something -- I had the idle thought that it doesn't matter if the P-G footage is a hoax or not, because, because, because: people have seen Bigfoot! Very simple.

Of course it does matter if the P-G film is of a real Sasquatch; my point is, in the great scheme of things, proving the P-G film is a hoax doesn't prove at all that Bigfoot does not not exist.

My question (rhetorical; please, if you're a skeptoid do not attempt to engage) is: if it's proven the P-G film is a hoax, will the discussion of Bigfoot's existence end for you all?  I doubt it; look at how many threads on the JREF there are about Bigfoot. A few dozen, easily. Not the first time I've asked this but I am intrigued: why spend so much time on something you believe doesn't exist? That you believe couldn't possibly exist, despite the number of witness accounts? 

Cryptomundo's Top Ten Worst Bigfoot Stories of 2009

Loren Coleman at Cryptomundo brings us Top Ten Worst Bigfoot Stories of 2009

What's my favorite worst story? Not sure I have one, they all make me sad; but then again, as I always rant about the UFO arena, Trickster games are to be expected, and that's true for crypto world as it is for any other estoeric/paranormal/Fortean realm.

I suppose my favorite worst is number 7 on the list:  "Teen Created Nutmeg State’s Bigfoot Hoax" about what police found after investigating a woman's report to police she had seen a Bigfoot:

Police threw out a dragnet, and said they searched and found a 16-year-old male subject dressed in a gorilla-like costume. The teenager told officers he was standing at the intersection of Unquowa and Sturges roads, waving at passing cars while friends watched.

I'm always amazed at people who think it's funny to put on a Bigfoot type costume and run around highways and the woods...there are so many trigger happy people out there who shoot at anything that moves that has fur. And if they think it's a Bigfoot, many people wouldn't hesitate to kill themselves one. 

As Coleman himself says in the post, "Thank goodness we get to start all over again in 2010."  

Monster Quest and Exotic Pets

This week's MQ was about big cats in the North Eastern part of New York. Sightings of large black cats, attacks . . . and good evidence they're around, from the claw marks in tree bark, prints, etc. Theory is that the cats seen are black leopards, escaped from, or let go, by their owners.

The most disturbing thing about the program is the fact that people insist on keeping tigers, leopard and other big cats as "pets" -- MQ even showed a man who kept cougars and sold baby cougars as pets! Aside from animal rescue places, animal reserves, and a Sigfrid and Roy kind of thing, no one should, no one needs to, have big cats as pets.

Many owners have been attacked by their "pet" tiger, lion, etc. This is a surprise? You try being kept in a cage for years and see what happens. It is literally criminal that it is legal to keep exotic animals as "pets."

I realize MQ isn't in the business of being political; it's entertainment. And it's implied in various MQ episodes that keeping wild animals as pets is dangerous, stupid, and to a lesser degree in their implication, cruel. But I would like to see more of a definitive statement towards support of legislation that outlaws keeping exotic animals as pets.

Good Night, and Thanks for Dropping By! You All Don't Come Back Now, Ya Hear?

The Bigfoot -Hoax -Team -RickMatt - Biscardi -Carnival is over, pretty much. I suppose we'll hear some news in weeks to come about their whereabouts; found shooting at rusted cans in a swamp in Florida or something, what's left of the money they hustled (allegedly) out of Biscardi stuffed in the floorboards of their RV.

And I have a feeling we haven't heard the last from Biscardi. It may be six months, it may be a year, it could even be next month when he gets his money back -- if he gets it back -- but there'll be more from Biscardi.

As we all know everyone's been commenting on this, including me. For a slightly off kilter (that's a good thing) take on all this are the posts Adam Gorightly's been putting up on his Untamed Dimensions. Adam's deranged,(in the best of ways) and his blog is enjoyable no matter what's going on over there, but the Bigfoot hoax posts have also been enjoyable.

Bigfoot in a Freezer: Don't Get So Excited

I have this posted as my Rant of the Day at Snarly Skepticism, thought I'd repost it here. . .


Bigfoot in a Freezer: Don't Get So Excited;
A Word to the Skeptoid Crowd

Uber sketpics are currently undergoing a false series of euphoric episodes. Elated at the idea the Bigfoot community has been duped, fooled, and shown to be the nutjobs and gullible morons they believe them (us, sure, I'll throw myself in there) to be, they're pontificating en mass about the latest Bigfoot hoax.

Namely, Biscardi and company. Rickmat. The Geogia hunters. The cop with the bandaged hand. Those guys. As if we didn't know.

So calm down mega-skepties, it's not the joyful day you think it is. No one that counts in Bigfoot research believed this for a second, though some held out hope -- an extremely thin, almost invisible slice of hope -- that it could be for real. How about that; reserving judgement until the results are in? What a concept.

I admit I clung for a few hours to that nebulous bit of hope myself, only because someone I trust -- Micah Hanks -- has a personal relationship with Biscardi.

Even if some Bigfoot researchers naively held out for a bit that, well, it could be the real thing, could be, maybe, couldn't it? --- that doesn't mean Bigfoot researchers are dumb, stupid, lame, idiots, or any of the other insults you can't resist flinging.

And it certainly doesn't mean Bigfoot doesn't exist. All this has done is make it harder for everyone genuine, everyone sincere and honest, to get back to work.

The good thing about this is a reminder that Trickster is alive and well in all that is Forteana (something uber storage skeptoids don't get -- at all) and we should have expected this. Even me, who was, and is, disgusted. The whole thing put me in a bad mood; I'm still not over it. (Meaning the whole sordid thing to begin with, not that "Bigfoot isn't real." Calm down.)

It's also a little reminder that skepticism is a good thing. Don't fall down in a fainting fit yet; I mean real skepticism, not the brand the klassturian pathological skeptics wear so proudly on their little dried beans they call hearts.

Get over it. No one got fooled, Bigfoot isn't "dead," -- nothing to see here. You can put the keg and tiki lights away; there's no party tonight.

Biscardi's Bigfoot Circus Travels On

Thanks (I think) to Skylaire Alfvegren, L.O.W.F.I. director, for this notice:


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 12, 2008
BIGFOOT BODY FOUND
DNA evidence and photo evidence to be presented at a
PRESS CONFERENCE
to be held on
Date: Friday, August 15, 2008
Time: From 12Noon-1:00pm
Place: Cabana Hotel-Palo Alto (A Crown Plaza Resort) 4290 El Camino Real, Palo Alto, California 94306

Searching for Bigfoot, Inc. Menlo Park, California
Tom Biscardi, CEO

BIGFOOT BODY FOUND - EVIDENCE AND DNA DETAILS TO BE PRESENTED AT A PRESS CONFERENCE ON FRIDAY, AUGUST 15th

FROM 12 N00N TO 1:00PM AT THE CABANA HOTEL-PALO ALTO IN PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA

A body that may very well be the body of the creature commonly known as "Bigfoot" has been found in the woods in northern Georgia.

DNA evidence and photo evidence of the creature will be presented in a press conference on Friday, August 15th from 12 Noon to 1:00pm at the Cabana Hotel-Palo Alto at 4290 El Camino Real in Palo Alto, California, 94306. The press conference will not be open to the public. It will only be open to credentialed members of the press.
Here are some of the vital statistics on the "Bigfoot" body:
*The creature is seven feet seven inches tall.
*It weighs over five hundred pounds.
*The creature looks like it is part human and part ape-like.
*It is male.
*It has reddish hair and blackish-grey eyes.
*It has two arms and two legs, and five fingers on each hand and
five toes on each foot.
*The feet are flat and similar to human feet.
*Its footprint is sixteen and three-quarters inches long and five and three-quarters inches wide at the heel.
*From the palm of the hand to the tip of the middle finger, its hands are
eleven and three-quarters inches long and six and one-quarter inches wide.
*The creatures walk upright. (Several of them were sighted on the same day that the body was found.)
*The teeth are more human-like than ape-like.
*DNA tests are currently being done and the current DNA and photo evidence will be presented at the press conference on Friday, August 15th.

The creature was found by Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer (residents of Georgia) in the woods in northern Georgia. (The exact location is being kept secret to protect the creatures.)
Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer will be flying in from Georgia to be at the press conference. Also present at the press conference will be Tom Biscardi, CEO of Searching for Bigfoot, Inc.
Whitton is a Clayton County, Georgia, police officer, who is currently on administrative leave after being wounded in the course of duty pursuing an alleged felon. Dyer is a former correctional officer. Whitton and Dyer are co-owners of bigfoottracker.com and Bigfoot Global LLC., a company that offers Bigfoot expeditions. Whitton and Dyer are working with Bigfoot hunter, Tom Biscardi, and Biscardi's Searching for Bigfoot, Inc., to present and conduct the scientific study of the evidence and information on this body.
A few weeks ago, Whitton and Dyer announced the finding of the body on the "Squatch Detective" radio show, an internet based radio show hosted by Steve Kulls. While on that show, the commentator asked Rick Dyer "Would you allow one of our people to come down and verify the body?" Dyer replied, "The only person we would allow to come down and verify the body was 'the real Bigfoot Hunter,' Tom Biscardi." The next day, the producer of the Squatch Detective show contacted Biscardi with pertinent information on how to contact Dyer and Whitton.
Extensive scientific studies will be done on the body by a team of scientists including a molecular biologist, an anthropologist, a paleontologist and other scientists over the next few months at an undisclosed location. The studies will be carefully documented and the findings will be released to the world, according to Biscardi.
Biscardi is known as "the real Bigfoot Hunter" because of his extensive investigations out in the field. He has been searching for Bigfoot since 1971 and over the past several years, he has been criss-crossing the United States and Canada tracking down the hottest leads on Bigfoot sightings.
Videography on the studies will be done under the supervision of Scott Davis, an independent producer and owner of TV Biz Productions in Phoenix, Arizona.
Currently, Tom Biscardi and his Searching for Bigfoot Team, in conjunction with Bigfoot Global LLC., are preparing to capture another of these creatures alive. That expedition will start very soon. The dates and the locations are being kept confidential.
The body that is currently being studied is being referred to as the "RICKMAT" creature, a name derived from the names of Rick Dyer and Matthew Whitton. [Cryptozoologist Loren Coleman recommends the term "Georgia Gorilla" be used to remove any taint of ego from the discovery, and so the general public, media, and science will have a comfortable moniker until a formal zoological name may be bestowed.]
Last year, a film that Biscardi produced about his investigations, called "Bigfoot Lives," won first place in the Documentary category at the Pocono Mountains Film Festival. Biscardi also hosts a Bigfoot oriented internet radio show that can be heard on Wednesday nights from 7:00pm to 8:00pm PDT at www.bigfootliveradioshow.com. The show is heard in over thirty countries.
Searching for Bigfoot, Inc. has exclusive rights to all publishing rights, photo rights, television and film rights, production and distribution rights and other commercial opportunities related to the discovery and findings regarding this body and these creatures.
Interested parties may contact Searching for Bigfoot, Inc., in writing, at their mailing address, 1134 Crane St., Suite 216, Menlo Park, California 94025.

Sasquatch Music Festival

R.E.M., Rodrigo Y Gabriela .The Cure, Death Cab For Cutie, The Breeders,and Modest Mouse are among the groups booked to play at the sixth annual Sasquatch Music Festival in Washington. May 24 through the 26th.

Son of Kong is Bigfoot?

I first saw this over on Lesley's blog The Debris Field, which provided a link to Cryptomundo, where you can read more about this Bigfoot movie. Great poster!