A bear can do more than stand on it's hind legs

I'm not saying all bigfoot sightings are misidentified bears, but the video below shows that bears are capable of walking on their hind legs some.  And sitting in chairs.  And playing the trumpet.  And hula hooping.



The bear is so talented, I almost wondered if he/she was really just a person in an elaborate costume.  But I'm pretty sure it's a real bear.

Real Monsters...?

The popular educational YouTube channel Vsauce2 did an episode on mythological monsters.  Some you've heard of, like werewolves and vampires, and some you might not have heard of, such as the encantado or vinegaroon.

What if Bigfoot didn't need a significant breeding population?

For those with an interest in cryptozoology and Bigfoot (a.k.a. Sasquatch or Yeti), there are various theories out there as to what Bigfoot might be.  One theory is they may simply be an unidentified upright walking ape.  Another is they may be ape/human hybrids, or even just another tribe of humanity that has kept themselves hidden from the rest of us.  Some think they may be interdimensional beings or even visiting aliens.  And, of course, there are many that are skeptical of their existence at all, assuming the stories are just made up, hallucinations, or misidentifications.

We don't know much about interdimensional realities, if they even exist at all, and the idea that they may be interdimensional beings seems far-fetched...at least within our current level of knowledge.  There's little evidence that they are alien visitors either, besides circumstantial evidence that some sightings of Bigfoot have corresponded with sightings of UFOs.  And if they are simply living flesh and blood beings, then it is assumed they would need a significant breeding population to be able to sustain themselves as a species...and if a significant breeding population is needed, then skeptics question why they remain so elusive.

But what if they didn't need a significant breeding population?  Would they even need to breed at all if say, they were....immortal?

Immortal?  You think that sounds pretty far-fetched?  Yeah...actually, I guess it is pretty far-fetched.  But maybe we could consider that they live incredibly long lives and have trait known as negligible senescence (also see this cool video about aging).  Senescence is the process of becoming old.  But there are some organisms that exhibit negligible senescence, meaning they don't appear to age after their initial development into adulthood (or more specifically, they don't lose reproductive ability or have a measurable functional decline with age).  Hydras are even thought to be biologically immortal, meaning it's thought they only die due to injury or disease, and not through deterioration with age.  Lobsters also appear to exhibit negligible senescence and may even be capable of living indefinitely, barring injury, disease, or capture.  The tortoise is also known for long lifespans.  Some plants are known for longevity too, like the Great Basin Bristlecone Pine.  The Methuselah tree is estimated to be over 4700 years old.

So what if Bigfoot existed and exhibited negligible senescence?  What if they could live indefinitely...barring injury, disease, or capture?  If they were a community of biological immortals, perhaps reproduction would be limited or even unnecessary, and maybe they would choose to avoid us because it would put them at risk of being injured or captured?  So what if instead of needing a significant breeding population to sustain their existence, theres actually just a few hundred of them around the world total, and they are the same ones people have been seeing for many years?

Ok, so maybe the idea that Bigfoot could be biologically immortal still sounds far-fetched.  But what about the possibility that they just live exceptionally long lives?  What if the average lifespan was 1000 years and they rarely reproduced?  It could still explain why they are so rarely seen.

But then again, there's all those other theories mentioned above too.  And, of course, it's also possible that they really just don't exist at all.

Bigfoot sighted in NC...or not?

MSNBC has an article on a alleged Bigfoot sighting in NC.  I'm a little surprised they bothered to report it. The video quality is poor, especially considering how close up the video was shot, and the Bigfoot really doesn't look all that big.

Bigfoot or Big Ape?

It may be walking upright, but this gorilla still looks like a gorilla to me.

So I guess gorillas can learn to walk upright.  But even though he's walking upright, he still doesn't look anymore like a bigfoot than a three legged bear does.  He doesn't even look very tall.  I doubt anyone would mistake him for a bigfoot, at least not up close.  

Rough Talk and a Big Stick

Stephen Wagner at about.com's  Paranormal Phenomena  posted a link to an NBC news clip about a bigfoot sighting in the mountains of North Carolina.  What I found most interesting about this alleged sighting is how the witness, Tim Peeler, dealt with the situation.  Instead of running scared or hiding, Peeler "rough talked him and runned him off."  The bigfoot returned, and Peeler apparently ran him off again using a big stick.

So who knew you could run off a bigfoot with rough talk and a big stick?

This might also be the first time I've heard a bigfoot described as having "beautiful hair."

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Cryptid Misidentifications

As I was out walking earlier, I saw a crane (the bird species, not the machine of the same name) fly by near a pond.  It's not the first time I've seen a crane in this area, and it might be the same one I've seen before.

But, even though I've seen a crane around here before, I don't see one very often.  Today when I saw it, I considered that its body type resembles drawings I have seen of certain types of pterosaurs (except the crane had feathers, of course).  I wondered if maybe people who had claimed to see a pterosaur or something like a pterosaur could have misidentified a large crane.

But I didn't wonder about it for too long.  I can't dismiss the possibility that someone might have misidentified a crane as a pterosaur, but I think it's rather unlikely.  When I saw the crane today, it was instantly obvious to me that it was a crane.  Even if it had been twice or even three times the distance away from me that it was, I'm sure I would have still known it was a crane.  Even if it had been so far away that I had to squint to see it and still couldn't quite make it out, my first assumption would have still been a crane or some other type of large bird, not a pterosaur.

I googled 'pterodactyl misidentifications', and it seems that fruit bats are a common suggestion for what alleged pterosaur sightings might be.  One article I found said that large fruit bats can have a pterosaur-like profile when seen in silhouette, especially to 'nonscientific observers', as if to suggest that identifying a bat required at least a masters degree in zoology or something.  I mean, come on, most people know what a bat looks like.  A lot of the pterosaur and thunderbird sightings I have read about - credible or not - described something larger than a fruit bat.  And I think if I were to see a larged winged animal flying around at night, my first guess would be a bat or an owl of some sort - not a pterosaur.  It would have to be exceptionally large before I would even start considering the possibility that it was some sort of pterosaur or thunderbird.  But hey, that's just me.

And what about these skeptics who suggest that bigfoot sightings are bear misidentifications?  I guess I can see the possibility of some sightings being bear misidentifications - assuming that the bear was seen from the back and only at a distance and the witness got scared and ran away in the other direction without investigating any further.  But when people describe seeing humanlike faces, how can that be confused with a bear?  And what of the size and body type?  Skeptics like using bears as examples because bears can stand on their hind legs, but bears have long torsos and short legs - they still don't look humanlike even when standing on their hind legs.

And it's not like people don't know what bears look like.  Even someone who has lived in a city or the suburbs all their life with no interest in hunting or camping knows what bears look like.  Some of the people who have claimed to have seen a bigfoot are outdoorsmen who are familiar with the area they sighted it at and the wildlife that is normally seen in the area.  So what are the odds that they would misidentify a bear as a bigfoot?

I realize there are some people out there who may be overly-anxious to believe in bigfoot and let their imagination get the best of them, but is that really what most people would do?  Wouldn't most people be able to recognize a bear when they saw one - even at a far away distance?  And I could be wrong, but even if they saw a bear at a far away distance and couldn't tell for sure what it was, wouldn't most people be likely to assume it was bear anyways?  Wouldn't most people be more likely to assume what they are seeing is something normal and common?

But like I said, I could be wrong; maybe most people wouldn't assume it was a bear.  Maybe most people do have the vivid imaginations the skeptics accuse them of having.

And here's another thought - wouldn't it be ironic if someone misidentified a bigfoot as a bear?

J

Paranormal Hotspot: Mount Shasta

Photo by Bill Gracey.

On a whim, you decide you want to take a vacation and go on a multi-faceted paranormal investigation.  You want to investigate bigfoot, ghosts, aliens, UFOs, lost civilizations, mysterious ancient legends, and some sort of new agey beliefs too. But you just don't have the time and resources to visit the Pacific Northwest, the Myrtles Plantation, Roswell, Rendlesham Forest, Akrotiri, Teotihuacan, and Stonehenge.  So what are you to do?  Go to Mount Shasta of course!

The area around Mt. Shasta, CA has been inhabited for thousands of years.  The peak the city is named after has long been viewed as a sacred place to Native American tribes in the area.  It was thought that the mountain was the center of creation, and the Great Spirit created it by pushing ice and snow through a hole from heaven and then using the mountain to step onto the earth.  It was also thought that the Great Spirit, known as Skell, dwelled on the mountain after creation.  It even has a story of a great flood attached to it.

New Age groups have regarded the mountain as a sacred location as well.  It's been claimed that beneath the mountain is a very ancient city called Telos, which is allegedly where people from the ancient lost continent of Lemuria (a.k.a. Mu) settled after Lemuria was destroyed.  Allegedly, they continue to live beneath the mountain in a utopian like civilization.  Sometimes it's claimed they are physical people, sometimes it's claimed they dwell on a different plane of existence, perhaps as 4th or 5th dimensional entities (4th dimensional denoting a higher awareness of spirituality/consciousness, 5th dimensional meaning a non-physical intelligent entity).  The story of Telos actually comes from a fictional novel called A Dweller on Two Planets that was written in 1800s by Frederick Spencer Oliver.  It was thought that the author must have 'channeled' the story because he was only 17 and the depth of the topics covered seem to be beyond what a 17 year old of the time would have been capable of writing.  Decades later in the 1930s, the secret society known as the Rosicrucians would popularize the belief that advanced Lemurians lived beneath Mount Shasta.

Native American legends and New Age beliefs aside, there are many reports of strange phenomena occurring at Mount Shasta.

-Bigfoot has been sighted there. Link
-Ghosts have been sighted there. Link
-UFOs have been sighted there. Link Link 2 Link 3 (Update 11/16/12: Original Link 2 no longer worked so I replaced it with a new link I found and added a third link)

In addition to claims that Mount Shasta is an entrance to the hollow earth, it's also been claimed that there is an underground military base there.  Even Batsquatch has been sighted there!  Interestingly, Batsquatch is a creature allegedly sighted around Mount St. Helens, a stratovolcano.  Mt. Shasta is a stratovolcano also.

There's a lot stories regarding paranormal phenomena on Mt. Shasta, however it's hard to find a lot of good, credible research regarding those stories.  Some of the stories are probably fictional or fabricated, some of them may be misidentifications, others may be exaggerated.  However, despite some of the stories being questionable, I think there is enough evidence to suggest that Mt. Shasta is indeed a mysterious place.  Whether it's ghosts, legends, UFOs, or cryptozoology, a paranormal researcher can probably find something of interest to study at Mt. Shasta.  It seems to be quite the 'paranormal hotspot'.