Rare Woodpecker Search Sheds Light on Bigfoot

[tocqueville]

Benjamin Radford

Skeptical Inquirer
1 hour, 20 minutes ago

As reported around the world, the ivory-billed woodpecker (Campephilus principalis), last known to exist in 1944, was sighted in eastern Arkansas in 2004. The sighting prompted a massive (and secret) follow-up search in 2005 of a sixteen-square-mile area of Arkansas forest. When the bird was confirmed to exist, the discovery spawned international headlines, an article in the journal Science, and a book titled The Grail Bird: Hot on the Trail of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker.

While the search for additional evidence of the woodpecker continues, the investigation is instructive for what it did not find: the alleged and elusive Bigfoot. The search for the woodpecker took months of intensive research in the woods of rural Arkansas. Bigfoot believers try to explain away the lack of evidence by suggesting that Bigfoot are out there in remote areas, but few people are out actively looking or listening.

Here is a perfect counter-example: knowledgeable researchers with sophisticated equipment in the field for extended periods of time.

Arkansas is known as prime Bigfoot territory, and even touts one famous local creature, the Fouke Monster. And yet no reports of large, unidentified Bigfoot creatures emerged from the team's painstaking recordings and observations.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20060118/sc_space/rarewoodpeckersearchshedslightonbigfoot

[htuttle]

1. I think the idea of 'bigfoot' is a genetic memory...

In much the same way that goslings are terrified of hawk shadows from the moment they are born, I think the 'archetype' of a big, hairy wild humanoid goes back to when we shared the earth with our other homind cousins. Bigfoot sightings are cases where this archetype 'fits' some sensory input for a few moments, and is thus 'seen'.

[Call me Deacon Blues]

2. Now don't laugh

but I think it's possible that there may be "rifts" in the fabric of space/time and that creatures wander back and forth between them. That might explain bigfoot (neanderthal) and nessie (pleiosaur) showing up from time to time. There's a famous story of two sisters walking through the gardens of Versailles coming upon people dressed in two-century-old clothing, interacting with them, then coming back to the here and now. That might explain a lot of ghost stories as well. (I like your genetic memory idea, too.)

[qazplm]

3. if their were rifts

then eventually people would walk through them as well and report them.

A rift in time would be a serious and almost assuredly noticeable thing I believe.

[RaleighNCDUer]

5. People disappear all the time --

there are famous cases where people walked around the corner and vanished, never seen again. Having stepped through a rift is as good an explanation as any.

Also, there have been cases of strangers appearing from nowhere, speaking an unknown language, unable to explain where they came from.

Suppose these Gigantopithecus Negri (sp) remnants are able to detect and use these rifts, with senses unknown to us. Would that explain Yeti tracks in the snow that go for miles, then just stop?

I think it's a rather elegant hypothesis for an old mystery.

[htuttle]

4. I think Nessie is also a genetic memory artifact

For example, I have always been terrified of deep water -- or rather thing things IN deep water. When I'm swimming somewhere that I can't see the bottom and I've seen something like an old log surface in the water near me, I tend to jump straight out of the water like a dolphin.

It's quite below the level of conscious thought, since rationally I know there are no sharks, etc... in freshwater lakes. The fear persists nonetheless. I think that would be a common and useful fear for a hominid, since there were/are things in deep water that eat hominids. Hence, "Nessie" sightings.

Ghosts, though? I don't give most ghost stories much creedence. Those experiences I've had that could be characterized as 'ghost sightings' end up being based on the most fleeting of sensory cues on subsequent, less excited, examinations. (such as when you wake up and are startled by the shape of a coat hanging over a chair, etc...). I think it's been said that "We are all better artists than we realize."

[bmbmd]

6. Who's Eddie?

"You said, 'Eddies in the space time continuum.'"

[Caution]

7. Is this his sofa?

[bmbmd]

8. Yes-I believe

it is a Chesterfield. You don't see that every day.

[Caution]

9. I MISS DNA

The world needs more writers/people like him!

[Jokerman]

10. "Fouke Monster"

Anyone know the proper pronunciation?

[Ian David]

11. Obviously, Bigfoot is scared of Woodpeckers...

just like elephants are scared of mice.

Anyone that's ever watched cartoons as a child knows that.