The Bigfoot Argument: Skeptics vs Believers

The illusive Bigfoot is said to roam the forests all over the world. With this arguments arise pitting skeptics vs believers in a battle of theories and points. Today we take a step outside of my normal content and rather than look at the history and sightings of a cryptid we look at the opinions of both sides as to if it exists or not.

[AtelierGod]

I feel that the overwhelming amount of eyewitness speaks for its existence.

[gesarts]

Les seems like a decent guy and this just backs it up. I'm glad things worked out in your favor.

[OldToughDW]

The skeptics have a lot of good points. I was a bow hunter when younger, but I also rifle hunted. I liked the solitary time it gave me in the woods. And I was taught to track by my elders at a very young age. I was a skeptic, becasue of all the hoaxes and becasue bears will stand on their hind legs to catch a sent or sound, which makes misidentification a very real possibility in every case. That was until I actually saw one. I thought it was a cougar with slightly dark fur, except a cougar never lived that got that big and I saw the tracks after it ran away. I gladly went over the other hill in the other direction. It was seen in Lake Hughes Ca. which was in the direction it ran and reported in the paper. Then I had a second encounter, on Moscow Mountain in Idaho, but there were several that time, and they were much darker colored. Both encounters have this in common: I was hunting which means moving as silently as possible; I heard what sounded like people talking a long distance off but couldn't make out what they were saying; there were tracks left behind that looked like a very flat footed person was walking through the brush and trees barefooted; the tracks had no straddle and were in a straight line, the only way I could tell which was right or left was not by position of the foot print like with a human, but by the toes; they had an odd marching gait that covered ground really fast; their ears are on the side of their head not the top like a bear, and they are not the same proportions as a human, they are freaking HUGE. Both times I was near a water source, in an area where people don't normally go, even hunters, but the small animals and game was brushed up; hiding.There were other details, but I will keep them to myself. To say it scared me is an understatement, and I don't scare easily, but I'm getting chills and the hair is standing up on the back of my neck just typing this. I never want to see one again. So now I am a skeptic believer, who still sees a lot of hoaxes on the internet and in pictures, but also knows which ones are real. One thing I noticed about people is they often see what they expect to see and don't see things that are right there, which they don't expect to see. Like a fawn who follows them down a hiking trail for about 100 yards becasue it is curious. They were going back to camp talking and never looked back, behind them. I watched that happen to two friends of mine and rubbed it in mercilessly later at our hunting camp.

[restionSerpentine]

I have never followed Twitter But Told a Friend If Bigfoot had a Twitter I would Follow it. He Asked What would he say? 'Threw some rocks at a hiker today LMAO'

Some reports I can chalk up to miss-identification, with reports in places like Florida or Texas of Escaped Pet Apes.

Lack or Corpses is not an issue for me, as a Hunter who spent a lot of time in the woods, you find very few, regardless of the animal.

Finding Bigfoot is Hilarious because they are over excitable, and lack any real proof, but their town meetings they do to eye witness testimonies can be interesting In the episode with the Kyaker who caught an animal on video accidentally. To me it was pretty clearly a black bear, I forget the term, But sometimes people see what they expect to see, not what is really there. Like If you show the same Rorschach test to an ichthyologist and an astronomer, one might see a fish, while the other sees a planet.

In The end, To quote Agent Mulder, "I want to Believe." Did he ever say that or was it just the poster? Anyways I feel we need to be skeptical and remove all the fake stories, and claims, till only the real ones remain. Since it has never been able to have been duplicated, I feel the Paterson Video is good Proof. And that is why I believe.

[surfbreak]

Hi Ben have you did a video on the nughtcrawler aka the Fresno alien?

[eeveeee]

I guess I'm 2nd, also great video bro! Bigfoot is still a bit iffy in my opinion as a skeptic, but I can still see the creature being somewhat more possible than an unable to even lift it's own neck up plesiasaur in lake.

[eringemini]

Aloha Ben! That was a very well put together video, covering ALL sides of the Bigfoot question. I am no longer a skeptic, as I had an encounter many years ago with what I believe was a Sasquatch while vacationing in Yellowstone. If Sasquatch are “imaginary” and they positively do not exist, then I think we may have a great topic for your next video! That topic would be nationwide “hysteria” connected to a new “fad” sweeping the nation (and other parts of the world). The new “fad?” Well that is where grown men (in their free time) spend countless hours filming their friends & family in Sasquatch costumes near home and in impossibly remote locations.Mostly, they film these blurry on purpose, but once in awhile they film them close-up and in focus. Do you see how silly that sounds? Again, great video!

[forrestcrabbe]

Ben miller I am pretty much of the same mindset as you on the subject. You are one of the channels I try and stay current with, I like yer videos.

[codystarantulas]

As a young kid i could have swarn i seen one i was raised out in the country iv seen evry species here in arkansas and what i saw that evning just before dark scared me so bad i wouldnt go out in the woods by myself for about 3 years even with my old deer rifle i do belive i seen one but i have no proof but i will say it scared me then and it still scares me to this day and i hope i never see what i saw that day ever agin

[cynthiaerickson]

Been in forest all my life.hunting for food in my family line generations.my grampa, dad, uncles, aunts, myself, have never found bones of wolfs, bears, or mt.lions.i have never seen a lion but my dad did once.rare is the sighting of a wolf.yet we seen tracks, scant so they exist.same with BF.seen tracks and other evidence.my dad was in vietnam for 2 tours and a master sergant.many reports of man like apes throwing rocks, boulders, logs at troops.my dad says BF is their cousin.both him and grampa have seen tracks in cascade mts.of wash, me too.they exist and i beleive they are a primal form of man

[YsabetJustYsabet]

Very nicely done; you manage to pull off a balancing-act of fairness to both cynics and believers way better than most I've seen.

Me, I do think that there's a strong possibility of truth to some of the Sasquatch sightings. I also wonder just how many such sightings have never been reported, not because the humans involved were threatened by the government or any such thing, but because of self-editing. If humans see something unbelievable, then they frequently do just that-- they 'unbelieve' it. "Oh, that wasn't real, I was seeing something else, I can't *possibly* have seen what my eyes told me and oh my god I'd be ridiculed if I said anything, I might get in trouble, lose my job, alienate my friends or family... and it wasn't really real, was it? OF COURSE NOT. So I won't think about it any longer. Ever, ever again."

I've seen this process first hand in all its stages; two very close friends of mine had something happen (they don't know what and neither do I) that resulted in both lost time and displacement. They were driving to a specific destination on a remote but familiar road one night when they both felt what they later described as a feeling of being 'blurred' or disoriented (the older of the two said later that she remembered thinking that an earthquake was starting)-- and when they came back to themselves, they were sitting in their car on the side of an unfamiliar road, and it was nearly three hours later. What happened? No idea, and in a way that's not important here. What matters is how they handled the impossibility of what had happened to them; first, they told very close friends in some agitation... but secondly, they closed the matter off inside their lives, boxed it away. If you asked them about it, they wouldn't deny it had happened, but you could SEE them casting about desperately to think about and talk about absolutely anything else but that. Two of the brightest, strongest and most analytical people I know-- and they can't let themselves think about their personal impossibility.

So... yeah. I wonder just how many other 'personal impossibilities' have happened out there, how many other sightings there've been that we'll never know about.

[BearLite]

First, as always, fantastic video! I laughed when I saw the title, I must admit. And I'm really glad you didn't lose your revenue and they rescinded their copyright claim. It shows there are still good people in the world.

OK, YES I absolutely believe that bigfoot exists. I've never seen one, but if I ever do, this channel will be the first place I report it! There is a lot of questionable evidence out there, but there is a lot of compelling evidence too. And I don't think we can discount all of the human sightings that go back hundreds, if not thousands, of years and continue up to the present time. I can understand why science will not classify it as a species. Science is precise. Science needs to be able to classify new lifeforms into Kingdom, phylum, class, order, family genus and species. And until they can, they're not biting. Although I think it's quite ignorant of them to totally discount the possibility. (Not all do, but a significant number do and make cryptozoology the bastard science.) But the public is a different story. I really can't understand with all the [credible] sightings coupled with a descent amount of compelling evidence why they are being so stubborn. They, IMO, they should be able to admit that there is something there that we don't know what exactly it is. (Not to offend any religious people out there but so many people have said to me "I won't believe it until science proves it. Then they get offended when I point out that science hasn't proven the existence of a god/God.) Mental gymnastics.

I have 2 theories of why bodies aren't found. One, if they are human-like, they may bury their dead. We know that Neanderthals and Homo Naledi buried their dead as did the earliest homo-sapiens we can find. (I'm not sure, it may have even started with the homo erectus.) So I consider that one possibility, unfortunately so many people see them as "ape-like" and not "human-like" I'm not sure skeptics would buy into this theory.

The other theory, which was the first theory I thought of is, perhaps, like elephants, they have "graveyards" where they go when they realize they are ill, or old and dying. If such a place exists, it may be "hidden" like a cave system or somewhere extremely secluded and is difficult for humans to reach.

As for the interdimensional being aspect. I do believe interdimensional beings exist, I don't think bigfoot is one of them. I think if they were interdimensional, they would be seen a lot less often. (Just my opinion, obviously.)

[andrewmonske]

hey how have you been, long time no see

[TheNeurotichi]

Different animal kingdom and might not even be an animal but a projection of an alternate reality.

[HRTSLOVE]

The most convincing argument I've heard was from a law enforcement guy who specialized in fingerprints. He had done an analysis of many different footprint casts, gathered over many years from many different places, often very remote locations. The casts all had unique "dermal ridge" prints, which are basically fingerprints on the feet. Not only was each cast different from the others, but they were also different from human foot prints, the patterns were formed in different directions, etc. So, if all of these prints were fake, then each individual hoaxer, over decades in time and many miles apart, took the time to carve in unique dermal ridge patterns for each "fake" print. They ALL also knew to use the same general directions and patterns for each "fake", but NOT ones that were like human prints. How likely is that? It does seem more likely that there is some unknown animal making these prints.

[patriciaheidgerken]

Well..learned nothing except I will never get that time back again...waste of it at that...

[JohnnyStroud]

Great video Ben. The sad truth, and I say sad because too many people believe that just because a person has a degree that makes them smart, it does not. It merely makes them knowledgeable in the area for which they've earned their degree. In order to go beyond said degree in that accrued knowledge,   guess what? They would have to go back to school and or get their hands dirty by hands-on study. Then the findings of this study would of course have to be presented to their peers, AND accepted before any advancement in NEW knowledge can be accepted as norm. So, it is not impressive at all when it's said that a Primatologist, has problems with Quantum Physics, a study that is accepted by the National Academy of Sciences, (NAS) but this field is just slightly in the realm of probability by the afore mentioned institute. In other words, it is barely provable itself. In truth, what we know as our known universe,  also our known as our physical reality,   we only perceive some 5% of. So why is this very rarely mentioned when the subject of hard to quantify sightings of anything occur? Because although knowledable, many scientist are not smart, there's a huge differnce. Any true scientist dealing in our cutting edge physics, that does not stop at Newtonian physics as the NAS would have us, understands there is plenty of room for these elusive unknowns in our world. Hundreds of years from now they will laugh in classrooms of the fear we current people have of things that fell outside of our known paradigms. js

[jamesathersmith]

The main issue I have with Bigfoot is that something that big would find it hard to hide this long in a populated area, and not to be mean but the examples of animals that used to be cryptids were not the best, as all of those animals live in areas that weren't very well known so I wouldn't be hard for them to hide for a long time. Also I find it hard to believe bones of such a big animal which has most likely very strong wouldn't fossilise and be found next to mammoth bones as we could assume it had evolved by the last ice age like most animals in North America if it existed. Either way this was a good video

[tamichambers]

Love how Bigfoot is doing a sexy stand in the video pics...

[ngkngk]

Does Bigfoot have a John McCain fake medical boot in the thumbnail?