Embracing-the-Skeptic.

Imagine how incredible it must be up there basking in the golden rays of entitlement, looking down on the delusional, the uneducated, the gullible, their world bound in a box of limitation. They wander in the dark, herding together, for they know about safety in numbers, because without each other cementing the fallacy they would have nothing. Their life shattered, left with nothing but to face the truth about themselves and their past traumas. Fear not, for there will come a time when the light will shine on us all, where we too can read literature, where we too can ask relevant questions, where we too can climb the dizzy heights of the Intellectual, up there basking in the sun lives the Skeptic. For now, it is beyond us, we are blinded by the lies of the witness, scrambling in the dark, whether knowingly or not, they have deceived us.

Okay that was a little dramatic, but you get the idea. Imagine having witnessed a bigfoot first hand, what that must be like, can you do it? You could try, but don't waste your time because it's all in their heads...apparently, according to the couch bound Skeptic who quoted their favourite shrink. This of course is done overtly, they reference a number of psychologist's theories, or worse still, reel off some elaborate tale to create an analogy that demonstrates such theories, but why do that? subtly tiptoe their way into the group. Who benefits? Doesn't it waste everyone's time and risk offence? What if that WAS the intent, what if they deliberately do it to feed their ego. If it were me, with all that knowledge and intellect, I'd be more inclined to look for answers beyond the psychologist's handbook, especially if hundreds had recited said theories as their own in some tacky analogy years before me.

The number one insult to a witness is to question their mental state, Skeptics have been doing this for years. Now you could argue that to question a witness' mental state is good practice, but what kind of answer are you expecting...from the crazy person? "Yes I'm bat shit crazy, now about that bigfoot I saw". The truth is we only have their word for it, but it's happening in small pockets all across Britain, so when multiple witnesses recall the same tale, that presents a problem, or does it? No problem is ever too big for the Skeptic to overcome, especially when dealing with the paranormal or Crypto zoological. "Show me your proof!" they cry. "Show me the proof this minute, I demand it". Then they'll throw at you The Null Hypothesis.

The first mistake some of us make is thinking that we owe these ego maniacs anything, who approached who? Of what importance is their acceptance? Since when has science shown any interest in Bigfoot anyway. I have never come across a Skeptic whose sole objective is to help, never, often they're looking for a fight. Below is a line from a Blogger who commented on the recent Utah Sasquatch UK Bigfoot video.

HYPERLINK "https://billylansdell.wordpress.com/category/bigfoot-sasquatch-yeti/" https://billylansdell.wordpress.com/category/bigfoot-sasquatch-yeti/

In his about section he says "I love a good argument". So what does that tell you? Essentially he's seeking to engage in an argument, by any means necessary, have a read of his blog and find out, put a question to him at your peril, it isn't long before the cracks begin to show. Make no mistake, those words were chosen carefully, if his intention was to help anyone but himself, he would have used the word debate, this is the Ego showing itself. After a couple of exchanges, he starts to reference Alien Abduction, stating witnesses are delusional, of course all this has been confirmed by those expert psychologists. His next blog goes on to talk about how poor witness recollection is ( I know, you've heard it all before ). Again, the objective is clear, they ( the witnesses ) simply made it all up.

All of us have experienced the Skeptic, and to some degree it lives in all of us, whether we like it or not. For example, Deb Hatswell handles any reports with a very high degree of skepticism before deciding whether or not the account warrants publishing, still, a very tricky decision to make. We can't always rule out hoaxers and liars, all we can do is use our knowledge to test their theirs and hope they drop a few red herrings. Our experiences form our beliefs and if nurtured carefully developing a skeptical attitude can be invaluable. It's highly likely that most of us reading this have a bias towards the existence of the British Bigfoot, maybe you saw one, maybe you and your friend saw one, maybe you, your friend and your friend's friend saw one. Maybe it's existence resonates with you, and you can't pin down why, it just does. You went out into the British forests and woodlands and found something you couldn't explain, and now you're looking for answers. Well look no further! because our friends the silent Skeptics are here to save the day. Most will have no youtube videos of course, that would mean they'd be open to critique, and well, the Ego can't take that and they would be found out for what they are immediately, so they creep about piping up now and then, cherry picking the weaker part of the research to date, on which, admittedly there is a lot of, let's talk about why that is.

Well to be concise, it's simply because we have barely gotten off the ground. Remember, the US has 60+ years of research to fall back on, and even that is dismissed by the mainstream. There is a big difference between someone with a skeptical approach as opposed to a Skeptic, how will you know the difference?, trust me you'll know, maybe not immediately but "it'll all come out in the wash" as they say here up north.

Stick Structures

For any new researcher in Britain, the first potential evidence usually found will be a stick structure, a glyph, a ground stick or a pinned arch. " X " markers are also a possibility.

This is not guaranteed of course, you may well be lucky enough to see a bigfoot, find a footprint or record a vocalization...be sure to take a photograph or video, because don't forget that the Skeptics expect a David Bailey level of quality.

The stick structures are incredibly hard to identify as ones created by anything other than nature, animal or man. Bar actually videoing a bigfoot building it, there is simply no way of knowing. What we can do is log what we're finding, and we are, but there are lots of things to consider before we even log a find;

1. Has the area had bushcrafters, scouts or forest schools using it?

2. Are there overhanging trees, where branches potentially fell and created the structure?

3. How old are the sticks, do they all look the same age, condition or species, or do they vary?

4. Is the area home to a lot of activity, ramblers, children, homeless etc.

5. Are there signs of any human activity, no matter how remote the area. One or two pieces of litter can literally travel miles in the wind, but more often than not there are lots of signs to look for, bottles, cans, boot prints, cigarette butts, etc. Another sign of camping is obviously remnants of fires.

Feel free to add your own in the comments section.

The key thing here is discernment, and only with time do some of us develop that. It took me quite a while to get over the excitement of what I might potentially be finding, it's natural to get things wrong and jump the gun, so don't let any Skeptics get to you, ask if you're unsure, there's no shame in it. In time you'll find that the number of pictures you take decreases as the reality hits home...bigfoot might have never been in your area.

The common misconception about us Bigfoot researchers is that we as a Group are 100% convinced of it's existence, which of course is rubbish, but you will see skeptical people treating each individual researcher as a whole. Again, this is either ignorance or a deliberate tactic to fuel aggravation. The key thing to remember is that not all Skeptics are arseholes, some have really logical and valid points to make that we can all learn from.

So with that in mind my approach is to give them the benefit of the doubt and use more of that scepticism in my own research.

Chris Turner

7/9/12