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Writing by Minister_of_Information
Pongid Bigfoot
Pongid Bigfoot is the prevailing paradigm, that espoused by John Green, Rene Dahinden, Grover Krantz, and Jeff Meldrum. The characteristics of Pongid Bigfoot are:
* Descendant of Gigantopithecus blacki, generally a more distant relation of mankind than chimpanzees and bonobos
* Extremely rare, presumably endangered
* Restricted in range to the montane Pacific Northwest (including portions of Canada)
* Solitary
* Ape-like in intelligence and behavior
* Share few behavioral traits with humans
* Incapable of language or proto-language
* Generalized omnivore with heavy reliance on forage
* DNA samples from hair and scat are difficult or impossible to obtain
* Elusiveness explained by extreme rarity, nocturnal lifestyle, and a retiring temperment
* Preferred method of scientific documentation is capture or kill
* Genuine evidence of Bigfoot is rare, with hoaxing both ubiquitous and insidious within the body of evidence
* Supporters of this theory tend to be more skeptical of new evidence and less certain that Bigfoot exists
Hominid Bigfoot
Hominid Bigfoot is a minority view, espoused by Bayonev et al. The characteristics of Hominid Bigfoot are:
* Part of the hominid line, perhaps as closely related to mankind as Homo heidlebergensis
* Cunningly elusive rather than rare
* Ubiquitous across North America
* Social, but with solitary periods during the life cycle, especially for males
* Human-like in intelligence and behavior
* Share many behavioral traits with mankind with the notable exception of a technological culture
* Capable of language / proto-language, often thought to speak Native American tongues
* Specialized omnivore with heavy reliance on socially cooperative hunting
* DNA samples from hair and scat closely resemble human “contamination”
* Elusiveness explained by human-like intelligence and cunning, nocturnal lifestyle, retiring temperment, and possible culture-of-concealment which includes the active concealment of sign
* Preferred method of scientific documentation is habituation
* Genuine evidence of Bigfoot is more common than assumed by the Pongid camp, and hoaxing is a minor annoyance rather than a signficant problem
* Supporters of this theory tend to be less skeptical of new evidence and more certain that Bigfoot exists
Paranormal Bigfoot
Paranormal Bigfoot is a minority view, espoused by Jon-Erik Beckjord et al. The characteristics of Paranormal Bigfoot are:
* Uncertain lineage accompanied by possible alien genetic manipulation
* Extra-dimensional rather than necessarily rare
* Ubiquitous across an unknown range
* Social but with unknown aspects
* More than human intelligence
* Share behavioral traits with alien “grays”
* Capable of language and mental telepathy
* Unknown survival economy
* DNA manipulated by aliens
* Elusiveness explained by ability to shift dimensions and/or interact with UFOs
* Preferred method of scientific documentation is recognition that Bigfoot is a higher order being than mankind and the question of documentation is irrelevant
* Difficult to quantify the attitudes of the supporters regarding new evidence, except that they feel that the other camps are extremely misguided
Psychic / Imaginary Bigfoot
Psychic / Imaginary Bigfoot is a minority view, albeit one which seems to occupy a lot of space within the old guard of mainstream science. The characteristics of Psychic / Imaginary Bigfoot are:
* Not a physical entity
* The phenomenon is psychic or imagined in origin
* Reports are evidence of mass delusion
* BF characteristics are projected reflections of our ‘inner wildman’
* Physical evidence is wholly hoaxed or the result of wishful thinking
* Preferred method of documentation is evidence of mental instability and/or charlatanism among witnesses
* New evidence is yet more fakery or wishful thinking
1)I'm a bit offended by the comment about those of us who subscribe to the hominid theory being less skeptical than those who subscribe to the pongid theory. I consider myself very skeptical of new evidence.
2)Because of the info I found on research the late Dr. Franz Weinreich did on gigantopithecus blacki, I don't believe the giganto hypothesis has to be in conflict with the hominid camp.
I'm with Steven … All you have to do is look beneath the surface to see that the supposed Giganto Blacki/Bigfoot connection is silly. Homo Erectus is a more compelling, historical hominid as Bigfoot's recent ancestor.
somehow i believe in psychic ability, i know a few person who may demonstrate such ability-.'
My personal opinion is that if bigfoot is a biological animal, rather than a psychosocial metaphor, it cannot be a member of the Gigantopithecus genus. There is very little fossil evidence of G., that's true, but the examinations of it indicate an animal morphologically similar to the genus Pongo (from which Orangutans descend) or Gorilla (from which gorillas descend). And the foot morphology of bigfoot is definitely *not* from P. or G. I don't know why bigfoot researchers stop their classification schemes with the family Hominidae. If you ask me, bigfoot morphology can be specialized down to the tribal level of Hominini. These footprints are definitely the feet of a hominin, and in the general evolutionary flow toward genus Homo. But the sagittal crest, in my opinion, rules out further specialization to the genus Homo. From what I've read in the bigfoot literature, the best further bet about specialization would be the genus Paranthropus. But one would be talking about a next kind of Paranthropus, 1my further evolved than the last known species, P. robustus.