Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Black Wolf on April 18, 2004, 12:41:51 pm
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Who believes? On the one hand, we're asked to accept a large animal which has never been conclusively sighted, nor even had its carcass or skeleton found, and has no truly similar animals in the recent fossil record. Moreover, Sasquatch is supposed to live in the continental US and Canada, one of the most populated and scientifically scrutinized parts of the world. On the other hand, there's a belief that goes back thousands of years, some degree of evidence, and similar stories from several separate places around the world.
Mainly, I'm just curious.
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I've been playing penguin toss with him all week. I believe.
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Ditto. The guy's got a mean toss.
Erm, well I really don't have the evidence, see. From what little I know, I'm sort of berdering on belief, but more towards the "not" side. It would be cool if he did exist, maybe a whole species of them..
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Stierscheiße.
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I believe in the bastards. Though not neccessarily that they're the 'missing link'. Just that they're big ****ers that could tear a man limb from limb.
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Sort of like Shaq..
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While not knowing about a type of animal is possible...it seems exceedingly rare in terms of possibility, especially as the number of cameras and various types of sensing equipment continues to rise.
Civilians now have the same night vision and IR equipment purchasable that was available to the military maybe 10 or 20 years ago. If someone wants to find these creatures, we've got the tech to do it....if they do exist...they may be rooted in myth but they still need to conform to some laws of physics and they will give off heat :D
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Originally posted by IceFire
While not knowing about a type of animal is possible...it seems exceedingly rare in terms of possibility, especially as the number of cameras and various types of sensing equipment continues to rise.
Civilians now have the same night vision and IR equipment purchasable that was available to the military maybe 10 or 20 years ago. If someone wants to find these creatures, we've got the tech to do it....if they do exist...they may be rooted in myth but they still need to conform to some laws of physics and they will give off heat :D
That's rather specious reasoning.
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Well, not really. If they're real and alive, then they HAVE to give off heat. Otherwise, they're not real.
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they havent found any remains, so im guessing they dont. just one of those silly stories that get a 'little' out of hand i guess.
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Its more interesting if they do exist, which is why I guess people tend to beleive - to escape their own mundane lives. Hence, the masses carry on the myth.
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It was actually probably formated when someone saw a large bear, or a man, walking in the snow, saw it do some various feat of incredible strength (probably an illusion), or at least something that was a bit stronger than normal, told it to his buddies, who then fabricated it even more and spread it throughout the rest of the camp, and it spread even more with the comings and goings of people.
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There's are a lot of reports from the Vietnamese jungle of man-ape critters. Both locals and GIs have reported sightings at various times.
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Originally posted by Unknown Target
Well, not really. If they're real and alive, then they HAVE to give off heat. Otherwise, they're not real.
Uh, no they don't.
You're using 'facts' based on past observations of animals to form a basis on an animal that's never been observed.
That's why it's specious reasoning.
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Originally posted by an0n
Uh, no they don't.
You're using 'facts' based on past observations of animals to form a basis on an animal that's never been observed.
That's why it's specious reasoning.
So what your saying is that the thousands of observerations based on thousands of different types of animals of which a significant number resemble the mythical creature in question should be disregarded because we don't know everything there is to know about one other creature.
Looks can be decieving but the likelyhood that Bigfoot is a large man/ape looking creature with hair, big feet, that trundels through the forest is such a creature as to not give off any heat whatsoever and/or not be traceable by any methods that would be used on a similar animal are extremely extremely small.
One of the few things that people find time and time again in nature is that while nature has a vast level of diversity (colors, sizes, strengths, weaknesses, speed, intelligence) for everything that is different and diverse there are a whole heck of alot of similarities.
Its more likely that this particular mythical creature exists than the possibility that it doesn't give off heat, cannot be tracked by IR, and defies physics...
I suppose cameras won't work either because the creature actually bends light around itself while a picture is being taken but normal human eyes are ok :D
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So because it doesn't give off heat means it defies the laws of physics?
Did it ever occur to you that it doesn't give off heat because it's cold-blooded?
And before you start *****ing about mammalian biology, I'll point out one little thing: Duck-Billed Platypus.
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Originally posted by Black Wolf
...in the continental US and Canada, one of the most populated and scientifically scrutinized parts of the world...
You've never actually seen Montana, Oregon or Washington, have you?
Aside from parts of Alaska and BC, you'll not find a more remote location in N. America.
There are, quite literally, millions of square miles of thick evergreen forest that even the most advanced thermal imaging satellite could not pick a moose out of, much less something vaguely the size and shape of a man.
Yes, I believe, and based on some recordings I've heard, it freightens the crap out of me. Especially if some of the new theories that suggest it might be as much supernatural as natural are even half-true.
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Originally posted by an0n
So because it doesn't give off heat means it defies the laws of physics?
Did it ever occur to you that it doesn't give off heat because it's cold-blooded?
And before you start *****ing about mammalian biology, I'll point out one little thing: Duck-Billed Platypus.
Ok but a lizard is still going to give off heat. If it wasn't then it'd be dead. The metabolism amongst other things (like moving) generate heat (in basic physics - if the animal moves then its using energy to adjust its muscles and therefore its generating heat in the process)...sufficient enough to distinguish between an animal and a rock or a plant or just background ambient temperature. Even cold blooded animals are going to show although I'm sure in some situations they could be trickier (i.e. at night while resting their temperature surely drops). In any case, someone give me a very detailed and logical reason why any type of animal wouldn't show up on a sufficiently discriminating or sensitive IR scanner...
This isn't mysterious unheard of science here guys, these are the basics and I'm in humanities for crying out loud. :D Its an IR scanner, they use these in night vision goggles, heat seeking missiles, and other useful items...everything has background heat and people and animals (or the exhaust of a jet fighter) give off quite a bit more than most other objects.
Liberator: What are these new theories and how do they explain the supernatural bit?
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Mostly, just the nutjo...er, scientists that profess to be studying Sasquatch that show up on Coast To Coast AM every once in a while. It may not not always be true, but it's a neat program to listen to and it doesn't cut off at 2 a.m. like the station that carries Jerry Doyle(Mr. Garibaldi)'s talkshow.
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An0n is just bull****ting you :rolleyes: do you people not look at any other post he has ever made, jebus
Sasquach is suposed to live in the most inhopitable reagons of the north american contenent, similar beastys in the most inhospitable reagons of the hymalayias (yetti), south america (Mupanguari, this one is actualy hypothosised as being a ground sloth) Aulstrailia (Yawee) ect. it would be insainly cool if a large bipedal primate was liveing , especaly one near were I live (I've always wanted to go camping in the Sasquach triangle BTW) it's posable that some homonid managed to cross with humans sevral thosand years ago (hence the lack of fossils) liveing in small populations and posesing extreemly good sences and a xenophobic nature (hence why we never seem to get a good look at them, and also why they havn't been hunted to extinction) and if they have some sort of socal structure and bury there dead then that could also explain why we never find a dead carcas. so it's posable,
but
not very likely, it would be cool as hell and I wait with baited breath for the day they find one, but I'm not holding my breath.
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There are, I belive, animals which have only been observed once or twise and never again - despite modern technology. I think one is a pygmy boar, which was seen once in the 50s, and which has since vanished.....
what you seme to forget, is that in the likes of the jungle there are masses of heat sources - not to mention extremely dense foliage that prevents vision or movement. arial surveys are useless, because of this, as well IIRC. you;d also have to keep the entire area under constant surveillance for many months - stuff like bahviour patterns (sleep periods, hibernation, how and where it would hunt, how often it needs to hunt, etc) could all have an effect.
Also, computers have a massive amount of trouble discerning what a viewed object is (there is pretty much no way a computer can currently identify, for example, what the objects are in an image). so you;d have to do it by eye.
Imagine surveying several hundred miles of populated (by animals), dense forest - and trying to detect a couple of unknmow, vague heat sources.
Even if we have sufficiently disscerning technology to identify an unknown lifeform, we still have to identify a way to actually use that technology over a large area. And there's always the maxim that 'abscence of proof is not proof of absence'.
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actualy I think it's probly a very interesting phycological effect, a type of halucination that sows up commonly amung diferent people due to some instinctive fear.
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Well, extreme fear does apparently **** up the process of forming memories (mild levels of fear actually improve this process, though), so I wouldn;t be surprised if many encounters are a result of screwed up memories.
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Good point aldo...I was just sugesting that if a sighting was reported quickly then you could do a pretty much standard in manhunting now and fly helicopters over a region looking for large moving ape/human like creature.
That would cut it down from having to survey thousands of KM and attempting to discern one or a group from all of the other possibilities.
Bobbau is probably correct in that its probably a shared halicination that is perhaps somewhat hard wired into our pysch and then brought on by fear. I think many underestimate how quickly instinct plays a part of our behavior...especially under high stress situations such as those.
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wouldn't even need fear, probly more a sence of isolation
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They probably don't exist. However, we did think that one fish was extinct, but then found a ton of them in a cave in Africa, so who knows.
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Originally posted by IceFire
Bobbau is probably correct in that its probably a shared halicination that is perhaps somewhat hard wired into our pysch and then brought on by fear. I think many underestimate how quickly instinct plays a part of our behavior...especially under high stress situations such as those.
Its a hallucination of a giant monkey thats brought about by the fear and stress of seeing a giant monkey?
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that or a instinctive fear of unfamiliar human(oid)s in unfamiliar environments, we are a rather terirorial species
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Hmmm... more varied than I thought :)
For my part, I'm naturally skeptical, but, given the body of evidence the longevity of the belief, and the not completely over the top expectations of the animal biologically, I'm less skeptical about this than I am, say, the Loch Ness monster or the Mokele mbembe and what not.
And, for the record, Polar bears give off practically no heat (a sleeping bear is undetecteable by IR anyway) but I still agree with Icefire that it's likely these things, if they're out there at all, could be picked up through their bodyheat.
Liberator - Nope, I haven't seen those places, and I don't doubt that they're dense and inhospitable and quite possibly could support large, undiscovered animals. I was more trying to point out that, given their location in America, they're probably more regularly traversed, flown over, studied etc. than, say, the entral Congo or Amazonian rainforest, or the Himalayan peaks.
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Most recently found large animals have been found because
1) trails, tracks, other marks
2) bones, skin, droppings
3) local stories combined with 1 and 2.
Of bigfoots and so on we have only stories, and they are not the "interesting type" - similar long and detailed stories shared by many independent tellers (Okapi).
Latimeria and Yeti are like apples and oranges. You really can't compare the two.
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So, basically we have some overgrown freaks of nature. Like with humans, there are always exceptions. Just because human is 2.30m and has feet the size of a USN aircraft carrier doesn't make him a different species.
Maybe some other animal had some freaky DNA accident :p
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BigFoot is probably the US militaries new weapon for fighting in forested areas. and people see it run away because the general in charge doesn't want to be found out messing with genetics and ordered it to run away.
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fact: there exists a gen in the human genome which can cause the affected patient to grow to enormous size. Head, hands and feet are often overproportionately large
fact: there exists a gen in the human genome which causes the patient to have enormous masses of body hair.
fact: since day and age, mutations or 'abnomalities' have never been accepted in any type of culture and such 'creatures' were often killed or abandoned, in which case it was possible for a 'mutant' to survive (living as a hermit)
fact: since the days we lived in caves, the human race is scared ****less of anything it doesn't understand and makes up stories around such things to better deal with their fears.
the result: countless of legends about large, hairy, ape-like creatures have evolved among every single culture on earth...
conclusion: Yeti/BigFoot/Sasquatch exists, we are him!
that does not mean that is it NOT possible for a side branch in the evolution to go undetected for so long a period, contrary to popular belief, there are still large parts on most continents unexplored (once charted perhaps but often never revisited) because the environment is so 'wild' and stretched that it would take either eons to comb thru or we simply do not have the financial resources (technical ain't the problem nowadays). So, who knows there may still live an undiscovered type of humanoid somewhere, but the chance to that is bout as big as the chance on the US leaving the middle east
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Originally posted by Black Wolf
Who believes? On the one hand, we're asked to accept a large animal which has never been conclusively sighted, nor even had its carcass or skeleton found, and has no truly similar animals in the recent fossil record. Moreover, Sasquatch is supposed to live in the continental US and Canada, one of the most populated and scientifically scrutinized parts of the world. On the other hand, there's a belief that goes back thousands of years, some degree of evidence, and similar stories from several separate places around the world.
Mainly, I'm just curious.
i can't beleive that you forgot the yowies :p (australian version of bigfoot, yadda, yadda, yadda ;) )
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I mentioned that one, though I spelled it Yawee, fictional spelling of a fictional creature I supose
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Originally posted by Turnsky
i can't beleive that you forgot the yowies :p (australian version of bigfoot, yadda, yadda, yadda ;) )
P'raps I'll start a separate topic...
Yowies/Bunyips/Tasmanian Tigers/Those escaped US panthers that are supposed to be running around Aedlaide and the like/etc. :D
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Originally posted by Black Wolf
P'raps I'll start a separate topic...
Yowies/Bunyips/Tasmanian Tigers/Those escaped US panthers that are supposed to be running around Aedlaide and the like/etc. :D
Only that Tasmanian Tiger was a true animal, now extinct. :p
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while we're on the subject, does anyone know where to find the complete invisible dragon analogy by carl sagan?
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Originally posted by Janos
Only that Tasmanian Tiger was a true animal, now extinct. :p
There are still occasional, unconfirmed sightings in tassie, as well as a widely held belief that there are Tasmanian tigers here on the mainland. It's certainly not impossible that they're still around, so it still fits fairly well with the rest of the list.