“Huge mysterious manlike beast” . Unofficial, but descriptive in Latin, and it may make fence-sitting scientists more comfortable than the slang term
“Bigfoot”
Many will shorten this to “Crypticus” . (The mysterious one).
If a body is ever found, this will make an easy name to use.
Jon-Erik Beckjord, BA,MBA Director, ICS 925-385-0422
We can’t say it is a sasquatch, nor a humanoid, nor a human, and it might be a statue or model. But it shows too much detail to be a mere rock.
Trust me, NASA will now mount a special mission to go there and destroy whatever it is it, or was.
Trust no one.
NOTE: THE OLD INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY “OF” CRYPTOZOOLOGY , DEAD FOR YEARS, IS NOT THE SAME AS OUR INTERNATIONAL CRYPTOZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. Make no errors.
Watch now for the new CRYPTOZOOLOGY MERIT BADGE with the Boy Scouts.
Jon-Erik Beckjord 925-385-0422
Breaking News: Press release 1/6/08
The INTERNATIONAL CRYPTOZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY of Berkeley,CA,
announced today they will offer an on-line CZ course in Feb, for 4 sessions,
covering Bigfoot, Nessie, Big Bird, cryptids, cryptozoology as a field, famous films,
evidence and lack of same, and that as part of the course, Boy Scouts may earn an unofficial CZ Merit badge, that someday may become official.
The fee is $99 and will be taught on-line. payment is by http://www.paypal.com
with recipient monsterfinder@gmail.com Teacher is an Eagle Scout with experience
running three CZ land museums, and 31 yrs fieldwork, plus two college degrees. Details 925-385-0422
Radford had this to say:
By Benjamin Radford, LiveScience’s Bad Science Columnist
posted: 03 December 2007 03:52 pm ET
The Yeti, formerly known as the Abominable Snowman until he fired his publicist, is Nepal’s version of the American Bigfoot. Like Bigfoot, Yeti is large, powerful, leaves strange tracks, and has never been proven to exist outside of folklore and myth.
Interest in the supposed creature is fueled by occasional sighting reports and odd footprints, but recently an American television crew claimed to have found the Yeti’s tracks not far from Mount Everest.
Josh Gates, host of the Sci-Fi channel series “Destination Truth,” claimed that he found three mysterious footprints on Nov. 28: one full print that measured about thirteen inches long, and two partial prints.
Gates said that he could not identify what made them, but that they are “very, very similar” to other strange tracks previously found in the Himalayas and attributed to the Yeti. To Gates and his television crew, this apparently seems like strong evidence for the elusive creature.
Other explanations
Yet there is a scientific explanation for many “Yeti footprints” found in the Himalayas.
Tracks in snow can be very difficult to interpret correctly because of the unstable nature of the medium in which they are found. Snow physically changes as the temperature varies and as sunlight hits it. This has several effects on the impression, often making the tracks of ordinary animals seem both larger and misshapen.
As sunlight strikes the impression from different angles, the sides of the tracks melt unevenly. Thus a bear track made at night but found the next afternoon has been exposed to the morning sun and might change into a mysterious track with splayed toes—much like the one Gates and his crew claim to have found.
While the track Gates found was apparently not in snow, it was in a medium almost as bad: rocky soil near a river. It can be difficult or impossible to get accurate tracks of even known animals in such hard, uneven terrain.
If the soil was soft enough to make a valid impression as Gates claimed, it is puzzling that he found only one complete track. Unless the creature was dropped from a helicopter, scampered a few feet, and then picked up again, there should be a continuous line of dozens of tracks. Or, if the terrain is so poor at capturing tracks that he only found one full print, how accurate can Gates’s track be?
It’s amazing that anyone would claim to have found evidence for the Yeti based on only one ambiguous track found in rocky soil.
Logic 101
Gates and the “Destination Truth” crew interpreted the tracks as those of a Yeti; after all, they were in the area specifically searching for the creature, and as soon as they found something that seemed mysterious, they called the press claiming they’d found evidence.
Gates’s claims fail Logic 101: Just because Gates doesn’t know what made the track doesn’t mean that a Yeti did. There are no authenticated Yeti tracks to compare the tracks to, so who’s to say what a “real” Yeti footprint looks like?
Assuming that the track is real, there are several animals that could have made it.
Those who live in the foothills of the Himalayas are skeptical about Gates’s claim, suggesting that he simply misinterpreted tracks from a mountain bear. Sir Edmund Hillary, who was the first to scale Everest with sherpa Tenzing Norgay, found no evidence of the creature. Famous mountaineer Reinhold Messner also spent months in Nepal and Tibet, climbing mountains and researching Yeti reports following his own sighting. In his book “My Quest for the Yeti,” Messner concludes that large native bears are responsible for Yeti sightings and tracks.
It’s not surprising that the track fooled Gates and his crew, since they did little investigation and only spent about a week in the area. Gates is an actor, not a zoologist or animal tracker, and has little or no experience with supposed Yeti footprints. Gates’s credibility is not helped by his appearances on the “Ghost Hunters ” television show. That series, like “Destination Truth,” is far more interested in making sensational claims and garnering ratings than actually solving mysteries or scientifically analyzing the evidence.
As far as Yeti tracks go, Gates’s “discovery” is nothing new or exceptional; it is only the latest in a long series of similar “mysterious” tracks in the Himalayas attributed to the Yeti more out of speculation than science. Like all previous ambiguous Bigfoot or Yeti tracks, the mystery will remain after the publicity subsides.
Benjamin Radford has scientifically investigated mysterious creatures for over a decade. His latest book is “Lake Monster Mysteries.” This and other books can be found on his website.
Comment:
Radford has no need to bring up snow tracks, which are sometimes seen and videotaped in fresh, not melted, snow, since these were found in gravel.
His main point is where are the other tracks? I told him, in person, at an Idaho Bigfoot
convention, that Bigfoot, being a paranormal creature, has no need nor requirement to
leave sets of tracks and can often leave just one, which I have found often in ashes, sawdust, and ice under water.
I’ll agree with him that there is no zoological creature, but there is, based on my research,
a spiritual or even space-time creature. This shoots down all skeptics.
Erik Beckjord 925-385-0422
Note – on Nov 5, I contacted Dr. Chris Conroy
at the UC Berkeley Museum of Vertebrate Zoology. He is a mammalologist. Bears and primates are mammals. At no time whatever
did I ask him about Bigfoot, since I was sure he would shy away from the subject, and we did not discuss Bigfoot. He did not endorse
Bigfoot, since, Bigfoot is not proven to exist. That said, we discussed the photos taken by Rick Jacobs 9/16 in PA with a game-cam,
above. He said he and some people on his staff, had been discussing these. I asked him whether, ON BALANCE, the 2nd and 3rd
images were of a bear (carnivore) or a primate (in general.) He mentioned, and I agree, that the last image showed ischial
callosities (calluses) on the buttocks, which bears do not have, but primates often do have. We also discussed the leg structure
of chimps, and he said that on balance, he would choose a primate (such as a chimp) for the photos, rather than a bear.
I feel he is right. We discussed the thinner legs, the longer legs and how the forelimbs were longer than the rear limbs,
as in primates. — on 10/6, I got a recorded message indicating distress on his part over this, and I can only surmise he
has pressure from his boss at UC Berkeley, about making statements about BIGFOOT. He made NO statements about
Bigfoot. Only about the issue of bear vs primate. It is too bad he cannot follow the steps of DR JANE GOODALL AND
DR. GEORGE SHALLER , who have indicated an interest in the possibility of Bigfoot. As for his boss, the director of the
Museum, shame on you sir.
Dr Chris Conroy, head of dept of Mammals at the UC Berkeley Museum of Vertebrate Zoology says that
if he had to choose between a bear and a primate, for the Rick Jacobs photo, that he would opt for primate, because it has
calluses on the buttocks. Bears do not have that.
He also noted the long legs, and that the forelimbs are longer than the hind limbs. It all adds up to not a bear.
What kind of primate he does not know, but it is similar to a chimp.
Released by the International Cryptozoological Society, Berkeley,CA
925-385-0422 Jon-Erik Beckjord, director
Photos see http://www.beckjord.com/bigfoot/
International Cryptozoological Society 