Seeing the World Through the Eyes of Sasquatch
Editor’s Note: This is a post by Bigfoot Evidence contributor, Damian Bravo, a Sasquatch believer. You can join Damian's group Sasquatch Lives? on Facebook and the group's official page at www.sasquatchlives.com.In many sightings of Sasquatch we hear descriptions of glowing eyes, most commonly red glowing eyes. In the last article (How Sasquatch May Be Primal & Feral Yet Intelligent) I wrote about how Sasquatch could possibly be a mutation that occurred sometime in the evolutionary tree of hominids. Many of Sasquatch’s physical attributes have been spoken of as super human and unbelievable. Now let’s take a look at the eye shine many say they have seen in their sightings, but we will take a look at it from a biological and scientific point of view.
Is it possible for Sasquatch to have developed the ability to have natural night vision or could this night vision be some type of bioluminescence?
Night vision is what causes the reflected light that we see in the eyes of animals with this adaptation. To be more precise, a membrane (Tapetum lucidum) in the back layers of the eye reflects more light into the eye from the initial light source, giving the animal the ability to see at night.
Only two known primates have night vision, one is the Aye-aye Lemur (Daubentonia madagascariensis) and the other is the Sportive Lemur (L. sahamalazensis) which can only be found on the island of Madagascar.
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Now if we take a look at the typical Sasquatch sightings, we know that the creature has been seen in daylight sightings, which contradicts some researchers who say these elusive creatures are predominantly nocturnal. So why would they have developed such an amazing ability if the reports show them to not actually be nocturnal? If the reports are correct then could it be that what some are seeing is a type of evolutionary adaptation.
In humans, some believe that certain emotions can cause the eyes to change colors. This change happens in the iris (the colored part of your eye), which gets its color from eumelanin (a type of melanin that is a black pigment). Eumelanin is produced by melanocytes (the cells that make melanin) and these pigment cells are found all over the body.
Now there are no known scientific connections that other chemical changes in the body would affect the color changes in the melanocytes. Since we have melanin all over the body the effects of these changes would not be exclusive of the iris only, it would make color changes in the melanin all over our skin.
Another fantastic part of Sasquatch is that some say they have seen the eyes glow red, as if they were emitting lights out of their eyes. If this is true, then it would be called bioluminescence and can only be found in certain types of bacteria, fungi, insects and ninety percent of deep ocean life.
In order to have these traits, whether chemical or as a result of symbiosis, certain requirements must be met to create this type of chemical reaction of light. In mammals, this trait was never developed and has never been documented in any known terrestrial animal.
If Sasquatch has developed any of these adaptations, then it would be an amazing mutation of primate genes. For this to be even possible, the Sasquatch species at one point in its evolution had to have these recessive genes either manifesting or mutating to become a permanent part of its genetic makeup.
In the Sasquatch case, we still need to consider other possible options. Without a body to examine we cannot know for certain or even assume that these genetic mutations are possible. During a discussion with my good friend and biologist Michael Merchant, it was mentioned that some recessive genes can manifest when inbreeding occurs in animals. If Sasquatch is one of the rarest animals on earth, the possibility of certain mutations happening can be accelerated by this inbreeding and may develop strange and potentially beneficial traits.
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| Photo on left is an example, not an actual Bigfoot |
There have been many sightings that describe a creature with differences in size, color, and bulk. In the thousands of footprints that have been casted, three or four toes have been documented and even more than five. People that have seen Sasquatch have even stated that the creature had white hair, a sign of animal albinism. If this species exists and is so rare, Sasquatch could be limited to few choices for mates and the result could be the unusual traits and mutations that witnesses describe. These limited choices may have possibly created a species with remarkable adaptations beyond our imagination, waiting to be discovered.
Damian Bravo
www.sasquatchlives.com
Very good article. Let the hating games begin.
ReplyDeleteSome food for thought here Damian. I personally do not think they are a nocturnal creature in that they are equally comfortable day and night, and have been adapted to take advantage of either in ways that us true humans have not. It is purely a function of their environment. I have read of red eyes and even green but far more often they are described as amber to whitish. Just my two cents.
ReplyDeleteChuck
Chuck I do understand that other types of eye colors for eye shine have been documented but i should have clarified that the more popular stories of sightings described a red glow.
DeleteD.B.
Could the differences mean that there are a lot of hoaxes? no hate just wondering?
ReplyDeleteCG in Texas,
ReplyDeleteAgain, not hating just my perspective (medical/science) background. An eye GENERATING light would be counter productive. It would hinder the eyes ability to take in more light and serve no "known" purpose. All of our known nocturnal animals have the adaptations you mentioned and with that larger pupil, have a habit of reflecting ambiant light.
It's true we have other animals that have adapted to create lighting, but no mammal and not for sight.
I have friends that are dedicated squatchers that swear they have seen the eyeshine and are convinced that the eyes GENERATED the light.
I'm left in the same boat as everyone else... who knows? I can't wait for the chance to find out for myself.
CG
The main reason animals generate light is often either to
Deletea) find a mate
b) scare enemies, or
c) attract prey
I think that option b would work quite well, don't you?
Actually some even believe the color in the eyes that people are seeing may also be a emotional reaction stimulated by whatever is exciting or upseting Sasquatch, but as always to understand if these is even possible we must first have a specimen to study. The human genome is being study as we speak but so far humans have only been able to understand a small percent of what makes us what we are and how this happened. the same presidence then will have to be reflected in Sasquatch case and more then likely will take science countless years depending how much technology advances in this fieldto also understand if these creature exist exactly how it evolved to what it is today.
DeleteD.B.
Are there any stats at all on the mount of star and moonlight when the eyeshine occurrs. Does it appear at all on overcast moonless nights. Any body know. The Australian version has had a whole range of colours noted by observers over the years.
DeleteI think CG missed the point of the article altogether. At night eyes do not GENERATE light at all, but in fact REFLECT the light that is pointed at them. In Canada here we have to be very careful driving at night and to watch out for dear and moose on the roads. Up here we all know we have to watch for what we call "eye shine" as a way to spot them. If we don't we could get killed by moose crashing through our windshields! The dear's and moose's eye don't GENERATE light either. They in fact REFLECT the light from our headlights of our cars. I don't remember what color the dear's eyes reflect because every time I see them I am too concerned about avoiding them. So with that said, just like dear and moose, bigfoots, when flashlights, video camera lights, car headlights, etc. are pointed at a bigfoot (or ANY other mammal for that matter) the light will reflect back towards the source. And since the witness is located right by the light source they WILL see that light REFLECTED in the bigfoot's eyes.
DeleteChad W
Oh one other point, if the witness is not carying as light source (flashlight etc.) the WILL NOT see what we call "eye shine". Up here in Canada, "eye shine" is an well know fact about all mammals here. We have an over abundance of wildlife here that cause us a great deal of trouble when driving any highways outside of the cities.
DeleteChad W
Further my last two posts, I looked up "eye shine" and found an interesting web page that describes it warning drivers to watch for it at night.
Deletehttp://www.wildlife.state.nh.us/Wildlife/brake_for_moose.htm
One thing to watch for with moose, not all moose's eyes will show eye shine since they are so tall that sometimes the headlights of cars don't reach up to their eyes to allow the reflection to occur.
Chad W
I agree with original post (1) bioluminescence ont in any other mammal (2) Main function of eyes is to see, in Natural Selection terms it is impossible to decease vision for the purpose of "glowing" eyes.
DeleteReflection of light from eyes is very possible.
Good informative article Damion! Thanks.
ReplyDeleteI'm not from a scientific background. I'm just a guy that's spent allot of time in the woods at night, on 4 different continents.
ReplyDeleteI've seen eye shine from many animals. I've seen green eye shine, red eye shine and amber eye shine.
I've witnessed eye shine that appears to glow from within and become brighter. However, that has always been because the animal either moved and thus received more light or widened their eyes and again, received more light.
I don't want to say that people aren't seeing what they claim to see. I just think there are reasons that the eye shine they see, appears to be generated from within the animal instead of the other way around.
Logic also leads me to agree with CG. An eye generating light would seem counter productive to night vision.
JMHO
comment +1
DeleteLet me also state that I have never seen a Sasquatch or anything Sasquatch related.
DeleteAlso again....I won't contradict what others say they have seen.
I can only speak for myself.
5 comments and not a hateful thing said yet. All relevant to the conversation. This has to be some kind of record.
ReplyDeleteJust wait for me to comment. It will begin, dear. This post was fantastic and especially because Damian doesn't treat us like idiots. It was intelligent, well explained, and very thought provoking. I type up hospital cases for a children's hospital and there are all kinds of genetic issues with children from Middle Eastern, African and even Mormon families with consanguinity (inbreeding). They have names for the types of aberrations that occur within bloodlines. Conversely, it's believed that interbreeding with Neanderthals and other more primitive breeds of humans created the immune systems we have. It was crucial. So, if BF is inbreeding, which would be necessary for a small population spread over a large continent, some of this features may be dominant for him, like the thick hairiness and perhaps some congenital issues to. The only other conclusion is that he is so smart in eluding us by occasionally breeding with human stock to create a super set of traits like man's modern immune system (thank you Neanderthal). So far as the eye shine, it seems that any creature dependent on living in a dark rainforest, is likely to need eyes to develop not only to the constant low light levels, but if you've ever been in the Cascades, you know how hard it would be to find anything in that dense environment. You'd have to develop also eyes that can capture movement even out of the corners of his eyes because the only way you identify anything in that forest is movement. Okay, bring on the Smeja-loving haters.
DeleteI agree with Bamburg's statements. I do not have a scientific background either, but I have spent most of my life in the woods and have made some very interesting observations.
ReplyDeleteI have very specific theories about the animals in the SE US. I believe one type in the area has dichromatic (ability to see more or less two colors) vision and another population has trichromatic (three color) vision. They have other differences also, but since we are talkin' eyes.
It's good not to see all the bickering. It will encourage other people to contibute in positive ways. Like myself.
Great article Damien. I'm a bigfoot skeptic, but I appreciate the well-researched and well thought out post!
ReplyDeleteWhen I first start into BF'ing several weeks ago, I immediately thought of inbreeding and what affects that would have on the population. It is good to know I'm not the only one.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure why, but when I read some of the BF descriptions, I immediately think of the inbreeding X-Files episode. So, I'm sure that has something to do with it.
Growing up in southern WV, my father and other locals often talked of a creature described as what we now know as bigfoot. They had a nickname for it; the Redeye. According to locals, the animals eyes glowed red. My father saw the creature when I was around six years old.
ReplyDeleteI had a sighting myself almost 36 years later within 1/2 mile of my father's sighting. I had completely forgotten about his encounter until then. (My dad died in 1976.)
Archer1
As the lead investigator of the Oklahoma Trail Pic investigation, I would like to request that the possible albino bigfoot picture be removed from this post. It was proven under the investigation that it was the land owner carrying a bag of corn to the feeder, and should not be presented as a Bigfoot photo.
ReplyDeleteThe only Inbreeding taken place is in Autumnforests lineage.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01LFxJ4SPPY
ReplyDeleteNot sure if this link will work, but it shows a chinese boy who can see in the dark and demonstrates eyeshine. If bigfoot often has blue eyes this might be something that makes its potenial executioner hold fire ,often reported.
The charactetistics of relic hominids are likely to have come from a substantial breeding populations thpugh now almost certainly in decline. Night vision could be a response for survival reasons, when humans got technology for survival and used it collectively against less technical or co-operative groups.
nb Eyeshine does seem to explain bigfoots reported glowing eyes. But I wasnt there !
Just another thought and quick comment after a discussion with my 82 year old mother.
ReplyDeleteShe grew up on a farm and they did not have electricity until 1944. At that time, they used kerosene lamps and candle lamps for light at night.
She remembers being able to read, do homework and just about anything else with just that light. She also remembers using the outhouse which was some 50 yards from the house and walking to and forth without any lights.
She feels like they were able to see at night better in those days than we can now. Rather that is true or not I can only take her at her word.
I do know that during my military career, we did most of our work at night and when given the chance to adjust, could usually see quite well in the dark. Without the use of flashlights. That being said, I can also remember times when it was so dark, you could not see one foot in front of you.
Could night vision simply be a trait that we all have that simply isn't exercised in these days of electric lights and flashlights. Just thinking out loud.
Your grandma did not have a biological adaption in the ways her eyes functioned, just she had practice reading and operating in low light. So yes its a trait that has become unnecessary for most humans. The trait probably started devolving when we discoved fire. Take it a step further, excellent night vison in sasquatch suggests they don't use fire.
Deletenorman: no, the boy can not see in the dark, and he does not demonstrate eye shine, the articles speculate as such, but prove no such thing. He's just a kid with blue eyes.
ReplyDeleteeyeshine would be useless genetically, what's more likely, their eyes glow in the dark, or the eyes are reflecting ambient light off the retina (like every other hominid) because of huge irises at night?
The next most likely adaptation is to have glowing eyebrows or spots on their forehead or cheeks, even that would be more believable than eyes that glow.
I think it even more likely that eyeshine reporters are hallucinating. Even that is more likely than actual glowing eyes.
Yes, I should have said the boy was 'reported' as being able to see in the dark meaning far more than the usual. Similar eyeshine.
DeleteHow do you know he does not have this special ability? It may well be improbable on the limited facts given but improbable events are a daily occurrence. It is a mistake to confuse improbablity with fact.
Eyeshine is the price paid for enhanced night vision. Not to say it might not have some benefits in itelf. As night vision is common in the wild, something in the boys dna from the past might have been switched on.
As for sasquatch I am in favour of the eyeshine theory. This effect can be very strong of course and rabbits produce a red light (too).
You are confusing "eye shine" from reflection off the back of the eye, equivalent with red-eye from a flash illuminated photograph with "eye shine" in the bigfoot world where bigfoot eyes actually produce their own light and glow.
DeleteThis kid in china doesn't have a tapetum lucidum at the back of the eye, he just has blue eyes or eye albinism. The news story was sensational at best, completely undocumented and unbelievable at worst.
Notice how they don't demonstrate the reflections from the back of his eye? something you could do very easily with any camera, just turn off red-eye reduction and snap the kid's picture. But no, no evidence at all, just a news story.
But, as all things bigfoot, the slightest news story, no matter how dubious the source, has been sucked into the bigfoot arena and cemented as fact and evidence that bigfoot must have that trait because, hey look, someone reported once upon a time that some kid had that trait.
Stick bending, glowing eyes, full fledged language, cross breeding, population densities, physical abnormalities, not-an-ape but a relic human ancestor, the list goes on and on. One little whiff of evidence and the bigfoot community jumps on it and is ready to throw that evidence on the pile of proof.
None of this evidence means anything, it's worse than speculation. And there will be no real study of the animal until there's a captured animal to study, dead or alive. You can infer all day long, but in the end, that's all they are, inferences, not evidence.
What I am saying is that I think that the light proposed as being created by bigfoots eyes is most probably eyeshine in the conventional sense as is seen in deer, rabbits, foxes, badgers, cats etc. Incidently I have a son who has a contract with local farms to shoot their foxes at night and he is an expert on eyeshine in practical terms which he has shared with me. His scary eyeshine are large greens one occasionaly (in the uk)!
DeleteI am not saying bigfoot produces its own light, I am not saying it doesnt,I wasn't there. I am saying it seems highly improbable and the best probable explanation for its reported red eyes is eyeshine.
Regarding the chinese boy, I am inclined to think that he probably has a special gift of seeing in the dark, if he has eyeshine who knows. Nor do I know if he has a tapetum lucidum, nor i think do you. It seems quite possible that there is a latent gene in humans that in the boys case has been switched on giving him a special talent. I know years ago research was done on some native peoples but was stopped because of sensitivities about racism when the research found some important differences. Not as far as I know about night vision but at least the research showed up the possibility of differences.
'The bigfoot community' are a mixed bunch and if you so desire there are plenty of reasonable people you can listen too and maybe even make a contribution as the discovery of sasquatch progresses. Much like in early days when humans were trying to work out what and wherefore the new apes and humans were, as they were being discovered, like the orang outang, like the gorilla. Where did the african pygmies fit in etc etc. Very interesting times.
Saying something is predominantly nocturnal is not contradicted by the fact that a creature is seen during the day. Animals such as deer, and coyotes are primarily nocturnal but are also seen quite often during the day. Not a good arguement to base your article on. They still need night vision.
ReplyDeleteall speculation till someone comes up with a body like it or not its true and its the only way!!
ReplyDeleteAnonymous from March 27 just above is correct, simply because something is seen during the day does not mean it is not nocturnal. Deer and most large mammals are much more active at night, and are considered nocturnal, but they do move during the day as well. The correct term should be cathemeral, which means the animal is active both night and day. This does require biological adaptations for night vision, which in simple terms are: the presence of the tapetum lucidum, the chemical rhodopsin, millions more rods than cones (rendering it effectively color blind), and very large pupils.
ReplyDeleteIf the BF diverged from an ancestral line that eventually led to us, it would have had to have been pre-Neanderthal, and likely well before that in order to have those adaptations. In fact, it would not be too much of a stretch for it to have diverged from the line prior to the loss of night vision in a common ancestor with modern day primates from Madagascar that have it.
Homo Heidelbergensis has been considered as a more recent potential candidate, but now it is considered to be the common ancestor for us and Neanderthals, so it is unlikely that it possessed night vision to any real degree without passing it to modern humans.
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ReplyDelete