An Explanation Of Bigfoot Eye Shine
Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Bigfoot Evidence contributor, Jamie AKA Snowhorse, a geology student at Humboldt State University. He believes the best way to find a Bigfoot is to use proven wildlife biology field methods. You can visit his blog, Bad Bigfoot.
After reading a few accounts and reports I think that people are getting confused in regards to eyeshine. A lot of reports are accompanied by accounts of eyeshine. The eyeshine effect is sometimes perceived as validation that there was actually something there in the woods. It does take an animal to have eyeshine and when viewed in the wild it can give some insight into the animal in question. But it is not definitive. There are no absolutes when dealing with reflective color. The many defects, variations, and abnormalities within the eye itself can produce a variable number of colors.
What is eyeshine? It's a reflection off of something called the Tapetum Lucidum. I would suggest that everyone read the Wikipedia article on it.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tapetum_lucidum
The important part to note is that eyeshine is multidirectional. It shines the whole eye and is viewed from many angles.
The Bigfoot in the room concerning these reports is that primates in general don't have a tapetum lucidum. Only lemurs do and they diverged from the order around 50 million years ago. This is both a problem and a solution. If the principle uniformitarianism is to be applied to the argument then any report of a Bigfoot accompanied with a report of eyeshine is indicative of misidentification of another species.
The refutation of this argument is that hominids are often photographed with "red eye". This is often used as evidence that the subject of these reports is actually a hominid. Seems logical right? Humans have red eyeshine? Nope....
The "red eye" effect is not the same as eyeshine.
A simple reading of the Wikipedia page on the subject should bring everyone up to speed.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red-eye_effect
An abstract of the journal article that the Wikipedia article cites is available here:
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18465973
In short, the red eye effect is only visible when the observer angle is dead on with the light source. What does this mean? Unless your light source is within a few inches from your eye you will not see red eye. This is why nice cameras and pro photographers often have light source away from the lens. If the flash is too close to the lens then there will be some red eye. It is often noted that theater spotlight operators sometimes see the red eye effect from actors on stage.
So okay maybe the "red eyes of bigfoot" is really just a glimpse of the red eye effect when the proper angles align? Nope... the iris of the eye compensates for the increased amount of focused light. This means that the effect is only visible for a short amount of time and only when the angles are perfect. So any red eye would only be visible for a fraction of a second. Some cheaper cameras have a red eye neutralizing flash that strobes for a few seconds to contract the pupil to neutralize the red eye effect.
So in closing, accounts of eyeshine in bigfoot are largely indicative of a misidentification with another species, like owls. I think that a comprehensive mythbusters type of experiment is needed to settle it. Next time I'm in the field at night I'll try and get some footage to demonstrate the effects.
No worries,
Jamie AKA Snowhorse
when will the smeja interview be up??
ReplyDeleteHis eyes are too far apart. But they are red and glowing, he is huge, and screams like nothing else u have ever heard...this has affected my family for years...also when he appears there are lights in the sky and a full moon...u wanna find them go to cross station Rd in Girard, but more importantly ordoc road in Albion, most people who live here Will have stories bout the werewolf out there...I could go on and on about the encounters two of my family members have had...years and years apart and one happened to my son, and the other was my brother ....my son or any of our children never heard my brothers story, so when my son came home one morning, I knew the look in his eyes as I had since this look before...he or my brother will not talk about it, but one other thing they both kept saying the night of their horrible experience, was stay away from the Windows
DeleteThis is all based on a mere assumption that we know what Sasquatch biology is. Perhaps Sasquatch is a biological anomally and the eyeshine is indicitive of the species. We don't have a body so we don't know yet. Thanks for the attempt Jamie!
ReplyDeleteAgreed. I often thought of that argument myself but it is quite possible that due to natural selection and adaptation that Sasquatch developed night vision. Most primates are only active during the day so there would be no need to see in the dark. However, it is quite possible that if a species was forced to operate at night due to environmental pressures and then through evolution and natural selection they could develop night vision.
DeleteWolf
Or thier part of the species resulting from the fallen angles having intercourse with human woman. The resultant eyeshine, part of their angelic heritage!
Deletewell done article
ReplyDeleteThis is utter horsecrap. I've seen the unknown biped and the green eyeshine dead on.
ReplyDeleteMe too. I was walking by a horse pen with a small flashlight trying to find one of our pets at about 11:00 PM last December. I shined the light towards the far side of the pen and about 60-70' away I see two large green eyes twice as high as the 5' fence and another set on the ground at the corner of the barn. I stopped and they just stayed there looking at me. There are no trees in the background and we are on top of a hill. I took three steps toward the big one and it dropped in one smooth motion to the other and they crawled away on the ground very quickly towards cover. I have seen them in the daylight too back in the woods.
DeleteHow does the Dogman stop the VCR?
ReplyDeleteIt presses the "paws" button
Are you here all week? I bet you got a million of 'em. And don't forget to remind people to tip their waiters and waitresses.
DeleteLOL at D.C. in anon 1.20, KH
ReplyDeleteWow, this author could enter the "Leap to Conclusions" event in the Olympics.
ReplyDeletethe game is called "jump to conclusions", and its gonna be more popular than the pet rock
DeleteOh yes, those pesky facts are a bitch, aren't they anon 3:33?
DeleteLet me guess, Bigfoot is the "exception" to the animal kingdom AND human race?
LMFAO! Thanks for the laugh though.....
It's hardly jumping to conclusion. There are several nocturnal groups of primates. Tarsiers, "Night Monkeys", Bushbabies, Glalagos, Lorises, Pottos and several lemurs (most famously the Aye-Aye). The only ones that have Tapetum Lucidum are the lemurs, which as noted branched off from the rest of primates thousands of years ago. The reason for this was to develop colour vision to help determine the ripeness of fruits. The suggestion that any great ape or proto-human remnant would've re-evolved this trait left behind thousands of years ago is far fetched at best. The most likely explanation is mis-identification. Don't even get me started on the notion of photoillumination from the eyes.
DeleteThe red eye effect in people theory is also incorrect. I myself have a white to orange eye shine in any picture taken with a flash. Does not matter distance, where I am looking, or if there is an anti red eye flash. If you go to the BFRO blog and search my handle, you can see some pics with my shine on, with an anti red eye flash. This white eye shine also accurs in children with a type of cancer and if caught as a kid, it can be fixed. In adults with the shine, they are normally blind. So this scared me and had my eyes checked this year. Turns out my pupils are 1-2mm larger than average and when a flash of bright light hits my eyes, they glow. While a good article, it is wrong or missed info in several areas.
ReplyDeleteA quick comment. I could always tell my hounds apart even from a quarter mile away just by there eyeshine. Luke and older hound his eyes shined yellowish gold. Bobo and Ellie Girl were much younger and thier eyes shine bright blue. As they got older eventually thier eyes turned gold. Yes his name was Bobo and he lived to the ripe old age of 18 1/2 years. J.D. Graham WA
ReplyDeleteGerman short hair, Bodie!
DeleteBright white green eyshine.
what if we built a huge cage, but this cage collapsed in the sense that it was flat curved to the landscape, and inside the cage make it look natural with real plants, fruit and trees, then when bigfoot steps in it to grab some berries, whhhaammmm!!! bring the cage doors up, get a chopper to lift that bitch out of there and boom we have a sasquatch.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThe phenomenon discussed above is refered to by me as "eyeglow" rather than "eye shine". This glow is visible from different angles. For instance, if the bigfoot happens to be looking down or to one side the glow is often still visible. I and other investigators have observed it many times. Besides red eyeglow, many have obesrved blue and white. At the 2011 BFRO IOWA Hill Country expedition eyeglow was successfully photographed with a film camera without the aid of any external light that could have reflected off of the tapetum lucidum, if in fact that is present in the bigfoot eye. No one knows. An expedition report is available at the following link which shows the photograph and includes a technical description of how the photo was taken. This is replicable by anyone with a film camera who is within close proximity of a bigfoot at night that has glowing eyes. They are not always observed to be glowing.
ReplyDeletehttp://s2.excoboard.com/BFRO/150505/2290536
Steve Moon
IOWA Investigator, BFRO
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ReplyDelete