The Biggest Controversies in Bigfoot Research

Author Lisa A. Shiel

Author of "Backyard Bigfoot" Lisa A. Shiel gives us a list of the biggest controversies in Bigfoot research. Shiel believes the lack of circumstantial evidence and researchers relying on eyewitness testimony has lead to more bickering than another other type of paranormal research.

"Any field of research that relies on eyewitness testimony and circumstantial evidence will incite plenty of argument among researchers. The study of Bigfoot-type creatures is no different. I’d speculate that Bigfoot research has encouraged more bickering than most any other branch of paranormal research. So what topics get everybody’s tempers boiling?"
Among her list of controversial tops are:

  • Belief - "Bigfoot researchers have taken fear of belief to befuddling extremes..."
  • The Word Paranormal - "Bigfoot is not paranormal! Bigfoot is not paranormal!..."
  • Repeat witnesses - "Everybody knows you can see Bigfoot only once, and only in a chance encounter while out backpacking or hunting..."
  • UFOs & high strangeness - "Witnesses who see Bigfoots in conjunction with UFOs or who have missing time after seeing Bigfoots might think the worst has passed once their strange encounter ends.."
You can read Shiel's full break down on her website.

Comments

  1. Yeah, I think it's interesting how people correlate UFOs and BF. The truth is, people more likely to see BF are out in nature and more likely to look at their sky and notice UFOs. I live in Phoenix and we get a shit load of UFOs and no BF. I might also notice that BF seems to be seen more by men, but then men are more often deeper in the woods. People look for correlations, but they are incidental.

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  2. I usually tell the UFO folks to leave Bigfoot alone. The subject of Bigfoot-UFO makes the argument weaker if it isn't already.

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  3. "par·a·nor·mal (pr-nĂ´rml)
    adj.
    Beyond the range of normal experience or scientific explanation"

    It may make researchers like Shiel defensive to have it lumped together with supernatural phenomena like ghosts, but by the dictionary definition, Bigfoot is most definitely paranormal, or literally "outside the ordinary." You won't see one at the zoo. And given the frequency with which even investigators resort to Native American mythology to "document" its existence, there is good and legitimate reason to discuss it in supernatural terms, as well, completely independent of its theoretical existence as a living creature. If such points can't be legitimately addressed and debated, I think the *real* source of "controversy" lies elsewhere, namely in a narrow-minded orthodoxy that is averse to outside criticism.

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  4. It would probably also help the public perception if the methodologies behind "Finding Bigfoot," "Ghost Hunters," and "UFO Hunters" weren't all exactly the same.

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