Skepticblog

Have you heard that Bigfooters finally have the proof we’ve been waiting for? At long last, after half a century of hunting, they have finally gotten their hands on a really seriously genuine Bigfoot body—again! And by astonishing coincidence, this totally completely real Bigfoot body is being offered up to the media by one of the exact same guys who gave us the previous totally real “Georgia Bigfoot” body, way back in the storied yesteryear of 2008. That case was a hoax. As the hoaxers explained, the 2008 “body” was really a costume stuffed with roadkill.

“It’s just a big hoax, a big joke,” said car salesman Rick Dyer. Dyer told Channel 2 he never intended to put it across as the real deal. “It’s bigfoot. Bigfoot doesn’t exist,” he said.

Now that same hoaxer is now back, making headlines with the claim that he shot and killed another Bigfoot. “I’m going to go down in history as the best Bigfoot tracker in the world,” he boasts—and for some reason we’re talking about it.

Make no mistake, there is a disreputable basement level to Bigfootery, and this is it. I said as much when my Abominable Science! co-author Don Prothero wrote to me a couple of days ago to ask if we should put up a post about it. “It’s really the lowest end of Bigfoot beeswax,” I replied. “I kinda hate to publicize it. I don’t think I’ll bother writing it up at this point.”

Thing is, I’m fond of cryptozoology. I’m really only interested in dealing with the better cases and the more serious practitioners. I think cryptozoologists are mistaken, but that does not mean that I want cryptozoology presented as a complete circus. To that end, for example, I made a conscious choice years ago not to record and use the many interpersonal feuds and slurs that Bigfooters hurl at each other, even though they’ve cooked up some real humdingers. It’s not my job to make monster-hunters appear ridiculous, but to attempt in good faith to find out what’s true.

For that reason, I preferentially emphasize and critique the better cases, the stronger claims, the more serious authors and researchers. That isn’t always possible. There are some deeply ridiculous, embarrassing cases that simply must be discussed in any survey of the topic, because they were influential. (Consider the Bossburg/Ivan Marx “Cripple Foot” case, for example.) Sometimes the strongest cases are not very strong. But still, I make every attempt to take the high road. My original draft of the Abominable Science! chapter on the topic of Bigfoot, for example, made no reference to the 2008 Georgia Bigfoot hoax. Don later wrote the case in elsewhere in the book, at which point I made a few tweaks. But I would have preferred just to ignore it.

Today, folks are sharing and discussing an embarrassing sequel I still prefer to ignore. What are skeptics to do in such a situation? Here we have a case so ridiculous that Bigfoot proponents are themselves reacting in humiliated horror. Surely, you would think, such a case would be beneath the notice of CNN or Time?

But it isn’t. For some reason, god help us, it isn’t. As cryptozoology author Loren Coleman puts it, “Shame on them. Shame, indeed, on them.” Mainstream media and paranormal proponents both: stop promoting cases that ought to be quarantined. Cases contaminated by their close association with previous hoaxes or previous hoaxers ought not to make headlines. When such nonsense is pushed on the public as reckless clickbait, it becomes the role of skeptics to respond. But I’m telling you, I don’t want to.