Skepticblog

A frame from the video in question.

I am in receipt of a new alleged Bigfoot video, the YouTube version of which is hereinafter appended. A fellow emailed it to me with the request that I help him “get it into the right hands”, because, you know, routing Bigfoot videos to the appropriate cryptozoologist is what I’m all about.

These are actually kind of fun to get. At a first glance, there’s nothing in there that’s inconsistent with a guy in a suit. If a guy had a suit like this and his homey filmed him in it, this is exactly what you’d expect the video to look like. By Occam’s Razor, this is a guy in a suit; because the other possibility requires the introduction of the assumption that an unknown species of great ape roams about. But I hate to stop there; that’s too easy. Continue reading…

Cryptozoology is my first love. As a child, I spent endless hours planning the cryptozoological expeditions I thought I would one day lead. Even today, as a “professional skeptic,” I carry a torch for monsters and hidden beasts.

Which is how I came to frequent the popular cryptozoology blog site Cryptomundo. Presided over by the prolific Loren Colemen, Cryptomundo is updated constantly, and always a source of fantastic claims and speculations.

Screen capture from Cryptomundo.com

I get on quite well with Loren, who is one of the more skeptical and responsible pro-cryptozoology writers. (He has, for example, critiqued the “Jacko” story from sasquatch pre-history, writing, “in reality Jacko may have more to do with local rumors brought to the level of a news story that eventually evolved into a modern fable.”)

Before long, I found myself contributing regular comments on Cryptomundo posts. I knew something about the subject matter, and joined Ben Radford and one or two other “resident” skeptics at the blog site. I even contributed a guest post at one point. I love these mysteries, so it was pleasant to talk about them with others who found them interesting.

Continue reading…

And here’s why.

It pisses me off because it’s the perfect microcosm of what’s wrong with television science reporting. They’re not interested in reporting good science or in educating their viewers; they’re only interested in tabloid stories. And they affix a “science” label to them. Send some horseback kooks into the woods with a megaphone and an infrared camera to look for Bigfoot, show it on the Science Channel, and that’s what passes for science programming in the United States. The obvious result? We have a population who believes that communication with ghosts represents the leading edge of brain research, that multilevel marketing schemes are a way to get rich, and that a mail order gadget (suppressed by the oil companies) will make your car run for free. Continue reading…