Okay, so I'm looking over an event that was taking place fairly close to me. It seemed like it could be a cool event with lots of activities for the whole family. I had never heard of the people putting it on or of any reports from this general area. I'm all for these events that offer family fun and a chance to learn about bigfoot. Many of these events are also very good for our local communities. It brings people into our area and while they are here they spend money and learn about our towns.

As most people know small towns like the ones in my area have struggled financially over the last several years. In our area coal was/is our main industry. The war on coal really hurt many small towns like mine.

Some of our coal reserves have even been mined out over the years or are just not mineable at this time. Many of our local towns have turned to tourism in an effort to boost our economy. We still have beautiful mountains, streams and history that we can share with the world. In many ways I feel the people in our area are a "forgotten people." Our coal is gone, or is not feasible to mine anymore, so our value is just not high on the list anymore.

So, public events are a very good way to get people into our towns and a good way for them to see that our area is so much more that just a place to mine coal.

But I think we need to be honest about things at our bigfoot type events. Putting out false information or misrepresenting things is just not the way to go in my book. These events should be use to share truthful information about the subject. Many people just scoff at the idea of bigfoot, or ghost for that matter, but if we can get them to an event with a willingness to listen and to view the evidence, we must be truthful.

So, that brings me to the point of this post. As I was reading about this fairly close event I read something that made me have questions. In the advertisement it stated there would be a outing/hike to look for bigfoot by CERTIFIED bigfoot guides. Really?

This raised some questions for me. Who is certifying bigfoot guides? How do you become a certified bigfoot guide?  Is there some kind of course you have to take? How much does it cost? and on on.

Folks, to my knowledge there is no such thing as "Certified bigfoot guide". While this is probably not a big deal I would not want to see it become a trend. It creates a false representation of the field and of our knowledge base. Now, if it said something like a bigfoot tour by a certified hiking guide, or by a real bigfoot researcher, that would be different. Really I guess its not a very big deal and could have been just a misunderstanding with the publisher. I hope it was not an attempt to elevate an individual to a level of expertise in a field filled with so much theory and questions. 

Everyone who researches bigfoot must realize, in many ways, we are in uncharted waters. That while we do have some very knowledgeable people, who know what they are doing, there are no experts when it comes to bigfoot. We are all still learning and discovering. We do have some good information and evidence but there is much more to discover about these amazing creatures and many questions to answer.

I say keep having these local events, they are good for our communities. Lets keep people interested in the subject, keep people growing and learning about bigfoot. But lets be honest with what we know and don't know. I know we sometimes present questionable reports, but we just can not blatantly present false information.

If we are honest about ourselves, evidence and the field, people will be more accepting to what we offer. But if they find out we misrepresented ourselves, evidence or the field, then we have probably lost that person forever and our credibility takes a hit.

Just my thoughts about it all.



Thanks
Tom

 
This post by Thomas Marcum, Thomas is the founder/leader of the cryptozoology and paranormal research organization known as The Crypto Crew. Over 20 years experience with research and investigation of unexplained activity, working with video and websites. A trained wild land firefighter and a published photographer, and poet.




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