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This is a guest post by Gordon Ambrose from The discerning man's squatch. Stop by his facebook page and give it a like. Gordon is a bigfoot enthusiast who employs critical thinking when looking at bigfoot evidence.
Anatomy of a Hoaxer and Why they are Fascinated with Us.
Why do some people try to pull the wool over other’s eyes? I think there are many reasons and to name a few, there is to push an agenda, to gain notoriety and to make a buck. Some of course are just for fun as well, so not all hoaxers come from the same mold, but those who deliberately misinform to gain a profit of some kind, we should try and peer inside their heads.
While I have been interested in Cryptozology ever since I was very young, the hoaxer is only a fairly recent phenomenon for me. I certainly was aware of their existence, but I mainly thought of it as innocent fun and a buyer beware sort of thing. I knew money could be made off of a good hoax and we have PT Barnum from Barnum and Bailey to thank for the famous quote “A sucker is born every minute” to know that if you make an outrageous claim, there will be many who will line up to buy what you are selling without so much as a second glance. (Actually he says a customer is born every minute, but when quoted customer is usually replaced with sucker and I believe that is because that is what he meant) In that respect you only have yourself to blame if you have fallen for such foolery.
As far as Bigfoot is concerned, hoaxers could be behind the brunt of the evidence pile. I am not making that assertion at this time, but I will contend that Barnum’s suckers have given many with a mind to, a fertile field in which to sow their seeds.
So what hides in the mind of one who would take advantage of a gullible soul? Some I think pull hoaxes as reenactments of something they feel they have experienced, but were not fortunate enough to capture anything proof wise that would substantiate their claims. They were unprepared for their once in a lifetime chance, so go about re-creating proof to back their story. These are not necessarily bad people, but they are not doing us any favors. One of my favorite videos could be one such act. The Freeman films, which I love, could possibly be Paul reenacting something he believed in, but wasn’t fortunate enough to capture on film. On this one I hope I am wrong, because it is one of my all-time favorite videos.
Another type of hoaxer has no love for Bigfoot other than the dollar signs he imagines will line his wallet. He is all about using ignorance to gain his notoriety and money. Of those, there are lazy ones and ones that go to extremes. The best videos and photos we have ever seen are one of two things. They are either a well-made hoax or the real deal. So mostly we know the names of those who are either very lucky or very creative in an unscrupulous way.
I want to talk about two pieces of evidence and describe the difference between them. The first is the Patterson/Gimlin film and the second is the Tent video by Rick Dyer. One by the way I have no doubt whatsoever is a hoax and the other I consider to be the pinnacle of Sasquatch videos, hoax or not.
With the PG film, the vidographers have the benefit of time and the lack of technology back then, to bolster their claim. While it is not up to the audience to prove a hoax was committed for it to be so, with PG the attempt to debunk it has gone on for nearly 50 years. I will even go so far as to say, with time and technology, there has only been a further push to its authenticity. This was not just a lucky, chance encounter which I had believed for a long time, but a two plus week excursion in the California Mountains where at the end they hit gold or at least something just as valuable. So hoax or not, what Patterson and Gimlin did was put forth the idea that a good hoax can make you almost as much money as the real deal.
Rick Dyer’s tent video and claims on the other hand fall flat on the source all by itself. You would seemingly think a hoaxer would not get a pass on a second, third, fourth or even fifth attempt at a failed Bigfoot ploy, but then you would be wrong. Why? Because what Barnum said is very true. It really comes down to two things. A person wanting something so badly that they suspend rational and critical thinking and second, as preposterous as the claims may be, they are made unflinchingly by the person making them.
So as a believer in Dyer, you cannot doubt that you have something invested in his claims that comprise the majority of your proof, because honestly, everything points to this being just another hoax and I mean everything, yet he still has holdouts.
So why can those who believe, take the scant little, and ignore the rest and form a belief that should be just the opposite? Because they need it to be true. If you at this point believe Rick at all, you either have not been paying attention or you have so much invested in his story that you will never see it any other way.
In some ways we can learn a great deal about ourselves when we watch this particular hoax in action. It tells us that there are people that go through life based on faith alone and no critical thinking that if used only in small amounts would steer you clear of this. I agree that some things in life we (the layman)do take on faith, protons and electrons for example, but Bigfoot evidence should not be one of them. We know the hoaxer is alive and well and it is his job to fool you no matter how outlandish his tale.
Hoaxers I am afraid are not a rarity and pop up you could almost say with some certainty if not weekly, monthly. You can say “bad on them” for doing this, but I think a great deal of the blame lies on our shoulders as many in our hobby have such a high willingness to believe, that they call a duck a duck before seeing if it walks or quacks like one. The hoaxer knows we can become enamored with shadows and tufts of blurry fur in the distance, so not only do we encourage them to hoax, but make it easy for them. There aren’t many other hobbies that allow such shoddy evidence to influence their core beliefs on a subject.
If I was president of this club (sarcasm) I would change the laws that govern our proof meters and once and for all state that if it is a blobsquatch, you might as well call it a shadow of something known and not…. a possible unknown. It’s fun to speculate, but it should never hold any weight lest we give hoaxers the very ammunition they use against us in their pranks.
I know I will never be able to convince all of you, but if we were to begin a trend of higher standards, we could find ourselves with a much more fulfilling interest and begin to discourage some of the would be hoaxers. There is a reason why wildlife magazines do not employ photographers who snap blurry pictures of any other animal and that is because that publication would quickly loose tenability and as a result, subscribers. In some way, that is why we are a minority, because we have some pretty crappy photographers, but still keep them on the payroll so to speak. I say that our hoax to evidence ratio is a direct result of our willingness to pay them any attention with crap that wouldn’t see the light of day in any other medium.
This article does reflect some of my frustrations as of late, but should not be misconstrued as I am giving up on this subject, because I truly do love it and I am fond of many, many in the community. This page was originally given birth by the very same thought process and I only want to help give us all something tangible to sink our teeth into and not something that others will scoff at. If Bigfoot exists, we should not fear better evidence, nor should we tolerate those who sully it at our expense.
You all have heard of the game three card Monty. You should know you have no chance of winning at that game, at least in the long run because you are being cheated by sleight of hand and not because you are a poor gambler. So why do we even walk up to the table when we know we can never win when it comes to evidence of the blurry and shadowy kind? Let’s not play a game that we can never win and call a spade a spade or a shadow just that, and no longer give a hoaxer a fertile field in which to ply his wares. Scrutiny is “OUR” prerogative and if it is not utilized we only invite more obscurity and those who use it against us.
So do you as a Bigfoot fan think we should continue to debate the blurry and shadowy? Do you agree that by having our standards low we invite more hoaxing or do you think it is just being open minded to debate it all? My point is, if you can’t tell if what you are looking at is a rock, a log, a bird or a Bigfoot, then really all that evidence is good for is knowing where to put your camera next time so that you can show us something more conclusive. It is ok to sit on your evidence if you are out in the field until you get something that adds up to something we can really discuss intelligently. I crave that new standard for all of us and believe me, while it will slow down a little bit in our blogosphere, there will still be evidence we can all get behind.
~Gordon
Ready, set…Bigfoot!
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