January Dust-up

Can a dust-up be one sided?  We think so, well, we think so at this point because we need a dust-up for the month.

This month’s dust-up involves many in bigfootery vs. Todd Standing of Sylvanic productions.  The Toddster made a splash a few years back, claiming amazing footage and the discovery of sylvanic, bigfoot’s shangri la.  He definitely did much promotion, including political action in Canada, eeehh, to get bigfoot some legal coverage from being hunted.  Please note that in the many, many years of bigfootery and people hunting him, as in having the goal of placing him in the cross-hairs, nobody has dragged a carcass out of the woods yet.  Let’s make that last statement more bigfoot believer friendly:  nobody has dragged a carcass out of the woods yet, that we know of – or maybe they just buried it.  The Toddster faded away, claiming a need for money to fund his expeditions to sylvanic.

But in 2010, he’s back.  He’s added a video or two and is making the rounds of the bigfoot internet shows – those paragons of journalism – promoting himself and a new “domicile area”.  Some “bigfoot researchers” smelled something that wasn’t bigfoot when it came to the Toddster and started digging.  Criticism’s leveled so far have included his continued excuse that he has to charge for his videos to recover bandwidth costs because of high-definition, he wished he didn’t have to charge, and he is not making money.  We have heard the I am not making money claim from other carnival barkers of bigfootery, we are just about ready to put it on the checklist for those particular charlatans.  One of the you- tub’in bigfooters has already pointed out in an interview with him that youtube will host in HD, free to load, free to view.  We noticed a BFRO member did not let this money-making idea go by untapped and the BFRO is now promoting a low quality video on youtube that you can download for a fee in better quality elsewhere.  One thing that we can confidently say about “Fourth Level Bigfoot Researchers”, they are not particularly adept at innovation, but they will shamelessly copy an idea if some money is to be had.  But we digress, back to the dust-up.  So criticism #1 leveled against Standing is that he has a lame excuse for charging to view videos.

Another serious charge that we have seen in two places, including the BFF, is that Standing has used multiple personalities on message boards to self promote his products and generally attempt to shape discussions about the sylvanic story.  This charge is backed up by ISP tracking of multiple different commentors posts coming from the same IP. 

Some of the folks in bigfootery are also up in arms over changes in the story that seem to adapt to problems others point out and clear fabrications that are then whisked away with more changes in the story.

While the one-sided discourse, some would claim they have revealed a fraud, has been entertaining, we feel there are many “Fourth Level Bigfoot Researchers” doing at least the same thing, if not worse.  And some get a virtual free pass to continue in their ways while the Toddster gets whacked at pretty badly.   Bigfootery, you gotta love it.

Read Full Post »

Dust Up of the Month, February, 2009

Just like last month’s dust up this one was brewing for many a year.  But this dust up is different in the sense that it involves one of the holy grails of bigfootery, dermal ridges.  Those second and higher level “Bigfooter Researchers” should be aware of the concept of dermal ridges, Chilcutt found them on casts and pointed to them as a characteristic that is not hoaxable, little known (at the time) and indicative of the real deal – a primate’s footprint.  Bigfootery was stirred to amazing heights with this news, a science based finding by a trained individual, it was one of the holy grails that was sought to legitimize bigfoot as a living, breathing, track-laying, moon-braying, sand bar sashaying, WOOOOOOO!!   Sorry, I think I was channeling the Nature Boy Ric Flair there for a moment.  Anyways, the discovery of dermal ridges was big news, finally another small slice  of science had dribbled into bigfootery.

But then came along a guy name Crowley…Mr. Crowley, dun, din, din, dun,  Opps, now channeling Ozzy.  Matt Crowley did some experimentation  and came to a different conclusion that was viewed by some as heresy, that the casting process could at times leave an artifact that looked surprisingly like said dermal ridges.  His conclusion was that a process called desiccation could create voids and cause the substrate supporting  the track to pull casting materials into ridges.  In the simplest terms, desiccation is the process where water is wicked out of a substance, in this case casting materials, compacts the remaining solids in the casting material, and thus creates a ridge like effect.

And now cue  Mellissa Hovey, a gal set on rising to the heights of bigfootery in the fastest of ways.  Some called her a groupie, she seemed to gravitate to fourth level “Bigfoot Researchers” and attempt to wow them in various ways.  Readers may remember Hovey from her involvement in the 2008 Top Bigfootery stories, especially the one entitled SEX.   In my opinion, Hovey set out to use the dermal issue as a notch in her bigfoot belt, after all discrediting someone who had brought doubt to one of the holy grails of bigfootery would be quite an accomplishment.    Good for bigfootery street cred, raise her visibility and popularity, a triple threat.  Her spin on this is that she wanted to learn and do the science, but experiments with an agenda, a desired conclusion and lack of direct replication is not science.

Hovey began posting a series of articles on her findings, parts of which no longer see the light of day in the internet world, even when various cache and archiving sites are referenced to dig them up.  For example, the links in the italics section below do not work, and that particular website blocks archiving bots.  Her conclusions were that she could not replicate the same artifacts of Crowley, therefore his methodology must have been flawed.  Certain tribes of bigfootery celebrated her pseudoscience and conclusion as taking the tarnish off the grail and restoring it to grandeur.   Squatchapedia, a so-so attempt to do a wiki for sasquatch, heralded: AIBR/TBRC member Melissa Hovey endeavored to replicate Crowley’s described procedures, but was unable to obtain the same results, as described in brief articles here and here. 

Crowley countered pointing out deficiencies in her methodology, logic  and conclusions.  Others attempted his experiment and replicated the results, one even found the features in other casts.  Others found artifacts in casts she claimed did  not have them.  Uh oh, the plan to remove the tarnish had not worked, in fact it had attracted others to do replication and study casts,  instead of “casting”  aside doubts they were growing deeper and wider.

And then things got strange, even for the world of bigfootery.  Hovey resulted to accusations of dishonesty against Crowley, par bigfootery spin when on the attack.  There was even questions of how Crowley acquired volcanic materials and if he had violated law by collecting those materials.  Crowley put an end to the latter accusation by producing sales receipts, catalogs and the like.  The hissing continued, with Hovey first attempting to clarify and claim the high ground, then vowing she was done with the subject, attempting to throw the victim card on the table, and then returning to the debate on her own forum in a matter of  a day or two. 

Has the dust settled?  Nope, sides are being picked.  Name calling has escalated, at least among the Hoveyites, and mud (not sure if it is made of authentic onion mountain soil)  is fully being slung.  

My bottom line on dermal ridges, Crowley and others have demonstrated a problem with the casting process.  This problem can be overcome with a sealant spray.  My perspective on the science aspect is that saying artifacts that look like dermal ridges and dermal ridges can exist on the same cast, while possible, will be torn to shreds by critical thinkers.  After all, is there an expert who can tell the difference and want to defend their ability to make that distinction? 

And that is February’s dust up.  Bigfootery gold already, and it is not played out (a prospector term) yet.

Here’s Crowley’s articles.

Here’s Hovey’s articles.

Discussion posts from Crowley are here.

Hovey’s bigfootery gold posts are here, read deep and into the second page for the good stuff. 

Read Full Post »

Dust Up of the Month – January, 2009

Each month The Bigfootery Enquirer will bring readers a dust up of the month.  What is a dust up?  It’s one of the hallmarks of bigfootery, where two or more personalities collide in a public forum over perceived differences, a questioning of one’s expert status or bigfoot pecking order, perhaps an upstart newbie who did not read the “How To” section.  Some call them flame wars, we consider them bigfootery gold.

This month’s dust up started back in July, 2008 and died down until January 1st when one of the principles, Susan Farnsworth (which may be a pen name – remember the advice about handles) re-stoked the fire by responding to some criticisms about her little research group.  The resulting discussion include criticism of the amount of activity they encounter (see the post on is bigfootery a pseudoscience and the shyness effect) and the fact that a good deal of the website is devoted to the selling of bigfootery merchandise (a hallmark of the carney barker level of “Bigfoot Research”).  An interesting counter expose was then posted, particularly damaging in regards to the possibilities of  a hoaxed photo and to issues of consistencies in truth.  Things would continue into the level of bigfootery silver  as a sympathizer/group member jumped into the fray and violated the “be initially submissive” tip for the second level “Bigfoot Researcher” by bragging about a thermal camera they were using and impugning the reputation of this particular forum.

The bragging about  the thermal camera and an amazing image they had captured came back to haunt this person a few days later when someone did a comparison picture of the image and the area in the daylight.  Suddenly the amazing breakthrough picture of a bigfoot, or in this case for marketing purposes the mongolian monster, turned out to be a pine tree in the distance that receives enough sunlight to remain warmer than the surrounding area.  But wait, then the “B” word was uttered.  Evidently some in this misguided group of Arizonians had sent the image on to Tom Biscardi without the knowledge of the person who was operating the thermal camera, bigfootery gold!

But it does not end, those that are posting the content that exposes the transgressions of the group are chastised, they are “hot spot” snoopers and transgressors, they are hardly honorable, they have no manners when compared to Biscardi and crew.  Then a new voice wades in on the side of the Farsworth supporters, criticizing the posters as armchair cut n pasters and not “field researchers”,  another second level “Bigfoot Researcher” tip violation. 

 Then, just when it seems everyone has vented their spleen and there is no more blood to spill, Farnsworth returns with some classic’s right out of the fourth level “Bigfoot Researcher” playbook, she claims the high ground as someone out there producing evidence and that people are taking the words that have come back to haunt them out of context.  And then another hallmark move of the Carney Barker “Bigfoot Researcher” refusal to answer any further questions, let’s take it to personal emails.

What can we learn from this particular dust up in bigfootery?  Plenty.  Often times pride does cometh before the fall  in bigfootery.  One will also find many of my tips for the lower level “Bigfoot Researchers” were violated, which energized the crowd.  One can also find some of the classic strategies employed by the Carney Barker level of researchers when confronted and the kitchen is getting hot.  One can also see the value of those that do mostly inter-net bigfootery, they were able to pretty much uncover and dismantle the credibility of some individuals and groups who were striving for fourth and fifth level “Bigfoot Research”.  Any dust up, and there are many that do, that involves Biscardi is usually at a grand scale.  And finally, this dust up is bigfootery gold and what The Bigfootery Enquirer means by the human drama of bigfootery competition.  One can only hope next month’s dust up is as good.

And for those wanting to investigate further:

The dust up thread:

http://www.bigfootforums.com/index.php?showtopic=22945

The forum that provided a good bit of the fodder for those who dusted up Farnsworth and her crew.  Notice the copy-write notice and the attempt to keep their words and images from haunting them.

http://azcro.lefora.com/forum/

Your mileage may vary, ours are skeptical eyes.

Read Full Post »