Proving Bigfoot Exist | The People and Their Feelings
I have heard arguments and discussions my entire life about the existence of Bigfoot. The arguments tend to focus on the claim that the Bigfoot species exist, the evidence or proof of that existence, and the reasoning– or lack thereof– behind the logic of the proof justifying the claim. I have thought long and hard about what is behind people’s thoughts, feelings, and beliefs regarding the various Bigfoot phenomena, and I have seen most– if not all– of the ideas behind why people think that Bigfoots’ existence hasn’t been proven to the world at large. I’ve heard and read that they are just too elusive, that there aren’t many left so not many are seen because they are in danger of becoming extinct, that the government is involved in a cover-up, that they can make themselves invisible by blending in with their environment or cloaking, that they can move in super-human ways, at remarkable speeds, and using fantastic abilities, that they can step through portals into other dimensions, etc. I have my own ideas on the nature of their existence, based on my personal experiences with the Bigfoot phenomena on at least four occasions now, but the Scientist and Anthropologist in me wanted to get to the heart of the matter by using surveys to find out what people actually thought rather than solely my own or anyone else’s perception of what they thought. In today’s BIGBlog, episode 1 of a BIGBlog Miniseries, I will share with you who the different groups of people with opinions and claims about Bigfoot are and how they would feel if Bigfoot were proven to the world to exist.
So to find out what people reckoned, I decided to do a survey of the members on Bigfoot sites and on my website and social media pages. First, I wanted to know a little about the respondents, so I came up with some basic categories regarding their thoughts on Bigfoot and asked them to label themselves based on just one of those categories. But before I get into the details of those categories and the results of the survey, let me take a quick aside to explain a little something about how this ties into my career as a middle and high school science and STEM teacher.
Every year, I teach my students that there are two types of people in this world: those that will believe it when they see it, and those that will see it when they believe it. This is actually a simplification/ generalization that in the classroom context I use to describe scientific thinking versus other types of thinking, and it ties directly into the point of today’s BIGBlog. At the time when I started thinking about what to ask people on a survey and research investigation into the idea of proving that Bigfoot exists, I had just had my third encounter with the Bigfoot phenomena. With the recent news that both the U.S. Navy and Pentagon have verified the veracity of the UFO video footage released last fall, I became even more interested in how people would respond– particularly through their own feelings and emotions– to news about the authenticated proof of something that is outside of our natural reality. I was fascinated with the way people posted and commented on this incredible news, and I wondered, hypothetically, how people would emotionally respond to the same type of news if instead, it was worldwide disclosure confirming the existence of Bigfoot. I wondered which camps the respondents would fall into– the believe-it-when-they-see-its or the see-it-when-they-believe-its.
Most of the categories of surveyed people fall in the first camp of those that will believe it when they see it– the Knowers, the Believers, and the true Skeptics. The dogmatic and egotistic skeptics, many of them narcissistic trolls, fall into the second camp of those that will see it when they believe it, and there is no sense in arguing with this group because they are unable to think and discuss the topic logically without the fear and pain of cognitive dissonance. Lastly, the true ignorants could care less one way or the other whether Bigfoot exists or not, and will choose to remain ignorant either way. The ignorant don’t fit into my teaching paradigm because, quite simply, I teach my students to be critical thinkers who understand logical arguments and logical fallacies. Nonetheless, we all have the power to choose to remain ignorant of those phenomena in the world that we just simply don’t care about, so I guess an amendment to my lesson above would be that there are three groups and that the third group simply ignores the information so that they don’t have to see it or believe it.
The following were the categories and subcategories I used for the surveys.- Personal encounter. Believers who have encountered or experienced Bigfoot phenomena personally. For instance, heard, smelled, or saw something but not absolutely sure that it was Bigfoot, but cannot fathom what else it could have been.
- Second-hand story. Believers who have accepted (an) account/s from someone they respect and trust but who have not had an encounter themselves.
- Third-hand knowledge. Believers who have learned about the Bigfoot phenomena from the available Bigfoot evidence and believe that the evidence supports the claim that Bigfoot exists but who have not had an encounter themselves.
3. Skeptic. Doubt that Bigfoot exists and questions the veracity of the claim. Some are want-to-believers who need better evidence to convince them of the claim, while others range from borderline-ignorant to gaslighters who abuse, manipulate, deceive, or intimidate. In truth, they won’t accept any evidence although they claim that it would make a believer out of them.
- Institutional dogma. Skeptics who have believed in a set of scientific or religious principles that are unquestionably true, so Bigfoot simply cannot exist due to cognitive dissonance.
- Experiential ego. Skeptics who have spent time outdoors hunting, fishing, camping, hiking, working, etc. but have never knowingly encountered the Bigfoot phenomenon.
- Troll. Trolls are ignorant, wanna-be skeptics that have the need to make deliberately offensive or provocative online content or comments with the aim of upsetting someone or eliciting an angry response from them. The hoaxers of the world also fall into this group, as they are diluting the media’s focus away from the real evidence with their hokum.
- 24% Knowers
- 67% Believers (24% I, 14% II, 29% III)
- 5% Skeptics (0% I, 5% II)
- 4% Ignorants
- 0% Trolls
Now that we have identified the types of people who exist in the Bigfoot world (and the world at large), let’s take a closer look at how proof of the existence of Bigfoot would affect their/ our lives. For the purposes of this BIGBlog miniseries, episode 1 we are going to focus on the individual’s reactions rather than the group reactions (such as social, political, economic, etc.). This BIGBlog miniseries will cover all aspects of the survey results by the end.
To do this, I have broken down the responses I received from a number of surveys that I posted online posing the question, “How do you think you would react to the news that proof of Bigfoots’ existence has been authenticated by the world authorities? How do you think society could react?” I realized from the variety of responses that there was not a black and white, across the board dichotomy of answers to this question, which led me to create and ask more specific questions on subsequent surveys. Organizing this data into categories and breaking the broader question down into more specific questions was difficult. The sections below cover the deeper-dive into the responses and are based on Robert Plutchik’s Wheel of Basic Emotions and his psychological reasoning behind the basic and more complex emotions.
Basic Emotions. The following emotional data was used in the Chronicles of Carlos Facebook page survey (created on Qualtrics.com) Rank the top-three emotional reactions you would have if Bigfoot were proven to exist.- Anger – from annoyance to RAGE.
- Anticipation – from interest to VIGILANCE.
- Disgust – from boredom to LOATHING.
- Fear – from apprehension to TERROR.
- Joy – from serenity to ECSTASY.
- Sadness – from pensiveness to GRIEF.
- Surprise – from distraction to AMAZEMENT.
- Trust – from acceptance to ADMIRATION.
- Unemotional – from reserved to COLD.
- 33% Anticipation (followed by Joy, then Surprise)
- 33% Joy (followed by Anticipation, then Trust)
- 19% Fear and Trust (followed by Surprise, then Unemotional)
- Feeling rejoiceful, wonderful, awesome, etc.
- Feeling positive, confident, assured, etc.
Submission. Results from feeling Trust and Fear.
- Feeling positive, confident, assured, etc.
- Feeling afraid, frightened, horrified, etc.
- Feeling afraid, frightened, horrified, etc.
- Feeling unprepared, shocked, astonished, etc.
- Feeling unprepared, shocked, astonished, etc.
- Feeling sad, miserable, despair, etc.
- Feeling sad, miserable, despair, etc.
- Feeling revulsion, distaste, nausea, etc.
- Feeling revulsion, distaste, nausea, etc.
- Feeling angry, irritated, furious, etc.
- Feeling angry, irritated, furious, etc.
- Feeling expectancy, hope, excitement, etc.
- Feeling expectancy, hope, excitement, etc.
- Feeling rejoiceful, wonderful, awesome, etc.
- Feeling stoic, passionless, emotionless, etc.
- Optimism
- Love
- Submission
- Awe
- Protection: Withdrawal, retreat (activated by Fear and TERROR)
- Destruction: Elimination of barrier to the satisfaction of needs (activated by Anger and RAGE)
- Incorporation: Ingesting nourishment (activated by Trust and ADMIRATION)
- Rejection: Riddance response to harmful material (activated by Disgust and LOATHING)
- Reproduction: Approach, contract, genetic exchanges (activated by Joy and ECSTASY)
- Reintegration: Reaction to loss of nutrient product (activated by Sadness and GRIEF)
- Exploration: Investigating and environment (activated by Anticipation and VIGILANCE)
- Orientation: Reaction to contact with an unfamiliar object (activated by Surprise and AMAZEMENT)
Based on the survey data and this model, the key survival behaviors that drive the respondents’ actions are, in rank order, Exploration, Reproduction, Protection, and Incorporation. No one was driven by Rejection.
- Gain of a valued object | posses | Joy | retain or repeat | gain resources
- Member of one’s group | friend | Trust | groom | mutual support
- Threat | danger | Fear | escape | safety
- Unexpected event | what is it? | Surprise | stop | gain time to orient
- Loss of valued object | abandonment | Sadness | cry | reattach to a lost object
- Unpalatable object | poison | Disgust | vomit | eject poison
- Obstacle | enemy | Anger | attack | destroy the obstacle
- New territory | examine | Anticipation | map | knowledge of the territory
- New territory. The world of Bigfoot is something new, something to be curious about– to examine, anticipate, and to learn about.
- The gain of a valued object. The possibilities of interactions and relationships with Bigfoot give them joy and to them are like the gaining of a valuable object, which would be a new resource for them.
- Threat. The truth about Bigfoots’ existence would cause them to feel danger and to have fear, making them want to escape to safety.
- Member of one’s group. Some felt that Bigfoots’ existence would make them their friends in whom they could trust and groom for mutual support.
- Joy | Sadness
- Trust | Disgust
- Fear | Anger
- Surprise | Anticipation
