In answer to the question, "How do you visit the museum?":

As noted at various places on the internet, visitors email me (e-address is in the Cryptomundo posting to which David links), to make arrangements to see the place.

Also, a word to the unselfish and supportive cryptozoology supporters out there, who have already donated from $2 to the one person who sent in $200, thank you! No amount is too small, as it all does add up, and most people are sending along $10 and $20.

This is great.

It gives me hope that this will work out.

Thank you all very much!
Loren

For those people that have not fully explored this story, you are missing a couple important details.

Mark writes: "The photos were taken using a motion-controlled camera with an infra-red flash."

And what does the photographic sequence show before this "juvenile sasquatch" is pictured? Two bear cubs. Yes, the cubs are even in some of the same frames as this not-so-mysterious "other animal."

Mange is a terribly painful, itching ailment, and this youthful bear or even young thin mother, must have been in deep agony to appear as she does in this photo.

Many people have scratched their heads over this one, but I say, it's because of the mites and mange, not because it's a Bigfoot.

Ah, thank you for sharing more on Robert Shea. All good genuises need to be revealed at some point, to enlighten all of us with their stories, real and imagined.

However, regarding Occam's razor, it is sharp and often cuts two ways.

To bring it down to one of the most simple arguments against it, I'll lift the following straight from wikipedia:

Francis Crick has commented on potential limitations of Occam's razor in biology. He advances the argument that because biological systems are the products of (an on-going) natural selection, the mechanisms are not necessarily optimal in an obvious sense. He cautions: "While Ockham's razor is a useful tool in the physical sciences, it can be a very dangerous implement in biology. It is thus very rash to use simplicity and elegance as a guide in biological research."

As Charles Fort said: "One measures a circle, beginning anywhere."

I'm of the mind that Shea found much beyond the blade of Occam's razor, although, of course, that's a good place to begin.

But what do I know? I'll trust his son over the government, any day. :-)

Cryptozoologists are, needless to say, skeptical in our approach. At least the grounded ones I know are.

Reams of mistakes, misidentifications, and mundane fakes come our way. We have to sort through a great deal to come forth with the remarkable bits of evidence, which tend to call for more studies.

But being skeptical is much different than what you get from "debunkers," those who would rather come forth with a dogma that Bigfoot doesn't exist, without even looking.

When someone writes something like this: "Hell, no one has even found scat left behind by this species, hair, or any other item that could be DNA tested and identified as originating from a primate..," they are only displaying their ignorance of the field of hominology.

Of course, all kinds of tangible, testable evidence has been found, and databases exist ready and waiting for the "type specimen." Primate findings have been made, dear crutch aves, of hair, feces, and more.

Next, there's this Morris costume company suit tale. It is a story that has been floating around for only a few years, and yet the people in the Carolinas associated with that factory are now convincing themselves their lame-fitting, disruptive hair pattern fake gorilla suit is "the one."

But this is all about a suspension of reality and a mind-set of true believers. Ask yourself, why is this "Morris suit claim" to be "believed" when all the imagery between the suit and the Patterson footage Bigfoot just don't match?

Critical thinking goes both ways.

The overlap between alternative hippie culture and an interest in UFOs was crystal clear within the world of music. For example, UFOs populated Cat Stevens' "Longer Boats" (1970) lyrics, which included this beginning:

Longer boats are coming to win us
They're coming to win us, they're coming to win us
Longer boats are coming to win us
Hold on to the shore, they'll be taking the key from the door.

I don't want no god on my lawn
Just a flower I can help along
'Cause the soul of no body knows
how a flower grows... Oh how a flower grows.

Back in the day, Cat Stevens (who today, of course, is Yusuf Islam) certainly was not covert about what his song was depicting:

"It's a story about space ships. I think we have or will be contacted by some other force outside our own world. We must accept that we are not the only ones alive." - Cat Stevens, from a 1972 interview/album review for Music Time magazine.

But then what does this all mean? Will some future Fortean historian study, in some depth, the television ads of beef jerky and Sasquatch? Oh ya, we already are doing that!

;-)

The reporter got it right. Those two footcasts were taken by Washington State law enforcement officers who had just seen the Bigfoot cross the road in front of them. The casts, therefore, were accepted by them to represent the tracks of a Bigfoot. I display them as such.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Cryptozoologists are natural skeptics, although that is little understood by debunkers.

In direct response to David's blog and the comment poster #1, I wrote this new blog:

Boing Boing Frogs

http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/boing-frogs/

Boing Boing is a plot by the Reptilians to take over the world via overwhelming certain media outlets with accurate information from a Happy Mutants' POV.

I am from Maine, so I can start such rumors and rumors of rumored plots.

8-)

They could have been made from mammoth ivory, of course, which is completely legal, and does not involve killing any living animals. I see someone wrote saying they worked in this medium.

Besides living elephant and hippopotamus ivory, as mentioned above, ivory can come from walrus, but also from fossil mammoth and narwhal ivory. Probably the most bizarre ivory used is from warthogs.

Without the sample, we may never know what animal these unique art objects came from, but thank you for photographing them. Truly intriguing.

If legal and with the share change, I would have picked them up.

Actually, Point Pleasant, West Virginia, residents are technically not "hillbillies," due to the fact the town is located on the banks of the Ohio River. A river-based economy, and later tourist-oriented community developed here with individuals who are not your typical stereotyped Appalachian locals.

Also, of note, the town is where, on October 10, 1774, the Battle of Point Pleasant occurred (when Chief Cornstalk was killed - and thus the Curse of Chief Cornstalk began). The event is celebrated in Point Pleasant as the first battle of the American Revolutionary War, a distinction made official by an act of Congress in 1910.

To say that the 100 verified eyewitnesses to the misnamed "Mothman" (it actually was more like a giant six ft tall owl) were "scared" and startled by their encounters in 1966-1967, however, is true.

For those who want to open their minds, Fort's words, Fortean inspired literature, and a Fortean point of view have served many of us well for decades.

To share another piece of "free" sharing taking place with Fort's works, please note that Mr. X's excellent website

http://www.resologist.net/

has had free, searchable, online versions of all of the following for a dozen years, mostly ignored except by a minority of us. Mr. X (his legal name) has posted:

- Books by Charles Hoy Fort (The Book of the Damned, New Lands, Lo!, and Wild Talents)
- Short stories, The Outcast Manufacturers (a novel and its serial edition), Many Parts (an autobiography), and unpublished writings by Charles Hoy Fort
- The correspondence of, and to, Charles Hoy Fort
- Notes written and collected by Charles Hoy Fort
- Articles about Charles Hoy Fort (including reviews of his books)

Still, it is always good to see high quality publishers reprint Charles Fort's books (as Cosimos did recently in paperbacks) and more access given, as per the varied e-versions mentioned in Mark Frauenfelder's blog.

Thank you for the information,
Loren Coleman