Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal: yeti footprint casts

Showing posts with label yeti footprint casts. Show all posts

Thursday, November 21, 2024

Clear footage of Yeti/Bigfoot creatures

Rakshasa is the ancient Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist name
Neither those of Egypt nor Mexico: this is the world’s oldest pyramid in formerly Buddhist Indonesia, and it's the size of a mountain

Wednesday, May 18, 2016

Sasquatch is REAL to Native Americans (video)

Xochitl, Pat Macpherson, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly; Monster Quest; John Two Birds

Native American Bigfoot: THE LEGEND IS REAL

Native American Medicine

This is a documentary on the Native American lore of Sasquatch (Halkomelem sásq'ets, Buddhist yakshi and yeti), popularly called "Bigfoot" as if there were only one.

It examines ancient stories and folklore to uncover the truth about the mythical human band or tribe of ogre, the "Wild Hairy Men of the Mountain."

It looks at what Native American legends say about this ancient tribe of humans (ogres) used in the creation of Homo sapiens.

True story: Native American recounts terrifying tale of a Sasquatch

reeking havoc around a reservation and what the tribe did about it.

Native American Elder Explains
(Morrow Chronicles) Part 1: Medicine Man John Two Birds talks about Billy Meier, humanoid ETs, and Sasquatch (the peaceful and violent varieties) with Helga Morrow in 1996. Part 2

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Yeti filmed in Russia (video)

Pfc. Sandoval, Pat Macpherson, Seth Auberon, Wisdom Quarterly; Julian Robinson (MailOnline)

Russians believe they have captured footage of elusive Yeti in a remote patch of woodland. It shows a "bear-like" figure covered in hair emerging from an area of snow-covered trees in the south-western Adygeya Republic.

According to some Russians this dark figure stumbling through the snowy woods is a Yeti [technically an Almasty] -- and they even have a footprint. The footage shows a figure covered in hair emerging from an area of trees.

ALMAS: (Mongolian Алмас, Bulgarian Алмас, Chechen Алмазы, Turkish Albıs), Mongolian for "wild man," is a purported hominid cryptozoological species reputed to inhabit the Caucasus and Pamir Mountains of Central Asia, and the Altai Mountains of southern Mongolia. The creature is not currently recognized or cataloged by science, whose [white-labcoat-clad priests] do not believe in the possibility that such mega-fauna cryptids exist, because of the improbably large numbers necessary to maintain a breeding population, and because climate and food supply issues make their survival in reported habitats unlikely...

"Bear-like" creature was on camera for just seconds before disappearing.
Creature was spotted in the Adygeya Republic in south-western Russia.
The Russian team believe they have captured footage of the elusive Yeti.
Others question its authenticity and say it was a stunt to bring in tourism.

Taking plaster cast of footprint (DM)

This is the moment a group of Russians captured video footage of what they believed was a Yeti walking through the woods. The footage shows a "bear-like" figure covered in hair emerging from an area of snow-covered trees in the south-western Adygeya Republic before disappearing again seconds later.

A team had set out in search of the mysterious creature after local television reported that it had been sighted in a remote region an hour's drive away from the city of Adygeisk. They said they had questioned residents at a mountainside lodge who claimed to have seen it and, on speaking to others in the area, managed to secure reports of several independent sightings.

Yeti in Buddhist Bhutan (Snow Walker video)

The group claim they heard the crunching of snow as they headed out to investigate before capturing footage of the creature, which they describe as covered in hair. Afterwards, they took a plaster cast of a large footprint they said they found in the snow.

Eyewitness Ludmila Hristoforova who spoke to local television said: "The creature was big, looking like a bear, but not a bear. From the door we've seen something big and shaggy." More + VIDEO

$Pic shows: Dogs are kept in cages where buyers can select the one they want.\n\nChinese street traders at this illegal market selling dog and cat meat are chucking the animals in a nearby river to drown them to avoid distressing customers.\n\nThe illegal market has sprung up alongside the banks of the Xi River in Foshan city in southeast China¿s Guangdong province where authorities have done nothing to stop the booming business in fresh dog and cat meat.\n\nThe animals are kept in cages where buyers can select the one they want, and can either take it home alive or pay to have it butchered and cut up into fresh meat in front of them.\n\nThe traders said that people had complained about seeing the animals which were being sold live killed in front of them, and as a result had come up with the alternative to kill them humanely.\n\nTrader Ming She told local TV: "We want to prove our customers that what we sell is fresh unlike some of the shops in town, but with no facilities to kill wha$ Food shopping, Chinese-style: Customers browse animals sold for slaughter...

Please don't kill or eat animals.

Dogs are kept in cages where buyers can select the one they want. Chinese street traders at this illegal market that sells dog and cat meat are chucking the animals in a nearby river to drown them to avoid distressing customers. The illegal market has sprung up alongside the banks of the Xi River in Foshan City in southeast China's Guangdong province, where authorities have done nothing to stop the booming business in fresh dog and cat meat. The animals are kept in cages, where buyers can select the one they want, and can either take it home alive or pay to have it [drowned in the river then] butchered and cut up into fresh meat in front of them. The traders said that people had complained about seeing the animals, which were being sold live, killed in front of them. As a result they had come up with the alternative killing method, which they consider more humane. She told local TV: "We want to prove our customers that what we sell is fresh unlike some of the shops in town, but with no facilities to kill..."

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Yeti (Asian Bigfoot) finger discovered

io9.com; BBC; DailyMail.co.uk; FactFictionandConjecture.ca; Wisdom Quarterly

The Yeti specimen was recently rediscovered in a British medical museum. In Buddhist cosmology a yakshi is a female ogre or demon.

The Curious Case of the Severed Yeti Finger

Hill, who first encountered the specimen while perusing a collection of human and primate skeletons at the College's Museum [asked himself,] "What was the story behind this finger, I wondered, and how did it end up in London? Where was the rest of the ‘Pangboche hand'? And what truth was there behind the label's claim that this finger belonged to the Yeti of ancient legend?" Hill unravelled a long and winding history with wealthy American oilmen funding Nepalese expeditions to investigate Yetis; a secluded Buddhist Monastery, hidden away in a remote Himalayan mountain range that once housed not only the Yeti finger, but an entire hand...

In 1974, Lap Kadoma -- the wife of a Nepalese Sherpa -- had a close encounter with a Yeti. The legendary cryptid, Kadoma would later recount, had managed to sneak up on her from behind before heaving her into a river. When Kadoma regained consciousness, she found the bodies of several dead yaks strewn nearby.

Kadoma's account of her encounter with a Meh-te, or "Man-bear," as Yetis are known in Nepal, may sound far fetched. But reports like hers are common in the Himalayan regions of Nepal and Tibet, where legends of the mythical creature have been passed down for generations. Far less common, by comparison, is physical evidence for the Yetis' existence.

One such specimen, known to curators at the Royal College of Surgeons' Hunterian Museum in London as the "Yeti's finger," was recently re-discovered... More

The Daily Mail backed the Yeti Everest Expedition in 1954, where a team of scientists managed to track several trails of giant footprints on their trek.

YETI SIGHTINGS (BBC)

1925: Photographer N.A. Tombazi, with the Royal Geographical Society, reported seeing a creature and its prints near the Zemu Glacier on Kanchenjunga (Mountain, Nepal).
1953: Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reported seeing large footprints while climbing Mount Everest, Nepal.
1972: A Yeti attack on the wife of a Sherpa was reported.
2011: Kemerovo State University in Russia is setting up a research institute to look into the growing number of reports of Yeti sightings in Siberia, 15 in the last year.

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Bigfoot exists; PR campaigns seed doubt

Wisdom Quarterly, RT.com

Evidence for the Yeti or Abominable Snowman tumbles in from Siberia (RT.com)

We have gotten a flood of comments sharing news stories that Yetis (yakshas in Buddhist cosmology) and Bigfoot exist.

It was only a matter of time before the powers that be and "official" science gatekeepers (journal editors, faculty committees, funding approvers, etc.) relented in the face of mounting modern evidence.

Never mind the centuries-old evidence handed down among indigenous people all over the world. Maybe there's still a chance, maybe this story can still be buried. No "civilized" person believed in the existence of mountain gorillas until a century ago, and most of the world still has no idea what a bonobo is as they are quickly pushed to extinction.

(today24news.com)

Public relations campaigns have been orchestrated to dismiss and ridicule reports for decades. It does not take much to seed doubt and ridicule. Governments have known for a long time about Bigfoot, other monsters, and alien visitors. But we sleep well in the Matrix not knowing about such things, which could bring us closer to the truth and take us farther from capitalist-consumer-wage-slavery.

(bigfootlunchclub.com)

Within a Hair of Bigfoot
RT.com

The Russian Academy of Sciences has said it is highly likely that the Bigfoot really exists. Experts came to the conclusion after carrying out a microscopic analysis of hairs believed to belong to the yeti found in the Kuzbass region of Siberia.

In early October, professors from the USA, Canada, Sweden, Estonia, and Russia came to the Kuzbass region to look for evidence that would prove the existence of the Bigfoot. The trip was not in vain -- footprints apparently belonging to the yeti were found dotted all over the inside of the Azass cave where the creature is thought to live.

The follicular evidence was found stuck to a huge footprint on the cave’s clay floor. Professors from Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Idaho Universities got themselves a couple of precious hairs each to do the necessary research. The hairs turned out to be identical to ones that allegedly belonged to a Californian yeti, another from the Russian Urals, and a third from the Leningrad region, writes Komsomolskaya Pravda.

The first to make the fantastic discovery was Prof. Valentin Sapunov, a member of the New York Academy, St. Petersburg Scientific University -- a geneticist and biophysicist.

“In St. Petersburg the hairs were examined through a special microscope,” said Valentin Sapunov. “This is a complicated, but a very efficient method. The hairs were sprayed with a chemical composition, and then various slices of the hairs were examined. This gave us an opportunity to draw comparisons between the hairs of different biological species,” the professor explained. More

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

"Bigfeet" - Many Hominid Sub-species?

Ken Gerhard, Field Researcher (Center for Fortean Zoology)

North American Bigfoot (Sasquatch), US Pacific Northwest (History Channel)

Different sub-species?

Are there different sub-species of Bigfoot [like the Indonesian Orang Pendek at left]? A recent discussion with Arizona cryptozoologist Alex Hearn prompted this query.

I have personally researched hundreds of reports and have observed that there seem to be many variations of these mystery hominids that are reported around North America (in fact, the world).

There are five hair colors that are usually described : brown, black, reddish, blonde, and white or gray. Sometimes the head and body hair is long and shaggy, sometimes uniformly short. Generally, people describe these beings as being massive and muscular, standing 6 to 9 feet tall.

Woman claims to catch Bigfoot on iPhone (examiner.com)

Of course, there are reports of true giants, but there are also smaller, man-sized, even slender creatures. The face is sometimes portrayed as apelike. But more often it is human-like or somewhere in between. They typically walk upright but sometimes go down on all fours. Are we dealing with regional sub-species?

Is Bigfoot some type of hominid (genus Homo) like us, individuals with distinct characteristics?

The Rebecca Black Monster is back to terrorize public

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Science looks for Yeti; Knobby Bigfoot a fake

Science May Start Tracking the Yeti

Kevin Makice (Wired.com)

(What will a yeti look like close up? Something like this Australian square poop dropping wombat). Is the yeti of mythology a surviving tribe of Neandertals?

Maybe science will tell us. As geeks, we are encouraged to suspend disbelief while simultaneously challenging everything we see and hear. We want to believe, but our geek roots [want scientific validation for everything before we allow ourselves to believe, without understanding how "science" actually works as a politically and financially tainted endeavor far from objectivity].

That tension is possibly being resolved on one front. The Russians are establishing a scientific institute on the study of yetis (Buddhist yakshis, ogres), hairy ape-like creatures rumored to inhabit the Himalayas. Yes, Abominable Snow Beings (yetis).

Officials in coal-mining region of Kemerovo Oblast announced plans today to open a Yeti Institute at the Kemerovo State University, a 38-year-old higher education entity in western Siberia. KSU boasts 31,000 students and is best known for reviving regional languages, like Shor. Yeti researcher Igor Burtsev reportedly claimed that 30 Russian scientists are currently studying yetis, and the Institute could allow them to better collaborate.

“We think that the yeti is a separate branch of human evolution. It lives in harmony with nature,” Burtsev was quoted as saying. Burtsev believes there may be a local community of these creatures that are Neandertals who survived extinction. More

Knobby Bigfoot video a fake

(Digital News Report) A [very fake looking] five second video of Bigfoot scurrying across a road in North Carolina has millions of views on YouTube. The user, Knobbylives, claims to have shot the footage on the Golden Valley Church Road, Shelby, NC on Tuesday, March 22, 2011. The creature shuffled across the road and went into the woods, according to the poster.... More

What does it mean to be "human"? - Humans evolved for endurance running - Moby Duck: 28,000 plastic ducks lost at sea

Saturday, September 12, 2009

In search of Yeti in Indonesia

Team in search of mystery yeti-like creature
(Thisisnorthdevon.co.uk) Sept. 10, 2009
Mystery animal researchers from Woolsery are heading to Indonesia in search of a yeti-like creature. Four explorers from the Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ), the world's largest mystery animal research organization based in Woolsery, will be searching through the jungles of Sumatra hunting for the orang-pendek.

Buddhist cosmology recognizes the existence of yetis, called yakkha in the exclusively Buddhist language Pali. (See preserved scalp and hand at right). They are hybrid-human woodland protectors and ogres. The females are reputed to be particularly vicious guarding themselves and the forest.

They are fearsome cannibals such that the word, yaksha in Sanskrit, is often translated as "demon." But the ancient cosmology recognizes many kinds of creatures of interest to cryptozoologists. They are flesh and blood but capable of great stealth and apparent cloaking or dematerialization. There is far more going on in the solar system, and this planet in particular, than most of us are aware. But ancient seers and modern meditators (like Siddhartha living in the forest before becoming enlightened was able to see, as depicted at left) can verify the existence of these "unseen beings."

The yeti-like creature is described as a powerfully built and upright-walking beast, which the CFZ believe may be related to the orangutan and the yeti of mainland Asia. The Kubu people, the first inhabitants of Sumatra, will aid the team. This tribe and their chief are said to have seen the creature in their poorly explored jungle homelands.

The expedition's zoologist, Richard Freeman, said: "The orang-pendek is especially interesting as it is an ape that walks upright rather than on all fours. It may show us how our own ancestors first began bipedal locomotion. New species are turning up in Indonesia all the time — it is the real life lost world."

The CFZ said that huge horned snakes, alleged to be 30 feet (ten metres) long, and a savage golden cat with a stubby tail and large canine fangs have also been reported in the Indonesian jungles.

Wildlife photographer Jeremy Holden and Debbie Martyr, head of the Indonesian tiger conservation group, are both said to have seen the orang-pendek in the past. Joining Richard on the adventure will be team leader Adam Davis, Dr. Chris Clark, and Dave Archer. Source

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Monsters, Ghosts, and Gods: Why We Believe

Robert Roy Britt (LiveScience.com Managing Editor, 8/18/2008)

Bigfoot hunter Tom Biscardi holds a photo of what he claims to be the mouth and teeth of a deceased Bigfoot or Sasquatch creature during a Palo Alto press conference on 8/15/08 (AP Photo/Ben Margot).

Monsters are everywhere these days, and belief in them is as strong as ever. What's harder to believe is why so many people buy into hazy evidence, shady schemes, and downright false reports that perpetuate myths that often have just one ultimate truth: They put money in the pockets of their purveyors.

The bottom line, according to several interviews with people who study these things: People want to believe, and most simply can't help it.

"Many people quite simply just want to believe," said Brian Cronk, a professor of psychology at Missouri Western State University. "The human brain is always trying to determine why things happen, and when the reason is not clear, we tend to make up some pretty bizarre explanations."

There's a related question: Does belief in the paranormal have anything to do with religious belief? The answer to that question is decidedly nuanced, but studies point to an interesting conclusion: People who practice religion are typically encouraged not to believe in the paranormal, but rather to put their faith in one deity, whereas those who aren't particularly active in religion are more free to believe in Bigfoot or consult a psychic.

"Christians and New Agers, paranormalists and so on all have one thing in common: a spiritual orientation to the world," said sociology Professor Carson Mencken of Baylor University.

Tall tales
A tale last week by three men who said they have remains of Bigfoot in a freezer was reported by many Web sites as anywhere from final proof of the creature to at least a very compelling case to keep the fantasy ball rolling and cash registers ringing for Bigfoot trinkets and tourism. (All three men involved make money off the belief in this creature). Even mainstream media treated a Friday press conference about the "finding" as news.

Hunter Tom Biscardi, center, is swamped by members of the media as he distributes photos of what are said to both a deceased and a living Bigfoot or Sasquatch creature during a media conference on 8/15/08 (AP Photo/Ben Margot).

Reactions by the public ranged from skeptical curiosity to blind faith. "I believe they do exist, but I'm not sure about this," said one reader reacting to a story on LiveScience that cast doubt on the claim. "I guess we will find out...if this is on the up and up," wrote another. "However, that said, I know they exist."

A preliminary test on the supposed Bigfoot found nothing but the DNA of humans and an opossum, a small, cat-like creature. Last week in Texas there was also another sensational yet debunkable sighting of chupacabra, a beast of Latin-American folklore. The name means "goat sucker." In this case, law enforcement has daylight video footage from a cruiser of an unidentified creature.

Ellie Carter, a patrol trainee with the DeWitt County sheriff's office, saw the beast and was, of course, widely quoted. "It was this -- thing, looking right at us," she said. "I think that's a chupacabra!" After watching a video of the beast taken by a sheriff's deputy patrolling the area, biologist Scott Henke of Texas A&M University said, "It's a dog for sure," according to a story on Scientific American's Web site.

Meanwhile, the sheriff who has never seen any animal in the area like this did nothing to tamp down rampant speculation, expressing delight that he might have a monster on his hands. "I love this for DeWitt County," said Sheriff Jode Zavesky, who would presumably be just as thrilled to let Dracula or a werewolf run free.

With that kind of endorsement and the human propensity to believe in just about anything, it's clear that Bigfoot and chupacabra are just two members in a cast of mythical characters and dubious legends that will likely never go away.

In a 2006 study, researchers found a surprising number of college students believe in psychics, witches, telepathy, channeling, and a host of other questionable ideas. A full 40% said they believe houses can be haunted.

Why are people so eager to accept flimsy and fabricated evidence in support of unlikely and even outlandish creatures and ideas? Why is the paranormal realm, from psychic predictions to UFO sightings, so alluring to so many?

This image provided by Bigfoot Global LLC, shows what is claimed by them to be the mouth area of Bigfoot (AP Photo/Bigfoot Global LLC).

The gods must be crazy
Since people have been people, "experts" figure, they have believed in the supernatural, from gods to ghosts and every sort of monster in between.

"While it is difficult to know for certain, the tendency to believe in the paranormal appears to be there from the beginning," explained Christopher Bader, a Baylor sociologist and colleague of Mencken. "What changes is the content of the paranormal. For example, very few people believe in faeries and elves these days [in Buddhist terms, bhumi-devas and yakkhas]. But as belief in faeries faded, other beliefs, such as belief in UFOs, emerged to take their place."

Figuring out why people are this way is a little trickier. "It is an artifact of our brain's desire to find cause and effect," Cronk, the psychology professor, said in an email interview. "That ability to predict the future is what makes humans 'smart,' but it also has side effects like superstitions [and] belief in the paranormal."

"Humans first started believing in the supernatural because they were trying to understand things they couldn't explain," says Benjamin Radford, a book author, paranormal investigator, and managing editor of Skeptical Inquirer magazine. "It's basically the same process as mythology: At one point people didn't understand why the sun rose and set each day, so they suggested that a chariot pulled the sun across the heavens."

Before modern scientific explanations of germ theory, explained Radford, who writes the "Bad Science" column for LiveScience, people didn't understand how diseases could travel from one person to another. "They didn't understand why a child was stillborn, or why a drought occurred, so they came to believe that such events had supernatural causes," he said.

"All societies have invoked the supernatural to explain things beyond their control and understanding, especially good and bad events," Radford said. "In many places -- even today -- people believe that disasters or bad luck is caused by witches or curses."

This raises a bigger question: With science [and its belief in a supreme deity it calls Rational Empiricism] having answered so many questions in the past couple of centuries, why do paranormal beliefs remain so strong?

Related to religion?
Sometimes the belief in curses crosses paths with religion, as was the case in 2005 when Televangelist John Hagee (whose endorsement was solicited and received by presidential hopeful John McCain) blamed Hurricane Katrina on God's wrath for a gay parade that had been scheduled for the Monday of the storm's arrival:

"I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they are -- were recipients of the judgment of God for that," Hagee said at the time, reiterating the belief in 2006.
That might lead one to assume religion and paranormal beliefs are intertwined. But in a 2004 survey, at the researchers at Baylor found just the opposite.

"Paranormal beliefs are very strongly negatively related to religious belief," study team member Rod Stark said this week.

Another study, of 391 U.S. college students done in 2000, found that participants who did not believe in Protestant doctrine were most likely to believe in reincarnation, contact with the dead, UFOs, telepathy, prophecy, psychokinesis, or healing. Believers were the least likely to buy into the paranormal. "This may partly reflect opinions of Christians in the samples who take biblical sanctions against many 'paranormal' activities seriously," the Wheaton College researchers wrote.

Cronk, the psychologist, did a small survey of 80 college students and found no connection between religiosity and paranormal belief. But a 2002 study in Canada did find a correlation between religious beliefs and paranormal beliefs, Cronk notes. He figures that among other explanations, Canadians may not have the same belief systems as U.S. residents.

"My guess is that religiosity has a lot to do with how you were raised, and less to do with genetics," Cronk said. "Those people who may have a high genetic susceptibility to 'faith-based knowledge' may end up being highly religious or may end up having belief in the paranormal depending on how they were raised. Those people less susceptible to that method of forming beliefs may still end up being highly religious if they were raised in a religious family."

(uncrate.com)

Religion vs. paranormal: more religion, less belief
Mencken, the Baylor sociologist, says sacrifice and stigma (for holding ideas outside the group norm) keep the paranormal at bay among the highly religious. He has two papers forthcoming that are based on a national survey of 1,700 people.

The first, to be published in the journal Sociology of Religion in 2009, reveals this: "Among Christians, those who attend church very often (and are exposed to stigma and sacrifice within their congregations) are least likely to believe in the paranormal," Mencken told LiveScience.

"Conversely, those Christians who do not attend church very often (maybe once or twice a year) are the most likely to hold paranormal beliefs." A third group, which he calls naturalists, do not hold supernatural views, Christian or paranormal.

Another study to published in December in the Review of Religious Research, shows that those who go to church "are much less likely to consult horoscopes, visit psychics, purchase New Age items," and so on, Mencken said. "However, among those Christians who do not attend church, there is a much higher level of participation in these phenomena."

Related to education: more education, more belief
Profiling the typical Bigfoot believer turns out to be as challenging as determining the scientific methodology of a psychic, however. "Perhaps amazingly, [paranormal beliefs] are not related at all to education," Stark said. "Ph.D.s are as likely as high school dropouts to believe in Bigfoot, Loch Ness Monster, ghosts, etc."

The 2006 study of college students, done by Bryan Farha at Oklahoma City University and Gary Steward Jr. of the University of Central Oklahoma, reached a different conclusion: Belief in the paranormal -- from astrology to communicating with the dead -- increases during college, rising from 23% among freshmen to 31% in seniors and 34% among graduate students.

Bader, the sociologist at Baylor, and his colleagues teamed up with the Gallup organization to conduct a national survey of 1,721 people in 2005 and found that nearly:

30% think it is possible to influence the physical world through the mind alone.
(Another 30% were undecided on that point).
More than 20% figure it's possible to communicate with the dead.
Nearly 40% believe in haunted houses.
Asked if "creatures such as Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster will one day be discovered by science," 18.8% agreed.
(Another 25.9% were undecided).

Bhutan's National Director of Conservation, Sangay Wangchuk, stands near plaster casts of footprints from various Yetis, in Thimpu on 3/5/08. This remote and mountainous Buddhist country of unspoiled forests now faces encroachment by modernity (AP Photo/Saurabh Das).

In a remote Himalayan village, on the other hand, belief in Bigfoot's cousin, the Yeti, is seen by some as a sign of ignorance. [Others understand it as a practical reality of living in the area, while others accept it as a staple of the body of religious knowledge handed down from a time when it was understood.]

Media madness
Today's ubiquitous and often one-sided, promotional coverage of the paranormal, both on the Internet and TV, perpetuate myths and folklore as well or better than any ancient storyteller.

Fiction and belief masquerade as fact and real news, feeding our 24/7 appetite for information. Scientists are left with an impossible task: proving something does not exist [rather than being neutral, unprejudiced, and willing to investigate what does not comfortably fit into their parochial schemes and paradigms].

You can prove a rock is there. You can't prove that Bigfoot or a ghost or the "god of thunder" is not there. Bigfoot paraphernalia purveyors and cash-cow psychics know this well.

"Many paranormalists claim that their powers only work sometimes, or that they don't work if there is a 'non-believer' in the room," Cronk points out.

Or, in the case of the unsupportive DNA testing on Bigfoot last week, the top proponent, Tom Biscardi (who recently produced a film about Bigfoot and might be said to have an interest in garnering press coverage), simply dodged the mythbusting bullet by claiming the DNA samples might have been contaminated.

Money motivates even the law [those beacons of good conduct] to look the other way.

Regarding the chupacabra "sighting" last week in Cuero, Texas: "It's amazing," said Zavesky, DeWitt County sheriff. "We still don't know what it is."

Of course his county, specifically the town of Cuero, has been dubbed the Chupacabra Capital of the World and [probably hopes to one day] benefit by monster tourism.

So while a sheriff might well be concerned if he thinks there's a goat-sucking menace in town, Zavesky is in no hurry to catch the beast and debunk the myth. "It has brought a lot of attention to us," he said. "We're not near ready to put this one to bed yet."