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Penn and Teller's hoaxed Bigfoot vid

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A

Aaron LeClair

Paranormal Maven
For those who don't know, Penn and Teller have a show called "Bull***t", where they (like many magicians) debunk things. Well, they made a bigfoot vid, and guess what? It backfired on them. Many bigfoot researchers immediately thought it was a hoax, and did some good investigating on the vid and supposed eyewitness account. Unfortunately, Penn and Teller don't speak of this I hear. They were wanting to point out how stupid people who believe in bigfoot are, by dupping them via a hoax. In the process made the field look better. I doubt they will admit it, or agree though. I wonder if it was Penn in the suit. Penn's the big guy right? I forget.

The video can be found here linked within the page.
Bigfoot: The Sonoma Footage Hoax w/commentary 2005
 
A.LeClair said:
Penn's the big guy right? I forget.
Click to expand...

I believe so. I find BS is kinda 50-50 (well, what episodes I've seen). The one they did on alien abductions was crap, total "they're all nuts" whitewash with no serious investigation at all.
 
50/50 meaning good/bad, or for/against as in their stance on things? I'm guessing you mean good/bad because I think they think anything paranormal is bunk. Not sure how they feel about ghosts. I'd be surprised if they were open to that sort of thing.
 
By 50-50 I meant agreeable/disagreeable. Most magicians seem to have a bee up their butt when it comes to the paranormal. It's weird, you'd think learning how the fake stuff works would embolden you to search for the real deal...
 
You need to visit Cryptomundo and/or the Bigfoot forums Rick. Think that vid is bad? You ought to see all the blobsquatches people ponder over. I think I posted some laughable ones here, but probably not the lamest.
 
A.LeClair said:
You need to visit Cryptomundo and/or the Bigfoot forums Rick. Think that vid is bad? You ought to see all the blobsquatches people ponder over. I think I posted some laughable ones here, but probably not the lamest.
Click to expand...

I've never really had any interest in 'bigfoot' (although, I did think the monster truck was cool :D ) - I sort of remember 'sasquatch' turning up in an episode of the 'Six Million Dollar Man' in the late seventies.

Now that *was* convincing....to an 8-year-old :eek:
 
Yeah, I remember that too.

Here's the king of cheese though. A must see.


Love the wawa peddle and slow motion.

Bigfoot is fascinating, even if you don't buy into it. If you find hoaxes interesting that is. Come to think of it, I don't see you in the Meier threads much, so maybe you aren't into hoaxes like me.

I'm open to there being a bigfoot. The hair samples that have been gathered in Asia seems like hard evidence to me. Unfortunately, I'm left in the dark about it. The rest of the scientific community hasn't chimed in on the findings. Most of the vids/film footage I come across are hoaxes however. Same with pics.
 
A.LeClair said:
Yeah, I remember that too.

Here's the king of cheese though. A must see.

Love the wawa peddle and slow motion.

Bigfoot is fascinating, even if you don't buy into it. If you find hoaxes interesting that is. Come to think of it, I don't see you in the Meier threads much, so maybe you aren't into hoaxes like me.
Click to expand...

Well, I'm not particularly focused on hoaxes, I've no desire to debunk claims - there does seem to be an attitude within 'certain' groups that there are only two kinds of paranormal case; 1 - cases that *have been proven* to be hoaxes and 2 - case that *have not yet been* proven to be hoaxes. If the 'debunking' of hoaxes is being done by people with those attitudes then I'm less willing to accept their findings...

A.LeClair said:
I'm open to there being a bigfoot. The hair samples that have been gathered in Asia seems like hard evidence to me. Unfortunately, I'm left in the dark about it. The rest of the scientific community hasn't chimed in on the findings. Most of the vids/film footage I come across are hoaxes however. Same with pics.
Click to expand...

Well, my philosophy in life is that *everything is possible*, so the existence of new species of an 'ape like' creature wouldn't surprise me much.
 
Imagine if some hunter who wasn't in on the joke was in the woods that day, and busted a cap in the guy's behind.

I think that would have made for a much more interesting story.
 
Rick Deckard said:
Well, I'm not particularly focused on hoaxes, I've no desire to debunk claims - there does seem to be an attitude within 'certain' groups that there are only two kinds of paranormal case; 1 - cases that *have been proven* to be hoaxes and 2 - case that *have not yet been* proven to be hoaxes. If the 'debunking' of hoaxes is being done by people with those attitudes then I'm less willing to accept their findings...



Well, my philosophy in life is that *everything is possible*, so the existence of new species of an 'ape like' creature wouldn't surprise me much.
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George Bush becoming a good president is not possible. I wonder if I opened the proverbial can of worms with that one :)

As for debunking. Any case worth debunking is one where you just point to the facts which make the case collapse. Spin doctoring isn't needed there. All the other cases I consider inconclusive or legitimate.
 
Tommy Allison said:
Imagine if some hunter who wasn't in on the joke was in the woods that day, and busted a cap in the guy's behind.

I think that would have made for a much more interesting story.
Click to expand...

Yes, that scenario is discussed quite frequently over at the bigfoot forums. A lot of hunters there heh.

There's a hefty fine for shooting a bigfoot. Either 50,000, or 500,000 dollars. I can't recall if this is only in certain states, or national. I might look it up later.
 
A.LeClair said:
Yes, that scenario is discussed quite frequently over at the bigfoot forums. A lot of hunters there heh.

There's a hefty fine for shooting a bigfoot. Either 50,000, or 500,000 dollars. I can't recall if this is only in certain states, or national. I might look it up later.
Click to expand...

So, what's the fine for shooting 'a guy in a suit'? :D
 
A.LeClair said:
For those who don't know, Penn and Teller have a show called "Bull***t", where they (like many magicians) debunk things. Well, they made a bigfoot vid, and guess what? It backfired on them. Many bigfoot researchers immediately thought it was a hoax, and did some good investigating on the vid and supposed eyewitness account. Unfortunately, Penn and Teller don't speak of this I hear. They were wanting to point out how stupid people who believe in bigfoot are, by dupping them via a hoax. In the process made the field look better. I doubt they will admit it, or agree though. I wonder if it was Penn in the suit. Penn's the big guy right? I forget.

The video can be found here linked within the page.
Bigfoot: The Sonoma Footage Hoax w/commentary 2005
Click to expand...

Yeah good stuff.

I mean what is all this really about. Lets say people did fall for the hoax. Does that prove that all big foot sightings are therefore nonsense?

We all ready know that people are susceptible to getting it wrong. It would be unreasonable for a person not to fall for a hoax, if the hoax was done in a very convincing and professional manner.

To upscale that and apply it to all sightings bigfoot is unscientific.
 
idontunderstand said:
To upscale that and apply it to all sightings bigfoot is unscientific.
Click to expand...

Very true - a TV documentary tried the same thing with an 'inflatable' UFO, here in the UK. People reported seeing a 'flying saucer' in the sky, which is exactly what it was, but the programme makers basically said "see how easy it is to hoax people..." and "look at the inconstentencies in eye witness reports". They then went on to imply that all UFO sightings are probably misindentifications of mundane objects. Brilliant conclusion (not).

Of course, some say that this is exactly the type of tactics imployed by the 'disinfo agents' - create a hoax, make sure it gets plenty publicity and then reveal the deception thus taking away the credibility of 'genuine' events...
 
idontunderstand said:
To upscale that and apply it to all sightings bigfoot is unscientific.
Click to expand...

Same thing they did with Alien Abductions but then again, P&T don't really fall into the catagory of serious investigators, so it's not really fair to expect their conclusions to be "scientific". In a couple episodes they even admit to being "biased as hell" regarding the subject matter.
 
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