CryPtoReports.com

Sasquatch, the mythical “Bigfoot” of western North America, makes its home deep within the fertile imaginations of gullible people. If you insist on looking for one in the real world, though, you should search in the home of the black bear – at least according to a tongue-in-cheek study of the ape-like creature’s habitat preferences.

The study has a more serious message too: it’s easy to be fooled into believing a plausible-looking habitat analysis, even when the data is totally erroneous.

Conservation biologists often need to predict where rare species are capable of living – for selecting the best site for a national park, for example, or forecasting how badly a species’ range will suffer as the climate changes in the future.

The latest technique for making these predictions is so-called ecological niche modelling, in which researchers log the locations of known species sightings, then gather environmental data for those places to define the ecological limits of the species’ range.

Jeff Lozier, an entomologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, was worried that some people may have been too uncritical in applying the technique. “Whenever you have these new, shiny, easy-to-use approaches, there’s a temptation to use them even before you know what the kinks are,” he says.

So Lozier and his colleagues decided to apply ecological niche modelling to an obviously false data set – Sasquatch sightings. They gathered all reported sightings in the US states of Washington, Oregon and California and used the environmental data to predict Sasquatch distribution.

They found that the model yielded a perfectly plausible prediction about Bigfoot habitats – a warning to modellers that spurious results will not necessarily announce themselves through obvious warning signs.

“The point of the paper is really well taken,” says Dan Warren, an evolutionary ecologist at the University of California at Davis who is an expert in ecological niche models. “I think the literature is rife with people who are over-interpreting what comes out of these models.”

The researchers also compared the niche model for Sasquatch to one they developed for black bear. The two were statistically indistinguishable, they found. This suggests that many supposed Sasquatch sightings may simply be misidentified bears – a mistake that has been made on at least one occasion, Lozier notes.

Source: newscientist

FAIRFIELD — It goes by many names: Bigfoot, Sasquatch — the legendary half-human, half-ape creature that, according to legend, prowls the great northern woods of the U.S. and Canada.

Some insist, however, that the hairy beast is real. Sasquatch “sightings” have primarily been reported in the Northwest.

Until now, that is.

A woman driving on Unquowa Road about 10:30 p.m. Tuesday called police to report that she “almost hit Sasquatch,” which was standing in the middle of the road. She said it was 8 feet tall and very hairy, with a large body and “legs like tree trunks.” When she switched her headlights to highbeams, she said, the creature covered its face and ran into the woods.

The driver told police it was “human like,” but more “like an animal.”

Unlike other Sasquatch sightings, where the elusive beast melts back into the deep woods, this one was located in Fairfield.

Bigfoot turned out to be a big joke — a 16-year-old dressed in a gorillalike costume, police said. The teen told officers he was standing at the intersection of Unquowa and Sturges roads, waving at passing cars while friends watched.

A police officer escorted the sham Sasquatch back home and turned him over to his parents, who, the police report states, agreed he should have shown better judgment.

Source: connpost

One black-colored, unidentified animal was spotted by over 10 tourists in Kanas Lake, northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region on July 2, 2009. According to witnesses, it appeared at 4 pm and then held still for more than twenty minutes before stirring up huge sprays and finally disappearing.

Kanas Lake is located at the Kanas Nature Reserve in Aletai mountain area of north Xinjiang. As China’s largest alpine lake, it is famous for its beautiful scenery and primitive eco-system.

Source: englishpeople

Thunderbird sightings have been around for years. They are one of the known creatures in cryptozoological circles. But could some of these sightings in the Ontario area be linked to a “stuffed  Thunderbird” ?

“Cryptozoologist Karl Shuker looks back at a case from 1998 in which he received information from a University Professor on a possible stuffed thunderbird being kept in the town of Spanish, Ontario.”

“Karl Shuker: In 1998, I received the following fascinating information of possible relevance to North America’s ongoing thunderbird or ‘big bird’ mystery. And this time it involves something much more substantial than a missing thunderbird photo – nothing less, in fact, than what may be a missing stuffed thunderbird!”

I am not sure a “stuffed bird” even if located has any impact on any of the Thunderbird sightings in the area , but it is interesting. The stuffed bird was said to be yet unidentified but was extremely large so it could be possible that it was used in some elaborate hoaxes over the years, but its still unknown to if it actually even exist and isnt simply a local rumor perhaphs like the thunderbird itself. Maybe some more information will surface and help to explain and clear things up some.

Source: karlshuker blogspot