I've had to address this before but people keep asking how I can impartially look at cases? I must be either Pros or Contras something like UFOs, Sasquatch or other phenomena? No.
Let's explain what walking the pather of "Counter actuality" involves.
Put it this way: I have seen 'UFOs' at very close quarters and on one occasion I was even asking myself "Where are the (RAF) interceptors -this is over a city!" No panic. No running away. Where I could I tried to get closer and if I could not then I just observed and took notes.
After a major UFO flap of 1977-1978 I went on holiday to Germany. Away from all the hassle of following up reports and even, on two occasions, being in a speeding car chasing a UFO -on the final occasion I (and the driver) almost met our ends! So there I was on a lovely Summer's evening in Germany and I sat back and took a deep breath and glanced out of the window. About a kilometre away, over forestry, a 1st magnitude, star-like object rose in three very clear and distinct arched 'steps' -not a star or planet rising. Not a flare (Dalborn is situated near a garrison town). I watched and made notes in the back of the leaflet that came with my new telescope. I then uttered some rude words -it was forgotten. Well, next day I did walk the area in question. Sucker.
Were these 'UFOs' extra-terrestrial space craft? No. By the time I had completed the AOP Bureau's Project Grey Book Report in 1981 I had gone over each sighting and the circumstances and conditions -everything I had observed.
I have interviewed people who have seen low flying, seemingly constructed objects. Some I thought -knew- were very likely misidentifying something else. But what of the others? It was never a case of sit down, take out questionnaire, fill in questionnaire and that was it. In fact, maybe the first 30 minutes involved no reference to what was reported. Investigation techniques must involve being able to be able to fairly judge whether you are dealing with someone genuine or a hoaxer or someone liable to misinterpret what they see.
So did that prove these were extra-terrestrial craft? No. I believe that those observers saw something that they could not identify and after almost 40 years no such flying vehicle developed by nations on Earth has ever been revealed.
We -or a few of us- were not surprised when the USAF B2 Stealth bomber and F-117 Stealth fighter were revealed because a lot of 'UFO' reports were obviously of such man-made craft. We have a good idea what the next generations will look like because of, again, 'UFO' reports (with the AOP Bureau we discreetly 'lost' those reports) . We can even "guestimate" what the new Russian fighters and bombers will look like -RQ-180 for example.
Above a video looking at 'secret' USAF stealth craft and below something on the Russian developments.
No saucer-shaped craft with large windows....in fact some of the best detailed UFO reports do not involve descriptions of even experimental craft that were tried out.
You then get to abductions by aliens -"Greys" who apparently have been here for many generations but until the 1980s and the popularity created by abduction researchers books, TVs, movies and more, were not reported before. In fact, you have to ask, based on the "100% accurate" drawings just how many Greys there are.
I have dealt with abductions at length in these posts:
In fact, the clues as to what may be behind this whole phenomena (and I'm not talking about the hysteria that created much of this) are there in the reports detailed by the abduction researchers, though I tend to hate using the term "researchers" and, as anyone will known, I corresponded with, supported and even defended the work of Budd Hopkins and David Jacobs. Read the books of 'abductee' Dr Karla Turner and you will read all you need to know and the books should feature in a Psychology 101 somewhere.
I have had long term contact with 'abductees', both women, both very sincere and at a 1970s UFO conference in Trowbridge, Wiltshire (apart from being asked a string of questions privately by a Russian in a chauffeur driven car with Corps diplomatique number plates) I was able to examine one side of one of these ladies as overnight her entire left side had become reddened as though she had sunbathed just on that side facing the sun. There was an explanation as I saw a much worse example a few years later that did not involve an abductee.
So I out-rightly dismiss all so called cases of "alien abduction"? No. "What?? Are you kidding me? You just wrote--!" Evidence. You see, even my observations are not evidence just observations and I can't prove I saw what I saw.
I go by evidence or gather material that looks "substantial" and base further work on that. At my age I can no longer afford to think 40 years down the line! But, ignoring the Jacques Vallee principle of "I never check anything myself but its a fact", I look more closely at past cases.
My late colleague, Franklyn A. Davin-Wilson told me how to investigate a report: "Check the source given. Then check the source that the source gives. If it all tallies and you have spoken to the original source or seen it -then use it" As is seen in my books, in some cases it took 25-40+ years to get to the bottom of a report and the truth rather than repeating false information as some very well known Ufologists have done for decades. And even the "world renowned" Flying Saucer Review has proven guilty of continuing to promote cases when they were fully aware that those cases were proven hoaxes or the result of psychological illness. Ufologists do not like me saying this. It means I am a "debunker" -and to them that means someone who is out to lie or cover up the truth. They need to consult a dictionary (no "Grey" pictures in it but lots of words):
"A debunker is a person who attempts to expose or discredit claims believed to be false, exaggerated, or pretentious. ... According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, to "debunk" is defined as: "to expose the sham or falseness of."
You can only get to the truth by investigating and carrying out research. If "A" is a case that is known to be a fake yet authors and Ufologists continue to promote it then you have to expose it to be such. If you jumble up reports of seemingly constructed non-earthly craft (UFOBs) with light phenomena, ball lightning, meteorite sightings, mythology, known psychological cases, hoaxes and more then you do not have 'a phenomenon' that indicates extra-terrestrial visitation being covered up by world governments. You have a mess. The Vallee Principle in effect.
From 1973 onward I looked for alleged landings of "flying saucers" involving what were non-humanoid entities. Why? Because good old Science dictated that were extra-terrestrials to visit Earth then they would not be humanoid.
There are cases that I was asked to look for "holes" in. One, the 1977 Lee Parrish abduction I failed to find any in. It was an encounter and then...nothing. No claims to newspapers or anything you would expect from a hoax and the investigators who interviewed him straight after were stumped: Parrish seemed genuine. But I did not investigate that one by talking to the percipient (where ever he may be now). http://terryhooper.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/lee-parrish-1977-abduction.html
The "Flatwoods" case. Ivan T. Sanderson was one of the first investigators there and he was stumped but believed what was reported. In the decades since every time someone "exposes" the case you find that the exposé is a failure -it only succeeds with people who are closed minded and want (for their own reasons) that exposé to be the final answer. Good Christian family -no death bed hoax confessions or any straying from the facts given at the time and it seems that those involved would have been happier had they never reported the event.
The "Kelly-Hopkinsville" case. Investigated by very competent people who could find no fraud involved. Time and again since the 1950s there has been one exposé after another. All they achieved was to make the case even more solid.
I must hate those who do these exposés? No. You see, if these are honest people then they will focus on the weak points in a case. If they come up with "Ten years before as a teen, 'Elmer' was arrested for being drunk which casts great doubt on his later story" then they are embarrassing themselves. What of the other seven people 'Elmer' was with when they had the encounter?
"LaSarza was suffering from a mental breakdown/was a hoaxer/was a drunk" Why? "Because he dun seen one a them there flying saucers and little green men!" But no little green men were involved. Oh, 'local authorities' said so because these things "don't exist"....so US service personnel cooperating with Canadian forces roped off a road and were digging around the alleged landing area because that's what always happens when a nut/drunk/hoaxer saw he/she saw aliens? Fair enough.
The point is that you have people who are skeptics and who do not care about facts. If out of some 100 facts they can find 1 that is even the remotest suspect for whatever reason then that case is a hoax. Case 'proven'. For these people I have no time as they claim to adhere to "scientific principles" but "scientific principles" they can bend and twist to their own ends -this is provable to happen on both sides which is why there is so much nonsense going on.
Now, someone who asks "Is this true?!" and decides to look into the case -those are the best as they have no agenda other than to work things out for themselves and, sometimes, communicate what they find. A flaw in the story? Something that seemed odd which makes you question the report? If we hear about these we may be able to answer the points satisfactorily because the lengthy npublic report was cut down for brevity. Or we could go back and look at those aspects. They may prove a hoax or whatever -good. Now we can close the case and move on. But the answers might make the case stronger.
1973, Pascagoula, Mississippi abduction -drawing of one of the alleged entities above- I have read one exposé after another over 43 years (43 years!!) and none have achieved their aims. Now I have to admit that I still search periodically to see if anyone has exposed the case as a fraud. Accusations and twisting facts or even not including facts is neither the "scientific way" nor very rewarding. The case remains as solid as it did in 1973 and I find that, at times, disturbing. Below a documentary on the Pascagoula case.
I stand between Skeptics and Believers and hear and read all they have to say on cases. Then I weigh up the circumstantial evidence and decide whether the case deserves to be left open and further investigated or closed so I can move on to the next. Despite Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker and their accounts still standing up to scrutiny and even if they sound totally believable, it is still classed as circumstantial evidence because they experienced the event -I -"we"- did not. What gives them a higher rating than most other alleged cases? Firstly, the rarity of a description. Why do these people not report "typical" alien types from better publicized accounts? This is why my files are always "active" -just in case a similar case pops up. We might well expect genuine visitors from space to be rare rather than "common as pimples" and abducting millions of people for more than a century (which is, in fact by definition, Open and Hostile Contact). There is a very little known case from the 1970s that I investigated and the entity reported (in fact two entities) were unlike any in my bulky files. No UFO was reported but the case still got a file entry. Then, reading a new book (at the time) that was just translated into English and that the witness had never heard of, I came across a case "similar" enough to note. Looking through old journals last year (2016) for something unconnected I came across two very old cases that preceded the 1970s one with striking similarities! In a conversation with someone else I was told of another similar case, same decade, reported to a noted British UFO investigator -the case was not even investigated because (he says) it involved teens...yet good enough to refer to elsewhere but with no real detail of any kind. Ufology at its best. And, no I am not publicizing it here. In essence: I could produce book after book citing non-investigated cases or cases in which the details are incorrect. Who would know? I'd make my money. But in this case I could just watch TV sci fi and accept that as reality. I am looking for evidence of real events and that makes me "the enemy" to Ufology.
Above: Charles Hoy Fort ponders his "Super checkers" board Don't even get me started on "Forteans" -there was a very good reason why Charles Fort did not want a society or movement named after him. Known and worked with a lot of them. Some 99% are not free-thinkers or searching for truth but rather self publicity seeking frauds and worse. "Evidence that no longer exists" I have found (it's all in my books). Evidence to disprove a case -ignored "it's debunking!" sigh Middle class, pseudo intellectuals.
Above Bernard Heuvelmans cited as "the Father of Cryptozoology" Cryptozoologists. At least there were some of credibility. People who did do research, who investigated and presented facts for and against. Most modern "cryptozoologists" fall into the same category as Forteans and will skip and jump from one subject to another for money making and TV fees and "celebrity". It is not without reason that the term "Cryptozoologist" has been altered by some to "Craptozoologist".
Ivan T. Sanderson looked at various phenomena including UFOs, "Fortean", natural history, cryptozoology and more. Investigator/researcher and author as well as TV presenter. He was one of the first to investigate the Flatwoods case and to look at and write the classic definitive guide to mystery hominids Abominable Snowmen: Legend Come to Life.
The founders of hominoid research in Russia are (left to right): Boris Porshnev, Alexander Mashkovtsev, Pyotr Molin, Dmitri Bayanov, and Marie-Jeanne Koffmann. Photograph is from January 1968.
Dmitri Bayanov and his colleagues who, during the old Soviet era and today, look at reports of wildmen in Russia and have written groundbreaking books looking at the evidence and historical records -two I reviewed:
You read and you learn. Now, since there are no Sasquatch-like creatures nor wild men in the UK I have to judge by what I read and see. There are enough books with technical details to turn me from a Sasquatch/Almas skeptic into someone who believes there certainly are unidentified large hominids out there. Books on the subject that I'd recommend are (obviously Sanderson): Dr. Jeff Meldrum: Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science (Forge, 2007) Dr Grover Krantz: Bigfoot: Sasquatch Evidence (Hancock House, 1999)
Big Foot Prints a Scientific Inquiry(Johnson 1992)
John Green: Sasquatch: The Apes Among Us (Hancock House, 2006)
There are, of course, a large number of books on the possible "Sea serpents" or as I prefer to call them unidentified sea creatures -and I've written about them including in posts here. The evidence for all these 'strange' subjects is strong and until you have looked at all the facts and case reports you should not say "Yay" or "Nay".
I have witnessed mild poltergeist activity. I have seen "odd figures" -I have spoken to others who have. Are they spirits of the dead? I doubt it. I, again, dealt with poltergeist and ghosts in Some Things Strange And Sinister. I have seen no evidence of "life after death" visitations and, yes, I have a huge collection of journals and books. Both my grandparents said that after they died -if they could- they would visit me. My mother and father said the same. Nothing
My late colleague Franklyn stated the same and he was a huge believer in life after death -in his case I stated that I would sit for 30 minutes before and after the exact time he died on the date he died. I did so for over 35 years. Nothing. And you have to admit that is a long term experiment!
So what are we dealing with? I have a theory and that I will, eventually, publish.
Hated by Ufologists, cryptozoologists, Forteans, "paranormalists"(!) and hated by skeptics -I really do not care.
I prefer to be impartial and assess the evidence or facts -that is "the scientific way"
Bagans tries to think of another angle to make himself centre of attention.
I was very happy to learn that people -serious researchers- with decades of experience have joined in to show just how fake Ghost Adventures TV show is. If you saw the "Zozo" demon episode and you have had any interest in the paranormal you would have asked "What's a 'Zozo' -where'd that come from??"
More people are referring to the "fake Zozo" episode which, being honest, had some truly dreadful acting. Without giving the person's name, here is what they wrote on Face Book:
"Happy #Saturn 's Day everybody! #Ouija Session coming today with Saturn, Cronos, and ZoZo.... just to put it to the test... Saturn or Demon? Which is a physical thing? Which is not? Which has historical references? Which does not? Which one was made up? I think we all know that one. So today I shall communicate with Saturn, in Capricorn, just as the Sigil suggests!! This is going to be amazing. Let's see if " ZoZo " comes through, highly doubtful! " Don't get me wrong, if you watch Ghost Adventures for fun then why not? But don't be fooled by the fakery -and GA have refused to answer any of my emails regarding certain events in their programme (politely put so not nasty) which says a lot. Here's a sensible blog looking at that episode: http://www.rottenworks.com/index.php/2014/10/19/ghost-adventures-the-zozo-demon-s10e03/
Groff: "Seriously I am NOT moving it -my fingers are"
It's nothing new and I'm not even surprised that people today find this "new" -most don't give a damn about things beyond their pizza, beer or money making. Anyone remember the movie The Andromeda Strain based on a 1969 book of the same title by Michael Crichton? Why do you think Apollo astronauts had to wait in isolation after returning from space?
There are two books I would recommend by Sir Fred Hoyle and Prof. Chandra Wickramasinghe -Diseases From Space (1979) and Evolution From Space (1981) as both look at...well, I think the actual titles explain it all. Back then it was all controversial and some said silly but as the years went on so it became more accepted. Bacteria may well be floating freely through space.
It was one reason why, once the AOP Bureau got going, a standard question to anyone claiming to have come close to any landed 'UFO' was concerned with their health before and after the event? Not just to find out whether there had been any exposure to strong electro-magnetic fields, radiation or sounds that might cause harm, but whether there might be "another cause".
But let's hear what the scientists have to say.
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A leading scientist has assured us all that alien microbes that may have hitched a ride to Earth on returning rockets will not be allowed to escape.
Dr John Rummel, a scientist at the Seti Institute in California, said: “If we bring samples back from either Europa or Mars, we will contain them until hazard testing demonstrates that there is no danger and no life, or continue the containment indefinitely while we study the material.”
Thank goodness for that, then.
These bacteria were found on the edge of the Earth’s atmosphere back in 2001, and scientists claimed they could be from space (PA)
Microbes could easily survive the journey back to Earth with space samples from missions to Mars or Jupiter’s moon Europa, as bacteria are usually resistant to cold and dry conditions.
“Precautions taken would provide a very high degree of containment,” he said at a talk on space contamination at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Boston.
In a worst case scenario, a microbe from space could cause disease in humans, and we’d be unlikely to have any natural immunity against such a foreign bug.
There’s also concern that a leak the other way around could be troublesome.
If microbes from Earth contaminated somewhere scientists believe has the potential to harbour life, like Europa’s salty ocean, it would make finding definite proof of alien bacteria far more difficult.
This article in The Guardian online was interesting. Interesting in how misleading it is. I would really LOVE to see a mammoth but I'm not going to. A few simple notes.
Your milk. How and why do you keep getting milk? Because of cows. There are a lot of cows but why? Because dairy farmers only want "breeders and milkers" -male cows are killed straight away.
Like your eggs? Lots of chickens -why? Because chicks are sexed after being born and if it ain't a hen its killed. Not very nicely.
So what has this to do with reviving or "de-extincting" (which is not even a real word fer cripes sake) mammoths? Simple. If you try to create certain traits in cats, dogs or any animal what you do is breed the ones with the traits you want. The offspring without those traits are killed (sorry "euthenised"). The ones with some of the traits are kept alive to breed until the exact traits show.
Ahh, those Russian bred foxes. "Selectively bred" over the years. Which means, of course, that any pup NOT looking like what the breeders wanted were killed. The survivors kept in cramp cages and bred and bred -and don't think the breeding foxes survived after they could no longer breed. It can all be shown and read about in very sanitized ways: http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160912-a-soviet-scientist-created-the-only-tame-foxes-in-the-world
So where am I going with this? Say they manage to do what they want? However, it's "not quite right"? That 'success' would be euthenised, dissected and lessons learnt. Then they succeed and get what they want. But what about the successes that are not quite what they wanted? Practice in wildlife parks and zoos is to kill these off as "excess stock" but might these unsuccessful successes be sellable to zoos as attractions to make money until the "real thing" is available?
You see, most will be interested in the visitors such an animal can draw in and the money that makes. Who wants to see half a non-mammoth when another zoo has the real thing? And then, once bred where will these animals go?
As shown in the article, there are questions as to how regular elephants would treat a “mammophant” because elephants are social how will a “mammophant” live? You would need to have a male and female for a breeding pair and then you are in the endless cycle of breeding to establish a herd and there would be the question of "excess stock" because you may have too many males or even females unable to breed. Sell them off so they can live a lonely life in a park or zoo?
There is also the fact that this would not be a real mammonth. Mammoths varied in size, according to the remains found, from 4 m (13.1 ft) at the shoulder and weights of up to 8 tonnes (8.8 short tons) and more, though others could be the sized of a modern Asioan elephant at 2.5 m to 3 m high at the shoulder, and rarely exceeding 5 tonnes.
We are talking about a domesticated freak show species. Imagine they were bred to a degree that allowed them to be introduced into the wild. They won't last long because, illegal or not, some rich dentist will want to shoot one -and if they developed huge tusks....
News items tend to not mention the big problems -or, to them, the "little ones". They go by press releases. Space fillers.
Perhaps we should be putting all the money into breeding and saving the rhino and elephants that are already flying toward endangered species level and extinction?
Wolves and other predators, and non predators, have been saved from the brink of extinction yet, right now, Humans are legally killing them in high numbers and not just making established groups extinct but pushing the species to the limit -and ignorance, money and business is the main factor in "why?" And the same applies to whales, dolphins and other sea species.
To create a new species without a well thought out and explained/monitored long term plan while other species are being killed off is, morally wrong.
Size comparison of mammoth species. M. primigenius(3.4 m),M. exilis(1.8 m),M. columbi,M. trogontherii, andM. meridionalis(4 m).
Now, onto the sanitized fluff.
Woolly mammoth on verge of resurrection, scientists reveal Scientist leading ‘de-extinction’ effort says Harvard team could create hybrid mammoth-elephant embryo in two years
The woolly mammoth vanished from the Earth 4,000 years ago, but now scientists say they are on the brink of resurrecting the ancient beast in a revised form, through an ambitious feat of genetic engineering.
Speaking ahead of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in Boston this week, the scientist leading the “de-extinction” effort said the Harvard team is just two years away from creating a hybrid embryo, in which mammoth traits would be programmed into an Asian elephant.
“Our aim is to produce a hybrid elephant-mammoth embryo,” said Prof George Church. “Actually, it would be more like an elephant with a number of mammoth traits. We’re not there yet, but it could happen in a couple of years.”
The creature, sometimes referred to as a “mammophant”, would be partly elephant, but with features such as small ears, subcutaneous fat, long shaggy hair and cold-adapted blood. The mammoth genes for these traits are spliced into the elephant DNA using the powerful gene-editing tool, Crispr.
Until now, the team have stopped at the cell stage, but are now moving towards creating embryos – although, they said that it would be many years before any serious attempt at producing a living creature.
“We’re working on ways to evaluate the impact of all these edits and basically trying to establish embryogenesis in the lab,” said Church.
Since starting the project in 2015 the researchers have increased the number of “edits” where mammoth DNA has been spliced into the elephant genome from 15 to 45.
“We already know about ones to do with small ears, subcutaneous fat, hair and blood, but there are others that seem to be positively selected,” he said.
Church said that these modifications could help preserve the Asian elephant, which is endangered, in an altered form. However, others have raised ethical concerns about the project.
Matthew Cobb, professor of zoology at the University of Manchester, said: “The proposed ‘de-extinction’ of mammoths raises a massive ethical issue – the mammoth was not simply a set of genes, it was a social animal, as is the modern Asian elephant. What will happen when the elephant-mammoth hybrid is born? How will it be greeted by elephants?”
Church also outlined plans to grow the hybrid animal within an artificial womb rather than recruit a female elephant as a surrogate mother - a plan which some believe will not be achievable within the next decade.
“We hope to do the entire procedure ex-vivo (outside a living body),” he said. “It would be unreasonable to put female reproduction at risk in an endangered species.”
He added that his lab is already capable of growing a mouse embryo in an artificial womb for 10 days - halfway through its gestation period.
“We’re testing the growth of mice ex-vivo. There are experiments in the literature from the 1980s but there hasn’t been much interest for a while,” he said. “Today we’ve got a whole new set of technology and we’re taking a fresh look at it.”
“Church’s team is proposing to rear the embryo in an ‘artificial womb’ which seems ambitious to say the least – the resultant animal would have been deprived of all the pre-birth interactions with its mother,” said Cobb.
The woolly mammoth roamed across Europe, Asia, Africa and North America during the last Ice Age and vanished about 4,000 years ago, probably due to a combination of climate change and hunting by humans.
Their closest living relative is the Asian, not the African, elephant.
“De-extincting” the mammoth has become a realistic prospect because of revolutionary gene editing techniques that allow the precise selection and insertion of DNA from specimens frozen over millennia in Siberian ice.
Church helped develop the most widely used technique, known as Crispr/Cas9, that has transformed genetic engineering since it was first demonstrated in 2012. Derived from a defence system bacteria use to fend off viruses, it allows the “cut and paste” manipulation of strands of DNA with a precision not seen before.
Gene editing and its ethical implications is one of the key topics under discussion at the Boston conference.
Church, a guest speaker at the meeting, said the mammoth project had two goals: securing an alternative future for the endangered Asian elephant and helping to combat global warming. Woolly mammoths could help prevent tundra permafrost from melting and releasing huge amounts of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere.
“They keep the tundra from thawing by punching through snow and allowing cold air to come in,” said Church. “In the summer they knock down trees and help the grass grow.”
The scientists intend to engineer elephant skin cells to produce the embryo, or multiple embryos, using cloning techniques. Nuclei from the reprogrammed cells would be placed into elephant egg cells whose own genetic material has been removed. The eggs would then be artificially stimulated to develop into embryos.
Church predicts that age-reversal will become a reality within 10 years as a result of the new developments in genetic engineering.
Before "established" sciences there were alchemists and naturalists.
Then you could not be considered serious as a researcher of any type unless you had qualifications from a university.
This entailed accepting a great deal of biased dogma from some very stuffed stiff shirts.
Because you cherished your degrees and qualifications and did not want to go against your old teachers who were part of the Establishment you continued spouting dogma -or facing their wrath and ridicule.
This I have seen in many fields.
People submit material along with proof but because it goes against dogma and the over-stuffed, stiff shirts never discovered it (because they were too comfortable in those plush armchairs) it was "wrong"/"unproven" and disputable.
When/if later proved to have been correct then "We never said it was incorrect just required more work to prove it correct" and they'll accept all the kudos for their former pupil.
A (an astronomer with years of experience): "There are very weird, inexplicable lights moving in the sky above the conference centre -quick, come and see!!"
Collective Idiots: "Calm yourself. It'll be aircraft lights or astronomical."
Next day they will explain to the Press just how everyone is uneducated and cannot be trusted to observe accurately things flying above the conference centre they were in but never moved from to look for themselves.
A (a zoologist with years of experience including working with and studying puma in the field):
"I couldn't stop in the traffic but I saw it for 30 seconds some 3 metres away -every diagnostic feature of a puma except it was melanistic"
Selective Idiots (mainly armchair types with little field work): "No. There are no such things as black pumas. You actually saw a black leopard in every likelihood."
A ( naturalist of 40 years): "I saw it with the naked eye out to see and then with field glasses of high power: It was larger than an Orca and had a long neck with squat head. Perfect viewing conditions, too!"
A Selective idiot of any rank: "Distance and conditions -the eyes play tricks. Probably a seal or several in a long line. I was standing right next to the fellow but I wasn't going to turn to look at some optical illusion!"
This is not science. Scientists and academics (do not get me started on them) are human. They are not Mr Spock looking solely at evidence impartially. They are full of their own personal beliefs and often over-inflated ego (try referring to one in a conversation as "Mr" rather than "Dr" or "Pofessor" -blood vessels almost pop out of their necks!).
Dogma has no place in science.
The more incredible a report sounds you do not say "idiots" you go and check it out and gather as much evidence as you can to say "Yay"/"Nay" or "Not proven but very interesting". Open minds is what science is about and not worrying that your university grant might be less this year if you even consider looking at something "strange". You might be laughed at? Get out of science because you belong on TV or radio or a public library and are not a scientist.
"You are not an academic nor do you have a university accreditation!" I hear that a lot -from people that don't check, to boot. I am a naturalist. Have been since a wee lad. I have studied and specialised in native and non native fauna in the UK, particularly felids and canids -I was a consultant to UK Police Forces regarding this from 1977-2007. I've contributed to papers for conference and written several books, fully referenced. I've been into astronomy since a teen not to mention weather phenomena, psychology, aeronautics blah blah blah. I am actually more qualified than some academics I've met (who had to filch knowledge from me -uncredited). I am nothing special. In fact, "established science" is based almost entirely on the work of jack-of-all-interests like me, many thousands of them, over the centuries. Universities were about education but for more than a century they have been about building reputations to get more money -you are paying huge fees for pieces of paper because of what you think that paper will mean to you or earn for you. I once asked a very high-up university professor how he had achieved his position? "Arse-licking. Arse-licking and never stepping out of line or rocking the boat -otherwise I'd be scraping a living teaching yobs!" Why is it that some naturalists and even -gods help us!- newspapers and magazines of the 18th/19th centuries realised that "the sea serpent" appeared at specific times of the year and at specific locations -in other words, migratory routes- yet stuffed professors seated in plush chairs said "Poppy-cock! Old sailors tales and stories from the ill educated!!" Here is one thing I never understood: that old dismissal line of "tales from old sea-dogs/sailors!" You see, if you spent 30-40+ years sailing the sea you would expect to see whales (even some of those accounts dismissed until the species was later identified), seals, sharks, octopusses, squids and so on. Spend 24 hours a day on voyages that took months or even years then you would be familiar with "the usual" and really notice the unusual. Able seaman, captain, first officer whatever -all 'misidentifying' common animals or waves in the water. Right. In no occupation do you work and observe something day-in and day-out, 364 days of the year and then note something unusual, refer to it and get called "ill educated" or miss-observing. With natural history it is known, though.
Reports of hairy, man-like beasts in Africa? Ignorant native superstition! Then Friedrich Robert von Beringe gets his patrol to machine-gun a group of these creatures while on routine patrol and...the gorilla is discovered! And for his, uh, 'scientific bravery', his name gets to be attached to theirs. In fact, this new species, commonly called "eastern gorilla", was later determined to consist of two sub-species: the mountain gorilla (Gorilla beringei beringei) and the eastern lowland gorilla (Gorilla beringei graueri).
And how is this celebrated today? With a very sanitized Wikipedia entry -the full story can be found in Some More Things Strange And Sinister.
A true contributor to science!
In fact, peoples as well as naturalists describing seeing animals that were unknown at the time were accused of all types of things including outright fraud when the duckbill platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) was presented! There is a very long history of such things.
These days, if one of these self-important stiff shirts accuses me of silliness because I actually get off my arse and do field work and investigate the strange and unusual (that they should be doing) and "not taking science seriously" I send them the perfect meme (I am endorsing no one by-the-way):
