The Fortean/paranormal/conspiracy thread

[PowerButchi]

Isn't the big cats a case of being released into the wild after that 1960s exotic pets act and fucking? or fucking feral cats? or fucking something?

[quote the raven]

Isn't the big cats a case of being released into the wild after that 1960s exotic pets act and fucking? or fucking feral cats? or fucking something?

 

 

Yeah more or less, people just turfed them out when the pet act came in, so that means there must be a large amount of these things in order for them to still be around 50 years on,

[Astro Hollywood]

There was a really detailed, convincing piece in the Fortean Times a few years back that went into how the numbers and timing don't really add up on that. The Dangerous Wild Animals Act came in in 1976, but there weren't nearly enough toffs shooing pet pumas out of the back gate to establish the amount of scattered breeding populations (of numerous species, mind) where they're still being spotted decades later. I'm sure it helped, but it seems likely they pre-date this by some distance and are either indigenous, or got colonised over here somehow else. There are earlier sightings, but like with most stuff, they really pick up in the era of still and video cameras.

[Loki]

Quite a few people think that the European Lynx is still indigenous to the UK, even though it officially died out some time in pre-Norman conquest.

 

 

Problem is... how wild IS Britain? Is it conceivable that small breeding populations of large cats like this have survived for a millenia, but never been caught?

 

"Yes!"

[PowerButchi]

Yeah, Lynxs are dead secretive iirc (according to what I've just this second read on Wiki), so I suppose it's possible they never died out after all. After all, there can't just be one beast of Bodmin or Exmoor unless it's 200 or something, and cats don't live to 200.

[Astro Hollywood]

Problem is... how wild IS Britain? Is it conceivable that small breeding populations of large cats like this have survived for a millenia, but never been caught?

 

That's what keeps it on the interesting side of mysterious for me. Posh pet owners and overturned circus trains -- not enough cats; indigenous populations -- surely so many that they couldn't be as hidden as they are. If it's the latter, I guess you could put it down to that Bigfoot Witness dichotomy.

 

If Bigfoot is real, why is he only seen by crazy people?

"I've seen Bigfoot." "This guy thinks he's seen Bigfoot -- HE'S CRAZY!"

 

Maybe if you send proper wildlife people out there with the same resources they use when looking for otters or whatnot, you find something. So far, it seems like it's all random encounters with farmers and dog-walkers.

[Loki]

I'd love the BBC to pony up and send their African wild animal team out into the British landcape to actually try and film one. If those guys can't find one, I'll accept it's not there. They hunt down all sorts of rare animals in much larger areas.

[Bellenda Carlisle]

If there are wild big cats in the UK that have done a pretty good job of staying hidden for the last couple of hundred years I think it would be a shame if they got exposed and would no doubt be hassled, filmed, poached and have their secret existence ruined.

[Astro Hollywood]

You could solve the vast majority of cryptozoological mysteries one way or the other if the money and science was behind it. Instead, you get expeditions to find Mokele Mbembe led by people who can only afford to stay out there a week, with shitty equipment, and by the time they've earned the trust of all the local Pygmies, it's time to fly home again. Proper science is terrified of being associated with this stuff, even though a lot of it, like the almost-certainly-very-real Orang Pendek aren't wacky ghosts, but undiscovered species, or Flores Man-type homids. Or, you know, folklore and rumour, but if it had the funding to look into it properly, we might actually find out which.

[FLips]

The thing that screams complete bullshit for me with any photo of bigfoot/huge cats/loch ness/etc, is that the people who get the photo only ever get maybe one or a few really badly-taken and zoomed out/far away photos, and none of them actually approach what they see.

 

If you're in the woods and you see Bigfoot, why would you take one photo from about 100 metres away hidden through trees, and not just get closer or get a better shot/more shots?

 

I know people take a huge interest in all this fortean stuff and sightings like that, but it's so obvious bullshit I don't know why anyone would. If Loch Ness was there, someone would have found it by now, or gotten a photo more clear than something that looks like a bin bag or a toy submarine or whatever.

[PowerButchi]

My issues just one of age. If there was a Loch Ness monster it'd be so old it'd be dead by now, so if there was one there'd have to be loads of them surely to reproduce, and if there was loads of them, surely they'd have been seen?

[David]

The thing that screams complete bullshit for me with any photo of bigfoot/huge cats/loch ness/etc, is that the people who get the photo only ever get maybe one or a few really badly-taken and zoomed out/far away photos, and none of them actually approach what they see.

 

If you're in the woods and you see Bigfoot, why would you take one photo from about 100 metres away hidden through trees, and not just get closer or get a better shot/more shots?

You do realise that the people in question usually do try their best to get closer and get better shots, don't you? It's easy to say sitting at your PC that you would just go all Mick Dundee or Steve Irwin and creep up on some creature that looks like a Bigfoot, but in real life you may not be so sure.

 

I'm not saying the images are genuine of course, just that you can't really blame the photographer for being a bit nervous and shaking the camera, or not wanting to get too close.

 

I know people take a huge interest in all this fortean stuff and sightings like that, but it's so obvious bullshit I don't know why anyone would. If Loch Ness was there, someone would have found it by now, or gotten a photo more clear than something that looks like a bin bag or a toy submarine or whatever.

Not necessarily. Only recently have we started to see the kind of advances in technology that allow us to actually investigate the sea in any great detail. I may be wrong, but I'm sure that new species are being discovered quite regularly, so it's not as easy or clear cut as you may believe.

[FLips]

The thing that screams complete bullshit for me with any photo of bigfoot/huge cats/loch ness/etc, is that the people who get the photo only ever get maybe one or a few really badly-taken and zoomed out/far away photos, and none of them actually approach what they see.

 

If you're in the woods and you see Bigfoot, why would you take one photo from about 100 metres away hidden through trees, and not just get closer or get a better shot/more shots?

You do realise that the people in question usually do try their best to get closer and get better shots, don't you? It's easy to say sitting at your PC that you would just go all Mick Dundee or Steve Irwin and creep up on some creature that looks like a Bigfoot, but in real life you may not be so sure.

 

I'm not saying the images are genuine of course, just that you can't really blame the photographer for being a bit nervous and shaking the camera, or not wanting to get too close.

 

I know people take a huge interest in all this fortean stuff and sightings like that, but it's so obvious bullshit I don't know why anyone would. If Loch Ness was there, someone would have found it by now, or gotten a photo more clear than something that looks like a bin bag or a toy submarine or whatever.

Not necessarily. Only recently have we started to see the kind of advances in technology that allow us to actually investigate the sea in any great detail. I may be wrong, but I'm sure that new species are being discovered quite regularly, so it's not as easy or clear cut as you may believe.

 

What a load of horse shit on both points. If you're out there, and specifically if you're looking for this stuff, you will not be nervous about finding Big Foot or Loch Ness. You would jump at the chance to be "the one that discovered Big Foot" or whatever. Or you'd tell people about it or track it.

If I personally was out in the woods and think I see Big Foot, that shit would be up on Facebook from every angle at the drop of a hat and I would tell any one I was with or near me. Yeah I'd obviously see a giant ape-man and shit my pants, but Big Foot is a money ticket and fame waiting to happen, the fear of it would be outweighed I would imagine for most people, particularly like I mentioned those who are actually out there looking for it.

 

There's been adequate technology to discover something like Loch Ness for decades now. It's not some small unknown species of fish that lives miles under the sea, it's a big fucking dinosaur thing that lives in a Loch a couple of hundred meters deep. It would have been found long before now if it was real, but it's not.

Edited August 27, 2013 by TripleA

[King Coconut]

I'd love the BBC to pony up and send their African wild animal team out into the British landcape to actually try and film one. If those guys can't find one, I'll accept it's not there. They hunt down all sorts of rare animals in much larger areas.

There have been plenty of BBC documentaries filmed in the UK and there are camera traps all over the place. I know there is some supporting evidence for the big cat thing but I can't help but remain sceptical.

[Astro Hollywood]

I know people take a huge interest in all this fortean stuff and sightings like that, but it's so obvious bullshit I don't know why anyone would. If Loch Ness was there, someone would have found it by now, or gotten a photo more clear than something that looks like a bin bag or a toy submarine or whatever.

 

Not necessarily. You could fit the world's population in there three times over (it's 22 miles long), and because of the peat on the surrounding hills, it's pitch black once you get about 18 inches down. If there's something in there that rarely, or ever needs to briefly surface, the odds of someone being ready to shoot with a steady hand and good lenses when it does are about nil.

 

As far as "Why are all Fortean pictures blurry?!" good luck even getting a clear, close-up shot of a fox, if you randomly stumble across it in the wild. It'll be away and into the bushes before your hand's in your pocket.

 

My issues just one of age. If there was a Loch Ness monster it'd be so old it'd be dead by now, so if there was one there'd have to be loads of them surely to reproduce, and if there was loads of them, surely they'd have been seen?

 

The "They'd have been seen" part is kinda covered by the Bigfoot Witness dichotomy I mentioned a few posts up. If you consider that witnesses aren't deluded or liars, they have been seen. But I tend to agree with you. Sightings have really petered out over the past decade, which makes me think the Baltic Sturgeon theory is probably true.

 

 

They grow to enormous sizes and can live up a hundred years old. It's plausible to me a young one of those swam up the river sometime in the 20s or 30s and accounted for the spectacular eyewitness reports from the 30s right up to the 70s. Whatever was in there, if anything ever was, is probably dead now, and the only 'monster' people are seeing are the geese/otters/waves/seals that become something else because of where they are. That said, a sturgeon wouldn't account for some of the curiously believable accounts from the boom period, like Father Gregory, from Fort Augustus Abbey (later owned by Terry Nutkins), reenacting his sighting of a tall, lithe neck seen at close distance with one of his arthritic fingers; or dozens or others.

Edited August 27, 2013 by Astro Hollywood