New Harvey Pratt Sketches and C2C Interview

Filling in for George Knapp on February 28th, Ian Punnett was joined on Coast to Coast AM, for the latter half of the program, by Bigfoot researcher David Paulides and forensic artist Harvey Pratt for a discussion on the relationship between Native American cultures and Bigfoot as well as their work using eyewitness testimony to craft forensic sketches of the creature. Paulides revealed that they have uncovered a number of tales of Bigfoot abducting humans. He shared one story, from around the 1940's or 50's, of a girl from the city who was visiting her family in a rural part of California. She went off into the woods to pick berries and disappeared. A month later, she reemerged and claimed she'd been "kidnapped by the hairy man." Pratt concurred with the pervasiveness of these types of stories, saying that he's heard similar tales "even closer to our time frame."

Regarding their work turning sightings into sketches, Pratt stressed that he serves as a forensic artist as opposed to an illustrator and that all of his drawings are done with the witnesses present and are based solely on their testimony. "We go through a great deal of dialogue," Pratt said, with the goal of capturing the sighting from all angles, including the face as well as the back and shoulders. Despite the ongoing debate in the cryptozoology community over whether the creature is ape-like or human-like, Paulides marveled that "we have yet to draw anything close to an ape." Another trend that they have noticed is that the hair color of the Bigfoot seems to coincide with its age, similar to how a human's hair changes over time. For instance, all of the reported golden-colored Bigfoot are smaller and underdeveloped while the grey haired ones are older and frail-looking creatures.

EXTERNAL LINKS
Read the full story at C2C
HarveyPratt.com

Yeti Research Station Opens in Portland, OR

OK, we know Yeti's are located in east Asia, high in the Himalayas, so why are they opening a research station in Portland Oregon? Apparently to facilitate creative expression and identity by providing individual access to the resources and tools for the creation of independently published media and art.

Yes, this is an endeavor by The Independent Publishing Resource Center (IPRC). The IPRC is one of the only nonprofit self-publishing centers of its kind anywhere in the world. We offer access to workspace and tools to aid in the production and distribution of zines, comics, hand-bound books and artwork. This includes computer workstations for writing, scanning, graphic design & desktop publishing, and high-speed internet access for research and networking purposes; two copiers, five table-top letterpresses, three Gocco printers, a YuDu screenprinter, and various other tools for creating, binding, and assembling publications. We also have two art galleries and one of the nation’s largest circulating zine libraries.

Workspace and equipment is available to any member of the public at either an hourly ($5/hour) or yearly rate (begins at $45-100/year, sliding scale).

They have brought in a team of creative experts—including artists Scrappers, Lori D, Nicole Georges and many others—to help transform the computer lab into a Yeti Research Station.



BLC is all about supporting local friends, especially one who support Bigfoot, even if its a Bigfoot varient. We salute you, IPRC, if you readers are in the Portland area this Thursday go check out the new Yeti Research Station at 917 SW Oak Street #218 Portland, Oregon 97205

IMPORTANT INFO
The IPRC's open hours are:
Mon 12noon to 10pm
Tue/Wed/Thu 4pm to 10pm
Fri/Sat 12noon to 6pm
Sun 12noon to 5pm (youth only), 5pm to 8pm

EXTERNAL LINKS
Hungry Eyeballs Coverage of IPRC

Bigfoot Lunch Club Gets Skeptically Pwnd

First, let's talk about the word Pwnd (pronounced like owned, but with a P), a derivative from the word "Pwnage". You wont find it in the dictionary. We have to rely on the definition from the Urban Dictionary:

Pure Ownage as used in online gaming to stress your superiority on all levels. Spawned from the root word pwn, which originated as a misspelling of the word own. Hence this stupid word is two screw-ups away from anything close to english.

We will get back to the word Pwnd in a second, let's go to the beginning.

In our post "'Skeptics' Late to Debunking Bigfoot" We noted, how Bigfooters are usually the first to be skeptical about encounters and claims. The theme was that simple, and it was succinct in the post title. We can break it down though. Skeptics, (in quotes because we are not talking about real skeptics) were later than others to debunking a Bigfoot hoax. Simple. It seems Brian Dunning at SkepticBlog had issue with this theme.


To be fair, in our post we went further and critiqued Dunnings credentials as a skeptic. This is why we used "skeptic" in quotes, because real skeptics make better assumptions than Brian Dunning.

Dunning pushed back a few days ago and unfortunately, it turns out, that he still hasn't done his homework. He poorly ASSUMED Autumn Williams' synthetic hair analyses of a Bigfoot hoax was based only on the viewing of a you-tube video. Her analysis was, in fact, based also on hair photos that were emailed to her. If Dunning had read the post he was quoting, he would have figured that out. In this age of information how hard would it have been for Dunning to do this one-click research?

We think skeptics are honorable, pragmatic, critical and good at researching applicable evidence (or lack there of). Brian Dunning we wish we had empirical proof that you are deficient in these qualities, instead we can only provide evidence that you make poor assumptions due to laziness or ability.

Now, back to Pwnd.
Dunning admits to cooperating with John Rael of SkepticallyPwned.com to promote the Bigfoot video hoax. He called it, "a fun little lark." Just to be clear the definition of lark is: a harmless prank. A "skeptic" that promotes hoaxes and then waits a week before admitting involvement?

Rael, who produced the video, claims in his own words, his objective:

I decided a few months ago to create my very own hoax video...I thought this might inspire some crypto’s to ‘defend’ or ‘promote’ the hoax.

Well, according to his site, the only person who "bit" was Tom Biscardi, a known hoaxer. What a coup! You got a known hoaxer interested in possibly cooperating with you in your hoax! That said, even Tom insisted on meeting Rael personally before committing any effort.

We don't know who got Pwned, since nobody was fooled by John Rael's video. He didn't achieve his self-defined objective. Rael admits he poorly assumed "a crypto's would 'defend' the video".

The only revealing thing from all of this was: two people who call themselves "skeptics" make poor assumptions, due to lack of will or ability to investigate/evaluate evidence.

EXTERNAL LINKS
Dunning's assumption fest
John Raels assumption confession