One of my points, as well as a truly sincere question, involves this information, or data. These stories exist; they're real. The stories, not the question of the experience itself. So, as I asked, do we accept the BF sighting, but not the UFO sighting? Do we include the BF report, but pretend we never heard anything about the witness also communicating with the creature?
I also made the point that including this anomalous data in the research is not the same as accepting it as real,understanding it, or approving it.
Here's what I commented over on Cryptomundo:
Thanks for the facilitation of this intriguing topic Craig.
Lots of interesting comments, as to be expected!
As I said, I realize that cryptozoology and the search for Bigfoot in a quest for its scientific validity has a hard enough time being taken seriously. I am completely sympathetic to that, and any "nonsense" about telepathic communcations, UFOs, or any other Fortean/high strangeness events associated with Bigfoot is to be rejected. " BUT..."
Having read several dozens of stories about these types of encounters, and knowing, personally, a few people that have had them, what do you do about them?
Are these people lying? I doubt very much the ones I've spoken with personally are. Always possible of course, as with anything. But I doubt it.
One of the issues here, for me, is: when do you decide, as a researcher, to reject something? A legitimate question.
If you're interviewing a BF witness, and they reveal they saw a UFO at the same time, or that they were in some sort of telepathic communication with BF, or some other "weird" event, what do you do?
Leave it out or ignore it? Accept the BF sighting, but not the other stuff? Reject the whole thing, including the BF sighting, "because" of the other stuff?
While I understand the fact of science needing physical, solid evidence that can be measured, etc. if these other things are present, they're a part of the experience. It isn't the witnesses or researcher's "fault" that they are a part of the experience.
So now what?
These are valid quesitons. As Nick Redfern pointed out in his recent articles on this topic, these stories "are," and you can't just reject them because you feel like it. (on his blog UFO Mystic and in this issue of UFO Magazine.)
Keeping the stories as part of the data isn't the same as believing in them, or accepting them. But it's a start towards including all the evidence you find, as part of the research into the phenomena.
