Daily Dose of Common Sense

A woman driving in Connecticut one night last week thought she almost ran over Bigfoot.

She told police the hairy beast was 8 feet tall and had “legs like tree trunks.” It ran off after she switched her headlights to high beams.

Shockingly, the “beast” turned out to be only a 16-year old in a gorilla costume. Police turned him over to his parents, who hopefully gave him a stern lecture about the stupidity of being in a gorilla costume at night.

This idea of a giant man ape running in the wilderness just won’t die. Last year, three men held a press conference stating they had found the remains of a Bigfoot creature in the woods of Georgia. The claim was quickly debunked.

Despite the lack of evidence in this creature, many people believe it is real. Even the famous ape expert Jane Goodall is a believer. Here is a great article on why people want to believe in crazy myths and monsters.

Today’s ubiquitous and often one-sided promotional coverage of the paranormal, both on the Internet and TV, perpetuate myths and folklore as well or better than any ancient storyteller.

Fiction and belief masquerade as fact and news, feeding the 24/7 appetite of the easily swayed.

Scientists are left with an impossible task: proving something does not exist.

You can prove a rock is there. You can’t prove that Bigfoot or a ghost or the god of thunder is not there. Bigfoot paraphernalia purveyors and cash-cow psychics know this well.

I’ll believe in Sasquatch when real scientific evidence is produced. Until then, they’ll all be gorilla suits to me.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 3rd, 2009 at 2:07 pm and is filed under Scams. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.