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  • bwelty@arvig.net says:
    July 11, 2016 at 04:03

    Hi Shannon,
    What a great show!! I really enjoyed it and I know I will listen to it again. I like the subjects about Sasquatch, they are my favorite. You have had many great shows on all subjects but this one really had my attention. Great guest, I hope you have him on again. Take care.
    Bruce.

  • WisGuy says:
    June 27, 2017 at 17:58

    As those who are interested in Fortean phenomenon well know, there are very significant differences in levels of reliability and credibility of reports of mysterious sightings and those who make those reports. I haven’t found every guest who has appeared on ITF to have a fully believable account and I would bet a case of good microbrew that some of these tales are the products of memories that have been influenced and altered by a variety of internal and external psychological and psychiatric factors, or are simply means of seeking attention.

    However, I would not put Ray in that category – I found his account of his experiences to be quite credible-sounding. His statements were fluid, articulate, and suggested a person recalling the details of genuine memories, without the small hesitations that might signify a person having a quick debate over which details to include, which to omit, and which need to be added to an previous storyline, nor did it contain any pauses as the person sought to remember which version he or she has told previously.

    Aside from the lack of an actual specimen, my skeptical side has always been troubled by the lack of trail cam evidence of bigfoot, when there have been tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of such devices mounted on game trails over the past decade that should be catching photos or videos of a large omnivore tracking its prey. Ray’s explanation for this – that sasquatch can see, and thus avoid, the infrared beams from a trailcam’s motion sensor is one I have heard before and not found entirely convincing. As I have argued previously, it is difficult to understand how they can detect and avoid a small, mostly silent plastic box hung on a tree, yet dozens of times have not been able to avoid stepping in front of the headlights of a motor vehicle at night that they should be able to detect from a mile or more away. However, Ray’s further explanation and evidence for this hypothesis – that anthropologists have found that the great apes have infrared visual capabilities demonstrated by their ability to pick ripe fruit, which registers differently in the infrared spectrum, than unripe fruit – would indeed be a convincing explanation for why the best known trail cam footage (of the “juvenile sasquatch” from Pennsylvania) is actually a starving, mangy black bear and there are no more reliable or clear photos than that one.

    As for the accounts of tree breakages and structures in the woods, I would caution people to take care not to make a practice of automatically declaring that such findings are conclusive bigfoot evidence. I recently went on a vacation and along a nature trail saw at least six broken trees of the sorts I have seen in photos or videos attributed to sasquatches marking their territories, plus saw several stick structures. These were all natural phenomena, or, in the case of the stick structures, may have been placed there by kids. How do I know this was not proof of sasquatch? Simple. It was on an island isolated from and many miles away from any past reports of sasquatch sightings, per the BFRO sightings map, plus the area is too built-up in general to support a large mystery hominid and these particular trees and sticks were very close to a village and busy tourist area. Winds can and do break some trees but not others a few feet away and cast multiple branches about that get caught on the same space and pile up to create what appears to be an intentional structure.

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