A large, mysterious primate roams the forests of the Bulkley Valley, leaving only the occasional footprint. Meanwhile, alien ships probe our skies, disappearing with hardly a trace,
At least this is what a growing number of Bulkley Valley people believe. But according to a few top scientists in British Columbia, the probability any of these claims are true is virtually nil.
Last fall, continuing throughout this winter, there were repeated reports of Bigfoot and UFO sightings from Moricetown to Burns Lake.
In fact, Mormon missionaries documented large footprints and no less than a dozen reliable people contacted this newspaper from an area near Moricetown and Houston with photos and accounts of an unexplainable figure seemingly making tracks near their homes.
And then there were those of incredible veracity, some in positions of great responsibility, living in Smithers, who reported seeing those infamous lights in the Bulkley Valley sky.
However, Douglas Scott is a professor of astrophysics at the University of British Columbia who is fairly confident alien species exist somewhere in the universe. But given its immense size, he says it is extremely unlikely they’ve been popping in to visit us.
“The basic thing is it’s fantastically difficult to visit other stars. Somewhere out there there are probably other living beings of some sort. But the distances are huge,” Scott says.
Even traveling at the speed of light, which is impossible according to the laws of physics, it would take four years to reach the nearest star, Proxima Centauri. That means even if humans managed to build a spacecraft that could travel as fast as 30,000 km in one second, our astronauts would be in for a 40 year trip.
Even getting to Mars is very difficult, Scott adds. “Going to a star is something like 100,000 times harder. It’s not just a bit harder.”
Aliens would have similar difficulties. But again, he stresses that he doesn’t discount the possibility of extraterrestrial life altogether.
“I just refuse to believe that aliens zip around the Earth, like they were coming here on a whim. If somebody has some real evidence I would be the first to be really excited and want to know more. But the stuff you hear about, there’s never any hard evidence.”
As for the possibility of a large primate stomping around in the forests of British Columbia, Dr. Jacob Goheen, an assistant professor of zoology at UBC who studies the natural history of mammals, scoffs at the very idea.
“I hardly know where to begin,” he says. “First of all, there aren’t any other apes in the western hemisphere. And one kind of pattern we see among mammals is that in like species, their geographical ranges overlap. The second thing is that it’s hard to imagine a species of that size going undetected for that long.”
Goheen says the act of searching for hypothetical animals cannot be considered science. People involved in scientific research unanimously reject the existence of crypto-animals like Bigfoot, he says, and people who claim they do exist don’t have bona fide scientific credentials.
“You will not find a biologist who believes in these things and biologists are the experts. So that should tell you something. I hate to sound kind of snooty there, but it would be like asking a professional actor about how we should construct a bridge rather than a civil engineer.”
In any case, a large primate would have a very hard time surviving in the forests of Northwestern B.C., Goheen adds, knowing what we do about the diet of other species of apes. “Chimpanzees and ourangutans eat fruits mainly. Gorillas eat leaves but they spend all day eating.”
“There are very few mammals that can make a living eating conifer leaves. It’s really bad stuff — they’re toxic. There are no primates I’ve ever heard of eating those.”
In any case, Goheen says, crypto-zoologists are so off their rockers that they are hardly worth responding to. They don’t have anything valuable to add to the current body of knowledge, he says.
“A debate is only a good debate if both sides have something to contribute. For example, we don’t debate that storks carry babies to our doorsteps. Even though you could argue that, you would just be insane.”
But is it true that people who believe they have sighted Bigfoot don’t have all their marbles?
Not necessarily, according to Dr. Paul D. Siakaluk, associate professor of psychology at the University of Northern British Columbia. Siakaluk says some people have such strongly held beliefs that they will flat-out refuse to accept evidence that challenges them, no matter how convincing.
“People are more interested in and will only accept information that’s consistent with their belief structure already. So, if they don’t believe or understand that time travel is impossible…. then they will disregard any information or knowledge that’s presented to them. They will only accept information that would be consistent with what they believe.”
Many people have pre-conceived notions of what alien craft should look like. For example, flying saucers, a staple of science-fiction, are commonly reported by UFO sighters, he says. “The idea that there would be some disc-shaped light object is what we refer to as a schema”, Siakaluk says. A `schema’ is a term used in psychology that means a set of beliefs or expectations about something in the world.
Siakaluk also says some people are more prone to believing in pseudoscience than others. “People do differ in — perhaps a bad term — in terms of gullibility.”
The bottom line, say Scott and Goheen, is that anyone making a paranormal claim should get ready to prove it.
Scott recalls a saying popular among skeptics: “The most extraordinary claims require the most extraordinary evidence. The crazier the thing you’re claiming is the better your evidence should be,” he says.
“If you really did see a UFO, try to get some really good evidence.”
And taking better photographs and videos would be a good start, says Goheen.
“Invariably when people see Bigfoot they never have a camera. Except this really grainy photo of some dude dressed in a gorilla costume.”
Source: bclocalnews
