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Title: Big Foot
By Suganya Thaveswaran, working individually

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Description: This video talks about Big foot skull found in Canada. It also talks about how Big foot came into existence and how it is all made into t-shirts, statutes, etc. He goes on to searching for Big foot as part of his documentary. There are tree breaks which they wonder is if it is a sign by Big foot to say do not go any further.

Connection: I believe the red flag here is red herring. Though this video is about the existence of Big foot and about the skull, it talks about many thinks that are irrelevant. For instance, it talks about the skulls found which can be bear's or humans or big foot's. It also talks about t-shirts, statues, etc being created since the topic of Big foot started to now.

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Description: This video talks about how a Hickory man has seen Big foot and he has recorded images of it. He saw three  Big Foot there. More people have seen Big foot at the same place. This McDowell county is a hot spot for Big foot creatures.

Connection: I believe the red flag that links to this video is confirmation bias. He is a member of the research committee, who probably has done so much research and probably believes Big foot exists. He tries to link the events and ideas that link to Big foot and stick to his belief about it, though scientists say there is no logical reason for the existence of Big foot.

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Hickory man says he has video of Big Foot

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Description: This video titled, " 4 Shocking Bigfoot Sightings - The Proof is Out There" was created to say that there were four encounters in different times which proofs that Big Foot exists. In North Carolina, Doug, a Big Foot enthusiast believes that he saw Big Foot and takes video and explains his findings that it exists.

Connection: This video connects to the red flag patternicity. At the beginning of the video it states that there was an image of Big Foot which is not clear and they circle it to show the patterns they saw of Big Foot. The flaw is no actual evidence to prove that this is Big Foot. It is just being assumed as big foot based on the pattern seen and later even though there was images and a foot which was found but it remains unexplained as to whether it is Big Foot or something else (human dressing up like Big Foot, chimpanzee).

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4 SHOCKING BIGFOOT SIGHTINGS | The Proof is Out There

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Description: This website talks about why so many people still want to believe in Big foot. Though it is mythical, Big foot holds it strong. People started talking about Big foot sixty years ago and it is still a big deal.

Connection: The red flag that is linked to this is perception and observation. It states in the article that there is not enough evidence to proof the existence of Big foot and that we are dealing with human imagination. Those who have had some encounter with Big foot or anything that looks like Big foot or his hair perceive that Big foot exists. Likewise, people who have read and observed images, articles, research tend to perceive that Big foot exists. The conclusions made by each individual is based on their observation and how they perceive it.

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Sixty years ago this fall, Bigfoot first stepped into the public consciousness. "Giant footprints puzzle residents," a headline in the Humboldt Times announced. The small Northern California newspaper reported that a road construction crew had discovered humanlike footprints that were a massive 16 inches long. The paper was the first to give the mysterious animal that made the prints its memorable moniker-"Bigfoot"-and the creature has been stomping through the American imagination ever since.

Today, the legendary beast seems to be everywhere: You will find Bigfoot looking awfully cute this year in two children's films: The Son of Bigfoot and Smallfoot. Animal Planet recently aired the finale of its popular series "Finding Bigfoot," which lasted 11 seasons despite never making good on the promise of its title. And the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization lists at least one report from every state, except Hawaii, over the past two decades. The most recent sighting, in June 2018, was by a woman in Florida who reported a creature that looked like "a large pile of soggy grass." Other evidence in the database includes supposed Bigfoot scat, nests and noises. If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, it may not make a sound-but it seems someone will report that a Bigfoot knocked it over.

"Interest in the existence of the creature is at an all-time high," the paleontologist Darren Naish has observed, even though "there's nothing even close to compelling as goes the evidence."

Of course, Bigfoot is not the first fabled hominid to roam North America. Sasquatches long populated the mythologies of American Indian tribes in the Pacific Northwest, but those 1958 footprints transformed the myth into a media sensation. The tracks were planted near Bluff Creek in Northern California by a man named Ray Wallace-but his prank was not revealed until his death in 2002, when his children said it had all been "just a joke."

By that point, more important evidence had entered the Bigfoot file. In 1967, Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin filmed a few seconds of a hairy creature walking on two legs by the same Bluff Creek-the most famous and contested piece of Bigfoot "evidence" to this day. That the Patterson-Gimlin film was created in the same place that Wallace had staged his hoax is just one reason to doubt its authenticity. Skeptics say the animal was a man in costume, while believers argue that the creature's movements and body proportions cannot possibly have been human. The debate has been raging for half a century, which raises a question of its own. "How is it that the evidence has not gotten any better despite the exponential increase in the quantity and quality of cameras?" asks Benjamin Radford, a research fellow with the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.

Still the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence either. Wild animals don't exactly mug for photos, and the planet's ever-shrinking forests still regularly unpack surprises, such as the saola, an untamed cousin of the cow that was discovered by scientists in Vietnam in 1992. But the saola did not have legions of amateurs hunting it with cameras. With or without hard evidence, many people clearly want to believe in Bigfoot. Which suggests we are dealing more with human imagination than human evolution.

Naish has written that Bigfoot is the modern American "manifestation of a human-wide cultural concept, not a zoological reality." It has much in common with the Australian yowie and the Himalayan yeti: an upright posture, shaggy hair and, of course, large feet. As so-called wild men, they hold a crude mirror up to our own species: What might Homo sapiens be like if civilization had not removed it from nature?

Fact or Folklore
Can you tell the real animals from the fake ones? Hover over each animal to reveal if it is fact or folklore. (Illustration by Iris Gottlieb) Illustrations by Iris Gottlieb
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Some people see these cryptohominids as symbols of pure freedom, living by instinct and foiling every effort to pin them down. To search for Bigfoot in the forest is to taste that freedom. On the trail, you become extra-attuned to nature: the smell of scat, the sounds of breaking branches, the curious impressions in the dirt. As long as there are wild places in America, Bigfoot remains a possibility that, to its most ardent proponents, cannot be disproved.

The hunt for Bigfoot emulates an earlier mode of discovery, when new knowledge was not the product of advanced degrees and expensive machinery but rather curiosity, bravery, patience and survival. In the 19th century, the American landscape revealed its majesties to ordinary settlers pushing westward into territory unmapped by Europeans. To track Bigfoot today is to channel that frontier spirit (as well as to appropriate Native American traditions).

Bigfoot also embodies other less romantic but no less enduring American traits, like gullibility and a hunger for attention. "There are so many fake videos," says Loren Coleman, the founder of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine. The problem has grown worse with social media, where viral hoaxes, like drone footage of a supposed Bigfoot in a clearing in Idaho, can rack up millions of views. Coleman, for his part, believes there is evidence for Bigfoot's existence, but he and his like-minded peers find it difficult to focus attention on this material amid the growing number of obvious shams. "Technology has ruined the old cryptozoology," Coleman says.

His complaint echoes concerns in more mainstream American life, where technologies that promised to build consensus have, in fact, made the truth more difficult than ever to discern. On the internet, Bigfoot has found a habitat much more hospitable than North American forests. It turns out that Bigfoot does not need to exist in order to live forever.

The Iceman Cameth
The amazing story of the infamous frozen "missing link" from Minnesota-and the dogged scientist hot on its trail.

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Why Do So Many People Still Want to Believe in Bigfoot?

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The appeal of the mythical, wild man holds strong

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Description: This website talks about the existence of Big foot and how it has been so hard for decades to take videos or photos to proof it. Some have taken hair or other products to prove it's existence. It also states that Todd has encountered Big Foot.

Connection: This website connects to the proof by verbosity.  The writer has provided so much information and pictures which makes you actually wonder if Big foot is really true because of the information provided. It states how he has seen Big Foot and explains different situations where they have encountered Big Foot. They also stated how tall Big foot is makes you wonder if it can be true. How can we know how tall someone is if they do not exist? It also states 80% he takes out there has met or had live interaction with Big Foot. Because there is so much information presented about so many situations it makes you want to believe it.

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Bigfoot in Canada: Inside the hunt for proof — or at least a good photo - National | Globalnews.ca

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Cameras are better than ever, but Bigfoot hunters are still struggling to get a good photo of what they believe is real.

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Description: This image is a contains a sign at Simcoe County which simply indicates to be careful during Big Foot Sighting. The creature resembles Big Foot and to be caution.

Connection: This image connects to the red flag agenticity. Though we do not know if Big foot is real or not. There are signs which states to be careful and be aware of Big Foot and creatures resembling it. Meaning has been assigned to agents which we do not know if exists.

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Description: This website discuses if Bigfoot is real. It mentions that Bigfoot must be really good at hiding because people. This creature is linked to Indigenous myths and legends and means hairy man.

Connection: This website connects to the red flag, simplicity. This website starts discussing about whether Big Foot is real or not. It states why Big Foot can be real, but later it simply states that it is easier to believe in the pseudoscience as the science and research does not proof or answer their question if Big Foot exists.

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Bigfoot, or Sasquatch, is a large ape-like creature some people believe inhabits North America but there's no hard evidence it actually exists.

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1.  What I learned from the topic that most surprised me is that people are feeding Big foot and they think they know what Big Foot likes.

2. This topic is interesting to me because ever since the first day I have learned about this topic in class I wanted to know what it is about Big foot that researchers are discussing about for decades. Is this creature real and what makes it so special.

3. What I found most interesting is the image that says do not feed the Sasquatch and the article written along with it. It was interesting to me because we do not even know if this creature exists and there are people feeding food that they had to create signs for it.

4. What I am more likely to remember from this research is that these creatures are really tall and hairy. It has been decades and we still do not know any logical, scientific (DNA) evidence to proof its existence.

5.  Having completed all the course content, I think the pseudoscience belief that is most harmful is patternicity. Patternicity is the image we see. For instance, I may look man dressed up like Big Foot and say this is Big foot or some creature like that which is going to hide quickly, but really it might be someone that can hurt me as soon as I turn around. I think the pseudoscience belief that is least harmful is simplicity. Simplicity is believing the simple answer you can find because scientific answers are hard to understand. For instance, if I do not understand why the DNA between Gorilla and human are not the same I can simply just go with the fact that they look different therefore they are different. It will not harm me.

6. If I could pass on my knowledge to a family member or friend the most important thing I would pass on is being open to ideas and theories and logically/critically thinking about them before accepting any ideas. I had an open mind when I did my research and everything I have read or watched I thought about why it could or could not be the case before jumping into conclusions. There can be many theories about each thing but we have to critically think after looking at all the available information.

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Description: This is an image taken from the NBC Montana. It states that people have seen Big foot. It also states that people put various foods that Big foot likes, which they end up eating and if the food they did not like were kept they would spit it out, which are then used for DNA tests. It states that once they get the DNA tests results from those tests they will have a better idea.

Connection: I think the red flag that links to this is confusion of correlation with causation. They are linking whatever food they find missing are being eaten by Big foot. Really it could be any creature that likes the food and eats it. A human will eat peanut butter and jelly if it's there and if they like it. If you keep something that an animal or bird likes then they will consume that. I do not think we should link the food should be linked to Big foot.

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Description: This is an image taken from the CTV news which states FBI tested a hair sample of Big foot from a mysterious file.

Connection: I believe the red flag that connects to this image is patternicity. The patterns in the image is connected as to how each person sees it. In CTV news, the person who captured the image called it Big Foot, but when I see this image I see a regular human bundled up in winter. I really wonder if the hair was also a humans hair that they tested. We cannot just believe anything we see.