Cryptids, what do you believe in?

[Doclector]

I've always thought it best to keep an open mind. I doubt something like the sasquatch that lives in a fairly developed area could keep hidden for so long, but then again, it could be smarter than we think, it could know to keep hidden from us.

One of humanitys biggest flaws is its arrogance. Back in the early 1900s, some assumed that we had learned and invented all there is to learn and invent, and now a good amount of us still assume the very same thing. I don't think we can ever know everything. I'm not sure we should.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

Buuuuuuullllllllshiiiiiit.

As much as I'd like to believe Nessie at the very least is real, there is not enough food in the lake for him/her to survive and above all...no reputable evidence, and plenty of evidence that has been exposed as fake. This tells me a number of things, but chiefly that people are actively fabricating evidence for the existence of these creatures. All that sort of sphere of things, up to UFOs, where spottings increase around the launch of Sci Fi movies featuring them and victims of alien abduction or observers of cryptids commonly contradict each other outside of the established lore, utilise tropes from culture and misremember events depending on how they're asked to retell them...it's just all so pitifully fake.

It's like Richard Dawkin's teapot orbiting the Sun analogy. You can't prove it isn't there, but just it having been suggested doesn't mean there's any more credence to the claim than other similarly outlandish suggestions.

I'm sceptical about most cryptids. People who don't fully understand evolution are quite found of saying "Anything is possible", but that's really as far from the truth as you can get. Evolution is severely limited just like the other sciences. There are undiscovered creatures out there and some of them will baffle us when discovered, but often the truth is quite boring compared to the mythology.

Yes, most imaginary creatures tend to have characteristics of real, divergent species, which seems to many to be pretty accurate due to the correlation with real life but actually isn't.

 

[Lieju]

It just seems so boring to me to say "No, supernatural creatures don't exist, because SCIENCE!" I mean, how many giant or colossal squid have we actually observed in their natural habitats?

How are those supernatural, though?

There certainly are species we haven't discovered yet, but I'm going to demand actual evidence for them.

And of course, it depends on what kind of a claim it is.
Claim that there is a new species of spider, and I'm more likely to believe you than if you make claims about fire-breathing dragons.

It's like Richard Dawkin's teapot orbiting the Sun analogy. You can't prove it isn't there, but just it having been suggested doesn't mean there's any more credence to the claim than other similarly outlandish suggestions.

You mean Russell's teapot? It's a concept invented by Bertrand Russell, not Dawkins.

 

[Hazy992]

It'd be nice for things like the Sasquatch to exist, but until I see some decent evidence I'm not going to believe in them.

I do believe aliens exist, as its mathematically impossible for there not to be at least one other planet that can support life, but I don't believe they've visited Earth and they probably never will.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

It's like Richard Dawkin's teapot orbiting the Sun analogy. You can't prove it isn't there, but just it having been suggested doesn't mean there's any more credence to the claim than other similarly outlandish suggestions.

You mean Russell's teapot? It's a concept invented by Bertrand Russell, not Dawkins.

Well I heard it from Dawkins first and he didn't apparently quote sources, so please excuse me for not delving deeper. ^^

 

[Froggy Slayer]

Big land based ones, especially in America? Nah, most likely not true. I can believe some of the bigger ones existing out in Asia, Africa or the deep sea, though. And honestly, though a scientific man myself I would like to wake up to a world one day where something completely supernatural comes out of the blue and baffles scientists. It'd be hilarious.

 

[Cowabungaa]

None until I see some kind of genetic evidence.

I like my proof hard and strong thank you very much.

 

[The White Hunter]

Okay well the universe is so friggin massive that it's mathematically improbable that there would not be some kind of intelligent life outside of our planet

Also, there's probably some kind of "Yeti", by which I mean a great ape we haven't managed to discover yet. It took us long enough to find the ones we already know about and there are vast areas of wilderness and tundra and mountain that we just haven't explored that well yet. So, it seems likely such a thing could exist.

Edit: Also, I really hope there is some kind of absolutely enormous Octopus somewhere on the seafloor just waiting to sink a ship some day.

 

[chocolate pickles]

it seems likely to me that there are Aliens out there somewhere, but barring that? No way. The Loch Ness Monster seems the most unlikely to me (I dont know a lot about the other famous ones): i watched a show where they proved one of the most famous photos taken of it was a fake (Surgeons photograph), with the guy who made it even admitting it was a fake. Combined with all the reasonable explanations against the monsters existence, i think its just a money making hoax. Same could be said for all the other famous cryptids.

 

[The White Hunter]

Are ethereal beings(aka Ghosts) counted? I want to believe in them, despite evidence. It's more of a interest thing rather than logical reason. I just want to imagine we are truly not alone despite dying.

The thing about ghosts is that all of the things people experience when involved with ghosts (fear, dread, anxiety, etc, even death) are often things that happen in houses when there's carbon monoxide poisoning going on, so it's fairly easy to explain why somebody experienced something "supernatural" and died mysteriously and silently in the night.

Also, sadly, surely there'd be cow ghosts? worm ghosts? ant ghosts? bee ghosts? bird ghosts? There'd be more ghosts than living things.

 

[The White Hunter]

On this planet, we're still discovering new species lurking about in the corners we've managed to leave unexplored or floating up from depths that prove to be unable to be presently explored. As a skeptic, I'd like to imagine that the possibility exists that some cryptids are sightings of said elusive species. Though with that said, why hasn't a creature such as Sasquatch ever left a complete body behind? Are they such an intelligent species of primate that they've managed to completely pulverize the bones of their fallen into dust, or completely cremate them before sprinkling them into water? Or perhaps it's true that they don't exist and bears have simply gotten some nasty diseases these days.

Speculation and possibilities are fun, the lack of tangible evidence is frustrating.
Don't believe in the other ones, though I will admit that they make cool stories.

I think a Sasquatch in the US likely would've been found by now but that's not to say that if you were to spend a serious amount of time hunting in the Himalayas or the Mongolian steppe you couldn't find some kind of large ape that the scientific world has never discovered before. The odd thing is that Yeti's and such seem to permeate almost every culture.

So it's kind of more plausible. It also could just be a grizzly in the distance waddling around on it's back legs, they do that, brown bears are also near global, fairly elusive and the top predator on land.

 

[shrekfan246]

It just seems so boring to me to say "No, supernatural creatures don't exist, because SCIENCE!" I mean, how many giant or colossal squid have we actually observed in their natural habitats?

How are those supernatural, though?

There certainly are species we haven't discovered yet, but I'm going to demand actual evidence for them.

And of course, it depends on what kind of a claim it is.
Claim that there is a new species of spider, and I'm more likely to believe you than if you make claims about fire-breathing dragons.

My point was more that there are creatures that can grow to be well over thirty feet in length and two tons in mass that we have barely observed even in the last decade.

Like I said, I maintain an air of skepticism. I won't go around shouting about how ghosts or wendigos or Elvis Presley are roaming the wild plains of Nevada, but I like to think there's more out there that we haven't discovered and likely never will in my lifetime.

EDIT: Also, kraken. Go back two hundred years or so, and I bet that people would think you're talking about some supernatural mythological being if you were to bring up giant squid.

 

[Dyan]

I second Mothman. While I am pretty sceptical about most Cryptids, I think there are way too many witnesses, to explain it as "mass hysteria" or a Sandhill Crane.

 

[the December King]

It's like the poster says: 'I WANT to believe'.

Cryptids, ghosts, Heaven, God, aliens, Atlantis, demons, ESP... but I'll need some good old fashioned empirical evidence first.

And for those that would like a podcast of folks with a simillar outlook, may I present Mysterious Universe:

http://mysteriousuniverse.org/category/podcasts/

 

[Korak the Mad]

I second Mothman. While I am pretty sceptical about most Cryptids, I think there are way too many witnesses, to explain it as "mass hysteria" or a Sandhill Crane.

Agreed. There are too many witnesses that have seen this being. Dismissing it as "Mass Hysteria" is downright ridiculous. Yes, the bridge collapsing did cause some hysteria, but all the witnesses who saw it, saw days before it happened, not afterwards.

 

[GrimTuesday]

I think I should point out that people who don't think that there is enough unexplored areas of Washington and Oregon obviously have never been here. I meam yeah, we have large cities, but once you leave those, it becomes quite rural quite quickly. something like 30-40% of both states is large, dense forests, we even have a large rain forest in Northern Washington. Really the biggest obstacle is the climate, as most monkeys and ape perfer a considerably warmer climate.

In addition, to the guy who said that evidence points to Monkeys evolved in North America, that is incorrect, all evidence points to them evolving in Africa and Asia, and making their way to the Americas. We don't know how, though my personal favorite theory is they came across on tree islands formed by water eroading away the ground beneath the roots, while the roots hold together a large amount of the top layer.

 

[Gorrath]

I second Mothman. While I am pretty sceptical about most Cryptids, I think there are way too many witnesses, to explain it as "mass hysteria" or a Sandhill Crane.

Agreed. There are too many witnesses that have seen this being. Dismissing it as "Mass Hysteria" is downright ridiculous. Yes, the bridge collapsing did cause some hysteria, but all the witnesses who saw it, saw days before it happened, not afterwards.

The issue that I take with mothman is the lack of sightings outside of that one incident. I do believe that people were seeing a phenomenon they couldn't explain (as opposed to out and out lying) but I do think there were large amounts of exaggeration involved. I've personally met a few of the witnesses and talked to them about their stories, and all seemed quite sincere, but the reliability of witnesses should always be considered fairly poor. If the mothman phenomenon was actually some kind of cryptid, why is it the only time it has ever been seen? I don't buy the sandhill crane explaination either, as the witness accounts described nothing at all like a crane.

Even after extensive study of this and other cryptids (this is a hobby of mine) I don't think I, or anyone else, have a proper explanation of what people were seeing. There are also some details between incidents that are contradictory, such as some describing the beast as sppearing to be biological and others saying that its eyes and the sounds it was mas making seemed mechanical. I don't myself believe that it was anything extra terrestrial in nature nor that it was some kind of secret species. If I was to hazard a wild guess (and that's all I could hazard) I would say mutant animal seems most likely (Not sci-fi mutant animal either, just a creature that had enough physical deformity to be mistaken as a unique species). Mix a strange, deformed beast with people's natural tendency to exaggerate and that seems to me to be the best guess that could be made.

As for the silver bridge, I think that its collapse was a simple coincidence. Some people try to link the events together, along with aliens, Indrid Cold and the men in black, but I don't buy any of that stuff. Indrid Cold was a compelte hoax along with the MiB and the UFO sightings were likely caused by the hysteria following the mothman reports. People were looking for anything and everything out of the ordinary to report.

Keep in mind I am a cynical sceptic though.

 

[Mzuark]

The funny thing about all this disbelief is that even when proof is right in peoples faces, they still won't believe. You can't just write off every unexplained sighting as someone just making stuff up, because not everyone wants to get famosu or has some reason to lie. All over the world there are sightings of unexplained creatures, while some of them are hoaxes and misrepresentations but, believe it or not, there exists people out in the world who would never lie about that kind of thing.

For example, too many people, with no connection to each other, have seen bigfoot like creatures all over America to just write it off as hysteria. There is something out there. Holy shit, I'd think people on the internet would have a more open mind about this kind of thing.

 

[Frezzato]

My point was more that there are creatures that can grow to be well over thirty feet in length and two tons in mass that we have barely observed even in the last decade.

Like I said, I maintain an air of skepticism. I won't go around shouting about how ghosts or wendigos or Elvis Presley are roaming the wild plains of Nevada, but I like to think there's more out there that we haven't discovered and likely never will in my lifetime.

EDIT: Also, kraken. Go back two hundred years or so, and I bet that people would think you're talking about some supernatural mythological being if you were to bring up giant squid.

Hear hear, I second this.

I'll go even further to say that I don't begrudge people who do believe in these things (which I consider outlandish), and while I do tend to mock people who appear to have built "careers" out of searching for things such as Bigfoot, again, I don't harbor any negative thoughts towards them.

I think there's one thing that all people universally still need, and that's mystery. Thinking that we know all there is to know is just foolish. It's mystery we need, and in some ways it's mystery that drives us as a species. This is probably why I love the show River Monsters. Each show starts off creepy, and while the host Jeremy Wade usually gets his fish, the driving motto behind the show of "We don't know what's out there, but we're going to try and find out" is absolutely compelling to me.

 

[KiramidHead]

I'd like to believe in Bigfoot and other similar creatures throughout the world. The Pacific Northwest and large swaths of Canada are heavily forested, and it wouldn't be difficult for a small, perhaps dwindling population of such a creature to hide there. Now, things like the skunk ape in the American South, I'm not so sure about, since there's fewer places to hide.

One I have hard time believing in is Nessie. If you look into the actual eyewitness accounts, they describe at least three or four different creatures. That would mean that either Nessie is a shape-shifter, or that there's multiple creatures living in a relatively small area, which just strains credibility for me.