What a day. I drove to the Great Florida Bigfoot Conference in Ocala, Florida. The fact that I had to drive through the Ocala National Forest which is supposedly prime squatching territory just added to the ambiance. There were 4 main speakers, Jeff Meldrum, Ron Morehead, Ronny Leblanc and David Paulides. The only one I was very familiar with was Jeff Meldrum, the Dr. of anthropology and professor at Idaho state. Ron Morehead is a self described ‘adventurist’ and recorder of the Sierra sounds. Ronny Leblanc is an author and star of the show “Expedition Bigfoot”. Rounding out the group was David Paulides of the 411 series and who apparently helped Melba Ketchum plan and orchestrate her DNA study. More on that later in a separate post.
It was a much different experience than my first Then my first conference in Punta Gorda last year for the Skunkape conference. This one was bigger and more organized and had much more attendance. My first order of business was to sort of scope things out, and I made the impulsive decision to jump in line to meet Dr. Jeff Meldrum, I had nothing to sign and did not really know what to say, but I jumped in line anyway. Once I got to him I Thanked him and told him I was a fan from his Monsterquest days. I decided to buy a foot print cast (I have been wanting one for my office for a while now) the print I bought was the right foot from the so called “cripple foot” caste, I, expressed that was cool and Meldrum said “well tell ya what, you can have this one it didn’t survive the trip.” And he gave me the cast of the so called “cripplefoot” for free, I tried to pay him for it but he just gave it to me saying I was saving him carrying it home. He also took a picture with me. Very nice guy.
Once I stashed my prize I sat down for some of the presentation from “Cryptids Paranormal Research” of Central Florida. It was an interesting presentation, but they made a lot of hay out of some of their experiences in the woods of Florida. They claimed to see stick structures, broken sticks, orbs, and multiple Bigfoot/Skunkape regularly. They showed tons of pictures which They claimed all showed evidence of Bigfoot. The problem was, in the pictures I didn’t see anything until they pointed out what was where. I think the name for that is pareidolia, basically the phenomenon of seeing faces where there aren’t any, mostly because humans are hard wired to recognize faces. Its all very frustrating, these people are claiming to see the beast regularly, yet have no proof other than very sketchy photos. It took a lot self control to to loudly ask “well if you see it so much why not just take a rifle and shoot it?” That would solve the riddle once and for all. We are in florida after all, the gunshine state. You bet your butt if I ever go out into the woods with a purpose looking for the old skunkape I'm bringing a rifle along. Of course, I didn’t say that, but if I had I am sure it would not have gone over well.
Eventually the presentation ended,and Dr. Meldrum took the stage. Dr. Medium’s presentation was called “Where does an 800lb gorilla eat its lunch?”:Conversations on Sasquatch Ecology. Meldrum aimed this presentation at two groups, the skeptics who say the animal cannot exist, therefore it does not, and exist, or the “enthusiast who find a naturalistic explanation of their subjective experience wanting, and therefore resort to a supernatural or paranormal one.” The thrust of Dr. Meldrum’s presentation was that a Sasquatch animal could exist in an ecological niche. Based on reports we have of Sasquatch, often solitary individuals or sometimes a mother with young, he makes the argument that the family structure in the ape family that the Sasquatch would be most similar too was that of an orangutan. In this scenario orangutan males control a large area or territory and has access to the females in the area. Meldrum also compared the supposed dietary habits of Sasquatch to black bears,and also showed how sighting reports more or less overlapped with the territorial range of black bears in the us. Never mind of course that most people would simply attribute at least ALOT of so called Sasquatch sightings to bears, but never mind that for now. He compared the population density’s of orangutans an black bears and compared that with reported sightings and came up with an estimate of the potential number of Bigfoot in Florida, coming up with 78, or somewhere between 40-80 give or take. The main idea of the presentation being that yes, it is physically possible for a creature like Sasquatch to exist in the wild,if they did they are extraordinarily rare and therefore difficult to find. The name of the game for this presentation was that it’s plausible. We know FWC estimates maybe 130-230 Cougar for Florida, and even they are rarely, but still somewhat regularly. If there are less than half as many Bigfoot, something, something math, maybe there is a chance, even if it is infinitesimally small.
I enjoyed Meldrum’s presentation the most, and while I sat in for other presentations that day I am planning doing separate write ups for those later on. I sat in on a Skunk ape round table discussion,Ron Morehead’s talk, part of Ronny Leblanc’s talk, and David Paulides talk, and rounding out the day was the Presenter’s round table, which got pretty sporting, but I will likely write a dedicated post on that as well. The theme for the rest of the day was pretty much, how weird can it get? Well, stick around and we will see how weird it will get.
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