I can hardly believe it. Just the other day the news media (including CNN) justified the lack of coverage of the John Edwards story on the basis that it would be irresponsible to cover sufficiently unsubstantiated story claims. O.k, a 7 foot something giant with a heat signature that would easily detectable by homeland security? What am I missing???

It seems strange to me that we can put someone away or in some cases to death on the basis of eyewitness accounts. But when thousands come forward and say they’ve seen ‘Bigfoot’ it is not used as ‘evidence’. I don’t know if Bigfoort exists or not but I wouldn’t be so quick to ignore the eyewitness because it makes that person seemed biased before they ‘know’ what true or false. Science is suppose to be a neutral party and examine the evidence not make a judgement before you’ve seen it.

If anything shows the failure of public education in the United States, it is your polling results that 43 percent of people believe “creatures” like “bigfoot” exist. Even rudimentary knowledge of genetics would show there is no way that a viable, reproducing population of ape-like creatures, could exist in a country whose forests, etc., have been trampled by professional biologists, sportsmen, and hikers alike without discovery sometime in the 19th century, if not earlier.

It is still a joke that you waste time on this, though. Oh, right, just giving us what we want. Ha.

My inclination is that its true…however..I am disappointed in the games of not releasing a bunch of photos and information…my fear is that the evolutionists and the clique of scientists that will destroy evidence before ever admitting they could be wrong…..about ANYTHING! is looming its ugly head……this is not the first time our illustrious govt or smithsonian has buried evidence…….take the time to do some research on the hundreds and hundreds of giants skeletons that have been found, yet….why does no one report this, what happened to the skeletons that were confiscated? Also the same problem with the immense amount of UFO sightings…face it, not everyone that reports such is a nutcase! Afraid bigfoot, if real, is going the same route!

I am so glad CNN ran with the story whether it is true or not. The public has to be aware of all that is going on. I’m sick of who is going to be president and all the war crap. In a way the Bigfoot coverage is refreshing.
I went into Websters Dictionary and looked up the definition of 2 words.
The first one is Fraud and the second is Joke.Here are the results:
FRAUD: (1) Intentional deception resulting in injury to another person
(2) A person who makes deceitful pretenses
(3) Something intended to deceive; deliberate trickery intended to gain an advantage.
JOKE: (1) A humerous anecdote or remark.
(2) Activity characterized by good humor.
(3) A ludicrous or grotesque act done for fun and anusement.
I am a person who likes a good joke but on the other hand I hate being tricked. The problem with this issue is the very fine line between the two. Personally,I believe it to be a hoax. There are to many
inconsistencies in the story.

Ok, yes, I believe this could be real, but everyone is entitled to their opinion. I don’t want to argue the facts either way here, but I would like to thank CNN for covering the story with as little bias as possible. I was watching FoxNews (which was probably my main problem in the first place) the day of the press conference, and the anchor, blatantly and sarcastically wrote the entire thing off, stating, and I quote, “we have REAL news to report on.” I’m sorry, but on the off chance this is real, wouldn’t this be one of the biggest scientific finds in this decade? Now, I just really want this to be real so Fox can eat their words. Thank you for reporting the news CNN, which is what your SUPPOSED to be doing. Thus why you guys are my homepage. Keep it up!

-M-

Actually, I would think that CNN’s editorial board should spend more time explaining why the basic proper use of language has gone down the toilet on the copy you publish.

Before you rise to your own editorial defense — the excuse “we run under tight deadlines” is just that: an excuse; “we simply transfer text from the news wires” is another excuse for laziness. It is called Spell Check. Microsoft Word’s spellchecker may be annoying but even Bill Gates’s employees still know how to spell the possessive of IT.

Then again, I don’t know why I worry about it… it’s not like anyone cares about grammar or spelling anymore.

God bless the Internet & TXT MSGS.

The coverage by CNN has been outstanding. They were careful to not get in early and feed the hype, but stepped in when the story became huge, worldwide. It appears that the Bigfoot is a widely available costume used in a hoax, but it was very interesting and newsworthy.

Over 40% of the CNN users polled believe that Bigfoot exists and a large community of scientists and researchers has compiled impressive evidence (such as amazing footprints collected by Dr. Meldrum.) According to Jane Goodall and many others, this evidence highly compels science to continue the search.

I would expect this kind of “defense” editorial concerning’s CNN’s coverage of say, the prelude to war in Iraq. But a bigfoot story?

The bottom line is that CNN dropped the ball by not referring this story to Nancy Grace, who could have had relatives on her show to recount their memories of “the victim” (the fur suit in the fridge).

Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to go back to today’s “top stories” according to CNN), like how a mom somewhere is shocked by her teen’s modest clothing. Go get ‘em CNN!

Bigfoot, global warming, vast right wing conspiracies, these are all legitimate pop culture topics with no evidence, scientific or otherwise for their existence. I only wish that these other topics would be reported as honestly as the bigfoot articles where the reporters acknowledge that they really don’t believe what they are writing about.

Where are the pictures they showed at the press conference? Surely the technology exists to put them online so we can see them.

As a news organization, I would hope/expect CNN to disregard its profit margin to make news sensational. This is a shame that you are reporting on news to attract people, and make more money. This is a good example when news corporations should be a not for profit organzation, such as NPR.

News drive people’s opinion, people’s opinion most of the time drive Politician… so does that leave us. News should just be objective, why does the big foot story is shown on the front page of CNN.com? Does it deserve it? no! Does this bring CNN money? Yes indeed!.

With an a quagmire in Iraq, politicians lying to the public, news has become a big joke to me. It is time for news organization to clean up,

I’m impressed that you can know so little and say so much about this topic.

You said, “None have mentioned that anyone, anywhere, has produced a single Bigfoot bone, or shred of flesh. Elvis sightings have as much forensic evidence. That’s where the evidence starts. For all practical purposes, including the legacy of proven hoaxes, the evidence, or lack thereof, pretty much doesn’t end.”

There is actually a lot of forensic evidence out there to support the existence of a new primate. There is hair, scat, audio recordings, DNA evidence indicating a nun-human/unknown primate, and footprints containing dermal ridges and bone structure that would be virtually impossible to recreate. Not to mention the hundreds of sightings. To be honest, there is much more evidence than when the Ivory-billed Woodpecker was “rediscovered”.

You also mentioned that no one has found, “a single Bigfoot bone, or shred of flesh”. Do you have any idea how difficult a prospect that is? You should interview park rangers around the country and ask them how many bears, bobcats, and mountain lions they find identifiable remains from that have died of natural causes. They are extremely rare because the bodies are eaten and/or break down and are scattered quickly. It is also know that many injured or ill animals travel to very remote locations to die. With population density and habitat taken into consideration, it isn’t all surprising that a body or bones have not been found.

In all honesty, this so-called body runs a huge chance of being a hoax. However, there is a lot of evidence indicating that there is something out there that warrants SERIOUS research. It isn’t hard to find the evidence if you look in the right places. Any research involving Jeff Meldrum is a great place to start.

I agree that several respectable scientists need to have the opportunity to view and study the actual body, if indeed it is any kind of body. I also think that these men need to be very careful as to whom is allowed the opportunity, as well as the need for security.
I have a feeling that by the time anyone outside of this story is granted the privilege to see the body it will have mysteriously vanished and other “DNA evidence” will be offered instead.
Like many others that refuse to believe this as real, I want to be proven wrong. PROVEN wrong, not a bunch of heresay and bogus evidence.
These guys may have gotten in over their heads with this, did they really think that anyone with a general sense of logic would simply believe them just because they said so? I don’t know if they intended for anyone to actually touch and study the body but rather hoped that the pictures would be good enough evidence.
I eagerly await the date and time for the scientific community to witness for themselves, take some actual DNA evidence and study all of it.

Remember a long, long time ago when all the world, goverments and the church thought the world was FLAT, and killed anyone who made a different point of view. How far have we moved in our own thinking. Many extinct animals have been also found lately. Our knowledge is always changing and growing in this world we live in.

Peter,

After being in the broadcasting industry for over 24 years, I think it’s important to air different stories and let the public decide…That’s what I think good news coverarge is about. So much war, so many killings,
bad things in the world today, why not give the public something different to exercise their mind. If the bigfoot story is true great! what a good discovery and CNN had the insight to take a chance on it. If it’s not true, then…well, at least it was entertainment for the moment.

I think you and the rest of the staff there at CNN do an amazingly incredible job on all of your stories. I personaly thank you for covering this one in particular, I can remember when Walter Conkrite first covered the Bigfoot story back in the eary 70ies…Walter gave the story the same sound coverage as he did any other story he choose to cover. I think CNN does the same but with an open mind…Remember one thing…..”The World is Watching” Thanks for doing a great job.

Sincerely,
David Thomas Atlanta,Ga

Hi,
I would like to thank you for covering the bigfoot story,for those of us wishing to escape the political news. Logically speaking who is to rule out a new species being discovered.
Keep up the good work.

I can appreciate the justification you give for publishing the story in the first place. In a sense, the fact that people are reading the story retroactively makes the decision to run it look pretty good.

But in this case, I think there are other factors to consider. I personally read the story because I was surprised to see a story about bigfoot on a serious news site. I was pretty surprised to read the story and see that this is nothing new–a couple of guys say they found bigfoot, without any evidence worth mentioning.

If CNN.com ran a story “Man claims to have captured an alien”, everyone would read it. If the content of the story was some crackpot making wild unsubstantiated claims, then I would say it’s not newsworthy, even though people would read it.

Summed up: I’m surprised CNN ran the story. I don’t think a high number of page hits justifies this sort of content. The guys claiming to have found bigfoot haven’t earned any publicity yet, except maybe from the tabloids.

Peter we are glad you reported it, including what your personal beliefs are. And frankly it was a nice distraction from a stressful world.
I note that while all this was going on NBC did a poll of Americans asking should we take ‘In God We Trust ‘ off the dollar bill and I believe it was somewhere near or over 86% of the respondents said No-do not remove, and it was also noted this was the greatest response they had to any polls ever taken. That to me is newworthy. yet CNN did not, to my knowledge, mention this.
You know from my previous post I am a believer in Jesus Christ as the son of God. Many assume because they haven’t seen him he doesn’t exisit yet I and millions others know it to be true. With that said, I think it would be ignorant of any human to assume they have the full knowledge of what this planet does or does not hold. I am sure there is still much to learn. Though I am not sure if a BigFoot exist it wouldn’t surprise me if it were true..anything is possible. Wasn’t it your blog who recently posted that it was just recently realized that the octupus has two legs..when for years it was viewed as only arms?
My point is. Keep an open mind because thsi world is full of wonderful mysteries and truths that we have not seen yet they exisit.

fail

I will reserve judgement on this whole Sasquatch business until an investigation by credible biologists and anthropologists can be made…oh who am I kidding? This is such complete BS, I cant believe anyone with any kind of intelligence would believe such a creature could sustain itself in that environment, at the same time flying under the radar. Give me a break please! These “hunters” should be charged for wasting everybody’s time.

What truely dissapoints me is that CNN, a once reputable source, is opting to sell stories that are more profitable than relavent. If Bigfoot had been found, the relavancy would be huge, but this story proved little or no evidence of truth. I would consider that everyone from CNN to the New York Time’s coverage of this story is mere pandering and a lame attempt of getting people to ignore our failing governmental structure and with it, the economy.

Bigfeet? LOL!!!

I know there is alot of skeptisism about Bigfoot, and I was one at one time, until July of 1999. As a Native American, the story was passed down many generations about this creature. We call him the hairy man in our language ” Imu i tapi” But I thought it was just a legend carried down in oral history, My parents live near Glacier National Park, just on the edge of the park. Many times we heard strange screams, but could never identify what kind of animal made them, but our Native people have a strong belief not to bother them or hunt them, or even dress up like them. We consider them spiritual so we would never try to do a hoax of any kind with them. So in 1999 I was sitting looking out the dining room window, and I saw a tall black creature looking at our house, I took me less then 3 seconds to grab the binoculars and as I got focused on it, it was walking into the trees. but the distance away from the tree line was quite a distance and no human being could walk that fast and make the tree line in the time it took me to see it with the binoculars, my mother was there with me and witnessed the sighting also. We did not try to track it down, we accepted what we saw and went on with life. I think it’s a blessing to be able to see a bigfoot, how many people in the world would love to see one and I did! Thanks for letting me comment

The reason that I am wasting my time to post about this subject (BTW, I have never posted to any other CNN blog prior to this story coming out) is because I am unhappy that this hoax is happening and that the media are paying so much attention to it. As the author of the above blog says, no remains of bigfoot have ever been found (unless you count the gigantopithecus teeth found in China). However, whenever a serious researcher finds interesting new footprints, handprints, etc. (some of them showing the creases of actual skin) and a fingerprint expert confirms that the fingerprint does not belong to any known species of primate. Or when DNA evidence is un-covered at the location of a sighting and the results do not match with any known animal..the mainstream media does not pay any attention. It’s not incontrovertable evidence but it’s a lot more respectable than what is being presented in this hoax story. It’s a shame that this story is getting more attention than it deserves.

I’m glad you’ve covered it!

Wow, there sure are a lot of whiny readers out there. It’s your product, and you have chosen to mix some light-hearted pieces with the never-ending parade of somber stories from around the world. Many other news outlets do the same. It’s perfectly justifiable, and the hits tell you that people like it.

Don’t worry about those who feel the need to constitently complain about their free news coverage. I have no sympathy for these sad little people. Your headlines are not misleading. If those readers want to only see stories about war, dismemberment, and mudslingling, they only have to look at the links they click. Or they can go elsewhere for their free news.

Even so, thanks for taking the time to explain your approach. I found it interesting.

Thanks for taking the time to report on this story. I do believe that CNN writing a story on this topic gives the story a little more credibility. I am certainly more likely to take a CNN seriously then National Enquirer. Hoax or not, it’s been a blast to follow the reports. In this chaotic and pessimistic world, it’s a welcome refreshment to the negativity that is usually reported. It almost provides hope that there’s something else out there that we don’t know about. We can’t possibly know it all already, can we?

I think it’s a sad commentary on society when people who do not know anything more about a topic besides what they’ve seen in the enquirer and in films, make up their minds that something either is or isn’t true.

Yes, I saw the “press conference”, yes I was angered that they didn’t produce anything other than a couple of photos. Yes I am disturbed that or whatever reason, this may be complete BS. So, you all think “thats it” – “see it’s a hoax”. Well if you dig deeper into this, and look around the world at the amounts of sightings of these “wild men”, you’ll see that people have been seeing and interacting with these things since recorded time. The story of Gilgamesh (written thousands of years ago) describes Enkido a “wild man of the forest” depicted as a very hairy man. The Yeti, The Orang Pendek, wild men of Russia and Europe. Yes Sasquatch (which is a Native American name for the animal also thousands of years old), Skookum (another Native American word for the creatures). There are things in this world that we haven’t discovered yet, I’m not saying that this animal is real, but the evidence when you look at it ( not the Inquirer evidence, but scientificly collected evidence) does support the contention that a small number of Bipedal Ape-like animals can exist.

The one thing that that guy said in the press conference that he was correct on, is just how vast and yes, unexplored parts of this continent are. In the Northwest alone, 72 aircraft that have crashed over the past 30 years are still lost, never having found the wreckage, or the bodies. Up in Canada, a large herd of Bison were discovered in apparent isolation when science thought these animals were practically extinct. Funny thing about that is, they were found within 100 miles of Human habitation.
Over 150,000 Gorillas were just found in Africa, twice what was thought to be the current population by every scientist.

For this alone, yes it is possible, but there is so much more evidence. Footprints with Dermal ridges, sound recordings that have been analized and judged to be unlike any known animal call and outside the vocal range of a human voice. There have been hair samples that have been shown to belong to an unknown animal, and the list goes on.

If we allow for eye witness accounts, and why shouldn’t we? We convict criminals on the basis of eye-witnesses, but we can’t even look into the possibility of this species because everyone that see’s one is crazy or a publicity hound? Eye-witness accounts, and some video and film footage clearly shows something that doe not walk like us, or behave like us. The ones that I feel are real, do not look ike people in a ape costume. They walk like a large animal, the move in a very fluid, ape-like way. They don’t have their heads above their shoulders, as we do, and need to turn their upper body to look at something behind them. These are traits shared by the great apes, not people. This is not a “missing link” or “half-man- half-ape”. This if real in my opinion , is just another ape species that we will need to protect and examine.

I don’t “believe” in Sasquatch, Bigfoot or whatever you want to call them. I know that the possibility of their existance is real, and that it should be studied in depth to find out one way or the other.

Hey hey now, let’s not group leprechauns in with the sasquatch…as one could imagine it is not wise to irritate a 500 pound gorilla, just imagine what its like to irritate someone who is very small and suffers from “hard-core sundrome”…the shorter you are the angrier you are. After all, there’s a reason why the Irish are sometimes referred to as the “Fighting Irish”.

As for the reporting on Big Foot and his/her kin (skunk ape, yeti, and the Russian Almas), I personally would like to believe that they exist. That somehow, somewhere in our over populated, technologically advanced age where we have created an illusion of superiority over our domain, that somehow these things have elluded us, have tricked us into thinking that they do not exist. I am not debating the probability, I am doubtful that they exist, but I read the stories because a part of me hopes that one day they will step out in the middle of Time’s Square, point and laugh and say the Big Foot version of “Nanny Nanny Boo Boo”.

So, I say go ahead and report, it is not a waste of time. It helps distract us from the more gloomy things such as Georgia vs. Russia, and what is going to come out of the mouths of our potential presidential candidates. And to top it all off, at least if it comes from CNN I will take it more seriously than if I had read it on The Onion.

BigFoot-SmigFoot.

CNN is right to report it even if it is a crock.

I have very little doubt that this specific claim is a hoax. Given the recent discovery of 125,000 gorillas in the Congo and a new species of something different every week, it would be arrogant to suggest we know everything about what is living and what is not. Also given the number of sightings it would be foolish to completely ridicule the idea that an unknown species of great ape exists. It would also be foolish to take the word of a couple of guys from GA when they won’t even produce the body they claim to have. BTW Bob… Homeland security can’t find the people they are looking for, much less bigfoot. ; )

I think that you guys are doing the only responsible thing given the situation. And that is, to call them out. To say, we are here, we are listening, now show us the indisputable evidence to support your claim. And that also requires them to be held accountable in the event that this is nothing more than a hoax. These guys make the most incredible discovery since penicillin and the only evidence they have to show for it are three photos that are of less than stellar quality. My cell phone takes better pictures. And the questionable DNA inconclusiveness leads me to cry wolf.

By being open and not blacking out this story, perhaps future charlatans will think twice before trying to insult the intelligence of the American public.

damn, you mean leprechauns aren’t real?

i’m not buying that cnn has duty to “report” what it’s readers are interested in. but in any case, how do you know? what objective criteria for reader interest level are applied? i’m guessing that you’re guessing, which completely undermines this and makes it nothing more than the most transparent of rationalizations.

as it happens i have a friend who is a bigfoot researcher. he takes it quite seriously. his comment to me on the ga claims “these guys are well known hoaxers from way back.” would have been nice for this viewpoint from within the bf research community to be reflected in cnn’s “reporting.”

from Peter Dykstra: Thanks Alan. As this post says, the Bigfoot story ranks third among the 250 or so posts in the history of this blog, both in terms of page views and reader responses. I don’t think that leaves any doubt that the story has drawn a lot of interest. Our initial judgement is based on past experience. The numbers have validated that judgement, and they’re our “objective criteria for reader interest level.”

There is more evidence of bigfoot than there is of god.

Whether or not Bigfoot is real, it inspires the imagination and provides a brief escape from grim reality. As the world seems to fall apart around us, stories like this provide relent. It doesn’t matter if Bigfoot is real or not. What matters is that we never lose our imagination and never forget that there is so much that we do not understand about this world.

“A special thanks goes out to the several people who took the time to write and complain that CNN was wasting their time.”

You’re not welcome for stating that you have been biased. I guess CNN should be used for blogging opinions than actual news.

I’m batman

It’s amazing how few people understand how science works. In general, someone comes up with an idea and gathers evidence to prove it. Then he or she presents the hypothesis to his or her peers. The peers do their best to destroy the hypothesis and the scientist and his allies does his or her best to defend it. If the scientist can sucessfully defend it, then it becomes a theory.

Scientists are not afraid of bigfoot, they just demand evidence. Sitings are extremely weak evidence. The biggest piece of evidence against bigfoot is that there have been sitings for hundreds of years but noone has ever shot one, or found a dead body or a piece of hair or anything else.

There have been very few new large land animals found in the last 100 years because they tend to be relatively easy to find. The few that have been found were well known by the locals but western scientists were unable to get samples because of their remote location or a location in a war zone. Good scientists don’t ignore the locals, they just take things with a grain of salt until there is more evidence.

Personally, I would like to say thank you for reporting on this. I am a Bigfoot believer and I just want the truth about this whole thing and you are the only news site to update your reports. If this truly IS a Sasquatch body, then this will prove to be a HUGE story and you can be proud that you reported it to people who really have an interest in the story.

It’s not likely real, and thanks a lot to these yoyos for making Georgia look like New Jersey. What would be hilarious is if this IS real, and they’ve gone straight to the biggest hoaxer they could find thinking he was an ‘expert.’ If there are Pithecanthropi still extant, you’ll find them in the kind of deep woods Georgia lacks; try out west or up north. Or in a beef jerky commercial . . .

I have to agree, people complaining about wasting their are wasting their own time. Nobody made them read it. I also agree that given the history of the presenters and the lack of evidence even now, it is mostly likely a crock. And I will have much enjoyment from anybody who continues to flame you over the matter. News is news and if you don’t like it, don’t read it. I have yet to see a link on CNN make me read anything nor do I think it will ever start.

It is important to report this story, if for no other reason, than to put this Tom Biscardi clown permanently out of business and get his hayseed cop associate out of a job as well. There was a time when parasitic morons like them were tarred and feathered.

I have to admit that the likelyhood of this being legit is a pinch above nil. I’m only giving it that much because these guys seem to be putting a hell of a lot on the line by taking it to this level…reputation and all. I wouldn’t want to be known as the guy who tried to trick the world with a fake bigfoot so it stands to reason that these guys believe they have the real thing.

I can’t help but be hopefull because the kid in me is enjoying the possibility of it all and the adult in me is enjoying reading about something exciting that doesn’t involve anything about oil costs or casualties of war.

I’m looking forward to seeing the autopsy results.

It’s odd that you report on Bigfoot, because, as you say, that’s your job. And yet, for the last 8 years, you haven’t reported on vote rigging in the last 2 presidential elections, though it has been proven by black box voting.org many times. Apparently that’s NOT your job. It’s good to know what’s important.

My only comment would be that CNN had a story several weeks back (and several other news agencies carried it also) about what I believe were Mountain Gorillas. There were supposedly 150,000 of these animals found in the Congo which doubled the size of the known population which were on the endangered species list I believe.

Now if we can find in 2008 approximately 150,000 apes bigger then me which doubles the population in the wink of an eye why would it be such a hard leap to imagine that a creature like Big Foot could elude us. The Native Americans have stories of this creature long before we set foot on the continent.

The Africans had legends of a “hairy creature” and in 1912 we found that this wasn’t just a legend but a real animal.

I don’t know for sure, but I certainly and not going to say it cannot be because we have explored it all and we know it all because I don’t believe we have, or we do.

The reporting on this story has been a ratings grab and a journalistic joke from the beginning.

There is a gorilla preserve in North Georgia off of Lowrey Road in Morganton. Even if they did find “something”, you’d think that someone somwhere in CNN’s reporting would have mentioned that fact at some point.

While CNN has been fast on the trigger with bigfoot, I’ve noticed terrible silence on the story of the folks in China caught bringing in Bibles who had them confiscated. You would think that story, which Fox is running prominently, would be more important, as it demonstrates that the largest nation on Earth is still a human rights abusing nightmare even while they host the Olympics.

But no, you ran the bigfoot story.

You can justify and rationalize all you want, but you aren’t journalists.

You’re capitalists. You always have been. I’ll take two CNN “Bigfoot Found” t-shirts and a mug, please. Screw freedom of religion – I want my pop stars and bigfoot stories!

I’m not saying that bigfoot is real by any means but this is just a clear symbol that the media has gotten away from reporting the facts. Over three times in this article it is stated that CNN has already declared this entire bigfoot story is a hoax with no real evidence showing for or against the creature being real. It is fine for the reporters and newscasters to have their own opinions off of the camera but for them spout off their own agenda on such a silly story makes me worried about how serious they look at the facts on other stories they report on. CNN as well as all the other ridiculous 24 hour news stations are telling us what we should think about each and every story. I think its time for news to get back to reporting news. Us humans tend to be able to think for ourselves and formulate our own opinions AFTER all the facts are in on a story. Thanks for the bias CNN!

Where are the two ‘witnesses’ they say helped them move this from the woods to the freezer?

Why no pictures or video of the ‘body’ where they found it?

This is a hoax and these guys should be thrown out of any scientific related issues…if you want a side-show…you got it!

I have no problem with CNN running stories like this on occassions. CNN saw hits on the article not because people thought it was real, but because people wanted a light story for a change. Now i don’t want to see CNN turning into a tabloid, 99% of their daily content should be the days real news. I don’t see why people are so upset that CNN covered the story, it’s an overreaction. if you don’t like it, don’t read it.

Now it’s clearly not a real bigfoot. UFO’s and Bigfoots do not exist. I really wish they did, but they don’t. There have been so many UFO sightings and bigfoot expeditions and even with all those sightings and expeditions, humans have never found any conclusive evidence of either. The probability of never finding any conclusive evidence with such frequent sightings and expeditions is almost zero. Don’t even get me start on government cover-ups, what would be the point of covering up a bigfoot discovery. I don’t believe in UFO’s but i could kind of see why a cover-up could happen, to prevent the nation from panicking, to secretly study their technology, etc. But the world would not go into a panic about bigfoots nor would there be any technology for us to study.

The problem is not that you covered Bigfoot…the problem is that CNN has less and less news, more and more fluff…and the news they DO cover is usually about a missing blonde girl.

I can’t believe people would complain about a news team covering a story like this, which has a .001% chance of being important, but not complain about news teams covering celebrity news, which has no bearing on anyone’s daily lives.

The way I see this is that a news organization has a responsibility to report what is going on in the world and do it without prejudgment. Unfortunately, too often, with certain subjects, this is not true. You can hear the bias clearly from the anchor’s snickers and jokes. While some stories ultimately deserve exposure as hoaxes they never deserve derision. Investigative journalism is supposed to get to the bottom of a story through examination which is no less of a task than a scientist often has to go through. So, you at CNN can pretend to take the high road on your pretended unbiased reporting with things like Bigfoot, ghosts, Loch Ness, UFOs, etc., but one day perhaps you’ll all get caught with your big feet in your mouths.

Covering obvious garbage like this does damage to real science – no wonder why so many American’s have a hard time believing that global warming or evolution are real when CNN covers a bigfoot story so readily.

The impresario who ran the show has a track record of promoting at least one past proven hoax, and the two discoverers had, to put it very charitably, a very tough time accounting for themselves.

That info would have been helpful in the original story. had you put that in the original maybe there wouldnt be such an outpour of comments…bad writer. always make sure you source is credible.

Come on, Big Foots (Feet?) are make-believe, just like elves, gremlins, and eskimos

“this Bigfoot nonsense”? It’s funny, though also a bit sad, to see CNN put this twist on the story. When the story started, your writing was full of enthusiasm. You even headlined it on your homepage and posted the news conference as a live video stream. Hardly something that’s appropriate when you consider a story “nonsense”.

i dont know whether to believe the story or not. all i know, is that i REALLY want it to be true. which im sure is the case for many many people in the united states and across the world, who are in fact looking for an answer.
evolution is much more of a widespread belief than it used to be, and had become mainstream. its not so odd for someone to believe it. so if “bigfoot” is the real deal, or even if he isnt, i want to hear about it. i want to hear every little greusome detail.
Thank you CNN for running the story. we deserve to know whats going on AS HUMAN BEINGS. If this the real thing, it would ROCK the world of science, mythology (religion) and basically human understanding. in all honesty, isnt it harder to believe the ‘adam and eve’ story of creation than the simple fact of evolution?
for me it is. now, dont come shouting with your backles up. this is just my opinion…venting if you will.
believe it, or not, you should want to know the truth. the REAL truth.

I wish there was a 24-hour news network that would give me real news, not entertainment. Sadly, no such thing exists today.

I too was disappointed to see the CNN Science and Technology cover the Bigfoot story. While I accept that CNN has a journalistic duty as well as a (perfectly legitimate) profit motive in reporting on interesting stories, perhaps the story could have been covered under general news or even in the entertainment section.

If one takes the view that part of the journalistic duty of the science column is to educate, then perhaps it is time to consign Bigfoot, UFOs, the Loch Ness Monster, sightings of angels, apparitions of Jesus in a cat’s fur, “miracles” that occur every time there is an earthquake or hurricane, as well as the other examples of sheer myth you have cited to the “fascinating, but hardly science” sections of the paper.

A minimum level of “gatekeeping” (of the type that would prevent CNN from running a story alleging that a politician was having an affiar – in the absence of credible evidence, for example) in the science column would perhaps help an essentially scientifically illeterate public discern the difference between “mind candy” and real science.

Oh no! Someone killed Harry from Harry and the Hendersons!

Bastards

Funny. I wondered how these frauds were going to handle their press conference, especially considering they cannot possibly possess an animal that cannot possibly exist. And even after they showed up empty-handed at the new conference, people still want to believe their story.

Many of us wonder how the issue of man-made global warming got on the fast-track to dogmatism. Then we see the fanatical comments of those who believe that a giant hominid evolved out of nowhere and now lives unseen among legions of people.

I started this post with the word “funny.” It would have been more accurate to say “sad.”

Keep it coming. Its so much better then another child killed story. bahh there so many.

Think I’ll wait until they find some “real” evidence that can be not disclaimed say PRIMA FACIA type.

People like to complain just for the sake of complaining. My only interest left in this big foot hoax is seeing these morons admit they made the entire thing up to swindle believers out of $500, the price which coincidentally is the same price as the halloween costume they used in the photos.

Whatever the outcome it’s been fun. Bigfoot, UFO’S, vampires etc. It’s a nice break away from War, gas prices, murder and who is gonna run our country next or at least think there running it. I have not ruled it out yet ,for one thing if I found what I belived to be Bigfoot I would have $$$$ signs in my eyes for days, and would be very paranoid in what to do or who to trust, gov???? NOT. Who better than someone who’s life long dream was to find one or prove they exist. I’m not saying he isn’t a little shadey because from what I’ve read he has a track record, but I think I could trust him in what to do in this case.I also would’nt hand everything over all at once remember you have got to make as much $ as you can this does not happen everyday not to mention ever. First it’s the attention, then the hats and shirts, the book the movie the sponsors and then the highest bidder of the Bigfoot himself a fortune by itself. I will be dissapointed if this turns out to be a hoax I had plans to go camping in the north part of Georgia next month.

Now that somebody in the media seems to finally understand how to report on popular fairy tales, maybe CNN will take it one greatly needed step further and apply the same skepticism to the menagerie of religious devotees fouling up our society.

CNN, you have become a joke. You copy and paste fluff news stories from the AP and, as has been pointed out in the other comments, you often do not bother to spell-check or fact-check. You try to justify yourself by saying that this is the news in which your readers are interested, but that is hardly justification. Your job is to report the news…REAL NEWS. If high page hits are your concern, then why not pander completely to the lowest common denominator and turn into TMZ or The Weekly World News?

So, it’s all about web hits and money? Nice. You have stained your reputation in the eyes of millions….

I suggest considering that Bigfoot beings, which have been seen on numerous continents, are multi-dimensional. They have often been seen in association with UFOs. Many people who have encountered Bigfoot have had telepathic communication with them. I recommend reading Psychic Sasquatch by Kewaunee Lapseritis. The reason they have managed to evade capture, etc. could be because of their ability to go in and out of this dimension, like an alien or an angel. I would liken them more to Chewbacca than to an ape. They are the “keepers of the Earth” as they have told those they’ve encountered.

I like reading the stories because they appeal to the 12 year old boy that still lives inside me somewhere that wants so badly to believe in things like Bigfoot, the Yeti, and the loch ness monster. I also like someone else above stated, enjoy the break from wars and politics and abused children and yada yada yada. The real question of course is if bigfoot is real and we can establish a dialogue with their leader, will they play in the NFL and/or NBA, and will Drew Rosenthaus be representing them?

I agree with Simon (3 previous). Those of us working in the field of science work hard to convey global warming and evolution to a population willing to listen, but still doubtful of what they see or hear. Stories like Bigfoot kick us back a few steps each time. CNN needs to focus on real science with in-your-hand proof.

“J” makes a good point about fluff in CNN. You sound pretty pretentious coming off all high and mighty about how you think bigfoot is crap, but golly-gee, you have to report it anyway.

You should apologize for all the coverage you’ve given Angelina and Brad in the past. I’d rather read about crop circles than those two idiots, and nobody covers them like CNN.

i trust cnn to tell it like it is and they did. they let you know that big foot probably wasnt true.they were reporting every angle.it was up to us to have since enough to beleive or not and read between the lines.thank you cnn.

I want to thank you at CNN for covering this “story” and to let you guys know that the people who research “bigfoot” and even believers of bigfoot do not buy into this hoax.

Personally, I hope that “he” is real. I’m not a skeptic nor am I a believer. I am simply a person that believes that everyone has the right to make their own decisions. If you believe that “Bigfoot” is real, that is your decision to make. If you believe it is a hoax, that is your decision to make. But again, I hope he is real just for the skeptics out there.

I also agree with the people that say the “Bigfoot” story is a nice break. I’m tired of seeing the same old thing day in and day out. “Another Child is Missing” “Another American Killed in Iraq”, It’s nice to have a change of pace.

I’m upset that you’ve failed to cover the most important story of the year–the mysterious disappearance of the American public’s sense of humor. Get on that.

At the news conference it was presented that they had a corpse and preliminary DNA results came back as “human”. Why has law enforcement not jumped all over this statement and demanded their own inquiry?

You’ve gotten more interest and views because people would think CNN would have more decency than to report such an absurd story if there weren’t some truth to it. Your comment about how you report what gets attention is exactly what the National Enquirer does.

personally I think Bigfoot lives next door to me. It is a hairy smelly beast that likes to be reclusive but come out at night and throw feces on my lawn.

If this was a sex scandal you guys would be getting all the angles on it. They say that scientists are looking at this. You should have people working on finding out who they are and their backgrounds.

This is a blog…one should expect opinion tossed in. But when talking about the main page of CNN website…

News 101
Just the facts please.

Why report on Bigfoot? It is certainly more interesting than the thousands of hours and words devoted to Britney, Lindsay, Angelina and babies etc. Way more fun too! Maybe it is a hoax, so what, it’s still news.

the newspapers have comic strips, cnn has bigfoot,

face it, a lot of us think that is is possible for bigfoot to be out there, so it is news, if it was real and they did give hard proof that it is in the icebox and cnn didnt at least talk about it then everyone would say that cnn is part of some consperacy to cover it up, cnn , good job, and sorry that you cant win, we americans are a people who like to (lady dog in heat) about everything, they are mad that you wrote about it but they cant get thier noses out of your blog about it.

Oh yeah, give the sheeple what they want.

I can see it now – Bigfoot, astride a gleaming white unicorn, does battle with chupracobras to rescue the Holy Symbol of Christ (i.e. Jesus’ face in toast or some other sundry thing). Somehow, Brad and Angelina will figure in the story as well – perhaps they’re there to adopt the orphaned chupracobra young after their parents met with the mounted Bigfoot. And hey! Maybe we can even plug some Oprah “stuff” (used euphemistically) at the end!

Certainly you guys have the right to say what you want and even an obligation to turn a profit. But by catering to the lowest common denominator (and people who sat in anticipation of a Bigfoot discovery, especially after the hoax was made abundantly clear, are certainly that) you’ve abrogated the purpose of news media in an open society – to inform the public of important events and people so as to increase their ability to reason their own interests. As one noted journalist said, “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.”

Wholly crap, I just had an epiphany!

These guys were trying to incase this thing in ice so that they could sell tickets to see it and being incased in ice nobody could reach over and pull out a handful of fun fur or carpet fibers. But the freezer they bought was a frost free one so they were not able to incase it in ice, like the Minnesota ice man and sell tickets at the fair. They wanted to be carnies. Now that is having high aspirations in life. And because that failed they went to plan # 2 sell $1,000 tickets to the big foot safari. And I don’t think there will be many fish biting that hook so now they are stuck behind the 8 ball and they are going to have to come up with a conspiracy of how they got robbed. And the government took it to the moon base or area 51.

I agree that CNN should cover extremely popular hoaxes, just as it would have been wrong not to do a news story on something like the hubbub over H.G. Wells famous War of the Worlds broadcast. (Not really meant as a hoax that time, but it unintentionally had the effect of one.)

But because the news media should be trying to enlighten and inform the public, rather than just pander to what they WANT to be told, I strongly feel that the HEADLINE of any such story should contain the word “Hoax” right in it. Many people will only glance at the headline and not read the story, and to reinforce any foolish tendency to believe in such nonsense – or contribute credibility to the perpetrators of the hoax and increase their ability to make money from such bull, by increasing the number of people whose only change in perception from glimpsing your headline is “Gee, seems like this one actually got reported on by major respectable media sources” – that’s bad journalism in my view.

Keep putting out as good a story as you can every time you run into this kind of thing – but make sure the headline is not only “not misleading”, but also shines a little light on the nature of the incident. “Latest Bigfoot Hoax Announced” would make me happy. But for “journalistic neutrality” I’d even put up with “Bigfoot Announcement: Another Hoax?” Anything that makes it clearer to the morons who’re too feebleminded to read a whole paragraph most of the time anyway. And fails to play as much into the hands of the scammers who count on you to help them make another dishonest buck off the gullible.

Oh, and to the guy who said it’s hard to find remains from other animals, like bears… Check with the people who take care of animal remains in the state of New Hampshire, where I lived for a year. Every bear that’s found dead from disease, being hit by a vehicle, shot somewhere, old age, etc. is hauled off and stored in a freezer. Once a year, New Hampshire holds a dead bear auction. The ones in better shape are sold to people who want to use them for taxidermy. The ones in worse condition are often sold for use as meat. Check your facts before you spout off about how “hard” it is to find animal remains in the wild.

This story was blown up consquently w/ Russia’s push into ‘Georgia’. It was necessary to have the usa Georgian’s focused on something else, because otherwise they would have been concerned about being invaded.

I can’t believe how closed minded alot of people are. They only believe what is right in front of them. I call these people “Bobbleheads” besause they can only comprehend what they have been programed over thier lifetime, to believe. Jusy wait until the news of Planet “X” finally gets on mainstream TV, or the fact that there are wide open areas within the earth the size of Rhode Island that we have no idea what species lives down there. The “Bobbleheads” heads are going to eplode from information overload.
WAKE UP PEOPLE!!! don’t be so arrogent in thinking you are the only thing in this Universe. I feel sorry for these people living in thier litte 9 – 5, go home and have dinner, go to bed world.
Keep up the good work CNN, maybe some of these people will wake up and realize………”we are not alone!”

I have seen things that would make them cr@p thier pants.

The proper plural form of Bigfoot is Bigfoots, as in, “Didja see those Bigfoots comin’ down the trail??” You wouldn’t say Sasqueetch, would you?

What I would like from CNN after this is “payback” I want you to villanize these men for this, if it turns out to be a hoax ! I have no idea why someone would do this, I don’t get the joke, and I don’t see how the time and effort to pull the wool over our collective eyes, can be more lucritive than other ventures with much less effort involved.
My wife just keeps saying “I’m cute” for thinking there was ever a shred of truth in this story. While I like the idea of being cute, there is something in the tone when she says it, that makes me believe it’s something less than a compliment. I fear there would be a tiny hidden place in my heart, that would stay angry forever if I thought these guys profitted in any way from this. So If this turns out to be a hoax, I want you to sick ‘em !

I think it’s imperative we destroy these Bigfeet where they live before they invade and take our oil.

Be it truth or hoax, thanks for covering the story. One never knows when myth might turn into fact. I have seen it happen before. For those who would be guilty of perpetrating a hoax, liars never win. The price for lying can sometimes be more than one is able to pay. A lifetime of guilt is not so funny.

If It Is possible, It should be reported!

If a Big Asteroid had 1 in a billion chance of hiting the Earth next year, You would report it!!!! “And Yes Apples And Apples”

Come on people, first you do not believe in the cave man and then they are all over TV. Now you do not believe in Big Foot? Also, someone made a comment about Big Foot’s teeth, what gives? As a member of Big Foots around Georgia and the US let me tell you that this blog is so easy a Big Foot can do it.

Chris (Big) Foot

Its a sad day when you can confidently defend such poor news! After the first news bulleting on this subject, I search the Interent in five minutes and realize this bigfoot story was a hoax. But you couldnt resist the ratings which shows your motivation. Your not newscasters, your a step above Ron Burgundy. Ratings are all well and good but see where they are when you have lost all your credibility!

I appreciate CNN having an open mind about such matters as Big Foot and reporting something fun to think about. Not everything in this world is simply cut. There are many mysteries in the world and whether this BigFoot turns out to be real or not it was fun going for the ride.

Dear CNN,

Please keep your America informed over the next few days, weeks, what develops with this story….don’t let it get pushed back into files.

Thanks!

I’m not sure that these Georgian boys are honest or not. However, at the very least, I think between the sightings, footprints, and photographic evidence, that it at least deserves more attention than the scientific community has given it.

The scientific community has said that cougars no longer live in the wild on the East Coast, when I know people who have seen courages in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and I saw one in Virginia. Further, two cougar sightings have been seen in the past few years around the University of Maryland College Park campus, just outside of Washington D.C.

I don’t know if Bigfoot is real. But I know that courages live on the East Coast. Mainstream science disagrees.

My hat is off to you and your above comments by the editor.
If you (all media) used that yardstick to measure (all) your reporting we would still live in a free country.

A pair of rednecks claim to have discovered the rotting remains of Santa Claus in a remote area of the Ozarks. Producing a box containing a tattered red suit, white beard, gold-rimmed glasses, and a pile of stinking mammalian entrails, Randall “Tater Jo” Cambell says he has video of Santa’s sleigh crashing into the woods.

Carrie Jackson’s sighting, most keep secret, not to be ridiculed.
Common hallucination, misindefication, or unusual creature ?
I have heard all kinds of stories. In addition, looked at GoogleEarth sightings.

Before Christmass, last year, I was at the wilderness edge.
One night, sounded like very loud chickens (not Space Chicken Invaders)
I thought Cyotes, with a sense of humor. Knowlegable person said sometimes.
Another night, like a young boy bawling, very loud, chased by dogs.
Next night, like a high pitched horse neighing. Outran the dogs.
Sounds moved into the distance, very fast. It was dark, did not press my luck

Between dogs, cyotes, bears, cougars, wolves, bones are recycled.
Maybe the SasQuatch are omnivore cannibals ?
Indian tribes avoid, cover their tracks, not to die civilized.
If a Bear, in a circus, could do it over, cloak presence, a life not to get.
SasQuatch, may have figured it out, live wild, or die as a trophy prize.

For all you you closed minded people , you should really let cnn do what they do there job , how do you know that Bigfoot is’nt real what makes you so right , you people probably have never even when into the woods because you are too scared. People have been trying to get evidence since at least forty years. That I can recall. I have hope and beleive they will finally put all this to rest, and hopefully this real deal finally, and leave the animals be!!!

It makes no real difference whether the Bigfoot phenomenon is legitimate or not: It is your responsibility to report the news. What the discerning reader DOES NOT WANT is your opinion about what you write. That’s called “yellow journalism,” so leave it our of your reporting. Believe it or not, we are now smart enough to draw our own conclusions about the stories we read—if you do your job well enough.

The writer of this blog willingly admits that CNN makes decisions on news coverage based on ‘page views’. Let me rephrase that. CNN bases news decisions on what the audience wants to hear. This should not be a great revelation to those of us who have noticed an entropic spiral in the quality of news presented to us. CNN just does not get it. Oh, sorry. I guess they DO get it. Indeed, they know very much what they are doing. The news that CNN gives us is determined by the almighty dollar. Hey CNN – here’s a newsflash – your reporting increasingly sucks. I suggest you know not what you do.

From Peter Dykstra: Thanks Paul, and the many others who have criticized my reasoning — some civil, some a bit blindly angry like yours. News organizations routinely get criticized for arrogance when they self-select what’s important and what’s not. Neither CNN nor I get paid based on the pageviews generated by this story, and I could not have possibly been more clear in expressing the perspective that this is a hoax. Raising questions about the hoax, and giving voice to people’s views on all sides — whether you approve of them or not — are valid uses of this blog. We’ve got nothing to apologize for.

All my life I have listened to people older than myself telling tales of how life was for them before something new was discovered, or invented. I have learned to live my life with an open mind and I find it much more interesting that way. Whether or not Mr. Bigfoot is real, I could not say. I do not believe one way or the other. I just know it is more interesting wondering if it exists or not. Science finds new species every day. Who knows what is yet to be discovered.

Guys like you are the same group that used to report the lack of evidence for the world being round !

The evidence is there. You and those like you choose to not believe it, dismiss it, blow it off, making up excuses and leaps of faithlike reasoning that are more ridiculous than the possibility of what you are trying to dismiss. Being in science myself the sad truth is science is still that way today. Little to do with fact and everything to do with popular opinion which gets labeled as scientific fact and passed to a public that has no idea this is the case cause they hold science with such awe due to their own lack of understanding.

Heck science is filled everyday with the “evidence” for dark matter. No one has seen it, produced it, touched it, and sure haven’t shown it off at a news conference which seems to be a problem for you. Unlike the bigfoot guys, they can’t even produce pictures. All they show up with with is numbers and graphs and say we can infer it’s existence from it’s influence on other things. HMMMM isn’t that the same as we can infer the existence of bigfoot from it’s inlfuence on other things by leaving tracks? But see popular opinion called science fact by some is in favor of one and not the other despite the latter having more evidence in fact. I don’t know of thousands of people having seen dark matter, produced a picture, a video, a track, or hundreds of ancient tribes geographically disconnected who had no way of talking to each other describing dark matter and going so far as to include it in pictograms on ancient indian sites along with other native animals which curiously enough contained NO mythological beasts from their tales but only the wild game we know existed.

[...] They should hang it up in shame. All this crap about bigfoot, and they say that they’re justified? [...]

Compared to the CNN international site, most of what is reported on this specific site is ridiculous and filler. So, I am not surprised to see topics such as Bigfoot on this site. What makes me sad, is to see how you (CNN) utilize it to attract people, rather than coming up with creative and intellectual ways to get people both to view your site and to educate them.

so you need forensic evidence to take a story seriously, but every three days you have a story about christianity and god. Why are those believers any more credible than the ones who believe in bigfoot, elvis or space aliens?

Is the manipulation of public concern through hoax considered fraud?

I hope these guys go to Prison.

A truly interesting story and subsequent coverage. This is what journalism is all about. I have always found Bigfoot stories captivating throughout the years. I find it even more interesting that those who are so fast to announce their skepticism and denounce the possibilities,took the time to follow the story, read associated articles and voice their opinions in the first place. There it is, the human sense of curiosity once again .A major “driving force” in journalism and ratings. Take that aspect away from the business and there wouldn’t be a tabloid or news industry. Personally, I hope it is a hoax. Surely human intervention would prove fatal. Had I found the carcass, I would have buried it and kept my mouth shut. I think I am going to go watch King Kong again.

get over it people…IT REALLY DOES EXIST…..

just ask me…i’ve got a big foot.

and if you don’t get off of Sasquatch’s back, i’ll stick my big foot right up your little hole.

just because you think you know everything and have seen all there is to see, does not mean you are not a retarded fool with a narrowminded outlook on reality and the billions of things in this universe you can’t even imagine, let alone believe.

you small minded fools are pathetic. there are so many more things so much bigger than you and your little pathetic lives out there that it makes you scared to the point you insist on denying them!!

Someone said there’s no evidence for bigfoot.

That is not entirely true. There’re cases with hair samples, but they’re rare and the ones we know of are inconclusive. Footprints are possibly the best instance of evidence available. There’re some audio recordings.

Google Jeff Meldrum to find out more about footprints and bigfoot research. Although his field doens’t agree with him, it’s worth doing.

The sightings are probably the most controversial. One of them I was lucky enough to see on our local news channel. It was the case in 2000 in the oregon caves. Google “Dr. Matthew A. Johnson” and “bigfoot” to research it. There’re others worth looking at, but that is easy enough to do simply by using the all powerfull google.

I think that bigfoot is probably misidentification of natural animals and events, but one cannot be entirely too sure. From my perspective, there’re vast areas of the wild mostly left alone. Stray hunters will venture into the deep woods, but there’re many places that remain very isolated even today. Most people I konw haven’t ventured more than a mile from any road and most don’t live in the deep forest. If bigfoot existed, we’d expect there to be sightings. We have that. We’d expect there to be dead bodies as well. We don’t have that. One must ask why we don’t have dead baddies? We can’t say that witnesses are lying without evidence. We can’t say that witnesses are misidentifying without evidence either. The only real conlusion is inconclusive.

Hmm….an individual revealing a story with no scientific proof isn’t nearly the same as CNN reporting a story that is merely heresay…kinda like Entertainment weekly. I wonder how long before you hire this bigfoot fella to start reporting from overseas say, in Iraq or Georgia…to get the plain truth that CNN so fervently strives for. Pots and Kettles are calling each other names again cause..the story wasn’t released through CNN. Hence the anger(jealousy) of the CNN reporters. I’m sure this won’t be posted cause..it’s CNN moderated…all the news, all the time…if we deem it news.

If anything is possible, all is possible.

Is CNN comfortable covering every hoax that comes its way? Most of CNN coverage is not news but a rehash of “true crime adventures”, celebrity gossip and trashy myths and monsters reports. CNN can’t be the National Inquirer and the NY Times at the same time. I guess the trailer trash stories get better ratings.

I want to congratulate you and CNN for reporting this. I think that we (the readers) regarless of our thinking or believes should get these news as the come. Who knows, it may be real…..

This was a long, long way to say: It comes down to money (clicks).

I also have a story that I guarantee will generate more hits than ANY of your previous stories. I promise that the public will be interested. I have been looking for an outlet for this story for a long time, but the Enquirer and the Weekly World News have both turned me down.

Some time ago, I was taking a walk in the park and came across a horse giving birth to a space alien. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were standing guard while this happened. Luckily, I had my video camera and captured everything, in clear detail on tape. I have this tape in a secure location, locked up safely somewhere in the mountains of Georgia. Could you please help me get the word out on what will be one of the most shocking discoveries in the history of mankind?

I have to say, that I have read all these posts by people on here, and what I hear is disturbing. It would seem that most people have no idea of how big this world we live in truly is, and how in just the past few years, we have “discovered” many new species around the world. Some have never even been known to science. We have the “lost world” in New Guinea, Parts of the Congo in Africa as well as Islands in the Pacific. What about the “hobbits” found in Malaysia? Yes I know they went extinct a few thousand years ago, but the people there told stories about them for centuries.

We tend to discount what we don’t understand, we like our world to be orderly. We can’t shut the lights off at night and wonder what’s out there. It disturbs us as people. The fact is that their is evidence to support the idea of this animal. Jane Goodall, the worlds pre-eminant primatologist, said as much at a symposium a couple of years ago.

There is evidence in the fossil record for an animal like this. Giganthopythicus Blacki was a 9 ft tall ape that lived in china, india, and might possibly have crossed into the Americas. We’ve only found a few bones from this animal in China, so the fact that we haven’t found bones here doesn’t mean they didn’t live here in small numbers. For every species found in the fossil record there could be as many as 100 that have not been discovered. Do you think that the only Dinosaurs that lived were the ones found fossilized? It would be a pretty small amount. But again, because we like everything neat, no one takes the time to understand this. I’m 99% sure this Georgia thing is BS, not because these things can’t exist, but because of the reputations of the people involved. I say Keep looking, keep questioning, and keep searching for answers. Only that way will we unlock all the mysteries of this world.

Thanks for reporting about bigfoot. True or not, it is fun to think it might be and news should be fun once in a while.

I read CNN everyday. Some articles I like and some I don’t. Regardless, I continue to read them all. Its entertaining and informative.

What I find hilarious are ALL the people that think this article is a complete joke and a waste of CNN’s time and all the dedicated reader’s time. If is was SOOOO much of a waste of everyone’s time then why do you continue to follow up on the story and log your opinions. Let’s also keep in mind this particular column or section is a blog. Editor’s choice, opinionated and unbalanced topics to catch the opinions of the readers. Even encouraging them to respond.

I find this article entertaining. Do I personally believe this? Does it really matter? I don’t really think so. The point is, for such a waste of time it sure has acquired a lot of attention.

The last article had over 250 responses and this one has over 100 responses.

Regardless of the articles you post CNN – I will continue to read your site everyday. And lets be honest – If CNN didn’t want the people’s opinions they wouldn’t give us the option to post them.

My whole point is not to dispute the authenticity of this claim, merely to tell the people who have nothing better to do with their time then to put down a company or the people that hold their own opinions and beliefs to shut up. LOL – Then again, thats just MY opinion.

Agree to disagree.

Doug,

Science is a never-ending process of developing models (scientific theories) that are based on evidence that has been tested against nature, in order to make accurate, reliable and consistent predictions about the natural world. The most important aspect of science is the combination of (A)evidence that must be (B)tested against nature under the scrutiny of (C)peer review.

and that’s the ABC’s of Science

if there is an all-knowing god then there must be a bigfoot

This is a very sad story, which shows how mediocre online journalism can be. The worst part is the manipulative attitude of CNN, which dares to insinuate the suspect that the discover could, somewhat, have a scientific base. For what? For people who care about this? About Bigfoot?

Your claim that this story is proven newsworthy by the sheer numbers of people driven to comment upon it is total baloney AND you know it! That only qualifies it as entertaining. The once proud CNN has long since declined from it’s heyday as a reputable independent news source to become just another cheap, pandering advertising billboard fumbling around to find the best way to get the most money from advertising. Any intelligent viewer can see that a high percentage of your “news” stories would be right at home in the Star or National Inquirer. Sad (and even understandable) but true. So let’s be honest and admit that you were right (by your standards) to run this story because it sells more advertising. But consider that you might not want to drive away your more intelligent potential advertising viewers by insinuating that you believe we are stupid enough to buy your argument that all this drivel is actually news.
I accept that your BS stories and the advertising pays for the continued existence of CNN and that I don’t have to read all the drivel that you have to provide to sell the advertising so that I don’t have to pay to read the actual news that lurks about your site. Just spare me the open insults to my intelligence, please.

Unbelievable. I have difficulty comprehending why there are so many gullible and naive people in the world. Products of the public education system I suppose. My son often asks me why anyone would believe in UFOs, Bigfoot, Loch Ness, etc. My response is always, most people do not have very exciting lives and the allure of something mysterious and unknown attracts them and makes their lives less mundane. Good luck with your fantasies. Hope it make your lives fuller. Be sure and ignore the outcome when it turns out to be a hoax, as it always does.

Ill take the wisdom words :

This are lies , but funny lies. So what a matter?

I enjoy the fact that such an anmial could exist, we would be fools to assume we know everything about this planet and all of its inhabitants. Let CNN cover such stories and quit complaining, if you dont like it change the channel. “Have fun with life.”

Just came out it is a rubber suit. The whole thing is a hoax. The losers committed fraud. bwahahaha!

Keep searching for bigfoot you dopes, the rest of us have a life we hope to contribute something positive to mankind/science. Not some stupid snipe hunt for something that does not exist.

Excellent commentary and I support CNN for following the story. It would be nearly impossible for me to fathom a 7 foot plus creature living opening in the United States and never has left a single piece of DNA over all these years. However, on the insane, crazy, improbable outside chance that these two blundering idiots and a “professional bigfoot tracker” actually stumbled on the find of a century, we owe it to the scientific community to keep an open mind and let the evidence lead us to a new creature or a hybrid human-possum mating.

Ron mentioned: “or a hybrid human-possum mating.”

You know, Ron, you may have just found the greatest truth of this story. In my experience, men have been known to do some pretty strange things while alone out in the woods.

Mr. Dykstra,

With all due respect, you were wrong to run this story. You yourself will know this one day. Your comments in your own defense are amazingly weak.

“Neither CNN nor I get paid based on the pageviews generated by this story”. Please. Nobody thinks you are paid per click. Obviously there are indirect benefits for you and your staff to increase your readership even if it’s as intangible as increased job security. Of course, from your remarks we know know that you will be happily employed even with no readership whatsoever.

“Our initial judgement is based on past experience. The numbers have validated that judgement”. As others have commented, there are any number of sensational stories which will attract readers simply by virtue of having being run by CNN. Would those same readers run out to buy the Enquirer, had the identical story appeared there? If not, why do you think that is? Wouldn’t it be good if things stayed that way? (I’ll give you a hint: r-e-p-u-t-a-t-i-o-n) Your numbers have validated nothing whatsoever, yet you seem to think so, at least for the moment. Can’t you tell when a statistic is biased?

“But we have an obligation to report the facts as they come out, for the benefit of a public that clearly cares about this, for whatever reasons”. I can understand you are defensive right now, being under fire for having done something stupid. I humbly suggest that saying additional stupid things will not help you.

There is a whole universe of fact out there, much of which is interesting to the public but inappropriate to print as “news”. Pornography, rumormongering, etc. One category of this one might call things which are “beneath the news”. Here, we have a “discovery” where the “discovers” refuse to make their main body of evidence public. Only the naive wonder why. You are accused of pandering to this naivete, and your defense is entirely lacking. But maybe Bigfoot really DOES exist!

Yes, maybe they do. Please report this when there is a discovery of evidence which is actually newsworthy. Did you honestly think you did this? Or were you really trying to squash the “nonsense”? Do you think you succeeded? How many comments do you have along the lines of “maybe Bigfoot really DOES exist”? Good one, high five.

Grow up. Aspire to be one of the big boys, even if you cannot succeed. Or, you can hide behind the ignorant masses who will throw in their emotional support for stupidity. You know, heck, it’s just a job anyway, it puts food on the table.

Let’s just say the “Bigfoot” story could be true. Maybe somewhere, sometime, someone artificially inseminated a gorilla with human sperm. Could this happen? Experimentation on everything else has happened.

Thank you Stephen. This is exactly what I was talking about.

Through all your negativity about the company, the readers, and the topic you still chose to comment on this “stupid” topic.

Case and point.

If CNN feel compelled to report this kind of story, which belongs in the “Entertainment” section, then CNN should also be compelled to provide EQUAL press-coverage of all of the political candidates that are running for the presidency of this country- there are people in the reading and viewing audiences that would certainly like to hear what ALL of the candidates are saying. Covering the presidential campaign without censorship would have a much greater effect on life in this country than does reporting on the latest BigFoot “discovery.”

Put things into perspective.

Well, hell, they cover Paris and Brittany whats-her-name, don’t they. It’s CNN.

Sorry to spoil it for everyone but FOX News has already broke the Story that Bigfoot was just a Halloween Costume, the two “Good ole’ Boys” have run off with the bigfoot hunters money. The Mystery Lives ON!
Yours in good fun,
Bigfoot Jones

The government knows is hiding evidence of the existance of Big Foot, and has been studying Big Foot technology for years. How else can you explain scientific breakthroughs like Odor Eaters and Big & Tall Slacks with the Expandable Waists?

The depth of reporting on this topic is ridiculous. I watched the whole press conference on Friday and was shocked at the inept questioning by reporters. Not only did reporters keep asking the same questions, they never pressed the bigfoot hoaxers for many important details. For example, when Biscardi said that Russian scientists would examine the bigfoot corpse, not a single reporter asked for the scientists full names, credentials, or academic affliations.

Why doesn’t someone write an investigative article exposing these people as con artists motivated by profit?

Peter, For us faithful followers of this blog, we appreciate you..your professionalism, and your willingness to even let what appears to some to be a bizzare story through. That is the way it should be.

Can we now move on? …maybe a little story about the storm down in Florida where my son lives directly in it’s path…..

Why hasn’t CNN shown any pictures of Big Foot taken by the Phoenix Mars Lander? Is this all part of a conspiracy?

So, you know it’s really BIGFOOT when the label reads “HECO EN MEXICO”.

The people who say that CNN should not have reported this remind we of the people who complained that Obama’s emergency landing a few weeks ago was not news-worthy. What would have happened if the flight Obama had been on was later found to have been tampered with (God forbid)? We, as CNN readers, would not have even known about the initial event. The same would have been about Big Foot. CNN actually had less coverage than their competitors. Also, sometimes it’s good to hear goofy news and not just hear about tragedy.

Daniel,

Case and point what? That this is entertaining. Obviously. Was it supposed to be? Apparently. Would it be nice if there were a reliable, non-entertaining news source? I thought so. But maybe you’re right, who cares? All nations fall to the barbarians eventually. Fiddle fiddle.

I’d rather see a press conferences and media frenzy about Big Foot than Paris Hilton or Britney Spears….

Nobody has ever spotted me because I wear glasses when I’m in public.

Peter, you and your paparazzi need to leave me alone.

It would be fun to observe the audience response if CNN would report that the likelihood of God in any manifestation is as real as that of mermaids and leprechauns because that is what the preponderance of evidence says, Rick Warren and the rest of his ilk not withstanding.

Grrrrr. CNN, you need to provide a Spellcheck on your posting site … I”m all Big Toes on this little keyboard! And this deep in the Woods, my wireless sucks … only getting signals from three Starbucks.

I just want to say that ” no one has ever produced a bone or shred of flesh” of God either, and while I and many others continue to believe that there is God, it is only small minded that we think there is no such creature and likewise no life beyond earth, yet there will always be the disbelief. Science is just theories put to test and some great detective work too, so maybe science will prove or disprove this so called Bigfoot. Science has yet proven the actual existance of God to be real or not. I hope Big Foot is real but I too have my doubts of these guys just to be honest.

Peter, you’re a myth!

And Peter, don’t get me angry. You won’t like me when I’m angry.

” media frenzy about Big Foot than Paris Hilton or Britney Spears….”

Shave the furry one, Paris and Brittney, can measure size.
BareFooted, he will not have to remove his shoes.

Give a test, to compare mating IQ

If I just made the biggest scientific discovery of the century I would be smiling ear to ear. Those three guys look guilty of something. How fortunate they found the body before rigamortis set in and if so easy into the cooler.

I would like to say that you wrote a very good article. I, like most people, would love to believe that Bigfoot is real, but I think we are all skeptics inside. The funny thing is, I keep looking for more info on this whole story
when I know it is probably a hoax. Oh well, I guess it is entertainment, if anything.

People always ask if it was a difficult labor. Actually, as a young child, BF was quite small for his age. He didn’t have his growth spurt until late puberty. He could have gone to college on a basketball scholarship, but he preferred golf. I’m not surprised there are no photos of him, he was always so shy. And ladies, he’s single! (He does have a male roommate, but I’m sure they’re just friends.)

So how do we know its not real ?
We have less evidence of Jesus – and people still beleive he existed.
So, whos to say a 500# primate couldn’t ?

Forgive me Peter.

I just checked on FOX and they are stating a guy (Hulls?) did in fact investigate (?) and now confirms it was a HOAX….and ‘to my surprise’ our reliable trustworthy law enforcement figures are now no where to be found………..hmmmm…….yeah, prosecute them…..

I have no problem having it reported but report in the section where it belongs (perhaps in Entertainment or Living???) not in the Science section. Science it is not.

While I certainly agree that if the current “I’ve got bigfoot in my freezer” story is true, then I’ve got a fairly good shot at being picked up for a joy ride by Doctor Who in the TARDIS, my personal jury is still out on the actual reality of Bigfoot.

I’ve got a friend, who like me, is a computer analyst and not really given to delusions, who has had a number of experiences in SE Oklahoma that made him fairly sure that bigfoot exists.

Now, that is balanced out naturally by the total lack of physical evidence. You’d think that by now, somebody would have at the very least brought in some bigfoot scat, if nothing else. And that is pretty compelling evidence for the non existence of Bigfoot, to be sure.

But there is still the evidence of my friends own eyes and ears.

So here is my theory. Bigfoot does not now exist, but the reason people still see him is that they are the disembodied spirits of a race of pre-human hominids that used to live in America and are now extinct. They still haunt the woods wondering what the devil all these funny hairless apes are doing wandering around their turf.

Now there’s your Weekly World News headline right there.

Buyer Beware, Reader Beware.
There is a reason for the bump, between your shoulders
Intelligent Designed are US, Except those, who, bewildered, sold their soul.

Gaia, even added humor, in the latest Intelligent Design models.

We need to prosecute these morons on as many charges as possible and hold them responsible for the wasted time and efforts of the news agencies.

Maybe they will get sentenced to some jail time and find a large hairy bigfoot friend behind bars.

Big Foot does exist. However, it is smart enough to stay away from mem with guns. They find big bones in Missouri all the time.
Noah and Adam were 8 ft tall. These people are Human.
There is a discovery in Mexico City where they discovered 8 foot men decked out in battle armor on stone slabs. The Spanish records talk about fighting mercenaries 8 ft tall who could knock them off their horses with battle axes.

Come to think of it, that “invisible man” picture was published without a caption to the effect that it was a simulated image. Maybe these guys really can’t tell the difference between truth and fiction.

In my ‘humble’ opinion, CNN is correct by all means, to report this news.
They report all news. It is up to me whether or not to read or listen to it.
When the time comes, I trust CNN to report as to the validity of this ‘finding’
If it is true, then we should know about it. If it is not, we should know that too
It is up to us to know the Truth, Whether or not I personally believe it is up to me. I can not make judgment as to anything without the facts. For me to believe something to be true or not without the facts of the case is pure idiocy and arrogance. If some people don’t want to believe is up to them.
CNN is the most unbiased reporting that I have come across. I don’t trust most reporting because of the lack of objectivity.

(This reminds me of the ‘Fair Witnessing’ in the book “Stranger in a Strange Land’)

listen, if anything shouldnt reported by CNN it should be that crap about jesus’s face appearing in cat fur or the virgin mary on a piece of toast or whatever- thats the most worthless and time-consuming / money wasting crap that definitely isn’t newsworthy

HA… CNN should not have aired this story. Its just like the story of the endangered gorillas, the 120,000 they found that no one has seen before, or the giant squid!!!

I hope they catch one, the Falcons could use him on the offensive line.

“As you may discern from the subtle hints in the title of this blog as well as other reporting on our website and on CNN TV, we’re not buying it.”

That’s the problem with US news and media. I don’t care if YOU are buying it. Just give me the facts. I’ll decide if I want to buy it.

Just like the major news media reports on McCain, Obama, Clinton and Bush. We know who you like and don’t like from your story bias. Just give me the facts. Actually report on the candidates policies. I’ll decide who I want to vote for, not the candidate that follows the news media’s agenda.

Thanks.

It is a real shame that a highly respected news media network such as CNN has to report on something like Bigfoot to get ratings. If in fact it was true, then we would expect CNN of all the media networks, to report this. Why? Because viewers respect you and believe that you of all networks would not waste your’sr the public’s time reporting on something that is so false and you know it to be. That is a shame.
But money talks whether it be the truth or not.

I

Everyone knows that Bigfoot is really the Biblical Cain, cursed to walk the earth for eternity. Or wait, maybe Bigfoot is the missing link..or maybe Bigfoot is Jesus returning again…Jesus DOES look pretty hairy.

I would like to try to breed a Bigfoot/Chupacabra hybrid, now THAT would be news.

This whole thing is a joke. I don’t know what is worse, that people actually believe this stuff, or that others actually spend their time perpetuating these hoaxes.

Is our collective intelligence really so low that this kind of thing is actually believable? Oh wait…I forget that many people in this country still think that some hippy-looking dude came down here just to die & vicariously save them from themselves. So I guess the whole Bigfoot thing is pretty easy to swallow considering…

http://www.cbs46.com/news/17232407/detail.html#-

As many said it would be, it’s a fraud. Note the website above which has posted a story.

Interesting..
Every one of those people that complained about the story took the time to read it.
duh…

It is sad to say that these two clowns that “found the body” are typical examples of who lives in Georgia, unlike the rest of us who are transplants. Moved here thinking the people in the south were just slower, these guy’s proved that they are not slow here just “STUPID”

It is important that the story be covered, but I am concerned about the outcome. If Bigfoot does exist you know that logging companies and perhaps other corporations will get to the scientists involved and buy them off. It will be reported that they never saw the body. Then, the companies will hire hunters to go in and kill off all the remaining creatures. They do not want another Spotted Owl incident on their hands that will cut into company profits. If Bigfoot becomes a symbol as great as say the Panda think of the money that will be lost. That is American business values for you.

I thought it was great that CNN reported on the Bigfoot story! Personally I love bizarre news stories, which makes News of the Weird one of my favorites!

“We need to prosecute these morons on as many charges as possible ”

Start with the Moron Greenies, Global Cooling, Carbon Taxing.
Real evidence, Government Taxbulated Damage there !

Promoters of Religious Truths. Cannot move mountain, good evidence.
The list, not infinite. Sadly, Lawyers see no gold at end of every rainbow.

Mr. Dykstra,

I appreciate your words here and the critical coverage in general that CNN has given to this subject.

What a bunch of pathetic rationalizations. In the end, all you’ve said is: We will run whatever gets us hits on our internet site, whether or not it’s remotely plausible or backed up by any evidence at all.

You SHOULD be ASHAMED of yourself. Now, not only are you a pathertic panderer lacking in any kind of journalistic dignity… but you’re a pathetic liar spinning thin rationalizations to defend your pathetic pandering.

Seriously dude, just admit you made a mistake and apologize to your readers for pandering for ratings and hits. Or just be pathetic. It’s your choice… but those are the only options you have left.

Lighten up, Dan. No apologies from me. Thanks for taking the time to read and thoughtfully respond. PD

I’ve dated Bigfoot … for a week … in high school … (I was VERY young) … and let me tell you his name is a misnomer …

I appreciate that you report both proven and unproven news. It is your right to do so, and it is our right to read and either believe it or not.

As for Bigfoot, I, for one, wish the story had been true, but am not unduly upset that it is not. I believe it is the inner child in many of us that wants to believe in Bigfoot, Nessie, Champ, and sometimes makes us long for the days we believed Santa Claus, Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy were real.

Keep on reporting, and I will keep on reading what you report.

I am not a fan of CNN, but I do appreciate your coverage of Bigfoot. There are many people who are very curious about this “myth” and who knows it may not be after all. Thank you.

Reader interest does not indicate newsworthiness. You’re only “beholden” to report public interest stories by the pageviews and advertising dollars. Nothing wrong with running a business, but at least be upfront about it.

Fool us once, shame on you. Fool us twice, shame on us. They got there 15 mins of fame and apparently some cash. It just goes to show you what the power of money can make us do. Think about it, I would bet if many people would have done the same if offered cash. Especially in these tough times. What will be the next big thing.

Face it. You were suckered.

I personally think this article is very interesting. Not only does it divulge into the theoretical notion of Bigfoot and its phenomenon values, it also shows the possibility of the desperate souls in America in which prey on the American public for attention and money.

I honor the fact that CNN has taken the effort and interest to put their reputation on the line for such stories as Bigfoot.

Having said that, we need scientific authentication and forensic evidence to prove such a claim and act intelligently on the story rather than point fingers. In addition to that, if so happens to be a fraudulent claim for the second time, they should make a mockery of the individuals for creating such a fantasy and butchering the American public’s interests. We will just have to wait.

Adam G.,

I totally understand your extending of a sympathetic hand in this situation. It really looks like Mr. Dykstra could use a warm fuzzy right now, doesn’t it?

But don’t worry, that’s just appearances. Behind the scenes, he has a whole team cheering for him, from the “top of the organization to the bottom”, as he put it. He’s getting plenty of pats on the back right at this very moment, job well done. This is not Mr. Dykstra’s doing, this is the new (big hairy 8 foot tall) face of CNN.

Kind of sad how CNN can cover another Bigfoot story (stories which, by the way, have proven to be hoaxes every single time) and yet does not spend any time at all on any of the third-party and independant candidates who are running for office.

Sad, but not surprising, CNN is, after all, the world’s leader in crappy corporate journalism.

This is kinda funny…I mean some of us (idiots?,not) really want to believe..and I’m still not at the point of saying it doesn’t exist because there have been alot of ‘known’ trustworthy’ people documented saying it does exist and they have encountered this ‘creature’ or ‘human kind’. But the whole thing got me thinking……
Was Georgia staged as part of the big boys club games to distract us citizens from the real issues going on in America or possibly to deflate or inflate a particular candidate for the upcoming elections? I know that isn’t science but one can wonder. I guess the lessons learned are you have to read more than one source of information, go with your gut, seek out the real truth on the stories given with the avenues you have available or ablition to do so, and don’t just settle for one point of view on something. I still say it was a nice distraction so Thank You Peter!

So it had to be reported because it generates page views, eh? Some good ol’ fashion hardcore porn would generate more page views that any news story, so clearly you are beholden to provide it.

“Lighten up, Dan. No apologies from me. Thanks for taking the time to read and thoughtfully respond. PD”

No apologies from you? Of course not, you never make mistakes and you never have apologize. You’re like the George W. Bush of journalism. Fine Peter. Pretend like you had good reasons for posting something that should have been confined to the Weekly World News. Defend yourself! Dig in harder! Stubbornness will vindicate that lapse in judgment and only make you look smarter by the word… not to mention how great this will be for your reputation (”Peter Dykstra? Oh yeah… the bigfoot guy.”)

Now that I know what to expect from you, I eagerly await your exposees on Elvis’s resurrection, on how tin-foil hats can block alien mind-control rays, and on how the CIA is keeping Hitler’s brain alive in a jar.

Dan — This is slightly more lucid than your last post, where you threw the word “pathetic” at me five times in two paragraphs, and then offered me a lesson in “dignity.” I had hoped that posting about Bigfoot would help expose a blatant hoax, and perhaps offer a lesson about hucksters and hoaxters in all fields — as I said in my first post, from Bigfoot chasers to faith healers to politicians. I had no idea that I’d bring out the disgruntled and the irrationally angry in so many people. I’d rather have it out in the open, so I’m neither apologetic or displeased.

Feel free to respond, I like reading all of these, but I don’t think I’ll respond to you again. And if I may suggest once more, it would serve you well to calm down before you lecture anyone on “dignity.” Try a little sense of humor, and read the Bigfoot stuff again. And please try to be civil. I’m sure you don’t talk to your family like this. I’ve never found that sputtering anger wins many converts. Thanks! PD

Are you serious?

It would be “irresponsible” not to cover this story just because it has the most page views of any of your other posts?

If number of page views is the criteria for what make something news worthy, you should just post porno. That is still where most of internet traffic is going.

In fact, I think you have “an obligation” to post porn, since the public “clearly cares about this” based on page views.

I check the CNN website several times every day; it is my primary source of news. However, I have recently started looking for a substitute, mostly because of my frustration with articles that talk about Bigfoot and “ginormous” sink holes (if you remember that one). Sadly, I do sometimes read this gossip, but only for entertainment, or perhaps to see just how big a sinkhole need be to displace news about the war, the economy, or the election. Moreover, I still have enough faith left in CNN that when I see a Bigfoot headline, I assume there must be some merit to the story. And if there were, then I wouldn’t complain. But based on a letter written by one of their executive producers, it seems like CNN’s only justification for running these articles is “demonstrably strong interest” from its readers, in the form of page-views. In that case, I suggest they post funny You-tube videos, or maybe pornography: those are both proven sources of interest. CNN needs to decide what business it’s in: news, or entertainment. Because Bigfoot stories, interesting or not, are entertainment, and every time I see one crop up on the homepage, I lose a little more respect for my favorite website. Junk-stories like that will eventually cause CNN’s more educated readers to turn elsewhere for the news, even if they generate lots of page-views today. And once CNN loses its image as a credible source of news, I doubt it can compete with TV, Facebook, and YouTube as a source of entertainment.

-Julian

I too am skeptical of this report of finding a bigfoot carcass. Primarily because of a test done to determine how long a carcass of ANY animal would last once an animal dies in the wilderness. A deer carcass was tied to the ground in the forest and a time lapse camera set up to monitor its decay. The carcass was visible for only 6 days after which even the bones were hard to recognize among the leaves and other debris on the ground.
So to claim no one has ever found the carcass of a dead bigfoot is not an valid argument in determining whether or not this creature actually exists. Finding a recognizable carcass is very unlikely even IF bigfoot were to exist.

Al Gore’s ManBearPig, even big Carbon FoolPrint, cannot cause Global warming
At least half human. Mermaid, Minotaur, plausible. But 3 way is perversion.

BigFoot looks like a BigBear. Untill you get real close, face to face.
BigCamoflage, like a poison frog pretender. Color without the poison.

CNN needs to investigate FrankenGore. Personal urges, or pure science ?

You’ll report on Bigfoot without a problem.

But you’ll barely touch the John Edwards’ story and disgraceful coverup going on.

Pathetic.

Yes,
Real science needs to be done, the FoolSize of John Edwards’ offspring
Compare, feet of Obama and McCain, ancestors and decendants.
Vote for the largest average FoolSize.

You know, Bigfoot might do better if he ran for PRES. Sure a press conference would be enevidable, which I have heard that he doesn’t like CAMERAS but hey he is more believeable than the two that are running now!!!

Clementine had disproportianetely BigFeet:
“Light she was and like a fairy,
And her shoes were number nine,”

In the 49 days, women not facial hair shaved.
In the woods, find your own Clementine. Complete your rhyme.

Don’t put much credit into the “interest” of the story, people just like to argue. I’ll at least admit it, I like telling an idiot off or making a point about why idiot’s are idiots. When you see several comments about how stupid the story is and only a fool would believe it, you move on… but when you see people claiming to have seen bigfoot, alien UFO’s and accusing people of being ignorant, closed minded and so on for not believing this ridiculous claim, you sometimes feel compelled to reply. So, you basically have a story that begs the kooks to come out of the wood word and argue for the existence, and the people that feel compelled to say “You’re an idiot, and here’s why…”. It’s the nature of humans, not because this was a story worthy of such press. Not that I cared, I even defended the coverage, when I thought it was buried with the other worthless, irrelevant blog and celebrity gossip that doesn’t deserve to be clicked on and should be avoided at all costs, but when I saw it posted as the main story, and important events that actually mattered being further down the list of coverage, that’s when I rightfully lost any remaining respect I had for CNN. I think you’re mistaken about the interest and that it was a good call, and for the above reasons.

I was surprised to learn that my fellow Americans were so interested in cryptozoology. But then I remembered a few years back when some magazine polled people whether they believed in angels. An amazing 70-80 percent did, I seem to remember. Add to that number the people who believe in “god,” and then Bigfoot becomes totally comprehensible. After all, if you can believe in women and men with wings who live in “heaven,” and omnipotent beings who rule the universe while still noticing every move you make, then why not a species of large, furry creatures that has cunningly avoided discovery by science? The possibilities are endless. What if Bigfoot is a female? (There must be Bigfoot females if there are any at all.) I can just see it, the first sex video: “Bessie and Footsie do the San Fernando Valley.” And think of the folks who make commercials for razors and depilatories. Bigphootine in the (oversized) bathtub, shaving her legs. “Wilkinson’s Sword, my favorite!” The future is wide open, and the sky is the limit (thanks, T.P.)

Whew! Finally I can let the pets out again! Seriously, I’m following the story so I can watch these guys go to jail – will you please be there when this happens? Funny how they claim to have found a body in Georgia but waited to report it thousands of miles away. What laws did they break? There must be many and in many states.

why do people keep comming up with the Jhon Edwards issue? i mean really if you put a story up about a real person that is not known for sure then you could get in a heap of trouble, bigfoot has yet to sue anyone for slader, and if he shows up one day and dose then great ,,,, we will know that he is real, the ride was fun CNN, but i think there are a few loops left.

oh, its John not jhon, oops clicked submit too fast,

and frankly i think it is the real bigfoot, just he is made of rubber, you see, being made of rubber lets him bound thru the woods faster and when one dies there are no bones to be found. and that is why so many big foot hunters get pictures of what looks like people wearing costumes,

maybe the bigfoots are actually aleins in costume to blend in while they look for cows to kill and people to @$$ rape.

Mr Dykstra,

It sounds like you are trying to beat a hasty retreat.

You and CNN were accused of being “pathetic”. Your response seems to be essentially that that is not a dignified thing to say, and that everyone should lighten up, because hey, it’s just Bigfoot, and why are people wasting their time responding to this fluff, ha ha, stop “vibrating”, ha ha, I’m laughing can’t you hear, where’s your sense of humor? ha ha ha?

No, this is not about Bigfoot. This is about CNN choosing to cover the Bigfoot story. This is about how the initial stories did NOT mention anything about a hoax. I refer you to “Body proves Bigfoot no myth, hunters say”, for example. This is a straight report, much as one would report on anything else. This is about how that was a stupid thing to do.

You didn’t think so, speaking for the “top of the organization to the bottom”, and presented, for lack of a better word, a “pathetic” defense. Did you not do this voluntarily? You were ordered by the “suits”? Are you a “suit”? Now, you say you “don’t have the power to address all of the grievances…” You know what, everyone knows that you Mr. Dykstra can’t personally fix CNN let alone all of the media. No one never thought you could, even before when you were claiming to speak for CNN from “top to bottom”.

You are being responded to in non-”civil” terms, and in “sputtering anger”, simply because that is really the only way to deal with the situation. You are being ridiculed because it’s funny to do so. Nobody wants to convert you. Everyone knows you have a solid support system backing you up, including a drooling public that tolerates idiocy. Nobody wants your apology. It’s worthless. Nobody even wants you, personally, displeased. You’re just an irrelevant cog, the third stitch on Frankenstein’s left nut.

This is gallows humor, the disease is terminal.

hey cnn i hate sports ALL SPORTS, they are useless, they are not entertaining and they are surely not news worth covering. they are just games and i want only real new from you guys! OK?

so this is what you are allowed to write about

natural desasters
crime
anything with explosions
war
and weather (if it is only going to effect the area I live)

because everything is entertainment, and you know we as americans dont like entertainment. shame on us

i bet South park is making a frozen Manbearpig episode

Don’t care. Both parties spending too much time caring. Guess what. The news won’t always cover things you like or agree with. That’s life.

I think the story was fun and reported with an appropriate level of sarcasm without rancor.

The NEWS was that there are still lots of screwballs out there. Are there any Bigfeet? Probably not, but the screwballs can’t tell the difference.

Relax and enjoy the screwballs everybody…..

Look, the troubling issue here is that more is expected from CNN.

For example, even a modicum of investigative journalism would have revealed that the principle promoter (Biscardi) is known to be a hoax promotor and a conman, and that the so-called ‘hunters’ had already been caught in a fraud on a youtube posting regarding this so-called discovery.

There is some suggestive evidence to support the presence of animals like bigfoot; faint, inconclusive, but sufficient to warrant an open mind.

However, when reputable news sources such as CNN abrogate their responsbility to actually present vetted news, then they become no better than tabloids such as the National Enquirer.

That is what troubles the informed reader–not that a couple of conmen and buffoons orchestrated an obvious hoax, but that a “premier” source of news either doesn’t care or doesn’t know how to investigate news anymore.

What does that say about everything else CNN reports?

Not humans only, Mouse to Elephant. survival overrides.
All, curiously, paranoid, attentive, CNN affirmed, a story or experiment ?
SasQuatch is no different; stay way from promotion to a trophy on the Wall

In the past I relied heavily on CNN.com as a news source. Increasingly, I find stories lingering stale on the site for days, and an abundance of “human interest” rather than “need to know” items. From the article on “Why…Bigfoot”, I gather the old saw, “We publish what our audience wants, and response to Bigfoot has been high”. What a shame, I had hoped CNN would be above pandering to the lowest common denominator, and provide thoughtful, cutting edge news to those who want it, possibly raising the denominator in the process. It appears the risk of lower ratings is not worth a reputation for depth and integrity.

If Anderson Cooper can’t find it, it doesn’t exist.

Someday Bigfoot will be found. Credit to CNN and others for reporting this story. Even though it was being shot down from the begining.

Well, thats the same reason why you report on paris hilton, brittany spears as front page news. Because CNN is not a news organization, its a tabloid. Shame on CNN staff, you guys should bring disgrace to new reporting.

This is really not a good explanation of your failure to present news in a legitimate manner. You readily admit that your goal is to attain the highest “pageviews”. But you forget that CNN legitimizes such nonsense as the Bigfoot story. You forget that CNN loses credability and legitimacy each time it panders and presents these stories. I hope that whoever made the decision to run this gets sacked. This is such garbage. There is REAL NEWS in the world that IS BEING IGNORED.

Scott, I think this is a bit different than an opinion about what crap is newsworthy or not. To plash the crap on the main header of the site for 24 hours is a little much. Humor and sarcasm are fine, but to bury actual world and national important news under it is pretty lame — smacks of a gossip rag (which might explain all of the “panel” of news reporters every time “Brangelina” have a new kid, or what the other celebs are up to, who’s pregnant, and other pathetic excuses for a real media news outlet to have, at least anywhere near the main story, like this nonsense was).

keep it up with all that stuff happening in the world a good bigfoot story helps one to keep things in check.
hey, how about nessie or one of they other creatures we have not heard anything about in a while
come on bring it on it gives us a time to stop and say things are still ok here.

This deserves futher investigations. Leave no stone unturned.
Interviews with Anthropologists, Geneticists, String Theorists, Indian Tribe Legend Keepers, Pope, Tarot Card Fortune Tellers, Presidential Candidates, Human Rights Activists, Gay marriage opponents, Feminists, UN, IPCC.

Even if in strange love,
Can you marry a SasQuatch or ManPigBear, above your IQ ?

Here’s the bigger question: how come CNN covered “Bigfoot” as soon as everyone else did, but dragged their feet on the John Edward’s mistress thing? Back then, the response was that CNN was basically above tabloid trash.

I guess not.

I agree with this blog post–CNN’s job is to present stories that the public is interested in…not the ones they think -we- should be interested in.

The Bigfoot story may have had many hits but is sensationalism the name of the game? People like to read about Brittany Spears too but I don’t read the websites or newspapers who print that trash. Printing stories about Bigfoot just makes me wonder if you’re a serious reporter. Leave these silly stories to the national inquirer. Come on. Grow up.

So, you publish stories on junk because that’s what the public wants to read? Okay. I can believe that. I’m sure being an entertainment outlet pays better than being a news site. But frankly that’s why CNN is no longer in my “news” folder with the Wall Street Journal, the NY Times, and the BBC web-pages. It’s in my “junk” folder with the Drudge Report and Fark. Fark’s motto (”It’s not news — it’s Fark.”) describes CNN these days too. When I want in-depth, well-researched news, I turn elsewhere. I come to CNN when I’m bored and looking for the latest “news” on Bigfoot, spoilers about the season finale of Lost, or speculation on whether Spitz or Phelps makes a better pin-up.

I think a lot of the bitterness you see comes from older readers, like me, who remember when CNN was a serious source of news. We’re not used to thinking of you as a tabloid.

Carefully compare the facial features of the original photo with that of the rubber costume. They are both very different (brow line,distance from bottom of nose to upper lip etc.)

I’m not saying I’m just saying . . .

ManBearPig

…But we are reporting it…because that`s what we are supposed to do, is a crock Where was this so called journalistic moral purity when Bush and Co lied the Country into an illegal war that has damaged the U.S beyond repair. Fox was demonstrably worse but the empirical evidence was there but ignored by CNN or glossed over
…sigh

The problem with CNN reporting this story is.. Because CNN is known for being such a reliable news source and not a gossip station, we tend to believe anything that they find worth reporting.

Looks like he brushes and flosses every day.

So, Mr. Dkystra, if someone holds a press conference tomorrow claiming Elvis is alive, will you cover it like this story: http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/08/14/bigfoot.body/index.html? This story is nonsense; created to sell books, DVD’s or whatever other junk they are going to try to make money off of and you’ve given them free advertising. This is not news, it’s garbage. You’re the Executive Producer for Science and Technology. Why would you run myths like this at all with NO evidence other than a press release and obviously phony picture? Is this what CNN thinks of science?
I’m ashamed of you and think you should be replaced by someone with respect for the scientific community and science in general.

Thanks Charles — please read the blog, I don’t think you’ll find an unskeptical word in there. PD

You know what they say about big feet ???

Mr Dykstra,

Just to be clear, it seems that you are trying to tell us that the blog is where is the real news is. When you say this are you speaking for the whole organization from the top to the bottom? How about replacing the main CNN page with links to blogs?

When you said CNN was comfortable with it’s coverage of Bigfoot, from top to bottom, apparently you mean some kind of two-faced coverage, with “Body proves Bigfoot no myth, hunters say” (with a CNN byline) on the front page, and some random blogging days later. Was this strategy devised in a meeting? Who came up with it? Who was there? Was there a vote? Did you have nothing to do with it? Then why did you defend it?

I understand the need to report even the absurd stories such as this Bigfoot thing; however, I felt having a news conference on something that has not been verified by your organization was going too far. A simple article on the back page would have sufficed, but, a news conference!!!??? you have indeed lowered yourselves to the standards of other cheap tabloids, very disappointing for a news agency that has labored so long to build a reputation of integrity. The next time I want to read hear about something idiotic I’ll pick up an Enquirer. Signing off for the last time, good riddens.

Rob

Maybe there was this meeting, and everybody was going over their stories like they did on “Murphy Brown”, and the question came up about this Bigfoot thing, what to do. And then someone pipes up with the whole, “but what if by some long shot it happens to be real, we’ll be caught with our pants down”. And some authority guy sits up straight and looks around the table, or beanbag circle, or however it is they have their meetings, and says “Who is willing to take responsibility for Bigfoot being a hoax”. And maybe there was silence.

Because, maybe they really couldn’t tell the difference between

1. Maybe there’s life on Mars
2. Maybe Obama’s airplane was sabotaged
3. Maybe there is a Bigfoot
4. Maybe a pair of shady characters who exhibit all the signs of fraud, including unexplained secrecy, random name dropping of authority figures who are conveniently on vacation, claim to have a Bigfoot carcass with really expensive dental work, ACTUALLY found Bigfoot.

Or maybe, they could tell the difference but for whatever reasons decided it didn’t matter. Which one is worse I don’t know.

Courage.

Just think, the title of this blog COULD have been, “Why CNN WILL NOT cover things like this Bigfoot nonsense”

Satisfy your curiosity, shine light on our darkest desire, monster spider for real ?

“You know what they say about big feet ???” How did this come about.
CNN sleeping on the job, if not explained, attitudes explored in all detail.

LOL!!! I love it!!! and especially in the way this was done in good taste and yet it was worthy to give us a break from all the bad or war weary news. In my opinion CNN was in all fairness was doing what was right and I stand by them to bring a story about Bigfoot to the headlines. It is also my opinion that CNN have demonstrarted good judgement and fairness to report what they saw fit, whether or not there’s any proof of such a creature as Bigfoot even exists. So, give CNN a break, they are doing such a great service to keep us informed in all that is happening in the world around us today.

The reporting is fine and thank you for covering it. All of us really wondered how it would turn out…pretty funny if you think about….Daryle and Daryle ran off with the money!

Someone I know owns the land that tonight’s episode on the History Channel at 9est about NY Bigfoot will feature. After hunting there and hearing what my friend has experienced, I remain curious. I’ve heard loud single thumps at a frequency so low turkeys don’t hear it. I’ve personally watched a flock not respond….it must be near 30Hz. I’ve never heard this anywhere else hunting or hiking. The occurences seem to be migrational such as headed north in the Spring and south in the Fall.

It was also strange to work at a high-end research facility and have a contract IT guy calmly share a story while staying in a cabin hunting while in VA or NC….the same rock throwing experience we’ve all heard.

Peter Dykstra –

I would like to apologize for all the people that get caught up in their own emotions or frustrations and feel that every situation that they do not approve of requires someone – anyone to be a scapegoat – a fall guy. You wrote the story, so they all know your shoe fits.

This was one series of articles over the course of your career with CNN and career in journalism in general. Do people consider your reputation or take into consideration all the other articles you have completed that received good reviews, before slandering you, the company, the readers, and the article itself putting themselves and their views above all else?

Why must people be so negative? When people are negative they are trying to make themselves feel better or important or whatever by putting other people down.

I’m not talking about the people that simply voice their opinions of the article’s subject. I’m talking about the people that are taking that extra one step (minimum) by attacking everything else.

Lets get a grip here people and refocus on some of YOUR behavior in lieu of the article. You should be the ones apologizing and ashamed of your behavior. Some of you give off that interpretation that you are the kind of person(s) that would purposely try and get someone fired at a fast food joint, because your food was made incorrectly. Nothing positive comes from such behavior.

I am fully aware that I will now be, to some degree, a target for new comments. The really cool part about all this is, I don’t care.

A person is smart. People are irrational and stupid.

So, don’t let any of this bother you – just keep on writing!! Again, this is only MY opinion and should hold no more weight then the one that will surely follow.

I am real. Just come down to Atlantis and you’ll meet my whole family.
High Five.

Daniel,

Good to hear from you, thanks for taking the time to read and comment thoughtfully. I was getting worried, since almost 2 hours have passed with no comments, that no one was reading this anymore, or cared. Now I know that I should keep commenting. Also brace yourself for more gems from Franko (I hope I beat him to the punch…)

I think it’s very noble of you to come to Mr Dykstra’s defense. However, I think it’s unnecessary. You see, I think reporters think of themselves as these gung-ho warriors of truth, real tough guys, all ready to take a bullet in the arm. Haven’t you ever seen Murphy Brown? Mr. Dykstra is no pansy girly-man that needs you to soothe his boo boo. He has no boo boo at all. And, he’s no fall guy. This was an opportunity which he took, to take one for the team. And he’s proud. This is guesswork, of course, what do I know.

Now, you seem to say that he has a long career of quality service to the public, and shouldn’t be casually criticised. Honestly, I had no idea. I have no idea who he is, or what he’s done. Does he have a Pulitzer? If so, “Wow, I had no idea!”. Speaking for myself, I refer to him by name only because that’s how they do it over at the Economist. I wonder though why you think he’s been slandered. Did he not, in fact, defend CNN’s Bigfoot coverage? I thought he did. Did anyone accuse him of anything else? Is he not right now smugly “not displeased or apologetic”? There is no slander in any of these comments, except maybe for the guy who posted a fake “Santa Claus” headline as “CNN Breaking News” (that was a howler).

You ask why must people be so negative? You mean in terms of hurting someone’s feelings? I doubt anyone has hurt feelings. Do you? What is this “everything else” that has been attacked? The state of American media? The education level of the American public? Are these things having boo boos right now? In any case, there are other nations in the world, to compare against, objectively. I agree, CNN stacks up pretty good against that Russain naked weather lady. But wait, she’s really really entertaining.

I see you like analogies. Mr Dykstra is the fry cook in the burger joint, is he? So CNN is dishing us up Happy Meals, and he is just following the employee manual? OK. No problem, I think that’s what the majority of the “negative” commenters already think anyway. But again, he’s not going to get fired, he’s going to be promoted for all this hoo-ha!

Just to address your final points for completeness:

1. You’re not a target for me, I love you, and I wish you cared.
2. Don’t be too down on people, keep a happy face!
3. My opinion obviously has much more weight than yours, I’m much more cleverer!

Steph –

I don’t take things personal – and I do care what other people think, everyone does. Depending on what they say really depends on how much I care. Does that make sense?

I am a very positive person. I … lets say “handle” negative people all day long. So, I am unaffected by it on a personal level and approach the situation on a perfessional level. To the best of my abilities, of course. LOL

I am leaving for the day – I’m at work. I have nothing more to add to this particular article. I hold no grudge. Maybe another day another article.

Good luck to you Peter and good day to you Steph.

Dani,

Sure, sure, ride off into the sunset all you want. Mark my words, you’ll be back and I’ll be waiting.

I think Franko IS Bigfoot.

I am wondering why so many people who post comments cannot write a simple sentence. A sentence consists of a subject, a verb, and a complete idea. It also requires correct spelling.

It is so amazing how short an attention span is, if anything this is the downfall of mankind. Belief in a story such as bigfoot is not such a bad thing. True that no real evidence has been produced except for hair that did not match any DNA record. We are not the only ones to have spoke of such a thing, bigfoot goes back hundreds of years and the theory of it being a Gigantopithecus is plausable. Not to long ago, the Mountain Ape was a Bigfoot, the Duckbilled Platapus was a bigfoot. Another bigfoot, the coelacanth was thought extinct 80 million years ago and is alive and well today in Nairobi, Kenya.

To all you “educated” persons that know a few big words. Fly from Virginia to Los Angeles at night. There isn’t a lot of light down there and plenty of untamed land. Do I believe? Kinda, I like to believe and see no reason not too. I would even go on a expedition to look for bigfoot. I would most likely not come up with anything but you know what, it would be a lot of fun.

The bottom line is that there is more to say YES then there is to say NO.

Mark Waggoner
Laplace, LA

There are numerous SasQuatch, BigFoot like Humans.
Some DNA, 95%, with statistical certainty, identified different.
SasFoot, BigQuatch, BigOotan, OrangeFoot, OrangeGilla, SasMuse Normally elusive, hiding from Devil Humanization, secretly sneak to
Find a mate places, Ecstacy Concerts, Churches, Supermarkets ..
All around US, Am I the only one ? Are there no real 100%, Humans left.

Seems like CNN is pretty foolish if they aren’t getting paid by the advertiser on the right hand side of the page based on the number of page views. Popularity is the first benefit listed on the “Advertise at CNN.com” page, so clearly it is being used to get advertisers.

I can tell you why CNN reported this and why they will continue to report such foolishness. According the their own sources the Bigfoot story “… has gotten more page-views and comments than all but two of the 250-plus stories…”.

So let’s see how this works: CNN publicizes a hokey Bigfoot story that they know will generate immense interest (and incidentally sell a lot of airtime) if only, somehow, the inquiring public becomes aware of it. But how does that happen? Wait a minute. Aren’t we a news organization? Can’t we prime the pump a little? Generate a little interest and then claim we are just giving the boobs what they want? Of course we can.

Don’t worry about the National Enquirer going out of business. There’s always CNN. As long as there’s one born every minute CNN will never lack an audience.

For all you whiners out there bashing CNN: If you don’t like what they report on DON’T READ/WATCH CNN!!!! Gees… In these days of Britney and Brangelina they’re reporting what the “people” want.

So the score seems to be (approximately, so far):

72 explicitly against (coverage of Bigfoot)
65 explicitly in support

18 implied against
37 implied in support

60 redundant, unclear

From this I derive that the November results are “too close to call”.

OK, it goes like this:

All the explicit opinions correspond to activists who will for the most part vote. Those against Bigfoot coverage are for McCain, and those for Bigfoot coverage are for Obama, so here we have McCain over Obama 52.5% to 47.5%.

The implied opinions correspond to those who will happen to vote because it was conveniently possible, dragged out by peer pressure, etc. Here, Obama has an overwhelming majority at 67.3%. Let’s call these “incidental” votes.

The droolers don’t vote, or can be taken to just vote randomly.

So, if out of a typical 30% turnout election, we have activists over incidental votes in a proportion of 3 to 1 (random guess), then we have for a final tally, Obama over McCain 52.4% to 47.6%.

You read it here first.

I havent got this many laughs out of most comedy sites. Thanks scott, stephen, and big foot, mom of big foot for the humour. Also special mention to the girl who dated bigfoot and found out his name was a misnomer,,laughed for 10 min. Besides all the whining, etc there has been some very original humour. Myself im unhappy this didnt turn out to be true, because i have a 1/2 fininished manuscript for a cookbood on 101 ways to make bigfoot meals (was on receipe 48), cuz i hear they are to fatty to just fry and i want some healthy crypto menus out there,,lol.

Invite a BigFoot Presidential Candidate for supper and beer:
“Please, BigFeet are non violent vegetarians. Sweetgrass with slugs”

cnn is not the prestigeous news organization it once was ,but just another very badly produced entertainment channel. you want news? watch the BBC.

Mr. Dykstra, even if the Bigfoot postings on this blog turn out to be a hoax, how do you explain sightings of other Bigfoot postings all over the web? Reportedly, Bigfoot has over 1230 friends on Facebook; how many do YOU have?

I only have 340 friends on Facebook. So I concede the point. PD

You want more proof? I have unopened letters from major companies inviting Bigfoot to open a new low interest credit card account and to switch from cable service to satelite TV.

It was all a scam! … The interest rate increased after 90 days and the satellite service required a 2-year contract. Don’t necessarily trust what you read in print!

I’m just writing to thank all my fans and dispell the rumors about why I missed the press conference. I was NOT in rehab; just indisposed with a bad case of gout.

Gout … yea, I bet! Like when you ‘twisted your ankle” just before your big job interview with that insurance company … and they hired a caveman instead. And the white powder you said was for athlete’s foot. And all those times you came home late smelling all musty.

To the skeptics who quote Carl Sagan that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof,” I refer them to the August 1977 news report in the Brownsville Courier of the “Image of Bigfoot discovered in Corn Tortilla.” The article reports that over 200 eyewitnesses had seen the tortilla and agreed it bore a striking resemblance to the legendary creature. Eyewitnesses included several police officers plus the Assistant Band Director of the community high school. What say you to this, Bigfoot skeptics?

While I am certain there are well meaning people who may- or may not – have seen bigfoot, or some species that can explain the sightings, when someone says they have a bigfoot carcass, I am from the “Show Me” state, meaning, they better put the critter on dipslay and allow reputable scientists to examine it, includingones that they have not of their own funding, purchased the scientist’s results.

Otherwise, these gentelmen are trying to live up to the PT Barnum creedo “You can fool some of the people some of the time.”

I’m not fooled by people who ‘claim’ anything without showing the physical proof, which in this case, is – supposedly – more than a plaster cast of a footprint.

Hey Peter,

From most of the comments I have seen come back, I think most people missed the idea of why you wrote this new article. I am also guessing they did not read some of the comments left on the original article. People will just have to understand that you were just doing your job and reporting on a story. That is all it was. They make it sound like you were reporting on the end of the world or something. It was just a story and something different for once other than all this political crap. As a reporter I am sure that you are used to all the criticism but I just wanted to let you know that there are people out here with the intellegnce to undertand what you were doing was a job and nothing more. It is a shame more people don’t have the common sense to understand that. Thank you for your time.

“In the six-month life of this blog, Bigfoot has gotten more page-views and comments than all but two of the 250-plus stories we’ve reported. It would be irresponsible to impose a blackout on reporting this, given the demonstrably strong interest in the story.”

wha????
So if you run nude pics of angelina jolie, thus getting massive amounts of hits, you can justify the “news” coverage due to the response?
What kind of ridiculous 3rd grade logic is that?
So you can go dig up snuff films and post them and when you get a lot of hits for it, that justifies it as “newsworthy?”
The mere fact that moron reporters bothered to show up for the bigfoot press conference is hilarious!

Dude, bob,

That’s totally not a fair comparison.

They would have to be FAKE nude Angelina Jolie pictures.

Otherwise, they wouldn’t be able to comment in the blogs that OBVIOUSLY they’re fake, just look at disproportionate size of her head, and how the angles of the shadows are inconsistent, etc., and THAT is exactly why would make them newsworthy. After all, CNN has a responsibility to increase the public awareness of the existence of fake porn, otherwise people might actually pay for or believe that their self gratification was directed towards a nude picture of the REAL Angelina Jolie, when they did not in fact deserve that particular level of pleasure since it was really just some random swimsuit model with Angelina Jolie’s head Photoshopped (”Photoshop” is a registered trademark of the Adobe family of companies, and is used here without permission) on.

We as a society cannot have that, and thank goodness CNN will protect us.

Bigfoot is REAL! Here’s proof that he lives…and loves: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4p22BGJ6dXU

People who compare Bigfoot to Global Warming make me sad.

I guess having New Orleans destroyed by hurricanes isn’t enough evidence that global warming is happening.

Let me know if you ever start wondering what happened to our economy. Hint: it has to do with these people not caring to learn about science.

Science is not the domain of the elite. It is research done by real people. You could be one of these people– but you have to start observing before you judge.

This act of observation is what makes people curious to hear about Bigfoot. But it is also why the story never had any credibility — we’ve never seen any evidence of Bigfoot. No physical evidence whatsoever.

Global warming: we have fossils. Ice core samples. Sensors all over the world measuring CO2 levels. We have tons of evidence. All you have to do is learn about it. It points to a scary trend– a trend that we call Global Warming.

Global Warming. It will happen whether you believe in it or not. Please be part of the solution, and stop hiding from the challenge we all must face.