Texas Bigfoot Conference = Boring

COMMENTARY: MIKE LEGGETT
Texas Bigfoot Conference more boring than you would think
Sunday, October 04, 2009

(Click on image for larger view.)

TYLER — Janine Melnitz: 'Do you believe in UFOs, astral projections, mental telepathy, ESP, clairvoyance, spirit photography, telekinetic movement, full trance mediums, the Loch Ness monster and the theory of Atlantis?'

Winston Zeddemore: 'Ah, if there's a steady paycheck in it, I'll believe anything you say.'

— 'Ghostbusters'

Bigfoot is boring.

Correction. Bigfoot conferences are boring.

Bigfoot could not be boring if the conference speakers weren't so dull. Heck, most of them were barely breathing.

I went to the 2009 Texas Bigfoot Conference expecting people in gorilla suits milling about among semi-crazed gangs of gonzo, tattooed, barrel-chested beandips. I found instead only a polite, older crowd of mildly sleepy true believers who only came alive at the mention of the TV show "MonsterQuest" or the movie "The Legend of Boggy Creek." I thought surely someone would be selling BLT — Bigfoot, lettuce and tomato — sandwiches and Abominable Snowman cones during the lunch break, but there were only Cokes and Subway sandwiches.

Trying not to sound breathlessly moronic and relentlessly off kilter must be hard work. The stream of people calling themselves Bigfoot researchers — an astounding number of them PhDs, college professors and scientists from any number of fields — droned on all day, talking about satellite imagery, global rainfall patterns, Bigfoot territorial behaviors and specialty field work searching for Bigfoot signs. Even the crowd of believers was nodding off by the afternoon. I was asleep and drooling down the front of my shirt.

The discussion was arcane, jargon-laden and focused often on something they call cryptozoology — basically, the study of animals not yet proven to exist.

And I guess that's what the conference was all about, attempts to prove that Bigfoot, or Sasquatch if you prefer, does live some place other than in legend. Actually, what they're trying to do is get mainstream science to admit that all the misshapen plaster casts, bad photographs and over-dramatic TV shows are evidence that the creature lives in Texas and other states. More>>

Source