Revisiting categories of bigfoot belief

In a strange synchrony, it turns out that very early on in this blog's existence I wrote a post that was echoed in a post over at the BFF by a poster named Minister of Information. His post hit the intertubes about 19 hours after mine did. There are some similarities between these two posts, but, suspicions of influence aside, I find I like the good Minister's formulation more than a bit better than my own. In fact, I think his formulation blows mine clear out of the water.

Stan Courtney has been running a poll on the basis of the Minister's post, so stop by and register your vote there if you like.

According to Stan, no one can find the Minister anymore. That's too bad. He clearly had the brainpower to tackle some of our thornier philosphical issues.

Minister of Information, come back, whereever you are!

I'm going to copy over the Minister's categories for your comments. What would you add and what would you take away from what he has written? At this moment I'm given over to thinking he's done such a good job of it that only a bit of tinkering remains to be done. What are your thoughts?

Here's his original:

Pongid Bigfoot

Pongid Bigfoot is the prevailing paradigm, that espoused by John Green, Rene Dahinden, Grover Krantz, and Jeff Meldrum. The characteristics of Pongid Bigfoot are:

• Descendant of Gigantopithecus blacki, generally a more distant relation of mankind than chimpanzees and bonobos
• Extremely rare, presumably endangered
• Restricted in range to the montane Pacific Northwest (including portions of Canada)
• Solitary
• Ape-like in intelligence and behavior
• Share few behavioral traits with humans
• Incapable of language or proto-language
• Generalized omnivore with heavy reliance on forage
• DNA samples from hair and scat are difficult or impossible to obtain
• Elusiveness explained by extreme rarity, nocturnal lifestyle, and a retiring temperment
• Preferred method of scientific documentation is capture or kill
• Genuine evidence of Bigfoot is rare, with hoaxing both ubiquitous and insidious within the body of evidence
• Supporters of this theory tend to be more skeptical of new evidence and less certain that Bigfoot exists

Hominid Bigfoot

Hominid Bigfoot is a minority view, espoused by Bayonev et al. The characteristics of Hominid Bigfoot are:

• Part of the hominid line, perhaps as closely related to mankind as Homo heidlebergensis
• Cunningly elusive rather than rare
• Ubiquitous across North America
• Social, but with solitary periods during the life cycle, especially for males
• Human-like in intelligence and behavior
• Share many behavioral traits with mankind with the notable exception of a technological culture
• Capable of language / proto-language, often thought to speak Native American tongues
• Specialized omnivore with heavy reliance on socially cooperative hunting
• DNA samples from hair and scat closely resemble human "contamination"
• Elusiveness explained by human-like intelligence and cunning, nocturnal lifestyle, retiring temperment, and possible culture-of-concealment which includes the active concealment of sign
• Preferred method of scientific documentation is habituation
• Genuine evidence of Bigfoot is more common than assumed by the Pongid camp, and hoaxing is a minor annoyance rather than a signficant problem
• Supporters of this theory tend to be less skeptical of new evidence and more certain that Bigfoot exists

Paranormal Bigfoot

Paranormal Bigfoot is a minority view, espoused by Jon-Erik Beckjord et al. The characteristics of Paranormal Bigfoot are:

• Uncertain lineage accompanied by possible alien genetic manipulation
• Extra-dimensional rather than necessarily rare
• Ubiquitous across an unknown range
• Social but with unknown aspects
• More than human intelligence
• Share behavioral traits with alien "grays"
• Capable of language and mental telepathy
• Unknown survival economy
• DNA manipulated by aliens
• Elusiveness explained by ability to shift dimensions and/or interact with UFOs
• Preferred method of scientific documentation is recognition that Bigfoot is a higher order being than mankind and the question of documentation is irrelevant
• Difficult to quantify the attitudes of the supporters regarding new evidence, except that they feel that the other camps are extremely misguided

Psychic / Imaginary Bigfoot

Psychic / Imaginary Bigfoot is a minority view, albeit one which seems to occupy a lot of space within the old guard of mainstream science. The characteristics of Psychic / Imaginary Bigfoot are:

• Not a physical entity
• The phenomenon is psychic or imagined in origin
• Reports are evidence of mass delusion
• BF characteristics are projected reflections of our 'inner wildman'
• Physical evidence is wholly hoaxed or the result of wishful thinking
• Preferred method of documentation is evidence of mental instability and/or charlatanism among witnesses
• New evidence is yet more fakery or wishful thinking