Why is it so hard to believe?
This is a topic I have spoken about a few times before, especially in my books. In a tweet I came across the other day from a famous paranormal investigator, I felt compelled to explore it again. Why is it that people can believe in ghosts, aliens and even demons, yet the concept of bigfoot seems to be unbelieveable?
Image Source: Twitter @Zak_Bagans
In a field where we are constantly fighting to be taken seriously and have our beliefs validated, some people within the paranormal field can ironically be some of the most close minded people if something goes against their own grain. While I am not a skeptic, I am certainly on the skeptical side and try to take a more balanced look. I would love to be proven wrong in many instances and have the open mind for discussion and ready to accept that. There are a lot of people who I know are like this too. I don't think they would be in the paranormal field if they thought otherwise.
What do we believe?
In 2019 I conducted a survey to see where the belief of those interested in the paranormal field. Did they believe in ghosts? What about aliens? Of course bigfoot was thrown into the mix.
Source: https://llifs.com.au/blog/where-do-our-beliefs-lie/
While the sample rate was quite small, the results spoke quite loudly. In the same survey, 93.75% of respondants believed in ghosts while 78.75% believed in UFOs and aliens. Yet only 46.45% believed in creatures such a bigfoot. It begs the question, why is this so unbelievebale?
Patterson Footage
On Friday, October 20, 1967 Bob Gimlim and Rodger Patterson filmed what has become some of the most famous paranormal footage ever to exist. They were riding northeast on horseback along the east bank of Bluff Creek in Northern California. Sometime after 1:00 p.m., they saw a figure standing on the opposite bank. Patterson’s horse reared up and it took him a while to get down to get his camera from his saddlebag. The figure started to walk away from them before Patterson began to run after it. The film is initially very shaky, then the figure looked back and Patterson fell to his knees. The creature would eventually fade into the trees as Patterson ran out of film.
And so a legend was born. Maybe it is because it looks like a guy walking in a big suit, in fact that seems to be the general consensus. That doesn't however take away from the fact that there are many elusive creatures that could indeed exist and in some ways are scientifically more possible through things like evolution than things like ghosts or aliens. In 1917, two youn girls took photos of cardboard cut out fairies and had the world believe in fairies. They even admitted as such that the photos were doctored and yet I think people again are more likely to believe in fairies than they are in cryptids. The question becomes why?
It’s really easy for us to imagine that belief is an either/or proposition—you either believe in something or you don’t. And that’s really not the case. Polls are always asking people whether or not they believe in aliens or ghosts. But the thing is, if their only options for an answer are yes or no, then they know what the right answer is—the right answer is no, But if you give people more room and ask them to talk about their beliefs, what you find is a grey area that most people are existing in, where they say, ‘Well, you know, I haven’t seen hard proof myself … but I have a really good friend or family member or someone I trust who has seen Bigfoot.’ Or they’ll say, ‘Well, I don’t believe in this stuff, but—I did see Bigfoot one time.
Folklore professor Lynne McNeill
https://alumni.berkeley.edu/california-magazine/online/so-why-do-people-believe-bigfoot-anyway/
Reading the above explanation struck a chord with me. How many times do you talk to people and they will say things along the lines of "I don't believe in ghosts but this one time this happened to me ........". As I am always saying within the paranormal, it is not just a black and white area, there is really a lot of grey and I guess that is the part that we are constantly researching. With that needs to come some wiggle room with open mindness to have your beliefs challenged. In fact that is the part i love and hate about the paranormal. Having my beliefs challenged are very uncomfortable and can make me question everything, but at the same time something that is intrguiging and that I cannot get enough of. The take away I have from this is that I don't think we should be limiting ourselves in our areas of research when it comes to the paranormal. In fact I personally think that all the areas come together in different ways and should all be explored. I am not saying you have to go an camp out in the woods in the middle of the night if that is not your thing, but I think being open to the possibility and looking into simularities between these kinds of experiences and sightings can help us all.
Check out my article: Is there a connection between different kinds of paranormal phenomena?
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