Frame 352 from the Patterson film
An anonymous member of a local online community seems to be serious about the following offer: Deliver me a Bigfoot, receive my house.
According to a recent message posted to the Fayetteville Freethinkers forum, anyone who can catch Bigfoot and bring him in will receive the title deed to an actual house located here in Fayetteville.
There’s even an attached affidavit signed on April 11 by local attorney Greg Klebanoff of Klebanoff Law Firm which outlines the legal details in an attempt to demonstrate the legitimacy of the offer.
Robert Lipford, managing director at the firm, verified the group’s involvement in their client’s offer Tuesday afternoon by telephone.
From the forum post:
Hello everyone. From time to time the Fayetteville Freethinkers have offered rewards for evidence of paranormal powers demonstrated under careful and proper observing conditions. It’s been reported that Arkansas is in 3rd place for having a lot of “Bigfoot” activity, so on behalf of one of our members, we are offering the reward of a house in Fayetteville to anyone who can catch Bigfoot and bring him in.
An update to the original post appeared Thursday afternoon offering a few more details about the house.
The home being offered as reward was built in the 1970′s, is currently occupied, rents for $550, has an enclosed garage and sits on .75 of an acre in the city of Fayetteville. It’s approximate realistic value (somewhat depressed in today’s market) is $80,000. Reasonable people will understand that giving the location or posting a picture would open its present occupant to potential harassment.
The bounty appears to be offered by the same person who left a comment on a local news story regarding a guide who was recently cited for leading a Bigfoot search in the Buffalo National River area without an expedition permit.
“First person to bring me a Bigfoot gets my house,” wrote fayfreethinker late last month.
A second comment from fayfreethinker offered this explanation:
About ten years ago when there was a string of reports (six) on the local TV news regarding sightings of Bigfoot (he was going around banging on people’s mobile homes and then running off, which is very rude), I drew up an oversize check and went on the 40/29 evening news and offered $50,000 to anyone who could bring this annoying fellow in. Then bear season ended and the news reports kind of fizzled. If we are going to get to the bottom of this, there is nothing wrong with offering a considerable incentive to people so they can bring one of these undocumented rapscallions in.
If you stumble across Bigfoot and are interested in trading him in for a house, you might consider calling the Klebanoff Law Firm at 479-442-7400.
Good luck and happy hunting.
I wonder if a Boggy Creek Creature would work? We have one that comments on our site.
Only if Boggy is (a) a nonhuman species of primate ape of at least the approximate size and stature of a normal adult human being; (b) whose primary means of locomotion is (or was) walking erect on two legs; (c) that now or within the previous century inhabited North America; and (d) whose existence to date has been unconfirmed by science.
It’s all there in the affidavit.
Well, nonhuman is a bit of a slur. We all did things in college we regret.
I will not be making an appearance on Sunday, though. Mrs. Creature and I have a lovely home already and we’ve already made plans for that afternoon: checking in on Strike, the Naturals’ mascot. He’s a distant relative.
And as for these Freethinkers: keep up the good work, but watch the snark. No one ever had their mind changed by being made fun of.
Lmao. I wondered what Strike was.
Give me a break, anonymous member of a local online community! You must think we’re all suckers. Everyone knows a live Bigfoot, especially a female, is worth more than a roach infested $80k rental house. You’re gonna need to at least throw in your 1990 Subaru Forester and a rusty push reel lawnmower to get me to trudge through the woods looking for some smelly ape.
Lank: “anonymous member of a local online community!”>>
It’s not just an “online community,” there are over 430 people involved with the Fayetteville Freethinkers (est. 1998) and they have public meetings monthly with average attendance about 60. At our meeting this Sunday, we will be offering a reward of $10,000 to psychics who can perform certain actions they regularly claim to be able to perform. Details here: http://fayfreethinkers.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=6701
Lank: “live Bigfoot,… worth more than a… house.”>>
Obviously. Had you read the offer carefully, or at all, you would have known that you get to keep your Bigfoot, (along with the house).
Glad you have a sense of humor. Wait…
Funny!
The claim that the house is in some way defective has been the favorite and first distraction of those trying to claim the offer is not invalid. But they can show no basis for it. For example: http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/fayetteville/
This is excellent example of what I mentioned above.
I will not elucidate further, but will leave this excellent Phil Plait lecture from TAM 8:
http://vimeo.com/13704095
I was there during that lecture sitting 30 feet away from him and met him afterward. If you think my comment above, and my correction of the error regarding who gets the Bigfoot, and the smear about the house being “roach infested,” is an infraction of what Dr. Plait was talking about in that lecture, then you have a very different perception of that lecture than I do. It may be the case that you’re a little too sensitive.
Regarding your claim: “No one ever had their mind changed by being made fun of.” That’s not remotely true. The human desire to not be an object of ridicule is a profound incentive to not hold ridiculous beliefs. It helped me get a lot of mine decades ago.
But surely your group offering such meager rewards for something so extraordinary (and, one would imagine, wildly prosperous) must be seen as humorous?
It seems that Lankford was joining in with the joke and that you appear to be too sensitive, echoing his own snark with your “Funny!” response.
And my reason for posting the lecture was because of Mr. Plait’s own question of (and I’m paraphrasing here) how many people became skeptics because someone got in their face and called them a retard.
Getting attention from the local legitimate media by poking fun at believers in cryptozoology serves what purpose? After Sunday, do you expect more members because you’ve exposed such a silly belief to the righteous light of logic? Or are you just doing this because you want to show off how clever you all are?
BOG: But surely your group offering such meager rewards for something so extraordinary”>>
Not sure why ten thousand dollars for 15 minutes work by a psychic doing what they already claim to be able to do would be considered “meager.” It’s probably because the offer of a house is not “meager,” that it gets attention.
BOG: “Lankford was joining in with the joke…”>>
I’ll explain why he wasn’t. The reason we went to the trouble to draw up a legal affidavit was because of the persistent charge made online that our offer was “dishonest and fraudulent.” Since the affidavit now clearly shows this charge isn’t true, those who are invested in paranormal beliefs and angered by the mere existence of the offer have to find a new way to make the same charge. So without basis they charge that the house is a dump or “roach infested,” (see cryptomundo link above). This is a way of saying the offer is bogus, just in a different way.
BOG: “to be too sensitive, echoing his own snark with your “Funny!”>>
For his joke/point to work, it would have needed to be the case that we get to keep the Bigfoot. We don’t. If the comment “funny!” was *too* snarky for you, then someone is too sensitive here, and it isn’t me.
BOG: “[Plait asks] how many people became skeptics because someone got in their face and called them a retard.”>>
No one has called any one any names in this thread.
BOG: “Getting attention from [this] serves what purpose?”>>
Public education about the unlikelihood that there is an undiscovered hominid running around N. America.
BOG: “After Sunday, do you expect more members…”>>
Don’t know, don’t care. We have no formal membership.
I was just in California and on Sunday, a new friend said something about Bigfoot activity in this area. I was oblivious to this.. interesting this comes up right now.
Hey … you know what they say … “No such thing as coincidence”! ;)
Doesn’t the act of attempting to change peoples’ minds by making fun of them kind of go against the idea of free thinking?
Watch: “Doesn’t the act of attempting to change peoples’ minds by making fun of them kind of go against the idea of free thinking?”>>
This assumes the goal is to change people’s minds and it assumes they are being made fun of. Even if that were the case, why would it go against “freethinking” (it’s one word not two)? Perhaps it’s just rather hard to address rather unserious and bizarre claims without stepping on toes. I like the saying (which we show at the beginning of every freethinker meeting):
“I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them.” –Baruch Spinoza
But then, as Thomas Jefferson once said (regarding certain theological claims):
“…Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them…”
The goal here is to teach basic critical thinking skills about the likelihood of certain claims often accepted uncritically be people who haven’t given much thought or skeptical scrutiny to these questions. The response from several people, when learning of this offer was: “do you really want to risk losing your house?” Then, when asked to contemplate for a moment the likelihood of there being an undiscovered hominid running around N. America that happens to have not left any physical evidence, they soon smile and realize… “I think your house is safe.”
I should have clarified in my original comment that I was not necessarily talking about the Bigfoot issue but your statement, in response to Boggy, “Regarding your claim: ‘No one ever had their mind changed by being made fun of.’ That’s not remotely true. The human desire to not be an object of ridicule is a profound incentive to not hold ridiculous beliefs. It helped me get a lot of mine decades ago.” Correct me if wrong but it sounded to me as if you had changed your opinion on some issues in the past due to ridicule, not logic or the truth.
I do not agree with Thomas Jefferson’s statement. If ridicule is a component in the argument then objectivity is lessened. A strategy involving ridicule is about control rather than revealing the truth.
WAT: “it sounded to me as if you had changed your opinion on some issues in the past due to ridicule, not logic or the truth.”>>
It doesn’t have to be one or the other (false dichotomy). Often people are a target of ridicule *because* they hold illogical beliefs that aren’t true. For instance, if a person believed in say… biblical inerrancy (as about 1/3 of Americans do), and they observed that position being soundly “debunked,” rebutted (or perhaps even ridiculed), this may cause them to consider, or look more critically at that belief, and see if it is worth holding such an unscholarly position.
I was saying I used to have ridiculous beliefs, for many years, lots of them, and part of my incentive to look more closely at these issues and then modify my beliefs to be in line with logic, (and thus more likely to be true), was to avoid being open to ridicule for holding preposterous beliefs.
“I’m not a skeptic because I want to believe, I’m a skeptic because I want to know.” –Michael Shermer
Thank you, I believe I understand your perspective much better. Not sure I agree with the statement that many people are targets of ridicule because they hold illogical beliefs (that would be a challenging argument to present), but I understand your point. I will definitely agree that fear is a powerful motivator and has the ability to refine as well as destroy.
It seems my last comment is unlikely to make it through moderation (sorry guys). In lieu I’d like to remind everyone that there are indeed confirmed sasquatch on Mars. http://www.fayettevilleflyer.com/2008/01/23/bigfoot-on-mars/
Unfortunately the going rate on a private space flight to Mars is well beyond the $80k value of the roach infested dump of a reward. Especially since the house was used as a combination meth lab / brothel for the last few years (I can’t prove that, but my psychic powers tell me it is so).
Some will assert that your psychic indications are proof enough.
Is the house haunted? I will trade my bigfoot for a haunted house.