back to article Scientist plans to catch Bigfoot with remote-control blimp

An Idaho scientist is planning on trying a new tack to hunt down the elusive Bigfoot, which is thought by some to inhabit the wild forests of America, by using a blimp. Jeffrey Meldrum, an anatomy and anthropology professor at Idaho State University, is looking to raise $300,000 to build a remote-controlled airship armed with …

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  1. Thorne

    Odds are the closest footage he gets is a couple of hairy rednecks getting frisky in the woods

    1. Eddy Ito

      Let's not forget if those rednecks probably have the last bigfoot mounted in the corner of the family room. Well, rumor has it the mounting takes place on Tuesday and Thursday when Mrs. Redneck is at the Tupperware party but that's another story.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    GPS Trekkers, ready yourself!

    I foresee a game where people track and share the blimp's location and play trick or treat on it, all properly costumed for the occasion. They might even catch two sasquatch fornicating that way! Of course, those two redneck will just 12 gauge shoot down the evidence gatherer up there...

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Alien

    Blimp in the Bay Area

    Now I know why there is a blimp roaming above bay area last few months.

  4. mickey mouse the fith
    FAIL

    The only thing hes going to find with his blimp is people in gorilla suits waving at the thing.

    he really shouldn't have advertised the fact he was doing this until after he had found something interesting (which would probably be never).

  5. Ole Juul

    I have no doubt

    Using modern high tech cameras to add legitimacy, they will be showing us pictures of moving shadows in the woods that look like they were taken with a Brownie mounted on a jackhammer. True to genre.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: You leave those young Girl Guides alone!

      No sticking them to pneumatic drills now.

  6. Turtle

    Oh yeah?

    "An Idaho scientist is planning on trying a new tack to hunt down the elusive Bigfoot"

    Anyone attempting to find Bigfoot - or taking Bigfoot seriously at all - is not a scientist.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Oh yeah?

      Let's replace that with another subject:

      "Anyone attempting to find kangaroos - or taking kangaroos seriously at all - is not a scientist."

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Oh yeah?

        Really?

        But anyone can prove kangaroos exist.

        It's for the whackos to prove Mr Big E Foot exists.

        A link to any peer reviewed science journal would suffice.

        I won't hold my breath.

  7. Winkypop Silver badge
    Facepalm

    "The challenge with any animal that is rare, solitary, nocturnal, and far-ranging..."

    He missed: "Or is not there, has never been there nor has ever existed."

    $300,000 for pure bunkum, no thanks.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Bigfoot graveyard

    Where are all the dead Bigfoot remains ...

    1. Ole Juul

      Re: Bigfoot graveyard

      Where are all the dead Bigfoot remains ...

      And where is the scat? These sorts of things don't disappear over night, and in fact leave a trail of successive generations of organisms that lead back to the source. The lack of these fundamental signs is why scientists don't normally pursue these kinds of stories.

      1. Elmer Phud
        Holmes

        Re: Bigfoot graveyard

        The icon, just the icon will do

    2. Euripides Pants

      Re: Bigfoot graveyard

      "Where are all the dead Bigfoot remains ..."

      Larry Ellison has the bones ground up to make a powerful laxative.

  9. The last doughnut
    Happy

    Interesting how the human imagination is so open to the idea of a primitive forest-dwelling cousin.

    I for one would welcome an encounter with one of the females.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      You, sir, are Lonely.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Definately exists

    I saw him up a mountain in Animal Kingdom, I tell ya I got out of there quick smart.. phew

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    But where did it buy the blimp, did it pay cash, and how does it know how to operate it? ;)

  12. kwg06516
    Holmes

    Somewhere deep in the primeval forests of the Northern Rockies...

    ...the jimmies are quietly rustling.

  13. Grikath

    Scientific legimitacy for the blimp...

    could well be found in the fact that if the equipment on the blimp is so shit-hot it's able to penetrate dense canopies and other known problems of aerial spotting of wildlife in anything resembling hi-res, it can just as easily be used to track, spot and monitor the equally elusive, rare, but quite real known wildlife in that region.

    A blimp makes a lot less noise than an aeroplane or chopper, can stay up a lot longer, and is a lot easier to set up for remote, or even automated control.

    I don't know about Big Hairy mythical creatures, but there's a lot to be said for a form of monitoring like this.

  14. Martin Budden Silver badge
    Trollface

    Already proven to exist!

    The article says "Many human cultures have folk tales of wild, man-like creatures living in the wilderness. Possibly the most famous is the Himalayan Yeti.....etc"

    Here's the big news: the most famous is not the Yeti, the most famous is in fact the orangutan, the name of which means "person of the forest". The orangutan has already been discovered and observed by science, and some have even been captured and put in zoos.

    1. mickey mouse the fith

      Re: Already proven to exist!

      And that yeti scull those Tibetan monks were insisting was genuine was found to be a few bits of various indigenous animals stuck together when someone snuck a bit of dna from it when the monks wernt looking, and tested it in a lab.

      The chances of a population of large terrestrial hominids existing in the backwoods undetected is pretty much zero. Theres no way they wouldn't have left signs(shit,carcasses, nests etc) and disturbed the environment in some noticable way.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    absence of proof ..

    I say go for it.

    Anybody who "knows they (bf) don't exist" should read Popper's theory of scientific knowledge.

    The theory that all the continuous thousands of observation reports, worldwide folk stories, etc etc are all misidentified or misreported non-events, is a theory that can be disproven by observing one of these things in the wild.

    Saying they exist isn't a proper falsifiable theory, unless someone invents a way to visually inspect the entire biosphere simultaneously at 10cm resolution and identify every living thing ..

    Apart from the Flores 'hobbit', there may well be other undiscovered hominids - http://www.orangpendek.org/

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