A set of tracks found in New Hampshire has the crypto community stirred up. I found this piece about it on a decent site, Ghost Theory. At least they will print my comments and not make derogatory statements about skeptics. I have a disagreement about their banner declaring a “skeptical look at the unexplained” (psst – maybe read this) because this piece was not really very skeptical – it assumed something spectacular and I do not think it is spectacular. But have a look.
With all this apparent cryptid news flooding the interwebs, you may wonder why these stories have been conspicuously absent from GT’s pages? The plain truth is, we don’t believe them. In fact, we have been so disillusioned with all the fakes and hoaxing, that we’ve been bypassing these tall tales altogether.
Of course, once in a while you have to break down and give out some rope. That’s not to say in any way that we believe it to be authentic, it’s more a matter of providing a sampling of content that’s been otherwise missing.
Today we have the story of Josh and his girlfriend. Two young people, who while out for a day of four wheeling and swimming in Concord, NH, happened upon some tracks in the mud. However, these were not your run-o-the-mill animal tracks; no, these were something entirely different.
First, the author is entirely correct. Cryptid news is outrageously stupid these days. Every poorly done and obviously hoaxed clip is placed alongside the next every day for content to feeds ad revenue. The evidence is no better than it was 25 years ago but there is more of it. Adding more crappy evidence to the pile does not make the body of evidence any more convincing. So, my advice is to not bother with the bigfoot evidence sites.
But lets take a look at the tracks since some have found them interesting. They appear to be three-toed. Here is the video of the finding:
It was remarked how calm the filmer was. The tracks are neatly in the soft mud depression and do appear to be bipedal. But I don’t think the the animal is either bipedal OR three-toed. I think it’s a moose.
Check out this picture from Birchlodge blog in Michigan:
Looks VERY similar with the third toe offset. They did find a moose associated with this picture. I did flip it vertically (note the ruler numbers) to match with this:
This second picture would show prints from the other side of the animal so the left side of the print is offset. Also note that the crypto story assumes the animal is walking away from the camera but if it is a moose with overlapping tracks, it would be walking TOWARDS the camera. I think it matches very well with a moose. And, there are moose in New Hampshire. Is there a three-toed monster? Unlikely.
Here is another screen capture that shows the little imprints of dew claws. I don’t buy that they are real claws.
The moose interpretation makes far more sense. Thankfully, the first commentator to the Ghost Theory site called “moose”. But then someone said “emu” and they went with that. Emu? Not as likely as a moose. Emus may have escaped but unless someone is missing an emu in this area, a moose is a better choice. And Granite State folks want to chime in about moose and tracks? (Now I’m thinking about ice cream…)
Notice how quick the cryptid community jumps on the monster idea INSTEAD of carefully evaluating the evidence. This happens ALL THE TIME. It’s discouraging and frustrating because they crave the mystery instead of the right answer. That’s so backwards in terms of inquiry.
It just so happens that at the same time as this article came up, I had a tab open to this article showing another three-toed track. Yes its from Missouri (no moose there) but it also resembles the trackway above. I
Big monsters are big business these days. I don’t know how many times I can express how disappointed I am that cryptozoology is such a joke as it is these days. But here is an example of making a question to be answered immediately into a crypto-mystery. It isn’t. It’s a question to be answered, not a mystery to be manufactured.