What's amazing about chupacabra is that he is a fairly recent cryptid.

That's what, for me, takes away from the credibility. Don't get me wrong, I'd like any cryptid to be real, but I can't get with the choop.

My only issue with bigfoot is sightings. When was the last one?

People are having sightings all the time, mostly in the Pacific Northwest. The Bigfoot Field Research Organization does some good documentation of sightings (bfro.net).

We have Chupy bodies,

Don't they say that DNA tests show those bodies are canine?

So what do you think choops are?

"A new species of giant crayfish [has] literally crawled out from under a rock in Tennessee, proving that large new species of animals can be found in highly populated and well-explored places,"

I still have a hard time believing that a reproducing population of them could have existed in north america undetected in spite of so many people wanting them to be real and looking for evidence.

I don't think that point of view takes the enormity of the Pacific Northwest into account. You're talking about thousands upon thousands of acres that are simply not inhabited or frequented by man. I have no problem believing that a small population of large animals can exist in such a place, without much interaction with humans. Of course, I'm no expert in that matter, so I could be wrong. ;-)

I would also argue that, if BFs exist, they're anything but "undetected." The simple fact that we're having this conversations attests to the fact that they've been detected. Assuming they exist, of course.

Interesting timing. This weekend I was on a men's retreat and a good friend of mine told the story of what he believes was an encounter with a bigfoot/sasquatch when he was 16 (he's in his late 40's now). His encounter with whatever it was took place in middle Tennessee, which surprised me b/c I had always associated BF/sasquatch with the PNW as well.

As for the vastness of the PNW, the same can be said about the habitat and range of grizzlies and mountain gorillas. Yet when scientists want to determine whether grizzlies or mountain gorillas exist in a given area, they are usually able to do so.

Bird, thanks for engaging me on this. I'm voicing my difficulty in believing the BF's exist, but it's not like I think you are dumb for believing that they do. The whole thing intrigues me, actually.

You mention "bears" generically and I can see how out here in the east, a black bear on hind legs could be mistaken for a BF. My reference to grizzlies though, was thinking back to the days when they were endangered and pretty rare in many areas of the upper American west, and when scientists would ask the question of where their range extended - are there any grizzlies in such-and-such state, or quadrant. And the scientists could usually figure out whether grizzlies existed in an area - even if it was only a few grizzlies in a fairly vast space.

My friend's story definitely made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. He was 16, and went camping with his father and his 14 year old brother in some fairly remote middle TN woods. They were living off the land for a few days, planning to eat only what they could catch fishing, or shoot with their shotguns. They didn't have a tent, but constructed a lean-to out of a tarp. For light they had candles and one relatively weak flashlight (this was the early 70's - no powerful mag light flashlight).

During the night, my friend's dad woke the two boys up saying "load the guns; something is circling the camp." They could hear something walking slowly around them in a circle *on two feet.* All the normal summer night noises (crickets, etc.) were totally still. And an unbelievable, overpowering thick rotting stench rolled over them and settled in. Not a passing smell, but an odor that blanketed them and didn't go away the whole time this took place. They yelled, threatened ("we have guns and we will shoot"), shot in the direction of the footsteps and tried to shine the flashlight in the direction of the sounds. Whatever or whoever it was, would retreat when they shined the light in the direction of the footsteps (they could hear retreating steps but couldn't see anything). It/he would also retreat when they shot the shotguns (loaded with bird shot, nothing heavier) in the direction of the sounds. But it always stayed near, and continued to circle. It approached to within what sounded like ten or fifteen yards of their camp from behind the lean-to, but when they jumped out and tried to shine the flashlight at it and discharged the shotguns in that direction, they didn't see it through the trees but heard quickly retreating footsteps, only to have the circling footsteps resume again once they were back inside the lean-to. This lasted for several hours, from just after midnight, until the first grey pre-sunrise light of early morning. They didn't sleep all the rest of the night, listening to those steps, and with dawn they packed up camp and got the heck out of there.

They told friends and family about it, and an uncle of theirs told them that he had been coon hunting in the same area a few days earlier, and his coon dogs (which will chase and tree a bear) came back to him with their tails between their legs and refused to go back in the woods, wouldn't hunt. That was so unheard of that it freaked the uncle out and he left.

My friend says they found what looked like a heelprint in some soft ground the next morning, but no full footprint. He says there were some sapling trees that looked like they had been pushed over or knocked down. They weren't even thinking of BF until my friend did some reading months later on BF and he now thinks that is what he encountered. The following week they went back to the area with rifles and more powerful lights, but didn't see or hear anything.

I am still highly skeptical of the BF thing. But I am *not* skeptical of this event having occurred to my friend. This guy is now a high-level executive in a publicly traded company and I know him well, and trust his honesty and the accuracy of his memory of that night. He's also an experienced outdoorsman, not someone who went out in the woods and got spooked by a deer or racoon (he is adamant that whatever it was, it was large and went on two legs not four). My personal guess is that some backwoods wacko/psycho was either messing with them or stalking them - and that is just as scary as BF if not more so. But he thinks he encountered BF.

That is pretty cool. Still not sure what to think/make of it. I want to believe, I really do. The fact that for all the stories that are out there no BF remains have ever been found, is hard for me to get past.

This, from Wikipedia, kind of sums up the problem for me: "Most of the scientific community discounts the existence of Bigfoot, as there is little or no evidence supporting the survival of such a large, prehistoric ape-like creature. The evidence that does exist points more towards a hoax or delusion than to sightings of a genuine creature.[4] In a 1996 USA Today article titled "Bigfoot Merely Amuses Most Scientists", Washington State zoologist John Crane says, "There is no such thing as Bigfoot. No data other than material that's clearly been fabricated has ever been presented."[67] In addition to the lack of evidence, scientists cite the fact that Bigfoot is alleged to live in regions unusual for a large, nonhuman primate, i.e., temperate latitudes in the northern hemisphere; all recognized nonhuman apes are found in the tropics of Africa and Asia. Thus, as with other proposed megafauna cryptids, climate and food supply issues would make such a creature's survival in reported habitats unlikely.[68] Furthermore, great apes are not found in the fossil record in the Americas, and no Bigfoot remains have ever been found. Indeed, scientists insist that the breeding population of such an animal would be so large that it would account for many more purported sightings than currently occur, making the existence of such an animal an almost certain impossibility."

But then, I have no idea what to do with stories like that of my friend, or those stories that you mention of rock throwing, stench, broken saplings, etc.