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Study Finds A Huge Number Of People Believe In Bigfoot & The Loch Ness Monster

Polls like this range WIDELY over years and even across different polls in the same year. I read the paper and it is not clear how the poll was conducted or how the questions were phrased, so it's not wise to read too much into it.

Edit: Here is how they were phrased and the results. [Note: what does "real" mean? That skews these results as they are definitely real in some sense, but not scientifically.

Belief in cryptids was measured by asking respondents whether they strongly believed, believed, disbelieved, or strongly disbelieved the following statements:
“Bigfoot is a real creature” (12% strongly believed,34% believed, 35% disbelieved, and 20% strongly disbelieved),
“Mermaids are real” (11%, 22%, 42%, and25%, respectively),
“The Yeti, also known as the abominable snowman, is real” (12%, 29%, 39%, and 20%,respectively), and
“The Loch Ness Monster is a real creature” (10%, 31%, 39%, and 20%, respectively).

On the other hand, cryptids are more popular than ever. So, that does correlate to how people will respond to a question of "belief". What does that mean exactly? Are they convinced based on what they have seen in the media (news and documentary portrayals)? Or are they using the availability heuristic (they have heard about it, so there must be something to it).

I have to give it another read and compare to previous surveys.

Coincidentally, another US survey recently reported the following:

Among those surveyed, 56.9 percent said they believe in aliens, 61.4 percent believe in ghosts, and 70.3 percent say they believe in the devil, which is lower than the 85.4 percent who say they believe in God.

These numbers are also on the very high end. I think that reasonably correlates with news and reality-based television (I use that term with hesitation). There is no doubt that we are seeing not only an effort to depict aliens and cryptids as real experiences but people who appear credible are putting these ideas out there. Your mileage may vary, but for me, this is just another wave of popular belief. It reflects the cultural milieu; it doesn't reflect any better evidence for these entities to actually exist.
 
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Sharon Hill said:
Polls like this range WIDELY over years and even across different polls in the same year. I read the paper and it is not clear how the poll was conducted or how the questions were phrased, so it's not wise to read too much into it.

Edit: Here is how they were phrased and the results. [Note: what does "real" mean? That skews these results as they are definitely real in some sense, but not scientifically.

Belief in cryptids was measured by asking respondents whether they strongly believed, believed, disbelieved, or strongly disbelieved the following statements:
“Bigfoot is a real creature” (12% strongly believed,34% believed, 35% disbelieved, and 20% strongly disbelieved),
“Mermaids are real” (11%, 22%, 42%, and25%, respectively),
“The Yeti, also known as the abominable snowman, is real” (12%, 29%, 39%, and 20%,respectively), and
“The Loch Ness Monster is a real creature” (10%, 31%, 39%, and 20%, respectively).

On the other hand, cryptids are more popular than ever. So, that does correlate to how people will respond to a question of "belief". What does that mean exactly? Are they convinced based on what they have seen in the media (news and documentary portrayals)? Or are they using the availability heuristic (they have heard about it, so there must be something to it).

I have to give it another read and compare to previous surveys.

Coincidentally, another US survey recently reported the following:

Among those surveyed, 56.9 percent said they believe in aliens, 61.4 percent believe in ghosts, and 70.3 percent say they believe in the devil, which is lower than the 85.4 percent who say they believe in God.

These numbers are also on the very high end. I think that reasonably correlates with news and reality-based television (I use that term with hesitation). There is no doubt that we are seeing not only an effort to depict aliens and cryptids as real experiences but people who appear credible are putting these ideas out there. Your mileage may vary, but for me, this is just another wave of popular belief. It reflects the cultural milieu; it doesn't reflect any better evidence for these entities to actually exist.
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I agree. There are a lot of very uncritical paranormal 'documentaries' ("it's a demon!") out there, confidently reporting that they have absolute proof of whatever the cryptid du jour may be And there are many credulous people who believe that an excitable young man leaping around yelling 'this is proof, this is proof!' is both accurate and genuine.
 
I often feel that such surveys are implemented in hope of answers that allow superior critics to deplore how most people are stupid or credulous, and to essentially state that nothing exists except what those critics happen to believe in or consider credible.
 
Paul_Exeter said:
Not just wide-eyed believers either:

"The study also uncovered how watching TV or science fiction doesn't result in people being more likely to believe in cryptids but viewing paranormal documentaries and reality TV does."

https://www.irishstar.com/news/us-news/huge-amount-people-believe-bigfoot-31850160
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"Bloody Irish, I'll show them extinct..." - Ol' Blighty Bigfoot as he sneaks quietly behind random cryptid hunters

Seriously though, this study...when they say, "watching TV or science fiction doesn't result in people being more likely to believe " do they mean everyone or just the people who already leaned towards belief? It's important to distinguish in my mind because I know loads of people who flat out don't care about paranormal and cryptids and no amount of watching paranormal documentaries is going to change that.

The study:
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21417

I did a quick buzz through it, I like to know how big a sample size they used, things like that but didn't find it, but reading the study's scope, it was overwhelmingly white middle aged people
 
Who - and where - are all these people who `believe in the Loch Ness Monster`? Are they all Japanese perhaps? It seems to me that any mention of the topic in the UK is like;ly to elicit a fond smirk and one which is quickly followed by a predictable remark about Whisky consumption.

I'm a Nessie-sceptic myself, but I'd actually quite like to live in a world where hordes of young people with binoculars and long lense cameras descent on Loch Ness every summer hoping to get a glimpse, where the latest book by Tim Dinsdale is available in the bookshops, where there are breathless documentaries about the region on TV every other month - and where Nicholas bloody Witchell isn't the BBC Royal Correspondent, but a relict pleisosaur advocate.

As for the question about `belief in aliens` - this stuns me with its crass dumbness. `Belief in aliens` is the scientific mainstream in the sense that most astronomers and so on now hold it to be likely that there are other life forms somewhere out there in our galaxy or beyond. What the question means, I presume, is not `belief in aliens` but the belief that we are currently being visited by, or are in some way interacting with aliens - or at least have done so in the past. Phrasing matters.
 
Zeke Newbold said:
As for the question about `belief in aliens` - this stuns me with its crass dumbness. `Belief in aliens` is the scientific mainstream in the sense that most astronomers and so on now hold it to be likely that there are other life forms somewhere out there in our galaxy or beyond. What the question means, I presume, is not `belief in aliens` the but the belief that we are currently being visited by, or are in some way interacting with aliens - or at least have done so in the past. Phrasing matters.
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Absolutely this. It's like asking "have you seen a UFO?" 100% yes unless you are blind.
That's why I don't like opinion surveys unless they are very very specific and careful with their phrasing. Even then, you will have some jokers in there.

What is belief? Is it "I'm going to positively consider this idea today?" That's rather meaningless. It's not a wonder why these surveys don't make much sense.
 
On the basis of my casual observations, over 50% of people believe bad things come in threes, and 90% of my customers believe that they are entitled to a refund regardless of the circumstances. Widespread belief in bigfoot or Nessie, based on no real consideration of the evidence, is hardly a surprise.
 
Druk said:
Get off the beaten track in Bhutan and Nepal it's mainly the elderly and the poorly educated who still believe the myth and superstition, youngsters with a bit of exposure to the outside world are far more savvy.
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There was an episode of Destination Truth where one of the sherpas found a footprint and my cynical brain immediately conjured up a sherpa system where they plant bigfoot prints for TV, thus bring tourism dollars......
 
Aydee_Aitchdee said:
There was an episode of Destination Truth where one of the sherpas found a footprint and my cynical brain immediately conjured up a sherpa system where they plant bigfoot prints for TV, thus bring tourism dollars......
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Not so cynical,anything to turn a dollar in Kathmandu.
 
12% of respondents 'strongly believe Bigfoot is real' vs 12% of respondents 'told our surveyor that they strongly believe Bigfoot is real'.

Anyone with even a passing acquaintance with psephology knows there is a wide variety of reasons why what people say they believe and what they actually believe can often be quite different.

I'd say here's an even wider gap between those things than there is between what people do and what say they do.

Belief states are much harder to verify; hence, there's a much lower chance of being challenged on the veracity of one's response.
 
Aydee_Aitchdee said:
"Bloody Irish, I'll show them extinct..." - Ol' Blighty Bigfoot as he sneaks quietly behind random cryptid hunters

Seriously though, this study...when they say, "watching TV or science fiction doesn't result in people being more likely to believe " do they mean everyone or just the people who already leaned towards belief? It's important to distinguish in my mind because I know loads of people who flat out don't care about paranormal and cryptids and no amount of watching paranormal documentaries is going to change that.

The study:
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21417

I did a quick buzz through it, I like to know how big a sample size they used, things like that but didn't find it, but reading the study's scope, it was overwhelmingly white middle aged people
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I always suspect the people who flat out refuse to discuss the paranormal have had a paranormal experience themselves that they are trying to keep buried.
 
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I’m not that surprised about the belief in Bigfoot. I was reading a Reddit thread (supposed true stories not r/nosleep) about strange things seen hiking etc in the US and a surprising amount mention Bigfoot, smells, noises, locals in remote places saying things like ‘there are a lot of sightings around here,’ etc. Not that people posting are saying they saw one but following comments often mention Bigfoot. Some are quite eerie, some could be explained by many other things but it shows that many peoples’ minds do veer in that direction and honestly, when they say where they go, miles from anywhere, old logging trails they hike on, really huge wilderness areas, its not surprising.
 
There's also 'do you believe that there are really Bigfoot stomping around in forests?' as opposed to 'do you believe in the possibility that there could be Bigfoot stomping around in forests?'

Two very different questions, whilst appearing to be similar.
 
It was cold and grey outside today so I immersed myself in some of the Small Town Monsters YouTube Bigfoot documentaries. The scenery and wildlife of Alaska and the Pacific North West etc are ruly stunning and worth watching for that alone. Possibly a good thing because whilst there are plenty of witness interviews, there is previous little sign of Bigfoot on all those camera traps they leave for weeks on end.

 
Paul_Exeter said:
It was cold and grey outside today so I immersed myself in some of the Small Town Monsters YouTube Bigfoot documentaries. The scenery and wildlife of Alaska and the Pacific North West etc are ruly stunning and worth watching for that alone. Possibly a good thing because whilst there are plenty of witness interviews, there is previous little sign of Bigfoot on all those camera traps they leave for weeks on end.

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I have been in Squatch country,and I am a hunter,I connect with people on their level,I even went to the extent of going to a Les SURVIVORMAN Stroud evening last year,I am a communicator,I speak to people,never met anyone who has caught a Bigfoot on Camera,maybe he is like his brethren the yeti and just shy?
 
Paul_Exeter said:
It was cold and grey outside today so I immersed myself in some of the Small Town Monsters YouTube Bigfoot documentaries. The scenery and wildlife of Alaska and the Pacific North West etc are ruly stunning and worth watching for that alone. Possibly a good thing because whilst there are plenty of witness interviews, there is previous little sign of Bigfoot on all those camera traps they leave for weeks on end.

Click to expand...

Well, he trouble with this is, Bigfoot is not scary.

He is about the most unscary primate alive.

Even little monkeys bite.

Why are we being told he is scary?
 
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