May, 03, 2000Autumn Williams’ witness: Allowing researchers access to bigfoot like letting pedophiles into a daycare.
“The Blogsquatcher” – The Archives
March 6, 2010 1:43 PM
That’s harsh — but all in all, it looks as if Williams herself has become pretty contemptuous of researchers, claiming that she herself no longer is one. Now she says that she wants to be called a “witness advocate.” As you’ll see if you watch the videos available at the link above, Williams seems to be tired and somewhat on edge as she speaks into the camera. Perhaps these are thoughts that she will come to modify in time, but her words now are defiant: “You guys can keep on doing what you’ve been doing for 40 or 50 years. Go ahead. You want to prove it? You think you can prove it, be my guest.”
As far as that goes, I’m all for it. I believe witnesses should be treated much better than they are by many researchers, and I also believe the prevailing paradigm needs to be shaken up. That thought is what provoked my “anomalies” series, begun more than a month ago, and anyway, always a major theme of this blog. And here is where I am in disagreement with Ms. Williams. She paints the “bigfootresearch community” with far too broad a brush. I don’t believe there are really any two prominent bigfoot researchers who agree with each other about anything, much less what to do about bigfoot, or what it might really be. This part of her argument is akin to railing at straw men — they don’t really exist out here in the real world. She has always been a pretty popular figure in bigfoot research, with many fans, so Idon’t really see why she takes on the guise of a victim.
Then again, I do know that what she proposes to do will bring criticism her way, and her critics will be pretty vocal in the usual places. I have always found that very easy to ignore, however. Just don’t go to those places! I don’t believe it is inevitable that she’ll lose many fans, depending on how she presents her case anyway.
Her case is basically this – she has found a witness who claims to have had long term association with at least one bigfoot. He must have given her enough assurances that she herself is satisfied, because she says that exposure to his information has led her to believe she now understands what bigfoot is. She peaks of being in a quandary, however, because the witness will not allow any evidence tobe put before other researchers. She can tell his story, but offer no proof.
The trouble, as I see it, is that her video essay is as much an advertisement for the book that she is writing as it is a polemic against bigfoot researchers and the need to see the evidence. I have always looked at Williams a bit askance (and jealously!) because she has found a way to make bigfoot research pay through her pay-to-view website and her DVDs. Certainly, everyone has a right to make money any legal way they can, but we all know what the profit motive has driven some nefarious folk to do. The cynical side of me sees the possibility that the somewhat overwrought emotional tone of the video essay may serve as a “red herring” to divert our attention. I don’t know why she can’t publish the information on her blog, for instance, so that people can read it for free?
Since Ms. Williams assures us she cannot gain credibility from her peers with such a book, it would seem she can only be publishing it for money, or another reason I cannot guess at the moment. I take a rather dim view of that in a case like this,where it’s someone’s tale that we have to take on faith, though that’s maybe only because my site can’t make any money and I’m throwing my toys out of my stroller ina fit. Waah!
(I will note in passing that there is another book that was written in just this way, 50Years with Bigfoot I think it was called.)
Anyway, when you go over there to read the blog post and watch the videos, be sure to let her know who sent you. It appears she is not aware that there are “researchers” out there already in the mental place she’s recently chosen to inhabit. And tell her to consider this — all of our forays here into the anomalies of bigfoot research have led us very near to the conclusion that we only learn about bigfoot what something or someone else who is in control of that phenomenon wants us to learn. Is she sure that she’ll be bringing us the truth, or just another layer of the mystery?