Greetings JI et al,
Your opening statement shows where you stand ? you equate Bigfoot with Leprechauns and the Tooth fairy. For you that is probably the case, all are equally unbelievable since there is no dead body to prove any of them to exist.
I would point out that these could hardly be more different. Has the tooth fairy ever left tracks, hair or droppings? Recently more impressions than footprints have been found too. Belief in a fantasy? I did not say anywhere that I ?believe? in Bigfoot, and for that matter it is not a matter of belief ? you are either convinced they exist, not convinced they exist, or have closed your mind to the possibility that they could exist. There surely is enough evidence to justify pursuing the question, however ?real? scientists largely refuse even to examine the evidence. Those few who have, are notable in that their view has changed to supporting the existence ? Jane Goodall for one example, and if your interest warrants it, I would suggest you check out the evidence and articles on:
http://www.bfro.net/
and
http://www.gcbro.com/
The thousands of sightings are not ?nothing? and if you think so, try standing trial while eyewitnesses testify against you. One of the big skeptics points is that if such creatures existed, how could so many have escaped detection well they have not escaped detection, they are sighted all the time. Without a dead body, ?science? will not admit they exist ? yet in nature dead bodies are disposed of relatively quickly. Ask any state wildlife biologist how many dead bears have ever been found ? this of a large animal well known and quite numerous. (None have ever been found, that died of natural causes.

)
Pretty much it is a safe bet that science is NOT going to be convinced, not in our lifetime ? however the statements that we found Saddam in a hole in Iraq and ?put a man on the moon? are really wide of the mark here ? we had over 100,000 people, satellites, infrared detectors, bribes etc out hunting for Saddam, in a country where everyone KNEW exactly who he was, in an area no larger than California, and it still took weeks and weeks to find him. The same line of reasoning would mean that Bin Ladin should be easy to find too ? and again even with the top technology available, thousands of people hunting him, huge bribes and rewards etc he is still running around making tapes. Also, since the last trip to the moon we have not been able to put a man on the moon again ? according to Nasa we don?t have the technology! Even the blueprints to the Saturn V rocket (the only one big enough to take men to the moon and back) were destroyed as a part of the bargain to get Nasa the space shuttle. Not a good bargain, in my opinion, but the point is we may be advanced but we are not SO advanced that things cannot escape detection. No amount of effort even a tiny fraction of that spent on finding Saddam or Bin Ladin has been spent to find, capture or kill a Bigfoot ? every attempt has been privately funded and executed, and very small in scale.
I still hold that trying to convince ?science? is a waste of time and effort, (from hard experience) but it is possible to satisfy your own curiosity ? just go spend some time in the remote areas where Bigfoot have been recently reported. Seeing is believing, not seeing would be fair proof to you that they do not exist. Of course, if you don?t see a deer then deer don?t exist either, but?at least you will be out in some really pretty country. I would not expect to see any leprechauns or tooth fairies however.
I mentioned that it is not worth the effort to try to convince academics. For one example. (not related to Bigfoot, but the parallels are) I sent photos of a strange stone found in what appeared to be a tomb in Maine to a noted "expert" epigrapher. I asked him if he could decipher it. He wrote back that it was quite easy to read, that it was either Phoenician or very early Greek, and said ?goddess of the night? or ?queen of the night?. He also asked where it had been found. When I told him that it was found in Maine, he wrote back and told me not to use his name in any way relating to the artifact, nor his translation etc for publication. (I am a writer) Historians do not accept that people from the Mediterranean might have visited Maine in ancient times, so the artifact (among many) is loudly ignored.
In a way I understand the attitude ? it could be career suicide for an academic to take a stand on some subject which is frowned upon by the ?experts? ? they risk losing their job, professional ridicule etc and worse - what if the subject were later proven to be false! However in my opinion a "true" scientist of any subject should be brave enough to examine evidence, which the majority will not do, at least not if it falls outside of accepted dogma.
Science in a way has become a new type of religion ? members of the religion insist on belief in the ?accepted? theories, and dismissal of all evidence which is outside of {or contrary to} the accepted theories. Those who choose to consider Bigfoot to be equivalent to the Tooth Fairy are free to do so, but do not be offended if those who have examined the evidence and are convinced the strange humanoid
does exist consider you to be close-minded. As is the case with any mystery, examine the evidence for yourself before accepting either the ?dogma? of academia OR the claims of witnesses. As a treasure hunter you are already familiar with the process of weighing the evidence, filtering reports for what is true and what is false, so I am surprised that you would not apply the same set of truth finding practices to Bigfoot. Many supposedly ?incredible? things have been proven, from the ?mythical? monster of the deep, the Kraken, now officially accepted as the Giant Squid to such "fantasy" creatures as unicorns ? which were actually the result of reports garbled in translation in ancient times of the one-horned Asian rhino.
You are also a betting man ? and are aware of the concept that you cannot win the lottery if you do not buy a ticket; likewise it is not possible to be convinced of the truth or falsehood about Bigfoot without examining the evidence for yourself. Don?t take anyone else?s word on the subject (including me) just decide for yourself. I would bet that you will find the truth.
Oroblanco
There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. Matthew 10:26 KJV NT
For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open. Luke 8:17 KJV NT
"Recognize what is in your sight, and that which is hidden from you will become plain to you . For there is nothing hidden which will not become manifest." Gospel of Thomas 5
?For nothing hidden will not become manifest, and nothing covered will remain without being uncovered.? Ibid 11