On Evidence, Ethics, and the Business of Belief

By Dr. Joel Ramsey, The Paranormal Professor

I want to be clear about something before I tell this story.

I do not know whether Bigfoot exists.

I am a paranormal research scientist. My job is not to declare verdicts. My job is to follow evidence, apply theoretical frameworks, and be honest about what I find, even when what I find raises more questions about the investigator than about the investigated.

This case taught me something I did not expect to learn on a trip to Colorado. It taught me about the economics of paranormal belief, about the ethical obligations of someone who carries credentials into a field that can be exploited, and about the moment when curiosity has to yield to safety.

It also taught me that I should have trusted my instincts earlier than I did.

Before I Arrived

When someone offers to cover your travel and accommodations for an investigation, the professional response is to take the request seriously. My host had contacted me claiming she had encountered Bigfoot repeatedly on her property and that she had physical evidence, hair samples, and a tooth. She wanted my professional assessment.

Before I left, I did what I always do. I researched.

She had a substantial social media presence. YouTube videos. Instagram posts. A consistent stream of content built around her property and her claims.

That is where the first concern appeared.

Marshall McLuhan, the Canadian communication theorist, argued that the medium through which a message is delivered is itself the message. The structure of communication shapes meaning independent of its content. Watching her videos and scrolling through her posts, I understood that principle in a new way. Every piece of content she had produced, the framing, the narration, the merchandise visible in the background, was organized around a single unwavering premise. Bigfoot was real. Bigfoot was on her land. She was the person who had found him.

Communication researchers also describe agenda-setting, the process by which media shapes not just what people think, but what they think about. Her content was not presenting evidence and inviting judgment. It was establishing a conclusion and socializing her audience into accepting it before any investigation had occurred. Visitors arrived at her property having been primed by weeks or months of content. They knew what they were supposed to find. Their pseudoenvironments had been constructed for them in advance.

I noticed all of this before I boarded the plane.

I went anyway. I want to be honest about why: the trip was paid for, the case was genuinely unusual, and I told myself that concerning social media content did not necessarily mean the investigation itself would be compromised. That reasoning was not entirely wrong. But the paid travel created a subtle sense of obligation I should have examined more critically. I kept going when I should have been more guarded.

The Town

I arrived the evening before my scheduled meeting and spent time getting to know the area.

The town had built a visible identity around Bigfoot. Nearly every business on the main street referenced it in some way, names, window displays, T-shirts, bumper stickers. I understood the economics of that. Communities build around what draws people to them.

What concerned me happened at dinner.

When I mentioned the name of the woman I was there to meet, the reaction was immediate. People exchanged glances. Comments like: "oh, her", or "oh boy", and "just wait". When I pressed, they smiled and told me I would see for myself.

When locals who share an economic stake in the legend respond to a specific name with that kind of knowing discomfort, you pay attention. I paid attention. I kept my appointment anyway.

The Investigation

My host was a small woman, and the first thing she said to me when I arrived on time was that I was late.

Her operation was built directly into her home. Visitors who purchased tickets walked through the house to access the property. I walked through that house. Her husband was in the living room, asleep in a recliner. Small dogs, Pomeranians, Chihuahuas, skittered across the floor and tucked themselves behind furniture. A smoker and a grill sat on the patio just outside the back door. It was a standard residential backyard until you reached the edge of it, where tickets were checked before anyone continued onto the back forty.

She issued warnings about the property boundaries. Her neighbors, she told us, were excellent shots. I took that as a genuine statement of fact.

We were given walkie-talkies. As we walked, we could hear her conversations with her husband coming through the channel. The back forty itself was genuinely beautiful, a creek running through the property, trees, and open land. We walked for over four hours.

We found nothing.

When we returned, she told us we had not given it enough time.

Throughout every exchange, from the moment I arrived until we stepped back inside, she led every conversation. She answered her own questions before I could respond. When I tried to introduce myself and my background, she cut me off. She had done her research. She was not like the others I worked with.

That was the moment I realized this was not going to be a normal investigation.

The Evidence

Before she would let us leave, she showed me what she had collected.

She produced hair samples. I want to be precise about the limits of my knowledge; I am not a forensic biologist. But I have a background in environmental science and zoology from my undergraduate years, and I recognized one sample as consistent with white-tailed deer hair.

She also produced a canine tooth.

I asked her a genuine investigative question: did she believe Bigfoot was an omnivore, a herbivore, or a carnivore? The tooth's morphology was relevant to that question. It was the kind of question any researcher would ask.

She bristled.

I could see it clearly in that moment. She had presented this evidence before. She had learned, through repetition, to identify the point at which a visitor was not going to give her what she needed. I had reached that point.

I want to be fair to her: her conviction was genuine. She believed what she believed. But conviction is not evidence. And my role was not to validate conviction. It was to examine evidence honestly.

The Request

Then she told me what she actually wanted.

She wanted my signature on a document stating that I, Dr. Joel Ramsey, the Paranormal Professor, believed she had genuine Bigfoot evidence and that Bigfoot was present on her property.

She did not want my investigation. She wanted my credentials attached to her conclusion, a PhD endorsement she could incorporate into her content and her ticket sales.

I've seen versions of this before. There are individuals in this field who are not searching for answers. They have already found the answer they wanted, and they are looking for someone with letters after their name to confirm it. The credentials matter because they lend legitimacy to conclusions that the evidence alone cannot support.

I told her I could not sign anything of that nature.

The Exit

In the front foyer of her home, there was a gun rack. On it, a shotgun.

Beside it, a small step ladder.

She was a small woman. The step ladder had been placed there deliberately, positioned with a specific purpose in mind. It had not been placed there recently. I was not the first person to decline her request.

When I told her I would not sign, she moved toward that rack.

I had established a code word with my crew before we left home. If I said "blueberry muffin", we were done. No discussion. No delay. We moved.

I said blueberry muffin.

We thanked her. We left.

We did not return to the Airbnb she had arranged. As she had arranged it, that meant she knew where we were staying. My crew recognized that before I said a word about it. We relocated. I covered the cost without hesitation.

What I Should Have Done Differently

The warning signs were present before I arrived. The social media pattern was clear. The local reactions at dinner confirmed something was off. By the time I was standing in her shop watching her cut me off mid-sentence and answer her own questions, I had enough information to make a different call.

I kept going because the trip was paid for. Because the case was unusual. Because I told myself I should see it through.

If I were advising someone else facing the same situation, I would tell them this: the red flags you see before you arrive are real data. A paid invitation is not an obligation. Unusual cases do not require you to override your own judgment. Trust what you are observing.

On Safety

Anyone who does this work needs to think about safety before they need it.

Have a protocol. Have a word. Make sure the people traveling with you understand it without explanation.

The "blueberry muffin" code worked because it had been established in advance, because my crew took it seriously, and because we had all agreed that when it was invoked, nothing else mattered. That preparation is not a minor logistical detail. It is a professional obligation to the people who travel with you.

My first duty is not to my curiosity. It is the safety and integrity of the people with me.

That principle extends beyond physical safety. When someone asks me to attach my name to a conclusion I have not reached, the answer is no, regardless of how that answer is received. My credibility is not a commodity. It is the foundation on which every case I take rests. The moment I sign something I do not believe, I have compromised everything that comes after it.

What This Case Was Really About

This case was not ultimately about Bigfoot.

It was about what happens when belief becomes commerce, when commerce requires certainty, and when certainty begins treating honest inquiry as a threat.

My host had built an entire ecosystem, her content, her shop, her ticketed experiences, the walk through her house and past the sleeping husband and the small dogs, and out into the back forty, designed to deliver visitors to a predetermined conclusion. The question was never open. The investigation was never real. And when a researcher arrived who was willing to ask genuine questions, she did not want his analysis.

She wanted his signature.

That is where the real danger began. Not in the woods. Not at the gun rack. In the demand that I sign my name to something I had not found and did not believe.

Recognizing that dynamic early and acting on it is part of doing this work with integrity.

Dr. Joel Ramsey is a paranormal research scientist, keynote speaker, and creator of the Ramsey Communication-Based Investigation Protocol (RCIP). He has been conducting evidence-based paranormal investigations since 2010.