Eye Shine! (Monkeyshines? )

[Gerry]

Reports of sasquatch encounters where the creature appeared to emit a red light, or glow from its eyes at night. Even though there was no other source of light to cause any reflection.
I mean, no creature on this earth emits light from their eyes. And why would they?
Infrared? Why would that be needed? Owls and several other night hunters have marvelous night vision compared to other nocturnals. Why don't they have this feature built in as well?
And seeing that sasquatch is not a totally nocturnal creature why would it need such superior vision that this glow implies.
Also interesting to note many encounters with sasquatch revealed little if any eye shine that was any greater then a dog or a deer.
So what do you think is happening here?

[vilnoori]

uh...demon possession? Just joking...But are you sure there is no other source of light? I mean, the viewer can see the creature, so there must be light from somewhere.

[Gerry]

Not exactly! there are a great number of cases which allude to seeing only eyeshine approx 8 to 10 feet off the ground. Ground where it has been shown not to contain a tree or any other structure in that area. Very dark nights without even starlight..but there it was near these observer's camp sites or at times buildings.

[vilnoori]

Well just because humans can't see light doesn't mean that there is no light. If sasquatch have night adapted vision, the same as cats and owls, their eyes could reflect more light than we think:

From wiki article about night vision, on the mechanism of night vision in the eye:

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"The tapetum lucidum, which is iridescent, reflects light roughly on the interference principles of thin-film optics, as seen in other iridescent tissues. However, the tapetum lucidum cells are leucophores, not iridophores.

The tapetum lucidum is a retroreflector of the transparent sphere type. Because it is a retroreflector, it reflects light directly back along the light path. This serves to match the original and reflected light, thus maintaining the sharpness and contrast of the image on the retina. The tapetum lucidum reflects with constructive interference[3], thus increasing the quantity of light passing through the retina. In the cat, the tapetum lucidum lowers the minimum threshold of vision 6-fold, allowing the cat to see light that is invisible to human eyes.[7]"

[Gerry]

You seem to be missing the point. We are not talking about light reflection. We are talking 'Light Emitting'. And when it is reported it is usually red in color. When there is no light source for reflection..then where is the source of the light?
And if you are correct, and if humans cannot see light, even though there is light..then they should not be able to see the reflection of such light either!

[vilnoori]

I'm just putting forth theories seeking to find the best. Not that we are certain to find a solution. So what do you think, Gerry?

[Gerry]

I think that these people saw something..but there has been no theory ever put forth on any forum which was ever able to explain exactly what it was that they saw. Just another oddity in life. No big deal! But what is a big deal is that they associated these glowing eyes with Sasquatch and now it is another commonly held belief among many that sasquatch has eyes which glow red in the dark.
Hence my inclusion of this fact in Man Made Myths about Sasquatch!

[Deleted]

there are only 3 aspects that I can think happened about the eye shine.
1. Someone is lying.
2. The eyes being bigger than a cats or a dogs, reflects less light but brigther.
3. Someone did see a Bigfoot and freight clouded his image in the mind or the recolection.

with so many eyewitneses, I rather go with number 2. At least for now.

[duallie]

Well, if people are witnessing eye-shine, they aren't witnessing a sasquatch.
The tapetum lucidum, a light-reflecting layer behind the retina, does not exist in humans or primates. Actually, primates are separated into two types. Strepsirhine (wet-nose) and haplorhine (dry-nose). Tapetum lucidum can only be found in the wet-nose primates. The lemur and the aye-aye for example. It does not exist in the dry-nose primates. Chimps, gorillas, etc. have no eye-shine.
If the big fella is anything like we assume him to be, that is somewhere between us and a gorilla, then he definitely does not produce eye-shine.
Any of those reports have to be just an animal. Someone seeing eye-shine and assuming it's BF is as silly as someone hearing a wood-knock and reporting a BF incident.
Eye-shine does occur in different colors. Horses-blue. Cats, dogs, raccoons-yellow. Rodents, opossums, birds-red. There is also white, green and pink.
I agree with you Gerry. One person reports it, others read it, next thing you know, they see it. Suddenly, it's a known trait that BF's eyes shoot red fire at night.
Is that last post a crypted message or something? We don't have terrorists using this site for communication do we? Kidding! Or are they?
Seriously though. We should try first to get a photo of BF's eyes in the day. I think that photo is going to be much more useful and interesting than any eye-shine pic.

[AKbiol]

Hello and a happy New Year to you all!

Not having dissected a sasquatch eye in my lab, I would try to keep an open mind on the possibility of some rudimentary tapetum lucidum in sasquatches. A partial and rudimentary tapetum, very thin, does exist in lemur fulva which is admittedly crepuscular. i haven't observed an eyeshine in one close night-time encounter in BC in 1974, or in a daytime "roadrunner" up here in Alaska, but i have a good dozen reliable witness reports of what you would call autofluourescence, usually whitish, here in SE Alaska. Eyeshine without ambient light probably comprises less than five to ten percent of the reports over here, but who knows? John Morley in Texas is working on eyeshine as well. if you have early macular degeneration, the accumulating liofuscin will also autofluoresce . Lots of work needed on this. All you need is a little extra guanine back there, and we all have guanine in the cyclic AMP of our photoreceptors. Funny how many west coast native masks up here have irridecsent opercula shell for the kushtakaa eyes. Just a thought. I don't have any personal bias or agenda on eyeshine either way.

[duallie]

hi AKbiol.
where are you in alaska?
i lived in whitehorse for six years.
still go back every other year on fishing trips.
usually try to do the whitehorse-haines-skagway-whitehorse loop while up there.

[Cryptosaurian]

The idea of a sasquatch with glowing eyes throws up several red flags for me ,but the most prominent being found in a lot paranormal related reports. Also, the only thing closest to glowing eyes is eyeshine but unfortunately most primates don't have tapetum lucidum so I'm afraid I'm on the fence for this topic.

[thomassteenburg]

Self glowing or red eye shine in my opinion is a red flag that the witness is making up the story for whatever reason,, and has read or watched to many videos on YouTube, put out by the inmates running the asylum types which seem to dominate this field for the last 10 years.

Thomas Steenburg

[Cryptosaurian]

True, Thomas. It could also be an indication in many "paranormal sasquatch" reports, which I'm always cautious of, that seems to be put in there to make the creature more otherworldly. It is not! If it leaves footprints with dermal ridges, then it HAS TO BE a living, flesh and blood animal.

[island]

How about this , Moonlight reflection from a owls eyes

or a Sasqs eyes could have moon reflection off its pupils when in night mode ?

by night mode I mean with its pupils fully dilated