• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Besides Patterson/Gimlin....

Dunbaraj

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
Joined
Aug 23, 2016
Messages
30
Do you have another cornerstone of Bigfoot evidence besides the P/G footage??

A lot of people list dermal ridges, but I think that's pretty easy to fake... literally just press your toes into the indentation and boom, there you go. Some also say the Cripplefoot Casts or the Sierra Sounds. I'm not sure.

Some bigfoot videos (top 14 list here) are almost compelling enough -- especially recent ones -- but there's only so much they can prove.

I love the Lettuce Lake footage from last year. I can't imagine anyone willing to swim around with gators and vipers just to hoax a bigfoot video.

So what do you think? Any pivotal columns of evidence for you?
 
I love the Lettuce Lake footage from last year. I can't imagine anyone willing to swim around with gators and vipers just to hoax a bigfoot video.
Unfortunately, the Lettuce Lake footage has been debunked by pretty much everyone, including the usually very partisan BFRO. There's a good write up about it on both their site and Cryptomundo (seems the witnesses have a lot of form in this direction..)

Todd Standing's stuff is startling to look at but the jury's long been out on him. Many say fake simply down to the amount and quality of his offerings, but he has been out there, in the deep forest for years searching for then. Les Stroud says he believes him, and Stroud's no fool. Who knows.
 
For what it's worth, I find the dialogue on the Russian clip to sound very natural and, if not relaxed exactly (there's quite a bit of to-and-fro along the lines of "hadn't we better turn back?", "No, let's keep going" as well as one "my hands are freezing") then it certainly sounds like the banter (apologies, but there's not really a better word) you might expect as young lads try to kid each other they're not scared. It tickles me that, as they run away, one of them tells another something like "you started running first". If it is a hoax, then they've found some very naturalistic actors to play the lead roles.
 
Do you have another cornerstone of Bigfoot evidence besides the P/G footage??

A lot of people list dermal ridges, but I think that's pretty easy to fake... literally just press your toes into the indentation and boom, there you go. Some also say the Cripplefoot Casts or the Sierra Sounds. I'm not sure.

Some bigfoot videos (top 14 list here) are almost compelling enough -- especially recent ones -- but there's only so much they can prove.

I love the Lettuce Lake footage from last year. I can't imagine anyone willing to swim around with gators and vipers just to hoax a bigfoot video.

So what do you think? Any pivotal columns of evidence for you?

Thanks for posting this link, I love stuff like this.
 
The P/G film is no longer considered valid evidence by serious researchers. It is now classified as a hoax. A few die-hards still insist it is genuine, but they are denying the facts.

Dermal ridges are easy to fake by an amateur in his garage. The good fakes now have scars and old injuries. Faking footprints is a cottage industry in several small towns in the PNW. I saw a set of very good fake feet for sale in Willow Creek, CA.
 
So what do you think? Any pivotal columns of evidence for you?
That, despite all the hype and people involved, we'd got no DNA, nothing that's definitely a 'bigfoot' footprint and no pictures or film that isn't blurry, unfocused or debunked. And that with a massive rise in the ready availability of phones with cameras.
 
That, despite all the hype and people involved, we'd got no DNA, nothing that's definitely a 'bigfoot' footprint and no pictures or film that isn't blurry, unfocused or debunked. And that with a massive rise in the ready availability of phones with cameras.

I have done a lot of backcountry hiking and working in the mountains of Northern CA and southern OR, my entire career, and I have yet to see one. I have seen lots of large creatures I could not immediately identify due to vegetation, light and shadows, distance etc. Upon second look it turned out to be a bear, elk, deer, mountain lion, or other common animal. Nothing I can say was definitely a bipedal anthropoid. In dense cover and dappled shadows initial views are often mistaken.
Video is easy to fake now. Anyone can use software to make a very realistic video on a laptop.
Show me a body.
 
facebook_1487357882860.jpg
 
The P/G film is no longer considered valid evidence by serious researchers. It is now classified as a hoax. A few die-hards still insist it is genuine, but they are denying the facts.

Dermal ridges are easy to fake by an amateur in his garage. The good fakes now have scars and old injuries. Faking footprints is a cottage industry in several small towns in the PNW. I saw a set of very good fake feet for sale in Willow Creek, CA.

When it was found to stand up to the scientific method, the only recourse was to just dismiss it.
 
When it was found to stand up to the scientific method, the only recourse was to just dismiss it.

Hang on Oxcart. Which scientific method would that be? Short of the very subjective business of examining the gait, and of guessing at anatomical features/costume components, there's nothing you can do with it.

So, at no time has the P/G film ever been demonstrated to be genuine. As per Cynical Apathist's post above, the only times people have claimed that it has have not followed any scientific methods.

It's true that a few people with scientific backgrounds have come out in it's favour, but they certainly could never support their positions with anything other than personal opinion. And, as you've told us you're a physicist you'll well understand the difference between the personally held views of a scientist and the processes required to allow them to be seriously considered as a scientifically arrived at conclusion?
 
Whilst I'm in no way a confirmed believer, have you seen some of the gait analysis videos? There does seem to be something unusual about it. Here's one which cuts off abruptly saying their man couldn't replicate it. There are other longer ones around.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="
" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 
And there are others that replicated it exactly. I always though it looked like someone struggling to walk in a cumbersome costume.
 
Whilst I'm in no way a confirmed believer, have you seen some of the gait analysis videos? There does seem to be something unusual about it. Here's one which cuts off abruptly saying their man couldn't replicate it. There are other longer ones around.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="
" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
They missed a trick not getting the guy to walk on a treadmill ..
 
I would like to know how Patterson and Gimlin faked the changing mouth movement found in the film. How did they do that and why did they do that without knowing 40 years later there would be something like computer enhancement to finally reveal it? What about the ruptured muscle? Those are items someone in the 1960s would not include since they couldn't be seen until a computer stabilized and enlarged 'film' could make it possible to see.

To say the film has been debunked is a bit a wishful posting.
 
I would like to know how Patterson and Gimlin faked the changing mouth movement found in the film. How did they do that and why did they do that without knowing 40 years later there would be something like computer enhancement to finally reveal it? What about the ruptured muscle? Those are items someone in the 1960s would not include since they couldn't be seen until a computer stabilized and enlarged 'film' could make it possible to see.

To say the film has been debunked is a bit a wishful posting.

They didn't have to think of any of those things, they left it to their film's audience to superimpose those details. That's not to say they did it consciously, they didn't I don't think. But people will see what they want to see, were they want to see it.

Our perception of what we experience is very subjective, that's why our progress is linked so heavily to our application of objective systems, but as a scientist yourself, I'm sure I don't need to remind you of that.
 
If I see a blue square, its a blue square and not a red round peg. I don't what you mean by superimposing onto the film... If you see the frame by frame analysis, the lip movement is there and isn't a subject blurry image that could be 'this' or could be 'that'. It is what it is.

The same with the motion of breasts. The right breast seen in the film has a bouncing motion.

Those are facts on film.

1. There is a herniated muscle on the right leg
2. The lips move
3. The breast bounces

That's a lot of detail to put into a suit to film with technology that couldn't reveal the details until it was computer stabilized and blown up. That's a lot of fakery for 2 backwoods cowboys to put into a suit and a film that to their knowledge would never been seen in such detail. Plus they had to find someone who would invent a walking gait that could fool people who work in biomechanics.

If someone wants to debunk the film, then recreate the suit with the 60s technology and capture all of the details of the herniation, the breast movement, the gait, the lip movement, and the way the muscles of the entire animal move.

It's odd that 40+ years later no other faker has been able to recreate anything even close the Patterson film; probably because it's impossible or so cost prohibitive and so technically challenging that it would require a small team of experts.

Every debunk I have seen or read has more holes than the film itself. And every debunk I have seen or read involves calling the 2 men liars.
 
The John Chambers via Rick Baker F/X artist's story has always interested me .. Chambers pioneered foam latex prosthetics make ups and suits, the former to 'fix' injured soldiers faces .. the bouncing breasts can be created in the same way as Henrietta's in Evil Dead 2, that is, two bags of marbles sewn under the breast to create bounce and jiggle .. I haven't seen the lips move images yet and I'm not sure that technology existed back then but servo controlled lip movement etc has been around since the mid to late 70's (animatronics) .. if it is just a guy in a suit in the Patterson Gimlin footage, maybe the actor already had a bad leg or twisted his ankle on the day of filming ?.... or the footage is genuine ..

http://www.strangemag.com/chambers17.html
 
The John Chambers via Rick Baker F/X artist's story has always interested me .. Chambers pioneered foam latex prosthetics make ups and suits, the former to 'fix' injured soldiers faces .. the bouncing breasts can be created in the same way as Henrietta's in Evil Dead 2, that is, two bags of marbles sewn under the breast to create bounce and jiggle .. I haven't seen the lips move images yet and I'm not sure that technology existed back then but servo controlled lip movement etc has been around since the mid to late 70's (animatronics) .. if it is just a guy in a suit in the Patterson Gimlin footage, maybe the actor already had a bad leg or twisted his ankle on the day of filming ?.... or the footage is genuine ..

http://www.strangemag.com/chambers17.html
Fascinating, Swifty, thank you.
 
I haven't watched this one yet but it could be interesting at over an hour in length .. apologies if it's crap.


The episode of Lost In Space in question, hairy creature at 4:05 onwards ..

 
Last edited:
That's a lot of detail to put into a suit to film with technology that couldn't reveal the details until it was computer stabilized and blown up. That's a lot of fakery for 2 backwoods cowboys to put into a suit and a film that to their knowledge would never been seen in such detail. Plus they had to find someone who would invent a walking gait that could fool people who work in biomechanics.

Oxcart, are you very new to this? Where do you get the idea that Patterson and Gimlin were backwoods cowboys from? Are you not aware of Patterson's background? Did you know that he'd written at least one book on the subject by this time? Was an accomplished artist and had drawn the female Sasquatch that featured in his film several years previously? And was in the process of producing a film about bigfoot when he 'encountered' the apparition that he filmed?

As for the computer 'enhancement', are you sure you're not thinking of 'manipulation'? Can you provide a solid methodology for this process which is supported by other analysts who are competent to pass an opinion as to whether the 'enhancement' is genuine, and that there was enough information in the original to 'enhance'?

Those are facts on film.

1. There is a herniated muscle on the right leg
2. The lips move
3. The breast bounces

No, those are opinions on the film. There is no 'herniated muscle' on the film, what you have is a flap of fur/material which sits proud of the rest. If you look carefully you can see there's no mass underneath it and at one point you can see the background visible beneath it. As to the lips moving, I don't think they do. And the 'breasts' bouncing doesn't really prove anything, a tennis ball in a sock will bounce if you sew it to front of a costume just as well as actual breasts will.

If someone wants to debunk the film, then recreate the suit with the 60s technology and capture all of the details of the herniation, the breast movement, the gait, the lip movement, and the way the muscles of the entire animal move.

Why would the ape suit be difficult to produce with 1960's technology? There are some absurd claims made about this, none of which are objective. And, as above, there's no herniation, as yet no evidence presented here for lip movement, the breast movement is irrelevant, and I don't see the muscle movement the film quality is too poor. And nowhere is there any well attested support for any of these claims. So I have to say given that you've told us you're a scientist, I find the way you construct your argument very surprising.

It's odd that 40+ years later no other faker has been able to recreate anything even close the Patterson film; probably because it's impossible or so cost prohibitive and so technically challenging that it would require a small team of experts.

And I think it's fairly odd that the only time in nearly fifty years that a bigfoot has filmed was by two men out making a feature film about bigfoot. Isn't that a coincidence. Consider this Oxcart, what were these men planning to do when it came to filming the bigfoot sequences in their bigfoot film? Recruit a performing Sasquatch, or use a man in a costume? So the idea of them at least needing a bigfoot costume is a given.

Every debunk I have seen or read has more holes than the film itself. And every debunk I have seen or read involves calling the 2 men liars.

Well it would do wouldn't it, if these two filmmakers had accidentally and honestly stumbled on somebody else's hoax that would be some coincidence, so of course those who believe it's a hoax think they were liars. So, lets recap to make sure I've understood you, you find the idea that a massive unknown primate living in North America is more likely than a film maker engaged in making a film about bigfoot being in possession of a bigfoot costume?
 
Last edited:
I'm not sure it was even a Bigfoot costume, it just looks like any number of gorilla costumes used in movies from the 1920s onwards (which had moveable mouths, incidentally). Could be George Barrows in there for all we know.
 
The problem with the discussion is that we don't really have the tolls determine if the film shows an unidentified creature, or if it's a man whose posture and gait are distorted by the wearing of a heavy, bulky suit ; which is in fact very difficult to check, as it would require to test a man in a similar suit, and we don't know what kind of suit was used (if it was at all...). And despite that it's supposed to be an area of hard experimentation, subjectivity plays an important part. When in the dedicated episode of the X-Creatures series one of the authors said that he had almost succeeded to reproduce the movement, by asking a collegue to wear a mere man-ape costume, I would answer that no, in my eyes he clearly didn't.

However, the flaw of all theories involving the kind of light suits usually considered here is that if they don't take into account what they materially imply, they would meet the same fate than Kal Korff's invetsigations. They had put bigfootology in turmoil in 2004, after all he was claiming to have interviewed forty witnesses and brought the definitive proof of the hoax and the identities of people involved. Several years later, his research is often neglected, including by sceptics and disbelievers. Rightly in my opinion, as I believe that there are good reasons to dismiss his account.

I had read that one analyst claimed that he discerned a movement of the tip of the fingers, which would rule out any simple suit. The arm is clearly too long for a human being, so that the fingers of a costume would remain empty. If they could really move it would imply either that it was a genuine creature (whatever it was), either that a complex mechanism was used. However, I don't know what the follow-up was, and it is difficult to find any information relating to it.
But there is material evidence that definitely rules out an ordinary ape costume. The prints left by the supposed Bigfoot, filmed by the same people, were clearly very deep, they were even deeper that those left by Gimlin's horse walking alongside them. In any case, they were definitely too deep to have been left by a mere man in a suit (as, say, Bob Hieronymus, or anybody using a costume from Lost in Space...).
 
I'd agree with a fair bit of that, but have to take issue with two of the points. Firstly the arms are not too long to be a human, that's definitely not correct. And why would they have used the footprints made by the man in the suit rather than just faking a set themselves?
 
I'd agree with a fair bit of that, but have to take issue with two of the points. Firstly the arms are not too long to be a human, that's definitely not correct. And why would they have used the footprints made by the man in the suit rather than just faking a set themselves?

Yup, it is not clear to me that the arms are too long to be human. If they are, they would be only very slightly too long, consistent with the lengthening a suit would create. And I agree on the issue of the footprints.

Now it's been ages since I have read up on all the latest on Bigfoot research, so just few general points.

1. We see a lot of claims for 'scientific analyses' etc. But this isn't CSI where one can endlessly "enhance" a picture to make all manner of detail magically pop out. This film is inherently blurry and lacking in information; no amount of enhancing or analysis can change that.

There is also a lot of misunderstanding about how science actually works. Scientific theories can never really be proven true. In science, theories are tested to see if they can be proven false. And the problem with the Bigfoot film is that it simply doesn't contain enough clear information to do that. I'm not sure we can prove it a hoax, but failing to prove it a hoax is emphatically not the same thing as having proved that it is therefore for real.

Herniation? Most doctors are reluctant to make definitive diagnoses with the patient lying on an examining table in front of them; and here someone can diagnose a condition in another species based on blurry footage? Tell me another one. :)

2. As I mentioned in another thread, Bigfoot sightings happen all over the planet, and we even had some here in South Africa. There is a little page about our local ape-man here:

http://www.bigfootlunchclub.com/2009/11/south-african-sasquatch.html

Note the map that indicates where sightings have taken place: even in Britain! So in a country as densely populated as Britain, there is a whole population of previously undiscovered giant hominids running around? That stretches credibility.

As I also mentioned in another thread, this does not necessarily mean all such sightings are hoaxes or misidentifications: it is conceivable, a la John Keel, that all such creatures (and UFOs and angels and demons and mothmen and whatever else) originate in a kind of parallel universe, that now and then overlaps with ours, and when that happens creatures from there can come run around here for a while. But they always disappear back to that other realm before we can pin down unambiguous evidence. Perhaps they even deliberately do it this way, for reasons unknown.

Such an idea is of course gloriously untestable and thus falls outside the realm of science, but it is nevertheless possible. (It is also possible that entire populations of huge hominids live in various spots on earth, but I would consider that very unlikely).

3. It strikes me that they are using the wrong investigators for this. Scientists are easily and routinely fooled by stage magicians and other hoaxers. There is no guarantee that a scientist, however well trained, will automatically see through any and all hoaxing. Thus perhaps we need more stage magicians and film special effects people to help with investigations (it doesn't necessarily have to be that abrasive Randi guy! :) )

Scientists, of course, are also not hunter-gatherers. That is to say, I am not aware of many that are genuine experts in tracking wildlife. Even a very good scientist will be fooled by a fake track that will not come anywhere close to fooling a hunter-gatherer tracker. Such a scientist will also lose the track under conditions in which it is still plainly visible to a proper tracker. Such people are now unfortunately few and far between, but they still exist. I have seen such trackers in action, and their abilities are so astonishing they seem almost supernatural. If there is a Bigfoot leaving tracks, a proper tracker is going to find it. Of course, if Keel is correct, the tracks will invariably disappear into thin air, sooner or later.

4. In short, I suspect that trying to find proof of Bigfoot is futile, and the notion that there are actual populations of such hominids out there probably very naive (I recently saw a documentary on the mothman in which a bunch of researchers tried to find evidence for a population of mothmen in some remote area - now that is REALLY naive!)

I nevertheless love Bigfoot tales (and mothmen tales, and tales of all other such paranormal creatures), and I cannot simply dismiss them. I keep on hoping to see such a thing myself some day. :)
 
Back
Top