The Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot Film

[Coal]

Well, another way of reading that is that said 'debunkers' are in fact being a lot more objective from the outset.

Coal, that sounds like the very definition of subjective thought to me. They are basing an opinion on their personal belief that it's a fake.
If they were being objective they would at least look into the matter with an open mind and not dismiss it from the outset. Like Forteans are supposed to.

I perhaps didn't make myself clear. It very easy to label someone who (say) looks at the film and assesses it as a fake as a 'debunker', i.e. someone who motivation is simply to refute and debunk as a pathology, as their opinion then confirms to the world-view of the believer.

I was suggesting that a totally objective view of the film and the surrounding facts/situation (it just so happens they were out looking for one, and funding was possibly going to result) can quickly lead one to a conclusion that it's almost certainly a fake and looking at the video, perhaps not a great one. And even if there is tiny chance it's not, you're never going to be able to say otherwise. Then the 'debunker' moves on to a better use of their cognitive resources. My point is that's a perfectly reasonable and rational assessment and can be made very quickly.

That this reasonable assessment doesn't fit with the view of those who really want (need?) to believe that's a Bigfoot, so it's all too easy and conveniently dismissed as 'debunking'.

In the case of this film, given the circumstances surrounding, the way the figure looks at the camera and walks on unconcerned, (odd for a creature so allegedly shy), the way the cameraman doesn't follow for more footage, the fact that gait is so like a person smoothly walking with shoes (do you bang you heels down in your bare feet on rough ground?). Prima facie it's not compelling. I personally think there's about a 1 in 100,000 chance it's a proto-human of some type, but the film will never settle that. So that's me done on this one (feel free now to label me a debunker).

 

[oldrover]

but not impossible when you consider the sculpting skills that came hundreds of years before

Exactly! That's a major point, the argument constantly made that the suit is too sophisticated at the time isn't exactly born out by the artistic skills shown by humans for millennia. That suit could have been made in 1667, or 67 BCE.

the movement, again, isn't difficult to simulate if you place bags of marbles in strategic places under a suit where you want to create the impression of bouncing flesh mass

I'm just not seeing anything that looks like muscle or movement. I really can't. Every time I go to watch the film I expect to see it, but each time I'm surprised by how little naturalistic detail there is.

If this was faked, it was a one shot deal which means you can get away with murder ..

Personally, I don't think the suit was made to be a one shot deal, I think it was to be used in his film, but that the money ran out, or just didn't look to be on the horizon, so he went for an alternative. Frankly I think this use of his creation has probably gained far more attention and created for him a much more lasting legacy than his original plan ever would have.

 

[oldrover]

I'm not directing this at anyone in particular, so much as everyone who is seeing intriguing detail in the film.

Are you sure you're seeing this?

Another question I'd have about this film is why does Patty have a black face? Seems like a funny colour for a real primate living in such northern latitudes. But perfectly logical for someone who hasn't considered how the animal might both fit in Hominidae, and how it was going to get its vitamin D, but wants to make his suit ape like.

 

[dreeness .]

do you bang you heels down in your bare feet on rough ground?

If you have no shoes, what choice would you have?

Even if an injury to the sole of the foot could be a potential death sentence --- infection, sickness, fever, slow horrible death --- people without shoes have to take that risk. Before shoes were invented, people just had to take that risk.

Or those awful parasites that live in the soil in Africa, the ones that burrow into the feet, and do bad things.

There's a lot of people today without shoes, in the jungles of South America, in the scorching sands of the Australian outback, or on the beaches of Australia and other places, sometimes there can be toxic jellyfish, step on one of those with bare feet, and it's curtains for you. Or sometimes in shallow water, those fish that look like stones, but they are really super-toxic.

Or step on a rusty nail and get tetanus, also not good.

Not having shoes can totally suck, but even people without shoes have things they have to do every day.

 

[David Plankton]

Another question I'd have about this film is why does Patty have a black face? Seems like a funny colour for a real primate living in such northern latitudes.

This eye witness encounter from 1946 (interview seems to have been conducted 63/64) describes 'almost black skin' on the parts of the face that weren't covered in hair and is from even further North -

http://www.bigfootencounters.com/classics/ruby.htm
So maybe Patterson based his costume on that account.

 

[Swifty]

The one thing that has always impressed me with this footage is how human like the face is, not so likely for all in one suits but more than achievable if the face is/was a make-up, hair from the make up brushed over and positioned to hide any join if we're looking at a suit from the head down .. nice work for that era and also to date if it is a fake .. that or it's the real deal ..

 

[David Plankton]

So that's me done on this one (feel free now to label me a debunker).

Sorry to quote you if you're leaving the topic but

It very easy to label someone who (say) looks at the film and assesses it as a fake as a 'debunker',

I think we were talking about the lack of negative critical analyses on youtube. I want to see debunking videos but it seems there are people who won't review it because they think they don't need to as it's so obviously a fake. They're not being objective if they approach it like that.

the way the figure looks at the camera and walks on unconcerned, (odd for a creature so allegedly shy)

A matter of opinion, I think it retreats as any large animal would, not running but not exactly sticking around either. Like a gorilla might, sure of itself.

the way the cameraman doesn't follow for more footage

He does. There is a gap of a few seconds where he lowered the camera as he crossed the creek bed to follow it. He had to stand still to get any footage by which time it had disappeared into the trees.

the fact that gait is so like a person smoothly walking with shoes

Or something adapted to walking without shoes.

do you bang you heels down in your bare feet on rough ground?

Again a matter of opinion but I can't see this happening in the film. It's either smoothly walking or banging it's heels down.

everyone who is seeing intriguing detail in the film. Are you sure you're seeing this?

No, I'm not sure at all! Said it before, I can see pros and cons for both sides. Plenty of other people can too, hence this thread. I don't want to get labeled as an unflinching bigfoot believer over this.

Spoiler

It's a fake isn't it? :cry:

I hate magic tricks, always have. Show me a magic trick - once - and then show me how you did it. I'll find that part much more fascinating than the trick itself.

 

[Coal]

If you have no shoes, what choice would you have?

Even if an injury to the sole of the foot could be a potential death sentence --- infection, sickness, fever, slow horrible death --- people without shoes have to take that risk. Before shoes were invented, people just had to take that risk.

My point is, that when you walk without shoes, even when you're conditioned to do so (and I have been during three years in Cyprus and two in Singapore as a boy) you walk differently, to avoid slamming your heel onto the ground. As an exemplar, dancers in bare feel walk with the majority of their weight on the balls of their feet. The figure in the video walks on rough stony ground, exactly like a person with shoes on would.

 

[EnolaGaia]

... Female Sasquatch would account for half the population, so why not make it female. Aside from which it's not as if female monsters didn't appear as a theme in B pictures of that time. Plus the implied sexual element of the Ostman story may well have appealed to Patterson as it would give his story a bit more of a thrill.

I'm not claiming Patterson necessarily took this into account in planning a hoax (if hoax it was ... ), but ...

Choosing to depict a female afforded some more practical conveniences as well. For one thing, it would deflect audiences from wondering why the creature didn't act aggressively, but merely trudged away.

It also provided an excuse for the filmers' ending their pursuit. As I recall, multiple accounts mentioned Patterson was the one who moved to discontinue the pursuit, citing a fear there could be a (presumably less passive / more dangerous) male mate nearby, once they'd left themselves some distance from their horses and other gear.

 

[David Plankton]

The figure in the video walks on rough stony ground, exactly like a person with shoes on would.

I don't want to come across as being deliberately awkward but I'm not seeing heel-stamping. A mid-sole contact, yes. And wasn't it a sandy area from a recent flood?

 

[oldrover]

This eye witness encounter from 1946 (interview seems to have been conducted 63/64) describes 'almost black skin' on the parts of the face that weren't covered in hair and is from even further North -

http://www.bigfootencounters.com/classics/ruby.htm
So maybe Patterson based his costume on that account.

It's possible, but personally I think it's because people expect apes to have black faces, so when Roger Patterson made his costume he looked at the gorilla/chimp for a frame of reference. Understandable, but a mistake in my opinion.

Although I can't find a particular paper to back my opinion up. All the non human apes are tropical so there's no range of facial pigmentation to compare it to. Monkeys though are distributed much more widely, but frankly they're skin colour is all over the place, and facial pigmentation is going to be affected by things like sexual selection, potentially diet, subtle cues about fertility, and on, and on, as well as any possible correlation to the nicely graded human pigment/latitude thing. In short it's too complicated for me.

But cherry picking my facts the most northerly macaque populations, the Japanese macaque and the Barbary ape do have pale faces, whereas the equatorial Sulawesi macaque have black. Annoyingly though the Toque macaque from Sri Lanka is as pale as the Barbary. Rendering the previous points useless.

 

[David Plankton]

and facial pigmentation is going to be affected by things like sexual selection, potentially diet, subtle cues about fertility, and on, and on,

What about an adaptation for camouflage? Do gorillas get that much sun living in the rain forest? Or are they black for the same reasons jungle-dwelling leopards have a greater tendency to be black?

 

[EnolaGaia]

Exactly! That's a major point, the argument constantly made that the suit is too sophisticated at the time isn't exactly born out by the artistic skills shown by humans for millennia. That suit could have been made in 1667, or 67 BCE.

Agreed ... One of the most commonly encountered and naive pseudo-arguments arising in Fortean discussions is the lame claim that 'they couldn't have done it back then'. It seems modern folks can't believe anyone from earlier times had any intelligence or capabilities on a par with their own, even though the modern milieu from which they project such condescension demonstrates otherwise.

 

[oldrover]

No, I'm not sure at all! Said it before, I can see pros and cons for both sides. Plenty of other people can too, hence this thread. I don't want to get labeled as an unflinching bigfoot believer over this.

Of course not, I do appreciate that. My point was that whether anyone, like I always seem to do, expects to see more in this film than is actually there. I do, and find myself looking to see these details when I watch the film only to see a fairly average suit with a huge seam running across the middle. It's not that I'm impressed by the youtube experts I have no faith in them to be blunt, but when people I've seen post intelligently here for years talk about them that does make me think there must be more to it, yet each time I'm disappointed when actually watching the film.

And yes. It is, that has to be the inescapable conclusion given the fact that there has never been a single type or instance of evidence that isn't better explained by a much more likely means for the existence of the animal.

 

[EnolaGaia]

... I'm just not seeing anything that looks like muscle or movement. I really can't. Every time I go to watch the film I expect to see it, but each time I'm surprised by how little naturalistic detail there is.

Agreed ... This is one of the reasons the P&G footage struck me as fake when I first saw it back in the 1970's. This impression hasn't changed with repeated re-viewings. All I see is the rippling of a baggy outer surface, analogous to the non-musculated rippling observed to this day among figures of similar silhouette at the local Walmart.

 

[David Plankton]

Agreed ... One of the most commonly encountered and naive pseudo-arguments arising in Fortean discussions is the lame claim that 'they couldn't have done it back then'. It seems modern folks can't believe anyone from earlier times had any intelligence or capabilities on a par with their own, even though the modern milieu from which they project such condescension demonstrates otherwise.

It's just that the BBC tried it in 1998 and failed. Sadly that show seems to have ended discussion on the subject. Well apart from here of course.

 

[oldrover]

What about an adaptation for camouflage? Do gorillas get that much sun living in the rain forest? Or are they black for the same reasons jungle-dwelling leopards have a greater tendency to be black?

At first consideration I doubt it, firstly if it was camouflage, from what? It's eight feet tall, although I can't imagine a potential Sasquatch winning in a fight with a grizzly, so maybe, but then they're a scent predator to a large extent and Bigfoot reeks apparently so probably not. The question of how a large terrestrial ape would compete for the same resources and habitat as a large bear species though is a good question. But here we're going into the what if's of Sasquatch as a plausible species, which I think is a very valid thing to do, but I don't want to upset anyone by wandering off topic.

But excellent point about the leopards, http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0170378, cats are much more my thing.

 

[oldrover]

Agreed ... This is one of the reasons the P&G footage struck me as fake when I first saw it back in the 1970's. This impression hasn't changed with repeated re-viewings. All I see is the rippling of a baggy outer surface, analogous to the non-musculated rippling observed to this day among figures of similar silhouette at the local Walmart.

And there's the business of what appears to be a seam at the waist. But yes, it's not that I don't want it to be real it's just that I can't see anything there to persuade me that it is.

It's just that the BBC tried it in 1998 and failed.

But how hard did they try, were they as good as Roger Patterson, and honestly how far short did they fall? I can't remember the film although I saw CP's series over and over at the time.

Sadly that show seems to have ended discussion on the subject. Well apart from here of course.

Oh god no. Try Unexplained Mysteries.com, which on the whole makes the James Randi website look like a new age convention. Seriously, I recommend a packet of Scampi Flavoured Fries and a few cans for that one.

 

[David Plankton]

At first consideration I doubt it, firstly if it was camouflage, from what?

Might depend on how long they have been there and how long humans have been there. Adapting to avoid people would account (well go a little way towards) for them being so rarely observed.

I really am starting to sound like a true believer.

 

[David Plankton]

But how hard did they try, were they as good as Roger Patterson, and honestly how far short did they fall? I can't remember the film although I saw CP's series over and over at the time.

I posted the 3 part video and photo a couple of pages back. They used a 'Hollywood special effects company'. It was a good show until the last few minutes which seemed rushed and no, I didn't find their version anywhere near the PG film.

 

[oldrover]

I posted the 3 part video and photo a couple of pages back. They used a 'Hollywood special effects company'. It was a good show until the last few minutes which seemed rushed and no, I didn't find their version anywhere near the PG film.
View attachment 5054

That really is shite. I agree, that's not a patch on the PG film. What the hell were they thinking. Channel 4 did one a few years before.

 

[oldrover]

One aspect of this film seems to be being ignored here though by all of us, the footprints. Scroll down a bit here

http://www.sasquatchcanada.com/footprint-cast-gallery.html

The plausibility of these prints directly impacts on both the credibility of the film, and has a bearing on whether if it was a hoax, Gimlin was involved.

 

[EnolaGaia]

... Personally, I don't think the suit was made to be a one shot deal, I think it was to be used in his film, but that the money ran out, or just didn't look to be on the horizon, so he went for an alternative. Frankly I think this use of his creation has probably gained far more attention and created for him a much more lasting legacy than his original plan ever would have.

Your allusions to 'alternative' and diverging from his 'original plan' resonate with something I've long wondered about the context / back story for the filming.

My take on Patterson was that he always kept an eye out for the economics - i.e., the payoff - in his various inventions and other projects. Nothing wrong with that ...

It's clear he had pinned hopes on making money from a documentary (with embedded re-enactments) on the Bigfoot phenomenon.

It's was also pretty clear at the time that the Bigfoot phenomenon he was attempting to leverage remained a mainly regional curiosity familiar only to locals and folks who'd read about it (meaning the small subset of the population who consumed (e.g.) pulp-ish fringe periodicals or Frank Edwards' Stranger Than ... (and similar) books).

I've often wondered whether there came a point at which Patterson:

(a) realized the success of his film (and his payoff) depended on audience interest;
(b) understood audience interest would be proportional to audience familiarity with there being a Bigfoot phenomenon in the first place;
(c) recognized such familiarity was severely lacking outside the Pacific Northwest;
(d) recognized the evidentiary base to date (scattered sightings over multiple decades; a few plaster casts) wasn't compelling; and ...
(e) concluded his purposes might be better served by promoting the phenomenon per se.

This provided a motive (as in the motive / means / opportunity triad).

The optimum means would have been the emergence of sensational evidence likely to get nationwide 'buzz'.

The opportunity arrived in the form of film footage, perhaps envisioned originally as nothing more than historical re-enactment, which he found sufficiently impressive to market as 'the real thing' for a more likely, and potentially larger, payoff.

This sort of thing is something I find far easier to accept as credible than the notion two guys went looking for a theretofore only sporadically observed beastie and immediately ran into one.

 

[oldrover]

Your allusions to 'alternative' and diverging from his 'original plan' resonate with something I've long wondered about the context / back story for the filming.

My take on Patterson was that he always kept an eye out for the economics - i.e., the payoff - in his various inventions and other projects. Nothing wrong with that ...

This sort of thing is something I find far easier to accept as credible than the notion two guys went looking for a theretofore only sporadically observed beastie and immediately ran into one.

In short I think so.

More specifically,

It's was also pretty clear at the time that the Bigfoot phenomenon he was attempting to leverage remained a mainly regional curiosity familiar only to locals and folks who'd read about it (meaning the small subset of the population who consumed (e.g.) pulp-ish fringe periodicals or Frank Edwards' Stranger Than ... (and similar) books).

I think that this is totally borne out by the title of his book, 'Do Abominable Snowmen of America Really Exist?'. That's very telling, in contrast to the often pushed position now that Sasquatch has a long standing tradition in N America, it strongly suggests that to market his book, indeed to explain to the potential buyer what it was all about, he decided to qualify what he was talking about by likening it to the Yeti. Which by inference means he thought that even in North America the yeti was a far better known phenomena. In a broader sense this is a reflection of how the whole modern U.S scene came into being with Tom Slick transferring his hunts from the Himalayas to Northern California, and bringing Peter Byrne/Allan Quartermaine over to head things up. As we know it today Bigfoot was born in the Himalayas.

 

[Mythopoeika]

M K Davis says he'll be publishing more videos for the 50th anniversary of the PG film.

This one, a couple of days ago. It's slow going but well worth watching for insights into why frame 352, the 'head-turning shot', was manipulated due to copyright reasons. According to him, fingers were added to the right hand and the mouth altered.

That video is very revealing. Useful.
However, the clumps of hair and the bare patches seem to be quite a common form of body hair distribution on larger apes, especially if they are quite old. Hair loss occurs with age and there are conditions such as alopecia and mange that can also cause this.

 

[oldrover]

Here's Meldrum's paper on the PG casts 'Ichnotaxonomy of Giant Hominid Tracks in North America', it doesn't take you straight to the link but it starts on page 225 if anyone wants to read it.

http://econtent.unm.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/bulletins/id/377/rec/1

It has no methodology, no constructed or in depth evaluation of the prints, sparse references, and apart from a brief mention of an inconsistency between trackway and path taken by Patty in the film, makes no consideration of any alternative explanation for the prints.

Meldrum is qualified to talk on this subject, but I'd just point out this http://www2.isu.edu/~meldd/jpg/014_1.jpg these are bear tracks, but Meldrum includes them here http://www2.isu.edu/~meldd/fxnlmorph.html in his 'evaluation' of Sasquatch prints.

I don't think the Meldrum paper has any worth beyond showing fairly good reproduction of the Patterson-Gimlin, and Titmus casts.

 

[oldrover]

Looking for an alternative view on the matter I found this page.

http://www.csicop.org/si/show/science_and_footprints#notes

First glance it seems very damming to the track evidence, but it's not actually of any use as evidence. There are interesting questions raised there but sadly the references are too weak for them to stand up as anything much more than sniping. I'm not being unkind to the author Michael Dennett, but he hasn't adequately supported what he's saying.

One of the issues noted there is about how the film travelled from California to Washington over the course of a Friday night to be processed ready for viewing on the Sunday, but he hasn't backed up the claim with any evidence that was what was actually claimed happened, nor has he demonstrated this was unlikely back then. If he had he'd have made a very strong case against the P & G's version of events.

Also there is a link to a 1997 transcript of a 1992 interview with Gimlin by John Green, who was apparently also involved at the time. Personally, I think that the full interview does strongly suggest that Gimlin was as fully involved as Patterson. In his own version of events, Gimlin rode over the creek toward Patty while Patterson was filming, and got closer to her than Patterson ever did.

The main crux of the piece though is the depth of the tracks. But while Dennett does make a very good case for having serious if not conclusive doubts about this, the detail about the tracks themselves and the comparison between them and their and their horses tracks, are based on Gimlin's 25 year old recollections, and a conversation with Lyle Laverty some sixteen years after the Green-Gimlin interview, and 31 years after the event.

One point which Dennett rises and I found very telling though it might irrelevant, are Gimlin's comments in the interview that they 'thought' the Sasquatch tracks were (or should be) deeper than the horses because despite being heavier than he Sasquatch they would have distributed over four feet. Which as Dennett does demonstrate, is wrong. But it might explain why the men decided to drive them in so deeply. Or it may just be a turn of phrase.

Another issue in the interview is the Green's timeline seems to be at odds with Gimlin's regarding how far ahead the trip was planned. Appearing going by Green, to indicate Patterson had planned the trip before the alleged phone call from his wife.

 

[EnolaGaia]

One aspect of this film seems to be being ignored here though by all of us, the footprints. ... The plausibility of these prints directly impacts on both the credibility of the film, and has a bearing on whether if it was a hoax, Gimlin was involved.

Agreed - on both counts.

The footprint-related issue that bugged me was Titmus' ability to get good casts from the prints circa 8 - 9 days later, given the reported weather conditions following the incident.

Some accounts mention that heavy rains set in (at the camping and filming sites) during or by the following morning. This is cited as the reason why (a) Gimlin returned to the site to cover tracks with bark (which he would have had to collect / obtain on-site) and (b) Patterson and Gimlin headed home the same day (Saturday following the sighting).

One implication of the allusion to heavy rain is that it caused the mudslide that prevented them from exiting the area the way they'd come in - forcing them to leave via a higher road off which their truck slipped, causing delay until they extracted it using a piece of heavy earth-digging or construction machinery commandeered from somewhere nearby.

Because this rain has a bearing on P&G's account of events, I checked the Weather Underground archive for weather data on that area from the week of the sighting (20 Oct. 1967) through the next week, to the following weekend when Titmus made his casts at the filming site.

Weather data was available only for northern California towns no closer than Klamath, Crescent City, Eureka, and Arcata - all of which were miles away in the lowlands by the coast.

I checked for the logged precipitation throughout the two-week target period (week leading up to the Friday sighting; the week afterward).

Eureka (circa 50 miles south-southwest) reported 0.40 inches of rain on Saturday the 21st, and this was the only precipitation logged for the entire week of Oct. 15 - 21. Another 0.41 inches was logged for the week of 22 - 28.

Crescent City (circa 20 - 30 miles northwest) reported 0.80 inches of rain on Saturday the 21st. This was the only precipitation logged during the preceding week. This was part of a total 1.21 inches logged for 21 - 28 Oct.

Anyway ... The allusion to subsequent rain checks out in the lowlands at some miles' distance and at 2 locations bracketing the sighting area northward and southward. I doubt the rain at higher elevations within the coastal range was any less.

 

[EnolaGaia]

... One of the issues noted there is about how the film travelled from California to Washington over the course of a Friday night to be processed ready for viewing on the Sunday, but he hasn't backed up the claim with any evidence that was what was actually claimed happened, nor has he demonstrated this was unlikely back then. If he had he'd have made a very strong case against the P & G's version of events. ...

The whole timeline and chain of custody on the film being sent Friday night is one of the murkiest aspects of the P&G story. Patterson himself claimed (at least originally or intermittently) the film had been mailed from the main post office in Eureka. Problem #1 concerns whether there was anyone on duty to receive the film Friday night, no doubt later than 7 - 7:30 pm. Problem #2 concerns how the hell the Postal Service could get any package received late Friday night two states northward to Yakima as early as Saturday morning.

Murphy's Bigfoot Film Journal mentions Gimlin (decades later) recalled driving to an airport that night, and he cites the small airport between Arcata and Eureka (Murray Field at the time). It's conceivable the film was turned over to a charter shipping service at the airfield, but again one has to wonder whether anyone was 'receiving' at that time of night. One might also wonder how Patterson paid for such special service. One must certainly wonder why Patterson would later claim he'd sent it via the Eureka Post Office.

There might be a mixed-mode explanation (which is purely speculative on my part).

IF (big 'if'):

- the Eureka Post Office could indeed receive packages on Friday evening after business hours;
- the PO had an air mail contract with someone at the local airfield; and ...
- the contractor servicing northward movements flew out at night

... it's conceivable P&G submitted the package for airmail / rush processing at the downtown Eureka PO, but had to personally deliver it to the airfield ASAP to be included in that night's outgoing shipment. This would explain the combination of Patterson's allusion to the Post Office and Gimlin's recollection about driving to an airfield.

Kodachrome II film couldn't be processed just anywhere. It required specialized, expensive Kodak equipment found only at dedicated processing centers or photo labs (as opposed to retail shops). It's conceivable the film's addressee on the Yakima end (Patterson's brother-in-law Al DeAtley) received the film and got it developed during Saturday, but he would no doubt have had to personally deliver it to a lab or processing center with the requisite equipment for rush processing.

No one, to my knowledge, has ever been able to establish there was a back-end lab or processing center in the area that was operating (much less accepting jobs ... ) on that, or any other, weekend during that era. Skeptics / critics often claim no lab did processing on weekends at all, but this claim remains 'soft' unless one can specify what lab was involved.

Murphy's explanation is that DeAtley received the film Saturday morning and 'probably' hand carried it to a processing facility in Seattle. This would have involved a trip of circa 140 - 160 miles each way.

To the best of my knowledge, DeAtley never confirmed this storyline, nor did he ever personally confirm:

- how the film had gotten to Yakima in the first place;
- exactly how / where the package came into his hands;
- exactly who / what facility processed the film; or
- what he'd had to do to get it processed on a Saturday

I find it odd that DeAtley wouldn't confirm (or couldn't remember) all the driving it would have required.

IMHO the Saturday / DeAtley segment is much murkier than the Friday segment (for which I can offer a potential reconciliation of the disparate claims).

Above and beyond all this, there's the lingering issue of whether anybody could have received and processed 16mm Kodachrome movie film so quickly as to make it available for viewing 2 days after filming during a weekend.

Kodachrome processing was a complicated multi-step procedure.

Some photo processing pros from the available Seattle-area labs and relevant timeframe claim they couldn't have processed it at all, and would have had to forward it to a Kodak regional facility in Palo Alto, California.

For more on the photo processing possibilities / constraints in that area at that time, see Greg Long's The Making of Bigfoot: The Inside Story, which can be accessed on Google Books.

Among other things, one very relevant processing pro Long interviewed flatly stated Kodak's Palo Alto lab absolutely did not work on weekends - period.

... And Long's interview with DeAtley seems to undermine the whole idea he got the film processed that weekend.

 

[David Plankton]

Here's Meldrum's paper on the PG casts 'Ichnotaxonomy of Giant Hominid Tracks in North America', it doesn't take you straight to the link but it starts on page 225 if anyone wants to read it.

http://econtent.unm.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/bulletins/id/377/rec/1

Is that link correct? I tried it in Chrome and strangely it took me to my own gmail page, then in Safari it came up with -

Cenozoic Vertebrate Tracks and Traces

a 39 page document (picture of a camel on the front).