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The Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot Film

charliebrown said:
Going by Wikipedia, these two men had limited finances.

I just can’t see these men afford what Disney artists called an elaborate hoax and hard to recreate.

For me, if it is a hoax why choose the more difficult female costume ?
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People that say Patterson faked the film claim Patty was based on reports by Ostman and Roe, both of whom claimed encounters with females. These both were classic early sightings that Patterson knew and (I believe) wrote about.
This of course totally ignores the cost aspect, but most dismissals of the PGF ignore at least one major aspect...
 
Tunn11 said:
That for me is a major point.

It has been subjected to all sorts of analysis that Patterson couldn't have dreamt of still without a definite conclusion.

There's an analysis upthread somewhere ( I can't find it !) by someone who designed costumes at the time which I find interesting it's very easy to forget or even not know what state the effects industry was in at the time.

If that costume was a fake it was bloody good and whoever made it would have more money and more kudos admitting it, now or at the time than they could by continuing with the hoax.

If any part of the costume still exists it would be worth more than Indiana Jones's hat.

Have any other films or still photos been subjected to the same level of scrutiny without being fairly decisively deemed fake? Most do not show the gait which has been subjected to so much analysis, I'm guessing because it is the hardest to fake and to me is what makes Patty look "wrong". (l.e not quite human)
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Yes, Patterson could never have dreamt of image stabilization.

The best Hollywood could do at that time was Planet Of The Apes, which was masks - not full body suits. And that is with a Hollywood budget
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
You're quite right Ronnie.
Also though let's not forget that everyone around the world and his dog has been hunting for this mythical creature for well over half a century and yet not a shred of solid, genuine evidence for its existence has been found.
If this were a mouse-sized cryptid, then I could easily accept that it has remained elusive all this time.
For 6ft+ unknown bipedal creatures to remain undetected in today's era of drones and every hiker being equipped with a quality camera on their smartphone, is just unbelievable.
Misidentified bears or downright hoaxes seem far more likely to me than an unknown huge creature.
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It took decades from the time the Giant Panda was first known outside of Tibet until one was captured. At least a dozen professional, fully funded, expeditions searched in an area much smaller than the PNW, and failed.

Drones are useless in a forest. Hikers are heard long before they get anywhere close to any creature that does not want to be seen. And smartphone cameras are actually not that good at long distance, moving objects.

So it is indeed possible that a large, intelligent, creature is still hiding in the PNW...
 
Analogue Boy said:
Because some things exist doesn’t necessarily mean other things exist.
I’m guessing each of those species you mentioned have ancestral links to their location.
Unlike the record of monkeys and apes of N America.
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You said you are guessing.
What if you are wrong?
And who said anything about monkeys or apes?
 
Sharon Hill said:
Much of this is pareidolia. You can't extract extra information and details from a poor resolution film, yet many people continue to try to enhance it to do that. That's not legitimate. So enhancing the film details (other than stabilization, which was a neat thing), introduced probably mistaken conclusions. Similar to the Rines LNM flipper photo that was enhanced, such tactics make people see what isn't really there. To be fair, the resolution is so bad, the objective view is that you cannot reasonably show if it's either real or fake from the PGF. The main problem is that after all these decades, no other better data has appeared to show it was a real creature, even with much more advanced technology.
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Rines flipper photo was redone with ancient tech, overlays of different computer enchanced versions made into a composite if I recall correctly. This does mean the image is "fake".
The multiple muscle movements Meldrum and several others discuss in the PGF are not tricks of the eye and/or mind, or created by computer or digital fixes, but visible because each frame has been cleaned up. Not enhanced.
Individual muscles working several times, viewed in super slow motion, is not pareidolia...
 
hopkarma said:
Hikers are heard long before they get anywhere close to any creature that does not want to be seen.
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Do any wild creatures want to be seen?No but they are still photographed.
hopkarma said:
It took decades from the time the Giant Panda was first known outside of Tibet until one was captured.
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I have been to Tibet,have you a link to how long it took to capture and transport?
 
hopkarma said:
It took decades from the time the Giant Panda was first known outside of Tibet until one was captured. At least a dozen professional, fully funded, expeditions searched in an area much smaller than the PNW, and failed.
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Different times plus Tibet was remote and inaccessible back then,no comparison whatsoever to modern day America.A pelt was brought back to the west long before the first live Panda.
 
hopkarma said:
Yes, Patterson could never have dreamt of image stabilization.

The best Hollywood could do at that time was Planet Of The Apes, which was masks - not full body suits. And that is with a Hollywood budget
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I actually rate the apes in "2001 a Space Odyssey" as better than those in "Planet of the Apes". But the point is the same; there were very few people at the time with the skills or budget to produce a fake Patty. Stuart Freeborn, I think it was, was supposedly consoled by someone saying that the committee probably thought they were real apes when he didn't win the oscar.

The fossil record will always be patchy and I think I read somewhere that forest and mountain species have less chance of being fossilised because of the conditions needed to produce fossils.

But, there are so few believable pictures or films of Bigfoot, most are laughable; so what is going on? Are they extinct? Did the Mt St Helen's eruption finish them off? Or if you want a more "woo" but still physical explanation are they known about but "protected" by government because of all the implications of finding a living hominin species?
 
Tunn11 said:
I actually rate the apes in "2001 a Space Odyssey" as better than those in "Planet of the Apes". But the point is the same; there were very few people at the time with the skills or budget to produce a fake Patty. Stuart Freeborn, I think it was, was supposedly consoled by someone saying that the committee probably thought they were real apes when he didn't win the oscar.

The fossil record will always be patchy and I think I read somewhere that forest and mountain species have less chance of being fossilised because of the conditions needed to produce fossils.

But, there are so few believable pictures or films of Bigfoot, most are laughable; so what is going on? Are they extinct? Did the Mt St Helen's eruption finish them off? Or if you want a more "woo" but still physical explanation are they known about but "protected" by government because of all the implications of finding a living hominin species?
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The best skeptical explanation for Patty is to be found over at Metabunk:

https://www.metabunk.org/threads/patterson-gimlin-bigfoot-film-is-a-hoax.12254/page-13

They argue that what is claimed to be the area around the eyes is actually the forehead of a beared man facing the camera and head tilted down. I'll see if I can find it because once you see it, you can't not see it but then it could just be pareidolia. there are still some major question marks over the back story, too.

However, when European settlers arrived in America they brought with them smallpox etc that decimated the Native American population, the virgin soil effect:

In epidemiology, a virgin soil epidemic is an epidemic in which populations that previously were in isolation from a pathogen are immunologically unprepared upon contact with the novel pathogen.[1] Virgin soil epidemics have occurred with European settlement, particularly when European explorers and colonists took diseases to lands they settled in the Americas, Australia and Pacific Islands.[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_soil_epidemic

So perhaps the Bigfoot/Sasquatch were virtually wiped out by a pathogen from European settlers that they had not encountered before, leaving just small pockets of survivors that settlers, trappers and lumberjacks chanced across (the so-called "Wildman of the Woods") but sadly the se remnant populations were not sustainable and they are now extinct.

(but I still think they are paranormal rather than flesh-and-blood).
 
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hopkarma said:
Rines flipper photo was redone with ancient tech, overlays of different computer enchanced versions made into a composite if I recall correctly. This does mean the image is "fake".
The multiple muscle movements Meldrum and several others discuss in the PGF are not tricks of the eye and/or mind, or created by computer or digital fixes, but visible because each frame has been cleaned up. Not enhanced.
Individual muscles working several times, viewed in super slow motion, is not pareidolia...
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How do you know you are seeing muscles? You can't "clean" up low resolution but this is what's been sold.

You can hype the PGF all day and every day, but the bottom line is, after all the decades, and all these people claiming to see it, there is STILL no solid biological evidence for it. That is not a promising bet for existence.
 
Sharon Hill said:
How do you know you are seeing muscles? You can't "clean" up low resolution but this is what's been sold.

You can hype the PGF all day and every day, but the bottom line is, after all the decades, and all these people claiming to see it, there is STILL no solid biological evidence for it. That is not a promising bet for existence.
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I was surprised - but shouldn't have been - by the plethora of digitally manipulated images of Patty being passed off as fact on t'internet
 
hopkarma said:
You said you are guessing.
What if you are wrong?
And who said anything about monkeys or apes?
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As I said before, and if you follow the thread you‘ll have seen Patterson was a con artist who was actually working on a film on Bigfoot, researched his artwork from another source (shown with tits) reproduced this Bigfoot with tits and then hired a camera for a weekend and filmed a Bigfoot with tits. Given that a Bigfoot exists, the chances of this chain of events occurring are unbelievably incredible.
IMG_0254.jpeg
 
Analogue Boy said:
Please explain how this giant upright thing outside the entire dna, bone or historic record could have existed in North America in the sixties.
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It wasn't outside of the historic record. People had been reporting it for decades at least before the Patterson film. We don't know if it's outside of the entire DNA sequence or bone record until we have their bone or DNA.

I agree with you about the Patterson first drawing a Bigfoot with tits and then voila! filming one suspicion. That would be a remarkable coincidence.
 
Analogue Boy said:
As I said before, and if you follow the thread you‘ll have seen Patterson was a con artist who was actually working on a film on Bigfoot, researched his artwork from another source (shown with tits) reproduced this Bigfoot with tits and then hired a camera for a weekend and filmed a Bigfoot with tits. Given that a Bigfoot exists, the chances of this chain of events occurring are unbelievably incredible.
View attachment 85017
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Kunstler’s original artwork:

H19452-L197037018_original.jpg


https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/mort-kunstler-spotting-big-foot-20452-c-afd4da984c

maximus otter
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
That certainly does look like the storyboard for the entire hoax.
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The odds of him drawing the encounter in advance and down to the detail of it being a female creature with breasts and then chancing across one on his expedition...? Either a hoax - and a clever one at that - or his mind created a tulpa.

Sadly, I am going wit Metabunk and the idea that Patty is a large, bearded man wrapped in furs with fake breasts. Have never been that much convinced by the footprint casts that seem to be the central tenet of Bigfoot believer's evidence, but nonetheless I do believe there is something paranormal going on with certain encounters over the years
 
Regarding the idea that it was a suit beyond Hollywood's capabilities as seen in Planet of the Apes: The Planet of the Apes suits were being filmed in closeup by Hollywood level movie cameras. Patty was being filmed at significant distance by the camera PG had. You can disguise a lot with low resolution.
 
kamalktk said:
Regarding the idea that it was a suit beyond Hollywood's capabilities as seen in Planet of the Apes: The Planet of the Apes suits were being filmed in closeup by Hollywood level movie cameras. Patty was being filmed at significant distance by the camera PG had. You can disguise a lot with low resolution.
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But it was the Hollywood people who rated the costume even given the resolution. What about Gimlin, who everyone says is an honest guy? But why no really convincing evidence since? What happened about the film speed? I remember an argument over the film speed in relation to the gait? I thought someone had settled the film speed somehow which should have settled whether the gait was human or not. If it turns out to be a bearded guy wearing a rug and a pair of fake boobs a lot of people are going to feel rather silly! ( Me included for being at least semi fooled for so long)
 
Tunn11 said:
But it was the Hollywood people who rated the costume even given the resolution. What about Gimlin, who everyone says is an honest guy? But why no really convincing evidence since? What happened about the film speed? I remember an argument over the film speed in relation to the gait? I thought someone had settled the film speed somehow which should have settled whether the gait was human or not. If it turns out to be a bearded guy wearing a rug and a pair of fake boobs a lot of people are going to feel rather silly! ( Me included for being at least semi fooled for so long)
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My personal opinion is it's faked.
 
The thing about this thread is... I think most people who are arguing against the film's authenticity, are people who have already decided that bigfoot (full stop) does not exist. Therefore they believe the film has to be a fake. And nothing would convince them otherwise.

I wish this was a thread for people with a more fortean view, who are willing to entertain the idea that sasquatch might exist. That would make it a thread about the authenticity of the film, rather than the authenticity of bigfoot. That is to say, the film could be fake independently of whether sasquatches exist.

but it's a bit late for that isn't it.
 
Eponastill said:
The thing about this thread is... I think most people who are arguing against the film's authenticity, are people who have already decided that bigfoot (full stop) does not exist. Therefore they believe the film has to be a fake. And nothing would convince them otherwise.

I wish this was a thread for people with a more fortean view, who are willing to entertain the idea that sasquatch might exist. That would make it a thread about the authenticity of the film, rather than the authenticity of bigfoot. That is to say, the film could be fake independently of whether sasquatches exist.

but it's a bit late for that isn't it.
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Not sure that's entirely true.
I'm here because of a profound interest in Forteana. I really REALLY want to believe that a Japanese fishing boat caught a rotting plesiosaur, that dwarf sauropod dinosaurs still live in the Congo, that pterosaurs can be seen soaring over Papua New Guinea - and that huge bipedal ape-like creatures live in North America and the Himalayas. In the complete absence of any hard, scientifically acceptable evidence though, I suspect I'm going to be disappointed.
 
Xanatic* said:
The fact that there was a pavement makes it sound like an urban fox. They are quite used to humans.
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I have had a rural fox investigate me in my bivy bag on Dartmoor years ago, obviously very curious about me, it came within touching distance. I have had urban foxes walk right past me without a care in the world.

I have also had deer stand and just watch me go past from a few yards away, on my regular walk to work. I suspect the deer in question are quite used to seeing me and don't view me as a particular threat.
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
Not sure that's entirely true.
I'm here because of a profound interest in Forteana. I really REALLY want to believe that a Japanese fishing boat caught a rotting plesiosaur, that dwarf sauropod dinosaurs still live in the Congo, that pterosaurs can be seen soaring over Papua New Guinea - and that huge bipedal ape-like creatures live in North America and the Himalayas. In the complete absence of any hard, scientifically acceptable evidence though, I suspect I'm going to be disappointed.
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The PG film is one I'm really not sure about.

I think I want to believe it possibly because of the circumstances when I first saw it, which I've posted upthread. That it was in pre internet days on a mainstream news programme. No chance of re playing, pausing or even seing it again until years later. It was also IIRC treated more seriously than the usual silly season "Nessie ate my hamster" items.

The PG film has stood the test of time and analysis of the film and its creator(s) better than other Fortean mainstays: De Loys' ape, The Cumberland Spaceman, Cottingley fairies, etc. There are experts arguing from every point of view but again, as I've said before, for every expert there is an equal and opposite expert.

For me there are the pros:

The gait, it just looks wrong and I've not seen any other purported bigfoot film that shows a bigfoot walking doesn't look like someone (human) walking in a suit.
Follow the money. Whoever made that suit had a career in Hollywood waiting. They only had to produce the suit or make another. Where are they?

The cons:

Patterson's "film board" His desire to find bigfoot doesn't IMHO mean he faked the footage but the sketches particularly including the breasts is suspicious.
Where is the other evidence? Surely there should be more and better evidence by now? That doesn't in itself mean the footage is fake but as the human population expands and technology improves we should have something better. (Mind you about the time of the film I was watching the Moon landings and thinking that we'll be on Mars soon!)

The unknowns:

Was Bob Gimlin a hoaxer or the hoaxed? If the latter then Patterson and "Patty" were playing a dangerous game. Gimlin was armed and may have decided to open fire. So do those who think the film is a fake have a view on Gimlin's role?

If he faked it why didn't Patterson confess when he knew he was dying? Who knows? He may have thought that people would still be arguing for a long time and he'd leave them to it, or perhaps he didn't fake it?

From what I've seen of Gimlin he seems well liked and respected, which doesn't mean he doesn't like a joke, that maybe got out of hand. IIRC initially he said very little but now seems to be a talking head "expert" on bigfoot so perhaps he is profiting from the whole thing, but he could maybe make more by exposing the hoax if he wanted to. He must be getting on now I wonder whether he will have anything to say before the end.

All of which means that I still have the fencepost in my bottom!
 
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