... 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.