Skeptical Greg
Agave Wine Connoisseur
Bigfoot - The Patterson-Gimlin Film
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Skeptical Greg
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The difference in your story and the supposed evidence for bigfoot, is that there was an actual person who was confirmed to exist before she disappeared..
So in the context of my question, you did have a warm body to tie the evidence to.
Thanks for responding..
LAL
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For those who haven't seen it, this is from the Green-Coleman debate on Cryptomondo:
"I have always found it hard to credit that Loren (and his friend Mark Hall) continue to cling to their belief that Ray Wallace faked all the footprints found in the Bluff Creek area in the 1950s and 60s, but if the above article represents the depth of their examination of the evidence I guess it is not surprising.
Taking Loren’s points one at a time:
The picture Loren chose to present shows the bottom view of only one of the pair of carved wooden feet produced by the Wallaces as evidence that Ray faked the original “Bigfoot” tracks in California. Aside from the bottom of the toes being flat it is a fairly close representation not of the original 16-inch “Bigfoot” but of some casts of the many “15-inch” tracks that were found, photographed and cast over a 10-year period. However the carving of the opposite foot, which is held so the bottom cannot be seen, is not a close representation of anything. It is crudely carved to only an approximate shape, with three of the toes not even separated.
(Loren’s remarks about getting right and left feet confused in comparing carvings and track photographs are just a red herring. They do not apply when comparing a carving with a cast.)
And if Loren were to take the trouble to compare closely the shapes of his two illustrations, using an overlay grid for instance, he would find that they are only superficially a match, while if he showed all the photos from that same line of tracks (on Blue Creek Mountain) it would be obvious that to match them all would require many sets of wooden feet with a wide selection of shapes.
Loren’s problem, of course, is that he never saw the tracks in question, which showed wide variations, and you can double that for the 13-inch tracks that were with them. Rene Dahinden and I (one of whom took the photo track that he uses) studied the tracks, and there were hundreds of them, for a couple of days. The suggestion that they could have been made by someone walking on sets of carvings is just plain silly.
As to Loren’s “eye-witnesses”, the yarn he quotes (from a newspaper story, not a personal interview) about Ray faking the tracks to keep people from vandalizing his equipment has actually been around from the beginning and is obviously just a tall tale. It paints Ray as a complete fool, which he certainly wasn’t, to have tried such a nonsensical scheme, and it certainly does not fit the facts of the situation on the Bluff Creek job in 1958. Potential vandals would have to have arrived on the road Ray’s crew was building, passing through a camp which virtually straddled that road and had people living in it 24 hours a day and seven days a week. Ray’s problem, according to accounts at the time, was not vandalism, but replacing employees who left the job after seeing the huge tracks made overnight where they were working. (I never heard any of those stories first hand because, of course, the people said to have left were no longer there.)
The second “eyewitness” account, actually a second-hand story, tells of participating with Ray Wallace in faking tracks, but apparently near his home in Toledo, Washington, not in California.
There is, of course, no reason to argue that Ray never faked any tracks anywhere, he quite possibly did, but it is interesting that amid all the fuss no evidence connecting him with any known track discovery has come to light, nor any account of his claiming to have faked tracks. (Ray’s family told Rick Noll that Ray never told them he had faked the Bluff Creek tracks, they just assumed it.)
It is interesting also that in spite of a $100,000 offer for anyone who can show how the Bluff Creek tracks could have been faked by the Wallaces, who have the wooden feet supposedly used, have not come forward to try. And for a TV news episode at which one of the Wallaces had agreed to give a demonstration, once he learned that there would be people there who had casts of the actual tracks to make comparisons, the wooden feet were suddenly in someone else’s possession, that person wasn’t home, and the Wallace wasn’t coming.
There is at least one real eye-witness still available who had the best of opportunities to study the original “Bigfoot” tracks, a civil engineer who in 1958 was a teenager employed as “stake setter” working ahead of the bulldozers on the Bluff Creek road job, but Loren doesn’t seem to have contacted him. He has no use for the suggestion that wooden feet could have made the tracks that he saw, not just on the road but on the steep banks. He is the person who describes the construction camp as having people in it 24/7, and he is also still in touch with the Wallace family, and tells of an effort made to get him to back them up in the scam they have been having so much fun with.
Then there is the Blake Matthes story.
The fake tracks he tells of seeing were not at “a Wallace construction site”. Loren should read the book again. Matthes’ account makes it clear that he was there after Wallace’s contract was finished, in fact he didn’t even seem to know that road construction was involved, not logging. Someone obviously made fake tracks in an attempt to play a joke on the group Matthes was with, who were known to be looking for Bigfoot tracks in the area, but after some initial excitement the prank did not succeed. The perpetrators may even have been careful not to have their creations taken too seriously, since the last two tracks in the second set they made were both of the left foot. A photo indicates that the fake feet used were probably modeled on Bob Titmus’ “15-inch” casts, but they are not a match for any of the carvings so far shown by the Wallaces.
And did all the stories of remarkable goings-on at Bluff Creek originate with people in some way associated with the Wallaces? Loren’s broad-brush assumption that such was the case simply is not correct. Some did, and it could have been Shorty Wallace who pulled the pranks on Matthes group, I wouldn’t put it past him, but many peple reporting track finds and telling stories of observations indicating feats of superhuman strength had no apparent Wallace connection. Among such witnesses that Rene and I interviewed on one trip to that area were the owner of the logging operation that went into that country after the road job was completed and a man who was employed as a government inspector while the logging was going on. That man also told of finding the big tracks on more than one occasion far off in the woods where no-one would have reason to expect they would ever be seen. Such stories were just icing on the cake, however, no-one is arguing that they were necessarily true, any more than were the far-fetched scenarios put forward at the time by people who didn’t bother to investigate but were nevertheless eager to explain everything away.
Among those scenarios, which Loren and Mark seem to have fallen for hook, line and sinker, is the yarn that the tracks going up and down steep banks were made with heavy weights pulled up and down with cables, and the one about long strides being made by people pulled along behind vehicles. Those are things that could be demonstrated (I am told the pulling-along attempt on TV was a fiasco) and until they are they belong with Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.
It was only the tracks, and in fact only those that seemed beyond any possibility of human fakery, that caused people like Bob Titmus, Rene and myself to take the Bluff Creek situation seriously.
It is getting rather tiresome to have people who weren’t there proclaiming that we botched our investigations and they, from what they have read or imagined, have all the answers." -John Green
http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/wallace-iv/
I've rather lost track of Loren's reasoning, but he wrote this last April:
http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/wallacewrong/
"I have always found it hard to credit that Loren (and his friend Mark Hall) continue to cling to their belief that Ray Wallace faked all the footprints found in the Bluff Creek area in the 1950s and 60s, but if the above article represents the depth of their examination of the evidence I guess it is not surprising.
Taking Loren’s points one at a time:
The picture Loren chose to present shows the bottom view of only one of the pair of carved wooden feet produced by the Wallaces as evidence that Ray faked the original “Bigfoot” tracks in California. Aside from the bottom of the toes being flat it is a fairly close representation not of the original 16-inch “Bigfoot” but of some casts of the many “15-inch” tracks that were found, photographed and cast over a 10-year period. However the carving of the opposite foot, which is held so the bottom cannot be seen, is not a close representation of anything. It is crudely carved to only an approximate shape, with three of the toes not even separated.
(Loren’s remarks about getting right and left feet confused in comparing carvings and track photographs are just a red herring. They do not apply when comparing a carving with a cast.)
And if Loren were to take the trouble to compare closely the shapes of his two illustrations, using an overlay grid for instance, he would find that they are only superficially a match, while if he showed all the photos from that same line of tracks (on Blue Creek Mountain) it would be obvious that to match them all would require many sets of wooden feet with a wide selection of shapes.
Loren’s problem, of course, is that he never saw the tracks in question, which showed wide variations, and you can double that for the 13-inch tracks that were with them. Rene Dahinden and I (one of whom took the photo track that he uses) studied the tracks, and there were hundreds of them, for a couple of days. The suggestion that they could have been made by someone walking on sets of carvings is just plain silly.
As to Loren’s “eye-witnesses”, the yarn he quotes (from a newspaper story, not a personal interview) about Ray faking the tracks to keep people from vandalizing his equipment has actually been around from the beginning and is obviously just a tall tale. It paints Ray as a complete fool, which he certainly wasn’t, to have tried such a nonsensical scheme, and it certainly does not fit the facts of the situation on the Bluff Creek job in 1958. Potential vandals would have to have arrived on the road Ray’s crew was building, passing through a camp which virtually straddled that road and had people living in it 24 hours a day and seven days a week. Ray’s problem, according to accounts at the time, was not vandalism, but replacing employees who left the job after seeing the huge tracks made overnight where they were working. (I never heard any of those stories first hand because, of course, the people said to have left were no longer there.)
The second “eyewitness” account, actually a second-hand story, tells of participating with Ray Wallace in faking tracks, but apparently near his home in Toledo, Washington, not in California.
There is, of course, no reason to argue that Ray never faked any tracks anywhere, he quite possibly did, but it is interesting that amid all the fuss no evidence connecting him with any known track discovery has come to light, nor any account of his claiming to have faked tracks. (Ray’s family told Rick Noll that Ray never told them he had faked the Bluff Creek tracks, they just assumed it.)
It is interesting also that in spite of a $100,000 offer for anyone who can show how the Bluff Creek tracks could have been faked by the Wallaces, who have the wooden feet supposedly used, have not come forward to try. And for a TV news episode at which one of the Wallaces had agreed to give a demonstration, once he learned that there would be people there who had casts of the actual tracks to make comparisons, the wooden feet were suddenly in someone else’s possession, that person wasn’t home, and the Wallace wasn’t coming.
There is at least one real eye-witness still available who had the best of opportunities to study the original “Bigfoot” tracks, a civil engineer who in 1958 was a teenager employed as “stake setter” working ahead of the bulldozers on the Bluff Creek road job, but Loren doesn’t seem to have contacted him. He has no use for the suggestion that wooden feet could have made the tracks that he saw, not just on the road but on the steep banks. He is the person who describes the construction camp as having people in it 24/7, and he is also still in touch with the Wallace family, and tells of an effort made to get him to back them up in the scam they have been having so much fun with.
Then there is the Blake Matthes story.
The fake tracks he tells of seeing were not at “a Wallace construction site”. Loren should read the book again. Matthes’ account makes it clear that he was there after Wallace’s contract was finished, in fact he didn’t even seem to know that road construction was involved, not logging. Someone obviously made fake tracks in an attempt to play a joke on the group Matthes was with, who were known to be looking for Bigfoot tracks in the area, but after some initial excitement the prank did not succeed. The perpetrators may even have been careful not to have their creations taken too seriously, since the last two tracks in the second set they made were both of the left foot. A photo indicates that the fake feet used were probably modeled on Bob Titmus’ “15-inch” casts, but they are not a match for any of the carvings so far shown by the Wallaces.
And did all the stories of remarkable goings-on at Bluff Creek originate with people in some way associated with the Wallaces? Loren’s broad-brush assumption that such was the case simply is not correct. Some did, and it could have been Shorty Wallace who pulled the pranks on Matthes group, I wouldn’t put it past him, but many peple reporting track finds and telling stories of observations indicating feats of superhuman strength had no apparent Wallace connection. Among such witnesses that Rene and I interviewed on one trip to that area were the owner of the logging operation that went into that country after the road job was completed and a man who was employed as a government inspector while the logging was going on. That man also told of finding the big tracks on more than one occasion far off in the woods where no-one would have reason to expect they would ever be seen. Such stories were just icing on the cake, however, no-one is arguing that they were necessarily true, any more than were the far-fetched scenarios put forward at the time by people who didn’t bother to investigate but were nevertheless eager to explain everything away.
Among those scenarios, which Loren and Mark seem to have fallen for hook, line and sinker, is the yarn that the tracks going up and down steep banks were made with heavy weights pulled up and down with cables, and the one about long strides being made by people pulled along behind vehicles. Those are things that could be demonstrated (I am told the pulling-along attempt on TV was a fiasco) and until they are they belong with Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.
It was only the tracks, and in fact only those that seemed beyond any possibility of human fakery, that caused people like Bob Titmus, Rene and myself to take the Bluff Creek situation seriously.
It is getting rather tiresome to have people who weren’t there proclaiming that we botched our investigations and they, from what they have read or imagined, have all the answers." -John Green
http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/wallace-iv/
I've rather lost track of Loren's reasoning, but he wrote this last April:
http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/wallacewrong/
LTC8K6
Penultimate Amazing
That's what Titmus said, actually. No trail coming in.
This was justified in various ways, but basically, going by the evidence at the site, Patty was just there and then left, she never arrived.
William Parcher
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That's not my question and I'm not suggesting it. I'm saying that Patterson, Gimlin, Laverty & Titmus all witnessed the Patty film trackway. P&G saw and filmed her walking and presumably a trackway was left where she walked. None of those people mention a myriad of Bigfoot tracks that caused difficulty in deciding which was the Patty film trackway. Laverty & Titmus had a major clue to point them to the Patty trackway - look for the plaster residue left by Roger. Even if they saw other trackways, they could lock in on the Patty tracks as being the ones connected to the plaster residue. Laverty has a photo composite that shows a print which had been cast.
I'm trying to point out two things. First is that GF is uncovering inconsistencies with the PGF and what we think we know about it. Second is that when GF tries to explain the inconsistencies he uses biases that are steered towards the film being authentic and not a hoax.
He discovered a point in the film where it appears that Roger is suddenly farther along in his "filming path" than he was a moment before. He suggests that Roger may have run very quickly (but doesn't mention that Roger said he was injured). He also suggests that Roger may have lifted his finger from the record button and did not record Patty (nor his own position) continuously. He does mention that Roger himself said he never stopped filming. Instead of proposing that the non-continuous filming might be the result of editing, he says that Roger may have stopped filming.
I'm curious if the discovered inaccuracies of the Titmus/Krantz map have any effect on attempts to determine the size of Patty. Are any size arguments supported by the distance measurements given in that map?
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William Parcher
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Are you suggesting that Roger Patterson told the world in 1968 that $75K (modern equivalent of $500K) had been given to him for ongoing searching - but that he knew it hadn't because he was talking about his own company? That sounds like Biscardi.
LAL
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Again, there are no distance measurements given on Titmus' map. Krantz did a diagram with distances based on his study of the film itself. See Figure 44, pg. 88, Bigfoot Sasquatch Evidence by Dr. Grover Krantz. Dahinden came up with a diagram showing distances based on his examination of the site. See pg. 58, Meet the Sasquatch by Chris Murphy.
LAL
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Roger's running speed has been determined by "jiggle analysis". Roger said it hurt, but he ran anyway. People experiencing an adrenaline rush are capable of doing things like that.
William Parcher
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William Parcher
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Lu, the hurt foot is only a footnote.
The important thing is that GF found something in the film that suggests to him that Roger stopped filming during the Patty walk. But Roger said he didn't stop filming. That means that if GF is right (about this point), then Roger was wrong. Note that GF does not entertain the possibility that part of the Patty walk met the cutting room floor, and that's why it looks like Roger stopped filming and then started again.
The important thing is that GF found something in the film that suggests to him that Roger stopped filming during the Patty walk. But Roger said he didn't stop filming. That means that if GF is right (about this point), then Roger was wrong. Note that GF does not entertain the possibility that part of the Patty walk met the cutting room floor, and that's why it looks like Roger stopped filming and then started again.
kitakaze
Resident DJ/NSA Supermole
Thanks for the for the response, Leo113. Again, very interesting and some salient points. BTW, if you missed it elsewhere my earlier comment was that I'm a lousy typist but nevermind that.
It seems to be the case from the anecdotes you're providing that you are a homicide detective. If that's the case, I'm sure many here would find your opinions on various matters even more welcome. Forgive my bluntness but is this true? Obviously I'm asking for no further details than a simple yes/no.
Though I agree with Diogenes concise reply, I'd just like establish that before I address the rest of your post. Cheers.
carcharodon
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Because she was an animal........they do have a tendency to just dissapear. Plus hardly anybody else went looking for her all over that terrain. In fact, did anybody do that? Was there a concerted hunt for 'Patty' after the PGF?
William Parcher
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She didn't exactly disappear according to Gimlin. His last sighting of her was 300 yards "up the logging road". They then tracked her for 3.5 miles before losing her trail on pine needles.
What I can't understand is why Roger didn't film the 3.5 mile tracking by horseback. That would have made it a better documentary, right? Roger did have a new roll of film in his camera when they followed her trail.
What I can't understand is why Roger didn't film the 3.5 mile tracking by horseback. That would have made it a better documentary, right? Roger did have a new roll of film in his camera when they followed her trail.
Maybe since they saw where she walked during filming there was no difficulty in deciding which was the Patty film trackway.
I fail to see the "inconsistency."
So?
Since there is no agreement on Patty's size, how are "arguments" supported or not by the distances on that map?
You're just looking for more wrenches to throw in the gears.
And you call GF "biased"?
kitakaze
Resident DJ/NSA Supermole
Pardon the basic question but is there nothing written on and were there no attempts to later backtrack and discern where Patty came from?
SweatyYeti
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Leo113 wrote:
And even if NO gravesite was ever found...the "bag and shovel" were still legitimate EVIDENCE of a gravesite, simply because they indicated a chance..some odds...of it's existence. No VERIFICATION...and no ACTUAL gravesite was required.
Likewise, with Bigfoot...no ACTUAL Bigfoot is required for there to be some "degree of likeliness" of it's existence...as indicated by the large amount of sighting reports and footprints, along with other pieces of evidence....which definitely do exist.
This is a concept..."evidence" without "proof"...that the super-skeptical mind apparantly cannot grasp.
In addition to the bag and shovel indicating a possibility of a gravesite, they indicated a probability...some odds...of it. Like Leo said...they were WEAK evidence, indicating a small chance of there being a gravesite...but indicating some "degree of probability" nonetheless.
And even if NO gravesite was ever found...the "bag and shovel" were still legitimate EVIDENCE of a gravesite, simply because they indicated a chance..some odds...of it's existence. No VERIFICATION...and no ACTUAL gravesite was required.
Likewise, with Bigfoot...no ACTUAL Bigfoot is required for there to be some "degree of likeliness" of it's existence...as indicated by the large amount of sighting reports and footprints, along with other pieces of evidence....which definitely do exist.
This is a concept..."evidence" without "proof"...that the super-skeptical mind apparantly cannot grasp.
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kitakaze
Resident DJ/NSA Supermole
English is fun, even for those native speakers who's command of it is questionable.
William Parcher
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I agree. But GF is proposing that there possibly was difficulty because he thinks the map is wrong and the reason it is wrong is because they used the "wrong" tracks for measurements.
GF would probably tell you that the inconsistency is Patterson's filming position as related to his own testimony and the map. He thinks Roger might have stopped filming even though Roger said he didn't.
GF might have discovered evidence of film editing.
I don't honestly know and that's why I asked an open question. Did anyone use the given distances and map to calculate an IM index, height or walking speed estimate for Patty? Many proponents are saying that Patty is too big to be a guy in a suit.
I think the PGF is a hoax. Therefore, I'm expecting to find that wrenches will screw up the gears. I'm exploring the possibility that they do.
I don't mind if you consider me biased.
LAL
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Uh, how would you calculate an IM index from a map?
The calculation was done on Frame 52, and later from the digitalized skeleton on LMS. They were 80-90 and 88 respectively. The IM index is a ratio. The height of the figure is unimportant. It will be the same for 10' or 2'.
Krantz used the known foot length in his calculations, among other methods, to get an estimate of height.
Her speed has been calculated from the fps and the length of the film.
"The Patterson Sasquatch walking cadence amounted to 85 steps per minute as extracted out of the data of the film (recorded at 16 frames per second; Bayanov et al., 1984; Krantz, 1992) (960 frames per minute film speed : 11.25 frames/step = 85.3 steps/min). For a human step, that cadence is either uncomfortably slow if the step is long, or if short is appropriate to an old or debilitated walker. If this cadence is multiplied by the step length (70"; Gimlin, 1997), a speed of 5.7 mph (9 km/h) is obtained. If it is applied to other sizes of Sasquatch feet, a conservative walking speed emerges, which closely corresponds by coincidence in miles per hour to the step length in feet (Fig. 8, Y2 axis). Admittedly, the walking cadence is inversely related to increasing leg length and weight (Heglund et al., 1974), but the stride length increases with size. Incidentally, the gait of the Patterson Sasquatch lies only moderately above the regression line in congruence with its observed "unhurried" retreat from the scene."
http://home.clara.net/rfthomas/papers/size2.html
Perhaps walking speed (in order to try to determine film speed; another useless exercise), but certainly not Patty's height or IM index.
That was measured from the size of the sole of her feet, which were clearly visible on the film, and based on the length of the footprints in the sand.
Even that is clouded in skeptic-injected doubt/wrenches, but as an index, the exact measurements aren't really necessary to see that the ratio is outside human parameters.
No matter. "Only a corpse will do", remember?
Yup. I agree, but there's no way to proof it. Never was. Skeptics will find a hole somewhere to insert a loose wrench.
Just for your information, loose wrenches in the engine compartment usually screw up well running machines before they do machines that don't run.
Throw a wrench into the engine compartment of a car that doesn't run, and absolutely nothing happens..........
Good.
And I didn't need the admission to know that you're biased.
But now it's there. For the record.
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