Bigfoot - The Patterson-Gimlin Film

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William Parcher wrote:
Patty is actually a very low tech and low cost costume.
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Really??


Here's a link to a thread I just started on the Mid-America Bigfoot Forum...comparing Patty's "suit" to other gorilla suits....

http://www.mid-americabigfoot.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=67&t=4262&p=13267#p13267


It's very easy to say that Patty is "just another cheap suit"....but very difficult to explain why she is so distinctly different from, and so much more realisitic looking than all the gorilla/bigfoot suits out there.

Yes....so easy to laugh-off.....so hard to duplicate! :)
 
SweatyYeti said:
Here's a link to a thread I just started on the Mid-America Bigfoot Forum...comparing Patty's "suit" to other gorilla suits....

http://www.mid-americabigfoot.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=67&t=4262&p=13267#p13267


It's very easy to say that Patty is "just another cheap suit"....but very difficult to explain why she is so distinctly different from, and so much more realisitic looking than all the gorilla/bigfoot suits out there.

Yes....so easy to laugh-off.....so hard to duplicate! :)
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While I'm sure your musings are very interesting, I was wondering, Sweaty, if you might be so kind as to share with us your thinking as to why an un-suited Bob Heironimus is shown riding on his horse, Chico, with Patterson in the PGF. You remember that, right?

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=3007211#post3007211
 
kitakaze said:
I'm wondering if there would be any benefit in starting a separate thread for this but here is a link to the BFRO's new game trail photo claim that's been getting a lot of proponents worked up:

http://bfro.net/avevid/jacobs/jacobs_photos.asp

In the BFF thread on the topic Elk Cast Guy and Bigfoot Scream Hoaxer Guy are among those there that are appropriately attributing it to bear:

http://www.bigfootforums.com/index.php?showtopic=20689

Interestingly, BFRO is now saying that quadrapedalism is a consistent feature concerning juvenile bigfoot reports.

BTW, check out BFRO's main page and look at how many bigfoot tours they have upcoming for 2007/2008 compared to previously:

http://bfro.net/

These scammers are really getting started now.
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Virtually all the content on the BFRO website comes directly from Matt Moneymaker. Members have very little say about the content. Content is not submitted to the wider group for their approval, consideration, or vote. Matt decides what he wants to put on the website, and it goes up.

The expeditions are the sole proprietorship of Matt. The BFRO is neither a non-profit nor a corporation, regardless of what it appears--or is even promoted--to be.

I see no reason to call these photos a juvenile sasquatch. Whether at Cryptomundo or at BFF, I see a handful of folks who are a little over-excited over misinterpreted bear photos, and the rest realize it's a bear.

Much ado about nothing... again.
 
I never have understood the rationale behind the suggestion that a butt-crack is hard to fake.

8827.jpg


Must be another shape-shifting Bigfoot.. With multiple butt-cracks ..
 
historian said:
B.S. meter is going off the scale

Butt crack and perky boobs are pretty hard to duplicate. Throw is the compliant hair weave, and the visible feet, and it becomes impossible to duplicate. Those that have tried, have failed miserably.
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I don't know what you're referring to by a "compliant hair weave" (If you mean that all the hair points in the same direction, then I should point out that such a feature is a sign of fake fur), but your other "impossible to duplicate" features are far from impossible. Butt cracks aren't hard to duplicate. The same goes for breasts (NSFW) and visible feet. Honestly, where do you people come up with this stuff?
 
William Parcher said:
He was already over-engineering it with a body suit and detailed face mask. Whatever Patterson did with the suit - I'm pretty sure he didn't do what Dfoot was doing.
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I was amused how some proponents got all worked up over that mask, saying stuff like "Why would he use those masks to make his own" (Why do those mask parts look so much like Patty's face when you put'em together?), "Why didn't he use a gorilla mask" (Because his concept of Bigfoot looked like a caveman), and "So what, you could modify any mask to look like Patty" (Which would allow Patterson to use a gorilla mask...)?

Yes, nevermind that he showed how such a mask could be made using materials that were available in the 60's (as proponents often demand for suit recreation attempts), they still complained about it.

Here's a picture that someone did of what Patty would look like without any hair/fur (found on this website). If I remember correctly, this was done in an attempt to show that Patty couldn't have been a costume. Now compare it to the picture of Dfoot's hairless Patty mask seen here.

Since that shaved Patty picture is just artwork made by a proponent, I can't say that this proves that Patterson used a similar mask. I just thought the similarities between the two were funny and this comparison is for novelty purposes only. Besides, I'd need to know when that drawing was made and when the first "naked" picture of Dfoot's mask was made in order to see if this could be a valid comparison.

However, as I've noted before, Patterson could've made his own mask from scratch (or hired someone else to do it) instead of cannibalizing parts from other masks. I'm not married to any particular theory.

Speaking of issues with suit duplication, look at the suit used in the original H.R. Pufnstuf television series and compare it to the terrible-looking suit used in later shows produced by the same company.
 
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A perfectly good response to the " If it's a suit, why hasn't anyone made one like it ? " argument, is that there is no reason to believe it's any easier to make a copy of a bad suit than a good one.. There are many reasons why it would even be harder, if not impossible.

On the other hand, a real Bigfoot might look a lot like a poorly made monkey suit ..
 
There's no big incentive to try to duplicate Patty. The hypothesis of Bigfoot existing is not strong enough to warrant a recreation attempt on any scientific basis. That leaves entertainment and popular appeal. Not much there because most of the world doesn't care about Bigfoot one way or the other.

Yes, truly duplicating the suit is something like shooting into the dark. We can't be certain of the raw materials used or even what it was like on the inside. The thigh bulge looks like a padding error and Dfoot already recreated that bit. A person could build a suit that doesn't bulge at the thigh and doesn't have weird lumps all around. You could use liquid-filled breasts that would flop and bounce. None of it is expensive. You could make a better Bigfoot than Patty was. Various materials, foam sheet, football pads, etc. are all cheap or free. The only way the thing could have been expensive is if Roger had the shoulder pads plated in gold. It was a low budget costume designed in a Yakima workshop by an unemployed cowboy. If he started with a gorilla costume, then most of the work was already done.
 
Of course a proper recreation would be filmed using the same camera and at about the same distance. Video could reveal flaws that would be masked by the format of film. The only attempt at recreation so far was recorded on video at a closer distance. It wasn't great. The costume really didn't look much like Patty. They obviously weren't trying hard.
 
I keep going back to these frames. Either Patty is wearing a wrist watch or the bottom of the sleeve is banded where it overlaps the glove.
 

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Diogenes said:
A perfectly good response to the " If it's a suit, why hasn't anyone made one like it ? " argument, is that there is no reason to believe it's any easier to make a copy of a bad suit than a good one.. There are many reasons why it would even be harder, if not impossible.

On the other hand, a real Bigfoot might look a lot like a poorly made monkey suit ..
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Ah, but then they'd ask how come a "bad" suit was able to fool so many people for so long. If the so-called muscle movements really are just the suit bunching up, tricks of the light combined with "hip wader lines," then the chances of duplicating such random movements in a recreation would be very unlikely.

On a related note, check out this .gif (source) comparing a gorilla's muscles to the "muscles" seen on Patty. Notice how this isn't a very good match and how the supposed similarities are only vague at best. This would make me think of an undersuit or optical illusion before I'd think of real muscles...
 
William Parcher said:
There's no big incentive to try to duplicate Patty.
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Agreed. Bigfoot proponents seem to be under the bizarre impression that special effects artists should recreate the Patty costume out of their own pocket. Nevermind the expenses it would take to try each and every possible costume type (and people with different body types) to match up with Patty. That'd kill network sponsorship in a heartbeat. There's a little thing called "inflation" that needs to be taken into account when calculating Patterson's hypothetical budget.

And as far as I'm concerned, they should be getting Japanese special effects artists to do a recreation as well.

Of course a proper recreation would be filmed using the same camera and at about the same distance. Video could reveal flaws that would be masked by the format of film. The only attempt at recreation so far was recorded on video at a closer distance. It wasn't great. The costume really didn't look much like Patty. They obviously weren't trying hard.
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I feel that in addition to your requirements, the recreation should be shot at a nonstandard film speed and then slowed down (Some have suggested that this is the reason for the "smooth movements"), only using natural lighting, and should be shot without doing any "white balancing" beforehand.

Here are all of the "recreation attempts" that I know of:

Green/McClarin - This "attempt" was done using what appears to be a storebought gorilla costume. Of course, no skeptic in their right mind would suggest that Patterson was using an unaltered costume, so that kinda made this experiment pointless. Well, that, and it'd only rule out that Patterson didn't use that particular suit on someone with the same proportions as McClarin. Still, I'll give 'em credit for trying.

Optic Nerve/BBC - Didn't Dfoot claim that since the BBC didn't cough up the requested budget, John Vulich just recycled a costume and gave it a new head? That'd certainly explain why the suit had the wrong hair color. Has anyone ever tried contacting Optic Nerve Studios about this?

Greg Long/Philip Morris/Bob H. - To me, Long seemed to think that this could be done in one take instead of filming a take, comparing it to the original film, making adjustments, and repeating the process until he recreated the footage. Then you've gotta factor in problems like how they used a costume built by Philip Morris, used Bob H. instead of someone who was built like him when he claimed to have worn the suit, didn't try lengthening the arms, etc. Come to think of it, wasn't Bob H. hit by a car at some point in the past? If so (and assuming that's not what gave him "the walk" to begin with), that'd definitely affect his walking abilities. Hopefully, the delay in releasing the footage means that they realized their mistakes and used the delay to correct them.

Dfoot - Was sadly never completed or filmed. However, I feel that he did the best-looking job and showed how good low budget effects can look.

Should we count that "Best Evidence" segment as a recreation attempt?
 
While looking for any more information about Roger Patterson's 1961 gorilla suit footage, I stumbled across a reference to Ray Wallace's claim to have filmed Bigfoot prior to the release of the P/G footage:

"John Napier, in Bigfoot: the Yeti and Sasquatch in Myth and Reality, devotes one paragraph to Wallace, noting that it is claimed that Bigfoot has been filmed three times, initially by Ray Wallace, who says that he took his film of the creature in 1957 (prior to the first "Bigfoot" case in 1958).4 Napier points out that Wallace's claim to have filmed Bigfoot so early in the game was only announced to the press in late November 1970.

These films — if taken when claimed — predated the famous Patterson film by ten years. If some still exist, they are important visual documents in the cultural history of Bigfoot.

Ray Wallace says that he has shot thousands of feet of Bigfoot film footage. Figures have varied from 6,000 to 15,000 feet of 16mm film. This amounts to hours of footage, which includes Bigfoot throwing stones, eating frogs, and so forth. Wallace maintains that his films, photos and tapes are authentic."

Granted, Mr. Wallace was known for telling obvious lies, but I do know that he did do some Bigfoot movies. I know that at least one involved his wife in a gorilla suit, but I don't know if she was in the suit for other films. I've also found a few posts where Jim McClarin claims to have seen a Wallace film featuring a Bigfoot with a stiff tail. But when were these films made? I ask because it's a known fact that Roger Patterson met with him prior to the filming of the P/G footage. It's not hard to imagine that Wallace would share his filmed "findings" with a Bigfoot researcher like Patterson (if he had the films at that time). If this happened, would it not give Patterson a lesson on how not to fake a Bigfoot film?

Oh, and check out footnote in the first link where Ivan Sanderson poo-poos the idea of Bigfoot existing...
 
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