Bigfoot - The Patterson-Gimlin Film

[kitakaze]

Bigfeetsus are dropping dead all over the country all the time...and new ones replace the dead ones all the time. A healthy breeding population should number in the low thousands...yet they have exactly NO bodies to date....and we are supposed to find THE suit. A suit by the way which has many many reasons why certain people would'nt want it found.

Sure seems fair to me.

So who wants to participate in my conceptual film short entitled "A World With Bigfoot"?

Including such scenes as:

- Tom Green dry-humps a dead sasquatch on the side of a highway.

- What's That Smell? A look at the sasquatch hair wig industry.

- Gumbo No-No. A study on illegal poaching of southern sasquatches for bush meat with hidden cameras in New Orleans gumbo kitchens.

- Every Which Way But Love. A reflection on the life and times of the lovable sasquatch Claude known for his roles in Clint Eastwood movies including a remembrance of his tragic death by t-ball bat beating by an on-set animal trainer.

- The Fur Will Fly. A chilling examination of the underground sasquatch fighting circuit. Included is the recent trend of cabellera contra cabellera or 'hair versus hair" matches in which the losing sasquatch is completely shaved bald.

 

[LAL]

Come now LAL, shoddy science is no way to strengthen the case for bigfoot.

Measurement on the bones is the only way to be completely accurate, but a good approximation can be done from photos. John Green and Jeff Meldrum used frame 52, Ruben Steindorf reverse kinematics and John Napier a "laid out" picture of Hansen's exhibit. We have Lucy's bones, but Napier didn't.

I just think it's interesting these two "hoaxers" came up with the same IM index for their creatures in a time when only Australopithecus africanus was known (was the scientific establishment resistant to Dart's finds or what?) and that only from skulls. Lord Zuckerman thought it was an ape.

Maybe Patterson and Hansen were in cahoots. Have the conspiracy theorists thought of that yet?

 

[RayG]

Measurement on the bones is the only way to be completely accurate, but a good approximation can be done from photos. John Green and Jeff Meldrum used frame 52, Ruben Steindorf reverse kinematics and John Napier a "laid out" picture of Hansen's exhibit.

Yes, bone are the only way to be accurate. If the photos show a costume, that approximation can be woefully incorrect and quite worthless.

I just think it's interesting these two "hoaxers" came up with the same IM index for their creatures in a time when only Australopithecus africanus was known...

You may find it interesting whenever shoddy science is trotted out, I find it annoying.

Maybe Patterson and Hansen were in cahoots. Have the conspiracy theorists thought of that yet?

Don't know, don't care. I prefer facts to wild speculation or wishful-thinking.

RayG

 

[LAL]

Oh, you see no angels at Meldrum's article...

<snip>I guess you have not missed the parts where Meldrum's belief in the whole completelly baseless and fantasious tale of preColumbian Jews and the historical reality of the Jewish patriarchs became evident. Oh, and do not forget the highly nonsensical story of how the Book of Mormon was revealed...

Is this any more baseless and "fantasious" than a special delivery of tablets on Mt. Sinai or the book of Deuteronomy suddenly showing up in a temple just when it was needed? Archaeologists have known for decades there's no historical reality to the Exodus and no evidence the Israelites were ever in Egypt, but the story is a big part of three major religions. D. Jeffery Meldrum seems to recognize this:

"But where is the archaeological or genetic evidence of Abraham? "Was there ever, thousands of years ago, a personage named Abraham," asked Tad Szulc, "whom more than three billion people--more than half of humanity--venerate as the father, patriarch, and spiritual ancestor of their faiths [2 billion Christians, 1.5 billion Muslims, 15 million Jews]?"26 Neither in Babylon nor Egypt is an archaeological trace of Abraham to be found. Manfred Bietak, chairman of the Institute of Egyptology at the University of Vienna, said, "Absolutely blank.... As far as the Egyptians are concerned, ...it's as if Abraham never set foot in the delta."27 The study of the DNA of male Jews and Middle Eastern Arabs--among them Syrians, Palestinians, and Lebanese--shows to date that they share a common set of ancestors, but none can be specifically identified as Abraham. Bietak continued, "Today he still stands out as a unique spiritual figure, transcending the frontiers of great religions. However questionable the accuracy of the scriptures, however thin the archaeological and historical evidence, Jews, Christians, and Muslims still revere him as the patriarch."28 The Abrahamic covenant is an example of a meme. That meme--Abraham's testimony of God--changed the world forever."

Is the angel Moroni more or less nonsensical than the angels who appeared to Mary, or to sheep herders or who showed up in a burning bush?

Found any article from Ken Miller defending similar nonsense?
If there is a single one, then, I will be forced to conclude, his reasoning, when it comes to faith and beliefs can be as clouded as Meldrum's.

This is his page at Brown with links to several articles, including an excerpt from his book:

http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/

I haven't read them all.

Even Stephen Jay Gould advocated keeping religious traditions. About 50% of scientists profess some sort of religion. If we're to throw out their work because of a belief in unsupported mythology, we might be in trouble.

In Meldrum's case, his defense of the Book of Mormon is, in my opinion, indicates that he accepts evidences of very low quality and rely on flawed and highly biased reasonings to back his beliefs. Note that this is also pretty evident, for example, at his paper on bigfoot footprints.

Once again, those who already tender a belief are more prone to embrace a new one.

"(6) Argumentum Ad-hominem: Shoot the messenger fallacy.

This is a common logical fallacy. Argumentum ad hominem basically means that the argument becomes directed towards the individual as opposed towards the crucial issues being discussed. It is succinctly described as, attack the messenger not the message (hence – shoot the messenger). It is often seen in both politics and pseudoscience. Its aim is to undermine the position of ones opponent, by undermining the opponent personally (in a manner that is actually completely irrelevant to the debate). The hope here is that if one can discredit the individual, this by default, discredits his / her argument. It does not. The fallacy here relates to the irrelevance of the attack. It is not viable to argue against a position and then justify that argument by criticising the individual who holds it. Arguing that the proposals from the Educational minister are unlikely to work because he / she have no children of their own is hardly convincing. Furthermore, saying that Einstein or Darwin were selfish men does nothing to discredit the theories of Relativity and Evolution. They may have been the most selfish or the most unselfish of men, but this is an irrelevance as to the ‘truth’ of their scientific claims. Similarly, a cognitive neuroscientific account of strange experiences (i.e., near-death experiences) is not incorrect simply because the scientist proposing it is a skeptic. These are all examples of the ad-hominem fallacy. Any claim or theory should not be rejected solely on the basis of who holds it."

http://www.skeptics.org.uk/article....cle=Seven_fallacies_of_thought_and_reason.php

You think his evidence is of poor quality, but he's examined prints in situ and has circa 200 casts in his collection. You see weak evidence, he sees a pattern. He's scanned many of the casts and they're available for virtual examination on the Internet. He's an expert in primate foot anatomy. I don't much care if he wears crystals and douses on the weekends as long as he keeps it out of his lab.

Do you have links to creationist comments on Cryptomondo and elsewhere? I'd like to see if I recognize any of the SNs.

 

[LAL]

Yes, bone are the only way to be accurate. If the photos show a costume, that approximation can be woefully incorrect and quite worthless.

Even if one is a costume and the other a model, they still have the same (approximate) IM index that the Australopithecines had. I don't think the "hoaxers" could have known that.

If you don't like what I have to say, don't read my posts.

 

[William Parcher]

I have not previously read this about Meldrum...

Melvin Westwood:

(Dr. Jeffrey) Meldrum, associate professor of anatomy and anthropology at Idaho State University, is co-editor of a series of books on paleontology and a Mormon priesthood instructor.

Book review of Evolution and Mormonism: A Quest for Understanding

 

[LAL]

He's explained what a "priest" is in LDS and that he prefers the scouting activities with his sons.

From the same link:

"Midwest Book Review, Carl Cox

Trent Stephens and Jeffrey Meldrum have done an excellent job refuting creationists arguments, in my opinion. They give the official position of the LDS church on evolution, then review the statements that various apostles have made. They have some general comments on what evidence means. And they give good synopses of the chapters of The Origin Of Species by Charles Darwin."

I've been told believing in evolution gets Mormons excommunicated. If that's the case (and I don't know that it is) Dr. Meldrum would seem to be performing a service in trying to drag his church into the 21st century.

Would there be this hue and cry if he were a Methodist?

 

[LAL]

Let's see, I'm supposed to consider Heironimus a fraud because...

Nearly forty years after the fact Heironimus has an inaccurate recollection of the distance travelled.

That one even got to Greg Long:

"I felt my brow furrowing. Bluff Creek, where the filming would take place, wasn't even near Willow Creek. Bluff Creek was many miles north of Willow Creek. Had I caught Heironimus in a lie? Were Pat and I about to endure hours with an impostor? I concealed my feelings and continued to listen." - The Making of Bigfoot, pg. 348.

I don't think Long is a "bigfoot enthusiast". Perhaps he should have been as thorough as some of them are.

Timelines only matter when it's P&G's, huh?

 

[RayG]

Even if one is a costume and the other a model, they still have the same (approximate) IM index that the Australopithecines had. I don't think the "hoaxers" could have known that.

Who says they did? Bad science is bad science no matter how pretty you try and paint it. No matter how much you'd like to wish otherwise, an approximation from a photo (real or otherwise), doesn't measure up to having actual bones.

If you don't like what I have to say, don't read my posts.

Ah, but I find it interesting how you use pseudo-science to sell the bigfoot shuffle.

RayG

 

[captain koolaid]

Bigfeetsus are dropping dead all over the country all the time...and new ones replace the dead ones all the time. A healthy breeding population should number in the low thousands...yet they have exactly NO bodies to date....and we are supposed to find THE suit.

Hell, Bigfootianity can't (or won't) even find a film, let alone a body.

 

[Astrophotographer]

Even if one is a costume and the other a model, they still have the same (approximate) IM index that the Australopithecines had. I don't think the "hoaxers" could have known that.

Could you elaborate or provide the measurements so we can all look at these measurements and how they were done? With ambiguous landmarks in a photograph, it can be easy to arrive at preconceived values such as those of the Australopithecines. It is a matter of repeatability. Can everyone arrive at the same values or is it just these two who arrived at the same "approximate" values? Repeatability is the key and if everyone can not repeat the experiment, then it is not a very good measurement at all.

 

[kitakaze]

Even if one is a costume and the other a model, they still have the same (approximate) IM index that the Australopithecines had. I don't think the "hoaxers" could have known that.

Please show the exact measurements made by Napier and Steindorf and your source for that info, measurements and source for A. africanus, and source for correlation of A. africanus, Patterson/Gimlin hoax, and Minnesota Iceman gaff.

Please tell us "yes" or "no" if an "I just think it's interesting" is an indication that you think it's possible that the Patterson/Gimlin hoax and Minnesota Iceman gaff are in fact representatives of relict A. africanus.

Also, do you think by extension that Bigfoot as represented by these examples is a partial brachiator?

 

[kitakaze]

That one even got to Greg Long:

We were told that he remembered a trip of 20 miles as 4-5 miles, yes? He went there once near forty years ago? I'm not shaken. There's a place on Vancouver Island I'm very fond of called Tofino. I can't count how many times I've been there. Quick, ask me how far it is from Victoria, BC. I have no idea. I can throw a number out that could be way off but that's no evidence that I've never been there. Get it?

I don't think Long is a "bigfoot enthusiast".

*sigh* Bill Miller wrote the article you quoted from entitled "Who's hoaxing who with 'The Making of Bigfoot?'" Bill Miller is a Bigfoot enthusiast, yes? Let's keep up, shall we?

Timelines only matter when it's P&G's, huh?

Fair enough, how do you account for the time discrepancies regarding the film being sent for development? Also, how do you account for multiple varying account of the alleged encounter such as Patterson producing a bent stirrup and telling of being pinned beneath his horse and alternately doing a Legolas off the back of the horse one-handed?

All you've got is an incorrect recollection of distance by Heironimus compared with the mountain of crap against Patterson. Very grim.

 

[Crowlogic]

Well Bob H seems to have spent a lot of time at the Idle Hours Tavern drinking alcohol. Alcohol is not known for having a positive effect on brain function especially memory and the ability to remember so perhaps that should be taken into account.

But there are places I went only once 40 years ago that I could and have been able to tell how far thoseplaces were, how long it took to get there and the lay of the land at the time.

As for the distances concerning Bluff Creek 4 or 5 miles is a far cry from 20.

 

[Mad Hom]

But there are places I went only once 40 years ago that I could and have been able to tell how far thoseplaces were, how long it took to get there and the lay of the land at the time.

Crow feel free to refrain from applying your innate mutant GPS ability to other people. Simply because you have a knack for remembering how many miles it is to the McGillicutty's mailbox at mile marker 483 along obscure Highway 40-11-Hundred and how long by rickshaw it would take to get their if travelling into a 15 mph headwind has absolutely.....zero. ... nada... zip zilch....NO bearing whatsoever on Bob H's inability to do the same.

 

[AtomicMysteryMonster]

The legs are obviously heavily padded, and stretch fur is partially stretched already in it's neutral position (so it has some potential to stretch more one way and contract the other). The elastic tension may collapse the padding, and that makes distinguishing the joint bends through the padding harder. It introduces a variable into the equation which is not present in discussions about patty.

Okay. I forget, would ventilated stretch fabric have the same properties

If the suit has been made in the last 20 years , I'd expect it is NFT's spandex-based stretch furcloth. If it's older, maybe not.

It's probably been made in the last 20 years. But just to be sure, I'll probably contact the maker sometime after Labor Day.

I know the estimates I’ve done many of the overlays, I also know there is nothing solid to base them on. The cameras position (X, Y, Z) plays such an important role. Obviously the Z factor (altitude in this case) is most critical in the X, Y, Z formula. This unknown variable controls height perspective it can create subject height where there is none. When we add the variables of heading, pitch and bank/roll to the formula it becomes obvious that there are no still or moving images that truly line up with any frame of the film.

Ah, okay.

I believe there are three different subjects that we have used for comparison, as I recall the image, of which I believe is one of Dahindens kids comes the closest but IMO the creature could be as much as 7-9 inches taller than the subject in that image (how tall is Dahindens kid suppose to be?).

I think you might be thinking of Jim McClarin and not Dahinden's kid. Diogenes has a great comparison of McClarin and Patty walking under the same tree knot and he's the taller of the two. As I recall, Jim McClarin was 6' 5".

Anyway my plan is to do three or four sets with maybe a hundred frames each. I’m starting at 7 feet and working my way down to six. I’m not willing to give up on Maffei yet, I’m going into this with a clean slate

That's fine with me. In fact, I'm actually looking forward to seeing your final results.

One of the more astute members over at BFF just declared:

" No suit, No hoax .. "

Oh yeah, that was hilarious. If it wasn't immediately destroyed, that suit would've rotted away by now. I'm amazed that some people seem to think that a hoaxer would always keep evidence of a hoax handy or that hoaxers always confess. The "use the suit for more films" thing is bunk as well. After all, the people behind the Redwoods video hoax and the Snow Walker footage never used those suits for a second hoax.

I seem to vaguely recall a demand for how a hoaxer could fake tendons. Perhaps these links could be of use.

I just think it's interesting these two "hoaxers" came up with the same IM index for their creatures in a time when only Australopithecus africanus was known (was the scientific establishment resistant to Dart's finds or what?) and that only from skulls.

Wait, you're not still convinced that there's any truth to the Minnesota Iceman story are you? In any case, you should check out the JREF thread about the Iceman.

Even Stephen Jay Gould advocated keeping religious traditions. About 50% of scientists profess some sort of religion. If we're to throw out their work because of a belief in unsupported mythology, we might be in trouble.

The problem isn't his faith, it's how he acts when the evidence doesn't support his beliefs, as noted here and here. And let's not forget his apparent back-tracking.

I rediscovered this picture from an old fan film called "Legend of the Superbeast: Wolfman vs Godzilla" that might be of interest to some of the posters here. There's some debate over whether this film was made in the 70's or 80's. I should also note that the Godzilla costume was such a good copy of the suit from King Kong Vs. Godzilla that it was once believed that someone at Toho lent out the suit for the film! And speaking of King Kong...

 

[LAL]

Hell, Bigfootianity can't (or won't) even find a film, let alone a body.

Oh, good grief. Do you think no one's out there trying? Maybe you should be telling the field researchers how much more time and money they need to spend and what they're doing wrong.

 

[kitakaze]

But there are places I went only once 40 years ago that I could and have been able to tell how far thoseplaces were, how long it took to get there and the lay of the land at the time.

That's fantastic! What's your point?

As for the distances concerning Bluff Creek 4 or 5 miles is a far cry from 20.

You know what they both are? They're both short. If it was on foot I'd definitely remember such a difference in distance but if I was in a vehicle and talking with someone 20 miles could easily whip by and feel like 4 or 5 miles.

Maybe I'd be inclined to place emphasis on this if one: I really loved Patty and wanted evil Heironimus to go away. Or two: I hadn't seen him in three separate instances of Heironimus' involvement with Patterson and Gimlin, didn't know he lives on the same street as Gimlin with whom he is friends, and hadn't noted that he walks just like Patty.

You feel free to take no issue with that and consider it all just a really big fluke.

 

[Bill Munns]

AMM:

"Originally Posted by Bill Munns
The legs are obviously heavily padded, and stretch fur is partially stretched already in it's neutral position (so it has some potential to stretch more one way and contract the other). The elastic tension may collapse the padding, and that makes distinguishing the joint bends through the padding harder. It introduces a variable into the equation which is not present in discussions about patty.

(Your quote) "Okay. I forget, would ventilated stretch fabric have the same properties/"

Most ventilated hairwork isn't on a stretch lace (in terms of true stretching all directions). Most lace stretches in one direction but compresses in the perpendicular, for hexagonal lace (6 sided holes) but square hole lace only stretches on the bias (the diagonal of the weave directions).

Wig caps used a spandex lace and hair was often tied into the cap, same ventilating knot. Elasticity was not as impressive as the NFT woven stratch furcloth.

Biggest hassle of any ventilated hairwork was lack of density, as compared to standard furcloth or NFT spandex fur. The holes in the lace generally reduce the density, because there's less base to tie hair onto. The solution to restore apparent density is to make the hair longer, so the overall hair bulk seems heavier. By longer, I mean 6" and longer.

Hair 6" and longer tends to obscure perceptions of body mass and contours. Which is why I don't think Patty's hair is long.

Bill

 

[kitakaze]

Oh, good grief. Do you think no one's out there trying?

That we be called a sore spot, mentioning the fact that the PGF is MIA. Why is that? What great effort is required? We know where Patricia Patterson is. We know where John Green is. Why don't we know where the PGF is? Yeah, forget about body, you don't even have a film.

Maybe you should be telling the field researchers how much more time and money they need to spend and what they're doing wrong.

Yes, isn't that funny how we have sasquatches across the continent, sasquatch researchers across the continent, but no sasquatch researchers with sasquatches to research.

If sasquatches were anything other than a social construct we would have a body long, long ago. Bigfoot enthusiasts assertion otherwise has to be one of the most ludicrous example of woo out there. It makes crystals seem tame. It's just fall down stupid, really.