Bigfoot - The Patterson-Gimlin Film

[RayG]

As soon as you guys get through establishing BH's IM index is really 88, we can move right along to the shoulder joints being a foot farther apart than McClarin's and Ray can dig out the chessboards again.

How it was determined that Patty's shoulders were a foot farther apart than McClarin's? Let me guess... a bigfoot advocate made that determination, right? Twelve INCH difference? That McClarin must have been one hell of a beanpole, a pencil with eyes, a stick with hair...

Jeeze, I'm surprised you remember the chessboards. In case you forgot, I was hoping to show that making accurate claims of shoulder-width from a photo of Patty is extremely difficult at best, and downright impossible at worst. That point was lost on many footers, that a human with no suit, shirt, fur, or padding can appear so very close to the claimed width of Patty, that we can't eliminate a human subject as a possibility. Ironically, the argument was presented by one Patty advocate that there was "forced perspective" involved because the chessboards were a foot farther away than my shoulders, even though they weren't. I guess I could have had someone hold them above my shoulders at the back of my head, but I'm guessing the end result would have been the same, I'd still look nearly as wide as Patty.

Using the known stride length he got a standing height of 78.8".

Ah yes, the old 'get the standing height from the stride length' trick. Second time I've seen someone use that pseudoscientific method.

Approximate doesn't=inacurate.

Sure it does. The only way to assure accuracy is to measure. If you were having a house built wouldn't you want the contractors to use tools of measurement instead of just eyeballing everything? I certainly would.

Don't take my word for it, even the dictionary disagrees with you on this.

ap·prox·i·mate

not perfectly accurate or correct; to estimate; almost exact or correct; not quite exact or correct: "a rough guess", "a ballpark estimate"; nearly exact; not perfectly accurate.

Synonyms: about, almost, approach, close, estimate, guess, near, reach, resemble, similar, surmised

in·ac·cu·rate

not accurate; not exact;

Synonyms: apocryphal, careless, defective, discrepant, erroneous, fallacious, false, faulty, incorrect, inexact, misleading, unreliable, untrue, wrong

es·ti·mate

an approximate judgment or calculation, as of the value, amount, time, size, or weight of something; to calculate approximately (the amount, extent, magnitude, position, or value of something); a tentative evaluation or rough calculation, as of worth, quantity, or size

Not surprisingly, Patty's IM index continues to be mentioned by bigfoot advocates as though it were some sort of measured scientific fact, when it is not.

Agreed. He apparently copied his rodeo rider picture too. I don't see where the Roger-the-great-artist idea came from. His own work disproves that.

You're comparing apples and potatoes. My daughter is a fantastic artist but a lousy scupltor. Patterson seems to fit that bill as well. What exactly is your point, that anyone who is excellent at drawing should also be excellent at sculpting?

Patterson drawing:

Patterson sculpture:

Those seem to be remarkably different in their artistic results.

RayG

 

[Correa Neto]

Which brings up Patterson's drawings and why they don't seem to represent the subject of the PGF. Obviously Patterson had a conception of what he thought the animals looked like and created artwork of those conceptions. Why then does the PGF creature look so unlike Patterson's own ideas? When I first saw the PGF I thought that it didn't looked at all the artist conceptions of the Yeti or other man/ape creatures that were circulating at the time.

If nothing else I think this helps disprove the idea that Patterson made the suit.

I would be more carefull when making conclusions based on such sketchy (pun intended) data.

Other posters already posted pics of Patty-like drawings from Patterson (including one that seems to be a copy- not exactly the most honest thing, but footer credo says Hieronimus is the bad guy). Some others are clearly inspired by renderings of H. erectus (previously known as pitecanthropus), like the image I included in my collage. Without a timeframe of the images, its hard to make any inferences.

One could speculate, for example, that after presenting his homo erectus-like sketches to a costume builder, by technical reasons or by cash limitations he had to stick to the brutal upright gorilla design.

Alternatively, he could have presented both designs to a costume maker, who decided to use the upright gorilla.

Or the upright gorilla was what he managed create by building or modifying a costume.

Even with the timeframe, it would still be speculation. There's no way to decide which one is closer to the truth with the information we have nowadays. What we know is that there were plenty of imagery available to Patterson as inspiration source an that some of his drawings were very similar to Patty, while others could not represent creatures of the same species. We also know that bigfoot's image changed with time.

 

[LAL]

Ah, but to get an accurate IM index one must measure the actual bones, otherwise what are you using for a measuring standard?

If and when bones or a body are brought in I'm sure the first item on the To Do list will be to see how close to the actual measurement the associate professor of anatomy came with his estimated 80-90.

And then they'll call NatGeo.

Yes, it's been pointed out numerous time to LAL, yet she continues to peddle shoddy science, because apparently, if you repeat something often enough it becomes true.

Such as that it's "shoddy science"? If the body (or parts of one) are someday brought in it may look like very good science indeed.

Longevity means nothing when you speculate. Since he hasn't provided one single bit of information about sasquatch that's been confirmed, no, I don't think he knows. He's provided us with some entertaining stories, lots of conjecture, and opinions that range from conservative to outlandish, but unless he's got a squatch sitting in a freezer somewhere, it all amounts to nothing.

Unless a person has a body in a freezer they shouldn't even investigate?

I am not privy to John Green's private information and he's not one to name names in print or on blogradio, so I do not know the particulars of some of the claims, but he's been "in the loop" longer than just about anyone still living.

He busted Ray Wallace when the family came forward and produced letters dating back to 1967 showing what kind of tales Ray was spinning. The media should have done a little research on that before turning it into a national circus. He wrote numerous editors about it and got nowhere.

He was present at the showing of the film in Yakima. Now maybe that's an "entertaining story", but he was there.

His Sasquatch: The Apes Among Us was published in 1978.

Copyright 1978, 1st paper edition, 1981, 2nd paper edition, 2006.

Since kitekaze has been reading Green since he was 8, I was hoping he could supply us with the correct information with no help from the audience.

 

[Astrophotographer]

If and when bones or a body are brought in I'm sure the first item on the To Do list will be to see how close to the actual measurement the associate professor of anatomy came with his estimated 80-90.

However, this was proven an inaccurate measurement by another associate professor of anthropology, Daegling. He stated you can get all sorts of measurements depending on the frame selected. The key here is reproducability. If everyone can not get the same approximate number (within a margin of error) then it is not an accurate measurement. So parading the vague 80-90 value around is a not an exact measurement and only a measurement that a person who is a known bigfoot proponent acquired. If you can demonstrate a dozen other professors with no position on bigfoot all got 88, then you might have a case. Again, what is the margin for error on these measurements? Without a margin for error, your 80-90 is meaningless.

 

[tyr_13]

If and when bones or a body are brought in I'm sure the first item on the To Do list will be to see how close to the actual measurement the associate professor of anatomy came with his estimated 80-90.



Since kitekaze has been reading Green since he was 8, I was hoping he could supply us with the correct information with no help from the audience.

Did you just admit that the measurements aren't useful without the bones? Doesn't this, you know, undermind your point about it being proof against patty being a guy in a suit? Doublespeak?

And did you also just call the rest of us the audience?

 

[LAL]

How it was determined that Patty's shoulders were a foot farther apart than McClarin's? Let me guess... a bigfoot advocate made that determination, right? Twelve INCH difference? That McClarin must have been one hell of a beanpole, a pencil with eyes, a stick with hair...<snip>

We've been over all this before, including Krantz' measurements of his own very broad build. He reduced Green's height estimate and got 83% of Green's figure for the shoulder width.

I want to see Bob Heironimus holding chessboards.

Patterson drawing:

[qimg]http://www3.sympatico.ca/raygavel/rpdrawing.jpg[/qimg]

Patterson sculpture:

[qimg]http://www3.sympatico.ca/raygavel/rpsculpture.jpg[/qimg]

Those seem to be remarkably different in their artistic results.

RayG

I posted as many drawings as I had time for this morning. Since my comments seem to get twisted sometimes I made none.

More drawings:

 

[LAL]

However, this was proven an inaccurate measurement by another associate professor of anthropology, Daegling.

David Daegling who went into print (twice)with a major error on the German Air Force interscye measure? That David Daegling?

 

[Astrophotographer]

David Daegling who went into print (twice)with a major error on the German Air Force interscye measure? That David Daegling?

And there are absolutely no errors in any of Meldrum's work???? What is published elsewhere means nothing. Can you refute his statement that the measurement varies depending on the frame viewed. If not, the statement remains valid. Can you tell me exactly what unbiased measurements have been made outside the bigfoot community that arrived at the same value? As best I can tell, there are absolutely "0". You still refuse to give me the range of error for the measurements of this IM index. 1%, 5%, 10%, 25%? You are the one parrotting this line. Why can't you answer a simple question?

 

[Crowlogic]

Since kitekaze has been reading Green since he was 8, I was hoping he could supply us with the correct information with no help from the audience.

Oh come on the Kitmister is 6 at best!

 

[AtomicMysteryMonster]

Other posters already posted pics of Patty-like drawings from Patterson (including one that seems to be a copy- not exactly the most honest thing

Yep! I should also point out how that link shows some other similarities between Patterson's artwork and Patty.

I wouldn't be too hard on Patterson's sculpting skills. Let's not forget his other (and much better looking) version of his Bigfoot bust (which seems to be copied from the H. erectus bust on the left and matches up quite nicely with Patty).

And, as I've noted before, that Kunstler drawing (and Patterson's copy) bears a strong resemblence to what's seen on the bottom left picture.

Posts 75-76 here point out other features that Patty shares with Patterson artwork.

Some others are clearly inspired by renderings of H. erectus (previously known as pitecanthropus), like the image I included in my collage. Without a timeframe of the images, its hard to make any inferences.

You might find this handy.

One could speculate, for example, that after presenting his homo erectus-like sketches to a costume builder, by technical reasons or by cash limitations he had to stick to the brutal upright gorilla design.

I dunno, I think Patty looks pretty Erectus-like. I wonder if part of the reason for the claims that Patty looks apelike is due to the depictions of prehistoric humans as "ape-men" at the time. William Parcher once posted an excellent Frank Franzetta magazine cover that illustrated this nicely (and bore a resemblence to Patty).

 

[Crowlogic]

The problem I have with Patty vs Patterson's artwork is Patty's girth. All of the Patterson photos posted show a trimmer much less barrel shape.

 

[LTC8K6]

Patterson had to work with whatever actor he had. Barrel shaped is hard to hide.

Assuming it's a suit, of course.

 

[LAL]

Thank you, one and all, for your entertaining commentaries. You provide a fascinating glimpse into the diversity of thought this forum emcompasses.

Bill

You noticed that too? They don't agree on who was in the suit, or who made it, or how it was made, but they all agree that since these creatures don't exist, it must be a man in a suit. I believe audioanimatronics came up at some point, with or without a cord, but didn't get much play.

Fascinating.

 

[LAL]

And there are absolutely no errors in any of Meldrum's work????

Did I say that?

What is published elsewhere means nothing. Can you refute his statement that the measurement varies depending on the frame viewed. If not, the statement remains valid. Can you tell me exactly what unbiased measurements have been made outside the bigfoot community that arrived at the same value? As best I can tell, there are absolutely "0". You still refuse to give me the range of error for the measurements of this IM index. 1%, 5%, 10%, 25%? You are the one parrotting this line. Why can't you answer a simple question?

I don't know of anyone else doing the measurements. If you want to know his margin of error ask him.

What do you get measuring on frame 72? It's the best frame for it because the extremities are practically (but not quite) vertical. The digital skeleton can be disarticulated and the arm and leg placed next to each other. Counting part of the hand, they're the same. The IM index comes out to a precise 88 doing it that way. It's a good match for Dr. Meldrum's estimate, but he said:

"Identifying the positions of the joints on the film subject can only be approximate and the limbs are frequently oriented obliquely to the plane of the film, rendering them foreshortened to varying degrees. However, in some frames the limbs are nearly vertical, hence parallel to the filmplane, and indicate an IM index somewhere between 80 and 90, intermediate between humans and African apes.

In spite of the imprecision of this preliminary estimate, it is well beyond the mean for humans and effectively rules out a man-in-a-suit explanation for the Patterson-Gimlin film without invoking an elaborate, if not inconceivable, prosthetic contrivance to account for the appropriate positions and actions of wrist and elbow and finger flexion visible on the film. This point deserves further examination and may well rule out the probability of hoaxing."

So, it's ruled out except for skeptics.

Daegling's error was caught by a tailor.

 

[kitakaze]

The problem I have with Patty vs Patterson's artwork is Patty's girth. All of the Patterson photos posted show a trimmer much less barrel shape.

Patterson needed a large man to play the part of a female sasquatch which due to sexual dimorphism was much smaller than the males and came into human size range. They probably could not throw a Volkswagen as a male could. Given that Patterson was choosing from his associates in Yakima he undoubtedly had limited options.

BTW, John Green's books that I found in the library of my elementary school when I was eight were my first real introduction to the Bigfoot myth. They were great fun. Unfortunately when I was six I wanted to be a wizard and my mother made me wear bow ties and sweater vests to school.

 

[kitakaze]

More drawings:

Anybody else noticing a... ummm... theme?

 

[kitakaze]

Fascinating.

It would be really fascinating to learn the name of one of these other Patty claimants you've been referring to.

 

[LAL]

Holy Carp.

Good eye, wolftrax. The sculpture is similar too. I wonder about the cave man style heads that we see in Patterson's drawings and Patty. Is the shape of the head of the Patty mask the result of Patterson indicating to the designer that the head should slope back? Or more simply a matter of trying to obscure the shape of the human head within and lend to the impression of overall size? Minor speculation.

Roger thought they were early humans (very little was known about extinct hominids at the time, remember) and drew from descriptions (when he wasn't copying someone who drew from a description). It's not so odd there's a resemblance if you think that's what sasquatches look like. His cover drawing was supposed to look like a Neandertaler.

Of course, since he copied a picture from Morgan Kunstler, Kunstler now becomes a suspect as the real designer of the suit. Ah ha! The plot got even thicker!

 

[kitakaze]

Roger thought they were early humans (very little was known about extinct hominids at the time, remember)

Dude!

...and drew from descriptions (when he wasn't copying someone who drew from a description). It's not so odd there's a resemblance if you think that's what sasquatches look like. His cover drawing was supposed to look like a Neandertaler.

Dude! It's not so odd there's a resemblance between Patterson's drawings and Patty if that's what Patterson thought Bigfoots looked like?

Of course, since he copied a picture from Morgan Kunstler, Kunstler now becomes a suspect as the real designer of the suit. Ah ha! The plot got even thicker!

You're a riot. You're missing the point. William Roe's encounter made an impression on Patterson. Roe's daughter's drawing made an impression on him. The Kunstler illustration of the alleged encounter made an impression on him. He ripped it off. The PGF plays like a Roe re-enactment.

 

[kitakaze]

"In spite of the imprecision of this preliminary estimate, it is well beyond the mean for humans and effectively rules out a man-in-a-suit explanation for the Patterson-Gimlin film without invoking an elaborate, if not inconceivable, prosthetic contrivance to account for the appropriate positions and actions of wrist and elbow and finger flexion visible on the film. This point deserves further examination and may well rule out the probability of hoaxing."

Thank you, Meldrum.

Let's have a look at some critical review of the bad science in Meldrum's book, quoted from above by Lu:

Daegling.

The 1967 film of Bigfoot is defended by several assertions that are impossible to evaluate based on material in the book itself. Most incredible is the application of “reverse kinematics” to the film in which the three-dimensional movements of the film subject’s skeleton are reconstructed from the film’s two-dimensional images. How this is even theoretically - let alone methodologically - possible is never explained, but the reconstruction Meldrum champions is more clearly the result of imagination than credible forensic analysis. Meldrum recycles the argument that the film subject is too large to be a human in a costume, alternatively asserting and denying that it is possible to extract accurate absolute dimensions from the film. This might explain why he insists there is a reliable way to estimate subject height from the film, yet never manages to settle on a specific figure for stature.

Radford.

Meldrum later quotes Dr. Henner Fahrenbach, “who published a statistical analysis of reported Sasquatch dimensions” based on a collection of stories and anecdotes that Meldrum himself admits “may or may not be credible”(!). Meldrum passes of Dr. Fahrenbach’s pseudoscience as valid research, hoping readers won’t notice that Dr. Fahrenbach is not a statistician but instead a retired microscopist, a field of expertise with little or no relevance to the type of analysis he performed. (More to the point, despite Meldrum’s puzzling claim that “anecdotal data forms the basis for many valid statistical analyses,” the jumble of stories Fahrenbach analyzed is prima facie poor data, rendering his conclusions virtually worthless; as the saying goes, garbage in - garbage out. It is troubling and puzzling that Meldrum, a scientist as he keeps reminding us, doesn’t realize this.)

Dennett.

Michael Dennett was struck by the similarity between Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his commitment to spiritualism and Meldrum’s handling of Bigfoot “evidence.” Even when mediums were caught faking spirit manifestations, Doyle would not acknowledge this and persisted in his belief despite clear and contrary evidence.

Just as Doyle found evidence for ghosts, Meldrum finds evidence of Sasquatch almost everywhere. On a Bigfoot expedition in 1997, he recounts, “As I slung my pack off, a softball-sized rock sailed onto the trail a mere few feet away. There was no high point nearby from which a rock might have been dislodged by a rainstorm. Nor did it simply roll onto the trail from uphill. It had been airborne; it had been lobbed. For the first time on this excursion the hair on my neck stood on end; there was that subjective, but inescapable sense of being watched” (p. 31). For Doyle, this tale would have been proof of spirit manifestations. A more contemporary view would have identified the rock toss as a classic poltergeist event, not evidence for Sasquatch.

Crowley.

As forensic or scientific evidence for Bigfoot’s dermal ridges, the Onion Mountain cast is tainted at the very root and so falls short of even minimum standards of what is considered scientific evidence. Because Meldrum selectively presents his experts and evidence, there is no hint in Sasquatch of the many problems associated with the dermal “evidence.” In view of Meldrum’s familiarity with - and acceptance of - Crowley’s experiments demonstrating serious problems with a cornerstone of dermal ridge evidence, his chapter on this topic is inexplicable.

And now some words on Patty's arms from some Oscar winning FX guy:

Although there’s a suspicious separation of the hair at the back of the upper right arm on the forward swing, I believe the arms (sleeves) were part of the upper half of the suit. The hands look to be mid forearm length gloves as there appears (to me) to be something odd happening there.

http://www.bigfootforums.com/index.php?showtopic=8446&view=findpost&p=167899

"How about the exaggerated length of the arms- with hands that seem to move?"

Although I thought I percieved the arm length being longer than human at first, I don't believe that is the case. At any rate, there are a number of old tricks to extend the arm length.. a little. The simplest way is to merely wear the glove lower. The hand is only inserted to where the middle finger joints match the wrist joint. When the fingers are bent, the hand moves very naturally. Having built arm extensions myself, I don't believe any extensions were used in this instance.

http://www.bigfootforums.com/index.php?showtopic=8446&view=findpost&p=167915

You'll excuse me if in light of the above I find Meldrum's arguments uncompelling.