By the end of the day it became apparent that a few of the viewers felt that there was a possibility the whole thing was a very elaborate and expensive hoax. I felt that this possibility was so extremely remote as to be almost non-existent. (None of these individuals witnessed more than one showing, I believe). However, I did have to take into consideration the fact that I believe that I viewed the film through somewhat different eyes than most of the persons present.
Firstly I think that a taxidermist will see and retain far more detail, while watching an animal, and is probably far more qualified to recognize anything unnatural, than the average person.
Secondly, evidence I witnessed in the mountains of Northern California about ten years ago changed me from a non-believer to a believer and since that time I have spent a major portion of those years, as you know, interviewing witnesses, investigating reports, collecting evidence, casting many, many different tracks, setting up camera and live traps, tracking the creatures dozens of times, etc., all of this was in an effort to capture one of the creatures. All of this experience only strengthened the case of the existence of the creature Bigfoot/Sasquatch.
Thirdly, many years ago I saw one of these creatures at fairly close range and watched it for about ninety seconds before it walked off into the timber.
Almost none of the persons present at the showing of the film had a background of experience like this so it is not surprising that there was some variance in the conclusions arrived at.
Since I know more about tracks than film and generally feel that they will tell me a more accurate story than film, I had a very strong urge to see the tracks that were being made during the time that Roger was shooting his film. I felt that the tracks could very well prove or disprove the authenticity of the pictures. No one else present seemed inclined or able so the following day I went on to California to have a look at the tracks.
My first full day up near the end of Bluff Creek, I missed the tracks completely. I walked some 14 to 16 miles on Bluff Creek and the many feeder creeks coming into it and found nothing of any particular interest other than the fact that Roger and Bob's horse tracks were everywhere I went. I found the place where the pictures had been taken and the tracks of Bigfoot the following morning. The tracks traversed a little more than 300 feet of a rather high sand, silt and gravel bar which had a light scattering of trees growing on it, no underbrush whatever but a considerable amount of drift debris here and there. The tracks then crossed Bluff Creek and an old logging road and continued up a steep mountainside.
This is heavily timbered with some underbrush and a deep carpet of ferns. About 80 or 90 feet above the creek and logging road there was very plain evidence where Bigfoot had sat down for some time among the ferns. He was apparently watching the two men below and across the creek from him. The distance would have been approximately 125-150 yards. His position was shadowed and well screened from observation from below. His tracks continued on up the mountain but I did not follow them far. I also spent little time in trying to backtrack Bigfoot from where his tracks appeared on the sandbar since it was soon obvious that he did not come up the creek but most probably came down the mountain, up the hard road a ways and then crossed the creek onto the sandbar. It was not difficult to find the exact spot where Roger was standing when he was taking his pictures and he was in an excellent position.
I spent hours that day examining the tracks, which, for the most part, were still in very good condition considering that they were 9 or 10 days old. Roger and Bob had covered a few of them with slabs of bark etc., and these were in excellent condition. The tracks appeared perfectly natural and normal. The same as the many others that we have tracked and become so familiar with over the years, but of a slightly different size. Most of the tracks showed a great deal of foot movement, some showed a little and a few indicated almost no movement whatever. I took plaster casts of ten consecutive imprints and the casts show a vast difference in each imprint, such as toe placement, toe gripping force, pressure ridges and breaks, weight shifts, weight distribution, depth, etc. Nothing whatever here indicated that these tracks could have been faked in some manner. In fact all of the evidence pointed in the opposite direction. And no amount of thinking and imagining on my part could conceive of a method by which these tracks could have been made fictitiously.
While passing through Weaverville I had phoned my sister and brother-in-law in San Diego and invited them up to Bluff Creek for a visit after my several years away and also to see the tracks. They arrived at my camp this particular evening shortly before I was preparing to leave. We stayed over another day. Allene was a skeptic and Harry a hard-headed non-believer. Both of them left there believing in the existence of this creature. I didn't try to convince them of anything. I simply took them to where the tracks were and let them examine them to their own satisfaction and draw their own conclusions. Harry has hunted big game all of his life. He has been all over Africa, Alaska, Yukon Territory, Canada,Mexico and the U.S. and stated that this impressed him more than anything he had ever seen in the bush in all of his travels. Harry made several tests and observations, one of which was walking briskly beside the tracks to try to match their depth of up to an inch and a quarter and more in places. Harry is a 200 pounder and the best he could do was an imprint of about 1/2 of an inch on the rear portion of his shoe heel and one-eighth of an inch and less on the rest of his shoe imprint. We both agreed, considering the depth of the two imprints and the difference in the amount of bearing surface, that the creature that made these tracks would have to weigh at least 600 to 700 pounds.
