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Bigfoot: Dermal Ridges & MonsterTalk

doctoratlantis

Thinker
doctoratlantis
Joined
Nov 19, 2007
Messages
186
Hello JREF Bigfooters & Skeptics!

MonsterTalk has scheduled an interview with fingerprint expert Jimmy Chilcutt on the topic of Bigfoot "dermal ridges."

Do you good folk have any questions you'd like to ask Chilcutt on this topic?

You can post them here or shoot me an e-mail at doctoratlantis@gmail.com with the subject: "Chilcutt Interview Question."

Our interview is scheduled for early next week, so if you can get them to me before Sunday I'll try and get in as many as we can.

-DA
 
Excellent news!

Of course, the no-brainer is asking what Chilcutt thinks about his past statements on Bigfoot dermal ridges and his thoughts on the work of Matt Crowley.

For example...

tube said:
I was working for a number of months on the desiccation ridge business. I sent test casts to Jimmy Chilcutt. Chilcutt decided he could not attend the Bellingham conference of 2005. When Jason Valenti, the promoter of the conference, asked Chilcutt who he thought could substitute for him, Chilcutt recommended me. Valenti invites me to speak at his conference.
Click to expand...

This would seem to indicate a tacit recognition of Crowley's findings by Chilcutt.

I, for one, am very much looking forward to this interview.
 
Is there any evidence that Bigfoot dermal ridges are anything more than casting artifacts caused by the process of plaster-casting a depression?
 
I'd like to know his coping method for dealing with never being taken seriously by rational people
:D
 
Experiments Cast Doubt on Bigfoot 'Evidence'


In the documentary video Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science, (Jimmy) Chilcutt is prominently featured and is even more forceful. "I've come to the following solid conclusions," he says. "Number one: there is a great ape living in North America, and number two: the friction ridges of this great ape are not human or of a known species. This conclusion may come as a shock to some people, but I stake my reputation on it."
Click to expand...


Those things aren't friction ridges and Chilcutt now knows this. My question would go towards how (or if) his reputation has been harmed by this. What did he really put at stake when he posed those confident claims? Was it an "empty bet" with nothing to truly lose? Does he owe an apology to both Bigfooters and skeptics because first of all he was wrong, and secondly because he never really had anything at stake in making the claim?

I'll let you sort that out to form a proper question for him.
 
Ask him if any prominent Bigfooter has ever told him that they know Bigfoot is not real, but they pretend it is for the money.
 
Blake, I think it would be a really good idea to ask Mr. Chilcutt about the Skookum cast. Check his comments here from an old interview...

Jimmy Chilcutt interview said:
JC: Right. There's three castings in all that are the basis (of comparison) for the dermal ridges - there's the one from California (found on Blue Creek Mountain Road, near Willow Creek) which was the first one I examined, then there's one from Walla Walla, Washington, also there was one other from Southern Georgia. A deputy sheriff cast it, I think in the nineties. This cast shows some real good dermal ridges and the flow pattern was the same as the ones in the Pacific Northwest.

(snip)

JO: You examined the Skookum cast?

JC: I examined the achilles heel, actually two parts of the heel, and even though there wasn't a lot of ridge detail, the flow pattern was the same as the others. It was the same type of animal.
Click to expand...

See, that's funny that he'd say the Skookum cast was the same type of animal, because ichnologist Dr. Anton Wroblewski definitively showed the Skookum cast to be the imprint of an elk in an elk wallow.

I'd like to know what he thinks about it now.
 
I agree with kit, Mr. Chilcutt needs an in-depth look at desertyeti/Dr. Wroblewski's work regarding the Skookum cast, along with a note how the same casting material used in tube's experiments was used to make the Skookum cast.

The quoted interview also brings a few new questions to mind.

1. Were there any tracks that he thought looked obviously fake until noticing the so-called "ridge detail?"

2. Was the Walla Walla cast made by Paul Freeman? I seem to recall Chillcut discovering that the dermals in a Freeman track were just human fingerprints, although some proponents argued that they were left there by mistake or are the just result of Freeman trying to spice things up on a "real" track. I occasionally still see proponents argue that the dermals vindicate some of Freeman's findings and wonder if they're referring to fingerprints or casting artifacts.

LTC8K6 said:
Those that aren't casting artifacts are left over by the hoaxer as far as I know.
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Or are misidentified wood grains or mud suction.
 
Like i heard on the Skepticality podcast: WHERE'S THE POOP?

If there's a bigfoot, and he's alive, then he eats, then he's gotta poop. so where's the poop!
 
If I were a defense lawyer (or vice-versa) and Chilcutt was an expert witness
I would love to cast doubt on his credibility; challenge his Qualifications.
I wonder where I could find some of these examples.
Might end up with some reliability issues.

Well I guess he could still awe a jury into "believing in Bigfoot" at least.
 
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I'm interested in hearing what Mr. Chilcutt has to say about casting artifacts and if some of the testing done by others has changed his perception of the alleged Bigfoot castings he has studied.

I'd also be interested in hearing Mr. Chilcutt's take on how an animal with the size of the feet represented in the castings he's examined could live throughout North America without leaving other verifiable evidence behind such as bones of those alleged feet.

Also: I'd like to hear more from Mr. Chilcutt about primate feet and his opinion of how an alleged Bigfoot can adapt to so many different types of terrain throughout North America and withstand many of the assaults on it's feet that can occur from walking barefoot in Mountainous terrain to hard-pack/rocky desert. What would be the impact or risks of foot injuries or infections?
 
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I'd like to know what he thinks of Meldrum's concession that no two tracks found in a single trackway share the same, that is identical, dermal ridges.

Surely this fact reveals that these ridges are artifacts of either the casting process or the act of imprinting the "foot" in the soil. No animal changes its dermal ridges from one step to the next; the idea is preposterous.
 
Vortigern99 said:
I'd like to know what he thinks of Meldrum's concession that no two tracks found in a single trackway share the same, that is identical, dermal ridges.

Surely this fact reveals that these ridges are artifacts of either the casting process or the act of imprinting the "foot" in the soil. No animal changes its dermal ridges from one step to the next; the idea is preposterous.
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Bingo.

I'd say this in conjunction with Mr. Chilcutt seeing dermal ridges where there are none (an elk lay) just about does it. I do not expect Mr. Chilcutt after going as far as to stake his reputation on Bigfoot dermals to say anything much more than "I just don't know anymore."
 
Thanks for all the feedback!

William Parcher said:
Experiments Cast Doubt on Bigfoot 'Evidence'





Those things aren't friction ridges and Chilcutt now knows this. My question would go towards how (or if) his reputation has been harmed by this. What did he really put at stake when he posed those confident claims? Was it an "empty bet" with nothing to truly lose? Does he owe an apology to both Bigfooters and skeptics because first of all he was wrong, and secondly because he never really had anything at stake in making the claim?

I'll let you sort that out to form a proper question for him.
Click to expand...

Lots of great questions folks - thanks!

This one is tricky. I already chatted w/ Radford about this and I think I've got a way of asking without making him end the interview abruptly. But here's the thing. I figured after Matt's findings that he'd maybe backed off of his claims but I just listened to an interview from about a week ago on a bigfoot radio show and he sounds like he's still a strong advocate for his position.

I'm very interested to see how it goes.
 
Though I hope that he can address the dermal/artifacts and move on; one way or the other.
What is his actual counter argument to Crowley's casting artifacts and why/if he still feels that it is an impression of a real animal. Other than just finding similar dermals. Has or does he plan on replicating Crowley's casting experiments.

I remember Rene dahinden telling reporter Peter Reilly "Well lets see when it comes to it again. I will explain to you why it isn't." When Peter Reilly asked "Couldn't that just be some guy in a fur suit."

Maybe Chilcutt feels he has a pretty good log in the fire so why not leave it in there and not poke it too much. (poke)
 
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