Bigfoot - The Patterson-Gimlin Film

[LTC8K6]

Since it was quoted, I saw it.

Let's see someone produce a sasquatch suit that has muscle movement like this.

It hasn't been done yet, and it won't be done, either.

I see color shifts, light level changes, artifacts, and what looks like flaps moving. I do not really see any muscle movement. I see what you are calling muscle movement, but I don't agree.

 

[Huntster]

...I see what you are calling muscle movement, but I don't agree.

As the film subject is looking back and walking, it steps down into a slight depression, and the thigh, calf, and buttock shows a movement that stops quickly when (as I see it) the muscles contract as the weight of the subject is transferred to that leg.

If it is not muscle, what is it?

 

[Huntster]

Let's see.. Huntster says " Yes, I have an idea what that reason is. "


Then says.. " Why don't you enlighten me .. "

Taking words out of context is a very old and tired debate tactic. Usually high school debaters graduate from that before the age of 18.

Let's finish the quote, shall we Diogenes?:

Why don't you enlighten me why this is morphologically sound for bears and gorillas and not a sasquatch.

At any rate, I think I answered the question addressing someone else:

It is a fact that as both gorillas and bears age, their hindquarters grow proportionally larger than the hindquarters of younger gorillas and bears.

It is also often reported and theorized that male sasquatches are more slender at the hip and barrel chested than female sasquatches, which are often described as wide in the hips and buttocks. This is generally true of humans, as well.

Also, it is well recognized that female humans and apes grow larger hips and buttocks as they age, and also after their first offspring is born (even though that may occur at a relatively young age).

Now can you crap up an excuse of why this wouldn't also be true for a sasquatch? Or would you prefer to take some of my words out of context (yet again) in order to obfuscate the debate?

 

[UrsulaV]

It's like the Genesis story. It's a story written based on the oral traditions handed down over many, many generations who didn't have the benefit of modern science with which to explain the beginnings to today's woos of skepticism.

And, of course, you fail to notice or accept the general similarities among many of these legends.

That's lovely, Huntster, but no matter how much you patronize me, there's still a signiiiificant difference between a creation story fitting the pattern of a lot of creation stories, and a story with basis in truth. You apparently believe that sasquatch myths contain a basis in truth, i.e. that there's a big primate running around North America.

Do you thus believe that there's a comparable grain of truth to the various creation stories--namely that they're based on a Real Creature? So there really WAS a giant world cow, or a giant serpent encircling the earth? Are you trying to claim that the creation myth wherein Muskrat swims to the bottom of the ocean and brings up a pawful of mud which becomes the land is based on the actual factual existence of a continent-sized muskrat?

You're also wrong in that I don't acknowledge the similiarities between some creation myths--granted that I've never discussed the topic with you, I'm chalking this up to Yet Another Case of Huntster making sweeping generalizations about my opinions based on what you WANT the bad 'ol skeptic to believe rather than actually, y'know, asking. Obviously it's a happier world in your head if you don't trouble yourself by checking to see if your statements about my beliefs are true or not!

But that's neither here nor there. Cloud the issue all you like, Huntster, but similiarities in the basic structure of creation stories in no way shape or form count as a "basis in truth" in the same fashion that you're claiming a sasquatch legend has a basis in truth.

Unless of course you'd like to show us a film of that continent-sized Muskrat....

 

[UrsulaV]

Of course you don't. I would never expect most on this board to even accept the words of science after they've so boldly proclaimed what is and what isn't.

Scientists are allowed to disagree, Huntster. It doesn't make one of 'em not a scientist, it doesn't mean one of 'em rejects science, and I suspect you actually know this, and are just lookin' for a way to try and stick it to the people on the board, and saw an opening. (I could probably have prophesized that, but why waste time?)

Fortunately, reading back, 'pears that those were the words of Diogenes, and not the editor of Nature, who, as I would have guessed, did not making nearly so sweeping a statement about myths having a basis in fact, but merely commented that it makes it more likely that stories of unknown hominids may be based on a grain of truth.

So sorry, Huntster, "science" (or at least Nature) isn't being rejected by most of the people on the board. We're objecting to a statement by another poster in response to a much narrower and heavily hedged about statement by said editor.

 

[LTC8K6]

Science wonders how a biped can walk normally, or even "glide" along, when it's feet are sinking deeply into the soil. 3+ inches in the case of Patty, for example.

I think I would be walking funny if my feet were sinking even 2 inches into the soil.

Maybe that's just me?

My footprints would have dirt scattered all around them from withdrawing my foot from each hole, too. I'd probably have toe drag marks in each deep footprint too, from my toes hitting the front edge of each hole my foot made.

Being as heavy as I am, and sinking as deep as I do, the soil would likely rise up between my toes much of the time and be carried out of the print with my foot, leaving a print with vague or nonexistent toe marks, especially in the mud.

 

[Orthoptera]

....

The basic premise underlying anthropological writings on this subject, as I understand it, is this: Reality is not the world as it is perceived directly by the senses; reality is the world as it is perceived by the mind through the medium of the senses. Thus reality in nature is not just what we see, but what we have learned to see.

Well this is an ancient idea of course, from Plato's Parable of the Cave and beyond, and a truism, as far as it goes. Who can dispute that the mind interprets the senses? As to the notion that our view of natural phenomenon relies on cultural sensibilities, again, this seems obvious and widely accepted. I can (perhaps imperfectly) understand how a coyote can be both a simple dog and Coyote the trickster, without necessarily ascribing to that worldview. So if you are claiming (as some do) that the Sasquatch is some sort of spirit being, a creature not entirely of this world, and therefore not understandable in purely physical terms, I say fine. Enjoy your pudding. Many people treasure such poetic interpetations of the world, and this one seems harmless enough. I know one person very well who has peopled his secret world with ghosts, another who sees angels hovering everywhere. As you may have gathered, though, the JREF board is emphatically not a sympathetic audience for such notions.

But what is usually presented with the Bigfoot phenomenon in general, and the Patterson film in specific, is not that there are different realities, but rather a knowable, testable, photographable creature living undetected among us. And not just any creature, but an enormous biped with incredible abilities, a creature indeed that surpasses all known animals, including humans, in stealth, intelligence, and survivablility. This is really a spectacular and unprecedented claim, but if only those with the eyes to see can produce a Bigfoot, well, fine again. It's just that those with the "inner eye" have been utterly incapable of providing any reasonable evidence, despite many years of trying. Is sasquatch a Tinkerbell, waiting for scientists to shout out their belief?

And can you think of any creature at all that cryptozoology has posited and then produced?

 

[Skeptical Greg]

It is also often reported and theorized that male sasquatches are more slender at the hip and barrel chested than female sasquatches, which are often described as wide in the hips and buttocks. This is generally true of humans, as well.

Also, it is well recognized that female humans and apes grow larger hips and buttocks as they age, and also after their first offspring is born (even though that may occur at a relatively young age).

Now can you crap up an excuse of why this wouldn't also be true for a sasquatch? Or would you prefer to take some of my words out of context (yet again) in order to obfuscate the debate?

And the only Sas caught on film doesn’t match this reported/theorized model..

Why do you suppose that is ?

 

[LTC8K6]

It is also often reported and theorized that male sasquatches are more slender at the hip and barrel chested than female sasquatches, which are often described as wide in the hips and buttocks. This is generally true of humans, as well.

Also, it is well recognized that female humans and apes grow larger hips and buttocks as they age, and also after their first offspring is born (even though that may occur at a relatively young age).

I'll bet that Huntster made all of the above up.

Faith Hill doesn't look any wider to me.....

 

[LTC8K6]

With the gait, length of stride, locomotion and general biomechanics of the sasquatch, the general science communities by a 9 to 1 margin call the film authentic.

That's pretty bold. Wonder where they came up with that?

http://www.bigfootencounters.com/articles/gps.htm

 

[Huntster]

...You apparently believe that sasquatch myths contain a basis in truth, i.e. that there's a big primate running around North America.

You've got it backwards (yet again):

I believe there's a big primate running around North America, and they are the basis of the sasquatch "myth".

...Do you thus believe that there's a comparable grain of truth to the various creation stories--namely that they're based on a Real Creature?...

No.

...So there really WAS a giant world cow, or a giant serpent encircling the earth?...

No.

...Are you trying to claim that the creation myth wherein Muskrat swims to the bottom of the ocean and brings up a pawful of mud which becomes the land is based on the actual factual existence of a continent-sized muskrat?...

No.

...You're also wrong in that I don't acknowledge the similiarities between some creation myths--granted that I've never discussed the topic with you, I'm chalking this up to Yet Another Case of Huntster making sweeping generalizations about my opinions based on what you WANT the bad 'ol skeptic to believe rather than actually, y'know, asking....

Sort of like what you're doing here; generalizing that, since I believe in sasquatch (because thousands of people report seeing them), you ask if I believe in Giant Muskrats (which nobody reports seeing).

I guess one sweeping generalization is worth another.

...Obviously it's a happier world in your head if you don't trouble yourself by checking to see if your statements about my beliefs are true or not!...

Yes. As a matter of fact, it is.

Again, one sweeping generalization is worth another.

In fact, I figure mine are more valuable than yours.

Just like you figure yours are more valuable than mine.

Funny how that works, isn't it?

...But that's neither here nor there. Cloud the issue all you like, Huntster, but similiarities in the basic structure of creation stories in no way shape or form count as a "basis in truth" in the same fashion that you're claiming a sasquatch legend has a basis in truth....

Perhaps not.

But they do set up a pattern of the basis of understanding that existed before modern science. Further, that basis of understanding (as Henry Gee suggests) will be required to come under review as we find evidence of "the basis of truth" in some of the legends.

Sorry. That's just how science works. It ain't what you want, it's what you learn, whether you like it or not.

 

[UrsulaV]

Sort of like what you're doing here; generalizing that, since I believe in sasquatch (because thousands of people report seeing them), you ask if I believe in Giant Muskrats (which nobody reports seeing).

I guess one sweeping generalization is worth another.

It would be, except that I ASKED if you believed in giant muskrats. You just went straight on and told me what you thought I believed in. At no point did I claim that you actually believed in giant muskrats without asking first.

You, on t'other hand, went straight to telling me I denied the similarities between creation myths without ever bothering to check in with me...

 

[Correa Neto]

Apparently, by your own admission, there are widely different descriptions by eyewitnesses.

Therefore, skinny sasquatches with long legs, short arms, long, flowing red hair are occasionally seen.

So, the BBC recreation is just as accurate as the PG sasquatch, and all sightings are accurate.

Thanks for straightening me out.

You seeem to be having a problem understanding the real issue...

Everyone who has ever bothered to study bigfoot or any other cryptid should be aware of the contradiction in the descriptions obtained from sighting reports. YOU should be, since you came from BFF...

Now, suppose Patty and BBC's bigfoot are bot accurate. Explain the morphological differences, please. And since we are on this topic, provide a reasonable explanation for the morphological differences observed in the descriptions obtained from sighting reports.

Or simply answer the questions:
How does a bigfoot is supposed to look like?
And what are you backing your answer to the above question?

I don't see the seams.

2 options:
(1) put your prejudices aside
(2) go see an ophtalmologist

The feet are as theorized by Krantz and Meldrum, with a more protruding and broad heel than humans. We can see the toes very clearly in a few frames.

What about the squarefoot seen in the frames? Its nothin like Krantz and Meldrum propose. A proposal with serious flaws, as I have already said.

The large butt is, I again stress, what should be expected in a mature, female sasquatch. Many eyewitnesses have described females in this way.

Huntster, for how long would a fat mature bigfoot female survive in the wilderness?

We can use humans as a comparsion (no, bears and gorillas do not qualify). Both males and females accumulate fat tissue due to age, protein-rich diets and sedentarism. Do bigfeet live a sedentary way of life, feeding on junk food?

Note also that we accumulate fat tissues in the butt AND the belly. Can you see a swollen fat belly in Patty?

The sagital crest is unusual in female apes, but there's nothing that dictates that this cannot be so.

In other words, its an unlikely feature.

I do see the "folds" in the hide as she walks. I don't see how that establishes that it's a suit.

Because you don't want them to be folds in the cloth.

I am wrong?

The quote was provided with a link. Are you professing that:

Judy Wilson, MEd, Dip PhysEd, Dip Physio
School of Physiotherapy, University of Otago
Emma Ferris BPhty*
Anna Heckler BPhty*
Lisa Maitland, BPhty*
Carol Taylor BPhty*

are wrong?



The butt on bears, humans, gorillas, and (I will speculate) become larger with age.

The butts of female humans and gorillas become larger after bearing young, even at a relatively young age. I will speculate that the same is true of sasquatches.

I propose YOUR analysis of the question is wrong, for the reasons I wrote above. Appeal to authority noticed.

BTW, being bipedal and having well-developed gluteus maximus does not mean to have a big diaper-like butt. Imagine the size of the butts from olympic runners woukd have if you were right...

I think you've been watching too many dietary commercials.

Again, bears (North American omnivores) do, indeed, become quite fat, especially during October (autumn).

Due to a diet composed mainly of...
And how is distribution of fat in these animals? Where else Patty shouch have accumulated fat?

And what do you base that amazing knowledge on? (Here's where I pull out the weapon you so regularly use on me

Do you base this on the observation of a real live sasquatch?

Huntster, this "amazing knoweledge" (that IMHO is nothing but baseless speculation) is avaliable at most bigfoot sites. BFF, BFRO, etc. Poor diversion attempt noted.

As you can see, its pretty easy to demolish their speculations.

 

[Huntster]

....(I could probably have prophesized that, but why waste time?).....

So, as a scientist, you are open to and capable of the powers of prophesy?

...Fortunately, reading back, 'pears that those were the words of Diogenes, and not the editor of Nature, who, as I would have guessed, did not making nearly so sweeping a statement about myths having a basis in fact, but merely commented that it makes it more likely that stories of unknown hominids may be based on a grain of truth.....

Yup. (Don't listen to that Diogenes guy; he twists and turns so much it's like being in a whirlpool).

Again, your words:

...it makes it more likely that stories of unknown hominids may be based on a grain of truth....

 

[Huntster]

....So if you are claiming (as some do) that the Sasquatch is some sort of spirit being, a creature not entirely of this world, and therefore not understandable in purely physical terms, I say fine. Enjoy your pudding.....

That is not what I'm saying, and I don't like pudding. I'm a meat and rice kind of guy. Protein.

I believe that sasquatches are very high functioning apes.

Some aboriginal American peoples ascribe spiritual powers to sasquatches. Some (like the Koyukon studied by Nelson) believe that the "woodsman" were formerly humans who had committed murder or cannibalism, and were transformed into what they are now.

I have not learned to understand them in that way, have been taught that is not possible, and I have not done so.

...I know one person very well who has peopled his secret world with ghosts, another who sees angels hovering everywhere. As you may have gathered, though, the JREF board is emphatically not a sympathetic audience for such notions...

I have no knowledge or experience with ghosts, and don't "see" angels.

That said, I do not reject the possibility that ghosts exist, and I believe that angels exist.

...But what is usually presented with the Bigfoot phenomenon in general, and the Patterson film in specific, is not that there are different realities, but rather a knowable, testable, photographable creature living undetected among us. And not just any creature, but an enormous biped with incredible abilities, a creature indeed that surpasses all known animals, including humans, in stealth, intelligence, and survivablility. This is really a spectacular and unprecedented claim, but if only those with the eyes to see can produce a Bigfoot, well, fine again. It's just that those with the "inner eye" have been utterly incapable of providing any reasonable evidence, despite many years of trying....

All true.

...Is sasquatch a Tinkerbell, waiting for scientists to shout out their belief?...

No.

...And can you think of any creature at all that cryptozoology has posited and then produced?...

Only one: the giant squid.

 

[UrsulaV]

Again, your words:

...it makes it more likely that stories of unknown hominids may be based on a grain of truth....

Actually, that was me paraphrasing the views of the gent from Nature, not neccessarily a representation of what I actually believe. Tsk, and after you got so snide at Diogenes for quoting out of context, too. Ah, well.

Not that you asked, but since I fear you'd just decide you knew my opinion anyway, the same way you apparently knew my religion and my views on creation myths, let me state that I don't have any particular opinion about the influence of the hobbit discovery on the likelihood of myths of unknown hominids being true. I've yet to be adequately convinced that local myths were in fact related to or descended from the existence of the "hobbits," but I'd need to know rather more about the culture of the natives of Flores to be able to rule it out, either.

 

[UrsulaV]

So, as a scientist, you are open to and capable of the powers of prophesy?

Nope, but as a smartass, I'm open to and capable of making a snide imitation of one of your statements. Sorry to disappoint.

 

[Huntster]

....Or simply answer the questions:
How does a bigfoot is supposed to look like?.....

Adult males are commonly described as 6’ to 9’ tall, barrel chested, heavily built, long arms, fur from 1” to 4” in length (sometimes described with a “mane”, or longer hair on arms and even down the middle of the back), color includes black (predominately), brown, reddish, tan, and even white.

Adult females are commonly described as 6’ to 8’ tall, heavily built, long arms, pronounced mammary glands, often described with wide hips and large butt, fur from 1” to 4” in length (sometimes described as having longer hair on head), color includes black (predominately), brown, reddish, tan, and even white.

...And what are you backing your answer to the above question?...

From what I have read from the Green, BFRO, and other report databases.

...What about the squarefoot seen in the frames? Its nothin like Krantz and Meldrum propose. A proposal with serious flaws, as I have already said....

I see toes. Others on BFF have shown the ankle contracted and flexed. They have shown the toes contracted and flexed. The feet are very much like Krantz and Meldrum have proposed.

 

[Huntster]

Originally Posted by Huntster :

The large butt is, I again stress, what should be expected in a mature, female sasquatch. Many eyewitnesses have described females in this way.

Huntster, for how long would a fat mature bigfoot female survive in the wilderness?

We can use humans as a comparsion (no, bears and gorillas do not qualify)....

It’s frustrating to try to educate someone when they are ideologically opposed to the education. In other words, prejudiced…….

I think it’s important to inform you that I have skinned out more big game animals than I could possibly recall and count. In one winter alone (nearly 30 years ago) I skinned out many dozens of moose killed by trains while working for the railroad.

I’ve skinned out bears in both spring and fall. I’ve skinned out caribou spring, summer, fall, and winter. I’ve scraped fat from the hides of bear, marten, beaver, wolf, coyote, fox, and otter. I've even helped skin out a seal.

I cannot stress enough that the fat from wild game is not marbled in the meat (unless we are talking about deer that graze in farmer’s fields) like domestic beef. It is found between the meat and the hide, where it provides insulation to supplement the animal’s fur. It is thickest in the fall. I’ve seen the fat on a moose’s rump four inches thick. Bears commonly have fat on the rump that thick or thicker.

On the same animal, one will find very little fat (maybe an inch thick) on the upper legs or breast.

And you demand to compare the Bigfoot with a human and not other wild animals (“they don’t qualify”)?

Why do I bother answering such drivel?

Originally Posted by Huntster :

I think you've been watching too many dietary commercials.

Again, bears (North American omnivores) do, indeed, become quite fat, especially during October (autumn).

Due to a diet composed mainly of...

In the PNW in the late summer and fall; salmon, ground squirrels, berries. The same things many believe a sasquatch would eat, because they are believed to be omnivorous like bears.

 

[Nex]

[...] And you demand to compare the Bigfoot with a human and not other wild animals (“they don’t qualify”)?[...]

But... didn't you just compare squatch to humans, regarding the "diaper butt" appearance, a page or so ago? Why is it OK for you to make that comparison on this topic, but not OK for Correa Neto?

Since your comparison was to humans and gorillas, would you be OK with another comparison to humans if it included one to gorillas as well?