Bigfoot - The Patterson-Gimlin Film

[Roger Knights]

Patty's Thigh-to-Torso Ratio is 79% of an Average Human's Ratio

When I was taking anatomy it was a good rule of thumb [<begin-interjection>Everyone should run to Amazon and buy the three terrific “Rules of Thumb” books by Tom Parker—RK <end-interjection>] that to see if legs were in average human proportion in a picture that you would hold your hand out, measure the distance between the knee and the hip between your thumb and forefinger and then take the same measurement from hip to shoulder. In adult humans this measurement should be roughly the same.

The diagram below has been reprinted in a couple of anthropometry texts--this one is from Engineering Anthropometry Methods, by J.A. Roebuck et al., p. 176. It shows various average longitudinal body measurements as a percentage of height ("H" in the diagram). E.g., the head is "0.130H", or 13% of the height, on average. The lengths of certain body parts aren't given directly (as they would clutter the diagram with figures), but must be arithmetically "derived." Here is how I computed the two lengths you mentioned above:

Knee-to-hip: .53 (hip height) - .285 (knee height) = .245
Hip-to-shoulder-joint: .818 (shoulder height) - .53 (hip height) = .288

The human hip-to-shoulder-joint distance is thus only 85% the hip-to-shoulder-joint distance (.245 / .288). (You were measuring on the surface, as so the top of the shoulder is a bit (an inch?) above the shoulder joint, so a somewhat higher figure (88%?) would be justified. However, in what follows, I’ve compared only joint-based measurements, to keep everything on an apples-to-apples basis.)

In this photograph, it is roughly the same.

Unfortunately, your photo-image has vanished—I didn’t get a chance to measure it. Green did a profile-drawing of Patty (which I’ve also posted below). (It’s from p. 445 of his Sasquatch: the Apes Among Us). A reproduction of his diagram can be found on p. 105 of Krantz.) Measured from the diagram in Green’s book, the distances are:
knee-to-hip--21 mm.
hip to shoulder joint (the horizontal line marked with a “19”)—40 mm.
Thigh-as-%-of-torso: 21 / 40 or 53%, indicating Patty’s thigh is much shorter than her torso. (Used here to mean the portion of the body between the hip and shoulder joints.)

My measurement on the Bourtsev statuette from the cover of Perez’s Bigfoot at Bluff Creek booklet (the image posted by Parcher) yields a more conservative (and more likely) result:
Knee-to-hip: 30 mm. I measured along the midline of the thigh. I located the knee joint on a slanting-upward-to-the-right line running from the crease behind the knee to the point of the kneecap. I located the hip joint where the torso crisply intersects the front of the thigh.

Hip-to-shoulder joint: 45 mm. I measured parallel to Patty’s forward lean, and stopped where a perpendicular line starting a tad below the top of the shoulder would intersect it.

Thigh-as -%-of-torso: 30 / 45 or 67%, again indicating Patty’s thigh is much shorter than her torso. A human’s thigh is 85% of his torso; Patty’s thigh is 67% of her torso. Patty’s thigh therefore is only 79% (67 / 85) of an average human’s thigh of the same height. (The comparative figure for the lower leg should be similar.)

I urge you (or someone) to post a photo-image of Patty, with the three joint landmarks indicated on it (and ideally with the two lines drawn between them as well), and the thigh-as -%-of-torso figure worked out.

(When you are computing that figure, remember, if you are using a shot mostly from the back, as Parcher was, to lengthen her torso to compensate for her torso’s forward lean. That lean is about 30 degrees in the Bourtsev statuette, although less in frames when not turning around. To compensate for a 30-degree forward lean, add 15%. (I didn’t add any such compensation in my figures above, because I used side-views.)
/

That is a man, baby.

Check and mate, baby.

 

[Roger Knights]

PS to PS to Reply to Parcher's Post

Roger, surely the evidence is not so poor that we're reduced to debating an artistic recreation of the film subject?

As my quote above indicated, I was adding a postscript to a previous post of a couple of days earlier, namely #2616. It in turn quoted Parcher's post #1916, who started the debate on this topic. I was simply correcting mis-statements he made, such as that Bourtsev's 1973 statuette was a contemporary creation intended to deceive. Are you suggesting I should have let such remarks pass unchallenged? If not, point your pea shooter in his direction.

(BTW, my "embedded quote" didn't appear in the quote of Ray above when I clicked on the Quote button--what am I doing wrong?)

Do you mean the original film, or the film that was released for public consumption?

Yes. As I've posted on BFF, it is in limbo in a law firm's office in FL, but might eventually become viewable if various copyright/legal hassles can get sorted out. (Don't press me for details--I know no more, and don't want to know them--they give me a headache. Dave Murphy's book will have some info. on this matter.)

 

[Roger Knights]

So there you have it. Verne says he knows this because FRANK HANSEN originally asked him (Langdon) to do it and he brought in Chambers and Ball and introduced them to Hansen.

No second hand info. Just the straight poop from the first guy in Hollywood Hansen contacted.

I wasn't claiming that there was only second-hand info regarding Chamber's claim to have made the Iceman. I relayed von Puttkamer's quote of him, which is on the same level of first-hand-ness as Verne's statement, and I indicated that there was some info on the web to further support his claim.

What I was talking about was something different:

(I wonder if he (Chambers) privately told his friends he'd done this suit--or if maybe they confused this suit with the Patty suit, or he allowed them to do so?)

I was suggesting the possibility that, once Chambers' involvement with the Iceman suit became insider-knowledge in Hollywood (as I assume it did), the "rep" that gave him suggested to him that he might as well hint or say that he'd also done the Patterson suit. Or that others made that inference on their own. If others were impressed that he'd made the Iceman, maybe that influenced him to go along with their proddings to admit that he'd made a Patty costume as well. The ice-man model may have positioned him on a slippery slope, IOW.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Thanks much.

I guess the thing that strikes me about the article is, once they set out to verify what it was, they did so successfully using conventional means.

That's the way it goes when an actual animal is involved.. Who'da thunk it..

 

[RayG]

Green did a profile-drawing of Patty (which I’ve also posted below). (It’s from p. 445 of his Sasquatch: the Apes Among Us). A reproduction of his diagram can be found on p. 105 of Krantz.)

There are a couple problems with Green's drawing. Green claims his drawing is "scaled from the known length of the footprints", and he shows the stooping height of the bigfoot as 6'8", so the accuracy of the scaling is a questionable guesstimate at best. Krantz has determined the film subject was a good eight inches shorter in the stooped posture.

"I found ten frames where the full length of the foot can be seen in a vertical position. Casual estimates, by myself and others, are that about six of its foot lengths appear to equal the visible stature. Actual measurement, however, shows that in these ten frames the average is just five of its foot lengths to its height. Five times the foot length is only 6 feet (183 cm) and that must be the actual walking height of the subject." -- Grover Krantz, Big Footprints, page 97

I have other problems with Green's measurements as I pointed out on the BFF.

Green's comments:

"There is no way to establish for certain if any of the dimensions estimated for the creature in the film are accurate, but what can be established with reasonably accuracy is the length of the creature's legs and arms in relation to one another. From that ratio, which anatomists call the "intermembral index," it is simple to calculate how many inches must be added to the arms of a man of known size in order to make his arms long enough to fit the supposed suit. In my own case the answer turns out to be about 10 inches.

But in order for the arms to bend at the elbow, which they plainly do in the movie, all of that extra length has to be added to the lower arm. The result, in my case, is about 12 inches of arm above the elbow and 29 inches below it — almost as much of a monstrosity as Edward Scissorhands. The creature in the movie has normal-looking arms. It cannot be a man in a suit.

<snip>

My measurements of the film, made 36 years ago, gave the creature arms that were 30 inches from the shoulder to the wrist and legs that were 35 inches from the hip to the ground. My own measurements are about 24 inches from shoulder to wrist and 40 inches from hip to ground. Only the ratios of the measurements matter, the actual size of either the human or the creature makes no difference, and the ratios for creature and human are so much different that precise accuracy of the measurements is not significant either. The much ridiculed Patterson-Gimlin film does not show a man in a suit."

So, Green has arms that measure 24 inches shoulder to wrist, and he has determined the squatch has 30 inch arms from shoulder to wrist, a SIX inch difference. However, Green states he must add about TEN inches to his own arms to match that of the squatch. He then proceeds to add SEVENTEEN inches to his lower arm to match that of the squatch, even though there's only a six inch difference.

Doesn't add up I tell ya.

My measurement on the Bourtsev statuette from the cover of Perez’s Bigfoot at Bluff Creek booklet (the image posted by Parcher) yields a more conservative (and more likely) result:

I fail to see how we can get accurate measurements from a drawing or a carving.

RayG

 

[RayG]

I was simply correcting mis-statements he made, such as that Bourtsev's 1973 statuette was a contemporary creation intended to deceive. Are you suggesting I should have let such remarks pass unchallenged?

My comments had nothing to do with the age of the carving, nor the 'contemporary' error. It seems rather weak though, to be using an artistic recreation of the film subject as supportive evidence.

RayG

 

[Roger Knights]

Here's another word you can look up, Huntster.

Rhetorical.

Pop a rhetorical question, expect a rhetorical answer.

Yes, all these prints were made where no one would find them, yet miraculously someone with casting plaster and a camera found them.

They did? Who? When? I'm sure there have been a few cases, but it's unusual for the finder of a footprint to be the person who cast or photographed it. Probably under 25% (??) of footprints were intially discovered by the caster or cameraman. And even in those case, either:

1. The caster (e.g., Jerry Crew) wasn't usually carrying a camera or plaster when he first found it. (With more people carrying cameras today, more footprints should be photographed by the first finder from now on.) OR,

2. The footprint finder was a bigfooter exploring the area in the vicinity of a sight or sound report. In such cases, suspicion would be warranted only if he discovered the print under circumstances where he could have made it or them unobserved. (NB: Anyone who believes it would be fairly easy to create a bunch of believable-to-experts tracks should demonstrate his talent.)

Probably it would be a good idea to extensively document, retrospectively, the circumstances under which all casts & photos were taken and the prints were found, to "harden" (or soften) the evidence a bit.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

RogerNi

Check and mate, baby.

We are suppose to accept a proponent's drawing of joint placement, within what we believe is a costume ?
Did you forget which forum you were posting on ?

The shoulders and waist cannot be accurately placed..

Only the knee, and elbow can be placed, in certain frames where they are clearly bent..

Explain what is abnormaly short about the lower leg as seen in the frame RayG posted above?

Put some lines on it, and compare it to the height, minus the sagital crest ...

 

[Roger Knights]

I fail to see how we can get accurate measurements from a drawing or a carving. RayG

I would have used the photo that was posted, but it disappeared on me. I think a drawing or carving can be helpful, if it was properly done, as it can make it easier to locate body landmarks. (My suspicion is that the legs in Green's drawing are a bit too short, those in Bourtsev's statuette are a bit too long, and a photo would come out neatly in between them.)

Also, because of the file-size limit here, I've encountered problems posting photos, but my low-pixel-count line drawings have squeeked through.

(Incidentally, I can't see the image YOU posted in post #2670 either, your lower-leg challenge. Have I got something set wrong in my control panel?)

And I didn't try to get accurate measurements from a drawing, but ratios. I agree Green's 7-foot estimate is 6 inches high. His estimate of the inch-difference between his arm and Patty's is probably a bit inaccurate, and anyway it's not the proper way to go when comparing such things, primarily because it leads to complicated discussions like this one (and others of a similar ilk on BFF). Ratios are the way to go. We can use his drawings to do so, or anyway make a start.

 

[RayG]

(Incidentally, I can't see the image YOU posted in post #2670 either, your lower-leg challenge. Have I got something set wrong in my control panel?)

Are you able to see any images? Here's a repost of it from my own webspace if that helps:

Roger, I know we've been over this before, but on the BFF you've mentioned how Patty's lower leg is "disproportionately shorter", that the subject has "inhumanly short lower leg, in proportion to height", and that a man in a suit would require "legs that were inhumanly shorter."

Using this film frame, can you clearly explain (again) how you came to that conclusion?

And I didn't try to get accurate measurements from a drawing, but ratios.

I don't know if I even trust ratios from a drawing, there's no guarantee it was drawn accurately to begin with.

His estimate of the inch-difference between his arm and Patty's is probably a bit inaccurate, and anyway it's not the proper way to go when comparing such things, primarily because it leads to complicated discussions like this one (and other of a similar ilk on BFF).

A bit inaccurate? Is that like being a bit pregnant? His numbers just do not add up.

Ratios are the way to go. We can use his drawings to do so, or anyway make a start.

Ratios may be the way to go, but I prefer not to use inaccurate drawings to take those ratios from.

RayG

 

[Roger Knights]

My comments had nothing to do with the age of the carving, nor the 'contemporary' error. It seems rather weak though, to be using an artistic recreation of the film subject as supportive evidence. RayG

Where did I do that? Nowhere, that′s where. It’s such a baseless charge it never occurred to me you were making it, so I assumed you were objecting to my correction of mis-statements about the statuette.

My responses to Parcher can be divided into two sections, the first defending the carving as not being intended to "sell" the authenticity of Patty, and the second dealing with three points that had come up in the discussion of the statuette (the thigh-bulge, breast location, and body lines). These deserved consideration on their own--and I did make points therein arguing for the authenticity of the film. But there was no use of the statuette as supporting evidence in discussing those three points. I didn't even mention it.

The only reason you made this baseless charge was to zing me with your clever scoftical pea shooter. You're trigger-happy.

 

[LTC8K6]

It didn't take anyone 80 years to ID the wolverine sign. Where did you get that from, Huntster?

 

[LTC8K6]

this protrusion doesn't seem like the sort of thing one would expect on a suit

You meant on a good suit, right?

 

[LTC8K6]

Just watched a program called Weird Travels on the Travel Channel.

Subject was Bigfoot.

Craig Woolheater described this report:

http://www.bfro.net/gdb/show_report.asp?id=8547

He failed to mention the 45 foot quadrupedal leaps though, and the other impossibilities in the report.

He thought it was a good report.

I just shook my head at the TV screen.

 

[RayG]

It seems rather weak though, to be using an artistic recreation of the film subject as supportive evidence.

Where did I do that? Nowhere, that′s where. It’s such a baseless charge it never occurred to me you were making it, so I assumed you were objecting to my correction of mis-statements about the statuette.

My responses to Parcher can be divided into two sections, the first defending the carving as not being intended to "sell" the authenticity of Patty, and the second dealing with three points that had come up in the discussion of the statuette (the thigh-bulge, breast location, and body lines). These deserved consideration on their own--and I did make points therein arguing for the authenticity of the film. But there was no use of the statuette as supporting evidence in discussing those three points. I didn't even mention it.

Then I'm not sure what you were referring to when you penned this:

"But it [thigh-bulge] is prominent enough that a person closely examining the figurine would ask himself and others what it was. Therefore, the sculptor did not conceal it.

Should he have made it more prominent? Perhaps. But it’s understandable why he didn’t, especially in an early stage of the investigation: it would have diverted attention to a side-issue. Perhaps it was an authenticating feature—a thigh hernia. Perhaps it was a damning feature—a costume fold. Perhaps it was some unknown anomaly."

You even attached a thumbnail image of the statue's thigh-bulge.

The only reason you made this baseless charge was to zing me with your clever scoftical pea shooter. You're trigger-happy.

Not sure what 'charge' you think I'm making. You made reference to the thigh-bulge on the statue, even giving possibilities for what it might be -- hernia, costume fold, or anomaly. I voiced my opinion that the evidence for Patty must be very weak if we are debating a carving of Patty. My opinion has not changed, and my pea shooter is neither clever nor scoftical, regardless of your assumptions.

Now, about those 'inhumanly short lower legs'...

RayG

 

[Rachel1031]

You know, sometimes I wish some of you would commit yourselves to working out peace in the middle east. You are smart enough, and tenacious enough, to do about anything you want. Alternatively, you could work on extending human life to 100+ years! You could work on curing cancer, or reversing the aging process! God knows, I'm going to need it soon.

But at least this thread is consistently interesting. That counts for more than I'm doing!

All in fun, Rachel

 

[LTC8K6]

Just get some confirmed sasquatch sightings.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060220/ap_on_sc/tracking_wolverines

There have been several confirmed sightings over the past 10 years in the mountains above the Methow Valley, in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness and in other areas above Leavenworth, Aubry said.

The first year of the study will cost about $50,000, Aubry said. Half of the money will come from a Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management program for sensitive species. The rest will come from other state and federal sources.

 

[Huntster]

It didn't take anyone 80 years to ID the wolverine sign. Where did you get that from, Huntster?

Eighty years.
For that long, there have been only unverified sightings....

The article.

(Linked correctly this time, I think.)

The very beginning of the article.

Now, with that pointed out and before any retorts are slung, I'd like to issue my blanket statement that:

"I don't trust the media, and take everything written for publication with a grain of salt."

Call it the "skeptic" in me............................

 

[LTC8K6]

The wolverine study was not conducted to see if wolverines were there. They already accepted that the wolverines were there from the confirmed tracks and sightings over the years. The study was to determine poulations and habitats and to determine if thse wolverines were a distinct version.

After immobilizing the wolverine with a sedative, Aubry and his team quickly went to work to evaluate the health of the animal, take measurements and tissue samples for genetic analyses, and install a radio collar to report her movements to Aubry via satellite for the next 18 months. "With this technology, we can now begin to gather reliable information on the movements, home range, and habitat of wolverines in the Pacific Northwest," said Aubry.

The wolverine is a Federal Sensitive Species and a Washington State Candidate Species for protective listing. Since the mid-1990s, biologists have documented the presence of wolverines in north-central Washington via aerial surveys, remote cameras, and winter tracking.

A key reason for conducting this research is the need to understand the wolverine's habitat requirements in the Northwest and maintain the habitat without conflicting with other land uses. With help from satellites 600 miles overhead, Aubry hopes to follow wolverines in the north Cascades for at least 2 more years.

http://www.medfordnews.com/articles/index.cfm?artOID=327868&cp=10996

 

[LTC8K6]

I think I have trumped your article with more accurate info, Huntster.