Bigfoot - The Patterson-Gimlin Film

[LTC8K6]

Perhaps some incredible video or tracks found that cannot possibly be faked (like the cripple foot tracks) would stir up the world of Sasquatchery.

Why is it any harder to fake a crippled bigfoot print? Krantz' skeletal drawing is nothing but pure speculation.

Marx is almost certainly the cripplefoot hoaxer.

 

[Huntster]

The fact that it was raining could easily acount for the lack of claw marks in Meldrum's bearfoot trackway, so why the big deal about their absence?

Again, when a bear (or even a cat) is walking, and it's foot is slipping in strata like mud, that is precisely when you would see the claws deployed.

The lack of clawmarks would be appropriate on level, stable ground, not in slick mud.

 

[Huntster]

...Should I waste my time, or do you want to reconsider your hypothesis ?

How about a simple explanation of the timeline?

Are you stating that the footprint was hoaxed?

Specifically, it was manufactured after the rainfall, yet before Laverty arrived on the scene?

Or, perhaps, that Laverty, too, was a participant in this monumental hoax?

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Is this line of debate trying to insinuate that the print photographed by Laverty is a hoax, or are we just nitpicking?

It's a real print, but just not a Bigfoot..


Looks like you are sidestepping the question of why the rain splatter is different within the print than outside..

There is no defined out line of anything that may have been covering the print either.

The suggestion would be that the print was made after the rain began to fall, which would have been after the filming took place...



P.S.

All of our damning evidence seems to be nitpicking to the credulous...

 

[Huntster]

...One of the most common complains from some footers (as well as UFOlogists, ghost "researchers", crytptozoologists, etc.) is related to the fact that skeptics question the valitidy of sighting reports as reliable evidence. The argument is somehow like "if you don't accept eyewitnesses' reports, then all our legal system is flawed, since these are its very basis".

However, it is conveniently forgotten that eyewitnesses are interrogated, questioned, if you preffer, in court. The accuracy and validity of teir testimonies are -or at least are supposed to be- checked with other sources when possible, evaluated, and contradictions in the reports are searched. Why? To avoid innacuracies, errors, mistakes, lies and hoaxes.

Do you suggest that this thread is any less inquisitive than the average court trial?

Every statment made by all involved has been hashed out repeatedly and to excess here and elsewhere. It has gone on much longer and to a much greater degree than any trial that I've listened to from a jury box.

Yet, "guilt" has not been established.

...But what happens when a skeptic starts to check the report for innacuracies and contradictions? The creduloid usually says something like:

"[Add eyewitness name here] has no reason to lie! How can you question him/her?"
"[Add eyewitness name here] is an experienced [add profession here, sometimes related to law enforcement]! How can you question him/her?"
"Are you calling [Add eyewitness name here] a liar?"

One of my reasons for believing that these creatures exist is the wide range of witness testimony, as well as the lack of witness testimony in certain areas of the continent.

Yes: some, maybe even most witness testimony cannot be held up as incontrovertible evidence.

However, the bulk of the witness testimony, combined with the lack of such in certain areas, brings added considerations into play.

Of course I have not verified all of them.
Have you?
Has anyone?

Nope. There is too much, and verification of them is impossible.

So, as a "good" skeptic, you throw it all out.

I'm impressed.........

But I think there's a good possibility that all bigfoot sightings are hoaxes, misidentifications, "daydreams", etc.

Can you say its not a real possibility?

Yes, I can.

The mathematical probability that all the testimony is false doesn't add up.

 

[Huntster]

If all sightings and stories have the be debunked before you believe in something, then you believe in EVERYTHING.

Fairies
Aliens
Psychics
Santa
Tooth Fairy

No I do not, and no I must not.

...The list goes on. This is why the burden of proof is on the one claiming a large, undiscovered primate lives in the PNW or anywhere else.

And yes, there is evidence that they are all hoaxes and misidentification. I call it the 'lack of a specimen problem.

You are hanging your hat on the lack of a specimen. Okay, that's fine.

Make sure all know your position. If you are correct, a sasquatch carcass will never be produced.

If you are incorrect, a sasquatch carcass may eventually be produced.

Then, rightfully, you should be relegated to debating other things in places like this, and prohibited from participating in further research on the newly discovered bipedal primate.

Why? Because you were no help in discovering the truth. In fact, you were a roadblock.

 

[LTC8K6]

I have already argued long ago that the print in the Laverty photo is of an obvious fake track due to the ridges or steps in the heel. You wouldn't get those from a real footprint, and the ridges should not have survived the flooding rains even if the print were covered with bark.

Water would still run under the bark and fill the print in and smooth out such details. Water should also have smoothed over the "midtarsal break" hump with the hardened and cracked sand layer. Water should have smoothed out the crisp edges, too.

To me, the print looks like it was made after the rain, in soil with a hardened surface layer that cracks, and was not rained on thereafter. This would account for the raindrops looking different inside the print, and the presence of details that should have been smoothed away by hours of heavy rain.

Later, Tube demonstrated similar prints while wearing a shoe, and plenty of pics of similar prints have been posted, made by barefoot humans.

I think the print in the Laverty photo was made by a wooden foot. Personally, I am certain of it.

There is also the question of when it started to rain. It either rained on the prints for several hours from midnight until BG covered a few of them the next morning. Or, it rained on them for an hour or two from the time BG notes that it's raining early in the morning, talks about covering them up with RP and finds out his cardboard won't work, and gets out there to cover them.

Either way, BG only covered a few of the prints and descriptions of the rain make it impossible for me to believe the Laverty photo is of a track Patty left the afternoon before.

 

[Huntster]

True... but what I did wasn't a hoax....

Bullspit. It was an attempted hoax.

....It was a test to see if people would be able to look at any suit I made with an unbiased eye....

Bullspit. It was an attempt to make your suit look better.

....It's a lot of work for someone with no skills (like me) to build a suit...

No $hit. Tell that to Patterson's gravestone.

...and I wanted to be sure that I would be presenting it to people who could understand what they were looking at. I think I got my answer....

All you got was busted. And guess what that got you?

Were you born yesterday? Didn't your mommy teach you what happens when you screw up your credibility?

...I just tried to post in answer to Huntster's request at BFF to show why that was actually Patty walking in front of my house and in my backyard (as well as respond to the others) but it seems I'm not allowed to do that.

Not only has the thread been locked, but now I'm informed that I'm on some sort of moderator watch or something and cannot post at all. Hopefully that won't be a permanent thing as that's why I left Communist China in the first place. ...

Nice try. This ain't China, and you'd better be damned glad it ain't.

They'd probably line you up alongside a pockmarked wall there and.........

Here you can appeal for sympathy and "understanding", and get it.

Hell, what else can we expect from someone who lives the Hollywood life.

Apparently I can be yelled at all day for daring to say Patty is a suit and that there's evidence for this. But it appears that testing our perceptions on this film by pretending an image of Patty is not an image of Patty to gauge our potential bias is something akin to being a name caller. I wasn't aware of that one.

Bullspit. If you weren't aware of the results of what you pulled, it's the fault of your upbringing or your cultural environment.

...An "open discussion of the Patterson-Gimlin Film" may not be that precisely. I must have wandered into the "Patty worshippers only" room by mistake....

Poor, poor, misunderstood you.

...The funny thing is that the guy running the site is supposed to be a private investigator. You'd think that he would welcome well-investigated info and experiments to be certain that what we think we are seeing is actually what is there...

Maybe, but he probably also understands the dangers of putting known perjurers on the stand.

...Unless... we've drifted away from allowing reality-based unbiased research and fallen into a cultish group-think mode....

Reality based, unbiased research includes misrepresentations?

Cults somehow don't included skeptics?

...You are right about the hoaxing thing. I could make tracks or films if I wanted....

That's what you said you were doing. You were going to build a suit with 1967 technology that would look like a real animal. Then you destroyed your credibility by applying 2006 electronic technology (from the PG film itself!), and then played like it was all part of "research" when you got busted.

How pathetic.

...It's a suit....

I'd say "prove it", but you've proved yourself unworthy of trust.

 

[LTC8K6]

Again, when a bear (or even a cat) is walking, and it's foot is slipping in strata like mud, that is precisely when you would see the claws deployed.

I have already presented my case for why that picture is of a bear's foot being dragged forward, not a foot slipping backwards. The grooves are the toe pads moving forwards after the foot didn't quite clear the mud, that's why the grooves just end. It cannot, imo, be the track of any creature slipping backwards, and this is obvious to me.

Imo, if a bear or a man or whatever had stepped in the mud and slipped back, the toe impressions should be visible at the front of the track. At the front of the track, all we see are the grooves which just end almost squarely. No toes, or rounded toe ends are there. Just cut off grooves made by the toes, but no impressions of the ends of the toes.

Imo the cast also shows the print is very shallow at the front. This is also inconsistent with stepping in the mud and then slipping backwards. There was no weight at all on the foot when the grooves end at the front of the print.

I believe a bear stepped in the mud and dragged his foot forward to make the grooves. This would erase the claw marks. This is why the grooves just end abruptly.

There is also no mud built up behind the toes. This pretty much proves that the print was not made by a foot slipping backwards to me.

 

[Huntster]

It's a real print, but just not a Bigfoot......

So, what is it? It has been claimed to be a sasquatch print. You state otherwise.

What is it, and what evidence do you present to support your allegation?

...Looks like you are sidestepping the question of why the rain splatter is different within the print than outside...

No I'm not. I don't know why, and neither do you. And, unlike you, I'm not going to throw all manner of innuendo out there, because my goal is to understand what happened, not to simply inject doubt.

As one with some training in soil compaction, I would initially speculate that the surrounding soil was loose (that's why you see the prints compacted so well), and once the soil in the print was compacted by whatever stepped there, the raindrops had a lesser effect on the compacted soil than the surrounding, looser soils. Add to that the possibility that the print in question may have been one of those that had been covered with bark by Gimlin.

...There is no defined out line of anything that may have been covering the print either....

I agree.

...The suggestion would be that the print was made after the rain began to fall, which would have been after the filming took place...

So, you are speculating that Patterson and Gimlin engaged in the print portion of the hoax after the film was shot, and before Laverty arrived on the scene, and during the rainstorm, and in the dark?

...All of our damning evidence seems to be nitpicking to the credulous...

I'm seeing a whole lot of nitpicking, and damned little "damning evidence".

 

[Huntster]

I have already argued long ago that the print in the Laverty photo is of an obvious fake track due to the ridges or steps in the heel. You wouldn't get those from a real footprint, and the ridges should not have survived the flooding rains even if the print were covered with bark....

That is speculation.

...Water would still run under the bark and fill the print in and smooth out such details. Water should also have smoothed over the "midtarsal break" hump with the hardened and cracked sand layer. Water should have smoothed out the crisp edges, too....

All that is stated without knowledge of the elevation of that particular print, the runoff paths of the rainfall, the drainage properties of that soil, etc.

You are speculating.

...To me, the print looks like it was made after the rain, in soil with a hardened surface layer that cracks, and was not rained on thereafter. This would account for the raindrops looking different inside the print, and the presence of details that should have been smoothed away by hours of heavy rain....

If the print was made, how could the raindrops look different inside the print?

Later, Tube demonstrated similar prints while wearing a shoe, and plenty of pics of similar prints have been posted, made by barefoot humans.

With the effects of rainfall? With the photos of independent spectators the next day?

I think the print in the Laverty photo was made by a wooden foot. Personally, I am certain of it.

Proof or evidence, please.

Either way, BG only covered a few of the prints and descriptions of the rain make it impossible for me to believe the Laverty photo is of a track Patty left the afternoon before.

Why is it you are so willing to believe the verbal descriptions of the rain, yet you so willingly dismiss so much of the other verbal testimony?

Are you prejudiced?

 

[Huntster]

....I believe a bear stepped in the mud and dragged his foot forward to make the grooves. This would erase the claw marks. This is why the grooves just end abruptly....

Can you present any similar bear prints, where the bear dragged it's rear foot forward through slick mud?

Can you present anybody who is willing to state that they have seen such a phenomena?

I have seen countless bear tracks, in sand, mud, and snow.

I've never seen anything like what you have described.

Indeed, like I have stated, when bears have stepped into slick strata, and it's foot slipped backwards, the claws are deployed in order to regain stability.

I have never seen a bear drag it's foot forward (especially a rear foot; I can't even imagine how that would be possible), especially in a slick, muddy environment.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Why is it you are so willing to believe the verbal descriptions of the rain, yet you so willingly dismiss so much of the other verbal testimony?

Are you prejudiced?

Are you taking obtuse lessons from Lu now ?

Let me see ...

If I am not going to question someone who said it rained,
then I shouldn't question them if they suggest the rain was being sucked back up into the sky ?

No difference between the two huh ?


Aw, c'mon .. Is that you Lu ? Is Huntster your sockpuppet ?

 

[LTC8K6]

Dude, we're all speculating...

Stepping on the soil after it has rained and dried, alters the appearance of the rain dimples, leaving only the dimples in the print affected. I thought that was obvious. This is one way you would have the look of the Laverty print photo.

With the effects of rainfall? With the photos of independent spectators the next day?

Tube, as we all know, demonstrated a midtarsal break effect, as did the photos of peoples footprints. More intentional obtuseness.....

Proof or evidence, please.

Intentional obtuseness ignored.

Why is it you are so willing to believe the verbal descriptions of the rain, yet you so willingly dismiss so much of the other verbal testimony?

Whose verbal testimony have I dismissed? Since it is " so much" I am sure you will have no trouble quoting "much" of my dismissals.

Meldrum's extrapolations of Patty's foot motions are ludicrous and don't even rise to the level of testimony. What they are based on is ridiculous in the first place. The story behind cripplefoot and Krantz's foot skeleton is pure comedy. Both of them fully deserve dismissal. Copies of the casts made in dirt.... ROFL

 

[LTC8K6]

There is absolutely no way at all in my opinion that this track was made by anything's foot slipping backwards. That is my opinion, and I am sticking to it.

 

[Correa Neto]

Do you suggest that this thread is any less inquisitive than the average court trial?

Every statment made by all involved has been hashed out repeatedly and to excess here and elsewhere. It has gone on much longer and to a much greater degree than any trial that I've listened to from a jury box.

Huntster, I wrote:

One of the most common complains from some footers (as well as UFOlogists, ghost "researchers", crytptozoologists, etc.) is related to the fact that skeptics question the valitidy of sighting reports as reliable evidence. The argument is somehow like "if you don't accept eyewitnesses' reports, then all our legal system is flawed, since these are its very basis".

However, it is conveniently forgotten that eyewitnesses are interrogated, questioned, if you preffer, in court. The accuracy and validity of teir testimonies are -or at least are supposed to be- checked with other sources when possible, evaluated, and contradictions in the reports are searched. Why? To avoid innacuracies, errors, mistakes, lies and hoaxes.

I think its quite easy to see what I am talking about. But since it seems you are having problems with it, I will repeat:

When a skeptic starts to question the reliability of eyewitnesses reports to beck a claim such as bigfoot as a real creature, creduloids say the same sort of data is used and accepted in our legal system. However, when a skeptic starts to look for contradictions and incorrections in the sighting report (what is also done in court with eyewitnesses' reports), the creduloid gets upset. Double standarts.

And regarding the statement

Yet, "guilt" has not been established.

This, Huntester, depends on the personal standards of the reader. Want a hint? Here it goes:
Is the proposal "bigfeet are real creatures" falsifiable?

One of my reasons for believing that these creatures exist is the wide range of witness testimony, as well as the lack of witness testimony in certain areas of the continent.

Yes: some, maybe even most witness testimony cannot be held up as incontrovertible evidence.

However, the bulk of the witness testimony, combined with the lack of such in certain areas, brings added considerations into play.

Have you ever seen a map with the distribution of bigfoot sightings across North America?

If you have, then perhaps it would be interesting for you to know that your above statement is at least debatable.

Remember when I asked:
Is the proposal "bigfeet are real creatures" falsifiable?

Nope. There is too much, and verification of them is impossible.

So, as a "good" skeptic, you throw it all out.

I'm impressed.........

And you? Accept it all? Parts of it? Wich ones? Based in?
Remember when I asked:
Is the proposal "bigfeet are real creatures" falsifiable?

Yes, I can.

The mathematical probability that all the testimony is false doesn't add up.

Care to show us the actual math used to calculate this probability?

 

[Correa Neto]

...snip...
Aw, c'mon .. Is that you Lu ? Is Huntster your sockpuppet ?

Despite having my own personal diferences with LAL, I honestly don't think so. Actually I hope not. Specially taking in to account what Huntster has posted in this other thread:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=52245

 

[LTC8K6]

Black bear print in a lot less mud.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Despite having my own personal diferences with LAL, I honestly don't think so. Actually I hope not. Specially taking in to account what Huntster has posted in this other thread:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=52245

I was just kidding... ( being mean today )

 

[Huntster]

Are you taking obtuse lessons from Lu now ?

Let me see ...

If I am not going to question someone who said it rained,
then I shouldn't question them if they suggest the rain was being sucked back up into the sky ?

No difference between the two huh ?


Aw, c'mon .. Is that you Lu ? Is Huntster your sockpuppet ?

You're getting rather bizarre with your posts.

I guess in that respect, nobody can ever confuse you with another.