Bigfoot - The Patterson-Gimlin Film

[Blazer]

Some people think Bigfoot is real?

Theists often wonder how religion could be harmful. IMO, it's the fact that they teach people to suspend critical thinking. This sets a precedent for the remainder of their life, where they apply this non-thinking skill on a sporadic basis..."show me your radar gun readout to prove to me that I was speeding, officer"...verses..."yeah, I believe faith healing works". Threads like these demonstrate those non-critical-thinking skills.

Bigfoot was fake. Phillip Morris (morriscostumes dot com) made the costume...no big deal, it's just a gorilla suit.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Patterson frequently describes Patty's breasts as droopy, pendant, pendulous, etc. That's pretty odd since the film doesn't show this at all.

In the very first newpaper article:

PATTERSON said he is very much certain the creature was female "because when it turned towards us for a moment, I could see its breasts hanging down and they flopped when it moved."

There is absolutely nothing of the sort on the P/G film.

Good find.. Another case of Patterson, perhaps quoting his screenplay, instead of what was caught on film..


( I think his screenplay is where the ' tracking for 3.5 miles
came from too.. )

 

[LTC8K6]

From Wikipedia:

With Robert Titmus, Patterson and Gimlin returned to the site nine days later. Titmus made casts of the creature’s prints, and as best he could, plotted Patterson’s and the creature’s movements on a map.

I have seen this reported elsewhere as well. Was Titmus alone, or did P/G go back to the site with him?

 

[LTC8K6]

I don't get all the talk about gait, either. All I see is a fairly normal looking stroll, much like a human would stroll.

 

[LTC8K6]

This is from the letter Titmus wrote to Green reporting on his trip out to Bluff Creek.

Titmus misses the tracks altogether the first day.

Titmus also states that Patty's tracks continued on up the mountainside, but he did not follow them. Further complicating the issue of just when Patty is supposed to have sat and watched P/G and the 3.5 miles of tracking.

The other thing I get from this is that Titmus is saying Patty's tracks just appear where P/G first saw her. They just begin there, with no sign of where Patty entered the scene. The tracks are only of Patty leaving, none of her arriving.

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.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

The tracks then crossed
Bluff Creek and an old logging road and continued up a steep
mountainside...

Interesting since Gimlin said Patty " went up the road ( 300 yds ) and disappeared around a bend "

Gimlin also said there were no tracks after Patty left the creek.. Only a wet print on a rock.

I also find it curious that the tracks Titmus found, had survived the raging creek Gimlin described..

 

[Skeptical Greg]

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.

Huh ?

 

[LTC8K6]

Yeah, did they cover Roger's tracks with bark too?

 

[Hitch]

I don't get all the talk about gait, either. All I see is a fairly normal looking stroll, much like a human would stroll.

This was covered months ago.

Patty can't be a man in a suit because she uses a Groucho Marx style compliant gait, and it's well known that no human being can walk like Groucho Marx.


(Damn, I wish that argument was sillier than the real things said around here.)

 

[LTC8K6]

I have never read this opinion of the P/G film before. I wonder why?

Dr. William Montagna, director of the federal primate center at Beaverton, Oregon, gave
his thoughts on the film in Primate News, September 1976:

"Along with some colleagues, I had the dubious distinction of being among
the first to view this few-second-long bit of foolishness. As I sat watching
the hazy outlines of a big, black, hairy man-ape taking long, deliberate
human strides, I blushed for those scientists who spent unconscionable
amounts of time analyzing the dynamics, and angulation of the gait and the
shape of the animal, only to conclude (cautiously, mind you) that they
could not decide what it was. For real or woe, I am neither modest about
my scientific adroitness nor cautious about my convictions. Stated simply,
Patterson and friends perpetrated a hoax. As the gait, erect body, and
swing of the arms attest, their Sasquatch was a large man in a poorly
made monkey suit. Even a schoolchild would not be taken in. The crowning
irony was Patterson's touch of glamor: making his monster into a female
with large pendulous breasts. If Patterson had done his homework, he would
have known that regardless of how hirsute an animal is, its mammary
glands are always covered with such short hairs as to appear naked."

 

[Z]

But isn't it possible that this particular sasquatch was suffering from the same genetic flaw that caused tales of wolfmen early on? (Lycanthropy?)

 

[rgann]

I don't get all the talk about gait, either. All I see is a fairly normal looking stroll, much like a human would stroll.

I dont get it either, I see people stating "I tried to duplicate the walk but I failed" (at BFF), I am curious how they came up with a model in which to test. Are they using the distances between prints of the trackway?

Rick

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Curiouser and curiouser..

Considering:

" I blushed for those scientists who spent unconscionable
amounts of time analyzing the dynamics, and angulation of the gait and theshape of the animal,


When this site

http://home.nycap.rr.com/wwilliams/BigfootFAQ.html

claims:

DR. William Montagna is one of a ........

" .... growing list of professional scientists that have invested considerable time and resources examining bigfoot data as part of their profession ... "

 

[LTC8K6]

They probably are rgann, despite the fact that there is no established relationship between the P/G film and the tracks.

 

[LTC8K6]

Hmmmm.......

Napier concludes by saying, "I am convinced that the Sasquatch exists, but whether it is all that it is cracked up to be is another matter altogether. There must be something in northwest America that needs explaining, and that something leaves man-like footprints. The evidence I have adduced in favor of the reality of Sasquatch is not hard evidence; few physicists, biologists or chemists would accept it, but nevertheless, it is evidence and cannot be ignored."

This conclusion, even from such an eminent scientist, sticks in the throat of Dr. William Montagna, director of the prestigious Oregon Regional Primate Research Center. In a scathing denunciation of the Sasquatch legend and its investigators, Montagna wrote in the September Primate News: "Fascinated by the unknown and goaded by his imagination, man is forever fabricating devils and saints.... Nothing is to be gained by arguing with believers. Incapable of sifting reality from fantasy, they swear to have seen the footprints of Bigfoot or of the Abominable Snowman (Yeh-teh) and to have heard their chilling roars. Even the tricksters who perpetrate these outlandish hoaxes sometimes come to believe in the reality of their creatures." Montagna appears unwilling to at least keep an open mind on Sasquatch but other eminent scientists are pursuing their investigations.

http://www.rfthomas.clara.net/papers/williams.html

 

[LAL]

It was mentioned in that BFF thread that it looks like the sand is the same in Patterson's "fake trackway documentary" and the sandbar location where Patty walked. Interesting.

What's the thread and is there a photo?

The sand at Bluff Creek is a greyish sand-clay mix, excellent for holding prints. Patterson cast prints in the area in 1964. Remember the Slick PNW Expedition? The area had had activity for at least ten years. I'm not sure how one could tell from a photo if it's the same sand, but I'd venture to guess that sandbar isn't the only sandbar in the world with that kind of a mix.

"They" didn't go around and cover some tracks with bark, according to Gimlin.
He says he woke up during the early morning rain (October 21) and rode (in rain and darkness) back to the site to cover tracks himself alone.

Right. Roger didn't think it was necessary. Bob did. He had some cardboard Hodgson had given them, but it was a soggy mess, so he used bark instead.

When Titmus arrived at the site nine days later, he should have seen the tracks of P&G and Laverty.

And the crew with Laverty.

If it is really true that Titmus saw that four tracks had been plaster-casted (but Patterson only claimed and presented two)... it might be possible that the demo-fake-trackway created and filmed by Patterson and the "actual Patty trackway" are the same thing.

Or that someone with Laverty came back and cast a couple. With all those tracks around, would he have been able to tell for sure whose were whose? The horses were easy and P&G were wearing high heeled boots. The others might have been in work boots, but which would be from Laverty and which would be from a crew member, and why would Titmus have thought that might be important?

I have burning questions about the footages that Patterson is said to have created before and after his encounter with Patty.

Keep looking. My subscription list has vanished from BFF, but Roger Knights did a lengthy review of The Making of Bigfoot. I seem to recall some information in there.

Concerning the testimonies and trying to reconcile where Patty went after the encounter: Gimlin also said that the last time he saw Patty she was rounding a bend in the logging road about 300 yards away from him.

Right.

There's a photo of the cast from Frank Weir's fake footprint on pg.33, Krantz, Bigfoot/Sasquatch Evidence.
Weir was an "artistic anthropology student", but several anatomical errors gave it away. A photo what appear to be Wallace fake casts, copies of which were circulated in Westeern Washington, are below it but not identified as such.

 

[LAL]

I have never read this opinion of the P/G film before. I wonder why?

It was posted in the last hairy breast debate somewhere on JREF. RayG and I both used it, as I recall. I don't know why Bill didn't read it.

 

[LAL]

Curiouser and curiouser..

Considering:

" I blushed for those scientists who spent unconscionable
amounts of time analyzing the dynamics, and angulation of the gait and theshape of the animal,


When this site

http://home.nycap.rr.com/wwilliams/BigfootFAQ.html

claims:

DR. William Montagna is one of a ........

" .... growing list of professional scientists that have invested considerable time and resources examining bigfoot data as part of their profession ... "

Doesn't say he reached the same conclusions does it? At least he examined it. Is there anything more of his online? In this effort, anything over twenty minutes might be considered considerable. Some of the scientists Krantz talked to wouldn't look at all, but were happy to denounce it all to the press as faked.

There's a whole book on the film contorversy offered by Hancock House. Anyone have this one? I may get it. Perhaps it will answer some of the questions.

 

[LAL]

Some people think Bigfoot is real?

Theists often wonder how religion could be harmful. IMO, it's the fact that they teach people to suspend critical thinking. This sets a precedent for the remainder of their life, where they apply this non-thinking skill on a sporadic basis..."show me your radar gun readout to prove to me that I was speeding, officer"...verses..."yeah, I believe faith healing works". Threads like these demonstrate those non-critical-thinking skills.

Bigfoot was fake. Phillip Morris (morriscostumes dot com) made the costume...no big deal, it's just a gorilla suit.

Wrong.

I'll link to some pictures of his suits tomorrow, unless you want to do a search yourself.

In the meantime, my parents were atheist and agnostic and I'm an atheist, so don't be blaming religion for the way you think I think. I escaped the damned stuff. And I had the highest IQ every recorded at the suburban Chicago school I attended. Of course my classmates were pretty dumb..............

 

[LAL]

The other thing I get from this is that Titmus is saying Patty's tracks just appear where P/G first saw her. They just begin there, with no sign of where Patty entered the scene. The tracks are only of Patty leaving, none of her arriving.

"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. "

Remedial reading recommended.