Elbe Trackway
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rockinkt
Master Poster
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All that is well and good.
But you are used to looking at quadrupeds. Big difference. They can lift a foot up while moving forward with most or all their weight on the three planted feet. Sometimes there is very little movement indicated in the tracks - if any at all.
A bi-pedal creature moving forward using a normal stride must transfer weight and step off. That shows in the track. Each and every time.
Once you learn what to look for - it will take mere seconds to dismiss faked tracks.
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tube
Muse
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Well, it CAN'T be at grade, as that would require the substrate flowing THROUGH the solid prosthetic.
Perhaps this overhead view of the fake foot will demonstrate this. The tiny divots between the toes are where I started to hog out the gaps between the toes after the urethane cured, but I got lazy and didn't finish. Yes, there might be a ~tiny~ bit of substrate sneaking through just under the divot, but that's it.
I bought my first digital camera in 2005. I'm surprised that some of these photographs taken in 2005 or 2006 turned out as well as they did, as it was novel technology for me at the time. Perhaps now I would photograph things obliquely, to provide a better sense of depth. All my casts and prosthetics are long gone, so I'm not in a position to easily reproduce these demonstrations. This is why I keep re-posting things I created 7 years ago.
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Jodie
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Ok I'm back, I'm not sure how much these will help. I broke my cast of the fake bigfoot print during my efforts but no great loss.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/88022728@N04/8051936604/in/photostream/lightbox/
The sand came up between my toes (grade) but not on the cast if you look at the side pics.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/88022728@N04/8051936604/in/photostream/lightbox/
The sand came up between my toes (grade) but not on the cast if you look at the side pics.
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The Shrike
Philosopher
Was not Ray Wallace bipedal regardless of whether he was wearing his stompers?
Some prints looks completely static and like they were impressed perfectly from above. Those are easy to spot. Others do show evidence that could be interpreted as having resulted from a big weight-changing step-off, i.e., a flexible foot. Just ask noted physical anthropologist and primate foot anatomy expert Dr. Jeff Meldrum.
That's the skill I'm trying to develop! Right now I can dismiss them all as fakes because there's no such thing as bigfoot, but I'm trying to develop a more critical eye for aspects of the prints themselves.
tube
Muse
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Take a look at this track numbered "65" that Barackman posted here:
http://www.northamericanbigfoot.com/2012/09/the-elbe-wa-trackway.html
1. There is what looks like a sharp corner formed by the little toe and the lateral aspect of the track.
2. The leading edge of the little toe at grade is very straight.
3. There is a great deal of "digging" with the toes, suggesting a Wallace-style rigid prosthetic.
4. The soil between the toes is pushed down, especially next to the big toe, consistent with clefts between toes in a rigid prosthetic that do not run from plantar surface to dorsal surface.
http://www.northamericanbigfoot.com/2012/09/the-elbe-wa-trackway.html
1. There is what looks like a sharp corner formed by the little toe and the lateral aspect of the track.
2. The leading edge of the little toe at grade is very straight.
3. There is a great deal of "digging" with the toes, suggesting a Wallace-style rigid prosthetic.
4. The soil between the toes is pushed down, especially next to the big toe, consistent with clefts between toes in a rigid prosthetic that do not run from plantar surface to dorsal surface.
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jerrywayne
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By the recent comments above, are we to assume that the Freeman prints were not made in the fashion of Wallace, i.e., rigid or wood stompers (concerning toe breaks, for instance)?
http://www.bigfootencounters.com/articles/record_shows.htm
http://www.bigfootencounters.com/articles/record_shows.htm
TheShadow
Scholar
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Cool Jodie, now let's just hope someone doesnt come across your bigfoot tracks down by the river, or the next thing you know there will be reports of Bigfoot passing through your neigborhood in the local paper !
Jodie
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Thank you, I messed it up before I left. I didn't want to add to the footprints of ignorance already marching across South Carolina. We have a saying here to make ourselves feel better about being #49 out of 50 states, "There's always Mississippi".
LTC8K6
Penultimate Amazing
Not sure why you'd ask Meldrum. He has clearly demonstrated that he is nearly blind when it comes to tracks, imo.
http://www.isu.edu/~meldd/fxnlmorph.html
River
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Cool Jodie, now let's just hope someone doesnt come across your bigfoot tracks down by the river, or the next thing you know there will be reports of Bigfoot passing through your neigborhood in the local paper !
I love it when people prefix me with "the".
The bigfoots follow me around, they like to rock man!lol
rockinkt
Master Poster
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Yep - and only an inexperienced tracker would stop and consider those as real for a second. You have to understand that no real outdoorsman ever looked at those tracks and considered them real.
That is where Huntster and I had a falling out. He wasn't a tracker - he just happens to live in a place that has abundant wildlife. His ability to identify obvious fakes was non-existant. You may remember his tracks that he posted in BFF1 that took me more time to write why they were fake than it took me to identify them as fakes.
I'm NOT the best. I'm just competent. The vast majority of hunters are totally incompetent when it comes to actual tracking.
Flexible fakes are just as easy to spot in soft soil. There is just no resemblance to regular movement of the bone structure of the foot while the muscles adjust for balance.
If you took my advice and tried the experiments - you would see what I'm talking about.
There is NO substitution for experience.
Meldrum is no tracker. He studies bones and where the muscles attach. He certainly never spent much time observing real bi-pedal tracks or he would not have entertained for one second the tracks that he has casts of as being real.
He is may have been mistaken and lead astray by the reports of others who claimed knowledge (all of us are at some point in our lives) - but given the work of Tube and Wolftrax and Bitter Monk - he has to know he has been hoodwinked.
Instead of admitting his errors and moving on - I think he obviously has too much invested in his prior claims and loves - or needs - the spotlight and extra $$$.
I class Meldrum in the same league as Munns - complete frauds.
I'm not trying to be a jerk by repeating this: Do the experiments and see for yourself.
Yeah - I guess us old bush guys are sort of like the suit guys. The instant tells that we see are hard to explain to those who don't have the experience.
And that is not a dig or condemnation of anyone.
I'm sure Shrike can instantly tell us at fifty feet what a certain bird is that would take us an hour and a half to look up in a book - and even then we wouldn't be sure.
But nothing beats hands (or foots) on experience.
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rockinkt
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Freeman knew tracking and tracks. He probably used some sort of flexible stompers with flexible separate toes for effect. He also just used his hands and fingers to make the tracks realistic to the casual observer - which he was busted on.
Joel Hardin took one look at the most famous Freeman tracks - on site in the Mill Creek Watershed - and pronounced them fakes. I would take the opinion of Hardin over anybody when it comes to tracking and tracks.
Subsequent investigation by Rene Dahinden (a very strong proponent of Bigfoot at the time) also found a bit of an "oops" in the same trackway. The tracks in one place went left, right , left , left.
The fact that Krantz supported the tracks until he died and Meldrum still counts them as one of the best pieces of evidence of sasquatch shows just what intellectual dishonesty these two yahoos were - and are willing to - foist upon the unsuspecting public.
Spektator
Is that right?
(snip)
Subsequent investigation by Rene Dahinden (a very strong proponent of Bigfoot at the time) also found a bit of an "oops" in the same trackway. The tracks in one place went left, right , left , left.
The fact that Krantz supported the tracks until he died and Meldrum still counts them as one of the best pieces of evidence of sasquatch shows just what intellectual dishonesty these two yahoos were - and are willing to - foist upon the unsuspecting public.
Bigfoot plays hopscotch! Obviously this primate is much more advanced than we thought.
The Shrike
Philosopher
Fifty feet?! Now you are insulting me!
Seriously, I do appreciate your advice and the great patience of others helping me out in this thread.
I hope to one day invest the time in the field that I'd need to develop your critical eye for tracking. That's not just lip (fingertip?) service - I'm trying to carve out enough time in my life to become proficient in bowhunting. Tracking skills are almost completely irrelevant in field ornithology, so this is definitely a deficiency of mine and one I'll need to correct if I'm ever going to put some venison on the table.
What I've responded to in this thread, however, is not something for which the answer should be "go and learn this for yourself." The issue I had is that several people had written off the prints as "obvious fakes" without explaining and illustrating what was so obviously fake about them. As an educational forum, I think it's our responsibility to do that when we can.
Imagine if we were discussing blurry photos of some bird in the bush and I came along and pooh-poohed the rubes who had misidentified it with a statement like "That's an obvious Lincoln's Sparrow." If someone then asked me in a post to illustrate why the bird is obviously a Lincoln's Sparrow and I responded with a great description of how one learns to identify sparrows on their own . . . wouldn't you be left to wonder why the explanation wasn't as immediately obvious as you had been led to believe?
What I've learned so far is that:
1) Both prints left by living feet and rigid prosthetics can result in at least the 4 minor toes lined up as if along a straight edge. By the same token, a rigid prosthetic can make prints in which the toes make a nicely scalloped edge, provided that the form wasn't impressed too deeply.
2) The material that squishes up between the toes should be at-grade if the toes are independent as on a living foot. In contrast, any material that squishes up between toes on a rigid prosthetic should be below-grade.
Correct?
Again - and again - I very much appreciate the patience of folks trying to help me get this straight!
The Shrike
Philosopher
The tracks in one place went left, right , left , left.
Ouch! Even I could spot that one! Why isn't this little tid-bit more widely known?
The Shrike
Philosopher
Super-awesome, Jodie! I'm sorry you broke your cast, and very grateful that you took the time to do this for me.
On some of the photos it's difficult to tell if the material between the toes is at-grade or not. In at least one of them (cast print-footprint left side) it actually looks to me like it's below-grade in the footprint and at-grade in the cast print. Do you see that too?
LTC8K6
Penultimate Amazing
http://vimeo.com/26077961
Well, bigfoot experts thought this was real...
http://www.bigfootencounters.com/articles/bossburg.htm
This is the film associated with the famous Bossburg trackway and one Ivan Marx...
And they still think the tracks are real, despite the story behind them, the presence of Marx at the scene, and the fake film of the supposed bigfoot that made the tracks.
Well, bigfoot experts thought this was real...
http://www.bigfootencounters.com/articles/bossburg.htm
This is the film associated with the famous Bossburg trackway and one Ivan Marx...
And they still think the tracks are real, despite the story behind them, the presence of Marx at the scene, and the fake film of the supposed bigfoot that made the tracks.
The Shrike
Philosopher
Yes - very obvious.
Ditto.
Agreed. The depth of the toe impressions relative to that of the heel and ball screams "fake" to me. Perhaps bigfoots walk on pointe, only barely touching the rest of the foot to the substrate . . .
Yes - on this print I can see that the material between the toes has not risen to grade and instead appears tamped down!