Can you see an 'FM' on the backwall in the famous Mary Kelly photograph?

[Mike J. G.]

Let me clarify me position here, Abby. I have seen no evidence which would suggest to me that Bigfoot/Yeti exists. But I don't like the expression case closed. To me, it seems to imply that the person using it possesses all knowledge that exists with regard to that particular claim and implies that they will refuse to look at any additional evidence that may come forth in the future which might call into question the position they now hold because their mind is already made up. I think that is a bad position to take regardless of the claim.

I am willing to change my mind on any position that I now hold but I need to see the evidence.

And finally, this is a thread which concerns the diary and initials on the wall. I have already contributed to hijacking it. If anyone wants to continue with a Bigfoot discussion they should probably start a new thread.

c.d.

Believe me, I've spent a million years down the cryptid rabbit hole, particularly all things Bigfoot. I knew a couple of pretty well-known hoaxers connected to the Georgia Bigfoot and then the other Bigfoot on ice they took to Vegas, I was a plane ride away from potentially being a part of that! I used to speak with former FX man turned Woo champion, Bill Munns, about his work on the Patterson film. I was a regular at practically every Bigfoot forum on earth.

There's absolutely no valid reason for suggesting that there's a possibility that a breeding population of giant hairy bipedal ape-men are evading science across not only the well traversed States of America, but the entire globe, unless you want to propose a supernatural element... And that's another mess of nonsense entirely.

I've never seen a single shred of credible evidence to suggest that it isn't case closed, except for, as I mentioned, the simple fact that we can't prove a negative. Other than that, far too much time and money has been spent on chasing legends, IMO, and it says a lot about the Maybrick scrapbook that we're in here discussing it, tbh

[The Rookie Detective]

What is odd is that a few times over the years reproductions of the photograph have been uploaded to this site and elsewhere that don't have the white reflection of the flashbulb, and thus show different or additional markings, and yet the diary's supporters still interpret the markings as "FM."

An example can be found at Jay Hartley's website.





Personally, I can't even begin to understand why he is interpreting these markings as FM.

Following from his faint red line, it looks more like a backwards J, followed by a forward J or a P or a T and then a W and another line after that....or maybe the initial mark could be interpreted as the Pi sign...

I don't get it.

To me, it looks like Mary's right hand is holding something and her arm is curled up.


This is despite her right arm being described as laying on the bed slightly bent and slightly away from her body, with her palm facing upwards.

However, this close up photo looks like her hand is holding something.

What would she have been cradling?

Or is this my eyes deceiving me?

[Lombro2]

Bill Munns is Woo? I never would have believed it.

The fact that we're still looking for an unknown, unclassified, local hominid in the Schwartzwald of Whitechapel, says a lot. That's what's central of course and deserves attention. Why no "evidence" to prove who and what he is after more than a century?

The Diary and the FM are new and incidental additions to the canon or non-canon of Ripper research. Why get worked up about it? Naysayers make it sound like it's MK Davis' Bluff Creek Massacre Theory.

Of course, that theory was his attempt to explain the anomalies he found in the P-G Film and you're always going to get flak from the P-G Proponents. You'll always tend to get the most flak from the people working from the wrong premise. Isn't that true?

[Pcdunn]

I think it was Tempus Omnia Revelat back in the day who made the excellent observation that the photographer blasted the wall for a billionth of a second with some kind of LVP flash bulb - thereby bringing to life the detail on the wall.

Patricia Cornwell said in her video that she hired a top Forensics Document Examiner to sharpen the photo of Kelly on her bed using computer processing. After examining the wall next to the bed Cornwell said she saw a very distinctive caricature of Sickert's face. She does not mention seeing the famous F.M. initials of diary fame. She might have addressed the initials somewhere else but here she does not.

If you want to hang your hat on the effect of a flash bulb doesn't computer processing trump that by a great deal?

I couldn't find the image which she claims was a caricature of Sickert's face but I have seen it before and it does look like it. A much harder feat to pull of than initials consisting of straight lines.

c.d.

I too see a vague sketch or drawing of a human face, well above the supposed "M" letter, (as well as what seems to be a sketch of a female breast under the "face"). I think, though, they're the result of pareidola, or were drawn at a different time than MJK's murder. Just too awkward a position to have been drawn by the Ripper.

[c.d.]

Yeah, Pat I see the face as well. Now some might argue that the initials are supported by the diary reference but having a suspect (Sickert) who was an artist and then seeing a caricature is also quite a coincidence. So what is more likely? That both images are the result of pareidolia or that both Maybrick and Sickert were in that room?

c.d.

[Pcdunn]

This sounds so much like the issue with the Patterson-Gimlin Film. Most people see only a fifth or sixth generation copy, but you need to go to the original master copy to get a full appreciation of Patty.

Bigfoot Proof…3 Images That Prove the Patterson-Gimlin Film is Real - YouTube

This is another example of where mainstream Ripperology follows the pattern of the Bigfoot faithful and the Patterson-Gimlin believers, just so that people get the correct application of the analogy.

As for the letter M, I see nuzzing. And I don't see the wallet on Patty's right thigh, the sagging part on the butt that looks like a separation in a costume, or where Patty stops for a second to wait for Patterson to recover himself after he trips. I see nuzzing.

Thanks for your comments and the video link. I've subscribed to the YouTuber. Must confess to being interested in Bigfoot since encountering the original article about the Patterson-Gimlin film in one of my dad's magazines.

[Lombro2]

You’re welcome, Pc.

I highly recommend MK Davis who has the best breakdowns of the P-G Film for skeptics and non-skeptics. Even if he saw pools of blood. Who cares?

[GBinOz]

Bigfoot is a modern myth, certainly in North America, much like Nessie is a modern myth born in the 1930s following the sauropod of King Kong wowing audiences in cinemas, the same can be said for similar US based lake monsters.

Hi Mike,

Would you change your mind if you actually sighted the creature?

Back in the 1980's I was in a small aluminium boat mid-morning on a fine day with my father and my brother. We were drifting the shallows of Wallaga Lake, which has a 95 mile foreshore abutting the Mount Dromedary wilderness, for flathead. Our attention was attracted by the crashing of a large creature in the forest. Suddenly it emerged onto the lake foreshore only about 30 feet away, and we had a clear unobstructed view. It was...not a Yowie, but a very large monitor lizard. We all commented that it was the biggest goanna we had ever seen. It was about 10 feet tip of nose to tip of tail and stood about 2 feet high at the shoulders. It literally lumbered along the foreshaw in plain sight. After a few minutes my father became a little nervous at the size of this animal, and started the motor and we quietly cruised away.

Since then I have realised that this creature was not a goanna, whose maximum size is about 4.5 feet. It was not a perentie. It was much larger and the perentie is a desert creature. My conclusion is that it could only be a Komodo Dragon. But while this creature originated in Australia before migrating to Indonesia, it has been considered to be extinct in Australia for 50,000 years - 10,000 years after the arrival of the aboriginal people.

So what should I think. That I didn't see this creature, even though there were 2 corroborating witnesses? Humans are a communal species, but some species are solitary. No one doubts the existence of snakes, but usually they see you before you see them, so you don't see them. In a wilderness area where a massive monitor lizard can go largely unseen, could not a more advanced species achieve the same, or more, anonymity? Just relating my experience.

I should add that there are wilderness areas in south-west Tasmania, that no man has ever seen, that could accommodate the thought to be extinct Tasmanian Tiger. Just because humans don't see it, doesn't mean it isn't there.

Cheers, George

[Mike J. G.]

Hi Mike,

Would you change your mind if you actually sighted the creature?

Back in the 1980's I was in a small aluminium boat mid-morning on a fine day with my father and my brother. We were drifting the shallows of Wallaga Lake, which has a 95 mile foreshore abutting the Mount Dromedary wilderness, for flathead. Our attention was attracted by the crashing of a large creature in the forest. Suddenly it emerged onto the lake foreshore only about 30 feet away, and we had a clear unobstructed view. It was...not a Yowie, but a very large monitor lizard. We all commented that it was the biggest goanna we had ever seen. It was about 10 feet tip of nose to tip of tail and stood about 2 feet high at the shoulders. It literally lumbered along the foreshaw in plain sight. After a few minutes my father became a little nervous at the size of this animal, and started the motor and we quietly cruised away.

Since then I have realised that this creature was not a goanna, whose maximum size is about 4.5 feet. It was not a perentie. It was much larger and the perentie is a desert creature. My conclusion is that it could only be a Komodo Dragon. But while this creature originated in Australia before migrating to Indonesia, it has been considered to be extinct in Australia for 50,000 years - 10,000 years after the arrival of the aboriginal people.

So what should I think. That I didn't see this creature, even though there were 2 corroborating witnesses? Humans are a communal species, but some species are solitary. No one doubts the existence of snakes, but usually they see you before you see them, so you don't see them. In a wilderness area where a massive monitor lizard can go largely unseen, could not a more advanced species achieve the same, or more, anonymity? Just relating my experience.

I should add that there are wilderness areas in south-west Tasmania, that no man has ever seen, that could accommodate the thought to be extinct Tasmanian Tiger. Just because humans don't see it, doesn't mean it isn't there.

Cheers, George

Allo, George,

I've no doubt that monitor lizards exist, or snakes. Tasmanian Tigers have been rumoured to be still around, but absolutely no solid evidence has ever emerged, despite the efforts of groups that are actually actively looking.

Likewise for Bigfoot, or basically any upright hairy hominid. The trouble with Bigfoot is that it's actually a modern myth. A lot of people attempt to tie it in with native legends and various other myths from back in the day, and when you actually look into those claims they quickly fall apart. The natives of the Americas never once described anything remotely like a Bigfoot, and the great book by Daniel Loxton and Donald Prothero, "Abominable Science", goes into great detail in deconstructing this supposed history of Bigfoot.

In truth, Bigfoot was born in the 50s. Just as Nessie was born in the 30s. They have no actual history. If I saw a Bigfoot would I change my mind? If I wasn't drunk, absolutely. The trouble is, nobody has actually seen a Bigfoot, and when we actually go about deconstructing this so-called evidence, it quickly falls apart.

There have been e lots of documented expeditions going way back to the 1950s, from the Americas, to Russia, Asia, even Europe. Not one single shred of credible evidence has been unearthed to suggest that a viable breeding population of giant hairy bipedal ape-men are evading science across the globe. That's the trouble.

When we look at the USA, for instance, arguably where the legend was born in the 50s via Ray Wallace, you can check the BFRO (Bigfoot Field Research Organisation) map of sighting reports, and they all predominantly take place in areas not only highly populated by people, but highly populated by bears. Places that are teeming with people, loggers, scientists studying all manner of flora and fauna, outdoors people, biologists, etc. These people would be seeing evidence of Bigfoot on a weekly basis.

The best evidence for Bigfoot is still the 1967 film at Bluff creek, taken by a known conman who was in the middle of making a movie about Bigfoot based on a book about Bigfoot in which he featured a drawing, that he actually stole from another artist, which depicted the William Roe encounter with a female Bigfoot (complete with pendulous breasts) that looks suspiciously like the encounter Roger Patterson had in 1967...

Trust me when I say, I'm not being closed minded about the existence of Bigfoot. The trouble with being open minded is that you have to make sure your brain doesn't fall out!

Cheers