patterson gimlin film

[kensei]

To Amanda

There's a terrific book about the Bigfoot hoax, how and where they got the suit from, and so on. Very entertaining, though tinged with sadness because the hoaxer was terminally ill.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Making-Bigfoot-Inside-Story/dp/1591021391

And this is in my opinion the definitive book about the Nessie hoax:

http://www.amazon.com/Mystery-Solved-Science-Paranormal-Series/dp/0879752785

Interestingly both are self-generated hoaxes in the sense that they play upon the notion that here long-standing legends about these creatures.

They're weren't.

I believe I read the book on Patterson you're referencing, which I checked out from a library. If the one I read was a different one then I apologize, but I remember all too well how it spelled out the many very impressive things about Patterson in his youth but then proceeded to do a really nasty and unfounded hatchet job on him including accusing him of faking Bigfoot sightings around his home town of Yakima, Washington by running around in a Bigfoot costume without any evidence whatsotever. I had always heard the description of Patterson include "inventor" as one of his titles but never knew what he invented, and that book filled in the blank. He invented a mechanical device for rodeo competitors to practice calf roping. For that, and for a lot of other things, I thanked the book. But it made huge leaps in logic to assassinate his character. He was by no means a perfect man and had many flaws in his personality. He was the classic jack of all trades and master of none, and like many of us his integrity probably had cracks in it here and there. After all, it is known that the camera he shot the Bigfoot film on was not paid for and a warrant for his arrest was issued because of it. But that does not automatically make him a hoaxer.

And btw- both Bigfoot and Nessie are NOT creatrures of long-standing legend? That is absurd. Stories of hairy manlike giants in American Indian lore go back so far into history that they have no clear begining, and though the stories of "kelpies" or "water horses" in Scottish lakes in ancient folklore might be slightly different from modern Nessie reports there is at the very least a long history of weird things being seen in those waters.

[Jonathan H]

Everything you have written is wrong.

There are no traditions about the Bigfoot before 1958 nor Nessie before the early 30's.

Several claiming the same thing does not automatically cancel them all out.

Patterson was a fraud though a desperate one. The suit was a mailorder job.

[kensei]

Is it my imagination or are we hearing about fewer bigfoot sightings of late? Hopefully it's finally extinct.

Did you do even a cursory Google search before you posted this? Bigfoot sightings continue, scores of them every year, all across North America. The fact that the mainstream media doesn't usually choose to cover them is likely the reason for your opinion. So no, it is not extinct. I think it is amazing how people say "If Bigfoot was real it would be seen more often," when the fact is that even if they were seen a thousand times a year, after every single one of those thousand sightings those same people would repeat- "No way, if it was real it would be seen more often."

Even if Bigfoot doesn't exist, the fact that so many people report seeing it should surely be just as important a phenomena in the study of mass-hallucination. And I should be included as a test subject, because I had a brief roadside sighting of a Bigfoot when I was 8 years old. I am not crazy, and I swear to you the thing was there.

[kensei]

Everything you have written is wrong.

There are no traditions about the Bigfoot before 1958 nor Nessie before the early 30's.

Several claiming the same thing does not automatically cancel them all out.

Patterson was a fraud though a desperate one. The suit was a mailorder job.

I am almost at a loss to respond to this. To say that there were literally no stories bearing even a cursory resemblance to Bigfoot or Nessie before the dates you specifyf? Really? Saint Columba didn't claim to have driven off an aquatic monster from attacking a man in the River Ness by invoking the name of God many centuries ago? American Indians weren't telling tales of fearsome hairy giants in the woods just as long ago? I'm not saying the old stories have to exactly match the ones of today. I'm just saying that there is a precedent in history.

And if a fantastic claim is made, and then multiple people come out and claim "I was responsible for that" or "I know how such-and-such person was responsible for that" with more than one version of how it was supposedly done- well, unless one of those people presents absolutely undeniable proof of their claim, I'm afraid they do cancel each other out. If only one of them can be true, then there is the possibility that none of them are. Isn't that simple logic?

[pinkmoon]

I am almost at a loss to respond to this. To say that there were literally no stories bearing even a cursory resemblance to Bigfoot or Nessie before the dates you specifyf? Really? Saint Columba didn't claim to have driven off an aquatic monster from attacking a man in the River Ness by invoking the name of God many centuries ago? American Indians weren't telling tales of fearsome hairy giants in the woods just as long ago? I'm not saying the old stories have to exactly match the ones of today. I'm just saying that there is a precedent in history.

And if a fantastic claim is made, and then multiple people come out and claim "I was responsible for that" or "I know how such-and-such person was responsible for that" with more than one version of how it was supposedly done- well, unless one of those people presents absolutely undeniable proof of their claim, I'm afraid they do cancel each other out. If only one of them can be true, then there is the possibility that none of them are. Isn't that simple logic?

If pgf is faked show us the monkey suit and by the way the person who claims to be patty keeps changing his story .

[GUT]

If pgf is faked show us the monkey suit and by the way the person who claims to be patty keeps changing his story .

Sounds like someone to do with JtR

[Jonathan H]

What you quickly discover with Loch Ness and Bigfoot is that there are no traditions for such specific creatures that are anything like the ones that were created and/or consolidated via fakery in 1934 ("The Surgeon's Photo") and 1958 (Big, Human-like footprints).

If you read the book you will see the web of connections that created the famous faked footage, and you will see from where the suit was both ordered from and also altered to create a 'creature' unique to itself (eg. not a gorilla).

I'm sorry to be so blunt and such a kiljoy. My prejudice is for both to be true, but, sadly, neither are.

Some people forever find it hard to believe that people are pulling their leg, but they are, and were. There's something touching about that.

It can be quite soothing to watch Leonard Nimoy pontificating on the "In Search of ..." series from the 1970's. I mean that literally: soothing, escapist, reassuring fun.

I'd rather watch a whole series of that entertaining baloney, than the real world news right now ...

[kensei]

What you quickly discover with Loch Ness and Bigfoot is that there are no traditions for such specific creatures that are anything like the ones that were created and/or consolidated via fakery in 1934 ("The Surgeon's Photo") and 1958 (Big, Human-like footprints).
.

The story of the Surgeon's Photo hoax says that it was done out of revenge for the embarrassment of big game hunter Marmaduke Wetherall after he fell for a hoax while hunting for the monster. Clearly, if he was there hunting for it there had to have been prior claims that it was there before the photo was taken. The tradition of the modern day sightings may have been a relatively short one at that time but it was there and was not created by the photo.

And as for Bigfoot, just as two examples of big humanlike footprints before 1958, the prominent researcher John Green has included in his books a photo of one taken on a Canadian forest road in the early 1940s and also the famous Ruby Creek incident in which an Indian family in British Columbia fled their home in fear when a sasquatch approached. Later its big humanlike tracks were found in their garden where its weight had crushed potatoes in the ground. That was in 1941. There are numerous other examples.

[Jonathan H]

We will have to leave it at that.

I disagree with you completely and fundamentally.

I stand by everything I wrote, and regard the examples you provide as much less than what could be called 'evidence'. I am sorry, they are pathetic.

[kensei]

[QUOTE=Jonathan H;311615]We will have to leave it at that.
QUOTE]

Happily.

And in parting, we talked about things that cancel each other out. "I am sorry, they are pathetic" is an example of a sentence whose two halves do that quite effectively.

[Jonathan H]

That's the problem with being a reductionist and an absolutist.

Something is either black or it is white.

Whereas the real world (often a dull and/or disgusting place) show us that something can be many things simultaneously.

The Patterson-Gimlin film is a pathetic hoax because a dying man was trying to achieve the Big Score--and didn't. But there is something likable about the whole clunky affair that endures, a bit like the man-in-the-suit plodding along in great discomfort through the underbrush.

Long after the hoaxer has gone, and the nuts and bolts of the hustle have been exposed by a diligent writer-researcher, there are still adherents like yourself.

Whereas Nessie was an April Fool's joke that got out of hand. Even with the death-bed confirmation of the hoax in 1994. the photo still has adherents and/or the sea monster still does.

By the way, do you think an alien spaceship crashed near Roswell in 1947?

[kensei]

I left this thread almost a month ago because in my opinion it was degenerating beyond civil debate. I personally don't throw words like "pathetic" at people unless I want to seriously offend them. Seriously, that was not ok and I'm not interested in any more of that, on any subject.

But I'm returning today, on the 47th anniversary of the PG film, out of respect for the general subject because it's one I love. I didn't mention before that I've been an investigator of Bigfoot reports in my state for over 25 years. I saw one myself- just one- as a child, which makes me not just a believer but a knower. As an adult on investigations in wilderness areas I've heard their calls- again, just once- and I've found their tracks several times. I've interviewed witnesses and seen them get emotional even when telling a 20-year-old story, and others so reluctant to talk that they wouldn't until I proved my tape recorder was off. It is with those people that the real heart of the Bigfoot phenomenon lies, not in the big headline cases. No single one of those- the PG film included- is necessary for Bigfoot to exist. There is a category of sighting- broad daylight, close up, unambiguous- that leave you realizing when you sit down with these people (who I usually seek out by the way, not them coming to me) that either the creatures really are out there, or every one of these people is lying. For every big headline case there are a hundred of those mostly anonymous people, so I make this statement today for them.

So, to address what's been discussed above. First of all I was called an absolutist. Hardly, I call a hoax a hoax when I'm convinced of one. Last summer I was in an area where several people had genuine sightings and one family decided to try and cash in by creating some fake tracks. On films, I admit there are many fakes. Paul Freeman- fake. Ivan Marx- laughably fake. The list goes on.

On the assertions made here, I examined the links in post #36. I see an essay by noted skeptic Kal Korff. If memory serves, several years ago Korff insisted it was a man named Jerry Romney (aprx. 7 feet tall) in "the suit." (Romney denied it.) Now Korff has moved on to the Bob Heironimous camp. Who's to say he won't change his mind again? In the "Cracked" link it states that there's a contract showing that Patterson's backers- stated elsewhere as being ANE films- paid him $37,000 as a cameraman, with a small thumbnail of the contract. But in the link that shows the contract big enough to read, it turns out that no, it is not with ANE and is not for $37,000. It is an agreement between Patterson and a couple named George & Vilma Radford for them to lend him a mere $850 for the making of the documentary "Bigfoot- America's Abominable Snowman" (same title as his book), paid on May 26, 1967 and to be paid back within 15 days. I will concede that this contract is real, even though things written on paper are even easier to fake than Bigfoot tracks. But there is nothing damning in this. The standard story has always included the fact that Patterson was shooting his own private documentary. I did some further reading and found that Vilma Radford sued him when he never paid the money back. that's no surprise either- even Patterson's proponents admit he was no saint and loaning him money was never a good idea. And funny how he had trouble paying back $850 if he had $37,000, and how whether the film is real or fake he shot it on a rented little Cine-Kodak which he also never paid for.

Beyond those things, the entire assertion is anecdotal. It is people saying "I know this first hand." There are people who say they know first hand how Elvis faked his death, just as there are other completely different versions of how Patterson faked the film complete with people who swear they were there and know it first hand. I won't stay stuck in a debate over how someone doesn't think they cancel each other out because they've decided which version they want to believe. Much is said about how anecdotal evidence is worthless. I don't go that far but it's definitely not proof. It's just what people say. That has to be true on both sides of the fence. By the way I have consulted with a noted California Bigfooter who is much more well versed in the case than myself and he believes Patterson may in fact have worked for ANE but not until after getting the film in October 1967.

I believe (different, again, from being a knower) in the film largely because of the work of people like Bill Munns but not only him who've analyzed it and found that mathematically no human body could fit into it and still show the motion seen in the film. Basically they say you could fit either the upper or the lower body in, but not both, and that a human head just couldn't function at all in that mask. (I don't think I'll be getting Munns' book though as the reviews say he talks more about himself in it than about the film.)

So, that's where I'll leave it. I concede the PG film is not PROOF of Bigfoot, but assert that there is also no absolute proof of a hoax. So unless someone has a time machine, and since the parties involved here seem to be brick walls on our positions (and if that is what was meant by "absolutist" then I'm not the only one), the subject appears to be undebateable.

[TomTomKent]

What is interesting are some of the features of the Patterson Gimly film and surrounding story that tend to be ignored by some of the folks wanting to believe it is real. That the footage fits the staged 'documentary' that they were making at the time, that the film taken of the plaster cast being meing made of fake footprints is described as a 'trial run' for when they happen to find a real print, hat the bigfoots heel seems to flap about near the start of the film, that there is no evidence for the film being developed other than as part of the staged documentary, etc.

I still have not read the Munns book that sparked this thread, but would expect it to fit the usual pattern of discussing only the details it finds convincing and not mentioning those that there are reasons to be sceptical of. I would not be at all surprised if Munns still treats scepticism or skeptics as dirty words.

[Mayerling]

What you quickly discover with Loch Ness and Bigfoot is that there are no traditions for such specific creatures that are anything like the ones that were created and/or consolidated via fakery in 1934 ("The Surgeon's Photo") and 1958 (Big, Human-like footprints).

If you read the book you will see the web of connections that created the famous faked footage, and you will see from where the suit was both ordered from and also altered to create a 'creature' unique to itself (eg. not a gorilla).

I'm sorry to be so blunt and such a kiljoy. My prejudice is for both to be true, but, sadly, neither are.

Some people forever find it hard to believe that people are pulling their leg, but they are, and were. There's something touching about that.

It can be quite soothing to watch Leonard Nimoy pontificating on the "In Search of ..." series from the 1970's. I mean that literally: soothing, escapist, reassuring fun.

I'd rather watch a whole series of that entertaining baloney, than the real world news right now ...

Hi Jonathan,

You don't have to bother with Mr. Nimoy's old "In Search of" series. Turn on the History Channel or the Smithsonian Channel or some other "learned" channels on American cable television. There is so much blather about aliens (not immigrants as we know them but as they are in "Men in Black" films), UFOs, Loch Ness, the Yeti, and currently the second season of a series about some men digging the 'money pit" at Oak Island, Canada. There is also a series about looking for the remains of giants. I'd look to see some intelligent documentaries about, oh, "the Highland Clearances" of the 19th Century, or the Paris Commune of 1870-71, or the Anglo-German naval race at the start of the 20th Century...you know, stuff that is actually (dare I say it) historically interesting and true!! But these subjects are far less interesting about the possibility of giants roaming the Earth (even though they eventually died out a long time back).

Jeff

[Batman]

110% faked.

Sasquatch flies in the face of what we know about primate evolution (which is quite a lot because it's a modern event with lots of fossil evidence). For example, lets look at a population of endangered primate species that are quite large and homonoid looking - the Gorrilla. To exist it requires that there is a population of them. Females never leave the 'tribe'. Male primates do that. So anything big, primate, looking female and on its own is a dead giveaway that this is not natural primate behaviour. Its the sort of a behaviour some cowboys might get up to in a monkey suite though. Basically if you found sasquatch you would be finding a whole population of them, especially if you where looking at a female. So not only is the Patterson Footage completely at odds with evolutionary biology, it is completely at odds with primate behaviour. So that's the logical problem I have with what I am seeing.

As for things up with the video. You can actually see the large holes cut out for the eyes on blow ups. I think thats a dead giveaway. Primates dont show that on blow ups. Not even like shadows. Its holes in a mask.

Then we have the problem that humans have been able to recreate the patterson footage by putting other humans in a suite.

Just look up the name - Bob Heironimus. I think that name alone is enough to end speculation over how legit sasquatch is in this footage.