Bigfoot - The Patterson-Gimlin Film

The burden of proof is on the claimant

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It sure is, Lu!

If only Meldrum would realize that and stop inventing all sorts of traits for an as yet imaginary foot....

I wonder if Meldrum is wasting any public money on this?

LAL said:

.............

The claim was that it's his website. It's not.

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Meldrum must be lying then..,

" The comments about the casts and footprints illustrated on my webpage and the comaprisons made between the Laverty photo are simply without merit."



Got me thinking the ' O ' word again, Lu...

Oh the blessing of a captive audience ...

http://www.bigfootforums.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=14342&view=findpost&p=300965

Here is a sneak peak of a figure from my book (chimp/lowland gorilla/mtn gorilla/sasquatch). Note the modest transition in the series from a mountain gorilla to a "typical" sasquatch foot.

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Modest transition..?

That ' typical ' sasquatch foot, looks strangely like a human foot to me.. But of course I'm not a trained anthropologist.. I'm sure I'm missing somthing when I look at feet...

So, companion book to LMS, huh ?

Can't wait .. We should have plenty of scoftic fodder , from which to operate; if the illustration above is any indication..

So, Meldrum now has a profit motive as well?

Did he get a piece of LMS?

LTC8K6 said:

It sure is, Lu!

If only Meldrum would realize that and stop inventing all sorts of traits for an as yet imaginary foot....

I wonder if Meldrum is wasting any public money on this?

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What part of "unfunded" didn't you understand? The grant he applied for was from a private foundation and was for a modest $11,5000.

I was reading an article on Darwin in SI recewntly. Seems he remained agnostic because he thought science would never be able to provide empirical evidence for the non-existence of God.

By the same token, I doubt there will ever be empirical evidence for the non-existence of Sasquatches, but all all it will take to prove their existence is a specimen.

Meldrum has over 100 casts in his collection at ISU. He's studied them extensively. They are open for inspection. The traits are evident to a trained eye.

You don't seem to have one of those if you're seeing hoaxes everywhere and honestly think that track you keep isolating from the trackway could have been made by a bear.

Correa Neto said:

So be it.

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So be it? I conveyed your thanks on the board. "Done" as in "it is done", not as in "finished".

"Mays" aside, let me remember that we've already been through this, and I also compared footprints from australopithecines (regarded as a "border species", a species that exploits the intresection of two niches or ways of life). These species had some foot flexibility, and the position of the big toe is quite different from what's seen in the Homo genus and in the alleged bigfoot footprints. And note that since they were border species, they were not fully anatomically adapted to a lifestyle such as the one adopted by Homo and bigfeet (assuming they are real and the usual suppositions about they are correct).

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Wolftrax posted on this (with no prompting from me). I'm not the only one who thinks foot flexibility is a useful trait in mountainous areas. Tree climbing may be useful for the young. I do not agree midtarsal flexibility is some undesirable trait in an habitual biped that would have to be "weeded out".

Seems the same physics arguments have been used with Australopithecines.

"Some seem to show"... Already discussed. The variablity is big. So big that it seems unlikely to have been produced by the same species. And since I find Coleman's conclusions... Well... Unlikley... Its' just another problem with bigfoot's alleged anatomy (not for Beckjord, of course).

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Beckjord's name cannot even be mentioned on BFF.

What big variability does it take for some individuals to have a thicker plantar pad than others? My own feet have changed over time. My prints today wouldn't match prints I made at thirteen, when I got my height. Does this mean I'm a different species?

And I just fail to see the footprints are 1/3 wider than humans' neither the relatively longer fingers. All I see are enlarged human feet. Again, maybe I'm being "obtuse". And even if they are, and even if they are prints from an actual bigfoot, I still think foot morphology is not compatible with a mid tarsal break.

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On average.Try a ruler.

And the casts being larger than the prints, well, that's not an excuse for changing the anatomical features in question.

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What changes? Casts just happen to be slighty larger than an actual print. Any kind of print. A print is not an exact mold, that's all. Pretty close, sometimes, especially in mud, or clayey sand.

So be it, but I made similar critics regarding pics he used in his works. Quite possibly some are fakeries while some others are misinterpretations.

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Quite possibly you're wrong. I e-mailed a specific post (not yours), with a link. Evidently he read more of the board. Are most of the comments here worth his time in your opinion?

For that particluar item, yes.

And what about the others?

The problem LAL, is the context. It was not so simple like this. And the other insinuation you posted about me at BFF (or TBFF)? Were those leaps also?

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Inserting a word of caution in a post is not a claim. The word I inserted was "claims". I claim to be female but for all you know I could be a 300 lb. male posing as a female. See what I mean? You said you work for industry, but does that mean you're still a geologist or are you someone with a degree in geology working in a related field? Or an unrelated field? No insinuation intended and no offense meant.

I threw you a compliment on TBFF, in fact. I called you a worthy opponent, or words to that effect. The poster never showed up, either. Perhaps he decided this board isn't worth his time.

These last days I've even been accused (not by you) of stalking. Is this the standard proceeding? I just remembered the BFRO X BFF war, so there's no real need to answer...

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I have no idea what you're talking about.

The war you refer to was really MMs. He's MM, not the Mafia. Many former members have joined other organizations (Dr. Meldrum is an advisor on one to make sure they "keep things scientific") and there are members there who are disgruntled because PaulUK handed out some ten day suspensions, but hey, rules are rules.

Well, if you are trying to be funny, its OK. Actually I hope you are making a joke... There's strong competition from Interesting Ian (bigfoot and QM prove materialism is wrong), American (bigfoot totally copied King Kong), WanderingWTF (bigfoot are real i can summon it with my mind theres one right behind u now), the members of the homeopathic gang (bigfeet are real and active even when there are no bigfeet molecules in the solution) and others.

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Again, I have no idea what you're talking about.

Posting on BFF is also a waste of time?

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Yep. Especially when there's little going on in the way of debate. I enjoy wasting time on message boards, though. They stretch my mind and send me off on all sorts of interesting Internet quests.

I'm wondering why I think I need to justify it. I think my mother taught me that if I'm going to have fun, I have to feel guilty about it.

I notice you do quite a bit of posting on JREF on other topics. Do you think that's a waste of time? Just curious.

If not, why? Because almost everibody there accepts bigfeet as real creatures and there's little challenging of certain dogmatic positions?

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Not everyone does and there have been plenty of knock-down-drag-out debates. Everything gets challenged. See debates on the PGF, Paul Freeman, the MIM, Memorial Day footage, fossils, and even Mary Green.

I find it boring to just read about who has what equipment and when they're going to central Oregon (not an official BFF expedition, BTW), but I wish them luck. I do feel gratified that I was able to point one I "met" on TBFF to some serious researchers. He was on his own. A cyber friend lives in the area (I didn't know that). No wonder she's so interested.

Nope. Real Life, the place where I am going again right now.

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Bye.

Diogenes said:

Oh the blessing of a captive audience ...

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Captive audience? No one forced you to join that board. Or to read it, for that matter.

Modest transition..? ..

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Yeah. The main difference is the placement of the big toe. It's farther forward and non-opposed. And the heel is wider.

That ' typical ' sasquatch foot, looks strangely like a human foot to me.. But of course I'm not a trained anthropologist.. I'm sure I'm missing somthing when I look at feet...

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Yep. Did to me at first glance too, but note the width and the toe length.

All bipedal hominid feet look alike.

So, companion book to LMS, huh ?

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I's been in the works for quite some time.

Can't wait .. We should have plenty of scoftic fodder , from which to operate; if the illustration above is any indication..

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You would scoff if someone brings in a body, Greg.

Diogenes said:

Patty's feet look like normal human proportions, and she's supposed to be the beat evidence you have...

Ask Meldrum about the proportions of Patty's feet..



Seem to show ? How does that work ?

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As in "in light of present evidence" and other cautious phrasing used in science.

Female feet may be narrower. Sexual dimorphism, you know.

Diogenes said:

Meldrum must be lying then..,

" The comments about the casts and footprints illustrated on my webpage and the comaprisons made between the Laverty photo are simply without merit."



Got me thinking the ' O ' word again, Lu...

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Do you not know the difference between a web site and a web page? The comments are without merit in any event. Bill should really try to substantiate his claims instead of just throwing out wild assumptions.

In any event, the cast is one of Bob Titmus'. It looks like one he's holding in a photo on pg. 112 of Chris Murphy's book. The casts were made in Northern California between 1958 and 1967.

RayG said:

An admission certainly looks like evidence. LAL, do you think Freeman way lying about his admission on Good Morning America?

Meldrum commends the author on NOT including questionable evidence as support for bigfoot, but then applauds the anecdotal accounts over a ten year period. I suspect anecdotal accounts won't get this mystery solved, no matter how entertaining they may be.

Three strikes and yer out?

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All been refuted. I'll dig up the point by point refutation of Hardin when I have more time.

Spooking the neighbors is not the same thing as trying to hoax experts. Noll noted the interview was biased. Green, Krantz and Meldrum have all carved feet to see what kind of tracks they would leave. Doesn't make them hoaxers, does it?

I'm not sure where Freeman was at the time, but if it was Camas, he may have been aware of events in Skamania County and could have been irritated with scoftical neighbors. At least he didn't shoot them.

Freeman brought in the branch, but where is it written he planted the hair? Did Krantz ever reveal the name of the person he knew was planting synthetic hair in the Blue Mountains?

There was some business with a monkey suit Orchard refers to and I've read claims Freman faked films, but I haven't been able to run this down. Orchard tended to excuse it as the actions of a frustrated man. Freeman brought in at least thirty casts. Some of them may have been faked to keep Krantz interested, perhaps, but that doesn't mean they all were, especially the first ones.

Faking a film is not evidence he faked tracks, any more than Marx' hoaxes prove he faked the tracks at Bossburg.

The antics were stupid, but they're not evidence that all evidence is faked. There were suspicions about Freeman finding so much, but he was out looking, unlike some of the critics..

Notice Orchard doesn't refute the hoax accusations leveled at Freeman. Not once.

RayG

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I've noticed, but he was also supportive of him and offered an explanation regarding the suit story.

LTC8K6 said:

So, Meldrum now has a profit motive as well?

Did he get a piece of LMS?

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Ask him. Hopefully he'll reply in language you can understand.

Diogenes said:

Oh the blessing of a captive audience ...

http://www.bigfootforums.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=14342&view=findpost&p=300965

Modest transition..?

That ' typical ' sasquatch foot, looks strangely like a human foot to me.. But of course I'm not a trained anthropologist.. I'm sure I'm missing somthing when I look at feet...

So, companion book to LMS, huh ?

Can't wait .. We should have plenty of scoftic fodder , from which to operate; if the illustration above is any indication..

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So I wonder whilst looking at that picture where the double ball is on the squatch foot.

I also wonder about that mid-tarsal break thing. When we talk about a mid-tarsal break in something like a chimp, are we talking about the mobility of the "big toe," or is it something else? And if it is just the mobility of the big toe, where does the mid-tarsal break in the squatch foot come from once the big toe has migrated away up next to all the others?

double post... oops

Originally Posted by Correa Neto :
The images are not blurry enough for me to do any in-depth study.

1 quick OT question:

Ever considered anonimously -or "fakeidentificationsly"- submitting your PhotoPattyShop to BFRO and see the outcome? That would be a nice double-blind test or calibration of interpretation bias for later experiments.



CORREA -- Consider this regarding the Expedition Hoax scenario I described earlier...

In Aug. 2004 BFRO had an expedition in Washington State. 30 people attended. The camp site looked like a parking lot at the base of a mountain. RV's, trailers, tents, people milling about. You couldn't miss it if you tried. They were all nice folks from all walks of life - and also nicely unarmed.

They had no night vision cameras, but some did have night vision goggles. During this expedition 7 people witnessed various Sasquatches of different sizes. 6 tracks were found. 21 people heard the strange calls and wood knocks that could only have come from Bigfeet. And a couple of guys found and photographed what they considered to be possible Sasquatch scat.

That's a lot of good luck for an expedition so large that their mere presence would tend to drive animals away from the area. Fortunately they had American Legend Bob Gimlin with them. (That's him dressed in cammo for the occasion in the photo below). I can only surmise that Bigfeet might well be attracted to the scent of Gimlin since he only looks for Bigfoot a couple of times in a decade and seems to draw them out whenever he shows up.

With that kind of luck... what would they need me for? I'm sure LAL will tell you that Meldrum and others would never be fooled by such silliness as a game trail cam photo hoax. And if they were... then that would only mean that I would be lying about pulling such a hoax only because I want the tremendous fame and fortune that goes along with admitting to being a hoaxer and therefore would only be claiming (with no proof) that I was responsible. In the end, my game trail photo hoax would be real because some Meldrum type said so and that's pure gold.

I would then find myself down at the bar with Heironimus shaking my head in bewilderment. Why were we ever worried about being caught in the first place? Once it's been declared as "evidence", the legend will take care of itself - despite what the person responsible for creating it may say about it.

Too bad Dahinden only flew around on a jet with Gimlin and pushed his court case against Pat Patterson, DeAtley and the varied film companies. If only Dahinden had gone camping a couple of times with the man he might have actually found a Sasquatch track himself.

So... nobody needs me to fake evidence. It seems to be already being accomplished by veterans of the craft.

Good evidence is where you find it... near Gimlin.


fsol -- btw... The rubber feet used in creature suits were made with the "mid-tarsal break" in them. I can show you photos of this if you like. It would only take a few minutes for any investigator to find this out (if they wanted to know).

- Dfoot

Meldrum's "modest transition" squatchfoot doesn't even look like a squatchfoot.

Ask him. Hopefully he'll reply in language you can understand.

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I understand dismissal already, Lu. I speak it myself.

The funny thing is, it's perfectly alright for skeptics to be dismissive of sasquatch, as there's no actual evidence to support any of these theories.

A whole creature, it's habits, habitat, structure, motion, etc., have been created out of nothing but thin anecdotes and footprints, most of which don't agree with each other.

Professors who accept these creations and embellish them further, are suspect in my book. Professors who invent a foot structure and kinematic are suspect as well.

There is no evidence to support any conclusions at all about a sasquatch foot. None.

There is even less than that for the foot's kinematic.....

Those are the facts.

There is no reliable evidence for the existence of sasquatch.

Professors who create whole anatomies for sasquatch, should be suspect.

Meldrum (and Krantz) have invented the sasquatch foot structure and motion out of thin air. They have zero evidence to support their ideas.

Zero.

Less than zero.

Zero with no rim around it.

Did anybody else here try Googling for "midtarsal break" ?

And then try again for <midtarsal break" -meldrum> ?

Conclusion?

Several footprints attributed to an alleged North American ape, commonly known as sasquatch, exhibit a distinctive midtarsal pressure ridge and other indications of midfoot flexibility. In the Patterson-Gimlin film, the feet of the film subject correlate with the kinematics inferred from the footprints, in that a midtarsal break is present. Additional independent examples corroborate the consistent presence of this feature, including examples of half-tracks that record contact beneath the foot only anterior to the midtarsus. These data provide a fresh perspective from which to consider the pattern and timing of the emergence of the distinctive features of modern human bipedalism and bear on the credibility of the possible existence of sasquatch. The observed and inferred sasquatch locomotor anatomy parallels the stable adaptations that marked the greater span of early hominid bipedalism.

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Sounds like a missing link to me.....

Conclusion?

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Meldrum is obsessed with midtarsal breaks & sasquatch?

In the Patterson-Gimlin film, the feet of the film subject correlate with the kinematics inferred from the footprints, in that a midtarsal break is present.

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Where is evidence of the midtarsal break in the footprint of the subject in the PG film.. ?



Where is the double ball? The proportionaly wide width ?


Hello ? Dr. M, you there ?