Go back to the Bigfoot Compendium.
Because the Patterson film is a cornerstone of Bigfootery, there is very little to be said about this film that has not already been said or noticed by someone else. Independently, another individual named William Parcher and I both discovered an interesting anomaly of the film’s timeline, regarding what is claimed as being a film of Patterson displaying the cured casts he made at the Bluff Creek film site.
In his book Meet the Sasquatch Chris Murphy claims that this scene of Patterson pouring plaster into a track was shot in Bluff Creek, and is of the trackway made by “Patty”, the subject of Patterson’s film.
From page 43 of Chris Murphy’s Meet the Sasquatch:
“The men then returned to the film site and examined the path the creature had taken along the sandbar. They observed and filmed the creature’s footprints in the soil and later made plaster casts of the left and right foot. In that part of Bluff Creek, there is a sandy clay soil with a blue-gray tinge. This type of soil holds footprints remarkably well for a long period of time. The footprints measured about 14.5 inches/36.8m (sic) long by 6-inches/15.2cm wide. Gimlin jumped off a log to see how far his footprints would sink into the soil in comparison with the creature’s prints. The results were that the creature’s footprints were deeper. Patterson also took movie footage of this experiment together with footage of horse prints alongside the creature’s prints. Gimlin filmed Patterson making casts and also displaying the finished casts as seen here.”
So Murphy, at least, is claiming that these films were made, at maximum, within a few hours of each other.
Here are two stills that show Patterson’s cast display:
The great and glaring discrepancy in this timeline is Patterson’s obvious heavy beard stubble seen in the “cast display” photos, while he is clean shaven during the “pour” sequence. He also has either changed his trousers or laundered them, as the plaster stain seen in the “pour” sequence is missing in the “display” photos.
Jeff Meldrum in his book Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science gives a different timeline. On page 143 Meldrum includes a “pour” photo and a “display” photo. The caption to the photos reads “Roger Patterson pouring a cast at the film site and displaying the cast UPON THEIR RETURN TO YAKIMA, WASHINGTON” (Emphasis mine)
Meldrum’s account of the events contradicts Chris Murphy’s.
Beyond the obvious timeline discrepancy that Murphy’s account suggests, one has to wonder what historical sources that both Meldrum and Murphy are using, as neither allude to original historical evidence in either of their books.
As well as the film development timeline, the “pour” and “cast display” film sequences continue to baffle and confuse the issue of exactly what went on and when with regard to the famous Bluff Creek film of an alleged Sasquatch.
One potential resolution of this dilemma may be what Grover Krantz alluded to on page 32 of his book Big Footprints:
“The shape of a footprint can be dug into the ground with the fingers and/or a hand tool, the interior pressed flat, and it can then be photographed or cast in plaster. My first footprint cast was made by a student in just this manner (Fig.10). Roger Patterson told me he did this once in order to get a movie of himself pouring a plaster cast for the documentary he was making. (A few days later, he filmed the actual Sasquatch; See Chapter 4).”
It’s possible that the “pour” film sequence that Murphy claims was shot at Bluff Creek AFTER the film subject walked by was what Patterson shot for “the documentary he was making” BEFORE the alleged Sasquatch was filmed.
