Orgone Research

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The following montage originally appeared on the JREF Forum:

The original image without the stacked feet between the front and side views of “Patty” appears in Chris Murphy’s book Meet the Sasquatch. The digital representation of “Patty” was created by Doug Hajicek and Reuben Steindorf. Unfortunately, analysis of the proportions of the digital model yields a strange outcome. This was the reason that the feet are included in the JREF montage. As measured by the claimed length of the film subject’s feet, the resulting height is anomalously short.

Being skeptical I decided to double check the math. I measured the actual image from page 94 of Chris Murphy’s Meet the Sasquatch. For the length of the foot I measure 41mm:

For the height I measure 188mm:

Dividing 188 by 41 I get 4.585. Multiplying 4.585 by 14.5 inches ( the length of what is asserted to be Patty’s foot) gives me 66.48 or 66.5 inches. 66.5 inches is 5 foot six and one half inches or 5’7″.

The proportions of Steindorf’s digital model of “Patty”, the subject of the Patterson-Gimlin film, suggest a height of about 5’7″!

Now you might think this is a victory for the dreaded “scoftics”, that what is claimed to be an element of “Bigfoot Science” is deeply flawed, almost bordering on “pseudoscience”. But no, I feel that this is an advocate opportunity, because it can be used to show how “inhuman” Patty really is. Earlier in Murphy’s book, we are introduced to Jeff Glickman who came to the scientific conclusion that “Patty” weighs 1,957 pounds (page 81). This is good news for Sasquatch advocates. If Patty is 5’7″ and weighs 1,957 pounds then her density surely approaches that of depleted uranium, a most “inhuman” characteristic if there ever was one.

I propose that this newly discovered characteristic, inhuman density, be added other claims about the film subject, such as the “inhuman gait”…

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In the spring of 2005 I was helping out the Seattle Museum of the Mysteries by manning a table they had set up at the annual science fiction convention. The table had various books for sale, including some published by Hancock House. I had also set out several early plaster test casts that displayed desiccation ridges. I got into an interesting conversation with a man who did plaster casting of figurines. As I spoke to him, a woman came up and began to look through Chris Murphy’s re-issue of Roger Patterson’s book, now re-titled The Bigfoot Film Controversy.

When I ended my conversation with this man, this woman suddenly spoke up. Mind you, she initiated the conversation, and I had no idea who this woman was. She opened the book to page 88, and pointed out this photograph to me:

For those who have not read the book, the photo on page 88 is of Roger Patterson, allegedly taken in Ape Canyon, which is on the south side of Mt. St. Helens in Washington. This was the site of a classic Bigfoot encounter in 1924.

Out of nowhere she tells me that the picture is a fake, and that she was there when the picture was taken! I was so taken aback that I asked her to write down what she had told me. Note that she puts Ape Canyon in California, probably due to our subsequent conversation about Patterson’s Bluff Creek California film.

Her note reads (with personal information redacted)

“Bobbie H. 509-***-**** #########@aol.com

p. 88 Bigfoot Film Controversy

I was there when picture was taken — South Fork of Ahtanum 20 miles west of Yakima. My mom threw gas on fire to make it flare up. NOT taken in California.

Niece of Jerry Merritt”

The Niece of Jerry Merrit! If true, it suggests Patterson engaged in Bigfoot related fraud before his Bluff Creek film.

I had always assumed that Bob Gimlin took the photo. At the Bellingham conference in late May 2005 I asked Bob Gimlin about going to Ape Canyon with Patterson. Surprisingly, Gimlin told me that he was not in Ape Canyon with Patterson! He told me he went to Spirit Lake with Patterson, but Spirit Lake was on the NORTH side of the mountain, and quite a distance from Ape Canyon.

So who took the picture???

Personally, I’ve always been more interested in physical evidence than anecdotal evidence. It’s possible that this gal is mistaken or is being deceitful. But part of the reason that I bring this little tidbit forward is to counter the claim that Greg Long set out to find witnesses that had a negative opinion of Roger Patterson. This information was VOLUNTEERED to me, and I asked no “leading questions” at all. This gal’s testimony is totally consistent with what the other witnesses in Long’s book relate about Patterson, and further it goes beyond what Patterson apologists claim about Patterson’s deceit, that it was not Bigfoot related.

I understand Dave Murphy (no relation to Chris Murphy) has been working on a pro-Patterson book. I advised Murphy of this woman’s story. We will have to wait and see if Murphy follows up on it.

UPDATE: July 14, 2010. It has been pointed out to me that the testimony of Bobbie H.’s mother, Florence Showman (née Merritt) is also recorded in Long’s book on pages 131 and 132.

Also, it’s been five years, and still no pro-Patterson book from Dave Murphy, as far as I know.

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Noted Sasquatch advocate Jeff Meldrum has previously argued that valid inferences regarding the Patterson – Gimlin film site track maker’s foot morphology can be drawn from the tracks themselves:

The subject left a long series of deeply impressed footprints. Patterson cast single examples of a right and a left footprint. The next day the site was visited by Robert Laverty, a timber management assistant and his sales crew. He took several photographs including one of a footprint exhibiting a pronounced pressure ridge in the midtarsal region. This same footprint, along with nine others in a series, was cast two weeks later by Bob Titmus, a Canadian taxidermist. A model of inferred skeletal anatomy is proposed here to account for the distinctive midtarsal pressure ridge and “half-tracks” in which the heel impression is absent. In this model the Sasquatch foot lacks a fixed longitudinal arch, but instead exhibits a high degree of midfoot flexibility at the transverse tarsal joint. Following the midtarsal break, a plastic substrate may be pushed up in a pressure ridge as propulsive force is exerted through the midfoot. An increased power arm in the foot lever system is achieved by heel elongation as opposed to arch fixation.

http://www.isu.edu/~meldd/fxnlmorph.html

The “pronounced pressure ridge” that Meldrum is referring to is clearly seen in this photograph by Laverty:

The pressure ridge is indeed striking, and on the face of it, would suggest a non-human track maker, and thus tend to rule out or even eliminate the possibility of hoax.

Unfortunately Meldrum ignores a serious examination of alternate possibilities, especially that of considering what kind of tracks a man wearing an ape costume would make. In an attempt to find out for myself what kind of tracks would be left by a man wearing a fake, flexible, oversized foot, I decided to make my own. My assumption is that an ape-suit costume would have a flexible foot, in order to allow the wearer to walk naturally. Ideally, I should have obtained a genuine theatrical ape suit, but the results of this preliminary examination on my part are still intriguing.

Some time ago, I obtained via dumpster diving a large piece of semi-rigid plastic foam. It was about 2cm thick, with a 1 or 2mm sheet of yellow plastic adhered on one side. I suspect, but do not know, that both the white foam and yellow sheet are polyethylene. I don’t know the original application of the plastic. I cut out and formed two 15″ long matching foot shaped prosthetics. At this point I used Nylon cord to bind them to my feet, but they proved too unstable, and I eventually switched to flexible Urethane adhered “Aqua-socks”.

I took my fake feet down to Alki Beach here in Seattle and made some tracks. While many were distorted, some exhibited intriguing pressure ridges that were positioned unusually far back in the fake track. As far as I can tell, this is a result of the ball of my own foot being positioned closer to the mid-foot of the prosthetic, and thus providing the illusion of “mid-foot flexibility” in an oversized track.

One track in particular had a well defined and smooth pressure ridge morphology:

Even with crude and quickly fabricated prosthetics, I was able to create tracks that exhibited mid-foot pressure ridges.

It’s entirely possible that the mid-foot pressure ridges seen in one or more of the Patterson-Gimlin film site tracks have an explanation that does not involve Bigfoot’s mid-tarsal break.

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One of the longstanding claims by advocates of the reality of the Sasquatch is that the subject of the 1967 Patterson-Gimlin film exhibits an “inhuman” gait. If this is true, it would surely weaken or outright falsify the skeptic’s suggestion that the film subject could be a man in a suit. One of the difficulties of examining this claim is that “gait” is a rather complex affair. One way to make the examination of this claim easier is to break down the gait into specific features.

It had been noted many years ago that the film subject exhibits an unusually high lift of the lower leg, particularly in early frames of the film. Author Barbara Wasson went so far at to suggest that such a feature was beyond what a human being could reproduce:

“Obviously the creature is different. If you examine the walk, the following leg rises off the ground far in excess of what a human leg rises. It almost parallels the ground. A human being cannot walk in this fashion. When attempted it produces an extremely awkward movement and cannot be reproduced.”

Barbara Wasson Sasquatch Apparitions page 73

A good example of what Wasson is talking about is seen in this early frame:

Note how the film subject’s head is pitched forward, the right arm is straight by the side, and the sole of the left foot is more or less vertical.

Surprisingly Wasson’s strong claim went untested for many years. Advocates on various Internet forums as late as 2005 suggested that even if a human could reproduce this feature the individual would be “one in a million”.

Noted Sasquatch skeptic David Daegling went to some lengths in his book Bigfoot Exposed to demonstrate that the film subject exhibits a compliant gait, which is similar to the way Groucho Marx used to walk in his movies. A further, more technical explanation of the film subject’s gait is found here.

Indeed, walking with a compliant gait is quite easy for any reasonably healthy individual to do, though it does become fatiguing after extended periods. One of the interesting features of a compliant gait is that the lower leg tends to rise up, and thus, as Wasson says, “almost parallels the ground”.

This is a photograph of me walking with a compliant gait on a sandy beach:

Note how my head is pitched forward, my right arm is straight at the side, and the sole of my left foot is basically vertical, very much like that seen in the early frame of the Patterson film. Clearly the calf “almost parallels the ground” as Wasson says, and thus refutes Wasson’s strong claim that “it cannot be reproduced”.

It seems to me a rather damning indictment of the Bigfoot subculture that such an easily tested claim as Wasson’s would be uncritically accepted for so long, and yet prove so easy to debunk.

Update, February 24, 2012:

Recently Tom Pate posted an excellent video to YouTube in which he argues that the unique gait of the film subject may be a product of a human walking with over sized prosthetics. Here is a screen capture of the funky gait of a person wearing swim fins. It’s obvious that the “lower level leg lift” of the human subject nearly matches that of the Patterson-Gimlin film subject.

Tom created this comparison between himself walking with a compliant gait and the Patterson – Gimlin film subject. Tom is 6′ tall:

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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.