Who Walks The Walk?
Posted by: Loren Coleman on September 22nd, 2007
Let’s see. Years + pounds + copycat behavior = not really close, despite the best efforts at imitation:
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
Sorry folks, he walks the walk. Reality of the Patterson Gimlin footage? Give it up.
That White Man is no Sasquatch!
While I don’t think that Bob H. was the guy in the suit, I do find it odd that the sequence starting about 11 seconds into the video is obviously a few second long clip from a longer sequence that’s been looped numerous times. Failing to show the whole sequence hurts the video’s credibility. I also would’ve liked to have seen Patty’s legs and feet during that comparison.
On a related note, are clips from “Best Evidence: Bigfoot” available online? I heard there was a segment where a guy in a costume imitated the walk while Dr. Meldrum watched.
Well this is exciting! lostcause has it all figured out!
Go, man. Do tell.
Please don’t tell me you’re another one of those True Believers who got bitter, felt jilted and switched sides. We don’t need another one of those. Go read a book. Evolve. We’ll watch.
Dismissal of the P/G film? Give it up.
‘course when it comes to persuading, convincing or even engaging in intelligent conversation with folks like lostcause, his name becomes, er, eerily appropriate.
Nice comparison, Loren. Something they never really showed on the Nat Geo show in which they had him making his claim.
Great post!
Every time I watch this clip I get a slight shiver down my back.I have sen only one or two film clips that even come close to showing this subject for all to see.I took a lot of guts for Rodger and Bob to go public with this so meny years ago!Lets give them credit for that!
Look at the vast differences in bulk (leg, waist, shoulders, chest etc etc). If that were simply a padded suit then NOBODY could walk in such a fluid manner and Bob H certainly wouldn’t have been walking in his supposed ‘natural’ gait under all that cumbersome padding. LOL.
Well, I don’t think debate on the P/G film will ever end. There are too many “true believers” on both sides and both cite and quote seemingly irrefutable evidence for or against the film.
Personally, I think the evidence has tilted against the film. Mainly because in the last 40 years we have no similar lengthy footage or reliable photos of the creature. If Patterson could get it, I think the odds are that someone else would have got something in the last 40 years.
Before someone gets mad at me, I’m not calling anyone a kook for believing in Sasquatch. I’m just saying I’m having a harder time with this particular film. My friends in British Columbia and some Indians from the Pacific Northwest still give me pause on the matter. Not to mention the work of people like Dr. Jeff Meldrum and Loren Coleman who are trying to address the phenomena in a rational and thoughtful manner. Even when I disagree with Loren’s conclusions, I still think he is acting from a position of integrity and honesty.
So, I am a bit of skeptic (there have been far too many hoaxes and misidentification not to be) but I think that is different than being an outright ‘naysayer’. Obviously, there is something going on with the whole Bigfoot phenomena and it has been around in folklore for untold generations.
I’m skeptical.
“””Personally, I think the evidence has tilted against the film. Mainly because in the last 40 years we have no similar lengthy footage or reliable photos of the creature. If Patterson could get it, I think the odds are that someone else would have got something in the last 40 years.”””
Alternatively, we can argue the very same thing about a hoax. In the last 40 years we have no similar lengthy footage of a hoax that is as well done. If Patterson hoaxed it, then surely somebody else would have been able to come up with a similar hoax by now????????
I believe that the P/G film is a film of a real creature: a Homo sapiens. I’ve really tried to look at the film and see something other than a made-up man, but I always come to the same conclusion. It’s not just the walk; there are several other things about the film that shout “hoax!”, and those things, coupled with the convoluted backstories, destroy the film’s credibility for me.
Does Bigfoot exist? Maybe. Lots of people think they have seen them, and maybe, someday, real, tangible, irrefutable evidence of their existence will turn up. But the P/G film isn’t that.
That’s not to say that the P/G footage has no value. Its true value is that it has been responsible for thousands of people becoming interested in cryptozoology (and who knows, maybe it’s also piqued the interest in special effects of thousands more). Whether people who view “Patty” come away believing the film is real, or a beautifully crafted hoax, it has gotten many to consider the unknown creatures that might be “out there”.
Loren’s willingness to put forth all information is commendable, but this particular contribution may not help ‘the cause’ to be honest. From a layman’s perspective, there definitely seem to be a lot of matches, at least for the few seconds shown. Not having read the book (but aware of many passages) it’s the inconsistency of Bob H’s story regarding the costume composition that makes me skeptical of what he claims. OTOH, it seems hard to believe he has invented the *whole* story from thin air. The P/G film gets more confounding as the years go by, not less.
Well, I think even if his walk was almost the same as Patty’s, it is not necessarily him that did it. Now, I still hold open the idea that the PG footage could have been hoaxed but I’m not sure I am convinced that Bod H. was the guy. Also, getting a person to mimic the way patty walks without him wearing the suit doesn’t prove anything really other than someone can mimic the walk. I mean, there have been many instances of humans in suits believably mimicking gorilla behavior, wookie behavior, and with a little CGI help, golem behavior too. Add to that the problem that without a suit, we can’t be sure of the effect of things such as arm extenders or prosthetics, so it would be simpler for a person without those to approach an approximation of how Patty walks. Humans can be very good copycats, especially when the animal in question is bipedal like us. So if someone can study the film and perfectly copy Patty’s walk, that is not damning evidence against the PG film to me showing that it MUST have been faked. It doesn’t mean the film wasn’t possibly hoaxed, it just means that in my opinion seeing someone trying to copy Patty’s walk doesn’t completely seal the deal.
There have been many shows trying to create a video like the PG film and to date they all look ridiculously fake. I’ve yet to hear someone say that any of the modern age recreations look as good as PG. It’s easy for BH, after he comes out with his story, to try and mimic what he sees on the film, that does not mean that the video is a fake. That just means that BH can mimic what he sees on the film, nothing a little practice couldn’t help him master. That being said, I didn’t see the bent knee walk, only that he could swing his arms in a similar fashion.
Like other posters have mentioned, there is too much bulk and to me the motion looks way too fluid to be faked, that and with all the other oddities, being a female, saggital crest, etc. I just cannot believe that someone could think of all of that, and have the expertise to make the gait look so fluid and real when today no one has been able to recreate something as genuine looking.
For me the PG film looks to be authentic.
I do not find it strange at all that the Patterson/Gimlin film has not been exactly reproduced. It’s nearly impossible for third parties to convincingly recreate original artwork. That doesn’t mean it is footage of a real Sasquatch.
I think kittenz hit the nail on the head in the above post.
Why I give credence to the Bob H. story:
1. It is simple. He could have embellished it and had Patterson create a superduper, unbelievably complex suit. Instead, he describes a very simple costume.
2. He makes comments that one would expect, but might not think of, for a person in his position that day. For instance, he relates how he hit the dirt moments after Patterson stopped filming, fearful that some unseen hunters might have him in their sights.
3. Other people claim to have seen the Bigfoot suit in his position shortly after.
4. His build and walk do look to me like shadow images of Patterson’s Bigfoot.
5. The picture in Long’s book of the Phillip Morris manufactured gorilla suit does look like aspects of Patterson’s Bigfoot: the sagittal crest and the shoulders. (I discount Morris’ claim that the Patterson image was nothing but his ape suit, sans face. The breasts and long legs tell a different story).
6. Bob H. stated that the lower part of the suit was made from waders (he thought). To my mind, this explains why leg muscles seem to contract and the leg quivering: the rubber waders’ give and take with each step. Also, Meldrum’s documentary account of Patterson’s film includes a skeletal reenactment of the Bigfoot’s walk, showing a weird circular motion, knee level, that is odd for a living animal but possibly indicative of waders flopping about the knees.
Reasons why I suspect the Bob H. account.
1. I’ve heard that he has change his story somewhat. This is damaging if true.
2. As far as I can tell, Bob and Roger were not real close. This seems odd because Patterson would need someone he could trust completely not to rat on him. Maybe every one involve took an oath. Or maybe Bob H. just didn’t think much about the whole thing until, as he said, he got tired of seeing his image over and over again as “proof” that Bigfoot was real.
‘Exactly’ reproduced? It hasn’t even been remotely reproduced.
The Bob H suit looks like a fat ewok. It’s a million miles from what we see in the P/G footage.
jerrywayne:
I don’t know how friendly Bob Heironimus was with Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin, but I do know that they have worked together. If you look at this picture, you can see Bob Heironimus at the far right. The guy with the long black hair to the left of Bob Heironimus is actually Bob Gimlin in a wig! You see, he was playing the part of an “Indian tracker” for Roger Patterson’s documentary. To the left of Gimlin is Howard Heironimus, Bob’s brother, and Roger Patterson can be seen at the bottom left.
I also seem to recall that one of the horses taken to Bluff Creek actually belonged to Bob Heironimus. I don’t know which one it supposedly was, but you can see footage of the horses from the famous second reel here.
Notice that the camera pans when it is filming Patterson, Gimlin, and the three horses. This is impossible for a 60’s 16mm camera to do by itself on a tripod and would require someone to operate the camera. If they had someone else go with them to Bluff Creek to film, why didn’t they mention them and why didn’t that person see Patty/talk about seeing Patty? Is it at all possible that the person who played Patty was used as the cameraman and they were able to get away with it since all the attention was focused on the Patty footage? There also might be another issue with the horses (but it’s hard to say due to the terrible color quality of the footage).
Sorry folks, still another attempt to debunk the video. The arms are too short. Need I say more.
I also guess that when you find the 7 foot tall, 400 + pound person in the suit, let me know…. So far, there is no one, including BH, that is even remotely close in size or stature that can be related to the PG film or that has anything to do with it, hoax or not.
All I know, is that the place I was at, there has not been anyone else there in the last 2 years but me and I found tracks, plain and simple.
I know this, because the string a put in place across a road used to test the theory, is still there, and I have the only tire tracks ever there in 2 years… OR, did someone follow me to a place I’ve never told anyone where I was going and when? The animal exists… now we need better proof… Other than that… I guess that makes me a skeptical believer… if that’s possible….!
One day folks… Just like the Gorilla in the early 20th century… Once it was just a myth by locals… But they do exist, don’t they….!
If you compare the P/G footage with the footage of Jim McClarin walking Patty’s route, you’ll see that they both pass under the same tree knot. The thing is, we can see that McClarin is taller than (the somewhat hunched over) Patty in that shot! This takes Patty out of the 7 foot range and would also effect the weight estimate.