The Best Evidence: Patterson-Gimlin Footage
Posted by: Loren Coleman on September 20th, 2007
In one month, it will have been 40 years since Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin had their incredible encounter with an apparently female Bigfoot at Bluff Creek, California, on October 20, 1967. The resulting footage is the best piece of evidence we have for a population of unknown, bipedal primates – most often known as Sasquatch or Bigfoot – that lives, allegedly, in the wilderness areas of North America.
Why do I think the encounter’s resulting footage is authentic?
I feel it brings forth many forms of evidence:
1. The event occurred in an area known for Native traditions of these forms of higher primate, locally called Oh-Mah.
2. There are contemporary sightings, from the 1950s, here.
3. In this specific incident, the animal was seen.
4. It was smelled.
5. It was sensed by the horses.
6. A trackway of at least ten prints was found, the tracks casted and preserved – via film and in a physical state – for others to analyze. Such examinations reveal flexible, animate feet for this cryptid, known locally as a Bigfoot (and referred to as Sasquatch farther north, in Canada).
7. And finally, the apparent animal was filmed, and analyses of this footage by Americans, Canadians, Russians, and others verify this was authentic, probable unknown living primate, and not an elaborate or casual hoax.
For me, all of the above combine into the virtual and visible vortex of the best pieces of evidence for the existence of Bigfoot.
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.
rbhess says:
“I do not say that the Patterson bigfoot IS a man in a suit–I merely say that, given the situation, science must assume it IS a man in a suit, until proven otherwise.”
Quite not correct, and quite contrary to the scientific method.
Note how a definitive statement is being made by someone who is really trying to convince us he/she is making no definitive statements. Science – as rbhess actually says, more than once – CAN MAKE NO ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT WHAT IS IN THAT FILM. Particularly when experts in relevant fields have pronounced it a new species, and fake proponents have found nothing to support their contention. I’m not sure when science (note I did not say “scientists”) took the proposition with the LEAST evidence (none) as the thing IT MUST ASSUME.
He/she also says:
“There are no primates (other than man) that we definitively know of in North America. None have ever been found in the fossil record. The safe supposition, by science, is that there never have been any non-man primates in North America, generally speaking—and there the matter stands until someone provides solid physical evidence that challenges that model. Why people have such a difficult time accepting this, I don’t know.”
Um, maybe because this is: Quite not correct, and quite contrary to the scientific method.
THERE IS NO SAFE SUPPOSITION THAT CAN BE MADE ABOUT THE ABOVE SITUATION. Ask the folks who made that safe supposition about Homo floriensis not being out there because it had not been found yet. You can’t construct a model on no evidence; you can only say that NOTHING HAS BEEN FOUND YET to confirm the thesis of sas proponents.
And that is all science (note carefully I do not say “scientists”) can say about this matter. Regardless how many scientists feel free to soil their profession by making “safe suppositions” about what is simply not known yet.
I’m starting to understand why some people don’t understand that I am a skeptic, and not a proponent.
SCIENCE IS SKEPTICISM, OR IT IS NOT SCIENCE.
I’m really trying not to lecture here. 😉
“There’s no supportive evidence that elves ever existed….”
Of course not, nor are there a number of credible reported eyewitness accounts of elves being seen and leaving trace evidence (tracks, scats, hair), or possible film footage that could be of a real elf.
If there were, then my answer would be yes, science would need to keep the door open on that as well.
I think you know that I wasn’t endorsing a “proof of the negative” scenario, nor would I. I’m simply saying that one should not dismiss the possibility of something because it’s not (yet) been found in the fossil record. 15,000 to 20,000 new species discovered every year should teach us that. Until very recently, we had found no representation of great apes in the fossil record and to many people, apparently, the existence of the sasquatch is every bit as real as the existence of the chimpanzee.
“…can we just admit that the model of the world we operate with has to make judgements on certain things—based on what evidence we HAVE…”
Absolutely.
Aside from my own personal observations, which sealed the deal for me regarding the sasquatch’s existence some time ago, there is sufficient evidence, in my mind, and the minds of many others, to warrant serious investigation of the sasquatch phenomenon. Now, you and I can debate the measure of the evidence, but there is evidence for it. I believe there is enough evidence to warrant a hypothesis that perhaps there is an unknown species out there.
“America is not Asia. The mere fact that the two continents were tenously connected, 10,000 years ago, does not matter.”
Thanks for the geography lesson, but I don’t need it and I disagree that it does not matter that the two continents were “tenuously connected 10,000 years ago.” If Beringia facilitated human migration, as well as significant faunal and floral exchange, then it obviously formed something more substantial than a “tenuous” connection.
“…if you want to present such an animal as a possibility, then you have to prove it by more extraordinary means than simply presenting a film that could have easily been faked.”
I agree with this: “…if you want to present such an animal as a possibility, then you have to prove it by more extraordinary means…”
I disagree that the Patterson-Gimlin film was, or could have been, easily faked.
If it was faked, (and I don’t believe it was), I don’t believe for a minute that it was done so “easily.”
Daryl:
All I can suggest (again) is that you re-read my post. You’re attributing to me statements of a definitive nature that I did not make. I never once “dismissed the possibility” of bigfoot.
Look… I think a big problem here (and I’m not referring necessarily to you, but more to others) is that people get confused about personal feelings in regards to this subject, vs. a scientific judgement. Personally I feel that something unusual is roaming around the Pacific Northwest. I have many reasons for this, but chief among them are the enormous number of tracks found as well as the great number of seemingly-reliable eyewitness sightings.
Scientifically, however, I’m forced to say there is as yet no reliable, authenticated evidence whatsoever for the existence of this animal. You mention hair and scat which have been found–my understanding is that much of this has been dismissed and only a very little has been found to be of a questionable nature–i.e., undetermined. But even if someone told me, “yep, they found some hair that can only have come from a primate,” then I’d still be hesitant, as I think anyone must be in these circumstances. Where was the hair found? Who found it? What proof do they have that they did, in fact, find it where they say they found it? And so on and on and on.
People around here start tossing around the made-up (and to my thinking absurd) label of “scoftic” when you start talking like that. But then I know that such people are not scientists and have no understanding or appreciation of the rigor that science has to operate under. It discredits science terribly when professionals in the field jump at every little piece of “evidence” without extremely careful consideration and adherence to the strict rules of the scientific method. One need only look back at the ridiculous farce of the Minnesota Iceman, when Heuvelmans and Sanderson, on the basis of a single, perfunctory “examination”–literally only eyeballing the thing through ice, and smelling it–made the pronouncement that it was a real animal. Sanderson, if I’m not mistaken, went so far as to publish a paper on this. Then it turned out that the damn thing was nothing more than a carnival dummy. That’s an extreme case–but there’s the two fathers of cryptozoology, who made a mistake like that.
Getting back to the Patterson film–actually, I’ve said myself, recently (on this site) that I admire the film, even if it was a hoax–if he faked it, Patterson did a hell of a job. So sure, I’ll cop to the accusation of overstatement when I remarked that it could have been “easily” faked… but then, what of it? What matters–in a scientific sense–is not how difficult it would have been to fake but whether it could have been faked. And as I’ve pointed out in the past–because the animal in the film is still within the size range for a man, and because its movements are manlike, then scientifically we MUST say that it is worthless as evidence. Notwithstanding all the people on this site who claim it couldn’t possibly have been a man in a suit, whatever it was (they offer not the slightest shred of proof of this), the fact remains that it’s man-sized, man-shaped, and moves in a manlike way. All question of “difficulty” aside, the simplest explanation is that it was, therefore, a man in a suit. I DO NOT say that that’s what I believe–my personal feelings are a bit different. But there I am speaking from a scientific point of view. In short–as evidence, the film is worthless, until it could be proven (somehow, and I don’t see how this could ever be done) that it could not be a man in a suit.
My personal feelings, as I say, are different. Eyewitness sightings are also scientifically near-worthless, but I lend credence to them, personally. I think people have seen something. And the film–at times it’s bothered me. If it’s faked it was well-choreographed and the suit was well-done. More than that I can’t say. On the other hand I’ve seen stills from the film that indicate, to me, what looks like certain shapes in the limbs that look unnatural–the appearance, I’ve thought, of arm extensions and perhaps some kind of “pull-on” leg pieces under the fur–as if the suit was made with fur-covered hip waders or something if that nature. But then I also have to admit that maybe I’m just seeing shapes that are meaningless, just as others claim they can see muscle movement, or the guys a few years back who claimed that they could see the “bell-shaped object” at the back which they thought was the little connector that held the suit together. Yeah, right.
I think I’ve said quite enough on this subject for now, but I will say one more thing. While I think that the PG film could possibly have been faked, I hope that those who have the resources and desire to look into it further in the field continue to do so, although I think care should be taken with strict scientific documentation. Maybe I am somewhat of a romantic, but to me SOMEONE has to follow up on potential leads like this film. Although I think it is true that the film doesn’t constitute evidence, this footage does not exist in a vacuum. We have sightings, footprints, and whatnot, so as much as I am skeptical, I find myself thinking “what if that is indeed footage of a real creature?”. If it is out there to be found, how is the physical evidence that science demands going to come to light without actually acting on some of the circumstantial evidence we have? I respect the need for a preponderance of evidence to substantiate the reality of sasquatch, but nothing will likely be found if we take the stance of sitting around waiting for possible proof to turn up on its own. I don’t think I have to remind anyone here that there have been scientific discoveries throughout the ages, often radically different from accepted models, that were frequently met with critical skepticism and even outright derision at first, so I for one am glad that those who went on to prove their ideas didn’t stop and say “yeah, no evidence. Oh well, I’ll twiddle my thumbs.” These pioneers too their theories and then doggedly went on to prove them even against common knowledge. My point is someone has to take the lead and LOOK. Is it wrong for some out there to try and break new ground by pursuing a new theory on what they see to be promising signs the idea could hold some water? This is the very essence of discovery to me.
So what I mean to say is that regardless that this film could very well be a fake, I must admit I am happy that there are those out there willing to make an effort to scientifically verify the creature and investigate further. I am all for those that follow up on scat or other tenuous physical evidence as it is a potential lead to something more solid. I absolutely agree that there is a model of the universe and to change that model requires irrefutable evidence. I agree with the notion that the PG film is not that proof. But what is the harm in considering it? What if it is a lead that brings us to a further understanding of the truth about sasquatch? I doubt the final proof we need is going to appear in our lap by just demanding it. I think someone has to take the circumstantial evidence like this video seriously enough to check it out, or we won’t further our knowledge at all, merely continue arguing ad nauseam about the possibility of the film being this or that. Whether any found physical evidence turns out to be useful or not, it is the effort to try and advance our knowledge that I appreciate. I have no problem with accepting that sasquatch does not exist if that is indeed the case but I want real answers, not regrets of “what ifs” that may not have properly been followed up on. So in my opinion as long as scientific protocols are being met with regards to considering the evidence that is found, I cannot see the harm in the search.
rbhess says:
“And as I’ve pointed out in the past–because the animal in the film is still within the size range for a man, and because its movements are manlike, then scientifically we MUST say that it is worthless as evidence.”
No way! On what possible grounds could one do something so contrary to the scientific method? Just because scientists actually do that doesn’t make it right.
Bigfoot, if it exists, apparently (1) crosses the size range for humans and (2) has manlike movements. Copious sighting reports, cited by rbhess as his compelling evidence that something odd is up here (he has no idea how close he and I are on this), say both things. So how could the presence of both those things disqualify the film as evidence? It’s like discounting the evidence for other mammals because, like us, they have hair and two eyes.
Once again: WE CAN TELL NOTHING CONCLUSIVE FROM P/G. Therefore, science (note how I carefully avoid saying “scientists”) tells us THERE IS NOTHING WE CAN ASSUME.
And evidence is only useful if it is followed up. From that standpoint, sure. So far, P/G has been useless. Until somebody with the resources and connections required looks at it and says: I’m following up, it will continue to be. Unless of course all the debate gets someone off the dime.
I’m trying to attribute others’ statements to what I believe now is a kind of confusion stemming from the difference between what science can say about the Patterson film as a “judgement”—and what science must say about the film in the abstract, strictly as a piece of evidence. I think I’ve put this badly, but I’m struggling to put into words a concept that to me is more or less taken for granted.
On the one hand–no one, scientist or otherwise–can say anything conclusive or definitive at all about the film.
Simply put, it could be a man in a suit, or it could be a real animal. If the former, we’re done as far as the Patterson film goes–though it would not disprove the existence of bigfoot. If the latter, then it has to be an unknown, and the biology books need re-writing.
I have said time and time again that from a personal standpoint, the film troubles me. I am left on the fence by it (I won’t repeat myself as to why). One thing I also feel however, is that we’ll never be able to know for certain what it is. Oh sure, maybe if someday the existence of bigfoot IS established, and it looks just like the bigfoot in the Patterson film, then maybe. But even then we can’t be certain that Patterson didn’t fake it, could we? (Though of course it would be far less likely, in that event).
NOW… partly because we can never be certain of what it is, this is why I say that the film is left worthless as evidence. As an individual, I can say “maybe.” Maybe I see something in that film that bothers me, that makes me think it could be a real animal. But science itself isn’t allowed such luxuries of “iffy-ness.” It has to be this or that. NOT on the question of the existence of bigfoot–but simply on the question of a piece of evidence. EVEN THEN I do not mean that science makes a judgement call in some final, ironclad sense, which is where I think you’re misunderstanding me. I only mean that science must judge an item or an artifact in the moment as demanded. Maybe someday some technology we can’t even dream of will be able to look at that film and tell us definitively that it’s a real animal, or definitively that it’s a man in a suit. Until then, yes—the film remains an open question. But an open question is, then, useless as a piece of evidence. Are you beginning to see what I mean?
This is a form of Occam’s Razor. We have an artifact, the identity of which we can’t determine. But then, we need to make a call on that artifact. So we have to go with the simpler, more likely explanation—for the time being.
Here’s another way of looking at it. Let’s say you lose a valuable possession… say, a painting. Then I come to you and show you a picture of the painting, a photograph of it, in someone’s home–(we’ll say that at first neither of us knows whose home it is, so you can’t just go and look at it to verify for certain that it’s yours). In a court of law, that would be a suggestive piece of evidence which would say that maybe that person had stolen your painting, and a judge could at least issue a warrant to have the painting confiscated or something, so that it’s identity could be firmly established. And let’s say it gets confiscated, and an expert says, “well, that’s probably the same painting.” And maybe there’s other evidence which suggests this person stole it from you. The court can finally make a judgement call on that, and award you the painting back. The law can come down on one side or the other of such a question. But science has to maintain a greater rigor. Sure, a scientist could say, “sure looks like the same painting.” But SCIENCE can’t say that it IS the same painting until we get a hold of it and examine it and make tests of it. Maybe it’s a copy. Maybe it’s a print. Science isn’t allowed “maybes” though. Science can’t say if that painting definitively is or isn’t yours—so then scientifically, the photograph is worthless. Yes, to the court it raises suspicion. But scientifically it means nothing. Nothing can be said scientifically until we have the painting in our possession and can test it.
Take it further. Say that we know that there WERE copies of the painting made, and many prints. Then the situation is worse. Then we can’t even have as reasonable a suspicion about the photograph. Then there’s a good chance that it IS just a copy or a print. Now we’re in a worse spot. We can’t even be all that suspicious… not without more evidence. And let’s even say that this other person who has this possible copy, is a pillar of the community—the last person in the world who would steal a painting. Even less ground for suspicion.
So it is with the Patterson film. No, we can’t say anything conclusive or definitive about it. But therefore, until we can, it is, in the abstract, worthless as a piece of evidence.
But I don’t know if it’s helpful to pursue this further. I am upholding the scientific method when I say the film is worthless as evidence, because it remains quite possible and plausible that it is a man in a suit.
To claim that it is MORE likely to be a real animal than a man in a suit is an extraordinary claim… and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Not vice versa. That doesn’t mean the door is closed on bigfoot itself or for that matter the Patterson film. It merely means that we still have an open question.
mystery_man: what you said.
rbhess: you may be starting to see how close you and I are on this.
Where we differ is on the preponderance of evidence that the Patterson film is real, and what that means.
I don’t believe that we have to “go with the simpler, more likely explanation” on this film, because we don’t have any explanation at all. The scientific need for rigor which you stress repeatedly says you can’t go with any explanation not backed by evidence tantamount to proof. And as many of us have said many times, “man in ape suit” is not a simple explanation, and certainly not simpler than the simple existence of a highly plausible animal. Particularly if that animal simply EXISTS.
How could the logistics required for a suit hoax be a simpler explanation, if (a) it has never been plausibly explained how such a thing could have reasonably happened and (b) the critter has (possibly) simply been there all this time? If there is one thing the copious encounter evidence tells me it is that this thing is as plausible as anything we know to exist – the difficulty in confirming it (amost wholly a function of science’s lack of followup) aside.
Extraordinary evidence will never be found unless someone finds it; and to find it someone has to look.
Hikers tend not to scientifically confirm unknown animals. Fully funded scientific expeditions – devoting the time and the effort required – do.
People are seeing this critter, in droves. But until someone brings back more than an encounter report it will remain unconfirmed. “Someone” probably won’t be a layman.
I can’t blame science for simply not looking. But I can blame it for stating – based on nothing – that there is nothing to look for. Which science in fact does not say. But too many scientists who should know better do.
rbhess- I agree with what you said, the PG film is pretty much worthless as scientific evidence as it stands now, and nothing that we can see in it proves it is a sasquatch beyond any reasonable doubt. I myself have said time and time again that the fact that it COULD be fake renders any data gathered from it as speculation. I do not think we can build any solid case for sasquatch existing based on this film. That is the bottom line. You are quite right there.
But wait. My thoughts are that if someone has the means and desire to pursue the matter further, that to me is not a bad thing. The fact is that there are people out there trying to collect viable evidence to prove sasquatch in a scientific manner, and I find nothing wrong with that. If they want to use the PG footage as a lead to how sasquatch MIGHT be, then as long as definitive presumptions are not made, I say fine. It does not count as any serious evidence, but who knows, maybe they WILL come up with a needed preponderance of evidence to support their claims. I don’t think we can fully rule that possibility out yet. Sure, I do have contentions about the way evidence may be skewed or misrepresented, such as broken branches being assumed to be the doing of Bigfoot, or assuming the PG footage must be real, as well as your example regarding Heuvelmans and Sanderson. Making mistakes like that does not help anyone and I feel it can lead to dangerous assumptions based on questionable data. However, I urge anyone who has a theory that they feel is worth investigating to be all means delve into it further if they can. I see nothing against science in taking a theory, in this case sasquatch, which is while not a feasible theory in some people’s minds is nevertheless pointed at by a heap of circumstantial evidence, and then trying to follow that to where it leads. It is absolutely up to the believers, the ones that propose an extraordinary hypothesis to prove it, so I say have at it. If their evidence is not admissible, then no harm done, we merely continue with our accepted model of the world. But if they by some chance manage to successfully challenge that model, we will be better off for it. I agree the PG footage is quite likely a dead end, and I don’t think we are at the stage where any serious research funding will be applied to this field, but I am glad someone is out there giving it a go.
AtomicMrEMonster wrote (post #70, 9/21/07 at 11:03 PM):
“I’m having trouble seeing how an odor can be ‘faint’ and yet be smelled at the distance away that you give.”
Response: The odor was not faint at the source, but faint at the distance that I gave.
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AtomicMrEMonster wrote (post #78, 9/22/07, at 2:02 PM):
“I’m surprised at what I’ve found. Patterson once referred to Patty as a “son of a buck,”
That’s not a serious contradiction. “Daughter of a buck” doesn’t come trippingly off the tongue; and he’d no doubt had it engraved in his mind for years that Bigfoot sighting = male, because that’s what over 90% of reporting persons describe.
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AtomicMrEMonster wrote (post #78, 9/22/07, at 2:02 PM):
“I’m surprised at what I’ve found. … [Patterson’s] references to Patty having drooping breasts match the Roe sighting, but not what we see on film….”
No, the Roe-creature’s breasts were horizontal, or perky, as shown in the drawing made by his daughter under Roe’s direction, which is reproduced on p. 54 of Green’s “Sasquatch: The Apes Among Us” and p. 36 of Murphy’s “Meet the Sasquatch.” Roe described her similarly, using the discreet and indirect diction appropriate to a 50’s-era Canadian newspaper, as having “a complete well-proportioned female figure.” (Source: “Hunter spots Sasquatch girl” in “The Province.”) Patterson would have seen and made a copy of that article when he visited John Green in 1964 or 1965. And he may even have seen Roe’s drawing at that point too. The drawing of the Roe creature by an artist for an outdoor magazine (“Field and Stream” I think) that is reproduced on p. 101 of “The Bigfoot Film Controversy,” and that does have Patty-like breasts, was obviously (to Patterson) based on the artist’s guesswork.
The creature with truly pendulous (vertical) breasts was the “Old Lady” described by Ostman–see Patterson’s drawing on p. 121 of “The Bigfoot Film Controversy.” Patty’s breasts were in between–at a 45 degree downward angle. “Pooped” would be a term intermediate between perky and pendulous to describe them. Patterson followed neither template.
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AtomicMrEMonster wrote (post #78, 9/22/07, at 2:02 PM):
“I’m surprised at what I’ve found. … Of the two, Bob Gimlin seems to have been better to sticking to his story, even to the point of openly contradicting Roger at events. I find it very odd that after Bob Gimlin did this a few times, he later stopped appearing with Roger Patterson or talking about Bigfoot until after Patterson’s death.”
Gimlin contradicted Patterson in interviews before the events (film screenings in theaters) at which they appeared together. I’m not aware of any contradictions AT such events, although they may well have occurred. (Can you cite a source for them occurring there?)
Patterson’s brother-in-law Al DeAtley, who was present during the film-showings, gave a different rationale for Gimlin’s departure: “Gimlin had gone bye-bye. … I understand that Gimlin’s wife wasn’t too happy with all of this sh*t. I think she put her foot down and said, “Enough’s enough.” (“The Making of Bigfoot,” p. 265)
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jerrywayne wrote (post # 84, 9/22/07, 4:31 PM):
“And it should be noted that a self-confessed [make that “self-proclaimed”–RK] hoaxer, Bob Heironimus, is 6 foot or 6foot 1 inch.]”
And thus too tall to fit into a 6 foot 1 inch [Skeptical Greg’s estimate) Patty suit that contained a three-inch high sagittal crest.
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rbhess wrote (post #96, 9/24/07, 11:14 AM):
“This model tells us that there was probably never any large primates (other than man–believed to be a relative latecomer) in North America. If there were, they’d have left behind some trace …”
That’s not so, according to Myra Shackley’s 1983 book, “Still Living?” p. 48: “North America has no other primates today, but this has not alwys been the case. A single upper molar tooth was sifted from tones of rubbish at a site in Montana called Purgatory Hill, and must represent a primate which, with its friends, was living in North America 40 million years ago.”
(That would be the Miocene Era, I think.)
A PS to my defense, above, of Patterson’s use of “son of a buck” to describe Patty: “Gunwoman” is a similarly hard-to-use term. Bank robbers, like Bigfoots, are “marked” as male. A witness might well describe a female bank robber as a “gunman” for that reason.
AtomicMrEMonster:
Re your post #46, 9/20 at 9:19pm:
I’d very much like to know the magazine the Don Post gorilla suit ad appeared in, and its exact date. I’d like to cite it in an article, but I need to “source” it properly.
As further support for my belief that it’s not suspicious that Patterson referred to patty initially as a “son-of-a-buck,” because Bigfoot is “marked” as male, here’s a quote from Ivan Sanderson’s Feb. 1968 Argosy article on the filming:
“… did the horses scare the ‘adorable woodsman,’ which is my name for the lady?”
One more point against the examiner who judged Heironimus to be truthful on the TV show “Lie Detector”: He is the same examiner who judged five of Travis Walton’s six supporting witnesses to be truthful. (I believe he did this on his TV show too.)
Every now and then I go over old threads when I think of new things to add.
With this thread, looking over it again, a few things bothered me about the P/G film. They’re things I don’t recall seeing any skeptic on the sasquatch ever address, and I can’t help but wonder why. (No, I haven’t brought up more than like one or two of them. Hey, I can’t do all the thinking around here.)
1) Many folks seem willing to come on to Cryptomundo and argue this film with us. None of them ever address the analyses of this film by qualified experts in relevant fields, virtually all of whom came back saying either “unknown animal” or “can’t tell” (which I think is a sotto voce way of saying, “that’s not human.” But that’s just me.)
1a) One of the “con” votes on P/G said that the film conclusively showed him an unknown animal – then deumurred on the grounds that “I can’t believe the Sasquatch exists.” This is what happens to scientists on this topic; they forsake their training. I never see it properly accounted for.
2) The most scathing skeptical analysis of this film that I have seen (David Daegling’s) doesn’t address the substantive aspects of the proponent analyses at all, uses junk science to make its points, and still, in the end, states that “the identity of the film subject cannot be determined with any confidence.”
3) I keep hearing – from rbhess, primarily – that scientific models are intended to tell scientists what the world is like. Don’t know about you, but I always felt that scientists create the models, don’t allow models to restrict free exchange of thought – which clearly happened to P/G – and revise them upon further information. Not only that, but models describe what is. They do not – they cannot – describe what isn’t. (Yet.) Either the sasquatch exists or it doesn’t. It’s either 100 or zero. A model that says the latter when fact is the former is bad wrong. Science uses models to guide thinking, not to think for it. The major crime scientists – with few exceptions – made with P/G was not thinking for themselves, but letting groupthink rule.
4) A restatement of 3): if anyone asks whether there are, or ever have been, apes or other non-human anthropoids in North America, the only answer a scientist can truly give is: not that we know of, yet.
5) Models do NOT allow one to make assumptions about an unknown that suddenly shows up on the radar screen. Speculate on the basis of what is known, yes. Assume, no. When a scientist sees a film of what looks as much like an unknown primate as it does like a human in a suit – never mind that people with serious credentials are telling him so, and some of those are saying it’s the former – the only assumption the scientist is allowed by his training to make is: I can’t state what that is.
6) Assuming it’s a man in a suit is NOT allowed. Models don’t act as a club against knowledge; they simply require proof before they are changed. The tack I hear rbhess taking is: science can’t consider any evidence contrary to a model unless it amounts to proof. Indeed, science must assume the evidence is a false positive! Not sure where research can go with that. Pluto would still be a major planet if that were so (look how quick that model got overturned). And OK, Pluto shouldn’t have been demoted. But scientists don’t seem to know when democracy applies. 😀
7) That scientists are abandoning their training when it comes to the sasquatch is illustrated, pretty conclusively, by this: I have never heard a scientist on this topic who sounded like anything other than an unschooled layman spouting off at a cocktail party. Unless he either thought the animal was real, or thought a harder look was required.
And now, if you take exception, you really have to just reread. Because you are, quite clearly, jumping to conclusions. Qualified folks who reviewed P/G could tell you that.
I’m guilty of saying – even right here – that P/G has been terminally polluted as evidence. But J. Darren Naish is only the latest piece of evidence that maybe *I* jumped to a conclusion there.
I should probably say something about this too (although I thought I had, somewhere).
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rbhess wrote (post #96, 9/24/07, 11:14 AM):
“This model tells us that there was probably never any large primates (other than man–believed to be a relative latecomer) in North America. If there were, they’d have left behind some trace …”
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Um, that’s a flawed model (Roger’s demurrer aside). Here’s why:
1) As I said above, models tell us what has been determined to be true. they don’t assess probabilities for something that is either a 100 (exists) or a zero (doesn’t). They can only address things that aren’t in the model by saying: there is nothing sufficient to prove that contention. (Yet.)
2) The fossil record is nothing to predict from. It will always be, by definition, incomplete. Not only is it, in fact, incomplete (a very small percentage of prehistoric animals are known from full sets of remains), but fossilization is such a fabulously rare process – bet: you will NOT become a fossil, no matter how you intend to improve the odds – that the absence of something from the fossil record being taken as evidence that the thing did not exist is, in essence, proving a negative. With no evidence from which to draw. It’s simply conduct unbecoming a scientist to state that if something had existed, it would have left some trace. There’s no theory – much less conceivable proof – supporting that notion.
And as all of us here know, there’s much closer to overwhelming evidence for the sasquatch than there is to an “overwhelming absence of evidence.” Whether now considered proof by mainstream science or not, that is NOT a minor point.