Say, What? No More Bigfoot Track Hoaxes?
Posted by: Loren Coleman on May 12th, 2007
Are Bigfoot hoaxes a thing of the past?
What do you think?
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.
Fantastic video, Loren. Thank you for posting it. I recently read Meldrum’s book, and this illustrated some of his points nicely. The testimony of one of the country’s leading fingerprint experts, and possibly the world’s only primate fingerprint expert, is very convincing. As for your question: of course there will continue to be hoaxes, and they will continue to be amateurish affairs executed on a weekend by some bored jokers. There will be no more convincing hoaxed footprints, since the experts now know what to look for, i.e. variations from print to print, dermal ridges, etc. A set of good fake feet, fully articulated with carefully sculpted dermal ridges, could conceivably be created, but the cost and development time involved would be considerable. What trickster has the resources or reason to pull it off?
Loren, for most of my adult life I was absolutely convinced ‘Patty’ was a preposterous fraud – until one day I actually bothered to look at the film.
Apart from intellectual laziness, this was also probably in part because I bought into the ‘scientific’ mind set which insisted it was irrational to believe otherwise.
So what shocks me about this video is not how strongly it presents the case for ‘Patty’/Bigfoot’s existence but what it tells me about how easy it still is for me to be influenced by the histrionics of the ‘anti-‘ brigade, and just how effective those histrionics are.
Even though I was fully aware of him, I hadn’t paid Jeff Meldrum the least bit of attention because under the barrage of propaganda against him, I’d developed this sort of unconscious picture of him as a demented old mad man who made Grover Krantz at his most unkempt look as dapper as James Bond in comparison.
I’d also unconsciously slipped into the idea of him as this wild-eyed maniac who skulked round his campus ranting wild ideas based on preposterous nothings and therefore someone unworthy of being paid any attention whatsoever.
And the worst of it is, until I actually saw him in action, so to speak, and beheld how he was completely the opposite of all my preconceptions, I didn’t even realise how misconceived my view of him’d been ‘guided’ into becoming.
It just goes to show how effective propaganda can be, but it also confirms my growing conviction that part of the training of everyone, especially scientists should cover, just as in the time of Plato and Aristotle, the need to “Know Thyself”.
Wonderful little film, Loren, thanks for sharing it! Of course there will continue to be haoxes.
I was enjoying this so much I cut it off to post!
I have been given to understand that Matt Crowley has shown that “dermal ridges,” or artifacts closely resembling them, can turn up in artificial footprints. But I’ve never read an effective response to that, other than the assertion of Chilcutt and Meldrum that dermal ridges certify authenticity, which doesn’t indicate any response to Crowley’s assertion.
Can anyone shed more light on that?
I am making the presumption that this is from the “Legend Meets Science” DVD?
I’d love to watch the reaction of the physicist at Idaho State who got quoted as saying this is a load of crap. (If he’d even watch it.) Sure love to see the science he’s doing.
Every little tiny bit of evidence can help fill in the gaps, so guess what: WE NEED MORE EVIDENCE!
Spring is here,
the flowers riz…
I wonder where
that Bigfoot is?
Let’s grab our gear and GET OUT THERE!
An important message given by the film is that when experts from different fields pool their talents, controversial fields like BF research can progress without additional smoking gun evidence. Here we had a primatologist, a kinesiologist and a forsenics expert operate as a think tank to show that hoaxers can be defeated and that BF research is a step closer to official science. I wonder if the rest of the documentary examined other bodies of evidence like the body/pelvis cast and hair samples. DWA, did Crowley say that artificial footprints somehow generate the ridges or that ridges are designed into them?
Crowley said that what are considered dermal ridges could actually be an artifact of the cement casting done to the prints as similar features show up in tests that were done. I’m not aware of any high resolution photos that would show these ridges in the actual print as well as cast so that one could determine what was there before casting.
Its my understanding that Meldrum had actually spoken with and agreed with Crowley’s findings on this issue, though I’ve only read several comments about it.
Knowing this, if one does happen to come across possible prints its probably a good idea to get close with the camera and try to get some good macro shots before casting for comparison.
Will a link work?
Here’s Crowley in his own words with photographs…
http://www.bigfootforums.com/index.php?showtopic=11363&hl=cast+artifacts
Is that Dick van Dyke narrating?
This is good, using science to weed out the hoxes – who’d of thunk it! I think every serious BF field researcher should take note of this and Dr Meldrum’s other research into the dynamics etc. of footprints for when they’re out there. A lot has been said in other posts about databases being contaminated with hoax print records – so now there is a sound methodology for testing the prints that can be applied databases from now on could/should be able to be hoax free. Here’s hoping anyway.
Would Dr Meldrum be willing to train a bunch of researchers e.g. Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy, into what to look for I wonder?
Wow…Interdisciplinary cooperation? I thought that was just a myth. Interesting to see some evidence supporting it. But then, this is just video evidence, so it may not count. 😉
Richard888: simianfever has pretty much my take on it.
I just wasn’t sure whether someone like Meldrum had addressed the issue.
I would imagine that the dermal ridges in sas prints are coarser features than in humans (the wear and tear alone might say so), and that it’s conceivable. Crowley himself cautioned about making any sweeping generalizations from what he found, including that dermal ridges are, or aren’t, evidence of a hoax. He just said, uh, look what I found.
Then we have Jimmy Chilcutt, who I’m not going all the way down the line with – boy was that an assertion, huh? Can’t remember anyone else staking his career on it except implicitly – if only because it’s been shown, so many times, how wrong any discipline of mainstream science can be. 😉
If you want to see dermal ridges on a sasquatch casting that resemble nothing like what Crowley has demonstrated, take a look at Zack Clothier’s gloriously illustrated, full color, high detail, examination of track castings (I’m sure many of you are already familiar with the article). The 1999 Kuterville Casting, Fig. 10., has evident ridges–but they’re very subtle and look totally authentic:
Zack Clothier’s Evaluation of 11 Alleged Sasquatch Tracks (Casts)