P/G Film Roll #1 versus Roll #2
Posted by: Rick Noll on May 13th, 2007
Just an exercise here but I was thinking about just what was on these two rolls of film. The creature walking along the creeks sand bar is only in 23′ 9 and 1/4″ of a 100′ roll (Bigfoot Times, Danny Perez, Center for Bigfoot Studies, pg.2) and is at the end of that roll. Danny states that 76′ 2 and 3/4″ of the first part of the roll contains scenery, horses and riders. Did he in fact watch this for himself? Hmmm.
So this roll of film obviously could not contain close-up footage of the track-way made by the filmed subject. Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin have both gone on record that Roger ran out of film and had to reload the camera right after filming the creature (the film is daylight loadable). They are also on record saying that it began to rain that night and they had to get out of there so packed up and left early the next morning. All casts and the roll of film that contains footage of the tracks were made before the end of that night. Some were covered with bark by Bob when it started to rain, but they never returned to make more casts or film more.
Therefore the #2 roll of film made that day (there may have been other rolls exposed earlier that day but for the purpose here…), the one everyone thinks has gone missing or is misplaced should only contain the tracks and the casting of them. Their camp was already setup and there was no mention of running into the creature with a pack horse in tow. SO there should not be any footage of either one of them leading a pack horse on the #2 roll. This second roll may even not have been all exposed.
I am thinking that we have in our possession all of the second roll, because there wasn’t that much filmed on it, and the material on the first roll has been mistakenly thought to have belonged to that second roll.
Many of you may already know all of this or have already come to this conclusion. Most likely though the only persons still with us who have seen the unedited, uncut rolls of film is John Green and Al DeAtley. I wonder if what we see today is what they saw then? I mean look at the images posted below. I tried to correct them with the same filter pack I use on the creature sequence and it still looks like a different emulsion, processing or was severally underexposed. Why would it be so different? Could Roger have taken a light reading beforehand and changed the settings? I don’t recall anyone mentioning anything like that. In fact I thought the camera was setup and left as is for quick pull and shoot tactics.
I cannot believe that Roger bait and switched in front of Bob a pre-exposed roll of film with a hoaxed creature in it but the film change happened at just the right time to have done so. Reloading a partially exposed roll of film I think was also beyond Rogers expertise with that rented camera. If this had happened we would most likely get some double exposure stuff on the roll and some over exposure at the transition point. Granted now I have only worked with a copy of it but there is a very sharp cut between the creature scene and the one before it. Was the camera capable of stopping like that on a dime without much content movement in the frame… handheld? The lever to turn the camera on and off was in a very awkward position to do so and the exposure was consistent at that particular spot.
Which now brings me to Bruce Bonney. He was commissioned by René Dahinden to print a select few frames deemed the sharpest in order to fulfill René’s rights as a co-owner. Bruce decided to use Cibachrome technology and supposedly had access to the original film down in LA at the time. Right after the images were made and published in Man Like Monsters on Trial though, these two had a falling out… a pretty serious one. What was that about I wonder? Did Bruce see something or want to do something different than René with the film? They were suppose to have written a book about the film but that got canned as well.
Any way… doubts I have had with the film have been the exposure problem, Bruce Bonney’s exodus and the timing of and transportation for development. The only answers I ever got from René was… just look at the damn creature… is it real or not… that is the question. I felt a bit misdirected with that.
Just some food for thought and musings from the past.
About Rick Noll
Rick Noll has been actively searching for the Sasquatch since 1969 and continues his pursuit with extended field trips into the Pacific Northwest's most remote regions. Rick has worked with Peter Byrne, René Dahinden, Grover Krantz, John Green, Jeff Meldrum and the BFRO during all this. He helped with many documentaries on the subject including Animal X: The Skookum Expedition and Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science.
Look how deep that track is compared to the boot of Bob Gimlin that barely leaves an impression.
I think the switching film idea is far fetched. I would not want to risk ruining by trying to swap rolls and risk losing it all.
The track is indeed much deeper than the man’s. However, it looks to me like it’s shallow where it should be deep and deep where it should be shallow.
Of course, the picture quality isn’t very sharp so it’s hard to say for sure.
Look at the placement of the toes on the foot. This is the only time I have ever seen toes on the side of the foot where they would serve no benefit. If these tracks are real, then this creature would have to have a deformed foot, and would walk very slow and likely limp. Which might explain the depth uneveness, but there is another point. Again if you look at the casts being made, then at the prints, they do not match up. The casts would be more from a normal print not the ones they show here.
I’d say something is not right here.
To all the Patterson Film Doubters and Skeptics of the world I say, go ahead make my day, by duplicating this film and tracks using same 1967 technology. Bet you can’t!? I would far more respect the person who tries to and fails, over one who simply cries hoax.
cabochris: thank you.
Cryptozoology is not about film, tracks, personalities or squabbles over 50-year-old questions that can never be answered.
It’s about ANIMALS. Crypto is always gonna have trouble until its proponents realize this.
This is why I tend to give pretty short shrift to discussions like this. Here’s another bone getting worried that won’t give us insight, one way or another. I have said it before and I will say it again:
1. Duplicate it if you can do it.
2. I am NOT interested in how one part of this COULD have been hoaxed. Any part could have. You must show me how IT ALL WAS, or come so convincingly close that I have to accept the distinct probability that it was.
You’re dealing with a skeptic here. Show me.
Dahinden was right. Look at the film.
Is it a real animal?
Or not?
cabochris…
My friend, I’ve been preaching that exact same statement for years. If they could fake it that well in 67 then SURELY someone can replicate it now…right? They can’t even do it with todays materials and techniques…at least…no one has proven that they can. Either way…You can’t hit the nail more squarely on the head.
thank you
I am not saying that Bigfoot is a hoax, just that the print of the foot here in the image would make it impossible for the creature to have moved the way it was supposed to. The placement of the toes is very important to the movement of the creature, especially for a biped, they have to point forward.
This has nothing to do with does bigfoot exist or not, just the information on the film.
I always wondered why the soles of the feet were light? Maybe the feet were made of wood.
As far as asking why someone hasn’t reproduced this suit, my question to you is why would anyone want to?
I’ll bet if someone were to cough up some serious cash that might change.
If someone makes your dream come true and duplicates the footage, will you be happy? You’ll argue someone has had 40 years to do it. Even then it may be a duplicate of an original fake. Or is the duplicate also of a real creature?! Even proving the footage fake by finding the costume, or discovering test-footage outtakes showing a person in a costume, doesn’t disprove what they may have believed in and hoped to film, or what may exist. A convincing remake of the film will only give your grandchildren more argument than we have.
They appear to be the same colour as the substrate the animal walked on. It was first encountered by a stream. Wet feet equals dust and dirt clinging to the sole. Have you not walked with wet feet over dirt and sand and seen that dirt and sand then cling to your sole???
It’s a pretty simply explanation when you think about it.
Well the BBC wanted to. They failed. There have been others trying to prove the footage was hoaxed. Again, they failed.
Doubt it. Since the P/G footage was taken many many hoaxes, t.v documentaries and even movies have appeared. All have used various men in various bigfoot suits. None have come even close to what we see in the P/G footage taken 40 years ago. NONE!!!!
Why do you think that is the case? Because the P/G footage doesn’t show a man in a bigfoot suit perhaps??
There is a cash reward at Willow Creek for anybody who can duplicate the tracks John Green examined. There have been no takers so far. Surely these clever cloggs who think all the tracks are fake could come up with some way of proving their point? Even if the cash is not forthcoming they will have gained sufficient publicity to embarrass the likes of Green, providing their hoaxed trackways look convincing enough. I have put this idea to a number of these clever cloggs before, and none of them have gotten off their backsides to prove their point. Instead they seem to enjoy pontificating on message boards, and doing little else.
I disagree…could be fake feet
I don’t think they tried to prove anything
I think they were more interested in selling advertising slots during the showing.
It certainly wasn’t a well done documentary.
Evidence is not proof that something exists…
Case in point… people that have been incarcerated in prison because there was evidence that they were guilty, then later released when it was proven they weren’t guilty.
I understand dakwa’s point here, and i think it is a good one. The footprints here look wierd. That’s not to say tha BF doesn’t exist, or that the creature on the film is not a BF. It’s just to say- the footprints look wierd, and that needs some kind of explanation.
maybe that can be easily explained- if so, could someone do it please? If not, then, well some kind of question mark remains.
I don’t think it is entirely impossible that people who do see bigfoot try and ‘enhance’ the evidence- I’m not saying that happened here. I know less about the PG film than probably most of you here.
But, consider this- they stumble across patty and shoot a few seconds of film. they are completely unsure of the quality of the footage. They go over to where she walked and find either no footprints or fairly unclear footprints. Knowing that no-one is gonna believe them unless they have some firmer evidence they either fake the footprints or try to enhance the indistinct ones they find. Who knows.
I personally believe that the PG film is by far the best evidence we have (while watching it i am always torn between thinking its real, and the next second thinking its obviously not). I find the footprints much less convincing.
Lyndon offers a possible explanation. Occam’s Razor offers an even simpler one.
Humans’ tend to be. Why not the same with the sasquatch?
(Actually – at least from our anthropocentric standpoint – you can come even closer than that. The great apes’ feet are similarly shaded. Point being: they’re the color you’d expect.)
It should be noted that both the subject’s gait and the clear toe-lifting visible in closeup during the only good look at the right foot strongly militate against wooden feet. YOU try walking that casually, on any substrate much less a rocky riverbed, with wooden feet. And what would have to have been an enormously bulky and cumbersome suit.
Or you could just duplicate the Patterson film, which might be simpler.
dontmean2prymate: I think that’s the point people are making with regard to duplication (and I see it made again above). The biggest myth in squatchery is The Legend Of The Omnipotent Hoaxer. The history of hoaxes indicates that they don’t last for too long, particularly when the hoaxer tries something like faking an animal.
If someone duplicated P/G using technology demonstrably not available in 1967, we might not be satisfied. But at least we’d know it was humanly possible. A duplication using 1967 makin’s would still leave open the question of how it was done in a way that put the “animal” in front of the searchers at the opportune moment. But the film’s case for legitimacy would be substantially weakened, for sure.
But those of us who say do it strongly suspect the reason it hasn’t been: because it can’t be.
Same with that tropical big fish photo – I thought by now there would be some test-fakes done with different species of shark and catfish, using imaging software programs to give some idea at least of what posters said could be done with “primitive” methods to produce that postcard. Give me the same 16mm camera and film, and the gorilla suit I saw the other day on TVLand’s re-re-rerun of the Addams Family, and I’ll produce what I see in the footage: probably a man in a costume. The boobs were a good idea to cover that leather chestplate you see on every gorilla suit, which would give it away. Better yet, choose a place and time with a wooded backdrop, and invite anyone with costumes and recording devices to parade and film before given backdrop. Better than the bigfoot rock festival, it would contribute to the search and study, providing variable data with which to compare the original footage. And if it became an annual event it would give argument to enough generations that we as a species might fade in the interim, allowing bigfoot to take over the world, wondering if we exist. At the very least it would produce a good time for those who want to do more than play follow-the-leader in the wild, or watch 40 year-old footage one more time in search of proof.
Well they ‘could’ be fake feet, but just because the feet are light it’s no evidence that they are. And are you disagreeing that there is no way wet feet could account for substrate clinging to the soles?
Yes they did. They tried to prove the P/G footage was a hoax and they sold that premise to the BBC executives.
The major market was the home market. The U.K. The BBC doesn’t have advertising slots during it’s shows. It’s a commercial free broadcasting company. There are no commercials on the BBC. It’s paid for by the t.v licence payer in the U.K and they don’t have advertising slots. There were no advertising/commercial breaks during that show in the U.K. It ran right through.
It was actually a pretty decent documentary in the sense that it visited actual locations of famed sightings (Glenn Thomas, Mike McDonald, Tom Seward) and money was clearly spent on it. They obviously went to a lot of time and trouble to find those locations. However, you are right in the fact that beyond the locations visited it wasn’t a good documentary with regards to proving the P/G footage was a fake or in fact that bigfoot as a whole is just a myth. On the contrary it didn’t do the skeptical side much service at all.
No, but it is still ‘evidence’ that something exists. We do not have similar evidence for werewolves and leprechauns in contrast.
I’m a pretty talented artist but I couldn’t reproduce Jurassic Park. Therefore by the logic expressed here, Jurassic Park must be a film of real dinosaurs. If you’re trying to tell me those dinos are NOT real, then you’ll have to recreate all the scenes perfectly first before I’ll believe you.
peterbernard:
As with many attempts to capture the logic, your argument misses it.
Ever see the sets for JP? For any movie? Ever see the budget? The crew? The time they take? And someone could tell you, shot for shot, how the film was made. Plus, any human with experience seeing real animals could tell the dinos were fake at a glance. Good fakes, but very obviously just that.
Patty moves like a real animal, looks like a real animal. And no one has offered so much as an educated guess that holds water how ANY part of it was done.
Two vastly different settings. Two vastly different jobs.
And JP was easier.
Oh. And need I say that JP was reproduced?
TWICE?
And because all possible holes need to be shot in bad logic:
You’re saying YOU can’t duplicate JP. Obviously. You’re one guy. Plus, you’re not as good as the guys who did it. (“Pretty talented” does NOT do a film like that.)
NOBODY on Planet Earth – including the best in the world at precisely what we’re talking about – has touched P/G.
Oh, we know just what we’re talking about here. And so do they.
Ever seen a pigeon toed person walking? The toes point inwards. Ever noticed that a person with bad posture or the beginnings of a hump tends to walk with their toes pointing slightly outwards?
The comment on the feet being lighter, thus “could” be fake is also silly. The color on the bottom of the feet is an exact match of the sand it is walking on (kudos on whoever pointed that out). As the story goes, they came upon the creature in a creek, and when it spotted them, it WALKED quickly away on the sand bar into the woods. So, if it was in the creek and walked across the dry sand, naturally enough the sand would stick to the feet. Ever walked on the beach with wet feet?
Another point. All this bickering over how the prints “look”. Did you take into consideration that the prints are in a SAND bar? Again, ever walked on the beach? Ever noticed how your prints look odd?
Finally, and this is the kicker, and the one that convinced me that there was something beyond a hoax in this film, I challenge you to find a seam, or a zipper on this “costume”. In 1967, velcro was not invented, so the only way to seal someone up in a monkey suit was with a zipper, or to sew them into it. Also, while you are at it, I challenge you to explain away the muscle ripple that is obvious while she walks away. Explain away the natural movements of the body (no way a human being could so perfectly mimic the arm swing, for example, when their arms would be vastly shorter, and that little bother of not having an elbow in the same place).
In other words, if you are going to scream hoax, do so with at least some sort of logical means to back up your statements. Truth be told, I first saw this film way back in the day when I was a kid, and thought it was the coolest thing ever. As I grew up, I doubted it (of course, if this animal did exist, why hasn’t anyone ever produced one scientifically?). After seeing a similar discussion on another board, I downloaded the film and watched every single frame one by one on my computer.
-I found no zipper.
-I found no seam.
-The mechanics of walking, ie the arm swing, swaying of the body, etc… were authentic…easily proven by viewing the motion of the muscle under the hair, something that could not be duplicated until just recently and only on a computer. It was a natural walk.
In short, I believed nothing until I ran out of excuses. The film cannot be duplicated on anything short of computer animation.
While I have always been interested in cryptozoology and Sasquatch in particular, I guess that I fall somewhere between absolutely believing to having moments where I seriously have doubts. I believe that there were quite a few in the 60’s and 70’s, but like everything else whose land we take away; they are losing habitat and could be on the verge of extinction. Anyway, as for the film, it has never been proven fake and, as many have said earlier in this thread, no one has been able to even come close to duplicating it since. However, my main reason for thinking that it probably is the real thing, is the weird feeling that I get each time I watch this film. It seems like something just happens like goosebumps and an excited feeling comes over me. Something deep inside of me tells me that I am watching the real thing. I know that isnt very scientific, but I find that my instincts usually serve me well. Do any of you get that same sort of “uncanny, strange, excited” feeling that you are seeing something special? Ever since I first saw this film as a young kid in the early or mid 70’s, I have been hooked on Bigfoot and cryptozoology as a whole. I hope that we dont drive them to extinction before we can get the proof that the world needs to acknowledge them.
Rick,
First roll, second roll —– just a few thoughts and questions
What time of day did the actual sighting and filming occur?
Wouldn’t it be possible that it was earlier in the day which gave them the rest of the day for shooting the second roll? I’m looking at the shadows.
Was this the only time that Roger ever used a 16mm movie camera on one of his outings?
Are there other rolls from other trips, or considering how long this trip was, are there more than 2 rolls?
It only makes sense to me that the toes are not always going to line up perfectly on each track since they don’t wear shoes they no doubt use their toes much more than we do. Again there is some shadowing effect going on.
The print with the “splayed” out toes is obviously not the one that is being cast.
Good work