Bill Munns Asks: Is This “Matilda”?
Posted by: Craig Woolheater on February 25th, 2013
After discussing it with the others, we are allowing the video to go public with the following requirements:
This is a very short clip of a female Sasquatch sleeping that we licensed from the Erickson Project for use with the paper. Her respiration was timed at 6 breaths per minute, which is an indication that the video shows something unusual. This clip is now copyrighted to the Sasquatch Genome Project and any use or reposting MUST give proper attribution.Melba Ketchum
The source the “creature” images never referred to it as “Matilda”, but the descriptions I have read about “Matilda” seem to fit what is seen here. To me, it is obvious tihs “creature” is simply a Chewbacca mask with the hair reworked to be a different color and texture. I welcome comments from anyone who thinks otherwise.
With this posting, I cordially suggest the following:
1. If anyone wishes to publicly acknowledge that this is their footage, I invite them to do so, and if they are correct, I’ll acknowledge it to be true.
2. If anyone feels the video frames show a real creature and not a Chewbacca mask, I welcome their analysis of why we should consider that to be so.
3. If anyone has seen the “Matilda” footage, I invite you to let us know if this is or is not the footage you call “Matilda”, because maybe what I’m looking at isn’t her, and I welcome being corrected if that is so.
4. If my display of this chart causes anyone to feel that they should file some type of civil action against me, please have your lawyer contact me at [email protected] so we can set an appointment for my receiving the service of papers, and we can discuss the matter on the public record, in a court.
For the record, I will confidently and clearly offer an appraisal of evidence as being something real, if I truly find the evidence leads to that conclusion, and my appraisal of the PGF as being real supports that position. But as much as we must support what we find to be real or valid, we must also reject or discount what we find to be false or fake. Our obligation is to find the truth, and I think it’s time we all knew the truth about this “Matilda” thing. I finally decided it’s time I did my share to get the truth out.
So hopefully, someone who has seen the “Matilda” footage will tell us the truth. Is this her (pictured below), and is she real?Bill Munns
Co-founder of Cryptomundo in 2005.
I have appeared in or contributed to the following TV programs, documentaries and films:
OLN's Mysterious Encounters: "Caddo Critter", Southern Fried Bigfoot, Travel Channel's Weird Travels: "Bigfoot", History Channel's MonsterQuest: "Swamp Stalker", The Wild Man of the Navidad, Destination America's Monsters and Mysteries in America: Texas Terror - Lake Worth Monster, Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot: Return to Boggy Creek and Beast of the Bayou.
Chewie!
I wonder if legal fraud has been committed? Ketchum has charged money after all.
There were color variations in fur on the Wookies in Star Wars chapter 3 costumes. Not saying that’s what the still images are but suspiciously close….I Hope these are not the actual stills from the Erickson Project.
Can they just release the whole video please!? It’s starting to smell like Biscardi style to me I hate to say…
I mentioned before in the other “Matilda breathing” footage clip, that this mass of fur resembled an easily obtained Wookie costume and the comparisons shown here only strengthen this belief. I really have to ask…aside from momentary fame and what cannot be “retirement level” money garnered from such activities, why are people doing this? Am I wrong on the level of money and fame to be gotten?
Is this for fun? Anger? The humiliation of being found out would seem to enough to discourage high profile hoaxes and once having been uncovered as a sham, would not the networks, organizations and people deluded demand reimbursement and commence other substantial legal actions against the perpetrators?
A lot of this Sassoonery is raising above my level of understanding.
BTW; National Geographic is not above some first look hoodwinking/news-scoop hoaxing too – think “Archaeoraptor” and the ensuing controversy. They knew that this fossil was suspect and yet they went whole hog with it. I’m sure that the cost of space in printing the retraction in a later edition did not surpass the sales of the edition with the “Missing-link” cover story.
It certainly appears that Bill Munns (who has also somehow attained additional footage of this so called “Matilda” sasquatch) has identified this as a fake beyond any shadow of a doubt. While this is bad enough, it sheds ever further doubt as to the credibility of Melba Ketchum to associate herself with this fake footage, which to me is extremely troubling.
I thought Sasquatches had broad flat noses and faces similiar to ours ? At least according to thousands of reports over the last two hundred years. This “purported” creature looks like the hybridization event of a Wookie and an Ewok. (it happend 15,000 years ago in a galaxy far far away) This entire Erikson project is beginning to stink to high heaven. If this is truly the video Matt Moneymaker/Melba Ketchum are supporting to be real than I believe we are on to a grander scale of hoax than we imagined.
“Belief” in Matilda reminds me of the “Johor Bigfoot” stir where some otherwise sane individual suspended reasonable skepticism in order to have their reality fall in line with their fantasies.
On the other hand, the justified skeptics/skoftics regarding Matilda have never wavered from their unclenching faith in a 40 year old hoax. “Won’t the rest of the humanity feel stupid when tribes of 8 foot tall hairy ape-men-women living in the United States turn out to be real.”
Matilda is a feral Wookiee.
I shall laugh myself to death at this puppy-headed monster.
munns has a real valid point here folks…. our obligation is to find the truth… and most of the stuff passed on for “evidence” is crap and easily dismissed.
Cryptoraptor wrote:
“On the other hand, the justified skeptics/skoftics regarding Matilda have never wavered from their unclenching faith in a 40 year old hoax.”
Are you referring to the Patterson/Gimlin footage? If so there is no proof it was a hoax. All evidence indicates it was real. Asserting the PGF was a hoax doesn’t mean it actually was.
Hi Y’all….Ok, so I am new to all this, the whole thing is pretty bizarre…but I’m enjoying it and excited about the possibilities, and saddened by the possible hoaxes, its too bad. So in my confusion, seriously, I’m not looking for an argument, or putting one forward, I’m just asking for some help navigating this….
1-What does a bigfoot look like? What’s it supposed to look like? Should all of them look like what is in the PG film? Do they all look the same, in different parts of the country, if they are out there at all? My only experiences are from living in different rural areas with regular animals, and I do know that elk and deer, and even some coyote for example, have different colors in their coats according to their surroundings, the facial features in those animals don’t change that much, in my experience. That’s stuff I have witnessed since I was young, so that I can say.
2-Why would anyone be dumb enough to use a star wars mask, especially anyone who has been in this for as long as some of these folks appear to have been….are they selling the photos, or books or movies? How are they making money and ripping people off if they are?
I read online, I don’t know if its true, that Steven Spielberg’s own bigfoot encounter years ago influenced that mask…is that true or more internet non-sense?
So, in my search to find some of Dr. Ketchum’s responses to some of this stuff since her paper seems to be the spearhead for a lot of this right now…I found these on her FB page from yesterday, I know the first post relates to this, not sure about the second one.
1-“I’ m sorry to say the picture of Matilda had to be taken down. While she is adorable, that picture is owned by Adrian Erickson. It was allowed to be in the paper only. That picture is copy written and licensed. Anyone distributing or posting it is doing so illegally. Adrian is a good person and out of respect for him we will not post it publicly . We advise everyone to do the same.”
2-“Do to the wild rumors out on the internet. I felt it important to address a new rumor about a possible hoax. First we have never hoaxed anything as there is no need to. We have the proof we need in the science. I hope this helps everyone to understand.
One of the early reviewers asked for “any and all references related to our subject matter”. We neither agreed, with nor endorsed with any of those references used, though Bindernagel’s books are a good effort since at the time he didn’t know the human element involved. It was not our choice to use any of them though. That reference was a testament to the idiocy surrounding not only the scientific bias against the existence of these “people” but also the request by reviewers for references that we had not felt had any place in our manuscript, and were not included originally. This same reviewer, required the “so-called folklore” that is in the introduction. That also was not in the original manuscript”
Finally,
What does all this mean? Who has “what” to gain, and who has “what” to lose? I don’t know what her post is referring to, I guess she is saying she added things the reviewers requested even though its stuff she didn’t like? I do find it interesting how when people believe in something, no matter what, they won’t let go of their beliefs, and maybe this is some of what we are seeing on all sides?
I don’t feel like a total believer, or a total non believer, I’d like to give the paper the benefit of the doubt until the next set of reviews come thru…I’ve seen people get pretty nasty on here, and I’m not looking for a fight, just a little clarity, and if its not possible, that’s cool too:)
I support Bill Munns in his belief that the creature in the supposed Matilda footage looks remarkably like Chewbacca the Wookie. The resemblance is uncanny. I have had trouble since day one with this footage as the fur on the sleeping object in the footage looks unnatural. In fact, to me, this looks like those carpets from the 1970’s. You know what I am talking about.
The reports of alleged Wookie type sasquatches are few and far between. They do exist, but they are in a distinct minority. I have always taken that the witness described them as wookie-like because they were hair covered like Chewie was.
The nose in this footage is like that of a canid or felid. It is not human, pongid or otherwise. I have never heard any witness describe a sasquatch nose as being like the one in the series of photos above. It is completely out of sync with eyewitness reports.
In addition to the other bizarre features of this supposed sasquatch, where are the classic sasquatch anatomical features so widely reported such the sloping forehead, conical cranium and absence of a neck as described in a preponderance of sightings? This creature is entirely different. In my opinion it is not a sasquatch and does bear a remarkable resemblance to Chewbacca or some other fantasy film creature. It does not look like at all like a sasquatch.
If, in fact, this is the footage that is supposed to lend credence to the recent DNA study in Texas, then I would have to say that is a failure in proving any support for the DNA quest.
Kudos to Munns for identifying the costume.
I would advise Ketchum to stick strictly to her data. People may be feeding her bogus footage/info etc in order to muddy the waters of her discovery.
The establishment would like to see her discarded, and give Sykes the crown for the DNA finding.
Perhaps George saw enough Bigfoot photos and other evidence to decide to use one of them as a template for chewy. Maybe the bigfoot looks like chewy because chewy was designed to look like the bigfoot…sigh… negativity is just an amazing way to waste your time, not enjoying something. If you want to not enjoy something, go eat a bag of jalapeño peppers. Then you’ll have a great reason to gripe about something.