Bigfoot With A Stick?

"I found that the Patterson subject was carrying…a stick." – M. K. Davis, December 3, 2006.

At the top of this post are two photographs; (1) a common chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) digging with a stick; and (2) a lowland gorilla (Gorilla gorilla) with a stick. Directly below is the archival photograph from the Library of Congress of a human being (Homo sapiens sapiens), who has been labeled a "Digger Indian" within those archives. Further below is the image of Bigfoot from the Patterson-Gimlin footage. Please compare them all.

Initially, M. K. Davis said that from his reading of the images he sees in the Patterson-Gimlin footage, he saw a "human" with evidence of culture. But he would not release more information because of Pat Holdbrook’s forthcoming film. Needless to say, one would expect that people would want to know more and challenge such radical statements. Now he says that he has "found that the Patterson subject was carrying" a stick and, for some reason, he relates that observation to the sticks used by California Indians to dig for roots.

Recently Henry May posted at his American Bigfoot site these insights that may start more conspiracy theories, but something we have to consider. May writes:

M.K. was able to determine that there were missing frames in most copies of the film shown on television; even the "Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science" DVD copy of the film, donated by John Green, has missing frames! The recent National Geographic special on Bigfoot was the only one to date to show the entire film, missing frames and all, from end-to-end. M.K. was able to determine that the copy shown on that broadcast was a 1-inch tape scan of the original film because of writing on the end of the film which said "American Bigfoot". That writing was significant because a company back in the early-’70s called American National Enterprises, or ANE, bought the rights to the original film from Roger Patterson, and they kept it for many years. The company was bought out by another company called Perequin, and that company eventually went under, which left the fate of the original film in limbo.

So what are we to surmise now? There are missing frames from the Patterson-Gimlin footage? M. K. Davis has taken those missing frames and feels they show Patty is carrying a stick? This is despite no one else ever having seen this or that there seems to be no evidence before or after those frames of anything in this cryptid’s hands? And based on this observation, M. K. has decided to relate this Bigfoot to it being an "Indian"? Or is he saying that there are Paranthropus that have been misidentified as humans who were really Sasquatch (as noted in the promo blurb at X-Zone)?

I admit. I am confused by all of these varied possibilities. After all, I’m only human. I look forward to the final clarifications from Pat Holdbrook and M. K. Davis. In the meantime, it is obvious that this has all turned into the best kind of publicity they could have ever wished for, regarding their forthcoming movie. Everyone wants to "know" now. Sort of like everyone wanted to see the "yet-to-be-released" photographs from Malaysia. No disrespect for M. K. Davis, but it seems this could have all been handled differently, in terms of this "roll-out" of data.

I have always admired M. K.’s remarkable photo enhancements. I guess I have, however, been a bit more critical of his theorizing and the stumbling that has occurred in the realm of the release of his breaking new "discovery." I hope I can finally, someday, "see" what he sees. I will, however, always asks questions, no matter what people read into them. In the meantime, there is one thing I do know; apes and humans both use sticks.

For more recent postings on M. K. Davis’s statements, see the following blogs: 1, 2, 3, and 4.

Loren Coleman 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.

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