Creature Suit Analysis - Part 9 - A Study of Probability

[Guest BJohnson]

Without taking a side, let's look at this probability from a reverse angle.

Say we have some givens, for the sake of argument.

1. Let's assume there were and are no such cryptids in existence, and

2. Let's assume that Patterson had a very limited budget to create such a suit, and

3. Let's assume that, against all odds, he did the filming in a one-shot deal and 'got lucky'.

Then we go back and analyze the data on construction and operation of the suit. We would have to make the assumption that, -somehow-, they were able to film a low to medium quality suit in such a way as to give the impression it was a very high quality suit, or that we're interpreting the visual cues incorrectly, or overestimating the difficulty.

--

(Parenthetically, I have to admit Bill?s analysis is very, very good, and I don?t think we?re over-estimating the difficulty of construction, preparation, operation and filming)

--

When we don't have enough data there is a tendency to over-analyze. We've seen this in regard to the PG-film. People claim to see movement that really isn't there, and it's easy to see that given the size of the creature on the film (a few millimeters?), if you enlarge it, artifacts can occur. The movement of a dark creature against similarly colored background can cause some morphing effects where it's hard to distinguish foreground from background. Having said that I think that Bill has picked up some things which don?t appear to be artifacts or morphing effects.

Is it possible, even remotely, that P-G could have filmed a mime in a suit? Let's say we had the creature really doing some impossible moves (given 1967 tech), such as jumping 4 feet in the air when startled at the river bank, or leaping 8 feet over trees, or running at a gallop on all-fours. Then, it would be clearly out of the realm of possibility for it to be a human mime and we'd have to assume we had a real cryptid. But given what we see on the film, it's not impossible (though, given the superb analysis by Bill, a high improbability) that they could pull off a successful filming using a mime in a suit, fooling even future computer analysis.

To further confound the probability analysis, let's ask what is the possibility that P-G could go into the woods and film a grizzly or a polar bear. Those -are- real creatures, and their ranges extend somewhat near that area. We'd have to say the possibility of them doing that would be very, very unlikely. It would be very unlikely that a grizzly or polar bear would ?be- in the Bluff Creek area, and even more unlikely they'd be caught on film. One might even say it is so unlikely as to -never- happen, but?it?s not impossible (for example, one could escape from a Zoo).

Yet it would have to be -more- likely to find and film a polar bear in Bluff Creek than to find and film a real cryptid, whose existence is unproven.

----

In the above, I'm not trying to offer statistics, or argue against statistical analysis or even use a scientific approach. I'm not falling on one side or the other of the argument for the existence of BF, just trying to offer some food for thought or some additional perspective, valid or not, I don't know.

Edited September 10, 2009 by BJohnson

[Guest Tontar]

Without taking a side, let's look at this probability from a reverse angle.

Say we have some givens, for the sake of argument.

1. Let's assume there were and are no such cryptids in existence, and

2. Let's assume that Patterson had a very limited budget to create such a suit, and

3. Let's assume that, against all odds, he did the filming in a one-shot deal and 'got lucky'.

I appreciate your perspective on this argument. It usually seems that people take such a hard line opinion one way or the other, and avoid considering other possibilities. I always have to preface my own thoughts about the PGF with the idea that whether or not Patty is real is secondary to whether bigfoot is real. To me, neither has been comfortably proven either way, and so I leave room for either possibility to be true. I may WANT bigfoot to be real, and I may WANT Patty to be real, but my wanting and hoping does not make it so. And so, I really do appreciate that you give room, in a discussion at least, for the possibility that bigfoot does not exist, prior to debating the authenticity of Patty as a real bigfoot.

Okay, so we really don't know how limited Patterson's budget was. He may have found sufficient funding somewhere to build a suit that would be passable on the right person. The budget is an assumption that I for one don't have a clue about, and I suspect that mystery will always be a mystery. Sure, he seemed to be without sufficient funds to make a complex and elaborate suit, and that has been an ongoing argument for Patty being real. How does one argue that Patterson didn't have the money to make a decent suit, and yet there were also no real bigfoot around for him to get lucky with?

Then we go back and analyze the data on construction and operation of the suit. We would have to make the assumption that, -somehow-, they were able to film a low to medium quality suit in such a way as to give the impression it was a very high quality suit, or that we're interpreting the visual cues incorrectly, or overestimating the difficulty.

Hmmm, a low to medium quality suit giving the appearance of a high quality suit, or better yet, a medium quality suit giving the appearance of a creature that does not exist. I suppose that would be the assumption for those believing that Patty was indeed a person in a suit. I think that there is room to elaborate on your idea that we may be interpreting the visual cues incorrectly as well as overestimating the difficulty. As we all know, there have been hundreds if not thousands of people who have been saying exactly that. If it is a suit, then that assumption would have to be pretty close to true, right?

Look at it this way, there have been way too many people making assumptions about things in the film, from something as simple as all the debris on the film that makes various black or colored blobs here and there, interpreting those bits of debris as mouth movement, thumbs and fingers where they obviously are not, bloody dog footprints, a flat head that suddenly turns into a rounded head, and so on. there are endless interpretations based on just those sort of imperfections in the film, not to mention things that are on the film that are also interpreted this way or that. Interpretations muddy things up a lot.

I have also felt that the difficulty in producing an acceptable suit has been overestimated. The argument against a suit has always been based on stretch fur technology of the time, arm extensions, the breasts and so on. Or that in the past 40+ years nobody has produced a comparable suit to prove one could be made back then.

I don't think that those arguments stand up as reliable "proof" against a suit. The suit would not have to be made of stretch fur at all, it could be made of something as simple as stretch leotard materials, thermal underwear material, stretch poly fabrics, all of which were in existence and in use at the time for all sorts of uses. Think of all the 60's mod clothes that were made of stretch fabrics. Using a fabric base, cut to whatever suit design, and then populated with hair glued to the outside is about the most simple and cheapest way I could think of.

Look at the Tropi from Skullduggery, the Pakuni in Land of the Lost, both have excellent suits that move as well as Patty does, in terms of stretching, bending, flexing; looking like a real coat of hair sprouting from a living creature. Sure, they had big, goofy hair styles, but that was not a necessity, more of a design decision when making those costumes. It is feasible that Patty could have been made similarly to those two examples.

And then there are the breasts, often cited as a reason to doubt the suit theory. The Tropi definitely had breasts, shown in a feature movie. And also, in One Million Years BC there were cave ape-people that also had breasts, were more ape like, more lurching and arm swinging than the Tropi or Pakuni, far less human looking. But even so, they had patchy hair patterns similar to Patty's. I brought these movie ape-people up elsewhere to point out a flaw in the probability scenario, pointing out that in contrast to some of the things layered onto the idea that Patty was most likely real because... and when I did point out that indeed there were ape-people suits that featured breasts, or that did feature apparently stretching fabrics adorned with hair, or that the patterning of such hair had been made to look realistic, the entire point was lost in the hasty criticism that followed. That criticism went something like this; it's an obvious fake, you can see the arm extensions, and other features that prove it's a suit. The "point" being complketely ignored and overlooked. The point was that breasts had been seen in the cinema on ape creatures prior to Patty being filmed. Realistic fur patterns had been seen on ape creatures prior to Patty being filmed. That convincing stretch suits had been used in cinema around the time of Patty, apparently even in the absence of stretch fur cloth.

Ignoring facts is no way to prove something. Using false arguments is no way to prove something. Whether or not it was possible then, or possible now, to recreate a similarly convincing suit is not proof that Patty was real or fake. She either was, or wasn't, regardless of how technologically advanced suit construction is or was. There's a meaning in there that often gets overlooked. I try to point out that I believe that it was entirely possible to produce a suit that was convincing, and that it is likely that Patty was in fact of a size that fits well within human standards. But just because I believe that it was possible does not mean that I believe that Patty was such a creation. I just think that it is not all that necessary to go to illogical and false efforts to try to prove she was real because evidence real and exaggerated or even falsified would put her well outside human capability.

--

(Parenthetically, I have to admit Bill?s analysis is very, very good, and I don?t think we?re over-estimating the difficulty of construction, preparation, operation and filming)

--

Bill's study has been an excellent study. I have been reading his reports again yesterday and today, and the amount of work and research he has put into it has been amazing and humbling. Anyone should be humbled by his efforts, and I applaud him for his work. Particularly the analysis of the film, the cameras, the technical details about the filming, as well as the recreation of Bluff Creek digitally. I suspect, however, that the ultimate results have not yet been seen. There has been recent talk of consideration of different lenses being used, and tested for in the digital model. If he runs the numbers for a 16, or 18 mm lens and things are not substantially off as far as perspective in the digital model, we may have some difference in possible sizes that Patty may have been. Other researchers have arrived at a variety of possible sizes for Patty based on their own methods, and it would not bother me at all if Patty ended up having a similar possible range of sizes once more digital model analysis is done. I don't "need" Patty to be really tall for her to be real. I just need bigfoot to be real, and to see if Patty ends up looking like these real ones once they are found. :-)

When we don't have enough data there is a tendency to over-analyze. We've seen this in regard to the PG-film. People claim to see movement that really isn't there, and it's easy to see that given the size of the creature on the film (a few millimeters?), if you enlarge it, artifacts can occur. The movement of a dark creature against similarly colored background can cause some morphing effects where it's hard to distinguish foreground from background. Having said that I think that Bill has picked up some things which don?t appear to be artifacts or morphing effects.

Absolutely! And since Bill has personally scanned Mrs. Patterson's archived copy of the film, and has done significant work comparing copies to copies to originals, a great deal can be brought to light as he sees fit to present the results of those scans. I read that he plans to do some stabilizations to his files, which would be awesome. I think that the MK Davis stabilizations are great, but those available are too small and too low in resolution to be state of the art. It would be good to have full resolution, full body, full film stabilizations. Including the early walking parts and the later walking parts, not just the famous middle section.

Is it possible, even remotely, that P-G could have filmed a mime in a suit? Let's say we had the creature really doing some impossible moves (given 1967 tech), such as jumping 4 feet in the air when startled at the river bank, or leaping 8 feet over trees, or running at a gallop on all-fours. Then, it would be clearly out of the realm of possibility for it to be a human mime and we'd have to assume we had a real cryptid. But given what we see on the film, it's not impossible (though, given the superb analysis by Bill, a high improbability) that they could pull off a successful filming using a mime in a suit, fooling even future computer analysis.

Is that a question, or a comment? Is it possible? I think that currently the answer would have to be yes. Until the existence of bigfoot has been definitively confirmed, then the possibility that bigfoot does not exist has to be considered. You simply cannot say that Patty is a real bigfoot as long as bigfoot itself has not been verified. And so, until it is confirmed that bigfoot is real, the authenticity of Patty has to be considered. It's just plain common sense, and not something coming from a belief system on either side of the fence.

To throw a wrench into the gears, there are things about the film subject that seem to be ignored or rationalized away. Like the horizontal lines across Patty's upper thigh. They look to me like a pair of pants or shorts or boxers riding up inside a pair of outer leggings. Don't know why it looks that way, but it does. That visual is something that bugs me, and I just can't dismiss it from my mind. What is it, why is it there, and why is it that others don't seem to have an issue with it? Nobody I know has that sort of line, or double lines, across their thighs, except when layering clothes. And why doe she have such a bubble butt, that honestly doesn't flex as much as one would think it should. The infamous diaper butt deal. The legs make long strides, almost stomping strides, where one can see the legs taking the shock when planting the feet, and in the stabilized clips you can see the shoulders rocking form side to side, swaggering in a way, and yet that butt seems pretty close to rigid, more of an extension of the back than an extension of the legs. That also troubles me. The idea that Patty is without flaws, is without any indication or hint of being a suit, is not an idea that I have. Sure, she looks real as can be, but there are those few things that make her look like a suit. I don;t think the perfection meter is totally to the one side if one looks carefully enough.

To further confound the probability analysis, let's ask what is the possibility that P-G could go into the woods and film a grizzly or a polar bear. Those -are- real creatures, and their ranges extend somewhat near that area. We'd have to say the possibility of them doing that would be very, very unlikely. It would be very unlikely that a grizzly or polar bear would ?be- in the Bluff Creek area, and even more unlikely they'd be caught on film. One might even say it is so unlikely as to -never- happen, but?it?s not impossible (for example, one could escape from a Zoo).

Which way are you swinging anyway? :-) Yes, it is highly improbable that anyone could get a bigfoot on film, when they would be hoping to. He was either very, very lucky, or this was not an accident.

Yet it would have to be -more- likely to find and film a polar bear in Bluff Creek than to find and film a real cryptid, whose existence is unproven.

True. There are plenty of bears in the woods, and cougars, but who ever sees them, much less films them when they go looking for them. This is a problem for those who believe that Patty was real. It also gives hope to those who hope to stumble upon a bigfoot in the woods sometime in their lives. I go looking now and then, seriously hoping to find something, anything, but have yet to discover even elk or deer in the woods. We do see elk and deer while driving, we saw deer last weekend while stomping through a clear cut. But nothing even hinting of bigfoot so far.

In the above, I'm not trying to offer statistics, or argue against statistical analysis or even use a scientific approach. I'm not falling on one side or the other of the argument for the existence of BF, just trying to offer some food for thought or some additional perspective, valid or not, I don't know.

I hope you don't get labeled as a skeptic, or an idiot, or a heretic, or any number of names that can be thrown your way. If you don't believe, or if you don't have some elaborate scientifically organized argument to support your lack of complete acceptance, then often enough you just don't rate. I figure that they exist, or they don't. Easy as that. And that Patty is a real example of something that does exist, or she is not. For Patty to be real, bigfoot has to be a real species or race. But for bigfoot to be real, Patty does not automatically have to be real. Bigfoot may still be real, and Patty not be real. I'd like to believe in both, but for me to believe, I need something significant for proof. If I see one, I will believe. I will not KNOW that they exist at that point, but I will believe. I will know they exist when everyone else knows they exist. But for me to believe requires some form of evidence that is personal and irrefutable. Were there also a man in frame with Patty, proving she was out of scale or proportion, that would do it. But there wasn't, and so recreations are how people try to prove Patty was bigger than people, or heavier than people, or disproportionate from people. maybe she was, but so far it's inconclusive as far as I am concerned. All due respect to Bill's work. He's a great guy, but I am waiting to see what comes of additional research into tracks at Bluff Creek being added to the model to verify the strides, comparing them with Patty in the film/model, and with the tracks as photographed after the filming.

[Guest Tontar]

That "suitnik" argument is of course, sometimes looks like a classical case of "begging the question" or "circular reasoning". Circular reasoning is used a lot, but seldom is it presented in such a straight forward fashion that you can see the circularity immediately.

***

Moe: Sasquatch does not exist.

Joe: Why do you feel that; there are sighting reports, extended sighting reports, multiple witness sighting reports, multiple trackways, and a least one video that probabilistically appears to be genuine.

Moe: All sightings, tracks and other evidence are either:

1 - hoaxing

2 - mis-apperception,

3 - delusion

4 - the result of other psychopathology

Joe: Have you demonstrated that all evidence brought forward falls into one of these categories?

Moe: It is not necessary, at least some alleged evidence has been shown to be such

Joe: How do you know that all evidence falls into the category of mistakes?

Moe: Because Sasquatch does not exist.

So, I may be accused of presenting a straw man here, but after reading internet chatter for months in various forums, I don't think that I am.

Regards

p.s., it is interesting to see those who disparage the provenance of the Patterson/Gimlin film and at the same time feel that Sasquatch may in fact still exist. These are logically separate beliefs.

It's clear that there are two basic camps; the believers and the non-believers. The believers use logic to bolster their beliefs, and the non-believers use logic to bolster their non-belief. In both camps logic and reason is used to attempt to prove or validate their own personal bias. I've heard the word idiot used to describe the arguments of the non-believers, and I have also heard that word used to describe the believers. Interesting that there are so many smart people on either side, who can't see the logic on the other side. It's boggling.

What we don't know is this, if Patty was real, and if bigfoot is real. I hope that some day we find out either way. I hope that we find out they are real, but if it turns out they never were real, I don't think I'll feel too much like a fool. But like I said, I do hope they are real. I doubt that we will ever know one way or the other about Patty, unless we find real bigfoot and it looks nothing like Patty at all. That would be an interesting problem, eh?

[Guest Tontar]

Bill, I realize after reading my post again that it appears I am principally addressing you. However primarily what I was addressing included comments such as what was quoted. It seems to me that there is this built in reaction to the corollary to your main objective.

On the one hand I agree with you with the falsification issue and in fact I argued pretty strenuously that if Meldrum's tracks and trackways could be classified why not the actual animal? After having spent considerable time in the field gathering data that convinces me beyond doubt that a bipedal ape-like creature exists and after reading through these threads and then after re-thinking the scientific method, I am left with the "other hand".

What is on the other hand is the issue of probabilities and possibilities. Things aren't always what they seem. The scientific method is the best means to show how things actually are. While I agree that there is an accumulation of anecdotal reports which combined create a set of physical and behavioural traits thus leading one to be able to "paint a picture" of an animal we all know as bigfoot, the problem is in sorting out which anecdotes are real and which are simply misidentifications of known animals.

Let me illustrate. I have conducted probably hundreds of hours of audio surveillance in areas where bf have been reported. I have numerous examples of what appear to be wood knocking recordings in wee hours of the morning in remote areas that fit a particular pattern. What I have found is that after time and scrutiny many of these (not all) are eliminated as possibilities of a bipedal ape-like creature causing the noise. One of them turned out to be a horse coughing but the sound clearly sounded like a wood on wood concussion and fit a pattern established by other wood knockings in other areas away from horses. How many sounds may fall by the wayside if there is not first convincing evidence linking a real bipedal ape-like creature striking a tree with a stick or branch? Even if you obtained a photograph of one doing this how do you know without being able to physically examine it what it is?

With no animal as the "holotype" as it were, there is no animal to make a comparison to and thus no means to scientifically come to an affirmative identification. The best that can be said sans a physical body for examination is that whatever is on that film has a certain set of characteristics that could be shown to make biological sense from a structural standpoint. Since this is a one of a kind film, there are not even other recorded moving images that can be used for comparative purposes to at least show that there are other things out there that have similar traits.

Again, there are no bones, no hair, no scat, no blood, no flesh, that to date have been associated with photographic evidence of something resembling this thing on the PGF. So no amount of scrutiny to the PGF can provide the positive side of the coin.

You make a good point that what it can do is provide a theoretical possibility of it being an animal and thus provide at least one reference point for an initiation of serious scientific study. Further clear video showing movement would also help to substantiate the case.

My concern is that the science does not get watered down, undermined, misused or politicized as in the case of global warming for example. In other words, we cannot let our desires get ahead of the facts or we will find that our foes will use the facts to get our heads.

Soundman

Interesting post. You say you have spent considerable time investigating and gathering evidence to be convinced that bigfoot exist. Very cool, I wish I had my own personal evidence with which to be convinced, but so far I have come up short. Nothing physical yet, not even sounds.

I like that you have gone to the lengths to discover which of the sounds that may have been seen as bigfoot sounds were in fact coming from other sources. I think it's probably a rare bigfoot researcher that would disprove evidence that if left alone might substantiate the existence of bigfoot.

Might I ask where you have been finding the convincing evidence? I live in the PNW and I figure it should be a decent research area, based on historical sightings, recent rainfall discussions, amount of old growth forests, and so on. But even so, no matter how remote a location seems to be around here, someone seems ot have hiked it, explored it, caped it or logged it. And still with all the activity that goes on in even the most remote forests, few sightings seem to happen, unless they are simply not reported. That doesn't make me feel that confident that I could go in and find anything by actively looking.

[Bill]

Tontar:

"Bill's study has been an excellent study. I have been reading his reports again yesterday and today, and the amount of work and research he has put into it has been amazing and humbling. Anyone should be humbled by his efforts, and I applaud him for his work. Particularly the analysis of the film, the cameras, the technical details about the filming, as well as the recreation of Bluff Creek digitally. I suspect, however, that the ultimate results have not yet been seen."

You are correct. The ultimate results are certainly not done yet. My own work is being re-evaluated in light of all the discussion since I posted it in May, and the next analysis will be the stronger, for those discussions and opposing opinions.

(from Bjohnson) "When we don't have enough data there is a tendency to over-analyze. We've seen this in regard to the PG-film. People claim to see movement that really isn't there, and it's easy to see that given the size of the creature on the film (a few millimeters?), if you enlarge it, artifacts can occur."

Correct. This has been a problem for researchers for many years now, to over-analyze minute detail in single frames. The artifact problem really needs far more consideration than it has been given in the past. It is one of the major factors in questions about the "foot as ruler" discussions, and the leg "hernia bulge" is ilkley just a light flare artifact, nothing more.

"The movement of a dark creature against similarly colored background can cause some morphing effects where it's hard to distinguish foreground from background. Having said that I think that Bill has picked up some things which don?t appear to be artifacts or morphing effects."

The goal is to use something in multiple frames, to null out the prospect of a shape morphed by copy artifacts or film resolution limitations. A structure in multiple frames will have far more relaibility than a structure of the body seen only in one frame. Too much research is applied to single frame structures or light patterns. Most of my research now is on structures of the landscape or subject body which are verified across multiple frames.

"Absolutely! And since Bill has personally scanned Mrs. Patterson's archived copy of the film, and has done significant work comparing copies to copies to originals, a great deal can be brought to light as he sees fit to present the results of those scans. I read that he plans to do some stabilizations to his files, which would be awesome. I think that the MK Davis stabilizations are great, but those available are too small and too low in resolution to be state of the art. It would be good to have full resolution, full body, full film stabilizations. Including the early walking parts and the later walking parts, not just the famous middle section."

It's done, and looks nice. It s in HD Video format (1920 x 1080 resolution). The beginning and end sequences have enough camera motion blur that even image stabilizing can't fix those, but a short segment of the walk in the beginning, and some of the walk on the end, are improved.

"All due respect to Bill's work. He's a great guy, but I am waiting to see what comes of additional research into tracks at Bluff Creek being added to the model to verify the strides, comparing them with Patty in the film/model, and with the tracks as photographed after the filming."

The "wait and see" position is a perfectly respectful position to take, because there is so much to be done and right now, a lot is still inconclusive. Where I feel I have made a mark is in taking a different direction in the research, going more heavily into foundation matters like film genealogy, copy history, discounting artifacts, resolving motion blur issues, and pushing for more reliance on a multiple frame analysis for any feature or structure, and being willing to dismiss some things as simply below the film's level of resolving detail, and thus destined to remain inconclusive, while focusing on things measurable well above the resolution limits, so they have far greater potential to be determined.

Bill

[Guest Tontar]

And I've already demolished your so-called "similarities". Some fake hair punched into a unitard is NOT the same as the type of sophisticated costuming/prosthetics that would be necessary to create "Patty".

Demolished? Isn't this getting a little bit personal and leaving the realm of logical and reasoned debate? I guess we'll just have to disagree as to how sophisticated a costume would need to be to convince "believers" who are not all that objective. I hope bigfoot are real, and I hope that Patty was real. But looking at it objectively, I don't think it is as clear as you believe it to be, that she is without a doubt a true bigfoot.

Certainly there have been costume professionals that have stated that there is no way that Patty could be a human in a suit. Just as certainly there have been costume professionals that have stated the opposite side of that argument. Who is right and who is wrong? When you have two competing arguments that appear to have equal weight behind them, which argument one chooses to believe says a lot about one's objectivity. You seem to believe regardless of what is said. You reject anything that would interfere with your belief. Me, I want to believe, but so far I fall somewhere in the middle. If there are two competing arguments with equal weight, I see it as a draw, nobody wins the argument, and both have good points. In your world, it is likely that I would be called a skeptic because I do not believe just because. I need better reasons than, just because. An argument needs to make better sense than a competing argument.

The fact is, there WERE decent ape-people costumes prior to Patty being filmed. There WERE ape people that featured breasts prior to as well as after Patty was filmed. I'm sorry if you think that these facts are somehow intended as attacks against Patty or against bigfoot; they are not. They are merely pieces of the puzzle that many prefer not to recognize. Because acknowledging such facts may somehow chip away at the legitimacy of your belief.

It's pretty simple, honestly. Bigfoot either exist or they don't exist. We don't have positive proof yet. And Patty was either a real bigfoot or not, and once again, we still don't know that yet either. So let's keep looking for them, see if we can find them. I'll be leaving tomorrow for the mountains, and will try to get in another hike to see what I can find. And trust me, there is nothing more I would like than to come upon some evidence to make me believe, footprints, hair, or better yet a sighting. That is WHY I will be going into the woods. Not to make money, not to make some videotape and post it on YouTube, not to host a safari, nothing like that. Just to try to find a bigfoot, or evidence to make me believe. You see, I really want to believe, so I look for things to convince me to believe. It just takes more for me than for some others I guess.

[Guest Tontar]

Tontar:

"Bill's study has been an excellent study. I have been reading his reports again yesterday and today, and the amount of work and research he has put into it has been amazing and humbling. Anyone should be humbled by his efforts, and I applaud him for his work. Particularly the analysis of the film, the cameras, the technical details about the filming, as well as the recreation of Bluff Creek digitally. I suspect, however, that the ultimate results have not yet been seen."

You are correct. The ultimate results are certainly not done yet. My own work is being re-evaluated in light of all the discussion since I posted it in May, and the next analysis will be the stronger, for those discussions and opposing opinions.

I am looking forward to it! I hope we don't have to wait for the next installment of Monster Quest. They seem to leave out more than they include in their episodes, and they have not done your research much justice in past episodes.

(from Bjohnson) "When we don't have enough data there is a tendency to over-analyze. We've seen this in regard to the PG-film. People claim to see movement that really isn't there, and it's easy to see that given the size of the creature on the film (a few millimeters?), if you enlarge it, artifacts can occur."

Correct. This has been a problem for researchers for many years now, to over-analyze minute detail in single frames. The artifact problem really needs far more consideration than it has been given in the past. It is one of the major factors in questions about the "foot as ruler" discussions, and the leg "hernia bulge" is ilkley just a light flare artifact, nothing more.

I've been looking at that thigh bulge myself, in the color version of LMS. It looked to me more like a dark piece of debris on the film as opposed to a light flare. The light pattern in the hair seems to remain through various frames, but doesn't look to be three dimensional except in the one frame where a piece of debris (assumed debris) appears on that frame, right below the lighter hair, making it look like a shadow under a bulging highlight. Looking frame to frame through the majority of the film, there are far too many instances of similar dark debris popping in and out of frame, where if single frames are reviewed they might make something of it, but as you say eliminating the artifacts from consideration that do not cover more than one frame is a good idea.

"Absolutely! And since Bill has personally scanned Mrs. Patterson's archived copy of the film, and has done significant work comparing copies to copies to originals, a great deal can be brought to light as he sees fit to present the results of those scans. I read that he plans to do some stabilizations to his files, which would be awesome. I think that the MK Davis stabilizations are great, but those available are too small and too low in resolution to be state of the art. It would be good to have full resolution, full body, full film stabilizations. Including the early walking parts and the later walking parts, not just the famous middle section."

It's done, and looks nice. It s in HD Video format (1920 x 1080 resolution). The beginning and end sequences have enough camera motion blur that even image stabilizing can't fix those, but a short segment of the walk in the beginning, and some of the walk on the end, are improved.

Excellent. The next question should be obvious, when do we (or I) get to see it? I am dreading that the answer might have a capital M and a capital Q in it. :-)

"All due respect to Bill's work. He's a great guy, but I am waiting to see what comes of additional research into tracks at Bluff Creek being added to the model to verify the strides, comparing them with Patty in the film/model, and with the tracks as photographed after the filming."

The "wait and see" position is a perfectly respectful position to take, because there is so much to be done and right now, a lot is still inconclusive. Where I feel I have made a mark is in taking a different direction in the research, going more heavily into foundation matters like film genealogy, copy history, discounting artifacts, resolving motion blur issues, and pushing for more reliance on a multiple frame analysis for any feature or structure, and being willing to dismiss some things as simply below the film's level of resolving detail, and thus destined to remain inconclusive, while focusing on things measurable well above the resolution limits, so they have far greater potential to be determined.

I think that you have been making your mark far deeper than will be realized for a good time to come. Certainly you have raised the bar for analysis well above anything in the past. I was reading your recent updates, and while I will likely respond to you privately about some of your points that I may take issue with, I have to apologize if I have added to the noise that has been directed at you from us idiots. I know that we disagree on some things, and that while some of my disagreements may not take as clear a route in my explanations as yours may, I do think that ultimately we are looking to be on the same side of the fence. And so, now as always, my hat is still off to you, and I can't wait, I REALLY can't wait, to see the results of your recent film work. Ah, and if I may ask, the scans that you made from the Patterson copy, this is a first generation copy, right? Once removed form the original film shot? How does this film, or rather the scans, compare to what was supposedly obtained for the NASI report, which I think has been reportedly used for the MK Davis stabilizations?

Aaron

[Bill]

Arron:

Excellent. The next question should be obvious, when do we (or I) get to see it? I am dreading that the answer might have a capital M and a capital Q in it. :-)

I don't have any control over releases and airdates, but I believe late this fall might not be an unreal expectation. A few letters come to mind, but neither is an M or a Q.

I think that you have been making your mark far deeper than will be realized for a good time to come. Certainly you have raised the bar for analysis well above anything in the past. I was reading your recent updates, and while I will likely respond to you privately about some of your points that I may take issue with, I have to apologize if I have added to the noise that has been directed at you from us idiots. I know that we disagree on some things, and that while some of my disagreements may not take as clear a route in my explanations as yours may, I do think that ultimately we are looking to be on the same side of the fence.

Well. Gigantofooticus and i disagree a lot, and he and i have been able to maintain a respectful collaboration in seeking some truthful final result, so disagreement is certainly no problem for me. The problem lies in people who think any disagreement proves me wrong and them right, instead of simply being different perspectives on the problem, or different assumptions as a basis. The worse problem is people who set out to disagree with me for the sole purpuse of trying to establish some basis to say I'm wrong (even if they have to distort the facts to get to their disagreeing position).

How does this film, or rather the scans, compare to what was supposedly obtained for the NASI report, which I think has been reportedly used for the MK Davis stabilizations?

Since NASI scan material isn't available, i can't compare it. As far as i know, MK used Rick Noll's scan images, not NASI.

In terms of comparing copies, that is still a work in progress, and I've decided to wait on commenting on that until the analysis is complete, because incomplete work doesn't really help anybody, it just causes more confusion. There are contridictions in the copy history I hope to clear up, and that part will take time to do right. There's nothing suspicious going on with it, just that a whole lot of mis-information has been accumulating over the 42 years, and so it's more about clearing up the mis-information.

Bill

[Guest]

Yet it would have to be -more- likely to find and film a polar bear in Bluff Creek than to find and film a real cryptid, whose existence is unproven.

----

In the above, I'm not trying to offer statistics, or argue against statistical analysis or even use a scientific approach. I'm not falling on one side or the other of the argument for the existence of BF, just trying to offer some food for thought or some additional perspective, valid or not, I don't know.

Your logic is flawed. "Proven-ness" in no way affects probability of appearance. Animals do not simply appear when they are "proven" to exist. They existed all along and are "discovered".

[Guest]

Okay, so we really don't know how limited Patterson's budget was. He may have found sufficient funding somewhere to build a suit that would be passable on the right person. The budget is an assumption that I for one don't have a clue about, and I suspect that mystery will always be a mystery. Sure, he seemed to be without sufficient funds to make a complex and elaborate suit, and that has been an ongoing argument for Patty being real.

Even a technically simple suit would have been very expensive. P & G were both men of modest means. Where do they come up with the funds? It is incumbent on the "suitniks" (not saying you are one) to answer that as part of their theory. Did they steal it? Borrow it? From who? Did they have a backer? Who was he/she?

How does one argue that Patterson didn't have the money to make a decent suit, and yet there were also no real bigfoot around for him to get lucky with?

Independent variables that aren't really comparable.

Hmmm, a low to medium quality suit giving the appearance of a high quality suit, or better yet, a medium quality suit giving the appearance of a creature that does not exist. I suppose that would be the assumption for those believing that Patty was indeed a person in a suit. I think that there is room to elaborate on your idea that we may be interpreting the visual cues incorrectly as well as overestimating the difficulty....I have also felt that the difficulty in producing an acceptable suit has been overestimated. The argument against a suit has always been based on stretch fur technology of the time, arm extensions, the breasts and so on. Or that in the past 40+ years nobody has produced a comparable suit to prove one could be made back then.

Bill has expertise in this field, and I trust his findings.

I don't think that those arguments stand up as reliable "proof" against a suit. The suit would not have to be made of stretch fur at all, it could be made of something as simple as stretch leotard materials, thermal underwear material, stretch poly fabrics, all of which were in existence and in use at the time for all sorts of uses. Think of all the 60's mod clothes that were made of stretch fabrics. Using a fabric base, cut to whatever suit design, and then populated with hair glued to the outside is about the most simple and cheapest way I could think of.

The less "aid" you give to the suit, the more depends on the wearer. The disproportionate arm/height and leg/height measurements, if not the result of "extenders" or other mods to an actors' physique, MUST be inherent characteristics of the actor in question. The probability studies show an extremely low probability of finding an actual person with those ratios.

Look at the Tropi from Skullduggery, the Pakuni in Land of the Lost, both have excellent suits that move as well as Patty does, in terms of stretching, bending, flexing; looking like a real coat of hair sprouting from a living creature. Sure, they had big, goofy hair styles, but that was not a necessity, more of a design decision when making those costumes. It is feasible that Patty could have been made similarly to those two examples.

See above.

[Bill]

Tontar:

"I don't think that those arguments stand up as reliable "proof" against a suit. The suit would not have to be made of stretch fur at all, it could be made of something as simple as stretch leotard materials, thermal underwear material, stretch poly fabrics, all of which were in existence and in use at the time for all sorts of uses. Think of all the 60's mod clothes that were made of stretch fabrics. Using a fabric base, cut to whatever suit design, and then populated with hair glued to the outside is about the most simple and cheapest way I could think of.

Look at the Tropi from Skullduggery, the Pakuni in Land of the Lost, both have excellent suits that move as well as Patty does, in terms of stretching, bending, flexing; looking like a real coat of hair sprouting from a living creature. Sure, they had big, goofy hair styles, but that was not a necessity, more of a design decision when making those costumes. It is feasible that Patty could have been made similarly to those two examples.

I didn't catch this the first read through, but there is a problem with the above. Particularly:

"with hair glued to the outside"

You see, we never glue hair to fabric. it doesn't stick. The fabric soaks up the glue into the weave and leaves next to nothing on the fabric surface for the hair to get glued to. If you do succeed in gluing hair to fabric, it requires enough glue to fully saturate the fabric and still have a surface layer on top. Takes a horribly long time to dry, and effectively fuses the fabric into a solid about like the stiffest carpet backing you ever saw. So regardless of how you think about fabrics of the time, and how much they can stretch, gluing hair to them is a sure losing proposition.

The only way to fix hair to a fabric underlayer is sewing, weaving or other forms of tying or entangling. So you could take wefted hair (like on wigs) and sew the wefts to the fabric, but that's only good for long Chewbacca-like fur.

You could hand tie hair strands to lace or tule, and make the suit out of the lace, but that's outrageously expensive, overall the most expensive siut hair option in the busines. Or you could get pieces of hand-tied lace in parcels (like chest toupees) and sew them to the under fabric. Problem is the lace pieces are rarely thick hair, and thick hair costs more.

Finally, there's gluing the hair to a latex suit (like a fabric leotard coated with latex to provide the solid surface to glue to). But that latex imbedded in the fabric erases all stretch.

Those were the options back then. You could have "cheap" or you could have "lookin' good" but you couldn't have both, and any stretch, if atainable at all, still costs more for the skill of getting the hair on without losing any stretch the base garment might have.

Bill

Edited September 11, 2009 by Bill

[Guest BJohnson]

Agreed. Patty walks enough like us to be extremely closely related to us, or a guy in a suit. She walks nothing like an "ape".

I was considering this last night after looking at the infamous frame where we see the full bottom of the left foot, lifted up several inches from the ground, the leg bent at nearly 90 degrees. At first I thought "It's almost as though 'Patty' is showing us the bottom of his/her foot". But that seems silly - what other reason is there for this odd sight, this odd walk?

In mammals, locomotion is very efficient. They don't lift their feet or legs higher than is needed to accomplish forward progress.

If you look at the locomotion seen in the PG-film, it almost looks like the leg movements of an elephant, or a relatively ponderous animal moving on all fours. But 'Patty' is walking on two feet.

So what are the other reasons we see this.

Then I had an odd thought. What if the 'director' of the PG-film (assuming for the moment a mime-in-a-suit) said, 'Walk the track but be careful not to walk like a human'? Then it would be up to the mime to make some alteration of the "walk" to make it appear non-human. It wouldn't matter if the movement was inefficient, it only mattered that the walk not be like a 'normal human walk'.

Again, just brainstorming, but every action you see in the film has to have a reason, and this 'inefficient walk' is one that seems without reason.

To return to this experimental thesis, think of the 'ways' one could alter a walk so it wasn't normal. You could lift the knees higher, but that would seem like 'marching'. You could walk as though you were stepping over things, but that would be more like a march as well, lifting the forward foot higher.

Nothing really explains kicking up the rear leg to a near 90 degree angle and lifting the entire foot clear of the ground by several inches, except a human -trying- to walk 'funny'.

Thoughts?

Here's a vid showing an elephant walking. Note the front legs. They move through the gait with a kick up, bending the front leg at about 90 degrees. This is due to the way the elephant is built, I suppose. But it's similar to the way the PG-creature lifts its foot:

Edited September 11, 2009 by BJohnson

[Guest BJohnson]

Here's a vid showing an elephant walking. Note the front legs. They move through the gait with a kick up, bending the front leg at about 90 degrees. This is due to the way the elephant is built, I suppose. But it's similar to the way the PG-creature lifts its foot:

[Guest Xskeptic]

BJohnson, don't know how much time you have spent blazing trail through the woods. But if you have you would notice you soon learn not to walk like you would down 5th Ave. Everything that grows will eventually end up on the forest floor to grab ya, stab ya or trip ya. I can remember talking walks with my mother and tripping on the sidewalk from a broken slab of concrete that was only elevated a little bit. My mom would scream at me to get my feet off the ground when I walk. I think that a creature who lives in the forest (particularly one that walks on two legs) would instinctively learn to get their feet off the ground. It may look funny to those who live on 5th Ave. but it works in the woods.

X

Edited September 11, 2009 by Xskeptic

[Guest BJohnson]

Not to belabor the obvious, but the rear foot of the elephant, where there is a hip structure, does not have this kick up:

The reason the front foot does that kick up is probably due to the completely different structure of the elephant's front leg (it's not a hip joint, but an arm/shoulder joint)

The hinge for the rear leg is forward (a knee). The hinge for the front leg is back (an elbow)

The PG-creature, having a 'knee', not an elbow, would not be obliged to have this kick up on the trailing leg. (it's seen in both legs, so it's not due to something on the track, like a depression or a rock. To step over a rock or into a depression the forward foot would be altered as needed, but it would have no effect on the rear leg.).

====

Of course, in humans, during running, there is this kick up of the trailing leg, and it's due to the 'striding out' as the front leg strides and the rear leg must coil and drive to keep the body moving forward.

So, the PG-creature has this feature. It would -seem- that it could be an effect caused by 'over striding' or trying to walk with a longer gait than is normal for the structure.

Edited September 11, 2009 by BJohnson