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Ray Pinker Hair Analysis


Guest RayG

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Back in 1968, some hair retrieved in Idaho was brought to Ray Pinker, a police science instructor in Los Angeles, for examination. The wording of his conclusions are no longer being accurately reported (by at least one well-known scientist/major bigfoot proponent), and the misrepresentation of Pinker's findings have begun to see more support than the truth. It's already happening, right here on this board. Pinker's name, along with his re-worded findings are being touted as supportive evidence for bigfoot hair identification.

Here's the actual timeline showing how re-wording has crept into the report:

  • 1968 - hair is brought to Pinker for examination.
  • 1968 - John Green hears of Pinker's involvement and contacts him for further info. In On The Track of the Sasquatch, 1968, page 71, Green writes that Pinker concluded, "they did not match any of the hair samples available to him...they resembled animal hairs...most strands had no medulla in the centre, which was characteristic of human hair, but also of some sheep and goats...scales on the outside...resembled the characteristic scales of human hairs."
  • 1973 - In The Sasquatch File, 1973, page 49, John Green writes about strands of hair being found, "which were later found to be unidentifiable and to have a mixture of human and animal characteristics."
  • 1978 - John Green releases his bigfoot masterpiece, Sasquatch: The Apes Among Us. On pages 284-285 he writes that, "hairs showed both animal and human characteristics...didn't match any samples that he had..."

So far John is being pretty consistent, the hairs don't match any of the samples available to Pinker, and they still have human/animal characteristics. He did however, drop any mention of the hairs having the characteristics of some sheep and goats.

  • 1980 - Halpin and Ames release Manlike Monsters on Trial: Early Records and Modern Evidence, a collection of articles presented at a conference on 'manlike monsters', held at the University of British Columbia in May 1978. In this collection is an article by Vaughn Bryant and Burleigh Trevor-Deutsch which references the Pinker hair analysis (page 296). They now put a more favorable spin on the report by saying that, "the hairs did not match specimens from any known animal species and that they had some characteristics common to both humans and non-humans." (my bolding, but the sample database for comparison purposes has now grown from animal samples that were directly available to Pinker to ANY known animal. A huge leap. The terminology has changed too, from 'animals' to 'non-humans'. While technically correct, it will eventually lead to further word mismanagement.)
  • 2004 - Bigfoot Exposed: An Anthropologist Examines America's Enduring Legend, by David Daegling is published, and on page 206 he calls the article by Bryant and Trevor-Deutsch a misrepresentation, and states: "Pinker never said the hair did not match any known species, he only stated it did not correspond to anything he had access to." He also points out the original assertion in 1968 that "some of the 'human' features could be ascribed to sheep or goats."
  • 2006 - Dr. Jeff Meldrum takes us back down the road to sensational, when he reports in his Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science, (page 262), that the examination of the hairs by Pinker, "showed some characteristics common to humans and nonhuman primates." (my bolding again. I can only conclude that Dr. Meldrum has made the dramatic and sensational leap from sheep and goats to nonhuman primates after reading the Bryant and Trevor-Deutsch analysis, which he includes in his bibliography.)

So we've seen a progression from animal, to non-human, to nonhuman primate, and a database that magically grew from 'samples available to him [Pinker]' to 'any animal'. This gradual embellishment of something original into something that amounts to little more than bigfoot wishful thinking is rather annoying. A word change here and there and a rather unimpressive 40-year-old analysis is turned into to something that proponents hold up as solid evidence for 'unknown primate' bigfoot hair analysis.

And some people wonder why I'm so effing skeptical. :angry:

RayG

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Excellent post! Kudos! Wonder if Pinker ever noted a reddish tint, like the one Henner attributes to Sasquatch hair samples?

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Uhm, why would all Bigfoot have a reddish tint to their hair? That is a big leap.

I don't know, but Henner has mentioned it several times. That most of his collection posses a unique tint of red. What color was your big guy JC?

Brings back to mind. Back when "Bigfoot" was really starting to kick, people were submitting pictures of these creatures to the bigfoot "Experts". The pictures were filtered through one guy, whose name I forget, who believed that all Sasquatch were jet black in color and that anything else was a obvious hoax...Most everyone at that time had seen the PGF, and the figure was black right? No...the hair was actually a reddish brown color, and the camera distorted it. So everyone thought they were solid black. No hoaxers would have known about the different colors at this time, and this "Expert" threw out a untold amount of possibly legitimate photos as garbage and kept the obvious fakes(Some Sasquatch ARE jet black, but from what I can tell that is extremely rare). All of the people who were called liars became extremely agitated and frustrated, and shut themselves and the pictures up forever...Pretty funny stuff really.

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There are no Bigfoot experts. You cannot be an expert in something that you cannot locate.

Yabut, yabut, some claim to have them regularly traversing their back yards.

Edit to add I actually agree with the esteemed Mr. Cartwright.

Edited by Incorrigible1
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There are no Bigfoot experts. You cannot be an expert in something that you cannot locate.

"Expert", the quotes were intentional :P The guy was obviously way way off in left field!

Sure their are experts, and their are people that can locate them fairly "Easily". Good luck finding the time, patience, mind, body, and money to learn how to...But their are easily 50x more people posing as experts, who have never attempted to put forth this effort, and who only exist to prey on us. Guess what? Even the experts cannot tell the difference most of the time.

But to put it as it has been put before, it is a huge puzzle, and noone has all of the pieces, many people have a piece, and some people have more than one, but it will take full cooperation to put all of them together. Something we are far away from having.

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Hair: You know, the hair collections of people in the field by now should be impressive. Question (and by the way Ray, good work) What do we really know ? I know that regarding the Q of the color, that its theorized by at least some that smaller individuals may have a reddish tinge. Some may be very red. I could start asking for information on anyone seen REDDISH adults ? 8 feet plus I presume that a lot of reddish browns are 7 feet and smaller. But no tally yet. One of the specialists (if thats a better term than expert) who spends a lot of time with this states OR refers to another specialist that states: both chimps and gorilla youth tend to be reddish. Is it possible that is another parallel with our big gang ?

John Downes stated he had access to hair evaluations. Who else is doing this ? Are there recent papers regarding findings?

I know one of the factors is the hair length itself. Sometimes it can be long. Odor has also been mentioned. Interesting subject and curious what some of the factors are in the difficulty of analysis. Thanks for all/any response.

Edited by treeknocker
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You bring up a good point. Why in the world has NONE of the findings obtained through hair samples, irrefutable and unmistakable proof(Completely impossible to hoax) to a open minded person, been solidified or published? You have to dig and dig for Henner's reports...The subject alone warrants its own comprehensive book.

I have noticed this to, and have heard other people talking about it. The smaller stringier ones have a brighter red color to them, the bigger they get the more it turns into a dark red/brown mix, what I call Scottish red hair. Almost appears dark brown and even black under some lights. Then you have yellow colored ones(Yellowtop) Grey, white, orange, and all sorts of mixes therein. All just more incentive to get out into the field and witness them firsthand IMO!

I would be interesting to read more details about Pinker's observations of these hairs. To see if he has drawn any conclusions that Henner has.

I think the hair samples are the most impressive stack of evidence, even moreso than the countless accounts. How they have been so largely overlooked is, once again, something that is just beyond me...

Edited by Splash7
Delete quotes. You don't have to quote the post directly above your response.
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Because Dr. Fahrenbach is a zoologist who specialized in primates and insects and his animal hair analysis is a hobby.

About as good a statement as will ever be said. Helluva hobby either way you look at it O.o

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You cannot be an expert in something that you cannot locate.

****! I can't find my wallet, and I was thinking I was expert in remembering what I had in it.

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There are no Bigfoot experts. You cannot be an expert in something that you cannot locate.

Then it would automatically make a person who can locate them an expert?

Could it be that BF hair is so close to that of a human's that it sometimes impossible to distinguish their hair from a human's like Dr. Fahrenbach said?

Some have red hair, some black. Fact.

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