Footprints

[Guest ShadowPrime]

Drew:

That IS a tongue in cheek post, no?

'Cause last time I checked, carved wooden feet do NOT show toe movement, do not show the kind of flexible interaction with the substrate that living feet do, don't show "full prints" at one point and "half prints" at another, don't demonstrate "toe grip", etc, etc. and still more etc.

And I believe the specific person IN the clip - Ray Pickens? - is actually included and discussed in the Meldrum book (isn't that his pic on page 237?). It is hardly as if carved wooden feet are new in the BF game, or not discussed in the LMS analysis....

Shadow

[Drew]

'toe grip' becomes necessary to explain why a bipedal ape would need a mid tarsal break. it sticks the mold in the mud, and twist and twist, voila, toe movement.

[Guest ShadowPrime]

Drew, Drew, Drew.... you aren't even TRYING with that explanation.

Shadow

[Guest ajciani]

There is a reason Bigfeet look the way they do. They are easier to make.

Actually, it would be more difficult to create a good print with a large bigfoot stamper. The word of the day is pressure. The larger the area, for the same weight, the less it sinks in. It is hard enough leaving a shoe print on even slightly squishy ground; I can't see a stamper being used on anything but mud.

As for myself, I have never found a clear footprint. I have seen where leaf litter and other vegetation has been crushed, and I have seen where sticks have been stepped on, but any imprint into the ground would be faint, maybe only 1/32 of an inch deep. I have seen a partial print on softened clay, but it was really only detectable as a change in the sheen.

[Drew]

Drew, Drew, Drew.... you aren't even TRYING with that explanation.

Shadow

So you think that a footprint being left by a Giant Hairy beast, with a well developed achilles tendon, AND a mid-tarsal break, with gripping toes for climbing and moving in rough terrain, is more likely than someone figuring out a way to manufacture a footprint which shows this? or is more likely than someone mistaking a Bear paw for a Bigfoot print?

[kbhunter]

To anyone that spends a great deal of time outdoors, a bear paw is certainly easy to indentify. In a normal walking stride, the front paw print will always be just in behind the rear foot. The front paw is smaller and more round than oblong.

See below;

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=bear+tracks&FORM=IGRE1&adlt=strict#

[Guest ShadowPrime]

Drew:

One of the challenges of this Thread is that I (obviously!) cannot - and don't intend to try to - recount all of the footprint discussion in Dr Meldrum's book, in detail.

My thread-opening post kinda answers your question, though... when I consider the TOTALITY of the print evidence... decades of prints, over widely separated geographical ranges, displaying the kinds of changing interaction with the substrate that is characteristic of being made by a living foot (and NOT characteristic of a wooden stamper foot!), consistency of foot design OVER those divergent years and geography, including LONG trackways in remote areas, not simply aping (!) an enlarged human foot design, of a quality good enough to impress someone who knows something about primate foot design and footprints, etc, etc, etc (again, as covered in great detail in the book) I DO find it to be much more suggestive of the prints having been left by a rare living creature versus being the work of a multidecade conspiracy of hoaxers working over hundreds (thousands?)of miles of terrain, employing a here-to-fore undemonstrated hoaxing methodology, in complete secrecy, and so forth.

Big carved crude wooden feet have definitely been used to hoax BF tracks. That can't be argued. But they cannot account for much of what I try to summarize above - not nearly - and if THAT is the skeptical answer... I think the skeptics have to try again. IMHO. The same with bear tracks (ALSO dealt with, specifically and directly in the Meldrum analysis)...

Shadow

[Guest alex]

There is a reason Bigfeet look the way they do. They are easier to make.

@ 8:35

Those were very crude feet and did not display any toe flexation

[Guest]

One of the challenges of this Thread is that I (obviously!) cannot - and don't intend to try to - recount all of the footprint discussion in Dr Meldrum's book, in detail.

My thread-opening post kinda answers your question, though... when I consider the TOTALITY of the print evidence... decades of prints, over widely separated geographical ranges, displaying the kinds of changing interaction with the substrate that is characteristic of being made by a living foot (and NOT characteristic of a wooden stamper foot!), consistency of foot design OVER those divergent years and geography, including LONG trackways in remote areas, not simply aping (!) an enlarged human foot design, of a quality good enough to impress someone who knows something about primate foot design and footprints, etc, etc, etc (again, as covered in great detail in the book) I DO find it to be much more suggestive of the prints having been left by a rare living creature versus being the work of a multidecade conspiracy of hoaxers working over hundreds (thousands?)of miles of terrain, employing a here-to-fore undemonstrated hoaxing methodology, in complete secrecy, and so forth.

Big carved crude wooden feet have definitely been used to hoax BF tracks. That can't be argued. But they cannot account for much of what I try to summarize above - not nearly - and if THAT is the skeptical answer... I think the skeptics have to try again. IMHO. The same with bear tracks (ALSO dealt with, specifically and directly in the Meldrum analysis)...

Shadow

Well said, and I personally appreciate the clarity I have just gained from this.

Skunkfoot

Edited September 11, 2010 by Skunkfoot

[Guest]

I still have not found a good explanation or technique for faking complex tracks or trackways. I started a thread in the old BFF asking for opinions on how to create tracks such as the one shown below (Laverty). There were some credible suggestions, but none that satisfied my curiousty. I acknowledge that it can be done given enough time and practice, and most casual observers can be fooled by stompers. But I think we can all agree that the Laverty track was not created by a wood stomper. Right? And if you were going to fake a track like this why create it on top of a branch stuck in the sand?

The best way to create a track like this would be to simply step in the sand, with your own flexible foot. Kind of like the one Patty had

[Guest]

While prints and tracks can be hoaxed, prints and tracks have been found by licensed foresters (a forestry education includes quite a bit of wildlife education) in places so remote and so difficult to get to that the probability of those prints and tracks having been hoaxed (or misidentified) is so minimal as to be just one small tick from impossible.

The obvious conclusion is: All foresters must be liars.

[Guest TooRisky]

Well what get me is all the people who don't go into the field, enjoy camping and basically cant stand the woods... And these folks are the biggest skiptics... makes me laugh so hard because they are so afraid of the dark and anything they can not touch or see...

Well here is a 21 inch print we found last year, it is among a bunch of prints of all sizes, but is the biggest of them all... tear it up skeptics or enjoy the biggest print I have found and probably one of the biggest recorded...

This print was found on the old logging road at the top of a mountain about 20 miles into the North Cascade Forest North of Mt. Rainier....

Edited September 12, 2010 by TooRisky

[Guest Crowlogic]

Too true, kbh. Tracks are always a game changer: All of a sudden it's reality in, denial out, especially when the tracks go 'where no man has gone before' because no man could physically manage to go where the tracks lead without sophisticated climbing gear the average hiker is not likely to be carrying, especially in nonmountainous regions. For my money, that's proof in the pudding.

However, what truly makes my day is seeing the almost zero-straddle of their walking style along a lengthy pathway of footsteps they leave behind, most clearly visible in snow. 'Tightrope walking', as others have referred to it, cinches the deal, imho.

Dudlow

Here's a point to consider. The tightrope effect could be the result of a person walking on stilts. Stilts will give you an added stride length as will as resulting in a less straddled walk.

[Guest]

Interesting Crowlogic, I didn't know about the reduction of the straddled effect. The added height would also make it easier for a hoaxer to break limbs higher in trees to add to the overall effect.

Edited September 12, 2010 by MarkMc

[Guest]

I would like to see this thread continue. My hopes are to see what kind of information people might be willing to share regarding their experiences with tracks that they think are in association with BF. Trails, tracks, toe movement, the depth of the tracks, the substrates. Also, we are in winter now. That means snow. Any comments with tracks in snow in numerous states across the country and Canada would be great to hear about. Sizes, interesting scenarios that allow the viewer to see what the individual that made the tracks did. I recall one of the most powerful track set descriptions in Apes Among Us by John Green. I do not recall the location. I do recall that the maker of the tracks was in a certain area not far from a town but up a mountainside. A man came through soon after a light snow. He found barefoot tracks. As I recall and I do not have a copy of the reference in front of me as I write this, the man followed the tracks to where a ditch was jumped. It was a significant space and the maker of the tracks landed up the hill on the other side of the ditch higher than from the position he/she jumped. The track maker landed cleanly. It may have been on a log. The comments by the observer were and I quote He or she certainly did have powerful muscles. Any scenarios like that or clean steps in deep snow or characteristics at the bottom of the track are things I would like to hear about. Thanks in advance from any response. I know some are tracking in the field now. Happy New Year