Skookum Cast

[Guest]

Rick, why do you bother?? You may as well be talking to a tree. Why do a few of you persist in picking relentlessly on Rick given the fact that he's very graciously volunteered so many explanations so many times? I don't get it. There has to be something better to talk about. The sarcasm is a joke, and quite offensive. A few on this board seem to try very hard to scare good researchers away. Kinda defeats the purpose.

[Guest]

Skookum Cast threads are by nature full of debate. This thread stays active based upon debating the Skookum Cast.

So this is how this thread will flow from now on........

Please debate the Cast and the Cast circumstances. Please refrain from making any observations concerning the intent or posting style of any poster posting in this thread.

If you feel that you should encourage a member posting in this thread, then use the PM function and leave it off of the thread.

If you feel that you should discourage a member posting in this thread, then use the PM function and leave it off of the thread.

Leave the personal comments out of this discussion.

Ask DDA a question. He can answer it or not if he wants too, or if he is able too. It's his choice, like any other member of this forum.

Any post not conforming to the "admonitions" that I have just made will be deleted and if we get enough of them, this thread will be closed.

Thanks,

Splash

[Guest]

Look... I am not trying to convince anyone of anything.

I'm not saying it was an elk... thank's for answering! You've cleared some things up for me.

[Guest]

What ever. See ya

[BobbyO]

Maybe it just jumped to another dimension.

Edited : Because i just read Splash's Post & his/her request to " Please refrain from making any observations concerning the intent or posting style of any poster posting in this thread. "

Edited April 8, 2011 by BobbyO

[wolftrax]

9. I made the model using a laser tracker and retro-reflector surface probe. It is not totally complete and you would need a program that can upload an IGES file. Do you have a program that can render an IGES file and then manipulate and scale it? Then there is the question of why I would release it.

Yes!

Look... I am not trying to convince anyone of anything. 99.99% of the people that have come by and wanted to look at the cast have been allowed to. As far as really studying or examining it. Dr. Meldrum, John Brown and Owen Caddy have had the most time with it. Owen tried to present his findings on this very board but a few continuously argued with him and he finally just gave up... and sailed off into the sunset. He too knows what he thinks the cast represents and doesn't need to convince others. He satisfied his curiosity by really studying it in person with photographs, measurements, and comparisons. You can listen to the others who claim it to be nothing but an elk but from where is this conclusion drawn? Have they presented similar impressions? No. Have they even identified the impression sections correctly for interpretation? No. Have they taken measurements on the actual cast? No. Have they measured the minute detail of skin folds, creases, hair patterns, hair lengths in the cast? No. Have they produced a topography of the cast, indicating where weight was applied and the proportions of it? No. Can they explain missing features that an elk would surely have to leave? No. Have they cross examined it with real life body parts of other animals? No, just computer playing with unscaled line or vector based graphics overlain erroneously onto a painted copy of the cast.

So the cast or 3d file is available for examination?

[Guest]

BobbyO,

A few years ago there were different people asking the same questions. And a few years before that, different people again asking the same questions. And so on back to 2000... Maybe its not the people asking the questions that are the issue, but the lack of certain naturally expected evidence not being available that prompts those questions to be asked over and over?

I'd like to examine the whole of photographic evidence surrounding the impression because I have some qualifications here with respect to elk. I mean high resolution photos from different angles that don't pixelate away when you enlarge them to look into the hoof prints. If that was available, I wouldn't continue asking.

I'd also like to know how the alleged achilles heel copies were curled? I've seen a closeup of the impression and this section looks very much like the corresponding cast copy I have. So what was curled?

[Guest]

Yes!

So the cast or 3d file is available for examination?

No, it is not.

[Guest]

A few years ago there were different people asking the same questions. And a few years before that, different people again asking the same questions. And so on back to 2000... Maybe its not the people asking the questions that are the issue, but the lack of certain naturally expected evidence not being available that prompts those questions to be asked over and over?

I'd like to examine the whole of photographic evidence surrounding the impression because I have some qualifications here with respect to elk. I mean high resolution photos from different angles that don't pixelate away when you enlarge them to look into the hoof prints. If that was available, I wouldn't continue asking.

I'd also like to know how the alleged achilles heel copies were curled? I've seen a closeup of the impression and this section looks very much like the corresponding cast copy I have. So what was curled?

I don't mean to step in and answer this for BobbyO, but here is my take:

In all those times, the questions asked by the same person were answered, honestly and completely. Questions that were considered proprietary, of core value or even secret, were not. They were not skirted around, they were just ignored. If you had been around at that time, you would know what I am talking about with that statement. Apparently the answers given were not satisfactory to them and so they continued to ask the same questions over and over, either hoping the story might change (which it did not, and never will) or since they didn't like the answer, the cast, the BFRO or expedition members they preamble their counter point of views on it with these same questions, hoping to snag a few more converts this way. Sometimes they were asked by other people who didn't look for all the material already available (IG or instant gratification, Generation ME.)

I reached out to quite a few people at the beginning... like Cliff Crook, Daniel Perez and Don Keating, to name a few that I felt should be in on it. I believe that Derek and LeRoy did as well. They all rejected it outright without even seeing it. Many more have since been added to that list. You know what the first thing out of their mouths' was... Condemnation of the BFRO. Nothing about the cast, just the BFRO. This was way before any of the BFRO's pay-to-play expeditions, so the only thing I could figure out was that these guys, and others that were then recently booted out of the BFRO, were playing politics, displaying a bit of jealousy (case in point being 2 ex east coast BFRO members and Todd Neiss.) Nothing to do with the cast actually. Counterpoints to it were even cut short by news station seeing how silly they were being. I learned quite a bit about people who call themselves Bigfoot researchers from Todd on this. He littered the surrounding forest expedition site with paper plates nailed to trees and derogatory comments, tried to sneak into our camp twice to get secret pictures to post on the internet as the not so secret BFRO expedition, then he brought down **** Grover to the place I was digitizing the cast at to get videos and pictures to show to others.

Everyone on that expedition paid their own way and were never compensated for any expenditures, even the ones who did not actual participate in the feet on the ground expedition. LeRoy cleaned up Todd's litter.

Nobody owes you or anybody else anything concerning the expedition, any photos or the cast. You did not have an admission price, bought no book or magazine on it, have no vested interest in it and have actually been disingenuous in your questioning of the circumstances surrounding it, not to mention discourteous to the very people you are requesting information and material from. You are plane and simply biased and have no real expertise to bring to the table. No high resolution pictures will be made available to you, at least through me, for this very fact. Why? It is my money that was spent on all of this. That is why.

I already explained how the first duplicate mold I made curls the cast made from it. You can judge all you want from 2D images what is or is not different than the 3D object in your hand, which I suspect came from further duplication in another process by someone else. No one is stopping you. You just go right ahead with whatever you plan to do with it. I might mention here though that the two people who I know duplicate others material and sell them for profit should be ashamed of themselves. You should be taking up that cause if you want to right some wrongs. All the duplicates I gave out were recorded. I know who has them and who should not. And BTW, that all came out of my pocket again. I cannot believe you actually accused me of making money off the cast.

Just look up in the postings a bit... see the one that starts out..."of course?" Now don't you think there was a whole lot more to that sentence than those two words? Playing semantics and picking and choosing bits and pieces of a discourse and then fitting them to your own devices won't work with me. I watch too much FOX news and can recognize the tactic quite easily thank you.

BTW... tick toc, tic tok... on your proof positive to the elk contention.

As far as this post of mine and how it pertains to the threads title. Everything in it was about the Skookum expedition, results, and reception. I just felt like expanding a little on the constant antagonistic word smithing being presented here as original thought.

[wolftrax]

9. I made the model using a laser tracker and retro-reflector surface probe. It is not totally complete and you would need a program that can upload an IGES file. Do you have a program that can render an IGES file and then manipulate and scale it? Then there is the question of why I would release it.

No, it is not.

So basically it doesn't matter if someone can upload, render, manipulate and scale an IGES file, it is not available for examination.

Look... I am not trying to convince anyone of anything. 99.99% of the people that have come by and wanted to look at the cast have been allowed to. As far as really studying or examining it. Dr. Meldrum, John Brown and Owen Caddy have had the most time with it. Owen tried to present his findings on this very board but a few continuously argued with him and he finally just gave up... and sailed off into the sunset. He too knows what he thinks the cast represents and doesn't need to convince others. He satisfied his curiosity by really studying it in person with photographs, measurements, and comparisons. You can listen to the others who claim it to be nothing but an elk but from where is this conclusion drawn? Have they presented similar impressions? No. Have they even identified the impression sections correctly for interpretation? No. Have they taken measurements on the actual cast? No. Have they measured the minute detail of skin folds, creases, hair patterns, hair lengths in the cast? No. Have they produced a topography of the cast, indicating where weight was applied and the proportions of it? No. Can they explain missing features that an elk would surely have to leave? No. Have they cross examined it with real life body parts of other animals? No, just computer playing with unscaled line or vector based graphics overlain erroneously onto a painted copy of the cast.

As you said, you won't let it be examined, so you can't hold it over other people if they are not allowed to examine the original cast or your 3d scan.

[Guest]

I have deleted 3 posts, so far, since my admonishment. You guys keep it up and this thread will soon be shut down.

[Guest]

DDA, I hold the time piece on this one. I'll take as long as it takes. At least I won't delay the material from public eyes for over a decade as has been done with the subject at hand. Yes, tick tock 2 U 2 and winky winky.

So, when people have rejected the cast before even seeing it, were they in the same position of recognizing that certain periphery evidence would not be available for examination, or was there some other condition placed on them? As I've stated before, the cast doesn't tell the whole story. Its the context, and what the photos reveal, that are the real evidence supporting the claim.

As for high res photos of the perimeter, your not making them available to me is no different than what has never been made to the rest of the public for the last decade. At least you're being consistent.

The illusion here is that in your not allowing me to examine photo evidence, is really also not allowing anyone else to do so who has insight on what the tracks represent. Just as tracks in the field tell a story to an experienced tracker, so do the tracks in the photos approaching and leaving the impression area. You have never subjected that 'story' to be interpreted by someone who really knows elk have you? You've spoken of game ranchers and others, but really, has even ONE of them been able to study the photos in complete detail with what time they felt necessary? If so, name names please. And no, someone who studied ungulates in Africa doesn't count. The photos remain the evidence that those with knowledge of elk are not allowed to see. Surely tho, someone like yourself who used to own a photofinishing/camera store, knows the importance of photographs in documenting a scene, and how important photographs can be in validating any claim. Of course just like the alleged Achilles Hell, which is really the front leg of an elk, most people don't know what a front elk leg looks like close up, and so the blurry photo you provided and quickly removed, really can't be differentiated by most can it? This seems to be the modus operandi for all peripheral evidence of the claim.

It is your claim that the impression was made by a bigfoot, yet you don't feel it necessary to share corroborating evidence that would be required of any other scientific discovery in history that are used as a means of substantiating those claims. So my apologies for all the researchers who know better and who will continue to question the gaps they recognize exist in yours. As investigators, at least they have done their job in recognizing what is wrong. You've set up the revolving loop where people ask over and over about what is clearly lacking. Will certain material ever be publicly available where it will be rightfully scrutinized as any scientific claim should?

Since you raise the issue again, I think some may be curious if you've ever been paid by any production companies doing shows that include the cast? Nothing wrong if you have of course. We'd all like to be able to derive income doing things we enjoy.

Oh and I would never waste my money going on some expedition. That's not how one has an encounter in my book. Yeah you might hear some knocks or even a scream, but I can hear those all on my own and I know my way around the woods just fine. This isn't about my not paying admission either, its about you backing up your claim with ancillary evidence that should normally corroborate any scientific claim. That's what continues to be missing.

Edited April 9, 2011 by PragmaticTheorist

[Guest]

Notes on comparing the Skookum Cast to an Ungulate and a primate

Heel and Achilles tendon versus Elk Wrist

The heel and Achilles tendon area on the Skookum cast are what elk proponents are indicating as an ungulate wrist, from the front leg. This wrist is a rear-bending joint, covered in the same type of short thick and hollow hair flowing in a downward direction towards the hooves on the elk. When it bends, it places the hoof in a rearward facing direction with the plantar portion of the two toes against the ground when lying down. The hoof is made from different material than the rest of the limb and shows easily this differentiation when placed in wet soil. It is like the difference between your own fingernail and that of the surrounding skin of the finger.

The Skookum cast does not contain these hoof marks at the end of the Achilles tendon area. The cast shows that this appendage is being forced in an almost straight up and down or perpendicular aspect in respect to the ground surface. This section also contains a marked difference in surface detailing from the rest of the impression that shows it to be covered in thin, 2†long hair. The Achilles tendon shows very fine hair markings but this pattern stops short when reaching the supposed heel. The heel area contains what looks more like skin folds, creases and dermatoglyphics than that of a continuation of hair.

A large dismembered elk leg was obtained for experimentation and it was shown that the hair on it continued similarly throughout the impacting surface. The hair was also of different length and texture than that on the cast, but more importantly, the elk leg clearly showed joint protuberances when placed in duplicating substrate material (play-do). These are not present in the Skookum cast or the impression it came out of.

Elk proponents have depicted a likely body posture in that this foreleg is bent towards the side of the body and not straight down. Investigators have collected reclining elk limb impressions where this limb was bent to the side on live animals and it clearly shows a curled look at the joint location. This is not visible in the cast, indicating once again that these were struck almost straight on with the ground. For an elk to have done this, these sections would have had to be under the main chest cavity and also below a very heavy head. This would most certainly have impressed the entire leg into the surface, down to the hooves.

“Vâ€

There is another area on the cast that looks like a sharp “V†and that the elk proponents are claiming indicate the placement of the front and rear hooves in a sideways reclining prone body posture. Investigators have looked at this area and determined that it is not a part of the overall impression. It clears shows ridged grooves running it’s entire length, is too sharp of a “V†to have been created by a prone ungulates front and rear hooves and most likely is where an ungulate place a hoofed leg while standing or walking and slipped twice into the same hole or soft spot, sliding the hoof along the surface.

This “V†detail was made before the rest of the main impression body, as indicated by overlaying surface details. It does not contain any indication that it was made with a parallel to the ground elk leg.

Rear Legs versus lower arm

The rear portion of the cast depicts another section called the arm and wrist of a primate. Elk proponents claim it shows the rear leg. This section is far too wide, long, and containing surface details indicating it was made with one strike. In other words it was not made with something less wide and just rolled in place to create the effect, such as an elk leg. First of all, an elk leg is attached to the rest of the body of the animal and cannot be dissociated with it so there would have to be other indications that the limb and body both rolled the impression. This is not evident in the cast. Secondly, this limbs surface detail indicates a shape, hair patterning and texture not matching that of an ungulate. The rear leg of an elk is cylindrical, with an hourglass shape. The cast depicts a big boned and thickly muscled forelimb tapering down to what is thought to be a primate wrist, starting at the elbow. The apex of this elbow also shows cracked skin and folds similar to other primates, nothing like the wing-like shape of an ungulates back knee.

Buttock crease

The knee section of the ungulate theory versus the crease between buttock and upper thigh region on a primate also lacks some details that would link it to an elk. The skin and muscle on that section of an elk is quite thin and placing a couple of hundred pounds on it, pushing it into soft soil would leave tell-tale boney features, evident in collected images from elk lays. They are not present in the cast. The hair pattern also flows through the area continuously, unlike that from an elk leg pressed up against the belly or chest, which would have a different hair pattern. The elk leg has hair pointing downwards and laying in the direction of the hooves. The belly of an elk has the hair going crossways, from the left side to the right side or vice versa. The Skookum cast shows a hair pattern that flows through this area consistently, in fact continuing all along the length of the impression towards the heel areas.

Side impressions

The Skookum cast contains heel like areas on one side of the main body and the arm like feature at the other end, but on the opposite side from these. An ungulate would have to have been twisted severely in order to accomplish this, since the hair pattern indicates a single sitting and not multiple strikes.

Edited April 9, 2011 by damndirtyape

[Guest]

Thank you very much, tells me what I wanted to hear. Will get back to ya...

[Guest]

My original thinking on the cast was that independent studies and publications were indeed needed. Things not written or influenced by me or other members of the expedition. Issues that might argue against the cast being anything but that of an ungulate would also have to be addressed, independently. No one stepped forward to do so except for Owen Caddy. He had no vested interest and seemed to dedicate himself to the task. He was not being paid anything to do so and appeared to have sufficient credentials, desire, talent and expertise to accomplish it. That only progressed so far what with his family life and such. Others have come and gone concerning it as well. Eventually someone will come along but it looks like I might have to take on a greater role in that endeavor. At least in setting the record straight in many respects glossed over by the media. Case in point...Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science started out as that being a 2 hour theatrical release, predominately if not THE show piece being on the Skookum cast. That did not pan out. Then there was a famous writer working for a prestigious magazine... that too did not work out. A big newspaper article... nope. Then there were the scientists. Yes they were interested but no they didn't have the time or desire to write a paper on it. Maybe it is some kind of professional courtesy or something, thinking I should be the one to publish first on it.

The TV shows that I worked on had me spending my own money on things. I was compensated for those expenses sometimes. Whether it was for being behind a camera, providing a generator and lighting in the field, writing a story, gathering technical experts and equipment or travel. It was never for the Skookum cast. Your attempt to discredit on this item had better stop. Everyone that knows me personally has witnessed me giving more than receiving when it comes to this subject. You on the other hand cannot hope to coerce anything out of nothing as has so many others in the past have tried... be it bringing a heel cast duplicate to Rene's sons during his memorial to include with their fathers material, allowing a duplicate art piece to be made from the cast or appearing on TV.

I have no interest in giving freely, to you or anybody else, information that I have collected over the years concerning this subject. When I do post on it, I many times feel regret for doing so afterwards.

I have been working on a book concerning the Skookum expedition since even some of the members don't quite have the details down right or have been privy to the direct study of it and all the information and comments made on it. Some have even faulted me for not having published sooner on it, but I have had my reasons, some of which are told in this post. When I get done with it, it will be made available.