Is The Skookum Cast Still Considered To Be A Potential Bigfoot Lay?

[joebeelart]

One of the keys to the Skookum cast is in the hair patterns.  They are imbedded throughout and do not match elk hair, especially pre-winter elk hair.  Dr. Fish looked into this and was going to write on it before his untimely passing.  He and I spent over an hour at the { 2002 ? } Bellingham Conference comparing enlarged photos I had taken of a butt imprint high up the Clackamas to the hair patterns in the casting.  Between us we gathered a considerable number of skin/hair samples from hunters, road kill, and taxidermist shops.  None of the hair patterns we examined matched. 

 

As far as the banter back and forth, it's OK.  Same stuff as 20 years ago.  Bigfoot is like UFOs and ghosts; people see them, have  for centuries, but no science behind them that the general public knows about.  Regards, Joe

 

Ps:  I'm currently editing a new book that may help to explain "our dilemma."  Good stuff. 

[starchunk]

As quaint as false hope is, it was in all likelihood an elk lay and nothing more.

 

[Patterson-Gimlin]

I am no elk hair expert. I had read elk hair was prominent near the lay. I appreciate your input and explanation. I can't comment on the validity of what you said about the hair pattern. I just don't know enough to have an informed opinion.

I do agree with the Bigfoot, UFO and ghosts comparison.

Edited March 18, 2017 by Patterson-Gimlin

[joebeelart]

Hello P-G & Starchunk:  False hope is all we have to work with, aside sightings, DNA, photographs, tracks, feces analysis, hair analysis, historical records, etc.  What it comes down to is: "Are you sure there are no type specimen's?"  Notice, I'm not saying "there are no type specimens."  The real question is, "where are they?" 

 

Anyway, back to topic:  As far as an elk lay, I was so familiar with the area that on Sunday after the find, I was at Thom Powell's house.  Matt Moneymaker was there.  A big topo map was on the wall.  After hearing a description of the find ... and seeing no pictures ... I pointed to the exact spot where the cast was made.   That means I've spent days and days and nights and nights up there, often watching elk, especially through binoculars. 

 

I've also spent considerable time at the National Elk Refuge in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.  And, I grew up on a ranch.  So, I'm fairly familiar with how four legged grass / shrub eating animals behave.  If I thought the Skookum Cast was an elk lay, I won't read this tread or support the claim.  The simple fact is, all else discarded, there are no elk hoof prints anywhere near where they should be from a rising elk, in the cast or pictures taken on site.  Something else had to have made the impressions.

 

Comment:  While there is always elk hair in a herd area, mainly it's on shrubs and trees where elk and cows rub, or on the ground in spring when they shed.  Generally in the fall not a lot of hair on the ground from cows or elk, that' I've noticed. 

 

Anyway, you are right.  "False hope," so far, after 24 years, still false hope.  Keep in mind I spend money, lots of money on field research.  All I've got for it so far are good, healthy times in the high country, my book The Oregon Bigfoot Highway, and a few valued friends.  And, I get to wonder about why people who think "false hope" would waste time on Bigfoot.  Maybe you know something you are not sharing.  Well, in finality, I do respect your commentary.     

[Twist]

Joe, I apologize if this has already been asked.  The theory seems to be that a BF did a low crawl or some army crawl to reach the bait.  Were there any signs of this mode of transportation.  One would expect there to be knee or elbow marks in and out of the mud.  Short of some sort of flying, the BF had to leave some sort of coming and goings.

[joebeelart]

            Hi Twist and all:  No apologies needed.  As with all good investigations, repeated questions over time bring out new "stuff."  Indeed, Peter Byrne, whom I  admire, but do not "follow," uses "the same question" technique repeatedly, over years when he can, to evaluate witness responses.  But, it's hardly a new investigative technique.  

           As far as I'm concerned, the process of Bigfoot's creation of the Skookum Cast impressions is a mystery.  I've seen the BRFO pictorial explanation, but that seems too elaborate to me.  {I have an explanation for development of the pictorial involving anatomists, imagists, bongs, and some other factors that are undoubtedly unfounded.}   

           So, let me say in seriousness; if it were not for three things:  {1} Thom Powell and Rick Noll saying the Skookum Cast is the real deal ... and Thom placed the apples at what?  About 3:30 AM?  {2} An absence of elk prints in the "right" places, and {3} The hair patterns, which puzzled Dr. Fish, I would be very skeptical about the origins of the Skookum Cast.   

Edited March 21, 2017 by joebeelart
wrong diction

[starchunk]

3 hours ago, joebeelart said:

Hello P-G & Starchunk:  False hope is all we have to work with, aside sightings, DNA, photographs, tracks, feces analysis, hair analysis, historical records, etc.  What it comes down to is: "Are you sure there are no type specimen's?"  Notice, I'm not saying "there are no type specimens."  The real question is, "where are they?" 

 

Anyway, back to topic:  As far as an elk lay, I was so familiar with the area that on Sunday after the find, I was at Thom Powell's house.  Matt Moneymaker was there. 

 

Moneymakers presence doesn't exactly help my perceptions with this.

 

[BigTreeWalker]

The mental picture I got of the area around the cast was dry according to Thom Powell's account. The fruit was placed in the center of a drying up mud hole. Meaning approach to the spot without leaving tracks would have been fairly easy except near the center of the mud hole. As many here have brought up, no elk tracks in the center of the lay is very telling that it wasn't an elk. I mentioned hair patterns as Joe mentioned above near the beginning of this thread. Elk hair patterns should have been fairly easy to determine. 

 

Don't fall into the erroneous idea that bigfoot leave tracks everywhere they go. If we are walking through an area and not leaving any tracks, bigfoot probably wouldn't either. You would be very hard pressed to track a bear very far through the forest in the PNW. The same holds true with any animal with padded feet. You will find an occasional track in the dust or a soft spot now and then but that's about it. If the skookum cast was surrounded by dry ground it would be hard to find tracks of anything but elk. 

[Guest DWA]

My experience is that sasquatch track finds are in total keeping with how many animal tracks are out there in general.  I spend a lot of time outside, and as a rule, you don't see tracks.  And then there's the BFRO crew that found tracks in the snow at night.  They returned the next day to find an SUV parked right in the trackway, its occupants playing in the snow outside.  Not one had noticed the tracks.

On ‎3‎/‎18‎/‎2017 at 3:35 PM, starchunk said:

As quaint as false hope is, it was in all likelihood an elk lay and nothing more.

 

Which it has been proven it cannot be.  Oh.  OK.  As quaint as belief without evidence is, I am too much a skeptic to go for it.

[starchunk]

2 hours ago, DWA said:

My experience is that sasquatch track finds are in total keeping with how many animal tracks are out there in general.  I spend a lot of time outside, and as a rule, you don't see tracks.  And then there's the BFRO crew that found tracks in the snow at night.  They returned the next day to find an SUV parked right in the trackway, its occupants playing in the snow outside.  Not one had noticed the tracks.

Which it has been proven it cannot be.  Oh.  OK.  As quaint as belief without evidence is, I am too much a skeptic to go for it.

Quoting the BFRO doesnt help your case. I am out weekly in the winter, summer spring and fall, and you know where to find tracks if you gain the experience. Snow, mud, sand, areas where tracks leave an imprint. Tracks are very findable. Sorry.

[norseman]

4 hours ago, starchunk said:

Quoting the BFRO doesnt help your case. I am out weekly in the winter, summer spring and fall, and you know where to find tracks if you gain the experience. Snow, mud, sand, areas where tracks leave an imprint. Tracks are very findable. Sorry.

 

Sasquatch tracks!?

[joebeelart]

Tracks are problematic given time afield, season, weather, etc.  BFRO has it's reputation, but in general has done good work:  Excellent website in my opinion.  Thought you folks might like a look at the Skookum site one year after the event.  I dug out two pails of soil to send to Loren Coleman for an exhibit.  The trees are bigger now.  On the other side of the road is about an 8 ft. bank depending on where.  For strange reasons "kids" still drive through the hole when it's wet.

As you can imagine, when dry, the soil is not conducive for imbedded tracks.  Since it was wet at the time of the Skookum cast, you can make your own judgment as to tracks.  Lots of elk and bear in the area.  One associate got a clear view of a wolf from his mountain bike. 

 

Edited March 26, 2017 by joebeelart
More explanation. No retracts.

[Guest DWA]

23 hours ago, starchunk said:

Quoting the BFRO doesnt help your case. I am out weekly in the winter, summer spring and fall, and you know where to find tracks if you gain the experience. Snow, mud, sand, areas where tracks leave an imprint. Tracks are very findable. Sorry.

Quoting evidence cinches my case.  There are no elk tracks where they must be in the Skookum Cast for that to be an elk.  And what would you know about the BFRO?  I'm not trusting anybody who seems to think elk levitate, personally.

[Guest DWA]

Oh.  Oh.  Elk don't have Achilles' tendons, either.

[Guest DWA]

On ‎3‎/‎25‎/‎2017 at 5:22 PM, starchunk said:

Quoting the BFRO doesnt help your case. I am out weekly in the winter, summer spring and fall, and you know where to find tracks if you gain the experience. Snow, mud, sand, areas where tracks leave an imprint. Tracks are very findable. Sorry.

Oh.  Oh.  VERY findable.  Know how many bigfoot trackways have been found?  Thousands, and that's just the ones that have been reported.  (Mine is one of the unreported ones.)