Both articles written by Mike Rugg
39th Anniversary of
the Patterson-Gimlin Film
Yes, itʼs that magical day again when
die-hard bigfooters head for Louse Camp
and Bluff Creek to bask in the memory of
that fateful day. Itʼs been talked about
before but thereʼs truly a special feeling
down there in that rugged ravine near the
film site. Weʼll have to see if we can locate
anyone going there this year and get a
report on what the weekend was like up
there.
SciFi Investigates Bigfoot
SciFi Investigates is a new “reality” program
on the SciFi Channel. They have a team of
four investigate some “paranormal” phenomenon
each week. The team consists of an
archeologist (age 50) a paranormalist (age 35)
a crime scene investigator (age 25) and a
celebrity skeptic (age 22-all ages are guesses).
Boston Rob (the skeptic) is known among TV
viewers from the Survivor show, and is
definitely the weakest member of the team.
The team started out by visiting the lab of
Henner Fahrenbach where they were shown
hair samples, track casts, the P/G Film and the
Memorial Day Video. The skeptic shook his
head and with a casual wave of his hand wrote
off all the evidence he was shown as “fake.”
Next, the crime scene investigator went to visit
with Jeff Meldrum and saw some of his track
casts, including some with dermal ridges. She
transferred some of the friction skin whorls to
a sheet of plastic to show the other team
members evidence of dermal ridges from
casts.
The next sequence included two eye witnesses
who told them their stories. We didnʼt get to
hear much of what they said other than a word
or two. After the segment they admitted that
the witnesses seemed to be telling the truth
and not just making it up.
Finally, they went out on a “hunt” with Autumn
Williams. This included call blasting and baiting
with cow liver and rabbit flesh. They also
strapped some hi-tech wildlife cameras to trees
and used a baseball bat to produce some wood
knocks. The blasting and knocking was
combined with vocalized screams and calls as
well. Most of this took place in the dark, and
they indicated they had heard “something”
respond.
The biggest joke was the attempt by Boston Rob
to duplicate the Memorial Day Footage by
donning a floppy-haired bigfoot suit with huge
fake feet and running down a hill. Twice he
ended up tumbling head over heels. Throughout
he looked ridiculous and was obviously a guy in
a suit. They also attempted to create a fake track
using a rubber foot from the costume. The end
result was very crude with no toe details, but
they claimed it was a pretty good fake. Rob also
claimed his his costume sequence was believable
(no way) and their final conclusion was that the
evidence could all be fake, but they tended to
believe the eye witnesses, so the final verdict
was “maybe.”
Autumn Williams was very “professional” and
took all their ridiculous antics in stride. She has
of course done TV before (Mysterious Encounters.)
Good job Autumn.
That this show is aimed at a youthful audience is
obvious, otherwise why would they have a
young kid as the mandatory skeptic? I found him
extremely annoying when he interrupted
Fahrenbach and pronounced all his evidence
fake. The paranormalist even pointed out that
Boston Rob had no basis for his skepticism other
than his smart alec attitude.
The show will investigate other paranormal
subjects in future epidodes including UFOs. The
mandatory skeptical attitude on this type of
show continues to be tedious and contrived, but
at least they sopped short of calling the
witnesses fools or liars.