The Daily Jeffersonian

Cambridge (OH)

Monday May 19th, 2008

The Patterson-Gimlin film has been both decried as a clever hoax and lauded as visual proof that an unclassified biped roams the North American continent.

Shot in 1967 near Bluff Creek, Calif., the few dozen frames of 16 mm film show a creature walking away from amateur cameraman Roger Patterson. He and Bob Gimlin were in the area filming for a documentary Patterson planned to produce when they encountered a creature matching the description widely attributed to Sasquatch or Bigfoot: hair-covered, 7 to 8 feet tall weighing several hundred pounds and muscular.

During the 20th Annual Bigfoot Conference/Expo Saturday at the Salt Fork Resort & Conference Center, M.K. Davis, a foremost expert on the film, presented what he said was proof that the film was not hoaxed and that Patty, as the creature has come to be known, is a flesh-and-blood creature.

"There's no way in the world it's a suit," Davis said. "You're not looking at a man in a suit."

The Mississippian is an astrophotographer by vocation and is accustomed to examining photographs in detail and spotting what others might overlook. He blended this meticulous discipline for observation with technology to examine the film, presenting some of his findings to the more than 400 audience members.

By using technology not available until many years after the film was shot new details can be gleaned from the footage, Davis said. Among those that he has observed is what may be a braid in the creature's hair (the braiding of horse manes is associated with some sightings), movement of hair in an estimated 8 to 9 mph breeze at her back and pendulous breasts that move in concert with her stride and variations of skin tone.

Other details that Davis said substantiates the film as authentic include clearly visible back muscle and gluteal muscle movement corresponding appropriately to the creature's gait and bumps along the spine like that of a human spinal column.

A wound is visible on Patty's right thigh, Davis said, and she can be seen digging a small trench by dragging a foot through the sandy soil.

Davis addressed a "bloody pool" seen in some frames. The area was frequented by logging crews, and he suggested that the pool was a hole -- pointing out apparent tool marks along one edge -- filled with an unknown red fluid. While pursuing the creature with camera in hand Patterson reportedly stepped into the hole but continued to film.

Though Patterson, who died in 1972, was stigmatized for the filming, and the footage and those defending its authenticity have since been scorned, the weight of the scientific evidence presented by the film and by those who have objectively scrutinized it, said Davis, can only establish it as documentation of an unclassified creature in its native habitat.

Davis said his work on the film was done in tribute to Patterson.

Dr. Jeff Meldrum presented his findings from a recent trip to China researching the Yeren, one Asian creature similar to Sasquatch, Bigfoot and the Yeti.

Meldrum said he spoke with witnesses to the Yeren in a rugged, mountainous and wet (as much as 870 inches rainfall annually) interior region of the country. He accompanied the director of an amateur research group and was able to examine two superb plaster casts of tracks. The tracks, he said, showed the effects of a stride by a creature with a foot physiology different from that of a human. This type of stride can be seen in the Patterson-Gimlin film, further substantiating claims that the creature cannot simply be a human actor in a suit.

Meldrum also announced that his published scientific name for tracks and footprints attributed to Sasquatch-like creatures -- Anthropoidipes ameriborealis -- has not been contested in the scientific community.

Pennsylvania Bigfoot Society Director Eric Altman briefed the audience on both ancient and recent reported sightings. He said that Lenni Lanape and Susquehannock tribes both had names for the creatures they observed, including "masked being" "living solid face" and "game keeper."

The first recorded sighting of Bigfoot in Pennsylvania was in August 1838. Research began in earnest during the late 1960s. In 1998 the PBS was formed. Altman, who had an interest in Bigfoot stretching back to his youth, became the director in 2000.

A particularly intriguing case dated from July 2006. A family heard screaming from nearby woods. The following day members found a deer with its right front leg wedged tightly in the "V" of a tree. The hind quarters were missing and the head bloodied. Tracks 17 inches in length were found nearby as well as uprooted trees.

One theory was that a large cat could have killed the deer. However, Altman said, state wildlife officials said there were no such predators in the area.

Altman was also involved in researching an image of a creature captured by a stationary camera in October 2007. The image was distributed nationally, and shows what some say is a mangy bear and what others claim to be a juvenile Bigfoot.

Scheduled speaker Igor Bourtsev was unable to attend from Russia. Due to political unrest there he was forbidden from leaving the country. However, he e-mailed his presentation and Davis gave an abbreviated presentation.

Bourtsev has been involved for many years with research in Asia into the Almas, the region's Bigfoot-like "cryptid" or unknown animal. He has had a role in research into the story of Zana, reportedly a female Alma who mated with a human male and bore two children.

Bourtsev also joined an expedition to Tennessee to the Carter Farm, sight of numerous sightings. Hairs were collected there and analyzed, and reportedly the DNA contained within them is very close to that of humans.

Native Ohioans Bob Gray and Liza Foster were also on hand promoting the motion picture "Bigfoot." Gray wrote, directed and acted in the film shot on location in the marshes of northeastern Ohio.

Unlike some characterizations of Bigfoot as gentle giants ("Harry and the Hendersons" for example), the creature in Gray's film is a murderous monster that kills, among others, Gray character.

Foster plays a wildlife officer and Gray a sheriff. Distribution plans are in the works for the award-winning film.

2008 Ohio Bigfoot Conference