- Introduction
- On Monday, December 28th, the Fox Television Network
aired a show called "World's Greatest Hoaxes: Secrets Finally
Revealed." Heavily publicized, the show was seen by millions of
basically uninformed people inclined to agree with and accept the
show's basic premise: That the events discussed are generally accepted
as factual, thus requiring such a show to "expose" the multiple
deceptions. In at least the first segment of the show, nothing could
be further from the truth.
-
- That first segment was the only one where supposedly
"new" evidence was offered, the ultimate exposure as a hoax of the
Roger Patterson film of a female bigfoot striding across a sandbar at
Bluff Creek, California, in October of 1967. Anyone not knowing any
better would watch that segment and consider it a paragon of valid,
unbiased, well-researched information. Actually, it was a slick piece
of utter disinformation with no basis in fact and riddled with blatant
distortions.
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- Background
- Roger Patterson was a feisty little outdoorsman from
the Pacific northwest who had previously encountered a bigfoot and
knew they were a real phenomenon. Not long after his first sighting,
he made it a personal goal to film one, so he began taking horseback
rides through the heavy montane forests where most bigfoot sightings
occurred. He did not believe in killing one, so he would take his
rides armed only with his old-style 16mm movie camera. Knowing this,
his friends would often ride with him carrying hunting rifles, to
protect him if he encountered a bigfoot and trouble ensued. On the
October day he finally hit paydirt, he had such a companion with him,
Bob Gimlin. Patterson's rules for such companions were simple: No
firing unless they were attacked.
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- As they rode along a the banks of Bluff Creek, their
horses caught the first whiffs of the bigfoot's powerful body odor.
They bolted, but not before Patterson had spied the female at the
creek bank, probably washing food, as all four hominoid types are
known to do. His horse reared and fell over with Patterson still in
the saddle, but he managed to scramble out from underneath and
retrieve his camera from inside the saddlebag where he carried it. Bob
Gimlin had all he could do to steady his own agitated horse, catch and
hold Patterson's terrified animal, and keep an eye on the bigfoot in
case he had to grab his rifle and start firing at it.
-
- Patterson ran toward the creature, filming as he
ran, which the jiggling film clearly shows. Then he paused in his
pursuit to try to get a few steady frames, at which point the female
sensed his pause and turned to glance at him. All of this action is
clearly visible in the film. Then she turns away from him and
continues her measured retreat back into the woods flanking the creek.
At that point Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin have made history: They
have captured on film undeniably genuine proof that hominoids exist.
And while it is not the first such proof by any means, it is certainly
one of the most compelling.
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- Hoax
Hallmarks
- True hoaxes have certain hallmarks, and such is the
case with hominoid hoaxes. In fact, the Fox TV show used two such
"genuine" hoaxes in an effort to smear the Patterson film by
association. A hoaxed hominoid film will usually not be attributable
to any specific person, it will be provided anonymously, so whoever
filmed it cannot be grilled by specialists who will be able to quickly
expose the fraud. Also, the place where the filming occurred will not
be provided, so experts cannot return to the scene and check for
footprints, measure the creature against items (tree limbs, rocks,
etc.) in the background, or bring tracking dogs to see what their
reaction will be. (Because of a hominoid's overpowering stench, even
tracking dogs will recoil from it, while a human in a suit will be
pursued as if the suit did not exist.)
-
- In contrast to a hoaxer's typical behavior, Roger
Patterson went right out
- from the sighting and called several area experts,
begging them to come to the scene and to bring tracking dogs. None of
the experts would come. However, several friends within the community
of bigfoot hunters did come to the scene to thoroughly examine it for
several days afterward, so there is no doubt that the creature was
there, she left numerous clear tracks that were photographed and cast
in plaster, and her weight was in the 600 to 800 pound range because
the tracks she left sank a full inch into the hard-packed sand at the
creek bank, while a 200 pound man walking near her tracks sank only
about a quarter of an inch. These facts are utterly undeniable, and
they were utterly avoided in the piece presented as fact on "World's
Greatest Hoaxes."
-
- Technical
Evidence
- 1) It was a bright, cloudless day with sunlight
glinting off the creature's hair as she walked. In close-up and at
very slow motion it is easy to see her muscles rippling in her right
shoulder and in her right thigh, just as they would be visible in a
human with those body parts exposed. If it had been a human in a suit,
the suit would have to have been glued to the skin to achieve such an
effect, but in the act of gluing, the subtle interaction between
muscle and skin would be lost. Even today, in 1999, Hollywood special
effects wizards find it extremely difficult to portray such subtle
subcutaneous movements. In 1967 it was flatly impossible (check out
"Planet Of The Apes").
-
- 2) The creature's arms are markedly longer than
human arms, with elbows that clearly articulate well below where the
elbows of a human in a suit would articulate. The added length of the
humerus (shoulder to elbow) is four, five, or even six inches, which
in anatomical terms is a light-year, and which causes the hands to
swing down near the knees, whereas in a human the hands reach only to
mid-thigh or above. There is literally no reasonable comparison
between the two.
-
- 3) The creature's breasts are large, pendulous, and
quite noticeable when she turns to face Patterson as he films. In
close-up and slow motion (conspicuously avoided in the Fox show), it
is easy to see their fluid sway as she turns, and their distinct
"bounce" as she takes two steps. They are indistinguishable from human
mammary tissue in motion, yet if they were an attachment to a modern
body suit they would move more like silicone or gel implants. And in
1967 they would no doubt have looked like the original implant
"nosecones."
-
- 4) The creature's body is extraordinarily thick
throughout all of its parts and in every dimension, much more so than
a similarly proportioned human (as seen in the accompanying "true"
hoaxes). The thighs are massive and flow quite naturally into equally
thick buttocks. When the creature turns to observe Patterson, the
movement begins with a smooth shift of the hips that follows up
through a swing of the entire upper torso, which reveals a shoulder
width of approximately 30 percent more than humans have. Such outsized
dimensions are not possible to duplicate with a human in a suit and
still retain even a semblance of the "natural" movements seen in the
film.
-
- 5) The creature's walk has been carefully analyzed
by specialists in biomechanics in both England and Russia. Their
conclusion is that its walk is completely natural, yet unmistakably
non-human. The torso never rises above several degrees from vertical,
while humans walk with their torsos at or near vertical. The knees
never lock, maintaining a clear bend through the "carry" of each step.
Humans lock their knees with each step. So once again, there is no
reasonable comparison to be made except that humans and the Patterson
creature walk upright on two legs.
-
- Who Is Hoaxing Whom?
- In "World's Greatest Hoaxes" insurance agent Jerry
Romney was "revealed" as the person wearing the suit in the Patterson
film. That he flatly denied any involvement was of no importance to
the Fox TV team. They simply filmed Romney walking, flashed his walk
momentarily against the walking bigfoot, and gleefully announced that
the two walks were suspiciously similar. Anyone who taped the show can
see what an egregious breach of journalistic ethics this was. In
matching the two gaits you will see that Jerry Romney walks
extraordinarily erect, and clearly locks his knees with each step, and
his hands swing just below his hips rather than down near his knees.
Again, there is no reasonable comparison that can be made between the
two.
-
- As for the alleged "zipper line" seen down the back
of the creature as she walks, let me refer again to the bright sun
shining that day. The creature obviously is covered by black hair. The
sun glints off her upper back and both sides of her lower back. But
down the middle of her lower back and down into the crack of her
buttocks there is indeed a dark line. What is it? A shadow caused by
the indentation of muscles along the spine of any upright walker.
There is nothing at all unnatural or suspicious about such a dark line
in precisely that place.
-
- Now, as for the idea of a zipper, imagine how
difficult it would be to manipulate one placed in such a place. Any
surfers out there? You know a wetsuit has a backside zipper, and to
zip it up requires a string attached so it can be opened and closed.
If going to the trouble to make such a fantastically convincing suit,
why put the zipper in back so someone else will have to help you into
and out of it? And for that matter, if making a suit for Jerry Romney,
why go to the trouble to add breasts to it? Just so you can rag on
poor Jerry about having to sashay around as a female?
-
- Another point the Fox TV crew made is that Roger
Patterson worked for a film outfit called American National
Enterprises, or ANE. They said he was on their payroll. Fine. I've
been in this field as a researcher for many years now and have never
heard that story, but I'm in no position to deny it outright. However,
I am in position to suggest that pay stubs with Patterson's name on
them should have been presented on the program in addition to the
unsupported statement that he was indeed on their payroll. Again, I
see this as an egregious breach of journalistic ethics.
-
- One more such breach that needs to be mentioned is
this: Bob Gimlin is still alive, yet his name was not mentioned in
"World's Greatest Hoaxes." Why? Because Gimlin has insisted all of his
long life that the film is genuine. Now, to question the authenticity
of the film is to question the integrity of Bob Gimlin, and that is
not easy to do for the following reason. When money for the film began
to roll in, Roger Patterson ruthlessly cut Bob Gimlin out of any
participation in the proceeds. If the film had been a hoax and Bob
Gimlin had known about it, that would have been an insane move for
Patterson to make. All Gimlin would have had to do was expose the hoax
to make the $25,000 that was being offered at the time for conclusive
proof about it one way or the other. Gimlin did not offer such proof,
even at the lowest point in his relationship with Patterson.
-
- What that means is this: If Patterson did indeed
fake the film, he clearly did so without Bob Gimlin's knowledge. And
that means the person in the suit (Jerry Romney if you believe the Fox
TV hoaxers) was parading around in front of a man armed with a
high-powered hunting rifle who would have been well within his legal
(if not moral) rights to shoot him dead and take him home as a
priceless "trophy." So it seems unlikely that Jerry Romney, or anyone
short of a complete imbecile, could have been talked into getting into
that suit on that particular day.
-
- Conclusion
- For whatever reason, Fox TV and the producers of
"World's Greatest Hoaxes" consciously conspired to disseminate a hoax
of their own, at least as far as their expose of the Patterson film is
concerned. I have no idea what their agenda might have been, other
than to make those of us in the "fringe" look bad for believing in it.
But I can say this without fear of contradiction: Anyone who has
legitimately studied the Patterson film (as Kal Korff said on camera
that he has been doing "for 25 years") knows the evidence supporting
its reality is literally overwhelming on so many practical and
technical levels as to make the issue beyond dispute.
-
- The Patterson film remains one of the best pieces of
evidence ever produced in support of hominoid reality, and the only
reason that reality has not been accepted is because the media
conspires to keep it discredited with hatchet jobs like "World's
Greatest Hoaxes." I hope everyone reading this essay will mention it
to friends and acquaintances who might have been hoaxed not by the
Patterson film, but by those individuals claiming to be exposing it as
a hoax. And to those responsible for that Fox TV travesty, I sincerely
hope that someday you become as thoroughly ashamed of yourselves as
your mothers would be if they knew what you had done.
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