- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.)
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- 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."
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- 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").
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- 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.
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- 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."
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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?
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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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