Cryptids

The Patterson-Gimlin Film Of Bigfoot: What Skeptics Still Struggle To Explain

Published

3 years ago

June 29, 2021

The most famous of all alleged “Bigfootage” ever produced, the Patterson-Gimlin film remains an iconic artifact of the unknown.

Shot nearly five decades ago on Bluff Creek in California near the Oregon border, the minute-long scene recorded onto 16mm film by Roger Patterson accompanied by Bob Gimlin depicts a subject covered in brown hair walking upright away from the camera.

Frame # 352 captures the subject in its most memorable and revealing pose relative to the camera, an image which has since become the face of Sasquatch-related pop culture around the world.

Above: Frame 352 from the Patterson-Gimlin film of Bigfoot

In the 40+ years since the release of this alleged Bigfoot documentation dozens of brains have picked over its every detail. Some such as the late Dr. Dmitri D. Donskoy, a leading expert on human biomechanics, believed the subject to be nonhuman.

Others outright deemed it an easy-to-spot fraud, including the late “father of cryptozoology” zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans. Countless TV specials have aired the footage for the public to decide for themselves – oftentimes showing highly deteriorated copies of copies of copies.

Numerous people have come forward over the years claiming to have either manufactured a suit for the film or having been a performer in a suit in the film, providing little evidence beyond their own word and the testimony of friends and family.

Most folks with memories of the Patterson-Gimlin film recall a shaky, blurry, faded image with a brief glimpse of a hairy biped walking in the distance.

To refresh readers memories here’s a stabilized version of the Patterson-Gimlin film originally put together by amateur researcher M.K. Davis and modified by a member of the Reddit online community.

Unlike the original shaky footage captured by Patterson on foot, this clip lets viewers see the film as if it were shot on a tripod. For the first time viewers get a clear, steady glimpse of the subject walking and turning its head back toward the camera.

So what of it? Scientists think it’s fake and hoax confessions have been made, right? Yes, but the former isn’t as ubiquitous as one would think, and the latter overlap and lack any substantial proof to back them up.

The unsettling truth is that almost 50 years later, several key facts about the Patterson-Gimlin film still raise the possibility that the subject shown is not an actor in a suit, but an unidentified hominid of the American northwest.

Matching footprints were found at the site starting seven years prior to the film

Photographs and plaster casts of large footprints on or around Bluff Creek were being documented starting in 1960 and leading up to the alleged Patterson-Gimlin encounter seven years later.

Professor D. Jeffrey Meldrum of Idaho State University, an expert in primate locomotion, foot morphology, and one of the few academics willing to analyze alleged Sasquatch evidence at-length, concludes each of these footprints found near Bluff Creek match the same individual source.

Hoax theories thereby must conclude that Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin were part of a coordinated effort involving several groups of unassociated people over seven years to create a specific Bigfoot identity for the sake of backing up a brief, shaky, film.

Not impossible nor improbable, but there are holes in this theory. For one, Patterson didn’t visit Bluff Creek for the first time until 1962, two years after the first of these matching footprints were documented.

Secondly, it’s a corroborating part of the narrative neither Patterson nor anyone else involved ever mentioned when trying to persuade others of the film’s authenticity. The link between the Bluff Creek prints was first noted by Meldrum decades later. Why go to all the trouble of building up alleged evidence over years only to omit it from your story?

Several respected anatomists, anthropologists, forensics examiners, and primatologists have analyzed the Patterson-Gimlin film throughout the decades. Many, including Meldrum, firmly believe in the film’s authenticity for a number of reasons including seemingly nonhuman dimensions and gait.

Others including the aforementioned Heuvelmans have been less favorable, pointing to hairy breasts and the subject’s seemingly too-casual demeanor as signs of fraud. However, of the six so-called unfavorable analyses of the footage, five couldn’t definitively say one way or the other.

Heuvelmans was the only one to say it was absolutely fake. Most of these unfavorable findings, such as the one reached by anatomist D.W. Grieve of the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine in London, include opinions that the film is convincing enough to bring the researchers involved to the brink of believing in its authenticity.

The overwhelming majority of alleged Sasquatch footage is blurry and shaky to the point where discerning limbs is difficult enough, let alone further details about anatomy, behavior, and locomotion.

The Patterson-Gimlin film, however, offers enough of a look at the subject that only one of two conclusions can be made: it’s a human in a suit, or an unidentified hominid.

Despite being reduced to only these two options, over 80 percent of unfavorable scientific analysis of the Patterson-Gimlin film refuses to determine one way or the other, citing many convincing characteristics. If it’s fake, it’s so good it practically fools experts in every avenue of relevant science.

World-renowned makeup artists and costume designers believe if it was a suit, it’s a masterpiece.

Similar to the scientific response to the Patterson-Gimlin film, the opinions of Hollywood’s leading effects masters are divided as to whether the creature is real, but nearly unified by uncomfortable notions of legitimacy.

With that said, two major effects artists considered the creature to be fake. One was the late Academy award-winning Stan Winston of Aliens, Jurassic Park, Predator, and Terminator fame, who felt the suit looked unimpressive but whose work depicting primates and other hairy creatures ranks among his least revered or remembered.

The other is Rick Baker, creator of the Harry and the Hendersons creature costume, whose anecdotal dismissal, citing detailed knowledge of a suit being sold to prank Patterson, was later retracted by his studio.

The majority of professional makeup artists and costume designers familiar with the Patterson-Gimlin film consider the creature a work of unprecedented art if not the real deal.

The most notable was the late John Chambers, Academy award-winning creator of the costumes used in The Planet of the Apes released one year after the alleged Patterson-Gimlin encounter. Chambers stated that if the creature were fake it was achieved with skills surpassing his own.

Top brass at Disney believed their technicians wouldn’t be able to replicate the film either, and the technicians themselves refused to believe it was something accomplished artificially.

Not exactly smoking guns proving authenticity, but arguments counting on Roger Patterson’s ability to acquire such a suit must contend with the fact the cowboy and amateur Bigfoot hunter was connectionless, poor, and uneducated despite his self-taught skillsets.

Despite a well-funded attempt, no one has ever been able to duplicate the footage successfully.

Strictly speaking the burden is not on skeptics to prove the Patterson-Gimlin film is fake. However, that hasn’t stopped people from trying. The most famous and well-funded attempt to recreate the Patterson-Gimlin film to-date was conducted in 1998 by the British Broadcasting Corporation for inclusion in a program entitled X-Creatures.

Viewers were told the Patterson-Gimlin film was to be finally debunked through identical recreation. The program promised to prove it was possible to make a suit matching the subject seen in the footage.

Over 30 years after the alleged Bigfoot encounter on Bluff Creek, this was the supposedly similarly-looking suit revealed as proof the original creature could be faked by clever costume designers.

As of 2015 no one has successfully produced a duplicated version of the Patterson-Gimlin film. That doesn’t mean it can’t be done – it just hasn’t been done in nearly half a century despite a highly-publicized effort to do so.

Roger Patterson died of cancer in 1972, vowing to the very end that what he saw on Bluff Creek was a Bigfoot.

Bob Gimlin avoided the spotlight until the turn of the 21st century, when he began appearing at Bigfoot believers’ conferences, as adamant as ever that what he saw that fall day in 1967 was something nonhuman.

By Taylor Leonard, source: theghostdiaries.com

Cryptids

Mothman SIghted Before 2007 Bridge Collapse in Minnesota

Published

4 days ago

April 22, 2024

The aftermath of the I-35w Bridge Collapse in 2007. Image: Wikipedia

Just like the infamous Silver Bridge Mothman sightings, witnesses claim seeing a strange, 7ft tall flying humanoid in the weeks before the collapse of the I-35W bridge in 2007.

The Collapse of the I-35W Bridge

The I-35W Mississippi River bridge (also known as Bridge 9340) was a large bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota, that carried Interstate 35W over the river. It was built in 1967 and was one of the busiest bridges in Minnesota, with thousands of cars using it every day.

Sadly, on August 1, 2007, during the evening rush hour when hundreds of people were driving home from work, something terrible happened. The bridge suddenly collapsed, causing a lot of damage. Sadly, 13 people died, and 145 were injured.

Investigators later found out that a part of the bridge, called the gusset plate, had failed. The gusset plate was worn and the stress of the extra cars on the bridge caused it to break apart.

Right after the collapse, people and emergency workers from nearby areas rushed to help. They worked hard to rescue anyone who was trapped and to take care of the injured.

The Minnesota Department of Transportation quickly made plans to build a new bridge called the I-35W Saint Anthony Falls Bridge. They finished building it just over a year later, and it opened in September 2008.

Connections to the Silver Bridge Collapse

The Silver Bridge Collapse

For many cryptid enthusiasts, hearing of a bridge collapse immediately brings Mothman to mind. The Silver Bridge was a suspension bridge spanning the Ohio River, connecting Point Pleasant, West Virginia, and Gallipolis, Ohio. On December 15, 1967, during rush hour, the bridge suddenly collapsed, sending cars and people plunging into the icy waters below. The disaster claimed the lives of 46 individuals, making it one of the deadliest bridge collapses in American history.

In the months leading up to the tragedy, residents of Point Pleasant reported sightings of a mysterious creature dubbed the “Mothman.” Described as a large, winged humanoid with glowing red eyes, the Mothman sightings fueled speculation and fear in the community.

Following the Silver Bridge collapse, some people began to link the sightings of the Mothman to the disaster, suggesting that the creature was a harbinger of impending doom. This connection led to the Mothman becoming a legendary figure in cryptozoology and popular culture.

Both the Silver Bridge collapse and the I-35w collapse were caused by structural failures in the bridges. In the case of the Silver Bridge, the collapse was attributed to a single eyebar in the suspension chain that failed due to metal fatigue. In the I-35W collapse, a design flaw in the bridge’s gusset plates, combined with increased weight from construction materials and traffic, led to the catastrophic failure.

Mothman Sightings Connected to the I-35W Bridge Collapse

Dark Reocrds covers the I-35w brdge collapse

The I-35w collapse Mothman sightings differ from the Silver Bridge Mothman sightings in their frequency. Dozens of people around Pleasant Point reported strange sightings and unexplained paranormal or extraterrestrial activity in the months leading up to the Silver Bridge collapse. The sightings surrounding the I-35w collapse were mush less common.

On August 10, 2007, George Noory hosted the “Coast to Coast AM” program, where he spoke to several callers sharing their encounters with cryptids. Among these calls was one reporting a sighting on June 27th near Stewartville, Minnesota. The caller described seeing a 7-foot-tall, winged humanoid creature with a massive wingspan, roughly the width of her Ford vehicle. The sighting occurred approximately 90 miles from the I-35w bridge, just over a month before the bridge collapse.

There are references to multiple other sightings online but they seem to have been removed from the internet. A WIRED article from the time talks of numerous blog posts on the topic but the link no longer works. This article by Singular Fortean also alludes to their being multiple sightings but doesn’t provide references.

Skepticism

So it seems we just have the one account to work with here. It’s possible that the George Noory’s caller was just someone making up a story and looking for a bit of attention. The fact that the account didn’t come out until after the collapse of the I-35w bridge does take from its credibility.

It is also possible that the caller simple saw a large crane or other bird and misidentified their memory as the mothman following the bridge collapse.

What if it was Mothman?

If it was Mothman that was seen before the collapse of the I-35w bridge it leads us to more questions than answers. Is this Mothman the same creature that was seen before the Silver Bridge collapse? Could Mothman actually be a species of creature that is drawn to human disasters, particularly bridge collapses?

Tell us your theories in the comments.

If you enjoyed reading about Mothman and the I-35w bridge collapse you might be interested in our article on the original Mothman story or the blackbird of Chernobyl.

Cryptids

The Awful

Published

2 months ago

February 27, 2024

The Awful cryptid as described by Vermont residents in 1925

In 1923, several residents of Berkshire and Richford, Vermont reported seeing a creature resembling a griffin, with a 20 foot wingspan and a serpentine tail.

“The Awful” Cryptid Sightings of 1925

Berkshire and Richford, Vermont are peaceful countryside towns located between Lake Champlain and Lake Memphremagog, near the Canadian Province of Quebec.

In 1925 several residents of these towns reported encounters with an unusual flying creature.

The creature was described as being similar to the mythical Griffin, with a grayish color, a 20-foot wingspan, a snake-like tail, and big claws capable of holding a medium sized dog. These strange sightings caused panic among the locals who came to dub the creature “the Awful”.

The first sightings of the mysterious creature were reported by two sawmill workers in Richford. As they crossed the main street bridge, they saw a very large beast on the nearby rooftop of the Boright building, glaring at them. According to the tale, one of the men was so scared that he had a heart attack out of fear. He had to be carried home but eventually recovered. However, for weeks afterward, he had nightmares about the creature, waking up his family with screams during the night.

In the following months, locals kept reporting sightings of this mysterious creature, causing fear and panic among residents. Farmers shared stories of it flying over their fields, and others saw it landing on their house rooftops. One resident, Oella Hopkins, experienced this when she was hanging laundry outside. The family dog got upset and started barking, and when Oella looked, she saw the creature, known as The Awful, perched on her farmhouse roof, staring at her. Terrified, Oella ran inside and hid under her bed for hours.

Later Sightings of “The Awful”

By the end of 1925, sightings of the creature became less frequent and almost stopped completely by 1928. Even though people thought it had disappeared, some locals claimed to see it every now and then since the 1920s. One such person was Lisa Maskell from Montgomery, who said she spotted the creature near Trout River when she was a child. When she saw a drawing of a pterodactyl later on, she thought it looked like the creature she saw and believed it resembled The Awful.

In 2006, there were a few new reports suggesting that The Awful might have returned to Northern Vermont. In October 2006, a person wrote in the County Courier about a respected person in Richford who saw the creature suddenly appear and grab a big black crow from a pine tree. The witness was surprised and said the creature flew around his house three times.

After this article, more people shared sightings. A woman remembered seeing the monster when she was about ten. It was in a tree near the Trout River, watching them with its strange beak, reminding her of a pterodactyl.

A dowser named Edith Green said people in Richford have been nervous about the creature for a long time.

An older man mentioned that the creature has been seen often in the Gibou area for the past 25 years, even recently. Locals usually leave it alone, and it leaves them alone, with a few exceptions.

A resident of East Richford said the creature has been spotted recently around the Slide Road area. He mentioned you can often hear it before seeing it, making a strange, low screaming sound and the flapping of its large wings when it’s close.

Despite its scary appearance, the creature was never known to attack people; it seemed more like it was just watching. There’s one account mentioning it flying over Berkshire Field near Lost Nation Road and appearing to hold a baby or a small animal, although it’s more likely to have been an animal.

William DeFalco covers the story of The Awful

Possible Explanations for the Awful

Assuming the reports of the Awful are not just a hoax or an old wives tale what else could be going on here? It’s possible that soe type of rare, large bird is lurking in the wilds of Vermont and is only seen very rarely due to a lack of numbers. The Awful could simple have been a particularly large owl or Eagle.

If paranormal in origin, the Awful does bear a small resemblence to the Mothman of West Virginia. Perhaps it continues to lurk in the shadows, waiting to come our and warn residents of impending doom.

What do you think about the Awful? Tell us your theories in the comments.

If you enjoyed learning about the Awful you might also be interested in the Lechuza, a strange owl-like creature or the Prime Hook Swamp Monster.