In 2007, D. Jeffrey Meldrum, a professor at Idaho State University, published a paper in a scientific journal¹ arguing that footprints from the site where Roger Patterson filmed his infamous 1967 Bigfoot footage support the idea of a giant North American ape. He has even given it a scientific sounding name: Anthropoidipes ameriborealis. Crammed with scientific jargon, the paper repeatedly refers to casts of footprints located at the Smithsonian Institution. Meldrum, quoting the editor of Nature, notes that perhaps it is “time for cryptozoology [the study of unknown animals] to ‘come in from the cold.’” To complete the impression of scientific accountability, Meldrum writes, “Much of the more serious literature on the subject [of Bigfoot] has been written by bona fide scientists with anthropological or biological credentials from recognized institutions.”²

To understand the significance of the Meldrum paper, a little background is needed (for a good overview, see Benjamin Radford’s article “Bigfoot at 50,” SI March/April 2002).³ Among supporters of the idea that North America is home to a giant bipedal ape, known as Bigfoot or Sasquatch, almost all agree on the authenticity of the Patterson-Gimlin film. The 952 motion-picture frames, allegedly shot by Patterson on October 20, 1967, and seen many times on television, is considered the most impressive evidence for the existence of the giant creature—the star “proof” in almost every book making a case that Bigfoot is a real animal. Unfortunately, the distance of the “ape” figure from the camera and the resolution of the film (the original transparencies are only 16mm) limit the film’s practical value.

The image is striking; even some skeptics are impressed with the footage. But several issues, besides a complete lack of subsequent corroborative evidence, cast doubt on the film’s authenticity. Significant and troubling is the fact that the original film is missing. More importantly, three key issues cannot be resolved. According to Patterson and his partner that day, Bob Gimlin, the film was “mailed” from California on a Friday evening (approximately 9 p.m.) and arrived in Yakima, Washington, the next day. Supposedly processed on Saturday at an unidentified photography lab, the film was viewed by several Bigfoot buffs (including the late René Dahinden and John Green) on Sunday. The two surviving witnesses to these events, Bob Gimlin and Patterson’s brother-in-law and financial partner Al Detley, have been unable or unwilling to explain how the film got to Yakima so quickly (in an era before overnight couriers), how the film was processed so quickly (in a time when development normally took a week), or even where the processing took place.⁴

Patterson’s sketchy reputation looms over all of these issues. Most Bigfoot believers admit that Patterson was no one’s choice for a reliable witness. In his authoritative 1992 monograph on the film (“Bigfoot at Bluff Creek,” a Bigfoot Times special), Daniel Perez, perhaps the film’s strongest supporter, called Patterson “shady.” Other Bigfoot investigators have not been as complimentary.

A recent book by Greg Long, The Making of Bigfoot,⁵ cast further doubt on the film. Long establishes in his book that Patterson was shadier than even most of those familiar with the story imagined. Of course, just having an unseemly past does not make the man a hoaxer, but Long convincingly portrays Patterson as a man with the ability, aptitude, and motive to fake a Bigfoot film. Through multiple interviews with people, both friends and acquaintances of Patterson, Long creates an unflattering but believable image of the most important man to the Bigfoot story. Long bolsters his arguments with objective data such as court records, contracts, and photographs.

Meldrum claims that “both the [Patterson] film and the tracks [supposedly recovered at the site] have been intensively studied by numerous researchers.” But do the plaster casts really lend support to Patterson’s account?

A careful examination of the circumstances of the footage suggests instead that the footprints are a hoax.

A little background is necessary. Purported Sasquatch footprints, in most instances, lack a chain of custody. The impressions are not normally associated with a specific individual, nor are the environmental conditions or context of the time the prints were made usually known. The moisture content of the soil, soil mineralogy, organic content, grain size, or the mode of traverse by the animal (was it bounding across the terrain or tiptoeing) are seldom reported. In the case of the Patterson film, we need not speculate on any of these parameters, because the film site is available and we know the alleged creature’s gait, the conditions at the time, and many other factors.

Although Patterson is now dead, his filming partner Bob Gimlin (who supposedly stood nearby with his rifle ready) gave a detailed account of the events on several occasions.

Author John Green interviewed Gimlin in 1992 and videotaped the session. In 1997, the interview was transcribed and published on Bobbie Short’s Bigfoot Web page⁶ and through this interview we get Gimlin’s story.

“I rode the big horse,” he tells Green. “The horse that I was riding was around 1,200–1,300 pounds. I rode him along side the [Bigfoot] tracks with this new film in the camera [and] Roger took pictures of how deep the horse’s prints were in the soil compared to the creature’s tracks. Then I got up on a stump, which was approximately three to four feet, you know? We didn’t measure it, probably should have. Anyway, I jumped off with a high heel boot as close to the track as we could. Then we took pictures of that to illustrate the depth that my footprint went into the same dirt with a high heel cowboy boot, and at that time I weighed 165 pounds. These were all things that we did prior to leaving the scene.”

Were the plaster casts of the creature’s alleged tracks made on the same day? Gimlin answers, “Yes we did, in fact right that afternoon. By the time we got the tracks cast . . . it was getting late.”

Green asks, “[Do you] remember how deep the horse tracks were compared to that of the Sasquatch tracks?”

Gimlin replies, “The horse tracks were not as deep as the Sasquatch tracks of course. I just walked the horse through. I walked him as slow as I could but you figure he is distributing his weight on four feet. The tracks were better than half as deep but they weren’t as deep as the tracks of the creature.”

At this point in the interview, Green notes a contradiction in Gimlin’s account and asks him, “You have estimated this thing [at 300 pounds] a great deal less than the horse and yet the footprints were deeper, what explanation could you think of?”

Gimlin replies, “there was no way of really knowing. We knew it had to be heavier than it appeared to be when we first saw it. Of course, we thought the horse’s weight was distributed on four feet, and I’m not good with the mathematics of such things, but . . . if you figure 1,400 pounds [for horse and rider] distributed on four feet would be about 350 to 400 pounds, so we figured it must have weighed much more than we originally figured.”

Figure 1. Copy of one of the casts of the “tracks” from the Patterson film site.

The fact that something is seriously wrong with Gimlin’s account should have been obvious to Bigfoot researchers. A horse is a big creature, and because its feet are relatively small in comparison to its weight, a horse makes deeper and more visible tracks than almost any other animal. The depth of an impression is not only based on the weight of an animal but also on weight distribution as a function of foot size and downward force at a given point, which is expressed in terms of pounds per square inch.

Is Gimlin’s account credible? Forest Service worker Lyle Laverty, who was on the scene the following Monday, said he “walked along the sand adjacent to the tracks and didn’t come anywhere close to sinking to that kind of depth.”⁷

Figure 2. Elevation view of the same cast showing a remarkably deep impression with the maximum depth just behind the ball of the foot.

Laverty also took photos of some of the impressions showing they were about one-inch deep in the substrate, something confirmed by duplicates of the original casts (see figures 1 and 2).⁸

Recently when I talked with Laverty, he confirmed his statement about the depth of the tracks. To clarify, I asked, “And the horse’s hoof prints were deeper than your foot prints?”

“Of course,” he answered.⁹

John Green viewed a second film reportedly showing the making of the casts. In his 1978 book Green notes that “There was also some film taken later when they were making casts of the tracks. It seems to have shown that when the men walked beside the tracks their feet did not sink appreciably into the packed sand. The prints of the creature on the other hand, sank about an inch deep, indicating tremendous weight. Its feet measured fourteen inches in length, five inches in width at the ball, and four inches at the heel. The prints were flat¹⁰ [emphasis added], and there were five toes of fairly human pattern, except that there was less difference in size from largest to smallest. The men [Patterson and Gimlin] made beautiful casts of both left and right feet.”^11,12

Gimlin is correct when he says he is not good with numbers; let us do the math. For an experimental comparison, I obtained tracings of the footprint of several horses,¹³ and their size, weight, and hoof measurements agree with Gimlin’s description of his horse. From the interview Gimlin tells us, “the hoof print area, if you’re familiar with sizes of horses’ hoof prints, well the horse wore a size one shoe, which is not quite six inches in diameter, probably more like five inches in diameter with a number one shoe on the front feet. The shoes were a little bit smaller on the back feet. They were size ones trimmed down is what they were.” At another point, he describes his horse as sixteen hands high.

The three horses in my sample were 15.3 to 16.1 hands high, and all had hooves approximately five inches in diameter. Asher, a 16.1-hands-high horse who weighs about 1,300 pounds and wears a size one shoe, was the closest fit. Asher’s hoof covers an area of 20.5 square inches. Of course, horses make the impressions as they walk or run, which means when they are walking they distribute their weight on two or three feet. The surface area of three of Asher’s hooves is 61.5 square inches. (The two other horses had a total area for three hooves as follows: Jasmine 63.6; Sonny 64.5 square inches.)

What about the surface area of the purported Sasquatch foot? With a copy of the figure’s alleged footprint, it is easy to compute its¹⁴ supposed displacement.

Figure 3. View of a horse’s hoof. This is a photo of one of Spencer’s hooves. Note most of the hoof area is recessed.

The figure in the film is placing its weight on one foot at a time, so we must compare a single foot with two or three from a horse. But, the fourteen-inch monster feet each cover 66.3 square inches of surface area! (The plaster casts from the film site and Green’s description confirm the entire foot made the impressions.) Using these simple calculations, one alleged Sasquatch foot roughly displaces about the same area as a horse does. So, if the figure made an impression the same depth as Gimlin’s horse, and using this simple reckoning, we could gauge its weight to be 1,400 pounds!

The true measure is more complex.¹⁵

Seldom will the entire surface area of the hoof actually come into contact with the ground, because the inner hoof is recessed, especially so once the hoof is shod (see figure 3). In reality, since the horse distributes its weight on two or three sharp-rimmed hooves, normally only the horse’s shoe touches the terrain. The figure in the film, however, distributes weight on one broad, padded, round-edged foot, allowing a maximum surface area to make contact with the ground. This means that the foot of the figure in the film will make less of an impression per more weight than a horse.

Figure 4. Full view of Spencer, a horse similar in size to the one descibed by Gimlin in his account.

Even if we base our comparison on the entire area of three hooves, we get a measurement of about 22.7 pounds per square inch for Gimlin’s horse. If the figure in the film applied the same pounds per square inch, it would have weighed 1,505 pounds.¹⁶

This calculation works if the impressions were the same depth as a horse, but from all indications (photos, film, and testimony), they were not. We are told they were noticeably deeper. This means the creature in the film had to exert more downward force than the horse. If the force exerted by the figure in the film was 1.5 times our estimates, that would yield 34 pounds per square inch. This means the creature weighed 2,254 pounds if the earth compacted evenly. As sediment compacts, it causes more resistance to penetration in a nonlinear progression. In this case, we know the surface material compacted enough to support a horse hoof at a shallow depth, meaning the filmed subject would have needed to exert even more pressure on the sediment!

Could the Bigfoot in the film realistically displace the weight needed to make the impressions? For this assessment, we must take into account that the figure is allegedly a female Sasquatch (some claim to see its furry breasts) about to winter in Northern California. The images suggest a thick coat of fur. Fur accounts for little weight. The creature would have to bulk up with a layer of fat, and fat accounts for far less weight than muscle. We don’t know how tall the figure is, but Roger Knights, an active Bigfoot booster, has recently taken a look at this issue. According to Knights, “we are probably looking at maybe six feet at most.” Gimlin’s original estimates were “six-feet one-inch or six-feet two inches.”¹⁷

Figure 5. The copy of the Patterson film site cast next to Spencer’s front hooves.

Others envision the subject as taller. According to longtime Bigfoot enthusiast Peter Byrne, the creature’s height is somewhere between “Jim McClarin’s [another Bigfoot enthusiast] height estimate of eighty inches and mine of seventy-seven inches. This would give the figure in the footage [an average] height of six feet, six-and-a-half inches. This is the maximum that I would allow.”¹⁸

When one views the image, does it look like an animal, whatever the height, of such enormous weight? If we could accept that this figure made these incredibly deep tracks, shouldn’t there have been many more impressions found just before and after the event? According to Laverty, “there was some skepticism, because we had been up and down that same road all summer long and never saw anything . . . and then all of a sudden Mr. Patterson comes in for a couple of days and bang! Yeah, I think there was some skepticism.”¹⁹

Gimlin would have us believe the creature in the film is of enormous weight.

Isn’t a hoax more plausible? Is it possible Patterson and Gimlin conceived a way of making deep impressions before they left Yakima?²⁰

Readers must draw their own conclusions, but this track depth analysis casts additional scientific doubt on the Patterson film. In view of the litany of discrepancies swirling around the film’s origin and circumstances, the revelations in the Long book, and this evidence of possibly faked tracks, we are exceptionally close to a judgment against the authenticity of the film.

Notes

1. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, Bulletin 42, 2007. Lucas, Spielmann, and Lockley, editors.
2. In the paper, Meldrum makes bold statements about the Patterson film, such as “several footprints were clearly filmed.” Because Meldrum does not mention the “second film” allegedly made later in the day, the readers of the paper would assume this statement refers to the film including the figure. He labels a clear photo from the second film simply as “from the Patterson-Gimlin film clip . . .” leaving the uninformed reader to believe this still is from the film showing the figure.
3. The best book-length account of the legend of Sasquatch is Bigfoot Exposed by David J. Daegling, 2004, AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek, CA.
4. These issues are the result of troubling questions raised by Bigfoot believers.
5. The Making of Bigfoot by Greg Long, Prometheus Books, Amherst, New York, 2004.
6. For the complete interview go to www.bigfootencounters.com/interviews/john.htm.
7. Bigfoot Times, October 20, 1992, page 22, and personal conversations with Lyle Laverty.
8. I am indebted to Don Ryan for the loan of his copy of one of the Patterson film scene casts as well as for many other favors concerning this investigation.
9. Subsequent telephone conversation with Lyle Laverty on February 16, 2007.
10. In his paper, Meldrum confirms: “the footprint is notably flat . . . presumably to maximize distribution of the plantar pressures at the onset of touchdown.” N.M. Museum Bulletin 42, 2007, Page 228.
11. Sasquatch: The Apes Among Us, by John Green, Hancock House, Saanichton, B.C. Canada, 1978, page 118.
12. Elise Kirk, an associate producer with National Geographic Television, asked several questions about the footprints associated with the Patterson film when she interviewed me while making a film on Bigfoot. Her insightful questions caused me to reexamine the way I viewed the impressions.
13. I had help from two horse aficionados: Nancy Stutzman and Christy Sanders-Meena. The horses cooperating in my initial survey were Sonny, Jasmine, and Asher. Asher weighs about 1,300 pounds; Sonny, the smallest horse, weighs about 900 pounds, and Jasmine about 1,100 pounds. Later, for photos, a four-year-old named Spencer posed for comparison with a copy of the Patterson cast. Spencer is almost sixteen hands high and weighs about 1,100 pounds.
14. For those readers who have not examined the film image in detail, the figure in the film has large, fur-covered breasts. It is the consensus of the Bigfoot community that the creature is allegedly female, one of the few issues skeptics do not dispute.
15. Not factored into the calculations is the body shape of a horse. Unlike a primate who displaces all of its weight evenly but alternately on each foot, approximately 60 percent of the body mass of a horse is distributed over the front legs, due to the size of the head and neck. Of course, this means the weight per surface area is even greater than the number given in my calculation, making the case even stronger against the authenticity of the Patterson tracks.
16. I am indebted to Anton Wroblewski for comments about the details related to the mechanics of human and horse footprints and many other helpful suggestions.
17. Big Foot-Prints by Grover Krantz, Johnson Books, Boulder, Colorado, 1992, page 96.
18. The Search for Bigfoot Monster, Myth or Man? by Peter Byrne, Acropolis Books Ltd., Washington D.C., 1975, page 141. To be fair, there are many other height estimates. The late Grover Krantz, using film speed as a measure of height (a most unimpressive argument), calculated the image between 5-feet-9.3-inches and 8-feet-6-inches tall (see Big Foot-Prints, page 96). Patterson claimed the creature was 7-feet-4-inches tall and in the 1992 interview Gimlin revised his estimate of the creature to “about 9-feet high.”
19. Bigfoot Times, October 20, 1992, page 21, and telephone conversations with Robert Lyle Laverty.
20. Gimlin says that in the night it began to rain. “Around 5:30 a.m. or so it started raining and it was just a pouring down rain. I told Roger we better get up and do something about the tracks or they’d wash out, and he said no, it would stop raining after a while. I went ahead and got up, put the saddle on my horse and decided I would ride up there while it was raining really hard and Roger says ‘ah it’ll quit, don’t ride up there.’ I said ‘no I’m going to go ahead and ride on up there.’ I had gotten a couple of cardboard boxes from Mr. Hodgson’s to cover these tracks the night before. So when I went outside to get a couple of these boxes that were folded up out there, they were just soggy old pieces of cardboard. I disregarded [sic] taking those back up there—so I rode back up to the scene, pulled some bark off some trees and covered up the tracks as best I could and went back to camp.” Is it possible that after spending the day making fake tracks showing unusual weight Gimlin wanted to protect his work? When I showed this quote to Anton Wroblewski, he commented: “Isn’t it curious Gimlin uses the word ‘scene’ as if from a movie.”

Figure 1. Researcher Matt Crowley compares an alleged Bigfoot cast to a test cast he made. Photos by Matt Crowley

One star of the Bigfoot community over the past decade has been latent-fingerprint examiner Jimmy Chilcutt.¹ A number of Sasquatch casts have been identified with what appears to be a series of dermal ridges and valleys, what on the fingers we call fingerprints. In numerous television appearances, Chilcutt has presented himself as an expert on both human and primate fingerprints. On a November 24, 1999, Salt Lake City television show, he pointed to what he calls the “pattern flow” of the dermal ridges on a Bigfoot cast, explaining they were not human nor primate but from “a species in itself.” Furthermore, he says, “whichever you call it-Bigfoot or Sasquatch-from [this dermal-ridge] evidence, I can tell [there is an unknown] animal in the Pacific Northwest.”

In the documentary video Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science, Chilcutt is prominently featured and is even more forceful. “I've come to the following solid conclusions,” he says. “Number one: there is a great ape living in North America, and number two: the friction ridges of this great ape are not human or of a known species. This conclusion may come as a shock to some people, but I stake my reputation on it.”²

To my knowledge, other than a posting on the Internet,³ Chilcutt has published no papers on his findings,⁴ nor has anyone outside the Bigfoot community examined his claims or theories. Reporting by other Bigfoot enthusiasts, including Christopher Murphy, provides only cursory coverage of Chilcutt’s work. From what I have been able to ascertain, Chilcutt has identified three Bigfoot casts as exhibiting dermal ridges with the particular non-human and non-primate characteristics he alone has identified. The three specimens are known as Wrinkle Foot, Onion Mountain, and the Elkins cast. Two of these three tracks are problematic: the imprint from which the Elkins cast was made came from Georgia, an unlikely spot to find Bigfoot,⁵ and the Wrinkle Foot cast is one of many tracks “discovered” by the late D. Paul Freeman.

To appreciate Freeman’s involvement with the Wrinkle Foot print, some background information is required. Freeman came to prominence within the Bigfoot community in 1982, when he allegedly saw a Sasquatch in the Mill Creek Watershed not far from Walla Walla, Washington. Casts were made of footprints near his sighting, and when examined, they revealed tiny dermal ridges and valleys in some parts of the imprint. Later revelations about Freeman and the tracks provided overwhelming evidence that the impressions were hoaxed. Longtime Bigfoot hunter Rene Dahinden called Freeman’s Mill Creek tracks “100 percent fakes, absolutely fakes.” Freeman later produced more than one set of Sasquatch hairs that turned out to be artificial fibers.⁶

Both Freeman’s Wrinkle Foot and the Georgia imprint came after the Mill Creek tracks, when dermal ridges became a major issue. Even Chilcutt recognized the possibility of faking dermal ridges (at least those looking like those of a human fingerprint), for in his television interview, he dismisses as worthless a track (looking suspiciously like one of the Mill Creek tracks), saying the “casting had been enhanced manually with a human fingerprint.”

Because of the dubious authenticity of the two other tracks, the third footprint, know as the Onion Mountain cast, is of primary importance. Found by veteran Bigfoot researcher John Green in August 1967, it predates the first understanding of the dermal ridge topic by decades and presumably represents an historic example of the phenomena.

Figure 2. A test cast shows how casting artifacts can mimic dermal ridges. Photo by Matt Crowley

Recently, a Seattle man, Matt Crowley, obtained a copy of the Onion Mountain cast.⁷ Crowley, a former pharmacist who now makes a living as an artist, conceived a series of experiments to try and duplicate the circumstances of the Onion Mountain cast. Working with painstaking detail, he tried to recreate the same hot, dry conditions of the original site. The result has been a series of test casts, which (as a product of the casting process) display virtually identical dermal-ridge-type surface characteristics (see figure 2). Crowley presented his findings at three Bigfoot conferences in 2005. The response from the Bigfoot community, so far, has been surprisingly positive.

The Onion Mountain cast displays three distinct patterns. The most obvious of the three is a series of what do look like dermal ridges running along the outside of the track. These are the ridges Chilcutt is referring to when he identifies for the television camera his “flow pattern.” Crowley’s experiments clearly show that Chilcutt’s “pattern” is an artifact of the casting process, appearing in all of the tests. The other two details of the Onion Mountain print are an apparent skin crease across the center of the print (Crowley calls it a curved furrow) and more lines similar to human dermal ridges, but not characteristic of the “flow pattern.” Amazingly we can see these other dermal patterns, including an almost identical curved furrow in Crowley’s experimental casts-again, all artifacts of the process. So compelling are the Crowley experiments that Daniel Perez, who chronicles the search for Sasquatch in his Bigfoot Times newsletter, named Crowley his “Bigfooter of the Year.”

Even Jeff Meldrum, the chief academic spokesmen for Sasquatch, has grudgingly conceded this piece of evidence for Bigfoot is lost. According to the December 2005 Bigfoot Times, Meldrum is quoted as saying, “However, I caution others not to extend the results of [Crowley’s] experiments beyond the conditions he has investigated, which apply to the Onion Mountain track site.” This is unnecessary, as Crowley has always maintained the Onion Mountain cast was a specific case and the results were the product of this particular set of conditions. But Meldrum is wrong. The Crowley experiments have a larger message: that seemingly impressive “evidence” for the Sasquatch monster can turn out to be no more than one man fooling himself. This is a lesson that is not confined to this specific track.

Obviously, Bigfoot enthusiasts need to examine claims carefully. When I spoke with Chilcutt by phone, he mirrored this sentiment, saying, “Matt has shown artifacts can be created, at least under laboratory conditions, and field researchers need to take precautions.”

Although Chilcutt admits Crowley’s work duplicated the friction ridges on the Onion Mountain cast, he maintains that the impression is of the foot of a real animal. He explains, “the Walla Walla [Wrinkle Foot] and Elkins casts display similar dermals to Onion Mountain.” Even the flow pattern appears in the Elkins impression, “although it is hard to see.” Besides, Chilcutt informed me, “John Green told me he saw the dermal ridges in the actual [Onion Mountain] track.”

“Not true,” replies Crowley. “I contacted John Green and specifically asked about dermals in the original footprint. I e-mailed him the question and he confirmed by return e-mail he did not see friction ridges in the Onion Mountain track before a cast was made.”⁸

Crowley, who describes himself as a Bigfoot agnostic, has shown how one can present negative findings to a Sasquatch conclave without alienating the audience. He has maintained a nonaggressive, focused approach, and many within the Bigfoot community have responded warmly. (Skeptics should learn from his example.)

For this observer of the people who search for Sasquatch, the general acceptance of Crowley’s experiments is a positive sign. I'm hopeful others will follow his lead in close examination of Sasquatch “evidence.” Perhaps Bigfooters will even begin to conduct experiments on tracks and other tangible items they believe to be from the Sasquatch monster. That is, if Crowley doesn't get to them first.

Notes

1. Jimmy Chilcutt was for many years an officer and fingerprint examiner for the Conroe Police Department in Conroe, Texas. He is now retired.
2. Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science. Directed by Doug Haijcek. 2002. Coon Rapids, Minnesota: Whitewolf Entertainment, Inc.
3. Chilcutt’s Internet item concerns his evaluation of what he sees as dermal ridges in what is known as the Elkins cast; see http://home.clara.net/rfthomas/papers/elkins.html.
4. To be fair, there are limited opportunities for a scientific paper on Sasquatch dermal ridges.
5. The Elkins cast is identified in the Chilcutt Internet posting as being from Pike County, Georgia, circa 1997. Many Sasquatch sightings are from east of the Rocky Mountains. One researcher has compiled reports of 486 sightings of the Bigfoot in Maryland. The late Grover Krantz believed that a footprint from Indiana, later proved to be fake, provided strong evidence of Bigfoot in the central United States. Vermont, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Texas, to mention only some, are areas of frequent reports of Bigfoot.
6. For more about the Mill Creek tracks, see my article in the Skeptical Inquirer, Spring 1989, pp. 264-272.
7. Richard Noll, a longtime Bigfoot enthusiast, loaned Crowley his copy of the Onion Mountain print and allowed Crowley to make a copy of it.
8. Crowley supplied me with a copy of the e-mail exchange made in November 2005.

But promotion of the giant North American bipedal creature, also known as Sasquatch, seems to be in resurgence. This burst of activity comes from a new generation of Bigfoot proponents. Prominent among them are author and educator Loren Coleman and Idaho State University’s Jeffrey Meldrum. Christopher Murphy’s 2004 book Meet the Sasquatch has gathered considerable media attention and Daniel Perez, with his Bigfoot Times newsletter, has become the movement’s chronicler.

To those reporting stories about the big guy we must add the “field researchers.” In the forefront are Richard Noll, discoverer of the only “full body cast of the Bigfoot monster,” and C. Thomas Biscardi. Recently Biscardi and his Great American Bigfoot Research Organization caught media attention by claiming the capture of a Bigfoot. By the time I contacted Great American’s publicity agent, Robert Barrows, the assertion had already evaporated. Barrows’s casual explanation: “Tom [Biscardi] believed a woman’s declaration she had a Sasquatch,” though later she turned out to “be crazy.”

The Bigfoot community was not so nonchalant. Dan Perez headlined a short article about the incident: “Biscardi’s Bull Crap.” The article, written by Loren Coleman, [1] said Biscardi “fumbled along” when interviewed about the alleged capture “first saying it [Bigfoot] was 800 pounds, then telling [the interviewer] that he hadn’t said how much it weighed, only that it was over eight feet tall.” Coleman elaborated: Biscardi “hadn’t even seen it . . . but [somehow] knew it was seventeen years old.” He further warned of Biscardi’s “checkered Marxian past,” a reference to Bigfooter Ivan Marx, [2] not Groucho Marx.

Yet the Great American Web site still proclaimed: “Imminent Capture [of Bigfoot] Anticipated.” I asked Biscardi, who bills himself as a “world famous Bigfoot researcher,” how he might bag the monster when others had been unsuccessful.

“Because nobody has the technical equipment, or the experience we have,” he told me in a telephone interview from Happy Camp, California. They had, he assured me, “identified a migration pattern” for the creature and with the “most powerful stun gun available,” they would catch a Sasquatch alive. “There would be no killing [of a creature] and after science had thirty days to examine the animal,” Biscardi would “release it back to the wild.”

More revealing was his boast their cameras had seen an encounter between “a bear and Bigfoot on 12 September” [2005 near Happy Camp] and broadcast this via their subscription-only Webcam (see the December 2005 Briefs Briefs). Later when I asked for information about the encounter story the editor of the Happy Camp News, Linda Martin, a sort of pit-bull defender of the Biscardi expedition (because it was bringing much need attention and cash to the community), gave a different story. According to her account, someone claimed they saw the encounter via Webcam with the Bigfoot approaching the bear from the nearby spring, but when “we looked for this incident on the video archive and saw the bear walking down the path—but no Bigfoot . . . in fact we could find nothing coming out of the spring.” Martin was oblivious to the fact that once again Biscardi was flippantly making extraordinary yet unsupported assertions. Oddly, when we spoke on the phone Martin had attacked Coleman’s credibility by saying he had misappropriated another Bigfooter’s photos. [3]

Brandon Tennant, a protégée of Jeff Meldrum who is organizing a Bigfoot Conference to be held in Pocatello, Idaho in 2006 said he thought Biscardi “might be giving the field a bad name,” something — considering the past history of Bigfoot research — that would be quite an achievement.

Biscardi told me he has Web subscribers in sixty-five countries, has had great response to his efforts and doesn’t care if others, especially those not “in the field,” criticize him. He called Coleman and Perez “bottom feeders.” But at least tepid support for Biscardi can be found. Veteran Bigfoot buff Jon-Erik Beckjord, who on his Web site compares himself to Galileo, Pasteur, and the Wright Brothers, says Great American should continue the effort. “They may get some images,” Beckjord said. “But not a live creature?” I asked. “Of course not, and you know why,” he replied. Having been exposed to Beckjord’s theories I answered: “Because Bigfoot is inter-dimensional?” “Yes, or possibly a time-shifter,” and therefore when injured or killed it would return to its own dimension or time.

If Biscardi is really on the trail of the monster, by the time you read this, you will have already seen the big story on television.

When I talked with Biscardi I promised him I would mention his Web site in my article. As others were also helpful I would like to give their contact information as well.

• Great American Bigfoot Research Organization, headed by C. Thomas Biscardi: www.findingbigfoot.com
• Loren Coleman’s Web site is: www.lorencoleman.com
• To contact Dan Perez & The Bigfoot Times try: perez952@sbcglobal.net
• Erik Beckjord’s Web site is: www.beckjord.com/bigfoot
• For information on Brandon Tennant’s Pocatello conference, e-mail fallingrock@onewest.net

Notes

1. Coleman is not always as combative and was most generous with information when I queried him for this article.
2. John Green once called the late Ivan Marx the biggest “yarn-spinner in California.” For more about Marx’s dubious activities see Sasquatch by Don Hunter and René Dahinden, Signet 1973, chapter 8.
3. For more on this issue see Bigfoot Times, newsletter, October-November 2005 issue, front page.