Debunking Bigfoot: The Truth Behind Plaster Casts and Other Hoaxes

[Ivan Seeking]

Bigfoot academics say no way Symposium unites experts on the weird-footed mystery beast

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/09/14/MN303756.DTL

 

[zoobyshoe]

"Disposition:Generally retiring,
though occasionally
aggressive. Credited with
tearing apart bothersome
dogs."

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Originally posted by zoobyshoe
"Disposition:Generally retiring,
though occasionally
aggressive. Credited with
tearing apart bothersome
dogs."

Take my wife for example...

This is what impressed me a bit:

Another featured speaker was Jimmy Chilcutt, a crime scene investigator and latent fingerprint examiner with the Monroe, Texas, police department. He has assembled a database of primate fingerprints as part of an attempt to identify human fingerprint characteristics by race and gender.

Chilcutt -- who acknowledged that he endures some gentle ribbing from his Texas law-enforcement peers -- has studied plaster casts allegedly taken from Sasquatch footprints and found that the toeprint patterns from some "were completely different from either humans or any of the known great apes. On top of that, one had scars on the dermal ridges that puckered inward as finger or toeprint scars do naturally. It would be extremely hard to duplicate that, assuming you knew that's what scarring does to prints, which few people do."

 

[zoobyshoe]

Originally posted by Ivan Seeking
This is what impressed me a bit:

I agree. It would require a lot of
specific technical skill to fake
this kind of thing.

I happen to know a guy who is a
makeup artist for TV and film.
(You've never heard of him, not
a big name), and I'm sure those
guys could fake this pretty easily. The cuts are exactly the kind of thing they would be sure
to include, in a case like this.
One of the things makeup artists
have to do is put wounds and scars on actors. They study them intently in medical books, they study their own and each others,
and stare frankly at the scars on
anyone they happen to meet.

At the same time, they have a kind
of code of ethics that they never
use their superpowers for evil, in
the same way a magician is never
supposed to con someone offstage
for gain.

What I'm saying is that it is
technically possible to fake a
print like this but just about
impossible to find a makeup artist
who would do it, or want to do it.


Could a bigfoot be well-hoaxed?
He told me this story: Planet of
The Apes, and 2001, were both re-
leased the same year. Planet of
the Apes makeup director John
Chambers won the academy award for
makeup that year. Someone started
asking around as to why people
didn't vote for the creator of
the 2001 apes, which were much
better. They found out that most
voters had thought they were real
apes. I don't know if I believe
that story but that's what he
told me.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Originally posted by zoobyshoe
I agree. It would require a lot of
specific technical skill to fake
this kind of thing.

I happen to know a guy who is a
makeup artist for TV and film.
(You've never heard of him, not
a big name), and I'm sure those
guys could fake this pretty easily. The cuts are exactly the kind of thing they would be sure
to include, in a case like this.
One of the things makeup artists
have to do is put wounds and scars on actors. They study them intently in medical books, they study their own and each others,
and stare frankly at the scars on
anyone they happen to meet.

At the same time, they have a kind
of code of ethics that they never
use their superpowers for evil, in
the same way a magician is never
supposed to con someone offstage
for gain.

What I'm saying is that it is
technically possible to fake a
print like this but just about
impossible to find a makeup artist
who would do it, or want to do it.

However, sometimes in situations like this we can find evidence that predates the modern techniques. This point would seem worthy of further investigation.

Could a bigfoot be well-hoaxed?
He told me this story: Planet of
The Apes, and 2001, were both re-
leased the same year. Planet of
the Apes makeup director John
Chambers won the academy award for
makeup that year. Someone started
asking around as to why people
didn't vote for the creator of
the 2001 apes, which were much
better. They found out that most
voters had thought they were real
apes. I don't know if I believe
that story but that's what he
told me.

Now that's irony!

 

[zoobyshoe]

Originally posted by Ivan Seeking
However, sometimes in situations like this we can find evidence that predates the modern techniques. This point would seem worthy of further investigation.

I agree. It would be nice to get
the opinions of a few more
print experts on these casts.
And it would have been pretty
damning if this one had concluded
that the prints in the casts he
examined looked inorganic, as if
produced by a bad sculptor who
didn't understand something essen-
tial to all prints, human and
simian.

Some Bigfoot casts I've seen pic-
tures of just don't look like feet
that could be found in nature :
toes all the same length forming
a straight line at the front of
the foot. Other casts look com-
pletly anatomically feasable.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Originally posted by zoobyshoe
I agree. It would be nice to get
the opinions of a few more
print experts on these casts.
And it would have been pretty
damning if this one had concluded
that the prints in the casts he
examined looked inorganic, as if
produced by a bad sculptor who
didn't understand something essen-
tial to all prints, human and
simian.

Some Bigfoot casts I've seen pic-
tures of just don't look like feet
that could be found in nature :
toes all the same length forming
a straight line at the front of
the foot. Other casts look com-
pletly anatomically feasable.

It breaks my heart to think that for 20 years, one of the leading researchers in this field [Dr. Kravits or Kranits... Kravoy... something like that. Does this ring any bells? I am terrible with names!]. He taught at OSU just a few miles from my home and my alma mater. By the time I learned of his work, he was already gone. Anyway, this guy argued that some other very specific information can be found in the apparently credible casts. One bone in the side of the foot was often found to be uncharacteristically offset as compared to a human foot. He argues that this would be expected as a feature in the foot of a 400 LB beastie; exactly this geometry is needed to support the extra weight. He was an anthropologist by profession.

He also had a great way to look at this kind of stuff. When asked if he "believed" that Bigfoot exists, his response was that he does on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. On Tues, Thurs, and Sat he doesn't. On Sunday he rests.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Originally posted by Ivan Seeking
It breaks my heart to think that for 20 years, one of the leading researchers in this field [Dr. Kravits or Kranits... Kravoy... something like that.

This is an incomplete sentence.
What was it that broke your heart?

Anyway, this guy argued that some other very specific information can be found in the apparently credible casts. One bone in the side of the foot was often found to be uncharacteristically offset as compared to a human foot. He argues that this would be expected as a feature in the foot of a 400 LB beastie; exactly this geometry is needed to support the extra weight.

I don't think I've run into this
particular information before.It
sounds like it makes sence. It
also strikes me as the sort of
thing a makeup artist wouldn't know.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Originally posted by zoobyshoe
This is an incomplete sentence.
What was it that broke your heart?

Whoops. That he taught at my alma mater OSU, for 20 years; just up until the time that I learned about him.

I don't think I've run into this
particular information before.It
sounds like it makes sence. It
also strikes me as the sort of
thing a makeup artist wouldn't know.

Yes this detail gets a little difficult for Jethro and Jim-Bob to manage with their plywood feet as well.

Edit: Note also that possibly as in the case of our

Women-Craving Sturgeon Crosses Road Near Loch Ness

I can the get details of a story confused. I also am very good at getting the significant details correct. Still, it has been some time since I reviewed this information.

That aside, I considered that plaster casts of guerrilla feet or something similar could account for this observation, however apparently this would require the construction of a flexible, anatomically correct foot that is correctly modified to something between ape and human to the satisfaction of an anthropologist. Now that is getting to be a stretch.

Edit #2: And the correct weight must be applied to each impression made by the left and right foot...and with the correct spacing to account for the longer stride. Some of the prints were obtained by this professor directly.

Of course, now our professor becomes suspect eh? The paradox of rare evidence.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Originally posted by Ivan Seeking
Whoops. That he taught at my alma mater OSU, for 20 years; just up until the time that I learned about him.

It broke your heart that he had a
job for 20 years?

Yes this detail gets a little difficult for Jethro and Jim-Bob to manage with their plywood feet as well.

And that settles it then. You
can't debunk a zoobie.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Originally posted by Ivan Seeking
I can the get details of a story confused. I also am very good at getting the significant details correct. Still, it has been some time since I reviewed this information.

My memory is often terrible.We
both agree that a woman shot a
sturgeon mistaking it for a non-
ordinary lake creature and that it
was found dead a couple days
later. I say North America, you
say Scotland.

That aside, I considered that plaster casts of guerrilla feet or something similar could account for this observation

The particular casts you allude to
here could account for the Che
Guevarra sightings, certainly, but
they contribute nothing to any
bigfoot investigation.