The Patterson Gimlin Bigfoot

Why is the Patterson Gimlin film ten times more impressive today than when it was first released 45 years ago? This is the footage that everyone, whether a fan or not has seen and has an opinion on. Some swear just after a first glance that it’s real, while others automatically say it’s a man in a costume. I say you cannot make either assumption from a brief one or two viewings, so thankfully for everyone that cares, this film has been torn apart thousands of times, with every aspect scrutinized by everyone from armchair enthusiasts to credentialed folks who know a thing or two about, costumes and makeup, anthropology and anatomy and film devices from that era and on and on. 

With current technologies we have even gone back to the original and snapped one laborious frame at a time and digitized the complete original and we have stabilized the film, by taking each frame and centering it on the object of our attention. Now why is that important? For one, most versions of this film you have seen are a copy of a copy of a copy. Keep going until the word copy stops making any sense. After just making one copy from a copy, you begin to pick up what are called artifacts. 

Artifacts are small pieces of dust and debris that are on a previous copy that permanently become part of the next version. Before you know it, it appears that Bigfoot has an additional finger or a tail (exaggeration on the tail). The copies of the copies only hurt the authentication process. The stabilization of the film allows us to get off the bumpy ride that was Patterson running in a frantic state, trying to capture as much as he could of the beast on his Cine-Kodak K100. Stabilization has not only saved our lunch, but given us a much clearer view of Patty in all of her muscle bound, fat reserved, breasts swinging perfection. 

Yes Patty (the name given to Patterson’s Bigfoot) is a female, which is common knowledge of course for any enthusiast, but not so much to the general public. In a way, that in and of itself is pretty impressive if this was a hoax. A female Bigfoot, if you are a hoaxer trying to fool the world, is a little more challenging to nail down, and really why go to the bother of sexing a costume of an unknown creature? Might be however a male Bigfoot would create his own problems, if you know what I mean. 

The film has gone over 45 years of dissection and the best evidence has actually come in the last few years from accredited anatomists, anthropologists and Hollywood makeup artists as well as developments in computer technology. On the animal specialist side the creature moves in such a way where muscles, tendons and fatty pockets are clearly visible in motion and if it is a costume, they went for broke to provide an extremely accurate suit that can barely be rivaled today. On the physical side, the arms are disproportionately long for its stature and its intermembral index (a ratio used to compare limb proportions, expressed as a percentage) make it well beyond the means for a human being and according to Anthropologist Jeff Meldrum, rule out the possibility of a man in a suit. The creature’s gait and stride are also of a non-human variety. Turns out the angle of a humans shin rise is a universal 52 degrees while walking. The angle of Patty’s shin rise is a consistent 73 degrees, step after step after step. That’s an extremely awkward thing to mimic for a human and looks completely unnatural when in action. On Patty nothing could seem more natural. People who have claimed to have seen a Sasquatch seem to often mention a kind of smooth gliding motion of the creature as it effortlessly strides through the woods. 

MK Davis, the guy also responsible for stabilizing the film, has done a lot of analysis on zoomed in versions of this film and points out to the amazing realness of the creature’s thighs and glutes. Does Patty have a nice ass? Well that is your personal business, but she does have a very realistic one. When this thing walks, the muscles that you would expect to see flexing and contracting do so on all fronts. The maker of a costume like this would have had to have an extensive knowledge of anatomy and then somehow put it in action on a man that would never fill in all of the differing lengths of anatomy in the suit. In other words, this thing’s anatomical lengths, compared to a man would leave slop and slouch all over the body and not the muscle toned creature we see in PG. 

There are many more aspects that have been gone over to authenticate the film and there is also NO agreement universally across the board, but the body walking across the screen in the Patterson Gimlin film has never been debunked in all the years of trying and has only become more enthralling as we look deeper with newer and better technologies. 

Do I believe Patty is the real deal? Not 100% no. But I do think it is one of the best pieces of evidence out there. There is absolutely no way you can say this is a misidentification, which leaves only two other options. That this is one of the best costumes ever made, especially for 1967 and way out of the reach monetarily of a guy on a budget the size of PG or these two guys hit the crypto zoological jackpot of the century and when we view the 53 seconds that make this clip special we are in fact looking at a BIGFOOT.

Some interesting links to consider
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SRi1VLBxtZc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUXkq_HVgIc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usNW2WW6rbw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lze64cwcbLs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p54y3vgCvYA

MK Davis also has a great one on the buttocks muscles, which I can't seem to find, but if you get a chance, it is one of the most impressive examinations of the PG film.

Thanks everyone!

Ready, set.....Bigfoot!

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