The Disney people believed it was a big budget hoax, of course without any change for making a profit. Who is willing to pay millions for a hoax, and for what reason? I can’t think of any motivation for spending millions on a very realistic bigfoot simulation. If it was to debunk the claim that bigfoot is real, then one should be able to show the creature in the film is an actor. Then why spending millions for simulating bigfoot so realistically? Maybe there is another motive? My first thought was patty is for real watching the Patterson film for the first time.

“Parallel evolution is not commonly seen in the branches of one genus or species! That is a rather unlikely explanation.”

Um, well, not sure what’s being said here. “Branches” of a species? All members of a species have evolved pretty much in total synchronicity; they’re about as parallel as one can get. And as to genus, parallels are why species in one genus ARE in one genus; they are recognizable as very similar in almost ALL particulars. In other words, despite their evolving distinct characters, they have evolved almost precisely parallel to one another. I can guarantee you that every species in our genus has (had) an opposable thumb and bipedalism. And it’s our own parochial view that those features are so unique and special. They don’t have to go with the brains that got us, um, into the fix we’re in. (They could go with a better brain, one that could have told us if we would have listened that technology was gonna be trouble.)

Let’s just say this: the sasquatch is the kind of animal we would expect, given what we know about all other primates. It’s what I call a “median ape.” WE’RE the weirdos in the primate tree, not Patty.

Many other bipedal primates - most all of them extinct (or believed so, anyway) - back me up on this. The sas could have bipedalism and an opposable thumb; in fact it seems to me weird that only one species would. Really successful body plans tend to evolve multiple times. (Just ask bats, birds and insects. Or whales, dolphins and fish.) And wouldn’t you know? Just like us, the sas appears to be a very adaptable critter (and pretty durn successful, if staying so neatly out of our way is a criterion). Bipedal locomotion and free hands undoubtedly have much to do with that.

As to “Positing *two* separate branches of the hominid line developing near identical oppositional thumbs without any connection to each other is highly, highly unlikely.” I’d have to say, um, no; in fact that’s a hallmark of all so-far identified members of the hominid line (the clear “connection to each other” being why they ARE members of the “hominid line.”

In other words: parallel evolution is common, within species, within genus, and across totally unrelated species and totally unrelated genus. In other words, common.

As to “Develoment of bipedalism in Bigfoot is explainable in terms of evolutionary adaption and response to environment, an opposable human-like thumb is not.” All I can say is: um, why not?

And as to the comments that Patty was hoaxed: some people’s minds just won’t be changed. Not ’til we have proof, and P/G is too poisoned a piece of evidence now to serve as that.

As for discussion of the thumbs, the film is simply too grainy to say anything other than the fact that it probably has them, not exactly how they are placed. Once again, the film eludes definitive proof of falsehood.

re #15 from Chymo,
Good points. Maybe I was a bit hasty with my divergent evolution and not clear in what I was trying to get at. Yes we are bipedal, and we are unique among known species for that. But we also know this wasn’t always so from the fossil evidence (neanderthals, homo erectus, australopithecus… all bipedal). We do not know exactly where (or if) sasquatch or other unknown primates diverged from this tree, or if the developed altogether seperately and their superficial resemblance to us is just coincidence.
What I was trying to point out is that, without a specimen to study up close, researchers are like children in that, shown a picture of a salamander they have never seen before they will say “oh, that looks like a lizard” shown a thylacine, the response is “doggie”.
With stabilized footage, thumb positions etc. can be argued until the cows come home. Someone else is going to look at the footage and say what you are calling a thumb is something else entirely, especially if they aren’t inclined to believe in the film. Proponents of the film will point to these similarities to human structure and gait and say “it is to be expected,” especially if Patty’s relatives and ours ARE one and the same somewhere far down the line. I didn’t mean to be either contentious or to use shoddy science. I was just trying to speak in lay terms about the problems with studying any evidence other than an intact body, but suppose I should have been more explicit in my explanation.

Parallel evolution is not commonly seen in the branches of one genus or species! That is a rather unlikely explanation.

We’re not talking about precedent or commonality, we’re talking about likelihood. Positing *two* separate branches of the hominid line developing near identical oppositional thumbs without any connection to each other is highly, highly unlikely. We already have a rather unusual shared feature with Bigfoot - bipedalism - positing another shared trait with no direct link in order to explain away inconsistencies in our favorite evidence is shoddy theorising, and becomes far less likely. Develoment of bipedalism in Bigfoot is explainable in terms of evolutionary adaption and response to environment, an opposable human-like thumb is not.

“I want to meet the guys who packed up that heavy suit, followed these two men (who were on horseback btw) into the wilderness and risked being shot by spooked woodsmen just to pull a prank.”

Lots of assumptions in that statement. Well, both Patterson & Gimlin apparently talked openly about tracking Bigfoot in the town, before heading up to the site, and both agreed that they would not shoot it under any circumstances (which one must admit is very convenient).

All you need is a guy who knows the two, and knows this information. Where they were headed that day was no secret; they were following up on reports in the area.

Like I said before, we’re not gonna get anywhere arguing these footling points. Too much time has passed, and any objection can be countered with fairly reasonable counterpoints. Waste of time.

What the stabilised footage shows is *still* not possible to determine, but it definitely does *not* show features that could not be recreated by a *very well made* suit, irrespective of the alleged arm-length ratios. Talk to different anatomists or doctors and you get a different opinion.

In real Bigfoot footage, I expect to see features that are not vague, and that can’t be recreated by hoaxers. PG film has some very interesting features, but its clear from the stabilised footage that details of musculature and stride have been exaggerated in their supposedly definitive, non-human traits. As I said above, we won’t know ’til we have a carcass.

on the possibility of Gimlin/Patterson being victims of a hoax…
I want to meet the guys who packed up that heavy suit, followed these two men (who were on horseback btw) into the wilderness and risked being shot by spooked woodsmen just to pull a prank. The film was shot in 1967, and even 40 years later I wouldn’t do such a silly thing, for fear of getting a bullet in my guts from some spooked local.

On taking the film to Disney…
Why not? The Disney animators spend hours studying animals, particularly their locomotion, for the cartoons they make. Also those over 30 may recall all those great Disney animal specials they used to show on the Wonderful World of Disney. (I used to love those reruns when I was a kid.)
With that kind of expertise at hand, why NOT exploit a resource like Disney?