Comments on: Hunting Guide Finds (Bigfoot) Track in East Texas

By: Alamo

Alamo — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 23:55:43 +0000

There is an awful lot of articulation in a primate foot… this is because it first evolved as a dual function appendage (grasping as well as weight bearing). This makes things difficult for would-be Bigfoot print hoaxers, as the movement of the toes and the interaction between the various parts of the foot in a primate are quite a bit different than that of an animal with a less articulated foot (ie. bear, coyote, cougar, etc…). The tracks made by these animals tend to be fairly even in depth all around, with little movement between the toes or “dig in” once the foot is down, more cookie cutter, if you will. A primate uses toes to good effect, they are not static and will naturally move around and dig into a soft substrate in order to gain purchase, the toes themselves will not be clearly delineated and there will be a difference between the track depth of the toes and the depth of the rest of the foot… the toe prints themselves will often show variations in depth between the different toes as well as a breakdown of the delineation between the toes caused by their movement. To me, the easiest indicators of a hoax to spot are smooth, clean lines delineating the toes and an even depth among all the toes, giving it the look of a single imprint that was pressed down into the substrate. If they try to get fancy, they will make the imprint of the toes separately from the pad, but the end result still looks like the impressions of two foot-shaped blocks rather than the marks left by complicated, highly articulated appendages with dozens of moving parts.

When humans became exclusively bipedal, we evolved a unique solution to the weight bearing solution: the arch. One of the most interesting things for me about BF is how the foot would have evolved in a very large, bipedal ape. If it exists, by definition, it had to come up with a solution for a highly articulated foot made of many sensitive moving parts which could continuously bear the moving weight and impact of several hundred pounds. In humans, the arch tends to develop as we grow in size and weight, notice small children’s prints resemble those attributed to Bigfoot due to the lack of an arch. The more one goes barefoot through varied terrain in childhood, as the foot grows, the more the arch develops… this might indicate that a Bigfoot should have developed MORE of an arch and not less. There are quite a few that think Bigfoot prints in general are a hoax because their theory is that a flat foot could not possibly bear the strain and weight of a bipedal primate the size that Bigfoot is supposed to be. It’s a fair question, would a foot with a mid-tarsal break (evolved for light weight duty in a quadrupedal primate) be able to support the great weight and be adjustable and springy enough to propel a massive, bipedal animal through rough terrain at high speeds without injury? I don’t know, I have no letters after my name, just a kid who grew up barefoot in the Philippines… but I believe the question itself is at the heart of the Bigfoot mystery.

The other question we have to consider? (in this case specifically) Cui Bono? Who benefits? Bigfoot hunting has become big business these days, as income from game animal hunting declines, we might see more and more outdoor outfits claiming Bigfoot sightings in the areas they service. If there was more than one print, why take a picture of only one? Pictures of multiple prints might allow us to see that they all look suspiciously exactly alike, rather than display the variations between the prints that I mentioned above. Also, why not put something next to it to document the size? A hand, a dollar bill, a bullet even… don’t tell me a hunting party didn’t have any bullets.

Just my two cents…

By: Goodfoot

Goodfoot — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 15:59:51 +0000

dconstrukt : Yep. I bet a footprint is exciting to the person who finds one. But that’s about it.

By: dconstrukt

dconstrukt — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 12:28:15 +0000

@ Mike… exactly!

who gives a rats @ss about footprints anymore? do we need 800 more of them?

we need good, real video and lots of it.

By: mike_noodles

mike_noodles — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 23:19:03 +0000

It’s funny that people question its size when there is nothing to show the scale. But meh, just another footprint whether it’s real or fake, we’ve seen thousands of them already.

By: dconstrukt

dconstrukt — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 12:42:17 +0000

it looks too perfect looking…like it was made from a mold or something.

By: zigoapex

zigoapex — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 02:35:54 +0000

It looks too perfect around the edges as if some one had a cookie cutter shaped like a foot and pressed it into the mud, then made the toe prints.

IMO

By: Goodfoot

Goodfoot — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 02:00:19 +0000

Sorry. Haven’t seen anyone question his intelligence. Only his veracity.

By: Mïk

Mïk — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 01:36:59 +0000

Not to call “BS”, but two things:

1) The shape. It’s narrower than pictures of bigfoot tracks that I’ve seen. And has an instep that I thot Bigfoots didn’t have. Not being any kind of a ‘spert, I can only rely on the judgement of those who are. And…

2) A deep track in clear mud like that should show some kind of hair marks along the edge. But none are seen. It seems odd to me.

By: alegler

alegler — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 01:33:51 +0000

I think his friend Shawn is Bigfoot.

Seriously though, I’m just seeing a human footprint – if they are someone who spends much time walking barefoot in the swamps in East Texas the likelihood they are missing a toe or two is pretty good.

As for why his friend Shawn couldn’t push his foot into the mud as deep as this print, I’m guessing the prints were there from the night before:

“That night the temperature went from 79 degrees to about 45 degrees with 40pmh gusting winds all night long”

By: PoeticsOfBigfoot

PoeticsOfBigfoot — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 00:57:08 +0000

Without the text it’s just another muddy footprint from an area not nearly as unpopulated as you might think.