Comments on: Remove Ray Wallace’s Fake Photos

By: sasquatch

sasquatch — Wed, 31 May 2006 04:05:07 +0000

The phoneys only make the real (Patty) look better. Keep the fakes! I’m amazed at how some people think hoaxing bigfoot is easy. Only an idiot would put Pattersons film and Wallaces (among others)on the same plane. Without the contrast it all becomes theory instead of study of actual realities inherant in morphology/physiology, locomotion, mass/wieght-physics etc.

By: twblack

twblack — Tue, 30 May 2006 21:24:36 +0000

Loren you are correct with your last post. I agree all sides need to be given their due so as the reader can form his own conclusions on the subject.

By: Loren Coleman

Loren Coleman — Mon, 29 May 2006 14:30:37 +0000

Of course, I basically agree with dbdonlon, as I am all for showing both sides, all sides, in these book examinations. That is rarely done, and there has been no shift in most entrenched positions despite the things that we supposedly have learned from the Wallace fakes.

Too many people are still blind to the fact Wallace did actually leave his prank tracks within the broader context of real prints, in a few instances. The position is, if you accept any Wallace pranking, then, someway, you are acknowledging that he faked everything. That’s as silly as saying that what I am discussing should be totally ignored.

Bigfoot research is not about blacks and whites.

The postings here about the Wallace fakes, of course, have only touched the surface. Both sides have debated this for some time, in earlier Cryptomundo blogs, on forums, and in emails. But the evidence is, of course, more than one isolated photograph of one track within one trackway. The Wallace-fakes can be found through the books, if people merely open their eyes.

While the supporters of the Blue Creek tracks, those that wish to retain them in the database, seem to sound like they have made a valid rebuttal, upon closer examination, they have often flipped left for right, measured incorrectly, and done so with a comparison of the wrong Wallace fake tool. This has been dealt with elsewhere, but if it needs to be re-aired here, again, perhaps that’s something to think about for the summer.

By: dbdonlon

dbdonlon — Mon, 29 May 2006 14:13:46 +0000

It’s good general advice, but in the specific instance, if you are writing a book and remove the material from Blue Creek, you’ll be in agreement with Loren but in disagreement with John Green. The issue hasn’t been resolved among the “experts”. So far as I can see, it’s not going to be resolved either. While the one track from Blue Creek that Loren uses *does* look very much like Wallace’s fake, Rick Noll showed that it was not a direct match. So you can’t say that you know it was a fake, all you can say is that it looks like one and then hypothesize that Wallace at one time had a different version of his fake foot and used it at Blue Creek. Even with that you’ve got problems, because Loren’s only been able to show a similarity in one photograph (a similarity that doesn’t hold up to measurement, remember). He doesn’t make much of the fact that there were hundreds of prints found at the location made by different sized feet in several substrates. As Rick Noll pointed out on a now famous BFF thread, some of those foot impressions can’t be explained by our present understanding of Wallace’s hoaxing method. If Wallace used wooden feet, he’d have had to have had dozens of them, swapping them out between steps. He’d have had to have some way of getting his wooden feet up and down embankments while maintaining a natural look. There are quite a few reasons to suppose that the footprints at Blue Creek aren’t hoaxed, and it appears the only reason to think they are is that one of them looks fake. And it *does* look fake. The preponderence of the evidence suggests that it probably isn’t.

Any new text should, instead of making a pronouncement one way or another, put out both sides of the argument as succinctly as possible.

By: One Eyed Cat

One Eyed Cat — Sun, 28 May 2006 23:37:54 +0000

jayman. I believe that is what Loren means

By: jayman

jayman — Sun, 28 May 2006 15:28:13 +0000

One of the problems is that when a new book is written, among the main sources of information are old books, and too often material is just incorporated uncritically. It is the author’s resposibility to review all old material if the field is to evolve, and this is true for any subject.

By: One Eyed Cat

One Eyed Cat — Sun, 28 May 2006 00:41:31 +0000

I can see the need for republishing books and all with updated and correct information. In my true field of expertise mmisinformation and un-corrected bad information has done considerable damage - some which may not be possible to repair

By: lamarkable

lamarkable — Sat, 27 May 2006 23:13:24 +0000

Nothing is indelible or infallible. Whether it is traditional science or the false claims of hucksters. It was in the competitively recent past that empirical science did not acknowledge, officially, that rocks fell from the sky.
Being a recognized scientific expert with the baggage of exclusivity, of theoretical truth like a franchise, to be defended as capable of producing funding like a golden goose, is a slippery slope.
One error can be fatal. The same applies to fakes, scoundrels, fools and lunatics.
They have a short shelf life in history.
Most folks like myself are underestimated in that, yes, we do recognize there is no straight line to the truth. It has to be bought with dead ends, detours, pitfalls and self-deception. What is authorative, gospel, and written in stone is a moving target. That applies to both sides of the fence between self aggrandizement and being skeptical of ones own assumptions. Buyer beware.

By: Mike Smith

Mike Smith — Sat, 27 May 2006 20:44:37 +0000

Loren, you are right. It is time to note the fakes, and put the real evidence in the spot light.

By: fuzzy

fuzzy — Sat, 27 May 2006 18:05:08 +0000

Huh? Guess I misunderstood your “remove the Wallace fake track photos from the Bigfoot books out there” and “Thumb through your Sasquatch books… acknowledge the fakes, remove them, and promote the best evidence” admonishment.

“Fuzzy” relates to my long curly hair and beard.