The Internet has bred its own form of ignorance. I have actually talked with people who have claimed such things as remembering how primitive laptop computers were in the 70s (laptop computers DID NOT EXIST in the 70s), and a hypnotically brain-dead conversation with an 16-year old computer whiz who boasted his high school had been web-savvy well ahead of its time by having one of the most dynamically designed websites back in the 60s (and no, I could not convince him he was wrong).

Why is it good to remember something was shot on FILM, as opposed to video? Why is that distinction important? It’s irrelevant, you say? I beg to differ.

I differ, because eventually someone will enter this discussion with “you can tell Patterson used CGI… duh!”

Folks… this is one of the negative byproducts of the Web’s influence. We have adults walking the planet who have no concept of what life was like before, and worse yet, have no concept that there WAS a “before.” What if you picked up a copy of Rolling Stone, read it, and it became apparent that none of the writers knew anything about music before, say, the Techno Punk era? That they weren’t necessarily bad writers, but it was obvious that their scope of knowledge about their subject was not broad enough to truely qualify them? These are the kinds of people that take charge of nuance in the 21st Century… people not truely qualified to be the gate keepers of the nuances of history and information. Therefore so much that was learned at a painful cost, through history, is lost… and it will eventually have to be learned all over again. We are already seeing it. It is why we have evil crackpots running the country. Why a worse attack than Pearl Harbor on 9/11 is now considered trivia by a nation of curly-fry gobbling, Blackberry wearing, text-messaging, mental Lilliputians.

You’ll have to look up “Lilliputians,” grasshoppah. You must LEARN to fish… not have someone else fish for you.

source

Hey cradossk is right – they came out and admitted it was a hoax.

I actually thought that was pretty well established. Apparently not.

The costumes used in the Planet of the Apes, a Hollywood movie with a decent budget, were nowhere near as lifelike as the subject of the film. This movie was released in 1968, so I presume that it may have been filming during the time frame that the P/G film was shot.

The rumour that John Chambers, who was responsible for the ape suits in Planet of the Apes, created the suit in the P/G film is just that. In the late 90’s, it was bolstered by director John Landis, who claimed that Chambers revealed the secret to him while they were working together on Beneath the Planet of the Apes in 1970.

But that’s a whole ‘nother story for another day.

The existence of the creature we call Bigfoot doesn’t hinge on the veracity of the P/G film for me. You see, I have seen one of these creatures with my own eyes. I KNOW they are out there. I have interviewed many credible witnesses who claim to have had an encounter with one of these creatures. I have found large 5-toed footprints miles from any road in the wilderness. I don’t need to be convinced.

First, looking at the original critique, the point made more than any other is that I don’t know the original collection of moving images is a “film”, not a movie or a video. This is because my source materials were an MPEG video file and an animated GIF. I had that terminology in my head, and that’s where my references in the article originated. Also, I don’t think the distinction is as important today: When we go to the movie theater, we watch a “movie”. Never mind it’s actually played on a reel-to-reel film projector, but we let the terminology slide. But, my grandmother, and those in her generation, call these “films”. Who’s right? Watch episode 4 (“The Inferno”) of the British comedy “Coupling”, and they’ll refer to VHS tapes as “films”. Whether cultural, generational or social, today’s concepts for film, movie, tape, digital video, et cetera are becoming interchangeable.

The original critique also says, “The article never details one item that this reporter sees in M. K. Davis’s enhancements for why he feels this way. It sounds more like pure faith in the misconceptions he has internalized about Patterson than about the footage, which has influenced Andy Kaiser.”

I am given a limited amount of space in the newspaper to make my point. Usually about 500 words. So I have to pick and choose what I want to say, and clearly stick to my point. In this case, I wanted to illustrate how technology is allowing us to uncover mysteries and help answer and clarify previously unanswerable questions. The article was not about detailing why I thought M.K. Davis’ work was faulty. However, let me address a little of that now.

Craig Woolheater says: “Provide a suit that matches what is in the film. Prove that it was made before the film was made. That’s not too tall an order if it was indeed a suit. Show me the monkey suit!”

If I did that, you’d think the film was a hoax? I don’t see how finding a suit similar in age and appearance to what appears in the Patterson film is relevant. While it may affect the film’s credibility, how would that prove or disprove the existence of Bigfoot? It may add credence to the hoax belief, but doesn’t conclusively confirm or deny the issue.

You’ve heard of “Occam’s razor”? It’s the concept that states “when given a choice of possibilities, the simplest is usually correct”. Let’s examine the case of Bigfoot, and look at the possibilities and how they relate to the Patterson film/MPEG/video:

1) The Patterson film, while interesting and well-designed, is a hoax, and Bigfoot does not exist. Other Bigfoot evidence consists of unexplained, misinterpreted, or hoaxed data.

2) The Patterson film is real. Bigfoot does exist. However, there is no independently verifiable evidence. No physical samples where DNA testing shows a new species. No bodies have been found, indicating these creatures, living with us for millennia, apparently disappear into thin air when they die.

Option one logically makes the most sense to me.

Being a skeptical thinker, I am open to the idea of Bigfoot, but don’t see the proof that science demands. Show me a body. Not a picture. Not a movie. Not stories from those who claim to have seen it. Show me something that can’t possibly be a hoax. Something that can be peer-reviewed and verified by everyone, and can be put through the scientific testing necessary to qualify it as a new species. Bigfoot proponents claim Bigfoot exists. Prove it by showing objective evidence.

Anyway, in the end, it’s not that there is insufficient SPACE for them to fit into, or even enough cover if we’re talking about the Pacific NW only, or maybe the everglades, or maybe even the swamps of East Texas. That’s obvious. But they have to EAT and BREED and raise BABIES as well as hide, wherever they live. The more places people see them, the less likely they are to be real.

An 8-foot gorilla would weigh about 700 – 900 lbs. It would have to eat (literally) like a horse. Gorillas are relatively easy to track in areas where they live because of the broken branches, etc. they leave behind when eating. They are just too freaking big to hide. In Africa. Imagine a troop hiding in the hills of Ohio . Factor in that this sasquatch is supposedly at least 1.5 times the size of the largest silverback, about double or even triple the size of an average female gorilla.

Hiding and feeding a breeding population of these critters would be a lot more like hiding and feeding a herd of buffalo than it would be like hiding a group of people. When is the last time a herd of previously undiscovered buffalo, or for that matter ANY terrestrial creature that weighs over 100 lbs., been discovered? About 1917, I’d guess.

Believe me–I want to believe. Until I was about 25, I did believe. Vehemently. But Loch Ness and Lake Champlain were frozen solid only a few thousand years ago, and no way an ape that dwarfs Shaq can stay so well hidden.

But that DARN PATTERSON FILM!!! How do you explain the back muscles? The gait? The arm length? The breadth of the chest? I know it just has to be a suit, but it DOES NOT LOOK/MOVE LIKE A SUIT!!! THIS SUCKS!!!