The Patterson/Gimlin Bigfoot Film is Evidence for Skeptics, not Advocates

Phillip Morris and Bob Heironymous with Bigfoot Costume

"At the end of the day, there’s just too much dirt surrounding the Patterson film to use it as any reliable source for debate about the existence of Bigfoot..." --Micah Hanks; Mysterious Universe

In an article for MysteriousUniverse.org, Micah Hanks revisits the Patterson/Gimlin film after a new stabilization is offered on Reddit. The thread on Reddit uses the new stabilization to argue the weakness of the P/G film as evidence. While Mr. Hanks believes the snew stabilization does not offer anything new to either side of the argument, he does have issues of using the P/G Film as the Holy Grail of Bigfoot evidence.

(New stabilization from Reddit User)

His issues with the film are mostly based on John Napiers concerns with Patty's Anatomy (for those uninitiated, Patty is the name affectionately given to the subject in the P/G film), Read one of Napier's arguments presented by Mr. Hanks below.

For starters, the creature displays a sagittal crest atop it’s skull; however, the subject also, rather famously, appears to possess female mammary glands (breasts). Among the great apes, we have the sagittal formation that occasionally appears, primarily among the male members of the species (gorillas and orangutans), rather the females. Hence, it seems rather out of place that the prominence on “Patty’s” head so greatly resembles a sagittal crest formation, since “she” would be the least likely of the sexes to possess this trait.

There can be an argument made that the sagittal crest is not a marker of gender, and more of an indication of vegetation-chewing diet. There are multiple examples of modern and relict female primates that have sagittal crests. Female Paranthropus also had sagittal crests. Mr h

Mr. Hanks also draws attention to Napier's critique of Patty's belly--or lack there of. The argument is if patty has a the diet that comes with a sagittal crest than she should also have the large intestinal track or belly that come with it. These arguments about Patty's anatomy can go back and forth forever. Which perhaps underlines Mr. Hanks premise. His final argument about mismatched data does get interesting.

Finally, the individual footprint length used to estimate relative height of the purported animal, matched to the distance between tracks left in the sand (which were measured at the scene of the purported observation at Bluff Creek) are inconsistent with the proportional ratio for expected stride. Primatologists, like Napier, who observed the film have pointed this out, although it remains one of the least-discussed aspects of the the film’s investigation which argues strongly against the animal in the film being genuine. To this, he noted in his 1972 book Bigfoot that the manner in which the subject appears to walk in the film looks very exaggerated: “All three factors should be consistent with each other. Could it be that the ‘exaggerated’ walk of Bigfoot was designed to magnify the normal step length, an effect which, in the event, failed miserably?”

It would be interesting to see anybody take on this final argument of the mismatch of data. head over to the MysteriousUniverse.org website and read Micah Hanks entire article titled, "Maybe It’s Time We Forget About The Patterson Bigfoot Film".