Today in Bigfoot History | July 2 1995 | John Green Calls Peter Byrne a Fraud

John Green (left) Peter Byrne (right) are pioneers of Bigfoot research.

"Peter Byrne is a fraud. He tells the public that Sasquatch is near human because that's what they like to hear." --John Green;  in a 1995 Chicago Tribune Article

In an article almost two decades old we see some of the same divisive debates that still plague the modern Bigfoot community. Ape vs. human. Kill vs. No-kill.

The excerpt further below is from the July 2, 1995 Chicago Tribune article. In the article you will read opinions of Peter Byrne from Grover Krantz and John Green. 

At the time Mr. Byrne was investigating the Bigfoot mystery under a grant from the Academy of Applied Science. A former Big Game Hunter, he was initially involved in the search for the Himalyan Yeti in the 1950's in the Slick expedition. 

Grover Krantz was a professor of physical anthropology at Washington State University, perhaps most famous to the general public as one of the few scientists not only to research Bigfoot, but also to express his belief in the cryptid's existence. 

Finally John Green is Canadian retired journalist and first began investigating Sasquatch sightings and track finds in 1957 after meeting René Dahinden. 

Time was running out.

But then, in 1992, good luck struck. Byrne received from Boston's Academy of Applied Science a very generous five-year grant. It provided enough money to found the Bigfoot Research Project, and to hire two assistants to help him launch the most high-tech monster search the world has ever seen--a search that relies on police gear, wildlife research equipment, a Jeep, a video camera, and, above all, a phone line. Byrne has a toll-free number, 1-800-BIGFOOT, and a dozen or so people call in every month to report sightings. The old hunter takes notes and then, if a sighting sounds promising, he rushes off to investigate- -to peruse the crushed twigs or watch witnesses imitate the horrible scream. Every detail is logged onto computers. Eventually, if all goes as planned, Sasquatch's migrational patterns will become clear, and Byrne can jump into a helicopter.

There are, on standby, two Bell 206 choppers equipped with the infared sensors used to track prison escapees. These would zero in on the beast, and Byrne would shoot a small dart. The dart would loop into the Sasquatch's flesh, extracting a small bit of tissue--enough to fill up, say, one tiny test tube--and ultimately the creature would lope off, unharmed. And the cameras would whir: You know the tabloids would be there. Indeed, they can't wait. Last year, the crew of "Unsolved Mysteries," an independent syndicated TV show, spent a week with Byrne filming a mock Bigfoot hunt that was replete with a Hollywood stunt man wearing oversized shoes.

Byrne has also been covered by "Ancient Mysteries," "Sightings," and the Australian Broadcast Corporation, and newspapers ranging from The Hood River News to The New York Times.

There critics are out there.

With all the fame has come criticism. For instance, Grover Krantz, a Bigfoot believer who teaches anthropology at Washington State University, argues that Byrne is "a sham, a fake." Krantz takes issue mainly with Byrne's opposition to killing, which evolved after decades of watching bumbling tourists murder Nepalese tigers. "I argue for humane treatment too," says Krantz. "But in order to attain protection for the Sasquatch, we have to prove they exist. And Peter knows that the only way we can do that is by bringing in a body." John Green, a retired Canadian journalist who has written several books on Bigfoot, is even more critical. "Peter Byrne is a fraud," Green says. "He tells the public that Sasquatch is near human because that's what they like to hear."

Green is certain that, "if Sasquatch is real, he's just an animal." But Byrne feels the truth is far more complex: He likes to think of the creature as a convict. "As a child," he explains, "we played a game called Convict 99. One person was the fugitive. Others were the police; they tried to put themselves in the mind of a fugitive. Now we're trying to do the same thing. Bigfoot is out there, but where? Where is he hiding?" It's a vast question and, trying to answer it, Byrne has forded an icy, chest-deep stream on snowshoes and slept out on winter nights with nothing but a small fire to warm him. He says, "It's like we're trying to find a needle in a haystack and the needle is moving and it doesn't want to be found."

You can read the full article titled, "ON THE TRAIL OF BIGFOOT," at Bigfoot Encounters

Today in Bigfoot History | JAN 22, 1996 | Grover Krantz Advocates Killing Bigfoot

Grover Sanders Krantz was a professor of physical anthropology at Washington State University

"Someday down the line, 50 years from now, somebody by the rare chance might just stumble across the skeleton of a Sasquatch..." Grover Krantz

Today, January 22, 1996, the late Grover Krantz picks a side on the kill/no kill Bigfoot debate. Krantz's idea that in order to preserve the Bigfoot species, we need a specimen to understand it first. This is one of the most polarizing debates in Bigfooting. Some have argued that Grover's stance is a little more nuanced than any newspaper article can convey. There are also those that argue Krantz's view would be different today due to the advances in DNA. Either way, the debate continues to stir high emotions among the community. Read the article below that touches on arguments for both sides.

The Salt Lake Tribune

January 22, 1996

WALLA WALLA, Wash. -- Dr. Grover Krantz, anthropology professor at Washington State University, has touched off something of a controversy in Bigfoot circles by openly advocating the view that a specimen should be hunted down and killed. "Someday down the line, 50 years from now, somebody by the rare chance might just stumble across the skeleton of a Sasquatch, and then the government sends out masses of [chimpanzee researcher] Jane Goodall's granddaughters, and establishes definitely, they were there, but they're extinct," Krantz theorized. "Everybody will be standing around wringing their hands saying: `If only we knew they were real, we could have saved them.' Well, they could have been saved if only we would blow one away now. The first one who bags one should get a big, big prize. The second one should be hanged."

One opponent of Krantz's view is Peter Byrne, director of the Bigfoot Research Project at Oregon's Mount Hood. Byrne is a big-game hunter in the classic tradition -- Irish, with a good head of white hair and a penchant for khakis and wool sweaters. He spent a good part of his hunting-and-tracking career in Nepal before developing an interest in the Sasquatch and undertaking the first major organized Bigfoot expedition in Oregon in 1960.

It failed to produce a Sasquatch, but Byrne hasn't quit looking. He now spends much of his searching tracking down witnesses, carefully probing their stories for holes and sending investigators to look for corroborating evidence.

Today in Bigfoot History | JAN 19, 1999 | Bob Gimlin Hangs up on Wired Magazine

Bob Gimlin did not even dignify the accusation that the bigfoot in the P/G film was a costume. The arrow points to where skeptics believed a zipper was exposed

"I was there. I saw [Bigfoot]. The film is genuine. Anybody who says different is just trying to make a buck." Bob Gimlin's response to WIRED Magazine before he hung up on them.

This is a "Today in Bigfoot History" update to the zipper story from January 11th. Once Cliff Crook and Chris Murphy claimed to have seen a zipper-like shape on the costume, it created ripples among the community at the time and polarized some bigfooters.

It is ironic Cliff Crook is accusing anybody of an inauthentic picture of Bigfoot.  After all, he was the man behind this picture...

WIRED Magazine did some great journalism, getting reactions from respected P/G film proponents like Ray Crowe and Grover Krantz. They even ask independent imaging experts from Pegasus Imaging and Adobe, who both agreed an anomalous blob can be interpreted as anything.

Ray Crowe summed it up quite nicely comparing the Crook/Murphy analysis to looking for sheep in the shapes of clouds.

You can read the great piece of journalism below.

Sasquatch: Man in a Monkey Suit?

Joseph Rose 01.19.99

YAKIMA, Washington -- The scratchy movie footage shows a big, brown, hairy creature retreating over a stream bed into dense forest. But wait. Is that the glint of a belt buckle on Bigfoot? Or have skeptics gotten carried away with Photoshop?

Loyal Bigfootologists and some computer-imaging experts are giving disapproving grunts to two researchers who claim that a computer analysis of a famous 1967 film shows a man in a monkey suit, not the legendary giant of the Northwest woods.

Bigfoot buffs Cliff Crook of Bothell, Washington, and Chris Murphy of Vancouver, Canada, say enlargements and computer enhancements of the film's frames reveal an object hanging from the fur that resembles metal fasteners used on clothing at the time.

"When the guy in the suit turned to look at the camera, it probably snapped loose and dangled from the fur," said Crook, who has been searching for the elusive creature for 42 years. "It's a hoax. Why would Bigfoot be wearing a belt buckle?"

The claim has howling-mad Bigfoot enthusiasts branding Murphy and Crook as traitors on Internet newsgroups and attempting to discredit their findings as a publicity stunt.

"It's like picking a sheep out of the clouds," said Western Bigfoot Society president Ray Crowe of Portland, Oregon. "They've blown up the images beyond the size of recognition. So, they can pretty much see anything they imagine."

At issue is the footage taken 32 years ago, when Bigfoot trackers Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin of Yakima were investigating reports of sasquatch footprints in Six Rivers National Forest, near the California-Oregon border. They purportedly spotted a female Bigfoot darting across a sandbar, and Patterson let his 16-mm Kodak movie camera roll.

The minute of jerky, grainy film and the plaster-cast footprints Patterson made that October day became the veritable gold standard for trackers and enthusiasts, the evidence by which all things Bigfoot are measured.

Murphy began questioning the film's validity after discovering an aberration in the footage while helping his son with a class project in 1995. Using a computer, he zoomed in tighter and tighter on the frames, finding what appears to be a glimmering ornate latch in the shape of a bottle opener.

Four sequential computer-scanned frames on the film appear to show the object in motion, said Crook, who reviewed Murphy's findings, which were released 12 January. He said the object appears to be cinching a costume.
Murphy said he's convinced "there's something out of place" in the film. "I have now sent my material to an expert in the [photo-enhancing] field," he wrote in an email.

Steve Armstrong of Tampa, Florida-based Pegasus Imaging said he would like a shot at examining the evidence. He believes the film is such that it wouldn't capture an image of something as small as a buckle. And then there's the bit-mapped nature of digital compression and enlarging.

"Zoom in on an image too much, and you get a lot of blocky artifacts," Armstrong said.

The result, said Jennifer Polanski of Adobe Systems, might be "a blob" that looks something like a belt buckle. Even with Adobe's popular Photoshop software, it's hard to see how someone can take a faraway figure like that in the Patterson-Gimlin film and zoom in on a metal fastener, she said.

In Yakima, on the edge of the wooded east slope of the Cascade Mountains, there have long been rumors that the late Roger Patterson paid a Hollywood costume designer to make the suit and a big Yakima Indian to wear it for the film. Just last week, there was talk that the owner of the suit had hired a local attorney and was getting ready to bring it out of the closet for the world to see. Like the other rumors, that one has yet to be proven true.

While Patterson died years ago, Gimlin, 67, still lives in Yakima. He dismisses the rumors and the new computer analysis as "wacko."

"I was there. I saw [Bigfoot]. The film is genuine," Gimlin said in a telephone interview. "Anybody who says different is just trying to make a buck." And he hung up.

Washington State University anthropologist Grover Krantz, one of Bigfoot's stalwart backers in academia, agrees that the Crook-Murphy analysis is amateurish and irrelevant.

"Look at the way it walks," Krantz said, referring to the figure in the Patterson-Gimlin film. "Even if Patterson had hired someone to get in a suit, there's no way he could have trained him to walk in this manner. I know, I've tried to reconstruct the motion."

Today in Bigfoot History | JAN 06 | Meldrum Backs Freeman

Photoshopped picture of Jeff Meldrum holding a Paul Freeman cast

“So the thought occurred to me: Well, if [Paul Freeman] is responsible for this [Bigfoot] hoax, why would he portray it so incorrectly on the chance I would read it differently?” -- Dr. Jeff Meldrum

Today in 1997 according to the book, Bigfoot Exposed, Dr. Jeff Meldrum stakes much of his academic reputation on the Paul Freeman trackway. This trackway was a series of  Bigfoot tracks from the Blue Mountains near Walla Walla, Washington. He wrote his support on a posting to the Internet Virtual Bigfoot Conference, an online (email-based) Bigfoot research community.

This was a pretty big deal since at the time Dr. Jeff Meldrum was member of the Biological Sciences faculty at Idaho State University and Grover Krantz’s professional heir-apparent in the field of anthropology. Currently as of 2013, Meldrum is a full professor. Krantz was the first university professor to publicly support and research the possibility of Bigfoot's existence.

If you have ever heard Dr. Meldrum speak, you may be fortunate enough to hear how he first met paul Freeman and the circumstances of thier meeting. In our previous post, "Dr. Jeff Meldrum Compelled by Freeman Tracks" you can read Dr. meldrum retell the story, below is a short excerpt from that post:

Meldrum began following the tracks, far beyond where Freeman’s boot tracks ended, and found additional sets of footprints coming and going. Whatever had made the tracks had apparently come down the Mill Creek drainage, using the brush along an empty irrigation ditch as cover, possibly to raid the apple and plum orchards further below.

“At that point it was clear Paul had read the whole circumstance completely backward,” Meldrum says. “So the thought occurred to me: Well, if he’s responsible for this hoax, why would he portray it so incorrectly on the chance I would read it differently?”

The point is, Dr. Meldrum found enough interesting about the trackway himself, that he was compelled independently what he had observed himself. But let’s back up and discuss Paul Freeman a bit.

Paul freeman is described in an AP article.

Freeman, 45, does not seem the type to spook easily. He is beefy, bearded and, at 6-foot-4 and 265 pounds, approaches Sasquatch proportions himself. He's a meat-cutter by trade; an outdoorsman and hunter by nature.

Apparently he put down the butchers knife and started to search for bigfoot. Before his death he had claimed to see Bigfoot himself 4 times and has collected more cast, most of them with dermal ridges, more than any other Bigfoot hunter. This brings us back to Meldrum. Meldrum not only staked his good name but also put his money where his mouth is, he ended up buying Freeman’s collection for a sum of nearly $2000 dollars. 

Dr. Meldrum was quoted by the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin, "I’d been given an earful by people about Paul’s reputation, and it was bad. I went into it very skeptical."

You can read Meldrum's initial reaction to the prints at our post, Dr. Jeff Meldrum Compelled by Freeman Tracks. You can get further details at Cliff Barackman's Cast Database.