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 18, 1999 | East Indian Forced to Nurse on Mande Burung

Most mammals produce Milk. Why wouldn't the Mande Burung

Today, January 18th, 1999, East Indian villagers reported a story about the Mande Burung, the Indian version of Bigfoot. While there had been many sightings of the Mande Burung, on this particular day the villagers witnessed something quite extraordinary. On this particular day they witnessed a man captured by a Mande Burung and forced to nurse on it's breast.

This story was printed among others by the Press Trust of India in 2008 describing the continuing exploration of the Mande Burung. You can read the article below:

Shillong, Jul 24, 2008 (PTI) -- Environmental activists and social organizations continue their search to ascertain whether or not the elusive "ape-like" and "phenomenally strong" creature which locals claim has been sighted several times in the densely populated Garo hills of Meghalaya, really exists.

Known as 'Mande Burung' (jungle man) the creature, locals claim, is around 10 feet tall and weighs at least 300 kgs and is somewhat like the Yeti found in Nepal's Himalayan region.

For the past several years now enthusiasts from the Achik Tourism Society say they have been venturing into the hill's deep jungles to find out whether or not the animal really exists and not just another figment of imagination.

However, those who have seen the 'Mande Burung' have many interesting stories to tell. It was reported on January 18, 1999 by villagers that a man passing through a forest was captured by this mammal, which then forced him to feed on its breast. The victim's account said, "The milk was sour with a mixture of bitterness".

On July 2005, a woman recounted that "a big hairy creature" entered her thatched hut while she was asleep with her child. She described the animal that she saw in the light of firewood, as "enormous" and "one who stamped out the fire before disappearing in the darkness." The woman was unharmed, the reports said.

While local forest officials carried out futile investigations into the incidents, Principle Chief Conservator of Forests VK Nautiyal told PTI, "There may be some unexplored zoological species like some type of spiders...But definitely not a humanoid. There is no scientific basis or credible evidence as of now about such a humanoid."

Of course we have the Mande Burung on our a/k/a Interactive Bigfoot World Map, you can read up on the Bigfoot variant below.


View AKA Bigfoot World Map in a larger map

Today in Bigfoot History | JAN 17, 1977 | US Marines Ordered to Keep Mum on Bigfoot

In 1977 US marines were ordered not to talk about a Bigfoot-like creature.

 "I haven’t gotten any [Bigfoot] on camera yet," -- Jessica Shively, current wildlife biologist contracted my Quantico Marine Corps Base (2012).

Today, January 17th, in 1977. The Dumfries Virginia Potomac News reported that U.S. Marines were ordered to not to talk about a Bigfoot-like creature. The creature was known as the ASA Monster, leave it to the military to use an acronym to name a cryptid. ASA stands for  Ammunition Storage Area. The ASA happened to be where this hairy bipedal creature was seen the most.

You can read an exerpt from the article below detailing the possible security classification of the monster:

"We called the ASA (Ammunition Storage Area) sergeant of the guard to determine whether there had been any more sightings or sounds in the area but were told that all information regarding the "ASA Monster" is considered 'classified.' When asked why that is so, the guard answered that he was not allow to answer that question either.

He later said that the information is not really 'classified' but everyone at the compound has been ordered not to talk about the monster at all." 

In John Green's Book, "The Apes Among Us," he references the same news article:

The Dumfries Virginia Potomac News on January 17, 1977 published a long article about the sasquatch that contained the statement: "Much had been written about the monster at the ammunition storage area at Quantico Marine Corps Base..." but doesn't say what. There is a reference to one Marine claiming to have seen a brown thing walking on two legs and another reporting something that looked like a cross between an ape and a bear covered with very long hair. Several people had apparently heard loud screaming

We did a little research, curious if therewas still policy of silence regarding Bigfoots at the base. Oddly enough Quantico Marine Corps Base has their very own website and it seems they are more lax about acknowledging Bigfoot visiting the base. In fact, in November 2012, the website reported a story about Jessica Shively, a wildlife biologist contracted by the base through Virginia Tech. Ms. Shively is responsible for setting up camera traps at the base and is aware that she just might catch a Bigfoot.

Shively acknowledged that the cameras have the potential to shed light on another, more longstanding question about Quantico’s wildlife. She said she was aware of the reports of bigfoot sightings on the base going back more than 50 years. "I haven’t gotten any on camera yet," she said.

Click the following link to learn more about the Quantico camera traps.