#26 Posted: 3/21/2012 12:35:08 PM Some twenty years after the filming and long after Roger Patterson's death, Bob Gimlin was being harrassed by a debunker who kept telling Bob that Roger Patterson had hoaxed him and the people involved were coming forward. The man was so persistent that for a brief spell Bob Gimlin was not sure if he had been hoaxed or not. That episode has probably now been recordered as proof of a hoax in the debunkers handbook.
Fact is neither man ever changed their stories, even though the film pretty much ruined both their lives.
The Patterson film (16mm film, not video) is still best evidence for the existence of a real unknown bi-pedal animal in North America. It shows muscle movement over a framework of bone and tendons, including a clearly defined herniated muscle in the right thigh. Look at the tendons at the back of the knees and look at the flabby skin on the underside of the upper arm, these are not reproduceable with a costume. The animal in the film shows a mid-carpal break in the foot structure that a large non-human primate would have. It shows a forward positioned skull with shoulder muscles attached directly to the base of the skull and not the base of the neck. It turns upon this spinal structure showing correct locomotion for the muscle/skeleton framework that it exhibits. The fur pattern shows bare skin areas caused by locomitve friction, such as the ribcage area under the armpits. The shoulders move radially from the sides of the neck indicating a primate scapula, not a human scapula. The wide range of movement captured on the film could not be duplicated by a person in a suit.
With few exceptions, all other film evidence that I have seen is laughable. They clearly show idiots in bell bottomed carpet suits who stumble around trying to see out of their halloween masks. The patterson film is the only one that still stands after all these years of scrutiny, and actually becomes more convincing the more modern science examines it, such as the stabilized sequence that has been done.
Also worth noting is that all of the self-proclaimed debunkers, who have have popped up over the years, have also been laughable when you study their stories, theories, and evidence.
The Patterson film has suffered in popular culture perception because over the years debunkers have come forward who were accepted at face value by the public at large, despite the fact that, upon critical evaluation the debunkers have never provided credible evidence or testimony.
A man can claim on the 5 o'clock news to have made the suit, and the public collectively sighs in relief "now we can put that one to bed!", but what the 5 o'clock news does not do is show that when asked to prove it that same man comes up with an embarrassing mismosh of rental costumes. Similarly a man that claims to have participated in hoaxing Bob Gimlin at the original filming, but doesn't even know what part of the state it happened at, cannot be considered critical evidence. A man who oversharpens some film stills in photoshop and declares he has found a zipper is simply over zealous. A man who decalres he has found three or four other people hiding in the woods and a pile of dead bigfoots in the film footage, is just embarrassing for both sides of the debate...But collectively they somehow are supposed to carry enough weight to tip the scales in favor of the Patterson film being a hoax, in the public's mind.
Then too, there is the curious phenomenon of the sheer vehemence of the debunkers. There seems to be a reaction on a primal level in the human brain that cannot accept the concept of an existing near-human, to such a heightened degree that they recoil from the thought with anger. They cannot just laugh and declair the believers to be crazy, they must destroy them any way they can. And thus you have the story of Roger Patterson's death bed confession, which is likely a twist on the creationist's story about Darwin's deathbed declaration against evolution as he saw the hellfires rising around him in his last moments.
In the end, examine the evidence as best you can, remain skeptical, BUT, most importantly, keep an open mind either way.
Good luck.
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