Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Sasquatch "Patty" is 42 today

42 years ago, Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin produced film of a female sasquatch, nicknamed Patty. Their 16mm film is the most scrutinized amateur film in history except maybe for the Zapruder film of JFK's assassination. I still get stuck on the argument by the eminent late primatologist, Dr. John Napier (who thought sasquatch was likely real) that this film shows a creature whose lower half is humanlike while the upper half is apelike, and that's hard to accept despite the fact no one's ever found decent evidence of a hoax. This is either a tall guy walking deliberately oddly in an expertly made costume (not off the shelf) or the primate equivalent of a platypus (which does not make it impossible, only hard to accept). Neither explanation is clearly true to me, yet one of them must be....

3 comments:

Tom said...

Hey Matt,
the sasquatch in the P-G film has been analyzed intelligently in Jeff Meldrum's "Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science." and has been analyzed by special effects expert Bill Munns to NOT be a person in a suit.
Wildlife biologist John Bindernagel's new book might be just the read for you:
http://www.beachcomberbooks.com/discovery/about.html


enjoyed your blog on the P-G film.

Tom said...

Bill Munns' work can be found here:

www.themunnsreport.com

Matt Bille said...

Tom, Thanks. I have read Meldrum, along with Bindernagel's first book, which relied heavily on the film being genuine. I respect the analysis of Munns and others but arm concerned about just how accurate analysis, even with modern digital enhancements, can be on an image 1.8mm high on the original film. I HOPE the film is real. I just am not ready to bet on it.