My impression of the Patterson film is that it’s a Rorschach test. People who think Bigfoot doesn’t exist say it’s obviously fake, while people who think Bigfoot exists defend the film. I lean towards “Bigfoot may exist, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the film is legit either.” The story surrounding Heironimous’ confession and the costumes is no more convincing to me than the math surrounding arm-to-leg ratios and mechanics of the gait.
There is an interesting (and long) thread about the footage where one author dissects all the different points and counterpoints. In short he thinks Bigfoot probably doesn’t exist, but if that’s a guy in a suit then it’s a really really well made suit, better than the ones Patterson supposedly bought, or anything else known at the time.
And if it was just that story I might agree with you. But it’s not just Heironimous. And not just stories. You got multiple lines on multiple costumes multiple shoots. It’s believable to me that Heironimous is not the guy in that footage. But it seems more than likely he wore the suit or a suit for a shoot with Patterson. It’s more than likely Morris did as well. We have indications that there were others. Patterson’s documented attempts at a bigfoot movie, confirmed ownership of suits and relationship with costume companies. The way Gimlin ducked out swearing he was never involved more than being there when the footage was made.
A big part of what I’m on about with the resolution of the film (and degradation of copying it).
You can not, and could not, tell how well made of a suit it is with that film stock, at that distance, under those conditions. It is not physically capable of recording enough detail.
If it was footage of a real creature. You wouldn’t be able to tell either.
The information necessary to tell, or examine the figure is simply not there.
It doesn’t take expertise to know this either. Which is what confuses me on it. It is absolutely pareidolia. But a pretty basic level of photography and film knowledge is enough to know that footage doesn’t work that way.
I don’t buy Morris’s accounts at all. Grainy footage or not, the suit he sold in the 60’s, which he claims he recognized immediately when the footage came out, does not look remotely like the Patterson film. Then he reappears decades later, after Hieronimous’s confession to hawk a new specially made suit for a few thousand dollars.
I agree that Hieronimous probably did some film shoots with Paterson for his movie project, but that’s unrelated to the Patterson footage in question. The argument that because Patterson was working on staged footage for a purported documentary, so therefore the “Patty” film is fake too doesn’t necessarily follow – I could be working on a UFO documentary and make some reenactments out of necessity, then head out to some area where strange lights were reported and get lucky.
good point. I’ve shot a variety of 35mm still film and understand how the silver particles create the given resolution (aka ISO aka “speed” of film) when exposed, and I’ve shot 16mm (already less resolution than standard still film just due to size) motion picture film, but it was b&w reversal. but yeah, that stuff is pretty grainy and gets way worse the farther away the subject is.
from my (our) perspective it’s pretty easy to see that the subject is closer to a Seurat painting in terms of detail but yeah, I didn’t realize bigfoot supporters were claiming to see absence of zippers as proof etc. preposterous.
You have a guy who’s pretty well confirmed to be creating big foot footage using suits.
And he releases supposedly real bigfoot footage.
Is it more likely that these two things are unrelated?
But none of that makes it more likely that the strange lights are anything out of the ordinary.
It’s pretty unlikely that Patterson happened to stumble into a hoaxer and get fooled.
It is even more unlikely that he ran into an actual bigfoot.
That a man with motive, means, opportunity, and experience in faking bigfootage faked the footage is far, far more likely.
In the meantime the footage itself lacks any utility.
Yeah I shot more b&w reversal than color. For good reason. Color reversal is/was even lower density with larger crystals. Narrower latitude and higher contrast with more limited ISO. I was shooting modern Fuji film, and even then there was a really noticable difference in quality or resolution. On top of the already drastic difference between 16mm reversal and 35mm.
Then shoot it at distance. In bright, direct sunlight. From horse back.
One more aspect of this whole saga that’s impossible to know one way or another.
And this is why I don’t buy into Morris’ story-- a guy who makes costumes sees the obvious opportunity to promote himself as the maker of the most famous ape suit in history.
But you have a problem making the same judgement call about a guy who admittedly sought to promote bigfoot to bolster his creative projects and business ambitions?
Patterson is a pretty fascinating figure. And not much of his overall story tends to make it into pop coverage or even the believer end of it.
He was very much a classic American huckster, involved in multiple get rich schemes, attempting to fund films that never came about, pitching inventions and gimmicks. He’d already published and was selling a cryptozoology book.
People who knew him before hand don’t exactly talk negatively about him, but they don’t really portray him as reliable.
this is another one of the conspiracy theories that has really captured my uncle’s imagination. ( along with qanon, clinton body doubles, alien abductions and the like. )
i hear something like paulides sells a series of books about different unrelated disappearances and describes how they are all impossible to explain. he then “reveals” the true reasons at the end of the series - which he begs you to read in order.
my uncle says he thinks paulides is going say it’s aliens or sasquatch - but he feels it’s more likely god is snatching people up in preparation for the second coming
it kind of sickens me how there are people preying not only on families who have lost loved ones, but on conspiracy minded people like my family - all for the sake of a buck
if they want to write fiction, they should just write fiction is my opinion
i didn’t catch your parenthetical comment about arras not having a wikipedia page but i’ve see it now. about a week ago i was looking at the archived talk pages of a wikipedia page and fell into such a thicket of rules, non-rule rules, and rule-adjacent non-rules, along with a treasure trove of bro-culture bullshit, sexism, racism, and non-self-aware bureaucratic rules-lawyering presented as “just asking questions” while ticking all the boxes of whataboutism and bad faith arguing in efforts to “win the edit wars” that have driven me to hold wikipedia in the same regard as amazon which means that unless i have no practical alternative i am not using it. i’ve gone 8 or 9 months without ordering from amazon now but information is a lot harder to find than books or spices or . . .
all of which is to say that making a wikipedia entry about arras and her disappearance will be eliminated on the basis of notability, relevance, and notability. unless some major editor has already been curating a page about “national parks of the united states, unexplained disappearances” any number of editors are going to attack that page for “not being completed investigations”, “too negative about u.s. institution”, or maybe “notability and relevance.”
mr beschizza, i swear that after reading through several dozens of talk pages and essays behind the scenes in wikipedia i feel that some of the more notable among the banned here had their starts as wikipedia editors. the cognitive style is so similar.
