dermal ridges and casting artifacts Options

[tube]

I'm starting this thread as a follow up for those people who have questions or want to discuss the information I presented at Jason Valenti's Bellingham conference. For those who were not there I'll try to post some photos so that everyone can see what we are talking about.

I have been doing casting tests for several months and I have waited until now to post results publicly. I was hoping that Jimmy Chilcutt was going to attend the conference but unfortunately he did not make it. The primary peer reveiw of my materials was from Jeff Meldrum and Owen Caddy with whom I privately showed my casts. I showed photographs of my test casts and methods to everyone in attendance and put my test casts out for examination. Rick Noll is quite familiar with this line of inquiry as he has been documenting the testing with still photographs and video. I sent Jimmy Chilcutt a number of small test "coupons" some time ago but I have made further discoveries since that time. The test casts I sent Mr. Chilcutt are not completly representative of everything I have discovered.

First off, I need to give credit where credit is due. I cannot claim that I discovered the casting artifact process as I learned from Dr. Meldrum that he had seen ridges spontainously develop on test casts some years ago for which he had no solid explanation. He may have discovered this process. I believe Rick Noll was familiar with this process when I showed him my first test cast. I did not pursue "what he knew and when he knew it". In the professional casting world, of which Rick is a part, these kind of ridges would be seen as a mistake or an example of poor casting technique and actions would be taken to avoid them. As far as can tell I am the first person to pursue researching this phenomenon, at least as far as it concerns the understanding of surface features seen on Sasquatch footprint casts.

In a nutshell for those who were not in Bellingham this weekend I have found that under certain conditions cement casts can spontainously develop surface ridges that have a strong resemblance to what are being claimed as dermal ridges, at least on one cast known as the "Onion Mountain" cast made by John Green in August of 1967. Numerous pieces of evidence come together to suggest that the ridges seen on Green's Onion Mountain cast are ridge artifacts and not an accurate representation of dermal ridges pressed into the soil by a primate foot.

Just so we do not get off on the "wrong foot" let me be clear about the scope of these investigations. I am not "debunking" the claims made about all casts that are claimed to have dermal ridges. My scope of investigation has been limited to ONE cast which was made under rather extrordinary conditions. Various other casts such as Paul Freeman's "Wrinkle Foot" or the Elkins cast made in Georgia were made in mud. My tests suggest that this ridge artifact process does not occur in mud. Various other casts are claimed to exhibit dermal ridges. Of those I have no first hand knowledge or opinion, as I have not seen the casts nor do I have any knowledge of the soil conditions under which they were made.

I will be giving the same presentation and cast exhibition at the Seattle Museum of the Mysteries Sasquatch conferance this coming Sunday at the Seattle Center. John Green is scheduled to be there and I hope to verify the information I have gathered second hand about his 1967 track find.

[LAL]

Thank you.
Can you post a photo of this cast, or can anyone, so we can see exactly what you're talking about?

[tube]

OK, just so we are all on the same page here this is a photo of a cast which is a copy of the cast made by John Green on Onion Mountain in August 1967. It has been refered to as the "Blue Creek Mountain" cast previously, but this has been clarified recently by Mr. Green himself through Rick Noll to me. I'm looking forward to speaking to Mr. Green directly at the upcoming Seattle Sasquatch symposium. This is a photo of the cast Jeff Meldrum had on display this weekend at Bellingham. Dr. Meldrum's casting technique is excellent, and pronounced and well defined ridges are seen on the medial plantar surface of the cast. This cast is not the original but a very well made copy. My understanding is that the original is lost.

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[tube]

This is another photo of Green's Onion Mountain cast. Dr. Meldrum encouraged me to obtain and use the kind of small rulers that forensic photographers and anthropologists use for this kind of photography. This is a very good idea, as it is sometimes difficult to judge the scale of these fine features. I have some on order. But for now we can judge shapes.

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[David Thomas Kin...]

I have found that under certain conditions cement casts can spontainously develop surface ridges that have a strong resemblance to what are being claimed as dermal ridges, at least on one cast known as the "Onion Mountain" cast made by John Green in August of 1967. Numerous pieces of evidence come together to suggest that the ridges seen on Green's Onion Mountain cast are ridge artifacts and not an accurate representation of dermal ridges pressed into the soil by a primate foot.

Can you explain how these surface ridges develop spontainously and under what conditions this occurs?

David Thomas King
NESRA

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[tube]

The chisel pointed melamine chopstick is pointing at a curved furrow that borders a band of ridges on Green's cast.

Note that there are two irregular cracks that are adjacent to these ridges. Those are the result of poor technique on my part. Rick Noll allowed me to make a copy of this cast for my own study using an elastomeric female mold. To allow the cured cast to come out of the mold cleanly and without damage a mold release compound is used. In this case we used generic PAM cooking spray. I used too much. Rick was videotaping me doing this and I think he didn't want to yell "STOP!" during the taping... The result was these two fissures. I would highlight them with the red pen but I don't yet have that kind of sophistication.

In any event, the curved band of ridges appears about 9cm anterior of the heel. The curved furrow bordering the fine, flat ridges is a subtle but important detail.

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[Yetifan]

Nice work tube.

[tube]

Very few Sasquatch footprint casts contain features that are considered to be dermal ridges. Why? In most cases the soils are simply too coarse. In order to capture fine surface detail the substrate must be very fine (if dry) or muddy. I have tested fine, dry, powdered substrates including fly ash, volcanic ash, tabular alumina and several natural soils. I believe I have identified the necessary and sufficient conditions for this effect to occur. They include;

1. Finely powdered substrate.

2. Porosity. People who do serious cement casting will not see these artifacts if they use a non-porous mold. In addition, strong capillary action is needed.

3. The substate must be compacted.

4. The substrate must be plastic. This means that it must be able to retain a detailed shape upon compaction. Note that this is DRY powder not wet, like the wet clay that potters shape and fire.

When cement slurry is poured onto a substrate that satisfies these conditions the final cast may contain ridge artifacts. Note that this excludes casts made by the "splash casting" method, like the Skookum cast. I'll post some photos of test casts.

[tube]

First I built an impressioning tool. This is a photo of a piece of smooth plastic epoxied to a 2 x 4. I pressed the smooth plastic surface with my body weight into a bed of fine fly ash. I built a rigid wood box to contain the powder. The rigid box prevents lateral fluid flow and thus surface cracks are avoided on the compacted powder surface.

With a perfectly smooth compacted powder substrate any surface features that develop on a resulting cast must be artifacts.

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[WillinYC]

Thanks for taking the time to start this interesting disscussion. I for one would not intuitively think that something like ridge detail could have been attributed to artifacts in the casting process. This is very objective work that you guys have done. I've got a few questions:

1- Is it possible to post a photo of the entire track or at least describe which of the documented Onion Mountian tracks you are referring to?

2- Did the artifact ridges fall into a consistant pattern of orientation, or was the artifact ridge orientation random or possibly dependent on known variables in the casting process?

3- When you say your tests do not indicate that the ridge artifact process does not occur in mud, does this mean that you have attempted to replicate this process in substrates with a high MC and the artifact ridges were not present or that testing of this nature has not yet been conducted?

Thanks.

[tube]

This is the top of the first test that I did using this protocol. I show it because it offers a clue as to the features you will see in a minute. I had to use an angle grinder with a sandpaper disc to remove the "cake frosting" ridges that appeared on the top of the cast. This indicated that the slurry was too thick due to an excessive cement to water ratio.

When the slurry is thick like this furrows are often formed that represent momentary "stalls" of the slurry flow across the substrate surface.

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[tube]

This is the surface of that cast in contact with compacted fly ash. Note major furrows.

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[David Thomas Kin...]

First I built an impressioning tool. This is a photo of a piece of smooth plastic epoxied to a 2 x 4. I pressed the smooth plastic surface with my body weight into a bed of fine fly ash. I built a rigid wood box to contain the powder. The rigid box prevents lateral fluid flow and thus surface cracks are avoided on the compacted powder surface.

With a perfectly smooth compacted powder substrate any surface features that develop on a resulting cast must be artifacts.

Very interesting. Do you have any more photos coming?

DTK

[tube]

Now a close up of ridge artifacts adjacent to a major furrow.

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[Yetifan]

Wow...all I can say is that what I assumed were dermal ridges in casts I've seen before now have to questioned quite a bit. Again, great work tube.

[tube]

Sometimes ridge artifacts get big. This is a recent cast I made in compacted volcanic ash by simply pressing down with my gloved hands through a sheet of thick polyethylene. The cement in this case is good old plaster of Paris which is grossly inferior as a casting cement to Hydrocal B11 or Ultracal 30.

Note that I allowed the cement slurry to "set up" for about 5 minutes before I poured. This seems to produce larger ridge artifacts. Failing to include a ruler for scale, I used my fingers.

When I discovered how big ridge artifacts could get I noticed something else; big ridges are round ridges while small ridges are flat ridges. This feature is also noted on Green's Onion Mountain cast.

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[David Thomas Kin...]

Incredible. Looks just like dermal ridges. A picture IS worth a thousand words!

DTK

[tube]

More ridge artifacts on the same plaster of Paris cast.

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[tube]

Comparison of ridge artifacts seen on plaster of Paris test cast against medial plantar ridges seen on Green's 1967 Onion Mountain cast.

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[mike2k1]

Great work Tube.

[tube]

Another veiw of plaster of Paris test cast compared with Green's 1967 Onion Mountain cast.

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[tube]

Fly ash and volcanic ash are not natural soils. Can this effect occur in natural soils? Yes. This is a test cast done in compacted river bank soil I obtained from the Duwamish river here in Seattle. I dried and sifted the soil to replicate the dry and dusty soil conditions found on Onion Mountain in August 1967.

This cast is made with Ultracal 30. Though Ultracal and plaster of Paris react differently while being mixed with water, the end result as far as casting artifacts go is fairly similar.

Interestingly, I did not have to let the slurry "set up" before I poured it to see quite large ridges develop. Note the 2 major "folds" in the cast directly above my palm. This demonstrates the plasticity of the soil as it captured and held random folds in the polyethylene sheet that I used between my hands and substrate during compaction.

This soil sample lacks organic matter as did the fresh roadcut soil where Green made the Onion Mountain cast.

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[Apeman]

( I usually try to refrain from editorializing but just can't help myself here.)

Excellent work Matt. This is a really interesting and a very important contribution to the field. This sort of well designed, well executed study is worthy of a proper write up and publication somewhere. Solid research like this should help us separate the proverbial wheat from the chaff.

My editorial comment is that we should all be proud, once again, that the "BF community" is working so hard to police itself. I have seen the few published "studies" debunking dermal ridges and they are laughable compared to what Matt has just done. You'd think any number of those skeptics could have worked a little harder rather than playing with combs and such. Even if only magazines like the Skeptical Inquirer or Skeptic will touch this work, I strongly encourage you to try to publish it. I'm not sure what your background is but there are plenty of "academics," writers and journalists here that would proudly assist such an effort if that would help, and you obviously already have contact with Dr. Meldrum.

My question to the cast experts amongst us is: Do any of you have any idea what percentage of suspected ridged casts should now be thrown out of the mix because they are probably casting artifacts?

AM

[RogerKni]

Perhaps Ray Crowe would publish a special issue of Track Record entirely devoted to this, as he has in the past to other special topics. Or maybe, since color printing might be desirable, Hancock House would publish it? (Unfortunately, sales would probably be too low to repay costs.) Too bad Heinselman's Crypto (which published color photos) and Greenwell's Cryptozoology are defunct.

Such a special issue should contain a long Q-and-A section, with questions being posed by those who are knowledgeable in this area (you might even call them "experts" .

This post has been edited by RogerKni: Jun 1 2005, 04:59 AM

[RogerKni]

An even better place for Matt's work would be the in-development Bigfoot Online Museum, once it is activated. It could be regularly updated, and contain lots of nicely formatted text, with revisions to the midst of the text being possible by Matt.

This post has been edited by RogerKni: Jun 1 2005, 10:02 AM

[tube]

My girlfriend Dana used to edit Greenwell's Cryptozoology journal! She has a number of interesting back issues including the one by Baird sometimes discussed here on how to "fake" dermal ridges using latex and solvent.

I spoke to Dr. Meldrum briefly after the conference and he told me he is working on a monograph of various aspects of Sasquatch research. I believe he wants to include this material. I got the idea that this is not an immediate project. But that's OK because it will give me a chance to rephotograph these casts using forensic scales so absolute size of these small features can be judged.

[Wildman]

One of the most impressive threads I have ever seen here. One of the most impressive breathroughs in BF research, IMO. Excellent, excellent work!! :clap:

[GrandCherokee]

Didn't I tell you this guy was hot??

[Yetifan]

Wildman wrote:

One of the most impressive threads I have ever seen here. One of the most impressive breathroughs in BF research, IMO. Excellent, excellent work!!

I'd like to second that.... :clap:


This is a perfect example of why it's intellectually dangerous to assume that something, short of an actual body, is strong evidence of a sasquatch. A great example of the scientific method at work.

[Wildman]

It was too bad Chilcutt wasn't there to discuss the findings.

[cut4sign]

I can see why Chilcutt didn't make it. He was probably swallowing real hard and going back to the lab to see if he's made a mistake I know I would have been fooled

I'm glad you posted your findings. Great work!

Cut4sign

[David Thomas Kin...]

Tube,

Do you know if there have been any cases where "dermal" ridges have been seen in the actual print itself, BEFORE the cast was taken?

DTK

[tube]

Mr. King;

Very good question. Part of my early research was digging through all of DDA's posts to try to understand casting in the field. I found an amazing series of posts that included photographs of tracks and at least one cast. This was the Rattlesnake Lake track find here in Western Washington. DDA and Colobus investigated the scene. DDA posted a photograph that included one of his typically cryptic and powerful one-liners; "what do you see?" A laser illuminated a cast he held in his hand that clearly had ridges. And very importantly, he photographed the track before he made the cast. Fine detail can be difficult to photograph well, especially in the field, but his photograph clearly shows ridges in the track. I found this series of posts before I had shown him my first test cast and I was impressed with his obvious attention to detail.

I get the impression from DDA and Colobus that the tracks did not fall far enough outside of the range of human to positively conclude they were sasquatch tracks. Despite an "inconclusive" or perhaps negative track find the "Rattlesnake Lake" thread is a good example of how evidence on the scene should be processed. I don't know what the final analysis of the ridges on his cast was.