Skookum Cast, Well? Options

[blackops]

Okay, Im sure most of you are quite familiar with the Skookum Cast (For those who dont know http://www.bfro.net/news/bodycast/index.asp )

Is there something I dont know about this cast? Why isnt it showcased more as somewhat definitive proof?

I mean, they apparently obtained primate hair & a detailed achilles tendon? Why is this not more popular?

[tugboatwa]

The Skookum Cast has been discussed before on the BFF. Go here for an older thread.

[klparnell]

Older threads are great, but new threads on the same old discussions are still interesting to us new guys. I love to see any discussion, repeated or not.
Either way, without a body the skookum cast is still just like a big footprint cast. Hairs are tested and can come back from an unknown primate, but that proves nothing unless you have the primate in question. Rick Noll, in my opinion has an impeccable reputation and a well-known and generous personality. I like his style. Who knows, they may be holding onto the cast as evidence that helps build the case for the animal that I know exists.
klp ;-)

[Saskeptic]

Older threads are great, but new threads on the same old discussions are still interesting to us new guys. I love to see any discussion, repeated or not.

I'll oblige you klp - I'm a newbie too.

If I understand the Skookum Cast correctly, several years ago some researchers baited a "trap" for sasquatch using a pile of apples in the middle of some squishy mud (or some fine-grained material that the investigators laid down themselves - I've never been clear on that). Allegedly, a sasquatch did take the bait, and left an unusual imprint in the substrate that includes portions of heel, buttocks, and an arm. So it's referred to as a "body print." A plaster cast of the imprint was made and Voila! - the Skookum Cast.

Now I can't refute the authenticity of such a claim, even if I was to examine the thing myself. But there are several aspects of this story that smell funny, and it adds up to a whole lotta stink in my opinion:

1) The investigators went to all this trouble to set the trap and mix all that plaster but no one had the bright idea to install a game camera at the bait?

2) Why would a sasquatch adopt such an unusual posture to retrieve the apples? Why not just walk up to them, squat down, and eat? Are sasquatches afraid of mud?

3) For those who set this thing up and proclaim it as genuine, how many times has the effort been repeated? How many times was it tried before acquiring the cast? Did they go 1 for 1 in getting a sas' butt print but then not try to repeat the success with a more definitive method, like a game camera?

4) And my personal mantra, where is the paper? If I had gone through this and was convinced that I had the butt impression of a previously undescribed North American primate, I'd have fired off a manuscript to Science or Nature before you could say "Patterson/Gimlin." I'm as interested as anyone here in moving the sasquatch debate into the realm of legitimate scientific inquiry. To do that, we need to get some of this purported sasquatch evidence into the peer-reviewed literature. If the claims don't stand up to scientific scrutiny, then they remain claims and nothing more. And for those who think mainstream science is biased against publishing sasquatch papers, I want to see the actual rejection letters provided by the journal editors to prove that someone actually tried to publish this stuff.

This is why I remain,
~the Saskeptic

[RayG]

Allegedly, a sasquatch did take the bait, and left an unusual imprint in the substrate that includes portions of heel, buttocks, and an arm.

Yup, heels, buttocks, forearm, elbow, wrist, hand, and last but not least, testicles. Here's a pic with Dr. Meldrum and the Skookum cast with the appropriate parts labelled (except for the testicles).



Dr. Meldrum has also stated:

From http://www.oregonbigfoot.com/newsletter/01_05.php

"Had there been a clear sasquatch footprint associated with it, much of the silly speculation would have been avoided."

Not sure which silly speculation he's referring to though.

RayG

[Desertyeti]

Skookum Cast is a bedding trace from a deer or elk. No doubt about it.
I'll post comparison photos later today.

[RayG]

Skookum Cast is a bedding trace from a deer or elk. No doubt about it.
I'll post comparison photos later today.

Your silly speculation is duly noted. <grin>

RayG

This post has been edited by RayG: Jan 30 2006, 09:55 AM

[Desertyeti]

Now if only someone could prove these so-called "elk" and "deer" exist!

[Offshore]

Now if only someone could prove these so-called "elk" and "deer" exist!


Of course deer exists...that's what Bigfoot eats.

[wolftrax]

Skookum Cast is a bedding trace from a deer or elk. No doubt about it.
I'll post comparison photos later today.

Hey Desert! Still waiting!

[Sam Farris]

This is for Saskeptic; I tried to quote but got the IE 'cannot find page'.

Anyway, you mention a couple times in regard to 'why no game camera'. I suspect if they would have set one up they would not have gotten the cast. It seems BF don't like game cameras.

I have my own speculations as to why this may be so. I'm sure I'm not the first to ponder why there are no game camera photos of BF. I mean if you think about it, there must be hundreds if not thousands of these cameras set-up along game trails that BF prey use. Why no photos?

Well, either there are no BF, or they know to avoid the cameras. Think about it.

Sam

[Arm Chair Squatc...]

They didn't deploy a camera because it was a last minute idea to set some bait out. If I remember right, it was Thom Powell who brought the bait and brought up the idea of baiting around the campfire that night. I believe Rick was going somewhere and agreed to set the bait out at a few locations along the way. I think it all took place at night. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong on the details. Anyway, for me, I don't buy that bf's can detect cameras. I think it's a needle in a haystack situation. But, as the mythbusters have shown us, you can find a needle in a haystack. It's just not easy and takes time.

[Sam Farris]

...Anyway, for me, I don't buy that bf's can detect cameras. I think it's a needle in a haystack situation. But, as the mythbusters have shown us, you can find a needle in a haystack. It's just not easy and takes time.

In reading my post again I would like to make a modification to my statement. I said, "they know" to avoid cameras. I don't know that "they know" to avoid cameras; dumb thing to say.

I would like to state that I think it a possibility that they avoid cameras because of the 'un-natural' emissions that come from the cameras.

I am putting together a post that will explore this possibility and plan to create a topic for discussion. I'm sure there is not much new under the BF 'sun' and there most likely exists a topic on this already.

Anybody know of a 'game camera' topic? If so, maybe I'll just add to it, rather than create a whole new topic.

Thanks,
Sam

[LAL]

There were cameras set up on "ridgetop" but they failed due to excess moisture in the components. According to Higgins, it wasn't possible to set cameras at all the bait sites. Noll was having truck trouble too, and the idea to film from the truck didn't work out. The ground around the mudhole was hard and it was by a road. the animal evidently rolled out without leaving tracks. any left when it sat down would have been squished by the body. Noll posted pictures of gorillas doing the same sit and lean.

These are the full field notes:

http://www.bfro.net/NEWS/pnw_newsletter003...alExpedMain.htm

Multiple imprints were ruled out as well as elk. Elk cannot get up and down without gathering their legs under them. There's an excellent, clear picture inMeet the Sasquatch showing the flowing hair imprint and, yes, testical prints. Dr. Daris Swindler, Professor Emitus, UW, and author of the standard text on primate anatomy, uniquivocably pronounced it the imprint of an unidentified NA hominid primate, on camera, after four examinations and thirty years of scepticism. He confirmed Meldrum's identification of the heel and tendon imprint and showed, clearly, on LMS where the muscles tied in.

But we need to get the proper authorities, the carny and FX guys, in on this. :new_whistle:

[Hairy Man]

Other primate specialists have also confirmed that the Achilles tendon is of primate origin.

[LAL]

Instructions for the Skookum roll (courtesy of colobus via e-mail, already posted on JREF where RayG saw it):

"From the place where the putative heel strikes occurred, the foot, already bent at the knee, would only have to move a foot to the right before being placed on hard ground.

The place where the putative right arm made a double impression was about 15 inches from dry hard ground to the right again.

If you site on the floor on your butt, with both knees bent at about a 30 degree angle, imagine where the dry ground is located to your right. With your right leg and foot, move your heel over say fifteen inched to the right - put it on dry ground. The with your right arm and hand reach over 15 to 18 inches to dry ground.

Now rolling right, shift your weight onto both right foot and knee, and right hand/arm. You can get up with some exertion - without leaving tracks in the impression beyond the putative heel strikes already present. If you happened to be considerably larger it would be even easier.

As far as the elk is concerned - elk always leave prints in the center of bedding areas when they get up. We've got lots of video and still imagery to back that up, as well as photos of eld beds in mud and snow. All of them have tracks in the center grouped closely pointed the same direction.

Extensive analysis of the lengths of the anatomical features impressed into the mud, comparisons with ungulates - including elk, and other large mammals such as goat, bear, and so on find no match with whatever made the impression.

Hairflow pattern analysis of the impression show continuous hairflow along anatomical structures that is 100% in agreement with apes. The same hairflow analysis demonstrated that the hairflow patterns found could not have been produced by an elk in a series of multiple impressions that might "appear" to be one big impression. It just is not an elk.

Does that mean it's a sasquatch? Who knows, but evidence certainly points that direction."

[LAL]

Other primate specialists have also confirmed that the Achilles tendon is of primate origin.

Really? Got names?

This is a reprint from the Denver Post (having read the story originally on the website I can verify MM didn't change a word. :wink: ):

Bigfoot Believers: Legitimate scientific study of legend gains backing of top primate experts

By Theo Stein
Denver Post

Sunday, January 05, 2003 - EDMONDS, Wash. - After enduring decades of ridicule, Bigfoot researchers are enjoying support from some of the world's most respected scientists in their efforts to prove the hulking creatures of legend are no myth.

The persistence of reported sightings of Bigfoot-type creatures in North America and elsewhere has convinced leading researchers on primates - including Jane Goodall, made famous by her studies of chimpanzees in Tanzania - to call for something never seriously considered before: a legitimate scientific study to determine whether the greatest apes that ever lived persist in the world's moist mountainous regions.

Skeptics, who include those in the scientific mainstream, scoff at such ideas. They say reported Bigfoot encounters, tracks and other evidence are either hoaxes or mistakes, and that people who believe such nonsense are soft-headed.

But dedicated amateurs and a smattering of professionals are trying to change that attitude. Using accepted scientific methods, they believe they can show at least some of the claimed evidence for Bigfoot - footprints, hair, voice recordings and a 400-pound block of plaster known as the Skookum Cast - are authentic traces of a rare giant primate.

Recently they have received support from a handful of the field's top experts.

Daris Swindler, for example, is not the typical Bigfoot believer.

When he retired in 1991 after more than 30 years at the University of Washington, Swindler was an acclaimed expert in the arcane study of fossilized primate teeth.

His book, "An Atlas of Primate Gross Anatomy," went through several printings and was among the standard references in the field.

So it comes as a surprise to some of his peers that Swindler believes that the Skookum Cast, discovered by amateur Bigfoot researchers in 2000, is a genuine record of a hairy giant that sat down by a mudhole to eat some fruit.

"Daris said that?" asked Russell Ciochon, a prominent paleoanthropologist and professor at the University of Iowa. "He's an important figure. But I still don't think Bigfoot exists in any form."

Mythical giant apes lurk in the traditions of nearly every Native American linguistic group and in legends handed down through the ages from Europe and Asia. Each year, Bigfoot or similar creatures are reported by hundreds of hunters, hikers, motorists and others from central Asia to the central Rockies. But no one has provided the minimum proof required by science: a type specimen or remains that researchers can pick up, measure and argue over.

Nevertheless, Goodall is intrigued.

"People from very different backgrounds and different parts of the world have described very similar creatures behaving in similar ways and uttering some strikingly similar sounds," she said. "As far as I am concerned, the existence of hominids of this sort is a very real probability."

George Schaller, director of science at the Wildlife Conservation Society, has spent 40 years studying rare animals in remote places, including pioneering studies of Central Africa's mountain gorilla, which Western scientists first discovered in 1903.

THE SCIENTISTS:
JANE GOODALL

A world-famous primate researcher and author, she revealed, in studies of chimpanzees in Tanzania's Gombe National Park, surprising behaviors in humanity's closest living relative. Goodall has won numerous international awards for her contributions to conservation, anthropology and animal welfare. Currently affiliated with Cornell University, she serves as the National Geographic Society's explorer-in-residence.

GEORGE SCHALLER

International science director for the Wildlife ConservationSociety. His pioneering field studies of mountain gorillas setthe research standard later adopted by Goodall and gorillaresearcher Dian Fosse. Schaller's 1963 book, "The Year of theGorilla," debunked popular perceptions of the great ape andreintroduced "King Kong" as a shy, social vegetarian.

Schaller's studies of tigers, lions, snow leopards and pandasalso advanced the knowledge of those endangered mammals.

In 1973, he won the National Book Award for "The SerengetiLion: A Study of Predator-Prey Relations," and in 1980 wasawarded the World Wildlife Fund Gold Medal for his contributionsto the understanding and conservation of endangered species.During the past decade, he has focused on the little-knownwildlife of Mongolia, Laos and the Tibetan Plateau.

RUSSELL MITTERMEIER

A trained primatologist, herpetologist and biologicalanthropologist, he has discovered five new species of monkey,including two last year. Mittermeier has conducted fieldwork inmore than 20 countries around the tropical world, with specialemphasis on Brazil, Guyana and Madagascar.

Since 1989, Mittermeier has served as president ofConservation International, which has become one of the mostaggressive and effective conservation organizations in the worldduring the last decade. His publications include 10 books andmore than 300 scientific papers and popular articles.

DARIS SWINDLER

Emeritus professor of anthropology at the University ofWashington, Swindler is a leading expert on living and fossilprimate teeth and one of the top primate anatomists in general.His book, "An Atlas of Primate Gross Anatomy," has become astandard reference in the field. A forensic anthropologist,Swindler worked on the Ted Bundy and Green River murder casesalong with hundreds of others.

ESTEBAN SARMIENTO

A functional anatomist affiliated with the American Museum ofNatural History, Sarmiento focuses on the skeletons of hominids.In 2001, he participated with George Schaller in a search forCongo's Bili ape, a possible species super-chimp reported bynatives but unknown to Western science. Sarmiento has alsostudied the Cross River gorilla, a critically endangeredsubspecies on the Nigeria-Cameroon border whose population isthought to be numbered in the hundreds. He has taught in theU.S., South Africa and Uganda.


Schaller remains troubled by the fact no Bigfoot remains have been produced, nor have any samples of feces whose DNA can be chemically poked and prodded to unlock the identity of their maker. And he is mindful of hoaxing.

But he, too, considers Bigfoot an open question.

"There have been so many sightings over the years," he said. "Even if you throw out 95 percent of them, there ought to be some explanation for the rest. The same goes for some of these tracks."

"I think a hard-eyed look is absolutely essential," he concludes.

The most common evidence allegedly left by these animals are the footprints: big prints in remote locations, some deeply pressed in sand or gravel firm enough for a grown man to pass without leaving a trace. Some footprints, like those Ray Wallace's family claim he left near Bluff Creek, Calif., in the late 1950s, are hoaxed. Many more are too vague to be conclusive. But a few are so detailed and anatomically accurate that they baffle the experts.

"Either the forgers are spending an awful lot of time on this, or there is reason to give this evidence another look," said primate researcher Esteban Sarmiento of the American Museum of Natural History. "I think a serious scientific inquiry is definitely warranted."

Skeptics argue that large mammals, particularly great apes, simply aren't discovered anymore. Not true, says Russell Mittermeier, vice president of Conservation International, who has co-authored scientific papers describing five new primates.

Since the 1990s there have been several spectacular finds, he said, including the antelope-like spindlehorn from Vietnam and a South American peccary thought to have gone extinct thousands of years ago.

"I'm not one to pooh-pooh the potential that these large apes may exist," Mittermeier said. "I guess you could say I'm mildly skeptical but guardedly optimistic. Whoever does find it will have the discovery of the century."

Words of encouragement like these are music to Bigfoot researchers' ears.

"My whole motivation has not been to convince anybody of the existence of the animal, but to convince them that there's a body of evidence begging for further consideration," said Idaho State University professor Jeff Meldrum, whose expertise in primate locomotion led him to become one of the few academics openly researching Bigfoot tracks.

"This is immense," said author John Green, who has tracked Bigfoot reports for almost half a century from British Columbia and investigated some of the most famous sightings and track finds. "The possibility that there could be a real animal behind it just didn't occur to scientists 20 years ago."

The flap over recent claims of Bigfoot hoaxing has not deterred Swindler. But the lack of a body plus the acknowledgment of at least some hoaxing adds up to too many questions for Ciochon.

Like that of Swindler, Ciochon's work focuses on fossilized primate teeth, but of a very special species: Gigantopithecus blacki, the giant Asian ape of the Miocene epoch, which lasted from about 24 million to 5 million years ago.

Most Bigfoot supporters advance Gigantopithecus, or Giganto for short, as the likely ancestor of Bigfoot, if not the hairy beast itself. It's a tantalizing but entirely unproven link that drives Ciochon to distraction.

Ciochon thinks his study subject, which co-existed with the human ancestor Homo erectus for hundreds of thousands of years, may well be the archetypal inspiration for the "boogeyman" and other nocturnal monsters that populate the traditions of aboriginal cultures from Nepal to North America.

But he vigorously rejects any suggestion that Giganto, which he thinks was a specialized, bamboo-eating vegetarian, could persist today.

And he worries that the hotly contested grants that fund his work overseas may go elsewhere if the stigma of the shambling sasquatch of Native American lore attaches to his study subject.

"My biggest problem is there's no evidence, other than conjectural hair and these footprints, some of which we know are faked," Ciochon said.

"If someone finds a skeleton, I'll be there in a nanosecond," he said. "But that's what it's going to take to get me to change my mind."

"There are so many problems," agrees Swindler, who six years ago told a USA Today reporter to count him among the skeptics.

But as he examines the Skookum Cast on a rainy December afternoon in this Seattle suburb, Swindler points out landmarks in the lumpy landscape: a hairy forearm the size of a small ham, an enormous hairy thigh, an outsized buttock, and a striking impression he feels confident was made by the Achilles tendon and heel of a creature that is not supposed to exist.

"Whatever made this was very well adapted to walking on two feet," he said. "It's not conclusive, but it's consistent with what you'd expect to see if a giant biped sat down in the mud."

Swindler hopes that his assessment of the Skookum Cast, and a Discovery Channel documentary set to air Thursday, will generate support for further research.

The key, Schaller said, will be finding dedicated amateurs willing to spend months or years in the field with cameras. "So far, no one has done that," he said.

It was a group of dedicated amateurs that discovered the Skookum Cast. A team of volunteers from the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization had spent two days in Washington state's Gifford Pinchot National Forest, putting out pheromone-basted plastic chips during the day and blasting sasquatch calls at night in an attempt to attract an animal.

On the second night, researchers heard a powerful reply to their broadcasts, said Richard Noll, an aerospace toolmaker who has spent 30 years researching the mystery. The next morning, Noll was stunned to realize that an unusual impression of a large animal on the edge of a mudhole near their camp could have been left by their elusive quarry.

"An elk will gather their feet under them when they get up," he said. "But there are no elk hoofprints in the center of the cast."

Meldrum and Swindler concur there are only two logical explanations for the cast: Bigfoot and elk. And they have also ruled out elk.

John Mionczynski, a wildlife researcher who has spent 30 summers studying bighorn herds in Wyoming's Wind River Mountains, has his own reasons for believing in Bigfoot.

On a moonlit summer night in 1972, he backhanded an animal he thought was a bear as it sniffed at a bacon stain in his tent, then watched as the silhouette of a giant, shaggy arm with a broad hand at the end swept toward his tent, collapsing it on him.

"That hand was three times as wide as mine and had an opposed thumb that stuck out as plain as day," Mionczynski said.

He spent the rest of the night huddled by the fire with a revolver in his hand as the creature lobbed pine cones at him from the dark woods behind his tent.

"That pretty much eliminated bears," Mionczynski said.

Mionczynski is working on a contraption of tiny hooks and barbed wire that he intends to place near seasonal foods he thinks sasquatch depend on. He hopes the snare will let him get a DNA sample.

North of Seattle, Noll is collaborating with Owen Caddy, a former Ugandan park ranger who studied chimpanzees in the mid-1990s.

For the last 18 months, they've scoured certain sandbars on a north Cascades river, documenting more than 30 suspected sasquatch footprints they believe were made by a mother and two young. They hope to identify the animals' food sources and travel corridors, then set out a picket line of infrared camera traps.

"I feel the animal is out there, and I don't hedge on that," Caddy said. "I've found physical evidence myself, and I'm confident in my analysis of it.

"Something is making these tracks, and it's not people."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bibliographical Information:
Front Page of the Sunday Edition of the Denver Post.
By Theo Stein, Denver Post Environment Writer

http://www.bfro.net/GDB/show_article.asp?id=328

API wouldn't pick it up and the story never got out of Denver.

The Skookum Cast has been discussed before on the BFF. Go here for an older thread.

And here:

http://www.bigfootforums.com/index.php?sho...hl=camera+traps

The tests had already been done before Sarmiento swept his mop over the cast on camera.

This post has been edited by tugboatwa: Feb 13 2006, 05:55 AM

[LAL]

Yup, heels, buttocks, forearm, elbow, wrist, hand, and last but not least, testicles. Here's a pic with Dr. Meldrum and the Skookum cast with the appropriate parts labelled (except for the testicles).



Dr. Meldrum has also stated:

From http://www.oregonbigfoot.com/newsletter/01_05.php
Not sure which silly speculation he's referring to though.

RayG

Cliff Crook's maybe. Daegling put it in his book.

[LAL]

From the horse's mouth (DDA):

"At no time were remote camera traps employed on the Skookum expedition. Only one member had such equipment then, Derek Randles, who at that time had been unsuccseful in using them and thought them defective. These cameras were on loan to Derek from Dr. Jeff Meldrum, but they were not brought along for this trip.

The theory that put the nail in the coffin for using them on the expedition was really the amount of time they would be in place... it was felt to be way too short a time period to result in anything significant. Distrubing the environment needs time for animals to become adjusted to this type of thing being present.

There are quite a few errors in TP's book. I broke down and purchased it and am about a quarter of the way through. I will say one thing right now - I am getting pretty tired of listening to the wild speculations about Bigfoot's intelligence and very little disclosure as to really just how much time and effort was or is being placed on the task. It seems to be the hot excuse for a lot of researchers... these things are too intelligent, they know what a gun is, a camera, they can see infrared, have super hearing, blah, blah, blah.

Here are my reasons for all the failures:

1. No one is spending enough time in the woods on the search,

2. Not many know what to do in searching, overlooking things, or vice-versa, seeing things that arn't significant to the task,

3. There are not many of these animals around,

4. They, like most animals who live in the forest, know how to camoflauge themseleves quickly and easily,

5. Most encounters with humans are probably mistakes on the part of the Bigfoot, yet researchers are trying to fill in the picture with them as to being something significant,

:fall off soap box: ummmph! "

http://www.bigfootforums.com/index.php?sho...hl=camera+traps

This post has been edited by LAL: Feb 12 2006, 05:20 PM

[Saskeptic]

on the notion that sasquatch detects and avoids game cameras:

(insert 'Church Lady' voice)

"How conveeenient."

(now back to my own voice)


So, all those heavy hitter primate specialists think the Skookum Cast contains the actual testicular impressions of a sasquatch? Wow. So I guess the manuscript will be coming out any day now, right?

[LAL]

on the notion that sasquatch detects and avoids game cameras:

(insert 'Church Lady' voice)

"How conveeenient."

(now back to my own voice)
So, all those heavy hitter primate specialists think the Skookum Cast contains the actual testicular impressions of a sasquatch? Wow. So I guess the manuscript will be coming out any day now, right?

The explanation on the camera was posted above.

Dr. Fish might have been the one to write it, but he died. "On the 20th of March, 2002, a Wednesday, retired professor and ecological consultant LeRoy Fish proceeded to the barn located on his Oregon farm to take care of some daily chores. He never left. Jacqueline, his wife, found him in his beloved shop where he apparently succumbed to the effects of the congestive heart failure for which he was undergoing treatment. He was 59."

http://www.bfro.net/news/fish.asp

"How conveeenient."

Meldrum has written papers for publication and had some accepted, but I don't know if he wrote one on the Skookum Cast. Anyone know?

[Hairy Man]

So, all those heavy hitter primate specialists think the Skookum Cast contains the actual testicular impressions of a sasquatch? Wow. So I guess the manuscript will be coming out any day now, right?

Yeah, I agree...someone should tell them to get on the ball!

[Wildman]

This is one of the most frustrating aspects of BF research: Evidence of the caliber the Skookum cast is said to be is there. Right there. Why is there so little action being taken? Why so little interest? Why aren't those who have seen and examined the cast, like Swindler, promoting the thing to the mainstream scientific community? Why isn't the government involved? Because it's Bigfoot, I know. Makes you wonder that if someone had a body, would anyone even come and see it? Would a handful of positive identifications from some respected scientists be enough? Or would it be another Minnesota Iceman?

How do we get the evidence past this barrier? How do we take the next step? Who needs to see it for it to be recognized and legitimatized?

I have no idea what the Skookum cast represents. I just know what it is said to represent. If there is even the slightest chance that it is what the likes of Swindler and Meldrum say, then it deserves more scientific scrutiny. Why is it so damned hard to get it? :icon_bang:

Okay, I'm taking the crankypants off now.

[LAL]

This is one of the most frustrating aspects of BF research: Evidence of the caliber the Skookum cast is said to be is there. Right there. Why is there so little action being taken? Why so little interest? Why aren't those who have seen and examined the cast, like Swindler, promoting the thing to the mainstream scientific community? Why isn't the government involved? Because it's Bigfoot, I know. Makes you wonder that if someone had a body, would anyone even come and see it? Would a handful of positive identifications from some respected scientists be enough? Or would it be another Minnesota Iceman?

How do we get the evidence past this barrier? How do we take the next step? Who needs to see it for it to be recognized and legitimatized?

I have no idea what the Skookum cast represents. I just know what it is said to represent. If there is even the slightest chance that it is what the likes of Swindler and Meldrum say, then it deserves more scientific scrutiny. Why is it so damned hard to get it? :icon_bang:

Okay, I'm taking the crankypants off now.

I'll put 'em on. Evidently the Smithsonian refused to look at it even if someone drove across the country with it. Swindler's retired and evidently his health was poor at the time of the Willow Creek Symposium (or he would have attended), but I've seen an article he published as a Professor Emeritus online; he had time for that.

[Charlette]

I agree, frustrating but the Skookum Cast is not entirely unknown.
We've had a 40% scale print of the Skookum cast at the Seattle Mystery museum
for the last two years and LOTS of people have seen it. Its interesting to note
their reactions. A few have heard of the cast
but most have not seen the details. - Lets face it, a muddy impression isn't as
visual as Patty doing her walk. Even so, the cast I'm pleased to say
IS making an impression of its own on a new generation and I'm proud to further
the public awareness of such an important find.

[Mausinn52]

Hmmmm...Cranky pants. Interesting concept. Where does one purchase cranky pants? Like, is there a store, or maybe a catalogue? Since LAL has them now, can she send us a photo of her modeling them? Hopefully they will be more stylish than Jim's super hero outfit, not that there's anything wrong with that. I still start laughing out loud when I think of those pictures. :new_lmaosmiley:

[LAL]

Hmmmm...Cranky pants. Interesting concept. Where does one purchase cranky pants? Like, is there a store, or maybe a catalogue? Since LAL has them now, can she send us a photo of her modeling them?

I just took them off. No photos allowed. Maybe Wildman can feature them next to his mug.

[RayG]

This is one of the most frustrating aspects of BF research: Evidence of the caliber the Skookum cast is said to be is there. Right there. Why is there so little action being taken? Why so little interest?

Because, in reality, it's very poor evidence. No sighting of a squatch leaving the buttprint (no sighting at all), no clear footprints, no confirmed DNA, no clearly identified hairs, nothing but an interpretation of an imprint in the ground. It's been said that experiments have been conducted to eliminate other possible suspects. I'd like to know where they obtained the squatch to confirm it was a squatch butt/arm/heel/nut print. We criticise blobsquatches for having the obligatory red circles, pointing out suspected squatches, yet that's exactly the same thing we have with the Skookum cast -- it has to be highlighted and labelled before we can even see what they're talking about.



The Skookum cast isn't even as good as a clear footprint in the hierarchy of bigfoot evidence, and footprints have ended up being next to useless.

Why aren't those who have seen and examined the cast, like Swindler, promoting the thing to the mainstream scientific community?

Yes, why no articles in peer-reviewed, scientific journals? I'm guessing it's because the scientists that have examined the cast (very few so far), realize what a poor piece of evidence they just examined.

Why isn't the government involved?

Why should they be? And, even if they were, which department?

Makes you wonder that if someone had a body, would anyone even come and see it?

I'm betting the interest level would skyrocket if an actual body were produced for examination.

Would a handful of positive identifications from some respected scientists be enough?

Sure, if they thoroughly examined the actual body, and not just looked at it through glass/plastic/ice.

Or would it be another Minnesota Iceman?

All the speculation about the Iceman would have ended abruptly had scientists been allowed to thaw the ice and do a proper investigation. As it is, people still debate whether or not the Iceman was even real.

How do we get the evidence past this barrier?

Ensure the evidence is of sufficient quality that it will survive close scrutiny.

Who needs to see it for it to be recognized and legitimatized?

Without an actual animal, who has the expertise and authority to legitimize the cast?

I have no idea what the Skookum cast represents. I just know what it is said to represent. If there is even the slightest chance that it is what the likes of Swindler and Meldrum say, then it deserves more scientific scrutiny. Why is it so damned hard to get it?

Toss a body in there and you'll have instant interest. :wink:

RayG

[LAL]

Because, in reality, it's very poor evidence. No sighting of a squatch leaving the buttprint (no sighting at all), no clear footprints, no confirmed DNA, no clearly identified hairs, nothing but an interpretation of an imprint in the ground. It's been said that experiments have been conducted to eliminate other possible suspects. I'd like to know where they obtained the squatch to confirm it was a squatch butt/arm/heel/nut print. We criticise blobsquatches for having the obligatory red circles, pointing out suspected squatches, yet that's exactly the same thing we have with the Skookum cast -- it has to be highlighted and labelled before we can even see what they're talking about.

<snip>

RayG

Still haven't checked Murphy's book? Clear photo, no circles and arrows. Nothing has to be pointed out once that flowing hair pattern is spotted. The BFRO site even has the plain version. See below, but nothing on the computer screen is going to be as sharp as the photo in the book.

http://www.bfro.net/news/bodycast/images.asp

And the caption on the first page says there was an unidentified primate hair, but pay no attention because it was probably Dr. Fahrenbach and we all no he made a mistake on the Mary Green sample. And of course anything the BFRO was involved in has to be bogus because the leader was suspected of having a suit in the trunk. Why hasn't anyone trotted out the old hoax hypothesis lately (or did I miss it?)? Oh, yeah. Fish left a bootprint. There's the proof.

They can't compare to what it seems to be but they certainly could compare to what it wasn't and evidently did. A sighting would be dismissed as just another anecdote. It doesn't matter that the area had sign or that sightings in Skamania county have been going on for decades. I would think, that if someone took the time and trouble to drive it across the country, someone at the Smithsonian could at least take the time and trouble to look at it. They wouldn't look at the Iceman, either. Is it the old "I'll see it when I believe it" attitude Krantz noted again?

This post has been edited by LAL: Feb 13 2006, 09:26 AM

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[LAL]

I agree, frustrating but the Skookum Cast is not entirely unknown.
We've had a 40% scale print of the Skookum cast at the Seattle Mystery museum
for the last two years and LOTS of people have seen it. Its interesting to note
their reactions. A few have heard of the cast
but most have not seen the details. - Lets face it, a muddy impression isn't as
visual as Patty doing her walk. Even so, the cast I'm pleased to say
IS making an impression of its own on a new generation and I'm proud to further
the public awareness of such an important find.

That's good news (although I wish it wasn't in a place that specializes in ghosts and UFOs as well).

http://www.seattlechatclub.org/museum.html

The cast didn't exactly get the media attention the Wallace story got, did it? Of course, Noll is supposedly refusing to let sceptics see the original (still housed in the garage?), so there's obviously reason to believe the copies have been tampered with much as Dahinden doodled on the Cibachromes and the frames showing BH getting in and out of the suit have obviously been edited out of the PGF.

Is there anything to indicate Dr. Swindler (who's a mere giant in the field of primatology) has modified his stance? Does he now find the tendon of Achilles less than compelling? Is he even alive still?

This post has been edited by LAL: Feb 13 2006, 09:56 AM

[Saskeptic]

Creating a media buzz around the Skookum Cast so that more people are inclined to "believe" what it represents is not the answer. Carting it off to the Smithsonian (God knows for what purpose) would not make any difference either. Is not Jeff Meldrum one of the people who has examined this thing and publicly announced that he has undeniable evidence that it represents the various body part impressions of a heretofore undescribed, large, hairy, bipedal primate? If so, he is a well published scientist, why doesn't he take the lead on authorship? Without a manuscript, the rest of us can speculate all we want, and it's meaningless.

Until some paper appears in a legitimate peer-refereed journal, for "mainstream" scientists there is no Skookum Cast. If such a paper is submitted but can't pass peer review, then that means that there is such a thing, but it is of no consequence to the sasquatch debate whatsoever. This is how the rest of science works; I see no reason why we need to "bend the rules" of scientific inquiry when it comes to sasquatch.

No paper, no issue.

[ShadowPrime]

There have been many, many, MANY times I have wished that I was more eloquent. This is one of them...*S* I am not sure I can neatly put into words the idea that I want to capture here...but here goes...

I suspect that a lot of "laymen" are like me, in that we tend to think there are "places to go" with, well, just about anything. That there are experts "out there", who will... examine things. Answer questions. Do follow-up. I have been intentionally vague in the few preceeding sentences because I don't mean this to be unique to BF. Nor do I think that, for most laymen, this "idea" is often explicitly pondered. It is a background idea... a basic notion of how the world works. For most of us, most of the time, there is no real reason to test this out. We have no reason to.

I mean... suppose, for example, I came across something I was pretty sure was a fossil. I am guessing I could PROBABLY... probably.. walk into a museum that had a decent collection of fossils, and find someone to give me basic confirmation of that, if the task wasn't too complex (that is, if someone could quickly eyeball it and give me a yes or no). Probably. I may be unduly optimistic in my assessment. If the fossil was something really exotic, or unusual, however? I don't know....

Similarly, if I caught a very unusual insect, or came across a really odd plant, I am guessing...and that is all I am doing here, based on the aforementioned "assumption" about there being "places to go"... that I MIGHT be able to get someone at a local museum or university to answer a question or two. Again, maybe. I don't know how persistent I would have to be, or what the results would be, but I am guessing it might not be too hard to get SOMEONE to ID it for me.

But, honestly...if I, say, shot a video of a UFO. or found a piece of metal I believe came off a UFO..or I shot an AMAZING video of a BF... or came across some GREAT BF tracks... or found some hair that MIGHT have come from BF... etc... who would I "go" to (no offense to anyone, in this UFO/BF linkage...my point in including UFOs in this is to emphasize...what if I found something OUTSIDE the mainstream...not simply "a fossil" or an insect I can't ID)? Who would look into it? Who would look into it if "looking into it" involved spending a decent amount of time and money, assuming I wasn't myself a person of means who could do the research? Who would look into it, in those circumstances, in a way that would "make a difference" to the world at large?

What I mean by this last bit is... suppose, for the sake of argument, that I found a really world-class string of BF footprints. GREAT impressions. Amazing detail. Dermal ridges, impressions suggesting massive weight, surprising size, very hoax-unlikely location and circumstances...just ideal. Further suppose that IF these footprints were examined by footprint/forensic/primate experts, they would powerfully suggest they were made by a bipedal unknown primate, not a hoaxer. How would that examination take place? And where would it be published so that the yard-marker, for the world in general, for the scientific community, would move from "No BF" , and towards (towards, mind you) "Yes, BF"?

There has been discussion of scientific publication here, of formal papers being written. I am a layman, as noted above... is THAT the answer? How much $ is involved in the time and effort required to write such a paper, and WHO would "write it" (not laymen, clearly!)?

Again, I do apologize if this seems a real "bottom feeder" sort of side-bar, but it is something that I wonder about, not infrequently, when reading about sightings, footprints, films, and yes, this cast... is part of the problem here (perhaps an insurmountable one) that there simply is no ready made "bureaucracy" or "establishment" in place to even examine what evidence MIGHT be available? That one challenge is finding "evidence" (short of a body, and yes, I am well aware of the debate in BF circles on that topic! *S*), and ANOTHER is "getting it evaluated" in such a way that its discovery makes a difference?

Shadow

[RayG]

Creating a media buzz around the Skookum Cast so that more people are inclined to "believe" what it represents is not the answer. Carting it off to the Smithsonian (God knows for what purpose) would not make any difference either. Is not Jeff Meldrum one of the people who has examined this thing and publicly announced that he has undeniable evidence that it represents the various body part impressions of a heretofore undescribed, large, hairy, bipedal primate? If so, he is a well published scientist, why doesn't he take the lead on authorship? Without a manuscript, the rest of us can speculate all we want, and it's meaningless.

Until some paper appears in a legitimate peer-refereed journal, for "mainstream" scientists there is no Skookum Cast. If such a paper is submitted but can't pass peer review, then that means that there is such a thing, but it is of no consequence to the sasquatch debate whatsoever. This is how the rest of science works; I see no reason why we need to "bend the rules" of scientific inquiry when it comes to sasquatch.

No paper, no issue.

I see where Jeff Meldrum and DR Swindler presented "The Skookum imprint: trace evidence of Sasquatch? Program" with Abstracts at the 87th Annual Meeting of the Pacific Divison, American Association for the Advancement of Science. p.65, 2004.

http://www.isu.edu/bios/Newsletters/2004/Sept5_2004.pdf

Anyone have access to the paper and its contents, or aware of any reaction to it?

I also see where the Idaho State University Press Release about the "Skookum Body Cast" has been removed from the website.

In fact, the only mention of 'Skookum' on the Idaho State University website is the aforementioned presentation by Meldrum and Swindler.

RayG

This post has been edited by RayG: Feb 13 2006, 10:57 AM