Skookum Cast & Elk, Could the heel print be the Elks knee? Options

[Sasquatcher]

The heel print looks like a human heel (but larger) with the achilies tendon showing. I saw another website that says this is the print of an Elks knee..bending to eat the fruit. Can this be possible??????? Any of you guys familiar with the size of an Elks knee?

[bipto]

Rick Noll showed video of elk getting up from a prone position at the Symposium back in September. It pretty conclusively demonstrated that an elk would have stepped in it's own body impression to such an extent that it would have been obviously made by an elk. That's just not the case with the Skookum Cast.

What site did you see that one?

[robo]

Was that site called 'OMFG teh BFRO is a bunch of evil crooks come to our Monster Hunter BBQ and bag your own Monster DNA sample!!!!!!', by any chance?

[SkunkHunter]

Was that site called 'OMFG teh BFRO is a bunch of evil crooks come to our Monster Hunter BBQ and bag your own Monster DNA sample!!!!!!', by any chance?

the MHBRO? Man I remember when it was the GCBRO, I used to like it alot. Until that "monster hunter" took it over.

[Sasquatcher]

I think it was Cary Crook's site........Say's it is obviously an Elk print.

[colobus]

Cary Crook and his father Cliff, have never even seen the Skookum cast.

When the cast was being examined in depth the first year after it was found, it became clear to those involved that elk had to be looked at as a possible candidate for the maker of the impressions. The challenge internally was to "prove" that it was not an elk that made the impression, as it was recognized that that was the first thing people would suspect. The videos referenced above were just a small part of the effort that went into examining elk as candidates. Other things looked at included:

Size, length of long bones, joint sizes and shapes.
Hair flow patterns on elks ( and other large mammals in the area)
Elk habits in regards to laying down, bedding, wallowing, and standing-up.
Elk urination habits (generally they urinate near or on the area they have bedded down on).

Elks were observed in the wild, on farms, and in zoos. Elk and deer body impressions were examined and photographed. A heel cast made from the larger Skookum cast was shown to a zoo curator who maintained the elk at a large metropolitan zoo. This professional was adament that the cast he was shown was not made by any portion of an elk's anatomy.

In all aspects of the investigating of elk, it was found that:

1) The size was wrong.
2) The shape of the impression itself was wrong.
3) The "heel impressions" of the Skookum cast were much larger, more deeply impressed, and the wrong shape to be from and elk. (They were in fact the exactly "right" shape for a bipedal primate however).
4) The hair flow pattern found on the cast could not have been impressed by an elk unless the animal had repeatedly (4x) got up and selectively impressed certain portions of its anatomy overlapping each other, without ever leaving tracks when it stood.

The elk tracks found in the Skookum cast are those of animals "in transit", and not those of an individual standing-up. On the cast there are also tracks from Black-tailed deer and coyote.

In addition to the above stated enquiry, the cast has also been looked at by many noted scientists very well versed in ungulate morphology, and none of them are of the opinion that elk were maker of the impressions found in the cast.

So rest assured - elk did not make the impressions found in the Skookum Cast.

So I guess the best thing to do with the Crook family and their various claims is to take them with a large grain of salt.

[RogerKni]

Epsom salt!

EDIT: I wonder--could it be that this mildly scatalogical implication was understood when the phrase first arose, in Roman times, but was Bowdlerized down the memory hole during the 19th century? I.e., that it was originally understood that the "salt" involved was a purgative? (Other stock expressions of dismissal that were developed in the 19th century were euphemisms, like "For the birds," which was a polite way of saying "horsesh*t" in Edwardian days, and "hot air," meaning fart-like.)

This post has been edited by RogerKni: Jan 9 2004, 02:55 AM

[bipto]

I think it was Cary Crook's site........Say's it is obviously an Elk print.

Well hell, I could say it was the obvious landing site of a UFO, but without anything to back up my statement it'd, be just as likely as what they're saying.

Rick has demonstrated how it could not be caused by elk. Let's see anyone demonstrate how it could be elk and I'll listen. Short of that, it's just the same old FUD.