This is all in regards to a silly picture, and could be a silly subject, but I think the actual implications are serious.
Maybe this is no big deal, or maybe it could actually damage the credibility of the BFRO's sightings database.

Can a sketch created by a witness be considered a part of their testimony?
If so, I believe the BFRO has now demonstrated that they are willing to alter the testimony which a witness has provided to them, if or when that testimony becomes inconvenient.
For any scientific organization, tampering with or manufacturing data is a serious charge. If the organization's primary source of data is witness testimony, the willingness to tamper with that testimony is troubling.

I know I tend to be long-winded, but I hope you'll read and consider this.
The reason I feel it's important is simple. If the BFRO has shown the willingness to alter a witness-provided picture, it is hard to argue that they would be unwilling to alter witness-provided words.

(In the following I will refer to the BFRO as an organization. I am not accusing any individual of responsibility.)

The picture in question had been discussed here briefly in the past. It had been posted on a blog where they joked that it looked like bigfoot was "flipping the bird." It was a witness-drawn sketch, far from detailed, but it could be interpreted that way. I really thought it was kind of funny, and so I saved the link.
Recently, I wanted to have that picture to email to a friend for some reason (I've since forgotten). So I grabbed the image from the blog, but it was kind of small. In wanting to see the full size version, I clicked the blog-provided link to the original BFRO report with which the picture was included.
But the picture currently on the BFRO, and the picture posted on the blog didn't match.
Strange...
The hand, which had been somewhat open to interpretation, or misinterpretation - thus the comedy of it - now just looked like a hand.
The blog version was flipping the blob.
The BFRO version was clearly a hand.

Here are the images:
From the blog-

From the BFRO report-


One of them had obviously been modified.
Was the image on the blog an unaltered capture of the original image from the BFRO site, or was it captured and then altered?
Or was the current image on the BFRO site adjusted after the blog captured and posted the image?
Let's consider motivations:
A blogger, if responsible, would be digging up a vague picture, thinking up a very subtle joke, and then sublty manufacturing the joke by making the picture more vague. If you're gonna make bigfoot flip someone off, why not make it clear, right? Why would the blogger care about such a trifle? It just doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
The BFRO, if responsible, would be taking a vague picture that someone had made fun of, and then altering it so that it was more clearly just a hand, not a gesture. They would be clarifying the intent. Clearing things up. Adjusting perceptions. Making sure it wasn't misinterpreted and laughed off. They would be protecting the image of their credibility. This would make sense, except that the image is presented with the words "The witness John provided the following drawing."
And by trying to preserve the appearance of seriousness, real credibility would go out the window.

So who was the tinkerer- The Blog or The BFRO?
I decided to see if the images showed any clues of tampering.

For the following process I used the bitmap format to preserve resolution. For posting purposes, however, they have been converted to jpegs.
In all of these examples, the image from the "Blog version" is on the left, and the current "BFRO version" is on the right.
I began by matching the images as closely as I could.

The Blog version has lost some degree of resolution due to the fact that it was reduced in size when posted on its site. (If that makes sense.)
After matching the images I enlarged them significantly, looking for details that would indicate modification. Even when quite large, the differences in the hand are obvious, but not much else is.

To look for details not obviously noticable, I then, using IrfanView, greatly decreased contrast and gamma correction. Below are the images further enlarged and enhanced in this way.

I believe this revealed some artifacts of alteration. I will highlight the most interesting of these below.


-Here you can see in the lower circle that there is an unusual gap in the shaded edge between the body and the arm.
In the higher circle you can see a gap that cleanly separates where the hand and shoulder were previously in contact, leaving a flat edge on the base of thumb and a remnant "bump" of shading on the shoulder.


-Notice here that there is a floating bit of shading, as if part, but not all was erased.


-The artifact highlighted here is the most conclusive to me. There is the trace of a line just beyond the end of the finger in the current BFRO version which perfectly matches the the edge of the fingertip in the blog version.
This line would seem to require one of two conclusions:
1) The BFRO version is the original, but it included a nearly invisible guide line which happened indicate a nice point where a fingertip could end if someone would ever wish to modify it.
..or..
2) The Blog version is the original, and the BFRO version was modified after the fact, leaving a trace line where the fingertip originally was.


I'm led to conclude that the BFRO altered the original sketch which was provided by the witness.

I would appreciate any other opinions, any other analyses, and any comments on whether or not this really matters.

These tests (if that's the right word) should be repeatable by others using the original images. I hope some of you may to do so in order to verify that I haven't made some kind of mistake due to my methodology.
I would like to know if anyone else can support, verify, disprove, or uncover anything about this. Take out your magnifying glasses and let me know your opinion on these images.

Background info:
Report is listed as being submitted by witness on August 28, 2005.
Blog post is from September 13, 2005.

Tech people: would it be visible in the HTML code if the BFRO image was updated AFTER the date on the blog post?
-

My point in all of this, once again:

If a witness draws a funny-looking sketch, it does not hurt the credibility of a group that is honestly reporting what the witness has said and provided. If the group alters that sketch, however, and yet represents it as the being the original, they are falsifying information in a witness report. If that group's key contribution is in the collection and presentation of witness reports, then their demonstrated willingness to falsify information in those reports must, I think, impact their credibility.
If it was the BFRO rather than the blogger which altered the image, does it taint their entire database? If they will tamper with visual evidence provided by a witness because it looks funny, could they not tamper with testimonial evidence provided by a witness because it sounds funny?
I realize this is dangerous. I know the BFRO database is a valuable tool, and I hate that this may bring its worth into question.

Only if the evidence and opinion of others seems to confirm and support the idea that something is amiss do I believe we would want to address this to the BFRO. And in such a case it wouldn't be a matter for them of merely changing the picture back to the original or adding a footnote, it would be a matter of public redaction and explanation, and a defense of the rest of the evidence.
If this actually happened, if this picture was altered by the organization because it looked silly, it's a really stupid thing to risk your crediblity over.
I, for one, really appreciate the BFRO for its website and for presenting to the public a face of rationality. I'll personally be upset if I feel I can no longer have confidence in the honesty of their witness reports.

I think it would help if someone could do an overlay of the two--or one of them nifty animated gifs that I have not a clue how to create. If the the BFRO hand fits inside the blog hand, no problem. If it doesn't...

At any rate...



I believe that ship has sailed, my friend.

well then... my first EVER attempt at animating gifs...
-starting small-
Hope it works...

The aspects that sleeper pointed out are fairly clear in his animation.
You can see where there are apparent sharp "ends" of removed parts of the illustration in the "current" bfro version.
Here's another illustration, although not as clear as sleepers version, I took the liberty of adding in some of our famous red circles to show where it appears that sudden cut off's of part of the image occour in the "new" version.
Interesting, to say the least.

I feel so techno-savvy...
how cool...

And.. While admiring the fact that my little animation worked, and staring lovingly at it, I noticed another tell-tale sign of erasure.

Either the point indicatated here was a blank in the shading left by the witness for a future tinkerer to fill in, or it is another point where a tamperer left an erasure line at the edge of the hand which the witness had previously drawn.

Wow. Great work, guys.

The prosecution rests.

That ship has not just sailed, but was torpedoed before it got out of the harbor.

Looks odd to me too. I've never known the BFRO to "enhance" a drawing by a witness before, but anything's possible.

As to the database, I've seen some reports changed while I was the editor. Matter of fact, that used to be one of the things I checked for as the proofreader. There weren't many, but there were some where information was taken out that was felt by the investigator as extraneous or unimportant in the witness observed section of the reports. That, to me, was a no no and I'd usually put the information back and advise investigators not to take out information because that was altering the witness section of the report. The only altering that was allowed by the guidelines was spelling that was so bad it hampered the readability of the reports or what was felt as a typo by the witness. If there was a misspelled word, but the reader could still understand the intention then it was left alone.

Drawings on the other hand, I can't even imagine a situation where something like that would be okay to do. Who was the investigator for that report? The investigator would have been the person to change the drawing because the drawings are sent to them by the witnesses. I'd be really interested to know who the investigator was.

Good work guys!

Teresa

Observe the mighty powers of the BFF! It is my opinion that the sketch was changed because of the thread on the BFF. We can't have people making fun of anything on the mighty BFRO website. It really doesn't surprise me at all. Haven't we seen this done in the past with other things posted to their website? Remember all the times MM changed what I like to call his "million dollar request"?

Thank goodness we had a proofreader that wouldn't put up with any "monkey" business from some of the 'investigators'. Something like this would not have happened back then without hell breaking loose. I fell relatively certain about that.

http://www.bigfootforums.com/index.php?showtopic=12754&hl=

Here's the report with the name T. I'd certainly believe this was done by MM or by direct instruction from him rather then by the investigator. JMO again.

http://www.bfro.net/GDB/show_report.asp?id=12439






:bffrules:

Couldn't it be possible the image was changed by the artist because they realized after it was posted it looked like the squatch was giving the bird, and that wasn't a true representation of what the witness saw?

:yeahthat:

That's a possiblity Wolfie.

No. The image reference wouldn't have to change, and even if it did, it wouldn't reflect the date. The image file could simply remain as a file with the same name, and just have a newer, modified version uploaded to the web server. It would write right over the old version, and the markup would not have to be modified at all.

Interesting find.

That is a possiblity, however, it should have been noted that the drawing had been changed, what part had been changed, and most importantly... who changed it and why. A short, sweet, and to the point explaination would be sufficient.

I'm willing to accept that the alteration was done in response to comments made in this forum about the "one finger salute" appearance of the drawing and to clarify exactly what the witness saw. It would have taken just a few seconds to insert a footnote about it and would have deflected any serious questions about the integrity of the evidence. This should have been done, if for no other reason, than to avoid discussions just like the one taking place here now. There are too many intelligent sharp eyed people watching to think you can casually make changes like that and not be spotted.

It's not to late for an explanatory addendum to be added.

Sure, anything's possible. But, considering the length of time between the original posting of the picture and when the 'change' was made, I wouldn't count on that being the case.

Of course, it's always possible the investigator or someone else in the org. called the guy back and said "are you sure the drawing is correct because people are having a good laugh about it". The witness could have given them permission to make the change or done it himself and resubmitted it. A note indicating that on the site would have prevented the questions though.

Again, JMO.

Dang Ouachita, you beat me to the punch!

GMTA!

I can understand an organization subtly altering an eyewitness sketch to avoid unnecessary ridicule, this field of research receives enough hazing from the media alone. As long as the oranization has proof of written or verbal approval from the witness to alter a drawing (as long as this does not greatly affect the perception of the witness' account ) I see no damage to the credibility of the witness or organization....

Agreed,T. The only thing that should be taken out of a report is any witness contact info,or precise location .

The Sasquatch Censorship police strike again!

Maybe the BFRO us to think Bigfoot knows sign language that is the sign for C.
Just a thought.

ooooo....I'm glad they changed the drawing...I was getting pissed off by him flippin' me off!

Thanks for giving this a look, everone.

Nightwing, thank you for taking a whack at it. I appreciate the back-up.
Did you use the original images? If folks do this I hope they don't use the cropped or tinkered versions I posted, just so we can make sure it's not me who's done something screwy somehow.

DiGiTaLD, much thanks for the answer on the tech question.

Good catch - I'm not suprised the BFRO altered the drawing. What they should have done was delete the entire report from the datatbase, as its obvious the witness was pulling their leg by submitting that drawing in the first place.

The blog where I first came across the drawing is Boing Boing , and they're not in the habit of altering the info they post. Its a tech, writing, geek gadget and graphic design oriented blog, where the writer Corey Doctorow posts interesting links daily about geek culture, creative rights, photography and inspiring graphic design. Its all about highlighting the creative works of artists and designers - so I seriously doubt they would have altered the original drawing for a laugh.

Plus, the finger-waving drawing was on the BFRO site for weeks - so they most definately altered their version.

The BFRO is so busted. :rolleyes:

-Ray
(edited for creative spelling)

Like Jaylee said, and having worked with the investigator whose report that drawing belongs to I'm very doubtful Stan did the changes, or if he did he was told to do so either by the witness or someone else in the BFRO. I just don't think he would have altered that drawing on his own.

I haven't read the report in question though.

Indulge me. "HOW" do we know it's a fake report BECAUSE of the sketch?

That's a large assumption.

Yep, used the originals from the blog, and from the BFRO.
As to the idea of it being changed with the witnesses permission, of course that's a possibility. However..as has been said, if something previously posted on their site is subsequently changed, some sort of note to that effect should be posted.
Yeah..I'm gonna say it..SRI will not change things w/o a note(or likely, at all), and I suspect neither will the other organizations soon to come on line. Hopefully, we can all learn from the BFRO, both their mistakes, and their triumphs.

After reading the report, I have some unanswered questions. Since the investigator is a member here I'll ask those here. He can PM me or not according to what he's allowed to do.

1. What made you and Tom believe something was following you through the woods? Rustling brush? Footsteps? I'd like to see that more clearly defined in the report.

2. Why no tape recorder at a site of an investigation? There were three distinct vocals. Were any of them recorded? If so, are they being cleaned up, if not why?

3. What made the witness run through the woods after the smaller of the two animals, an animal at 400 pounds and 6 feet tall would have still been larger than the witness chasing it? Seems like a rather foolhardy thing to do, but then that brings to mind JimF tearing off through the Florida real estate after something, so maybe not. What did the witness hope to gain by chasing the animal?

4. Why the silhouette? Sunset on June 10, 2005 didn't occur until 8:27 p.m. with the end of civil twilight being at 9:01 p.m., however, they had the sighting at 6:30 p.m. which would indicate good light conditions. They said skies were clear. What time was the photo taken of the area of the sighting in relation to the time of the sighting?

You can answer these here in the thread, or shoot me a pm or just ignore me altogether. LOL These are the things I would have wanted to know if we were still working together.

The second image looks much more clear and crisp. I can almost see the second image in the first image, if that makes sense. I'm thinking it was a bad scan job on the first one. Either way, I can't say I find this to be a big deal one way or the other. I could care less if bigfoot is flipping me off or waving at me. As someone stated early on in this post...the ship has sailed when it comes to the credibility of the BFRO, so it wouldn't surprise me if it had been changed or even if the witness never drew it in the first place. Of course that's JMHO.

Because these things have a way of disappearing once questioned I'm going to copy and paste it here:

Just a note of clarification Sleeper, am not trying to be critical... but no matter what cute little motto BFRO has on the home page of their web site... the BFRO is NOT a "scientific organization", and I feel your sentence gives it some standing that it is not entitled to. I bring this up in case the casual viewer reads your sentence here and equates BFRO with "any" scientific organization. There are already too many people making that erroneous assumption.

Just because Tom Sawyer got a bunch of kids together to paint a fence for him, that did not make him a Fence Painting Company. Same with BFRO. This is not a slam, it is just fact - it is simply not a "scientific organization", heck, it is not even a state registered non-profit corporation, much less a 501c as a 'real' scientific organization would be. At least it wasn't as of two months ago when I left.

Case in point would be the report we turned into BFRO in August 2001. The Follow-up was a total fabrication. He (Moneymaker) interviewed only one of us, not all 3 like he wrote. "All 3 are highly credible and are experienced with common animal sounds" Well that's true, but how would he know without talking with all of us?


http://www.bfro.net/GDB/show_report.asp?id=3024

Follow-up investigation report:

I interviewed all 3 of the witnesses involved in this incident. All 3 are highly credible individuals, and are experienced with common animal sounds in this area.

Also, Stan, since you were there, did you take measurements using the the tree the animal was standing in front of to gauge the height of the animal while you had the witness there with you? The sun would be getting lower in the sky, but still up, where was the sun in relation to the animal?

More and more interesting by the day.

This is simply unacceptable. If he was willing to lie on this report investigation, then I would assume it on other investigations as well.

Yep K...I figure that one is not long for this earth, so I screenshot it for posterity

What is screen shot and where does one get that?

Just press the "Prnt Scrn" button on your keyboard (that copies what's on your screen to the clip board), then open Paint (or another graphics program) and press Paste (or Ctrl V) to paste the image.

Thanks! I just pasted it here instead. LOL

Stan: I misread your investigator comments, I see where it says there were "two" vocals like the Ohio howl instead of three. Sorry big guy. Even old ex-proofreaders can make boo boos. I know you're kicking yourself if you didn't have a recorder running at the time but better luck next time!

In the context of the whole post, that sentence probably won't do too much. (Especially considering that I buried everyone under so many sentences in that post that they probably didn't read any of them!)
I wanted to be objective and respectful with what I wrote.
I don't have any personal knowledge about the BFRO beyond the website, and I don't want to make statements about them beyond my knowledge. Not knowing otherwise, I would rather not represent them as something other than they claim to be.
Folks that do have personal knowledge, like yourself, can say what you know and what you think about it. If I were to repeat what I've heard, I feel I'd only be trafficking in hearsay. Hope you understand.


--As for preserving a page: print-screen, etc....
I have an pretty old version of Explorer, but when I'm viewing a webpage I can just click on "File" and then "Save As" and it will save the complete page for me, html and images.
And yes- I, too, saved that BFRO report page on my hard-drive.
I guess we're paranoid or something.....
My file properties will even verify that my saved copy of the page was created on my hard-drive on October 23rd. For whatever it's worth.

[quote=GuyInIndiana,Nov 2 2005, 03:21 PM]

[/QUOTE]
Indulge me. "HOW" do we know it's a fake report BECAUSE of the sketch?

That's a large assumption. [/quote]
I don't think so at all. If I had investigated a report that included a sketch like this from a witness, I'd toss in the bin right away, if only to avoid a mess like this happening down the line.

Do you mean to say that this drawing doesn't immediately flag this report as a fraud? Why waste any time and resources on a tainted report, when there are other reports to be investigated?

-Ray

The drawing in and of itself isn't the problem.Its the change made to it with no explanation that makes you wonder.

And the moral implications behind those changes- to add a note...

[quote=RavenBC,Nov 3 2005, 01:28 PM] [QUOTE=GuyInIndiana,Nov 2 2005, 03:21 PM]

[/QUOTE]
Indulge me. "HOW" do we know it's a fake report BECAUSE of the sketch?

That's a large assumption. [/QUOTE]
I don't think so at all. If I had investigated a report that included a sketch like this from a witness, I'd toss in the bin right away, if only to avoid a mess like this happening down the line.

Do you mean to say that this drawing doesn't immediately flag this report as a fraud? Why waste any time and resources on a tainted report, when there are other reports to be investigated?

-Ray [/quote]
Why? That makes no sense to me at all. I like to see witness drawings, but I don't think it adds nor detracts from the report. Again, like Jim said, it wasn't the drawing that is the problem, it's the change without documenting it.

This is the point of this entire thread. Thanks, Jim.

Any undocumented, unannontated changes to a report or other evidence, completely invalidates that report,
& points to other possible scenarios that would call the BFRO's credibility,
involving data gathering & dispersal of said data,
SERIOUSLY into question.

.....if that's what has been proven here....

then, 'Good Eye', Sleeper !!!

Now, it's "chicken or the egg" time !!!
That's what will prove it to me.

Final conclusions on this ?

Final conclusions... uhhh... The BFRO needs a spankin?

The picture if it was posted originally in the "flip off" format would tell me, as the exBFRO proofreader, that the investigator originally published the picture as is. I would bet my next paycheck that since it has been pointed out and laughed at here and other places on the internet :mm: or one of his :notworthy: at his request downloaded the photo from the net, changed it, and then reuploaded it back to the server and the investigator may not have even known it had been changed since once his report was published investigators move on to the next investigation. That would be my guess.

I tend to agree T. If it was changed(and it sure appears to be the case), I have no doubt that the changes came from "on high"

I may get him booted for saying this (I hope not) but the investigator involved was one of my favorites. He'd be the first tell tell you he doesn't know everything there is to know, and welcomed my suggestions and advice as the proofreader. He was open and I wish all of the investigators and curators had been that honest and easy to work with. He is a hard worker and investigates each report to the best of his ability. He would go back and ask the witness(es) more questions if that was needed for clarification. Kudos to the investigator involved. He's not part of the problem in my humble opinion.

No but this is defiantly part of the problem.

I'd cry if it weren't so funny.

http://www.bfro.net/GDB/show_report.asp?id=11519



My favorite part. Would that be the wet dog smell, the rancid smell, the rotting meat smell ,the swampy smell, the bf that smelled like garbage, the one that had no smell reported, the skunky odor,the musky odor or the something died odor ? Consistent smell my ass.. Heyyyyy. BF smells like my ass.. thats a new one.. Who knew he was lemony fresh.?

Stop using Pledge on your ass Jim.

:rotflmao:

Jimbo Fay. Now that's a good name for a bigfoot investigator. I'm jealous.
----

I don't think the original sketch should have been considered a problem. We've all seen witness sketches of pretty poor quality. Lord knows we can't all draw something that looks like anything.
Being so vague, I think the "flipping off" is in the mind of the beholder. I don't think the fact that it could be interpreted that way is grounds for dismissing it, especially if the witness and the sighting seemed credible after investigation and interviews.

----

The "chicken or the egg" question-
Yes, this is obviously the big question.
My tinkering led me to my conclusions, but I still hope others might try scrutinizing the original images to see if they see the same things and agree with me.

----

Meanwhile...
Question for former members:
Would the witness generally turn over the hard copy of their sketch to BFRO?