To start ,the prints that follow are fake. I even marked them in a way that I can determine in the event they should shouw up anywhere else.
The basic parts of this experiment , are kinda three fold.. how long and how much time and effort would it take a hoaxer to make a fake track that may convince someone from photos only as I seen in some reports. the second part I got from following tubes thread on BFF and talking to him a few times about the results. how detailed or how much lack of detail could be seen by refining a rigid type of foot as opposed to his flexible kind . The third part is pretty much as paul said, maybe it will make it easier to spot a fake if you test it yourself and know what to look for.

There are a few more idea I have that will go along with them eventually after discussing them , but those were the basic ideas I started with. now I'm kinda curious to see what can or can't be done with them in regards to some other things I noticed almost by accident. more on that though later. I'd have to run more tests before anything could even be guessed at.
In the first set of photos were just attempts at placing a single track into the soil by stepping on it, track one is in sand and track two in a mud/clay base.

After talking to Tube,Fishbone,relicthief and a some other members of SRI ,I took some of thier advice and tried to apply it to the first track and also the second one I made to match it. The difference between the two tracks are on purpose, to try and make them not look fabricated. I also made a 'trackway" of six tracks by leaping forward at an average stride of 53 inches . or as close to it as I could get to that measurement . the following six pictures are of each individual track as it appeared. The three pics after that are the best I could so with the limited space and my camera ( which kinda sucks for this type of thing) to show the trackway in its entirety. The final pic is what the tracks look like as a semi-finished product.

There are a few other ideas to go along with this that I'm working on after Tim's statistical analysis thread, but it will take me a lot more work and time to put it together.

Ideas? Thoughts? Comments?

Those tracks appear so fake they might summon forth the wrath of the Bitter Monk of old. Perhaps more effort in the shaping of the wooden feet would yield a more convincing result?

I agree, that in this context, they look fake. Really fake. However, out in the woods, would the average person spot them as so? Would the average bigfoot enthusiast spot them? I dunno. I'd like to think that what you've done would not fool anyone, but some folks really want to find footprints and might suspend disbelief a little.

I have a theory that there's two kinds of bigfooter out there. One wants to find out if this thing is real and will go to any lengths to do so, including proving that their suspected encounter is actually not one. Others are in love with the idea that it's real and will stop just short of proving or disproving what they think they're seeing just to keep the mythology alive. In fact, I think that a lot of folks like this do it subconsciously.

Anyway, I digress. Nice experiment, Jim. I look forward to see just how real you can make a print look. There's real value in learning how to be a good hoaxer.

Yeah I know ,BM. Right now the entire amount of time of the effort put into the is about 2 1/2 hours. hardly anything at all ,really. They need alot of work to make them convincing in any way to someone in the know, or having read most of the info about tracks. Feel free to tear into 'em basically, I wanna know what could be done to imrpove them more. Thanks , bip. I'd like to think at this point they wouldn't fool anyone , but I actually have seen worse called a bigfoot track.

[quote name='jimf' date='Jun 23 2006, 02:33 PM' post='323334'...I actually have seen worse called a bigfoot track. [/quote]
Yeah, me too.

Real or fake? What criteria would you use to make this determination?

If I didn't tell you that this was in my front yard what would you think?

Well. If I had come across this track Tube - my first question would be, If the ground is soft enough to create such depth in the toes - where is the rest of the foot?

But I would say - the toes appear to be nicely rounded and its an overall good form for the toes. If I were in the woods and saw that - I might cast it, for futher analysis - but I wouldnt get my hopes up about it.. LMAO.

I would need to know more about the area in which they were found, whether or not more were found, what the history of the area is regarding encounters, and get a better sense of the character of the person finding them. In short, I would need to apply the very same critera detailed by Alton Higgins in his BIP article "Evaluating Purported Sasquatch Photographic Evidence".

A picture is just a picture, not an 8 foot tall primate.

my cents, Jimf, you gotta do something about the straight lines. ten mins with the electric sander should do the trick. Plus maybe shaping the toes a bit more with the dremel tool.

tube, if I saw even the toe prints only, in the woods and they were twice the width of my own foot. Yeah I would stop and investigate the area, if the print was the size of mine or just slightly bigger I probably wouldnt think to much about it. But if it were in a less traveled area, I like Melissa would probably go ahead and cast it.

dav

Clearly context is important. But so is the forgiving nature of the coarse topsoil substrate. A coarse substrate can mask imperfections in a prosthetic foot that finer substrates can reveal. This is a photograph of the mate of the prosthetic that made the track in my front yard, but made in very fine fly ash. Note how the big and little toes are weirdly angled, and how the toes are spaced too far apart.

Were I to fabricate yet another fake foot, I would learn from my mistakes, as surely Bigfoot hoaxers have...

I'm not much of a woodworker or sculptor. You can see this in my efforts at creating a set of Wallace style fake feet. With all due respect to Mr. Flowers, I'm not sure he is either. But it cannot be denied that Ray Wallace had woodworking and sculptural skills that exceed those of mine and Mr. Flowers.

I think there are Bigfooters who write off Wallace as a crackpot and by subtle implication suggest that he was incapable of fabricating effective illusions. Whether Wallace did or did not fabricate trackways will I'm sure always be a matter of debate for some Bigfooters. But it should be obvious to anyone with an open mind that Wallace's efforts, unlike mine and Mr. Flowers, show a great deal of technical and artistic skill.

Bigfooters underestimate people like Wallace at their own peril...

Wish I had one man. Most of the work I've done for the last few years involved granite and other stones. For the ones I made it was a handsaw,a grinder and a dremel. May be able to do that with the grinder. I'll give it a try.

Basically what Matt just said, I'm not a wood worker.

I don't believe a track, regardless the circumstances, will ever be accepted as authentic. I believe that today, there is nothing that cannot be hoaxed. Because of this, any photograph or track will be denounced by the usual people and accepted by the usual people. I would be great however, if you were to make your wooden feet and go place some really interesting prints in a really interesting location and then actually make an authentic discovery you would never get anyone to believe. What would be truly hilarious, would be for you to actually have an unexplained encounter while you were making bigfoot tracks! Once can only hope.

Dan C

I agree. Sadly. :sad:

I would think "fake", much as I did with Jim's. Several of the images shown show an impression that was obviously left by a non-natural edge, i.e. the edge of a piece of wood. When a foot impacts the ground both surfaces deform, and the resulting track should show evidence of this. To illustrate that point I made the following image. While the bear print has clearly defined borders the difference between it and the unnatural prints becomes obvious.

So, by that criterion is this track fake, due to the sharpness of the lateral edge?

I'm not saying that a natural track can't display sharpness. What I'm saying is a natural track won't display regular sharpness across the entirity of the track wherever a defined impression is evident.

So I'll put you on the spot, here Mr. Monk. Does this track "display regular sharpness across the entirity of the track"? It looks like it does to me.

I don't see that as being on the spot at all. :wink:

Given the nature of the ground that print was made in I would expect to see a very clear track, whether by bear, moose, or wooden foot. The ground beneath the surface soil appears to be harder. If a real foot made that track I would expect to see some expansion into the sides of the print, especially in the forepart of the foot as it pushed off the ground. Unfortunately that detail is lacking in this image. :popcorn2:

I was thinking about what Bip said, and decided to go looking for some of the tracks and trackways that have been passed off as what I consider weak evidence to support the whole, for lack of a better description of them. The first two are these , from BFRO reports 9898 and 11837. Now I'm wondering how many of these are reported as bigfoot tracks? Some of the ones I've been searching through are decades old. And a vague description at best. :

The one on the left is difficult to judge since there's no scale. It does share superficial characteristics of a sasquatch trackway: straight line, long steps. Without more detail or info, I'd say it's interesting but inconclusive. If I saw that in the snow on the side of the road, it would pique my interest, though. Hopefully, I'd have a tape measure with me.

The one on the right is just one image of an impression in the ground. One dent, absent toe imprints or something else interesting, is just a dent. It is vaguely bigfoot-shaped, but as just one picture of just one dent in the ground, it's inconclusive. Like the one above, if there's more info or more images, maybe it's something. But as it is, I'd say it's nothing much.

Interesting thread. I look forward to further research/results.

RayG

I noticed that too, the straight line part of it, I was looking also for a pic of the blue creek mountain tracks that dahinden looked at, but can't find one online. They also show a straight line. the thing is as I leap forward, my own tracks also take on more of a staright line form, as opposed to just walking like normal.

I think what Matt noted previously about some of the subtrate may be a huge factor also. The moisture of the soil at the time of the track being one of them. The same six tracks 48 hours later look to me anyway, to have more rounded edges as the soil dries and collapses in on itself , i'll let you judge for yourself though. :

Fake! Monolithic Margin!

http://www.bigfootforums.com/index.php?s=&...ndpost&p=306132

If I found that in the woods, I'd be looking for more sign.

However, you told us that was in your front yard.............

[quote name='jimf' date='Jun 25 2006, 12:36 AM' post='323720']
I was thinking about what Bip said, and decided to go looking for some of the tracks and trackways that have been passed off as what I consider weak evidence to support the whole, for lack of a better description of them. The first two are these , from BFRO reports 9898 and 11837. Now I'm wondering how many of these are reported as bigfoot tracks? Some of the ones I've been searching through are decades old.


Exactly. We've got this popular notion that thousands of sasquatch prints have been found, measured, photographed, etc., but how many are really all that compelling? (I know, I know - if just one of those prints was left by a real bigfoot . . . ) Take away all the known/obvious hoaxes and misidentified bear prints, and what do we have left? Is it several dozen? Less than ten?

(And I submit we should count them as "occurrences", i.e., one track with hundreds of prints should not count as hundreds of prints.)


"If I found that in the woods, I'd be looking for more sign."

Me too, Hunster!

[quote name='Saskeptic' date='Jun 26 2006, 11:56 AM' post='323972']
[quote name='jimf' date='Jun 25 2006, 12:36 AM' post='323720']
I was thinking about what Bip said, and decided to go looking for some of the tracks and trackways that have been passed off as what I consider weak evidence to support the whole, for lack of a better description of them. The first two are these , from BFRO reports 9898 and 11837. Now I'm wondering how many of these are reported as bigfoot tracks? Some of the ones I've been searching through are decades old.


Exactly. We've got this popular notion that thousands of sasquatch prints have been found, measured, photographed, etc., but how many are really all that compelling? (I know, I know - if just one of those prints was left by a real bigfoot . . . ) Take away all the known/obvious hoaxes and misidentified bear prints, and what do we have left? Is it several dozen? Less than ten?

(And I submit we should count them as "occurrences", i.e., one track with hundreds of prints should not count as hundreds of prints.)


"If I found that in the woods, I'd be looking for more sign."

Me too, Hunster!
[/quote]


However, one trackline with hundreds of prints should be considered for the potential difficulty it would present the hoaxer. Particularly, if it involves an improbably exaggerated stride over the course of great distances, over obstacles and such. Just like the crop circles, hoaxers are monumentally inventive, but everything has to be taken in totality.

Dan C

Agreed. I wouldn't want to lose the ability to distinguish between individual prints and lengthy tracks.

Those are key words. That is a concept that helps validate the PG film.

The complete event.

Ironically, I also feel it helps validate the Bossburg event, even with the Marx shenanigans at the end.

Several prints in the trackway I found were what convinced me, not to mention where we found them. They were in various soils, and a few were in mud (which offered great "clarity").

A single print?

I found such brown bear sign this spring. A single front and single rear print (right feet, both) in a muddy trail this spring. A BIG bear.

He didn't walk down the trail out of the vegetation. He crossed it. He left little sign of his passing.

Smart critter.................

Damn! I knew there was something else I wanted to put into that SRI article concerning possible hoaxed tracks. The Monolithic Margin thing would have been great. :doh:

Yes, and the more times you use the term "monolithic margin" on the Internet the more Google hits it will return. Today we are only at 14, and this is far behind Roger Knight's neologism "scoftic" at 186 and the frontrunning favorite "blobsquatch' at 2,190. :new_lmaosmiley: :new_lmaosmiley: :new_lmaosmiley:

It's important to have one's priorities straight.

How many such trackways exist ( hundreds of prints ) ?

Their scarceness would lean toward hoax.. The difficulty of a hoaxer making them, would preclude
their frequent occurence.

If the Big guy were making them, they would present no problem at all, and we should see a lot more..

How many bear print trackways ( hundreds of prints ) have you seen?

Divide that by 250...............



That's if you lean toward denial.

If you lean toward belief, their scarceness would lean toward the scarceness of the creatures themselves.



The difficulty of a hoaxer making them would also lend credibility to the few such trackways found.



Depends on how many Big Guys there are out there walking around, and where they're walking around.

Another reality is the strata. The Bossburg trackway melted with the snow. If a sasquatch walked along a nice, sandy beach in Southcentral Alaska, the evidence washes away with the next tide, some 12 hours later (at the most).

Sorry hunster, your reply doesn't address my response to the
claim that a trackway with hundreds of prints, tends to preclude a hoax..


Try again..

Or,not..

That's for sure. The weather is a huge factor in the way a track looks, I was gonna post this , this morning anyway. So here goes.

After a light sprinkling at Mikes suggestion. I ended up with these of the two photos of the most deeply impressed tracks. The first two. After heavy T-storms and lot of rain last night , pic three shows what is left of only the deepest track, the others were washed out or indiscernable. The following pics are of the new trackway I laid down this morning in place of the washed out ones. My own foot is next to each at the top. same priniciple as before with an average step of 40 inches, minus the leaping, just swinging my leg forward in both cases. * are of the double set of prints, the last two are of the entire trackway.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone . I have an idea of how to rework them, and I'll gauge the ones down now over the next few days while I rework the feet. Keep in mind as far as actually making these things, I'm a novice.

It doesn't address your response to the claim that a trackway with hundreds of prints, tends to preclude a hoax in your opinion.

It does in my opinion.

I like my opinion better.



Not.

I'm satisfied, thanks.

:laugh:

monolithic margin

....15

Retooled some using the dremel to scoop out the toe and ball areas deeper and tried to round all the edges as best I could. Pic 1 through 8 are of the individual tracks. Pic 9 shows my own foot depth next to one of the tracks. Average stride is about 39 inches. Pic 10 and 11 show part of the overall trackway. For pic 9 my own foot is just my 180 lbs. For the overall tracks I carried my son 'piggy-back" style for an over-all weight of 260 lbs. Hopefully I eliminated at least some of the " monolithic margin" (16 :laugh: ) that was seen on the other pics.

Wow, quite the improvement. Can we see the wooden foot that made these?

I think depth will continue to be a problem. You may have mentioned it, but are you strapping these on or are you placing them on the ground and stomping on them? I would think stomping will make the depth better but make the print itself less realistic.

Sure. Keep in mind I don't have alot of woodwoking skill and limited tools to do so, and only spent about an extra hour hollowing them out and rounding them a bit to bring the total time up to just over over 3 hours. View of the bottom and from each side. I'm wondering how much of a factor depth is. I don't have the math skills but I'm wondering if there is some sort of pounds per square inch ratio to account for a larger area not impressing as deep as a smaller area at less weight. I really wish my camera were better. There is a lot of detail not picked up by it, that you can see better if you examine the "tracks" up close. In which case I probably owe some people some apologies who took print photos a that had details lacking that we were basically taught were earmarks of a fake print.

Kinda off topic too ,and Tim tried to explain it to me awhile back efore started this project, but the realization kinda kicked in yesterday. If I do find a real track someday, I better have a body to go along with it, or something else thats fairly compelling. Otherwise, given what I'm doing, there's always going to be doubt as to it being real, or if I finally "succeded " in making a foot that fit the bill for what we consider real.

Thanks for the extra pics. What do your neighbors think of all this? Can they see you stomping around in your bigfoot slippers?

Anyway, from what I understand, you need a lot more weight to make the same depth impression over a larger area then you do over the smaller. That's pretty much the same principle governing snow shoes. There probably is a whiz kid out there who knows the formula, but I'd say...roughly speaking now..."a hell of a lot more" should cover you.

All this depth stuff gets to one of the ways I'd judge a set of prints. If it's larger than a human print, as your fake is, then it better be deeper than a human print right next to it or someone's got some 'splainin to do.

I get odd looks, I think they're kinda used to it though. Yeah they can see me most of the time. :laugh:
We'll try it this weekend by doubling my weight if I can and walking across a field for a greater distance. It may even be possible to go as high as 550-600 lbs to see what happens. We'll cast too, to see if there's any variation between whats suspected as a fake case and what's supposedly real. if anyone's got any suggestions for improvements or a larger variety of let me know before friday and I'll see what we can do.

Jimf, you could always drive over you're foot (wooden LOL) with a vehicle to simulate weight. The rolling action would probably simulate weight transfer from heel to toe as well.

Only problem then though is the tire marks. trying to make the tracks look as natural as possible.

Also, I've actually had my foot driven over and it's not as much weight as you'd think. I don't know if it's due to the car's suspension or what, but I thought I'd end up with a broken foot and all it turned out to be was some pressure. Not sure if that'd be enough.

A mid-foot pressure ridge and an hourglass shape; how did I do that? :laugh:

Look at how deep the creature's foot is compared to the human footprint beside it! By my scientific calculations, the creature must weigh at least 1957 pounds, and be as dense as depleted uranium! Look at that mid-tarsal break! No way could it be fake! :new_lmaosmiley: :laugh:

OK, now make a bunch while wearing a suit like the one seen in the PG film. Also, be sure they show flexible toes and don't all look the same ('cause that'd be a dead give away).

Have a nice time!

Tube, in your post #47, what did you use to make that track? Just curious

That would be these guys, made out of some sort of stiff plastic foam. Polyethylene would be my guess. The hyperbole of my previous post aside, I do not claim to have duplicated the exact features of the Patterson - Gimlin trackway. For one thing, the pressure ridges is not as sharp and defined as the one in the famous "Laverty" photo, and the toes are not impressed. Nevertheless, I was surprised that the hourglass feature and the mid-foot pressure ridge could occur AT ALL in fake tracks. Frankly I think Bipto's question is a perfectly valid one; what do tracks left by a costume foot look like?

My point here is that something dead simple like flexible fake feet could create these "genuine" Sasquatch track features in the first place. I believe that Bigfootery has traditionally overlooked and neglecting to investigate how fake trackways could be created.

The world is full of people that are much more clever than me...