Gawd!!!! Another debunking!!!!

Whose keeping "the list"? Please be sure to put this turkeys name on it...thanks....

David J. Daegling, Ass. Pro........... of Ant. U. of Florida

.......................................jon a. larsen.............................................................

BTW-- the release date will probably not be until November now... Dr. Daegling is one bright dude and a very strong writer... Will be a vast improvement over Long's offering in every way. Can't wait!

Conversations: Bigfoot Exposed!A scientist examines the evidence.  Volume 57 Number 4, July/August 2004

David Daegling of the University of Florida at Gainesville specializes in the jaw structure of early hominids, but he also happens to be familiar with that most elusive of North American creatures--Bigfoot. The author of Bigfoot Exposed (Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 2004) recently spoke with ARCHAEOLOGY about the likelihood that giant primates live in the northwestern United States.

How did you become interested in Bigfoot?
I grew up in northern California, and in the late 60s, early 70s, there was a lot of Bigfoot activity going on. The famous Roger Patterson film of Bigfoot was shot in 1967 for instance. If you were a kid in northern California, it was pretty hard not to notice this, and I loved monsters anyway. So I collected a lot of Bigfoot stories.

Eventually I went off to grad school and started studying early hominids. My dissertation involved CAT scanning a lot of South African hominid material, Australopithecus africanus and Paranthropus robustus. But every now and again during a late-night poker game or while doing fieldwork, I'd trot out some old Bigfoot stories for entertainment value.
  My colleagues knew that I knew these stories, so in 1992, when Grover Krantz, a physical anthropologist, published a book arguing that Bigfoot was a real animal, I was asked to review it. That started the ball rolling and got me back involved with Bigfoot.

What kind of evidence did you look at?
Bigfoot advocates were still complaining that scientists weren't looking at the Patterson film, with the exception of Krantz. So I looked at it to see if what people said about that film was true.

As a paleoanthropologist, how do you approach analyzing a film of Bigfoot?
You've probably seen the Patterson film. It's not a great piece of nature photography. But you can take the data at face value and see if you can rule out a person in a costume.
  Bigfoot advocates said that the thing on the film was too large to be a human: "If the thing is eight feet tall, and it's walking around effortlessly, it can't be a person." And the other thing people said was, "It walks funny. It's impossible for people to walk like that." These are extraordinary claims. Because if these are both true, then that film is quite a spectacular piece of evidence.
  First of all, I consulted what's called an anthropometric source book, which contains a ridiculous number of measurements on populations of human beings. Even if this thing on the film was as large as Krantz and others were claiming, it was not outside the range of human variation. But as it turns out, you can't measure reliably off of that film--there are too many unknown variables.
  Then I worked with a colleague who studies the evolution of bipedalism. Some fossils seem to indicate that early hominids were using this thing called a compliant gait--they walked with this bent-knee, bent-hip gait. In the Patterson film, Bigfoot uses a compliant gait. But people can do it. Do you ever watch Marx Brothers movies?

I've seen Duck Soup.
Okay. Groucho uses this compliant gait. And it turns out that when people adopt a compliant gait, some strange things happen--which are actually in evidence in the film. A compliant gait tends to increase your stride length. At the film site people were saying, "Well, the footprints left by this thing here are so far apart, this couldn't be a human." Two of us and a couple of volunteers using the compliant gait basically matched Bigfoot's stride. It's very easy to learn how to walk like this.

Bigfoot advocates like to point out that giant primates do exist in the paleontological record.
Grover Krantz went so far as to give Bigfoot the scientific name of Gigantopithecus. And there were giant apes like Gigantopithecus running around. We know we have had giant primates, because we have a fossil record. But the thing that's really damning about Bigfoot is the fossil record is in China. We've got thousands of Gigantopithecus teeth in Asia. We don't have one fossil of Gigantopithecus in North America.

Do you think the Bigfoot question will ever be resolved to everyone's satisfaction?
This mystery has a very, very simple solution. Someone in a truck is driving along late at night through the Cascade Mountains, and this figure walks in front of the truck, and bam! You've got a dead Bigfoot. If that happens once, the mystery is over.
  There's a ton of evidence for Bigfoot--a mountain of evidence. The problem is that none of that evidence is any good. And after all these years, you'd think one of these guys would have walked out of the woods by now, or a hunter would have shot one. Just one.

© 2004 by the Archaeological Institute of America
www.archaeology.org/0407/etc/conversations.html

Sssssssooooooooo one can fake Bigfoot tracks by walking like Groucho Marx?

...when people adopt a compliant gait, some strange things happen--which are actually in evidence in the film. A compliant gait tends to increase your stride length. At the film site people were saying, "Well, the footprints left by this thing here are so far apart, this couldn't be a human." Two of us and a couple of volunteers using the compliant gait basically matched Bigfoot's stride. It's very easy to learn how to walk like this.

Just as measurement of film parameters and qualitative assessment of kinematics cannot demonstrate that the film subject is nonhuman, there are probably no means by which to demonstrate conclusively that the film subject represents a human agent either. Based on our analysis of gait and problems inherent in estimating subject dimensions, it is our opinion that it is not possible to evaluate the identity of the film subject with any confidence.

Seems to me Dr. David J. Daegling was talking about duplicating the walk.The length of stride maybe explained but what about the depth of the tracks?

That's why I was confused about what he was implying. One can get the gait, but how does one go about getting the depth required to fake a (convincing) track? Maybe he thinks if one carries two NFL offensive linemen on one's back, it could be done.

The thing that gets me when I read Daegling's work is that it is a lot of speculation.

The Bossburg tracks, for instance, anyone can say they're fake, but where's the science to prove they could have been faked? Not only is there casts, and from what he says only two have survived, but photos exist of the trail, and it's a long one. Yes Marx was a hoaxer, but what about the rest of the people involved? The Bossburg incident is without a doubt an epic occurence. Sasquatch researchers in a frantic chase, divisions arising between them and the successive competition, money pouring in, hoaxers bringing in more confusion, snowmobiles, planes, media, it's enough to make a movie about. But sticking to the tracks, they went on for a long ways, over a 5 foot tall fence , up a hill, down a hill,after 200 feet they went down a river embankment (using the feet to skid down), across a river. Sure we could speculate somebody found a picture of a club foot, formed feet like it, and did this, but it proves nothing. It'd be an easier thought that whover did this used a knotted piece of wood and had trouble carving it for the clubfoot, but once again all speculation. The only way to see if it could be done is a reenactment. I'm sure there is plenty of information to trace the route the alleged hoaxer took, there are people from the incident still living. Strap on those big fake feet, club and all, and go for the ride. Let's see if the results come out the same.

The Patterson film is the same. Daegling and Schmitt believe that nothing conclusive can be gained from the film, and yes for the past tests and the plane of the camera lense and a real world reenactment this would be very difficult, if not impossible. They also claim from the shakiness and blur of the film we can't get accurate measurements. Recent tech can and has surmounted these problems, though, and are being put to the test again. Have they explored these avenues? I don't see it. Have the sasquatch researchers? Yes.

Without putting the skeptical analysis to the test, it is only speculation. Sure if the test proved it could've been done by a human, it doesn't mean it was, but it does carry a lot more weight.

Got surprised this morning.....found my much edited letter in response to David Daegling's "Bigfoot Exposed" in the new issue of ARCHAELOGY............


Bigfoot Believer

In "Bigfoot Exposed!" (July/August) David Daegling admits there's " a mountain of evidence " for the existance of Bigfoot, yet gives no credence to any of it. By his logic, if a bank robbery were filmed by the bank's security cameras and witnessed by bank customers, the thief still wouldn't exist unless he was hit by a car or shot by the police!

I've seen these animals and their tracks during 33 years of field research and had personal interviews with roughly 200 individuals who have also seen Bigfoots or their tracks. What is David Daegling going to do with his book when a Bigfoot is shot by a hunter or walks in front of a truck?


Jon Larsen

Patagonia, Arizona

The thing that gets me when I read Daegling's work is that it is a lot of speculation.

I have become slightly frustrated with the lack of facts and discipline within BF "research". All of the speculation and guessowrk is starting to drive me batty.