dimland radio 6-12-10 show notes

After more than 40 years, we still do not have any evidence any better than this famous film. Is it a real primate? Is it a man in a costume? The truth is that the film is too poor quality, it lacks any good detail, and, therefore, it is, at best, inconclusive. I would think that with most everyone having a video camera these days, we’d have some better video images of the creature, but we don’t. But! Absence of evidence does not necessarily mean evidence of absence.

I also talked about a book called ‘The Making of Bigfoot: The Inside Story” by Greg Long. I must be honest, I have not read the book, so I went from a review of it by Daniel Loxton of Skeptic magazine. The book covers Roger Patterson in depth. Painting the picture of a con man. Numerous people who had dealings with Patterson all seem to agree that Patterson would con anyone. He didn’t even pay for the camera and the film he used to capture the striking footage. In fact, he was arrested for that crime.

So, does the possible fact (Long’s witnesses could have been lying) that Patterson was a con man, the fact he was a bigfoot enthusiast prior to making the film, the claims of one fellow of making the costume (Phillip Morris) and another fellow of wearing it (Bob Heironimus) mean that the footage is fake? Nope. It could still been the genuine article, but it is such poor evidence that it really doesn’t tell us anything definite.

There is a Discovery Channel piece on the bigfoot legend and it looks at the Patterson film. It tests the idea that no human could walk the way the “creature” walks in the film. The testers found that it is indeed possible to walk that way. You can watch the clip here.

I also talked about the famous bigfoot hoaxer Ray Wallace. Yes, we do know that. His family came clean about him after he died. They even presented to the world the hand-carved footprint makers that he used to pull his pranks.

My main sources for this came mostly from a two part Junior Skeptic feature all about our friend, Sasquatch. Junior Skeptic parts 20 & 21 found in Skeptic volume 11, numbers 2 & 3, 2005.

They have a weekly contributor to the show. His name is Tim Brown and he has his own paranormal investigation group over there in the UK. Well, in Tim’s bit for last week’s show he mentioned me. I was part of his bit!

So, can I start called myself a world renown skeptic? It may be a bit premature.

Movie recommendation