Visit my Home page

Real, Or Not?

Sasquatch or Bigfoot

Creature Suit analysis (Bill Munns, links)

Most everyone loves a mystery, and I'm no exception. Living in the PNW the legend of Bigfoot is well known to me. I've heard most of the stories dating back to the 50's and on. The legend was all but forgotten until a local newspaper story about a psychologist's sighting near Oregon Caves in Jul., 2000, piqued my interest again.

I started watching and recording, all the "documentaries" I could find on TV concerning sasquatch (or bigfoot). I purchased the DVD "Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science" and the book: "North America's Great Ape : the Sasquatch", by Bindernagel. I also seek out internet websites with any information on the subject. I've listened to skeptics and believers with an open mind and slowly began to be a believer myself. I'm still not thoroughly convinced, but I'm getting there.

I've weighed the evidence, as presented to me in various media (I've never seen any evidence first hand ), and I'm nearly convinced even though common sense is fighting me. The fact that other legends or, thought to be extinct, animals have recently been discovered as with the mountain gorilla, coelacanth, giant squid and a recent finding of a cat like creature, caught on film in Borneo, among others, gives me the knowledge that we don't know all there is to know about this old earth and its inhabitants. I'll keep viewing evidence of strange things with an open mind. Someday the truth will be known.

In my quest for truth, I've examined several photo's with my self-trained eye and using Photoshop Elements to enlarge, lighten, sharpen, etc., I've been able to bring out details not seen in the original as downloaded. I never change details or otherwise doctor photos other than lighting, contrast, color saturation or sharpness. Everything you see here is in the original as downloaded. Anyone with similar software can duplicate my results or, maybe, even improve on them. I also use CAD (TurboCAD Pro, v.12) software to measure photo images either relative or actual dimensions.

Of those photos and videos that I have examined thus far, there are only two sightings, with photographic evidence, that I find convincing. The first being the Patterson/Gimlin film and the second is a series of three photos taken on Silver Star Mountain in Nov. 2005. These two COULD be fakes, but I am convinced they are the real thing for many reasons, some of which are shown here. All the others, so far, have been obvious fakes or inconclusive in my view. Obviously, I have not seen all there is to see and will keep looking for new material.

One of these photos was taken from the BFRO website and shows a figure on Silver Star Mountain in SW Washington on Nov.17, 2005, and the other a single frame from a DVD showing the Patterson/Gimlin 16 mm movie footage of 1967 in Northern California. I cropped both, increased resolution to 1000 dpi and resized. I also lightened the mountaintop photo to enhance highlights. No details were changed. The two photos were taken 38 years and several hundred miles apart.

To my eye, the profile, crest, eyebrow, muzzle, shoulder, arm, light/dark areas, and demeanor, etc. is an uncanny match. If the Patterson subject is a man in a monkey suit, as some skeptics claim, then the Silver Star Mountain subject must be a man in the same monkey suit....and what is a man in a monkey suit doing on a snow covered mountaintop in November anyway? Not exactly the best place or time to perpetrate a hoax. Included are two gorilla photo's for comparison. The gorillas have a longer muzzle than the figures above, but other features of the head, neck in the figures above, are obviously ape-like. Note also that the chin is well below the shoulders in both examples. Not as low as Gorilla, but lower than human.

Below, I loaded the comparison photo's into TurboCAD and drew a line grid through the crest, estimated eye center and chin of each. The angle is my estimated direction the subject is looking. I then drew a bezier curve through the resulting three points....crest, eye, chin. The relationship of crest, eye and chin seem to be nearly identical. Would two different hoaxed photos 38 years and several hundred miles apart be nearly identical? If I were to draw a similar grid and bezier curve on a gorillas face the bezier curve would be almost (but probably not quite) a straight line and on a human face, a much sharper curve would result due to the flat face profile on humans. As you can see the eye is almost centered between top of head and chin in both the bigfoot photos and the gorilla photos. In fact, the human relationship between top of head , eye, and chin, is similar. Our eyes are nearly centered between the top of our head and our chin. The bigfoot bezier curve (in profile) is somewhere between human and gorilla in these photos.

Permission was granted to use the Silver Star Mountain photo by the photographer via BFRO investigator, John Callender. John Callender also sent all three photo's to me via email in full size with the photographers permission. Other photos were downloaded from the internet and believed to be in the public domain. Should I learn otherwise, permission will be obtained or the photo in question will be removed.

Below, compare the Silver Back Gorilla's backside (1) to the back of the subject in the Patterson/Gimlin film (2). Again, an uncanny resemblance. The pattern of lights and darks is very similar, as are proportions and shapes. Then compare the Gorilla, and Patterson frame to an obvious fake man-in-suit (3). The suit (3) has few highlights, no muscle groups, a wrinkle down the left back, no butt crack or spine hollow. The "skin" of the fake is loose, showing no detail. Forgive the un-scientific description. I'm, obviously, not a scientist.

Top

More on Silver Star Mountain photos

More facts on the three (my blow-up of only one is shown on this page) Silver Star Mountain photos. I checked the photo properties buried in the photo files and found that all three photos were taken within a space 40 seconds ( 17 seconds between 1 & 2 and 23 seconds between 2 & 3). This information is recorded by the camera and, in my opinion, would be extremely hard (maybe impossible) to fake or tamper with. This timeline, I believe, is completely compatible with the photographers story as related on BFRO.

4/28/06

The shadows in this cropped section of Silver Star Mountain photo 1 put the sun off to the right at an angle that indicates late afternoon and that the photos were taken looking in a Southerly direction. I guess it could be the reverse of this (early morning and looking Northerly) but the photographer said he was facing South and it was late afternoon. I can't determine exact time or direction, but indications, again, fit the photographers story. There is a discrepancy between the time recorded by the camera and the time of day reported by the photographer. Sunset on that day in Camas, WA was at 4:44 PM. On the mountaintop, it was somewhat later, maybe 5:00 PM. The angle of the sun (photo below) would indicate to me that the time recorded by the camera was probably close to correct.

I checked weather records for November 17, 2005 at Vancouver, WA (the closest) and it was heavy fog (chart). Heavy fog in the valley almost ALWAYS means sun above the fog and that checks with the photo's and photographers story.

Can you stand on the top of Silver Star Mountain and, looking South, see a ridge? Yes! Looking at the topo map below, the trail (dotted line) goes directly to the top of the mountain. Looking directly South from the top of SSM there is a ridge called Star 2. According to the photographers description, he was at the top of the mountain (red arrow), looking South and the subject was on the ridge (purple arrow). This description fits perfectly with the photos, shadows and sun direction (time of day) and the photographers story. Distance is around 300 to 400 feet, depending on exactly where each are standing.

Based on tests I made using my own camera to determine approximate distance, zoomed in to 3X and sized to 1280x965 (size of SSM photo's) A large man is approx. the same size as the subject in the SSM photos at about 300' (100 yds). Of course, I don't know the size of the subject, so this is just an estimate. This estimate is within the range measured on the topo map between SSM and Star 2.

Because I have not had contact with the SSM photographer, I can't personally attest to his credibility. In this regard, I must defer to the judgment of one who has.

John Callender, the BFRO investigator who interviewed, and continues contact with, the man who took the Silver Star Mountain photos, sends me this statement in an email.

I quote with his permission.

"Jack,

I'm in complete agreement with you and what you've done. I'm 100% certain
of the witness's credibility and unless he took a photo that we're all
mistaking for something else, I think he did manage to successfully
photograph a Sasquatch.

John"

I've read some of the several forum posts on the SSM encounter and many seem to think this is a hoax simply because these photos were taken on a mountain top and there wouldn't be food or shelter there.

Facts about SSM and Star 2. SSM is *4344' elevation. Well below the timberline. Star 2 is *4321' Elevation. From the trailhead to top of SSM is 4 miles with a climb of 2700' over those four miles. With an average speed of 2 mph a person should make it in two hours... or, at least three with rest stops along the way. On this topo map, I have roughly marked the trail in dotted red. SSMTH=SSM trailhead

I have hunted North Waldo Lake area at 5500' and it is still heavily timbered (although burned in a recent fire). I can say with confidence that the forest is only yards away from where these photos were taken.

*Elevations taken from a computerized topo map.

Still others think it looks like a person in several layers of clothing. Below are blow-ups of the figure in the second photo in the series. Judge for yourself. Is this a person in several layers of clothing? Or do you see breasts and a washboard stomach. This looks more like a nude female on steroids to me.