The Fantastic League of Extraordinary Amateur Scientists!: Bigfoot: The Critical Evidence Revealed

Science is not about knowing facts. Science is a process that allows people to incrementally better understand the world by asking critical questions and then testing those hypotheses. The end result is that science is flexible, and scientists should be willing to change their minds on a subject if evidence is found that is contrary to their beliefs.

Occasionally, I will consider topics like Alien UFOs or Bigfoot and bounce the idea off the scientific wall to see what happens. Almost always, the result is that there is no real evidence and that the people involved are looking for attention or money. But recently I saw a video that made the Bigfoot argument almost nearly stick, and it definately challenged my skeptical viewpoint.

The social, subjective aspect to how open minded people are about science can usually be determined by asking the following question, "What evidence would it take to convince you of the phenomenon?". This question is valid for every flavor of science from mineral physics to pseudo science like cryptozoology. For me, incontrovertible evidence of Bigfoot would be physical evidence, specifically a body, or secondary evidence like video and a credible witness followed up with professionally documented footprints or hair. If the case of the Patterson video from the '60s had also included some hair or tissue that was consistent with primate hair, that would be suitable evidence for me.

The Patterson Bigfoot Sighting Film

This video was The History Channel's Monster Quest, Season 3, episode "Critical Evidence". In this show, they reviewed the most compelling Bigfoot evidence. This included an analysis of the Patterson Video, a more recent video from 1996, some footprint casts, and some GIS work looking at sighting distributions. Interestingly, a big part of the work is done by a Hollywood monster creater. It is available on Netflix, but there is also a decent summary here on Cryptomundo.

In MLA format, thanks History Channel! “Critical Evidence.” 2010. The History Channel website. Nov 20 2010, 4:12 http://www.history.com/shows/monsterquest/episodes/season-3.

There are a couple of items that you can dismiss right off the top. The GIS work showed a map of sightings and compared it to the rainfall distribution. Lo and behold there was a correlation, but the real correlation was that Bigfoot sightings occur in forested areas which are supported by higher rainfall. Instead of being able to use the results to improve the odds of finding Bigfoot, they are adding an unnecessary layer of intermediation. Take this rule of thumb instead, Bigfoots live in forests.

The Special Effects guy, Bill Munns (http://www.billmunnscreaturegallery.com/) was making an arguments about how the Bigfoot could not possibly be a person in a suit because the proportions were incorrect for a person that was 7.5 ft tall, but he goes on to argue that someone that size must be too large to fit inside a mask that size. But he did not talk about the possibility of a smaller person in a larger suit.

Finally, Dr. Jeff Meldrum, Professor at ISU's Department of Anthropology (http://www.isu.edu/~meldd/) here in Idaho who seems like an interesting guy I'd like to meet someday, had a discussion about a couple of footprint casts and how they have a feature that is not commonly known about and so it could not be faked. My argument for that is that he is, unfortunately, cherry picking footprints that have features that support their arguments. Of the hundreds of faked or mis-interpreted footprints out there they found two sets that have an arch that is consistent with an apelike footprint. Is that a surprise?

But there were a number of interesting points they made that I thought had credibility.

If a special effects guy says that it would be very difficult to have made a suit that was able to move like the Bigfoot in the Patterson video, I am inclined to believe him. He argued that the materials required to make such a suit were not available when the film was made and that an expensive tailored suit would be the only explanation. It seems unlikely to me that hoaxers would go through that much effort to make an expensive suit and take it to a very remote location just to make a film.

I appreciated that Munns had a nontrivial 3d computer and camera expertise. The snitches of computer screen they showed in the background had him running some very sophisiticated software to analyze the Patterson video. It was impressive that one of his conclusions was that the lens that has been reported was wrong and the 3d modeling analysis converged on a wider angle lens that was also available at the time. I have run across this same kind of conclusion in a much simpler scenario while stitching panoramas - the quality of the result improves with a better approximation of lens focal length. That distinction is important and casts doubt on all the modeling work that preceeded it.

The final thought is that they were actually following a scientific approach to investigating Bigfoot. Other Monster Quest shows and similar documentaries make a sham of science. This episode had some quality to it.

I hope they revisit the methods of this show and apply it to others in the future. I also hope they complete the work they started, and schedule their LIDAR scan of the grove where the Patterson film was taken at a time of the year that was a bit more favorable. It would be tremendously interesting to find out if the LIDAR measurements would support the conclusions of this episode. This episode was not the definitive proof that Cryptomundo is touting, nor was it complete - much work remains to come to a scientific conclusion that would meet my criteria for accepting the evidence. However, it was very interesting and remains the most compelling set of Bigfoot arguments I have seen to date.

In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time someting like that happened in politics or religion.