Published on Jan 20, 2015
Bigfoot Sightings - Documentary
Nat Geo's amazing documentary about Bigfoot featuring Dr. Jeff Meldrum. In our opinion, one of best, if not the best documentary on Sasquatch.
The show begins by telling us a story about a man named Patterson who took film footage of a Bigfoot in Northern California in the late '60s. Of course, debunkers immediately said it was a hoax -- just a guy in a suit. The show pretty well put the hoax claim to rest.
Without going into all of the details of each point, the main points were that Hollywood "creature suit makers" say the technology to make a suit look and act like the creature in the film did not exist in the late '60s and still doesn't. Anatomical experts say the proportions are wrong for a human and right for an ape. Finally, it is possible to calculate the actual height of something in an image if you know the distance from camera to subject, the size of the image on the frame of film and the focal length of the lens. The camera used at the time came with 15 and 25 mm lenses. The 15mm lens was in use and the distance was stated to be 100 feet by the guy with Patterson. Combined with image size in the frame (I think they said it was .44") this leads to a height of 7'6", give or take a bit. Further, the length of primate feet is generally about 15% of body height. Plaster casts of Patterson's Bigfoot footprints were measured at 14" and that comes out to about the same height. There aren't many 7'6" humans.
The show also mentioned the numerous blood and hair samples that have been collected over the years. They have found that some of the hair samples do not match the hair of any known forest animals like bears, elk, pumas, etc. These hair samples are from primates but are not from any known primates like humans, gorillas, chimps, orangutans, etc. The same holds true for some of the blood samples. Of course, in science, proving a sample isn't something does not prove it is something else but the process of elimination certainly leaves the question open.
