Footprints
"Either some of the footprints are real, or all are fake... But if any one of them is real then as scientists we have a lot to explain."
(John Napier, Bigfoot: The Yeti and Sasquatch in Myth and Reality)
Comparison of human and Sasquatch footprints (Krantz 1992).
Footprints are one of the few pieces of 'hard' evidence supporting the existence of Sasquatch. They have been photographed, cast in plaster, and even dug up wholesale on a few occasions. Sasquatch footprints are typically 14 to 18 inches long, 5 to 9 inches wide; and are always deeper than a man's walking right next to them in the same material. While roughly human in shape the foot is very broad, one-third wider than a human footprint of the same length (NB: very few humans have feet 16 inches long), with toes of nearly equal size that line up almost straight across its end. Sasquatch tracks are flat bottomed and often show signs of a double-ball, there is no indication of the longitudal arch found in human footprints. Length of stride varies from four to six feet. (Krantz 1992)
Tracks in the snow
In 1970 a trail of 1,089 consecutive footprints was discovered in snow near Bossburg, Washington. The 17-inch-long tracks were unusual in that the right foot was deformed — the forepart of the foot was twisted inwards and the third toe missing or displaced upward — causing the footprint-maker to be nicknamed "Cripple Foot".
Right footprint of the Bossburg Sasquatch (Hunter 1993).
British anthropologist Dr John Napier examined casts and photographs of Cripple Foot's tracks and identified the deformity as talipes-equino-vanus or club-foot†. This is usually a congenital disorder but may be caused by a severe injury or damage to the nerves controlling the muscles of the foot. Left untreated, the congenital condition usually results in the impression of the heel being absent or poorly defined as only the forepart of the foot and toes touch the ground when standing normally. As the imprints of the heels were well defined, Napier concluded that the deformity was probably due to an injury received in early childhood. He considered the likelihood of a hoaxer having the knowledge and subtlety to fake such a footprint, so improbable that he was prepared to discount it. (Napier 1974)
Grover Krantz, an anthropologist at Washington State University, reconstructed the skeletal structure of the foot from casts of the Bossburg prints. He discovered the ankle was positioned further forwards than in a human foot and used his knowledge of physical anthropology and the reported weight and height of Sasquatches to calculate exactly how far forward the ankle was set. Further examination of the casts confirmed that the position of the ankle exactly matched his theoretical calculations, causing him to observe:
In my judgement, no hoaxer could have figured out just how far forward to shift the ankle for a biped of the indicated size, then have left footprints with some subtle distortions that just might lead an anatomist to the reconstruction I have made ... I figured the whole thing out after studying the footprints; any hoaxer had to plan it all out from nothing. (Krantz 1992, p.63)
Dermal ridges
Section of a track cast showing dermal ridges.
In 1982 a remarkable discovery occurred after a US Forestry Service employee claimed to have seen a Sasquatch on a logging spur road. Examination of the casts revealed clear details of sweat pores and dermal ridges (the footprint equivalent to fingerprints). Skin impressions found on the sidewalls of the casts indicated the creature had a flexible sole pad. Various fingerprint experts were consulted, including top state investigators, experts at the Smithsonian Institute and Scotland Yard, and the current and former heads of fingerprinting at the F.B.I. After examining the casts at length, the majority of these experts concluded that the prints were real and not the result of a hoax:
The opinions of almost all of the more than forty experts ranged from 'very interesting' and 'they sure look real' to 'there is no doubt these are real.' The only exception was the F.B.I. expert who said, approximately, 'The implications of this are just too much; I can't believe it is real.' (Krantz 1992, p.71)
When Krantz sought the opinions of a number of his anthropologist colleagues — most of whom had previously stated that Saquatch did not exist — they seemed to prefer not to examine the casts too closely:
It was interesting to note how most of the scientists looked briefly at the best cast and then quickly handed it back to me as though it might be contagious. (Krantz 1992, p.72)
Fake Tracks
According to the critics all Bigfoot tracks are fakes made by hoaxers with a pair of large false feet attached to their shoes. The weight required to make a typical footprint has been estimated at 700 pounds (Krantz 1992). Author/researcher John Green attempted to simulate the depth of Sasquatch footprints while wearing 14½ inch fake feet and carrying a load of 250 pounds (Green 1978), his total weight of 450 pounds was too light to make deep enough impressions in firm wet sand. A kind of mechanical stamping device or footprint machine may be an alternative means of faking tracks...
...but an apparatus capable of delivering a thrust of approximately 800 lb per square foot that can be manhandled over rough and mountainous country puts a strain on one's credulity. (Napier 1974, p.125)
Careful studies of Sasquatch footprints, by geologist Dr Maurice Tripp, found no evidence of the impact ridges that a mechanical device would be expected to leave (Napier 1974).
Sasquatch tracks on a mountain road (Bayanov 1997).
The huge number of tracks that have been found and the remoteness of the areas where they have been discovered argue against large-scale faking. Some of these tracks extended for distances of three-quarters of a mile up to several miles with thousands of individual footprints. A series of three thousand footprints, each 16 inches long, was found on a logging road in the Cascade Mountains. On another occasion a long line of prints were discovered on Powder Mountain, about 65 miles north of Vancouver, by a man flying low over the mountain in a helicopter. The tracks were 4,800 feet up the mountainside and ran for five miles before disappearing into ice caves at the foot of a glacier (Hunter 1993). With something like 100 million track events having occurred over the last forty years:
...the skeptics must postulate a well-organized team of one thousand people, working full-time, who are spread over all of North America with their greatest concentration in the Pacific Northwest. (Krantz 1992, p.34)
An independent study of a database of 706 track length measurements further supports the contention that there is no evidence of large scale fakery:
The normal distribution argues compellingly against any alternative hypothesis to the existence of the Sasquatch as a cryptic species, in that production of fictitious data over 40 years by hundreds of people independently of each other would have generated a distribution with many peaks. A further factor that supports the authenticity of the data is the fact that foot length, foot width, heel width, and gait are interrelated in a logical and cohesive fashion, a congruence not plausible by pure chance. (Fahrenbach 1998, pp.50-51)
Finally, there is the question of how the fakers manage to
produce footprints that are so biologically convincing
(Napier 1974, p.125). If they were all the same a hoax would
automatically be suspected but Sasquatch footprints vary —
some anatomical features are constant, but they are sufficiently
different for individuals to be recognised by their footprints.
† The result of later research by Dr. Jeff Meldrum makes it almost certain that Cripple Foot's deformity was in fact due to the congential condition metatarsus adductus or "skew foot." (Krantz 1999)
