FOOTPRINTS 101 -- Courtesy of John Green

"Sighting reports are generally far more interesting than footprints, but they are not of equal quality as evidence." -- John Green

There have been, and hopefully will be, many filed footprint reports from around the world. And undoubtedly, many of those preserved can be chalked up to miscellaneous depressions in the ground that were never footprints and many footprints that have been made by other animals and even overlapping tracks. There are also many prints that have never been properly documented, improperly cast, or not even examined by track experts.


However, I agree with Mr. Green. Even after all the questionable and all the misidentified are eliminated, there still remains hundreds of good tracks that have been collected, photographed, documented, studied that remain unattached to known species.


Tracks can present an apparently simple problem but it's one that has never been solved. It should be easy to prove what is making them. But it hasn't happened. If they are all being made by humans, then humans should have at some point been caught making them. That has not happened.


John Green knew of several instances where tracks were declared genuine, only to have someone come forward claiming that they had faked them. The culprits even produced the equipment they used and demonstrated how they did it.  In my opinion, sometimes they could prove they faked them, other times they didn't. Sometimes I think some would step forward to claim they did it, just to muddy the evidence.


There have also been times when the faked tracks were obvious. Rarely are the faked tracks impressive-looking. And although  it has been shown it can be done; it is not all that easy.


Green also talked of the giant rubber feet that can be purchased from "joke" shops. There is no real strength in them in order to make the toes and heels make a deep impression.


Carved wooden feet were popular for awhile. They would be mounted on an old pair of shoes and the person would go stomping around. Green himself tried this method, and also tried fiberglass copies of actual footprints. Some of the soft materials that were tried worked fairly well, but it was not possible to create any illusion of individual toe movement.  If there were more than one track, it would be obvious that all the prints had been made by the same rigid objects.

Ray Wallace's wooden foot

For one experiment, Green used a really good pair of wooden feet that weighed close to 200 lbs, put a man on them weighing more than 250 lbs. (total of over 450 lbs) That man could not make a single track in sand worth casting. In loose, dry sand, there was no shape. When the sand was wet and packed, the fake feet still did not sink in very far.


Green reasoned that the weight problem could be solved by a hoaxer with enough ingenuity. But combining a cure for the weight along with managing an individual toe movement will not be that easy.


He gives as an example the tracks made from the Patterson Film area. He had casts made from nine different tracks from that set. The distance between the big toe and the little toe varies by almost an inch. It would require a device or technique to duplicate that, and to do it with an impression deep enough to show weight. AND add to that, taking 6 foot strides and walking up and down hilly and steep areas and getting past logs three foot from the ground. Green offered a reward to anyone who could duplicate that footprint track, showing him how they did it. NO ONE ever came forward to claim that reward.


What would give away tracks made by someone wearing carved feet? First of all the middle of the print would not sink in very far. It is possible to put all the weight on the heel and on the toes to make them dig in, but not on the center of the foot. Second, if an attempt is made to produce long strides and deep prints by bounding along, the toes dig up a lot of loose dirt or sand and leave it heaped behind the toe prints.


Some prints that appear to show just four toes might be just a case of the little toe not showing. The toe might be small enough that it might fail to make a very deep impression.

There are several products currently out that present problems for many researchers. Among them are the new running shoes and a few products that are being sold so that "you can fool your friends" about a sasquatch in your backyard.

 

John Green tended not to put much emphasis on most tracks made in the snow. Most times there is no way to be certain of the conditions of the snow when the tracks are made. Therefore it is impossible to judge just how much weight was involved in making them.  The stride of the steps is of course  a factor, along with any obstacles, such as logs and fences along the trail. It is also difficult to judge the size of the prints due to melting. And identifying the tracks is more difficult if much melting has occured as it blurs the lines and individual impressions could combine making a track look bigger than  originally.


Advantages of snow tracks is that it is easier to see if anything or anyone else should cross the trail as it would be difficult to fake some tracks and then walk away in the snow. The tracks in the snow can also indicate some of the activities of the being making the tracks. This would include things like going to a stream to drink, digging through snow to reach grasses to eat.


Green  had a theory that the scarcity of tracks could only be explained by assuming that  sasquatch deliberately avoid making tracks most of the time.
Another factor to take into account is the terrain. The type of soil, the amount and type of ground cover also determines if tracks can be found. Sometimes the only sign that something has passed through is a scuffing on the ground. A slight disturbance in the ground cover.


"When tracks are found it often seems as if the creature making them had just decided 'to heck with it' and thrown caution temporarily to the winds." -- John Green

Nancy


"I'll spark the thought; what you do with it is up to you."