Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race

“A footprint machine, a kind of mechanical stamp, has been suggested,” stated Napier (1973, p. 125), “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.” In addition, said Napier (1973, p. 125), careful studies of Sasquatch prints by Dr. Maurice Tripp, a geologist, revealed that impact ridges, which a footprint machine would be expected to leave, were not present.

Some of the reported series of tracks were in fresh snow, enabling observers to verify that no other marks were made at the ground level by some machine paralleling the prints. In several cases, the Sasquatch footprints indicated the maker strode over large logs, which a human of normal size could not have gotten over without disturbing the fresh snow clearly visible on their tops. Sometimes the Sasquatch prints went up or down embankments. In some cases, the distance between the toes of the footprints varied from one print to the next in a single series of prints. This means that besides all the other problems facing a hoaxer, he would have had to incorporate moving parts into his artificial feet.

Furthermore, in order to insure that some of his fake prints would be found, any hoaxer would probably have had to make more trails of footprints than were actually discovered—and that means a lot of work.

What about a device operated from a hovering craft? Such a device would undoubtedly be very expensive. A helicopter alone is not a cheap item, and a custom device for making the footprints would also cost a bit. Also, footprints have been found at the same time that a Sasquatch was actually seen or soon thereafter, as, for example, in the Patterson sighting in 1967 and the Chapman sighting in 1941. In other cases, people sleeping at campsites or work sites have gotten up in the morning and found newly made footprints nearby. In one case, the footprints went right alongside a man’s camper truck (Green 1978, p. 352). If the prints had been made by a stamping machine, operated on the ground or from a helicopter, the people reporting the prints almost certainly would have been awakened.

In conclusion, critics have failed to explain all the footprints as the work of hoaxers. It would seem, therefore, that the footprints argue strongly for the reality of the Sasquatch, as demonstrated by the following case.

On June 10, 1982, Paul Freeman, a U.S. Forest Service patrolman tracking elk in the Walla Walla district of Washington State, observed a hairy biped around 8 feet tall, standing about 60 yards from him. After 30 seconds, the large animal walked away (Huyghe 1984, p. 94). Krantz (1983) studied casts of the creature’s footprints and found dermal ridges, sweat pores, and other features in the proper places for large primate feet. Detailed skin impressions on the side walls of the prints indicated the presence of a flexible sole pad.

Krantz solicited opinions from other scholars and fingerprint experts. Tatyana Gladkova, a specialist in dermatoglyphics from the USSR Institute of Anthropology, said: “I see dermal ridges of the arch type distally directed. I see sweat pores. If it’s a fake, it’s a brilliant fake, on the level of counterfeiting, and by someone well versed in dermatoglyphics” (Krantz 1983, p. 78).

Douglas M. Monsoor, a master police fingerprint examiner from Lakewood, Colorado, stated: “I see the presence of ridge structure in these casts, which, in my examination, appears consistent with that type of ridge structure you would find in a human. Under magnification, they evidence all the minute characteristics similar to human dermal ridges. . . . If hoaxing were involved, I can conceive of no way in which it could have been done. They appear to be casts of impressions of a primate foot—of a creature different from any of which I am aware” (Krantz 1983, p. 79).