The RELICT HOMINOID INQUIRY 7:112-116 (2018)

Guest Editorial

The Patterson-Gimlin Film in Light of the Linnaeus and Porshnev Teachings: A Report Presented on the Occasion of the Film’s 50th Anniversary

Dmitri Bayanov *

State Darwin Museum, Moscow, Russia 117292

Fifty years ago, on October 20, 1967, in Bluff tology, and consequently a paradigm shift in Creek, northern California, Roger Patterson, anthropology. helped by his friend and assistant Robert In this connection Porshnev recognized the (Bob) Gimlin, captured on film a female reality of the so-called “snowmen.” On his specimen of the higher bipedal primates initiative, the Soviet Academy of Sciences set known in North America as or up a special commission to study the sasquatch. Up until now, according to the snowman question. During two years of its science of anthropology, Homo sapiens is the existence the Snowman Commission, using only representative of the bipedal primates on ancient, medieval and modern sources of earth. The others are nonexistent because, information, gathered and published a lot of according to paleoanthropology, man’s material pertaining to the existence of bipedal closest and most recent evolutionary relatives primate relicts. died out tens of thousands of years ago. Such Some time later, Porshnev’s ideas were is the scientific paradigm today. For this strongly attacked by influential conservative reason American scientists rejected the film scientists, who accused him of creating and out of hand, largely without studying it, spreading . The Snowman calling it a fabrication showing a man dressed Commission was disbanded. When publica- for deception in a special costume imitating tion of the book On the Beginning of Human natural hairiness – “a man in a fur suit.” History, the main work of his life, was In 1971, sasquatch hunter René Dahinden interrupted and cancelled, Boris Porshnev visited Moscow and handed over to us, suddenly died of a heart attack in 1972. followers of professor Boris Porshnev, a copy Study of the film began while he was still of the Patterson-Gimlin footage for study and with us and continued after his passing. The verification. Porshnev was the author of a main investigators were members of the fundamental work on relict hominoids. permanent seminar on the problem of relict According to his concept, Homo sapiens is not hominoids formed at the State Darwin the only bipedal primate in the world, there Museum in Moscow by its chief curator Pyotr are others, including relict Neandertals, which Smolin, after the academy commission were of special interest for him. This means, stopped functioning. As a result of the film’s he declared, a scientific revolution in prima- comprehensive study, with valuable advice of

*Correspondence to: Dmitri Bayanov, Science Director, International Center of Hominology, email: [email protected]. © RHI

THE PATTERSON-GIMLIN FILM AND LINNAEUS AND PORSHNEV 113 specialists, such as Dr. Dmitri Donskoy, author, the Patterson-Gimlin film cannot be expert of biomechanics, in particular, we came demonstrated to be a forgery at this time.” to a firm conclusion that the film really shows (http://www.photekimaging.com/Support/rptc a female Bigfoot. Our analysis was published ol2.pdf). In 2014, the film was validated by in the books by Peter Byrne, The Search for William Munns, Hollywood specialist on cos- bigfoot: Monster, Myth or Man? (1975) and tumes and special effects, in his book, When Don Hunter with René Dahinden, Sasquatch Roger Met Patty. We note with satisfaction (1973) and what’s more important, the film’s that the American investigators of the film, authenticity was noted and stressed in our using better technology than was available to article published in the authoritative inter- us, have supplemented and affirmed our find- national journal Current Anthropology, De- ings back in the 70s. cember 1974. In 2004, a $100,000 reward was announced This became one of the main reasons for for anyone who could definitively disprove holding the first scientific conference in the Patterson-Gimlin film. The reward re- Vancouver, BC, in 1978, on the problem of mains unclaimed. All attempts by debunkers sasquatch and other bipedal primates. As re- by means of films and videos showing a man ported by American newspapers, our report on in an ape costume have spectacularly failed. the Patterson-Gimlin film was the high point The actors demonstrate wrong biomechanics, of the conference. It is published in full in the wrong movements, wrong gait and anatomy, book, America’s Bigfoot – Fact, Not Fiction. including the intermembral index (ratio of U.S. Evidence Verified (1997) in Russia. [A upper limb to lower limb), all of which are copy of the book was sent to President Bill quite different from what is characteristic and Clinton, he confirmed receipt and expressed looks natural in Patterson’s film-star dubbed gratitude.] Patty. The actors’ hair cover is also wrong, The film’s serious examination and valid- since Hollywood masters of special effects ation happened in Russia twenty years earlier have repeatedly stated that they are unable to than similar work done by our colleagues in produce a costume looking equal to Patty’s North America. In 1992, the authenticity of hair cover. Noted costumer designer and the film was argued for and approved by Dr. animal actor Janos Prohaska concluded that Grover Krantz, professor of anthropology at the hair would need to be glued directly onto Washington State University, in his book Big the actor – a ten-hour make-up job. If it was a Footprints. He did so as a result of his cotume, he said, it was the best costume he personal study of the documentary. In 2006, had ever seen. To him it looked “very, very the film was described as authentic by Dr. Jeff real.” Meldrum, professor of anatomy and It’s appropriate to mention here one more anthropology at Idaho State University, in his interesting fact. After Patterson died, Bob book Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science. In Gimlin, who had not earned a cent from the addition, the on-line refereed journal The film, was offered big money if he would say Relict Hominoid Inquiry, has published a that Roger had faked the film. The bribery was number of papers on the subject by both indignantly rejected, which tells a lot about American and Russian authors. In 1995, Jeff both Gimlin and film. Glickman, a certified forensic examiner, Thus fifty years of the film’s existence released his unpublished report on the convincingly testify to its authenticity. A intensive analysis of the Bigfoot film over a question arises: Why were the Russians first period of three years. His conclusion: “Despite in the film’s examination and validation? The three years of rigorous examination by the answer is: Because, unlike our American

DMITRI BAYANOV 114 colleagues, we were from the very beginning pology. Using the information of ancient in possession of Boris Porshnev’s revolu- naturalists and travelers of his time, he tionary concept of relict hominoids. This proposed the existence of two species of man: provided us with a solid scientific basis for the one is Homo troglodytes (caveman in Greek), analysis. described as sylvestris (woodman) and Question number two: Why were these nocturnus (nightman); the other is Homo relict primate beings not known to modern sapiens, described as diurnus (diurnal), the science? The shortest answer is because there term applied to modern man. It is only in was no science to know them – that is natural, contrast to Homo troglodytes that the term biological science. Fortunately, we have it Homo sapiens was coined and used by now. As to humanities academic discilpines, Linnaeus, and not because he was of such high such as folkloristics and demonology, they opinion of representatives of our species. have always known such beings by names In an age when religion was dominant bold which make scientific scholars think it’s the innovations in science, introduced by subject of pure fantasy and mythology. Linnaeus, were soon rejected. After his death, In Russian the principal name for these the Primate Order was banned and restored beings is leshy, from the word les (wood); in only a century later by Darwin’s close English it is translated as wood goblin. The associate Thomas Huxley. As for Homo words devil and shaitan (the latter in the troglodytes, it was declared to be a mistake by Turkish languages) are widely used; pan, the great naturalist, who allegedly took satyr, silenus in ancient Greek, faun in Latin, anthropoid apes for people. The term etc. This factor has been and remains a serious troglodyte was then applied to the chimpan- obstacle to accepting the reality of leshys and zee: Simia troglodytes (cave ape). Absurd! It wood goblins by those who do not realize that was not Linnaeus but his critics who erred. mythology is not pure fantasy, but a mixture Two centuries later, justice was restored of truth and fantasy. and Linnaeus rehabilitated in this most In his monograph Porshnev writes of the important question. This was done by emergent science of relict hominoids, referr- Porshnev in his 1963 work, The Present State ing at the same time to Carl Linnaeus, the of the Question of Relict Hominoids, in which famous Swedish naturalist of the 18th century, he calls the “snowman” by the scientific name creator of the system of classification of of Homo troglodytes Linnaeus. In the same animals and plants which is still used today. work the author substantiated the thesis that Linnaeus borrowed the ecclesiastical term the discovery, or more accurately, re- primatus and used it in biology, having laid discovery of troglodytes by modern science the basis for the science of . As is means the emergence of a new scientific known, he dared to embrace within the Order discipline devoted to relict hominoids, just as Primates both apes and man, which paleoanthropology, to the question of man’s scandalized his contemporaries, but was evolutionary origin. In 1972, this new disci- approved by Darwin in the next century. But pline was named hominology. Thus Boris what is usually unknown by our contem- Porsnev is the father of hominology, while poraries is the fact that Linnaeus is the author Carl Linnaeus is its progenitor. of the term Homo sapiens (man the wise). In 1966, the journal, Questions of Usually it is thought that the term was Philosophy (No. 3), carried Porshnev’s article introduced by paleoanthropologists. Nothing “Is a Scientific Revolution in Primatology of the sort. Linnaeus used it a century before Possible Today?” The author answered the the birth of Darwinism and paleoanthro- question in the positive, referring in so doing

THE PATTERSON-GIMLIN FILM AND LINNAEUS AND PORSHNEV 115 to the work of the American philosopher of primates’ extinction. They extrapolate the science Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of time of death of individual beings whose Scientific Revolutions (1962). A revolution in bones they find and examine to the time of science means a shift of scientific paradigms, extinction of whole taxa of creatures, that is a process protracted and painful for scientists, extinction of whole species and populations. just what we see happening in the snowman From the example of the fish Latimeria problem since the middle of the 20th century. (coelacanth) paleontologists have learned that It is necessary to note that a paradigm shift such methodology can lead to mistakes of tens in a given science is inevitably accompanied of millions of years in dating the time of and followed by a change of experts in it. extinction. Such methodology is criticized by When after Nicholas Copernicus, in the course paleontologist LS Davitashvili in his book, of scientific revolution in astronomy, the The History of Evolutionary Paleontology geocentric paradigm was changed to the from Darwin to Our Days (1948) p. 486 (in heliocentric, the unrivaled-for-ages authorities Russian; Dmitri Bayanov, Russian Homino- in astronomy Aristotle and Ptolemy were logy, 2016, p. 141). This problem is known as replaced by Galileo, Kepler and others. In the “the incompleteness or imperfection of the 18th century the paradigm of astronomers, geological record,” used by Darwin as an declaring that stones dropping from heaven is argument in defense of his theory of natural sheer fantasy and mythology, was challenged selection. The argument has not been fully by the paradigm stating that stones do fall understood and accepted yet – I mean the from heaven. As a result astronomers ceased vastness of the said incompleteness and to be experts on the question and relevant imperfection. Fossil bones, with all their great experts appeared among those who collected value for science, represent only the minutest and studied stones that fall from the sky. They picture of fullness and richness of life forms created the science of meteorites. When in the on the surface of land and in the ocean. 19th century the famous German anthropolo- Ignorance of this fact is the root cause of gist Rudolf Virchow stated that the unusual science’s mistake in overlooking and ignoring bones unearthed in 1856, in the valley of the existence of relict higher primates. Thus Neandertal belonged to modern man suffering the accusation that hominology is pseudo- from rickets, he proved that expertise in the scientific is devoid of scientific substance and study of such bones had to shift to specialists is itself pseudoscientific. of a different kind. But let us return to Carl Linneaus and the In this connection we inform the scientific film whose 50th anniversary we celebrate. The community that the main specialists in the Swedish biographer of Linnaeus, professor question of existence and study of the living Gunnar Broberg writes that Linnaeus sent hominids different from Homo sapiens are forth his pupils “on voyages of exploration. hominologists, not paleoanthropologists, i.e. Many of them actually suffered martyrdom in specialists in the study of fossils. According to the field, sacrificing their lives for science and the proverb, there is no harm without good its master. They travelled in all directions: and no good without harm. Paleoanthro- one large group voyaged eastward, in the pologists have produced great good, having direction of the East Indies and ” substantiated man’s evolutionary origin by the (Gunnar Broberg, Carl Linnaeus, 2006, p. 37). study of relevant fossils. And they have It is wonderful how Linnaeus’ activities have committed and continue to commit a pheno- echoed and reverberated in ours. Homino- menal scientific error that has caused a logists in Russia and other countries also misconception in the question of the higher travel far and wide, and two suffered

DMITRI BAYANOV 116 martyrdom in the field. They are our comrade philosopher to spend several days in the Vladimir Pushkarev, who did not return from company of such an animal in order to his dangerous expedition in Siberia, and investigate how superior human reason is…” Spanish biologist Jordi Magraner, author of (Carl Linnaeus, Anthropomorpha, 1760; the work Les hominoids reliques d’Asie Dmitri Bayanov, Bigfoot Research: The Central (1992), who was murdered during his Russian Vision, 2011, p. 330). field work in the mountains of Pakistan. Professor Broberg says that “Linnaeus was Deeply interested in the question of troglo- most keen to catch a Troglodyte and asked his dytes, Linnaeus wrote: “Is it not amazing that travelling pupils for help” (personal com- man, endowed by nature with curiosity, has munication). Two centuries later comes forth left the Troglodytes in the dark and did not a brave and skillful man, named Roger want to investigate the creatures that resemble Patterson, who, using the progress of the age, him to such a high degree?” He strongly captures a troglodyte on film with a movie criticized navigators who “driven by greed, camera for all the world to see. The world, despise the task of natural science, such as alas, is still incredulous. It’s interesting to investigation of the way of life of trog- contemplate what Linnaeus would have said lodytes.” He wished that a monarch would looking at this capture. I asked myself this obtain a troglodyte for amusement. “And it question when we studied the film back in the would be of no small benefit,” he wrote, “for a 1970s.

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