The Feet of Patty: What Do The Patterson-Gimlin Footprint Casts Actually Show?
With the upcoming release of Capturing Bigfoot bringing renewed attention to the events surrounding the Patterson–Gimlin film, the most famous Bigfoot case in North America is once again being pulled apart piece by piece.
At Cryptid Legends, we’ve already gone back through some of the major questions surrounding Patty:
The height and weight estimates, the proportions attributed to the figure, the costume technology available to a potential hoaxer in the 1950s and 1960s, and modern attempts to analyse the film’s gait and locomotion.
But the film wasn’t the only physical record left at Bluff Creek.
There were footprints.
And some of them were exceptionally well preserved.
Roger Patterson made casts of a right and left footprint on October 20, 1967. Nine days later, Bob Titmus returned to the site and cast a sequence of ten successive footprints.
Other prints were photographed by U.S. Forest Service timber cruiser Lyle Laverty just three days after the filming.
More than half a century later, these casts remain one of the most technically interesting parts of the Patterson–Gimlin evidence.
And much of the modern discussion leads back to one man:
D. Jeffrey Meldrum.
Meldrum did not approach the footprints simply as oversized human tracks. His background was in anatomy, physical anthropology, primate morphology and locomotion, and he became particularly interested in what the footprints might reveal about the mechanics of the foot itself.
His 2007 paper, Ichnotaxonomy of Giant Hominoid Tracks in North America, provides one of the most important primary published examinations of the Patterson–Gimlin trackway.
But what does it actually show?
And how much of the interpretation is observation, how much is anatomical inference, and how much remains open to alternative explanations?
👣 1. The Bluff Creek Trackway
On October 20, 1967, Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin were riding through the Bluff Creek area of northern California when they reported encountering and filming a large upright bipedal figure.
After the encounter, Patterson and Gimlin documented the footprints left in the sandbar.
Meldrum’s later account describes the substrate as fine, dampened sand that preserved the impressions with exceptional clarity. He notes that Patterson selected a right and left pair for casting.
These became some of the most important physical specimens associated with the film.
But the story didn’t end there.
Three days later, Lyle Laverty, a U.S. Forest Service timber cruiser working in the region, visited the site and photographed three of the footprints.
His photographs are particularly interesting because they captured prints before the trackway had disappeared entirely and showed what Meldrum regarded as dynamic features in the midfoot.
Nine days after the filming, Bob Titmus returned and made ten successive casts.
That sequence is particularly valuable because it wasn’t simply ten unrelated footprints.
It represented one trackway produced by one individual moving across changing substrate conditions, allowing researchers to examine variation from step to step.
Meldrum regarded this sequence as an important part of the evidence because foot position, apparent flexibility, toe expression and other characteristics changed between individual steps while retaining an overall morphological pattern.
🧱 2. The Original Casts
The surviving material is more complicated than simply “the Patterson casts.”
On October 20, 1967, Roger Patterson selectively cast a right and left footprint from the Bluff Creek trackway.
Meldrum describes these as the earliest documented impressions, made while the tracks were still in what he considered nearly pristine condition.
The actual footprints measured approximately 14.5 inches (36.8 cm) in length.
The surviving first-generation casts are slightly different in measured length, with the left reported at approximately 15 inches (38.1 cm) and the right at 14.6 inches (37.1 cm).
That small difference is worth noting: when sources describe Patty’s tracks as either 14.5 or roughly 15 inches long, they are not necessarily referring to different footprints or contradictory evidence.
They may be referring to the impression in the substrate versus the resulting cast.
📏 The Bluff Creek cast in numbers
Footprint length: ~14.5 in (36.8 cm)
Patterson left cast: ~15.0 in (38.1 cm)
Patterson right cast: ~14.6 in (37.1 cm)
Meldrum’s 2007 paper does not give a single headline width measurement for the Patterson pair.
Instead, his formal description emphasises that the footprints are broader relative to their length than typical human footprints, with an elongated, broad heel and the greatest breadth occurring around the inferred metatarsal-head region.
The condition of the original impressions is also important.
Meldrum examined the Bluff Creek substrate and described it as fine-to-very-coarse lithic sand.
The dominant grain size was approximately 500–710 microns, while the sand contained abundant metamorphic material, particularly schist and gneiss.
He suggested that the angular nature of these grains helped preserve an unusually high level of detail in the impressions.
In his assessment, the Patterson casts were therefore exceptionally good facsimiles of the feet themselves, with comparatively little distortion from dynamic foot movement during the step.
That distinction becomes important later in our investigation.
Because a footprint is not simply a photograph of a sole, movement through the substrate can itself create features.
The Patterson casts provide an unusually clear record of the plantar morphology, while photographs taken three days later by Forest Service timber cruiser Lyle Laverty captured other examples of the trackway in which dynamic pressure features were more apparent.
Meldrum specifically highlighted one Laverty photograph showing a pronounced pressure ridge across the midfoot.
The story then continues with Bob Titmus, who returned to the Bluff Creek site nine days after the filming and made another ten casts from footprints that remained in place.
Meldrum records the specimen history in considerable detail. The Patterson pair became Smithsonian specimens SI 390041 and SI 390042, while eight further casts are catalogued as SI 390043–390050.
Ten original Titmus casts are held in the Titmus Collection at the Willow Creek–China Flats Museum in Humboldt County, California.
These aren’t merely photographs reproduced through generations of Bigfoot literature.
There are physical casts, molds, duplicate specimens and later digital records.
Meldrum also reported that more than 200 footprint specimens had been examined as part of his broader research, including originals and duplicates held at Idaho State University.
A project was undertaken to 3D-scan casts and create a virtual archive for quantitative geometric and morphometric analysis.
That makes the Patterson–Gimlin footprints unusual within the wider cryptozoological record: they aren’t just a famous photograph of a footprint.
They form part of a physical specimen history extending from the original sandbar impressions to casts, molds, institutional collections and 3D digital models.
At Cryptid Legends, however, there is one important qualification.
We haven’t personally examined the original casts.
Our assessment is therefore based on the published record, photographs, documented specimen histories and scientific literature.
Where Meldrum makes an anatomical interpretation, we’ll identify it as his interpretation rather than quietly converting it into an established fact.
One day, we’d like to see the casts for ourselves.
Until then, the evidence has to speak through the record that remains.
🧑🔬 3. Enter Dr. Jeffrey Meldrum
The name most closely associated with the modern anatomical interpretation of the Patterson–Gimlin footprints is D. Jeffrey Meldrum.
And understanding his background is important.
Meldrum was a professor of Anatomy and Anthropology at Idaho State University, with a doctorate in anatomical sciences and an emphasis in physical anthropology.
His academic work centred on vertebrate evolutionary morphology, primate locomotion and the evolution of human bipedalism.
His doctoral research examined the terrestrial adaptations of the feet of African cercopithecines, while his broader research interests included primate foot anatomy and locomotor mechanics.
In other words, he didn’t begin studying foot mechanics because of Bigfoot.
He already worked in a field where questions about how primate feet are constructed, how they move and how those movements are recorded in footprints were central to the research.
That distinction matters.
Meldrum’s academic background gave him a comparative framework extending beyond modern human anatomy.
His research examined the feet and locomotion of living primates alongside fossil evidence, particularly the footprints that record how ancient hominins moved.
In 2004, he published Midfoot Flexibility, Fossil Footprints, and Sasquatch Steps: New Perspectives on the Evolution of Bipedalism.
The paper compared the relatively flexible midfoot of chimpanzees with the comparatively rigid, arched human foot, and examined how these differences can leave identifiable signatures in footprints.
It also considered fossil hominin tracks, including the famous Laetoli footprints, alongside footprints attributed to Sasquatch.
This is important because Meldrum’s argument was not simply that the Patterson–Gimlin footprints looked strange.
He was asking a more specific anatomical question:
Could the way the foot appears to flex during locomotion be inferred from the footprint itself?
His 2004 work introduced the concept of the midtarsal break and associated pressure-release features into that discussion, comparing the mechanics of flexible ape feet with the more rigid human foot.
He argued that some tracks attributed to Sasquatch displayed features consistent with midfoot flexibility.
By 2007, Meldrum had taken the analysis a step further.
In Ichnotaxonomy of Giant Hominoid Tracks in North America, published in the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin, he treated the tracks as an ichnological problem, the study and classification of traces left by organisms, rather than simply as mysterious footprints.
He formally described the track type as Anthropoidipes ameriborealis, meaning roughly “North American ape foot.”
But there is an important caveat.
Meldrum explicitly stated that naming an ichnotaxon does not establish the identity of its trackmaker, nor does it resolve the controversy over whether Sasquatch exists.
His stated purpose was to provide a formal framework for describing and comparing the tracks themselves.
That distinction is central to understanding what follows.
We are not asking whether Jeff Meldrum believed the Patterson–Gimlin footprints were genuine.
We are asking a narrower question:
What did the footprints and casts actually show, and how did an anatomist trained in primate locomotion interpret those features?
🦶 4. Anatomy of a Footprint
A footprint isn’t simply a photograph of the bottom of a foot.
It is a three-dimensional record of anatomy interacting with movement.
What appears in the ground is influenced by several things at once:
Anatomy + movement + pressure + substrate + timing.
The anatomy determines which structures are capable of moving.
The movement determines how those structures load the ground.
The substrate determines how those forces are preserved.
And the resulting impression is what the researcher has to work backwards from.
That is why footprint analysis can be considerably more complicated than simply measuring its length.
🦴 What is actually being recorded?
The human and primate foot can broadly be divided into three functional regions:
- Hindfoot — principally the heel and ankle region.
- Midfoot — the tarsal region between the heel and forefoot, containing several joints that influence how the foot bends and adapts to the ground.
- Forefoot — the metatarsals and toes, which interact with the substrate during the latter part of a step.
A footprint can potentially preserve information from all three regions.
It can show where the heel contacted the substrate, how broadly the sole was loaded, how the forefoot spread under pressure, the orientation and length of the toes, and, under suitable conditions, deformation associated with movement through the foot.
This is particularly important when comparing humans with other primates.
The human foot has evolved a specialised architecture for habitual terrestrial bipedalism.
Among its most conspicuous characteristics is the longitudinal arch, which extends along the medial side of the foot and contributes to the foot’s ability to function as a relatively stiff structure during propulsion.
The feet of African apes such as chimpanzees are built differently. They retain a much more mobile midfoot and have anatomy associated with both terrestrial locomotion and arboreal climbing.
Their feet therefore provide an important comparative model when researchers investigate what different forms of locomotion can leave behind in a footprint.
This doesn’t mean that every human footprint must look the same, or that every ape footprint displays the same characteristics.
Foot function exists on a spectrum, and modern biomechanical research has shown that the human foot itself is capable of substantial midfoot movement during walking.
The distinction between a simply “rigid human foot” and a “flexible ape foot” is therefore more complicated than it was once portrayed.
👣 What Meldrum described in the North American tracks
Meldrum described the Anthropoidipes footprints as plantigrade, pentadactyl, entaxonic and elongated.
These terms are worth unpacking.
Plantigrade means that the foot can place much of the sole against the substrate, rather than walking primarily on the toes or on the digits and distal portions of the foot.
Pentadactyl simply means five-digited.
The term entaxonic refers to the arrangement in which the innermost digit, equivalent to the first digit or great-toe position, forms the principal axis of the foot.
In Meldrum’s description, the tracks were also unusually broad relative to their length, with an elongated and broad heel.
The footprints lacked the clear separation between heel, ball and forefoot loading that is commonly seen in a typical human footprint, and often showed little or no obvious impression corresponding to a well-developed medial longitudinal arch.
Other features he identified included:
- a broad overall foot;
- an elongated, rounded heel;
- relatively little indication of a pronounced longitudinal arch;
- a poorly differentiated ball of the foot;
- relatively short lateral toes;
- a comparatively broad first digit;
- and, in some tracks, evidence consistent with movement through the midfoot.
Meldrum also noted that the deepest part of many tracks occurred beneath the forefoot rather than showing the sharply differentiated heel-to-ball pressure pattern expected from a conventional human stride.
He interpreted the overall impression as consistent with a compliant, relatively flat-footed gait, rather than the stereotypical human pattern of a strongly arched foot progressing through distinct phases of heel strike, midstance and push-off.
That distinction is important.
The question isn’t simply:
“How big is the footprint?”
A 14½-inch impression is certainly large, but its size alone tells us very little about what produced it.
The more interesting question is:
“What kind of foot would produce this particular pattern of shape, pressure and deformation?”
And that is where comparative primate anatomy becomes relevant.
🐒 Why primate feet matter
Chimpanzees and other great apes provide living examples of feet that retain considerable mobility compared with the specialised human foot.
A chimpanzee’s foot has long toes and a mobile midfoot suited to a combination of terrestrial and arboreal locomotion.
The human foot, by comparison, has developed a more stabilised longitudinal arch and specialised mechanisms that allow the foot to become an effective lever during bipedal propulsion.
These differences matter because a footprint records function as well as shape.
Bones, joints, ligaments, muscles and connective tissues don’t leave separate labels in the mud. Instead, their combined mechanical behaviour becomes expressed as areas of contact, pressure, deformation and release.
That is why fossil footprints are so valuable in human evolutionary research: they can preserve evidence about locomotion even when the bones of the individual who made them are long gone.
The same principle is what makes the Patterson–Gimlin footprints scientifically interesting as tracks, regardless of what ultimately produced them.
And it also explains why Meldrum’s analysis went beyond simply comparing Patty’s foot length with a human shoe size.
He was attempting to read the mechanics of a foot from the trace it left behind.
The crucial question, however, is whether the unusual deformation visible in some of these tracks genuinely reflects the anatomy and movement of the foot, or whether similar features could arise from the interaction between a different foot, an artificial foot, pressure and the particular substrate.
That brings us to the most controversial feature of the entire discussion:
The midtarsal question.
↔️ 5. The Midtarsal Question
This is probably the most technically interesting part of the entire Patterson–Gimlin footprint argument.
It is also one of the easiest parts to oversimplify.
The phrase “midtarsal break” is sometimes presented as though it were a single visible feature in a footprint.
It isn’t.
It describes a functional movement of the foot, and the footprint is the trace that this movement may leave behind.
🦶 First: What is a midtarsal break?
The human foot contains several joints through the middle of the foot, including the transverse tarsal joint complex, principally involving the talonavicular and calcaneocuboid joints.
In a highly mobile primate foot, movement through this region can allow the forefoot and hindfoot to behave more independently.
Chimpanzees provide a particularly useful comparison.
Their feet retain substantial midfoot mobility, reflecting a locomotor system adapted to both terrestrial movement and climbing.
Meldrum’s 2004 paper described flexion about the transverse tarsal region as the “midtarsal break”, contrasting this with the comparatively stiff, arched human foot.
The word “break” can therefore be misleading.
Nothing is breaking.
It refers to a functional axis or region of flexion through the midfoot.
A simplified way of thinking about the proposed process is:
Midfoot mobility → flexion during the step → redistribution/release of plantar pressure → deformation of the substrate
And that last stage is where the famous pressure-release ridge enters the discussion.
The pressure-release ridge
Meldrum’s terminology is particularly important here because several related concepts are often treated as though they mean exactly the same thing.
They don’t.
Midfoot flexibility
The proposed anatomical and functional characteristic of the foot.
Midtarsal break
The movement or flexion occurring through the midtarsal region during locomotion.
Transverse axis of flexion
The inferred axis around which that flexion occurs.
Midtarsal pressure-release ridge or disc
A physical feature in the footprint that can sometimes result from the movement and redistribution of pressure.
So these aren’t four independent pieces of evidence.
They represent different levels of interpretation:
Anatomy → movement → pressure → footprint
That distinction becomes extremely important when evaluating the evidence.
A pressure ridge is something that can actually be observed in a track.
The claim that it represents a particular movement of the foot is an interpretation of that observation.
And the claim that the movement demonstrates the anatomy of a particular kind of animal is a further inference.
🔎 What did Meldrum actually see?
This is where the primary source becomes particularly valuable.
In his 2007 paper, Meldrum described the Anthropoidipes tracks as frequently showing an indication of a transverse axis of flexion at the midfoot, with an actual midtarsal pressure-release ridge or disc occurring occasionally.
That wording matters.
He did not claim that every footprint contained a dramatic transverse ridge.
Instead, he regarded the trackway as containing a combination of more general morphological evidence for midfoot flexibility, with a particularly striking pressure-release feature appearing in some individual prints.
One of the most important examples came from Lyle Laverty’s photographs.
Three days after the filming, Laverty photographed three footprints at the Bluff Creek site.
Meldrum noted that these photographs included dynamic features such as pressure ridges and discs in the midtarsal region. One footprint in particular displayed a pronounced pressure ridge running across the midfoot.
Nine days after the film was made, Bob Titmus cast ten successive footprints at the same site.
Crucially, three of those ten casts were the very footprints that Laverty had previously photographed, including the print with the particularly pronounced pressure ridge.
For Meldrum, that created an unusually useful combination of evidence:
Photograph → physical footprint → plaster cast
The same individual tracks could therefore be considered through both the photographic record and the preserved three-dimensional casts. Meldrum described this as providing corroborative documentation of the dynamic feature.
The ten-cast sequence was also important for another reason.
Rather than providing ten supposedly identical footprints, it recorded variation from step to step within a single trackway. Meldrum described “animation” of the foot as evident through the series, with differences in the apparent expression of the foot as it interacted with the changing substrate.
That matters because a living foot does not necessarily produce ten mechanically identical impressions.
🎞️ The film adds another layer
The Patterson–Gimlin footage itself also became part of Meldrum’s argument.
His 2007 paper points to frames in which the foot of the film subject appears to show midfoot flexibility, alongside frames showing the plantar surface and dorsiflexion of the toes.
Meldrum therefore wasn’t considering the casts completely in isolation.
His broader interpretation connected three forms of evidence:
The footprints → the casts → the filmed feet
His 2004 paper had already argued that the kinematics visible in the film correlated with the midtarsal flexibility he inferred from the footprints.
That is an important part of the argument, but it is also where we need to be careful.
The film does not provide an anatomical dissection of the foot.
It provides a moving image from which kinematics are inferred.
Likewise, the cast provides a three-dimensional record of the impression, but not a direct view of the bones and joints that produced it.
The anatomical interpretation therefore remains an inference from the physical trace.
⚖️ What does the ridge actually prove?
This is where the subject becomes considerably more interesting.
If the pressure-release ridge really is produced by flexion through the midfoot, then its presence could provide evidence about how the foot functioned during the step.
But there is a logical chain involved:
Observed ridge
⬇️
Interpretation of the ridge as a pressure-release feature
⬇️
Interpretation of the pressure-release feature as evidence of midfoot flexion
⬇️
Inference about the underlying foot anatomy
⬇️
Inference about what kind of animal could possess that anatomy
Each step introduces another opportunity for uncertainty.
This doesn’t make the feature meaningless.
It simply means that “there is a ridge” and “we know exactly what anatomical structure produced it” are not equivalent statements.
There is another complication too: footprints are produced through an interaction between the foot and the substrate.
Sand isn’t a passive recording medium.
Its moisture, grain size, compaction, cohesion, slope and the direction and magnitude of applied forces can all influence how pressure is expressed in the final impression.
Meldrum himself recognised the importance of substrate conditions. The Bluff Creek footprints were impressed in fine, dampened sand that preserved unusually fine detail, and his analysis of the material found a mixture of grain sizes dominated by metamorphic lithic particles.
He argued that the angular nature of those particles helped preserve the footprint detail exceptionally well.
So the real scientific question isn’t simply whether a ridge exists.
It is:
What combination of foot anatomy, movement, pressure and substrate mechanics is capable of producing it?
That is a much harder question, and one that makes the Patterson–Gimlin casts considerably more interesting than simply being unusually large footprints.
🧠 6. Why Would a Flexible Midfoot Leave a Ridge?
Imagine the foot entering the substrate.
The heel and rear portion of the foot initially load the ground.
As the body moves forward, the relationship between the rearfoot and forefoot changes.
If the midfoot can flex rather than behaving as a rigid arched platform, the forefoot can remain loaded while the rear portion begins to lift.
That movement can displace substrate material.
Instead of simply producing a static outline of the foot, the track records movement through the step.
Meldrum interpreted the transverse ridge as a pressure-release feature associated with this process. In his 2007 paper, he described the feature as a dynamic expression correlated with the midtarsal break of a hominoid foot.
This is why the feature fascinated him.
It isn’t merely a strange line in the sand.
If the interpretation is correct, it is a trace of how the foot moved.
⚠️ 7. But Is the Midtarsal Interpretation Conclusive?
No.
And this is where the discussion becomes more interesting.
The presence of a pressure ridge doesn’t automatically establish that the trackmaker possessed the precise anatomy inferred from it.
A footprint is a product of biomechanics and substrate mechanics.
So the question becomes:
Could a similar ridge be produced by something other than a biologically flexible midfoot?
That possibility needs to be taken seriously.
Meldrum’s interpretation depends upon the relationship between foot movement, pressure and the resulting deformation of the substrate. His wider work on fossil footprints also recognised that pressure features can be influenced by loading and locomotion.
Consequently, the scientifically useful question isn’t simply:
“Is there a ridge?”
It is:
“Is the ridge diagnostically characteristic of a flexible biological midfoot, or can other foot designs and substrate conditions reproduce it?”
That is a much harder question.
🏖️ 8. Substrate Effects
The Bluff Creek sand was unusually important.
Meldrum’s analysis of a substrate sample described fine-to-very-coarse lithic sand containing predominantly metamorphic fragments. He argued that the angular nature of the grains contributed to the exceptional preservation of footprint detail.
That helps explain why the casts could preserve such detailed morphology.
But excellent preservation doesn’t eliminate substrate mechanics.
A soft or damp substrate can deform under pressure.
Different parts of the same foot can load the ground differently.
The depth and shape of an impression can therefore reflect not only anatomy but also:
- moisture;
- grain size;
- substrate consistency;
- direction of movement;
- speed;
- body weight;
- foot angle;
- and the timing of heel lift and forefoot loading.
The substrate at Bluff Creek appears to have been particularly favourable for preserving fine detail, but that does not mean every feature within the resulting impression is a direct anatomical imprint.
This doesn’t disprove Meldrum’s interpretation.
It simply means that a pressure ridge needs to be interpreted biomechanically rather than treated as a standalone anatomical fingerprint.
🥾 9. Could a Hoax Produce It?
This is where the Patterson question becomes particularly interesting.
A simplistic hoax argument would be:
“Patterson could have carved a big foot.”
But that’s not really the most interesting hypothesis.
A more sophisticated possibility is that Patterson could have constructed an artificial flexible foot.
Imagine a large external foot with:
- a relatively rigid heel;
- a flexible midsection;
- a forefoot;
- articulated or deformable toes;
- and enough structure to distribute the wearer’s weight.
If such a device were walked through damp sand, it could potentially produce complex deformation.
Importantly, that hypothesis doesn’t require Patterson to have been an expert anatomist.
He would not necessarily have needed to understand terms such as the transverse tarsal joint or midtarsal break in academic language.
A person could theoretically experiment with a physical construction and refine it according to the tracks it produced.
That creates an important possibility:
Could an artificial foot reproduce the morphology attributed to a flexible hominoid foot?
If so, that would not prove Patterson used such a device.
It would demonstrate only that the footprint feature is not necessarily unique to biological anatomy.
Conversely, if such morphology proved extremely difficult to reproduce artificially, that would also be relevant to the debate.
The important point is that possibility and historical fact are not the same thing.
A feature being reproducible does not demonstrate that Patterson reproduced it.
📚 10. Did Patterson Need to Know Primate Anatomy?
This is another question that deserves more nuance than the usual arguments provide.
The comparative anatomy and locomotion of humans and non-human primates were already established areas of scientific research by 1967.
Researchers had long studied differences between human and ape feet, locomotion and the functional anatomy of the foot.
What is much more difficult to establish is whether Roger Patterson personally possessed enough knowledge of this literature to deliberately construct footprints reproducing the relevant characteristics.
We should therefore separate several questions:
Was the information available?
Yes.
Was Patterson familiar with the relevant anatomical literature?
That requires evidence.
Could someone construct a convincing flexible artificial foot without knowing the anatomical terminology?
Potentially.
Did Patterson actually do so?
That remains a separate historical claim requiring evidence.
The fact that a feature could be deliberately reproduced does not demonstrate that it was.
Likewise, the fact that a feature might have been difficult to reproduce does not demonstrate that it was produced biologically.
🪵 11. The Ray Wallace Complication
There is also historical context that cannot simply be ignored.
The Bluff Creek area had already become famous for enormous footprints in 1958, when road worker Jerry Crew discovered and cast large tracks.
Later, members of Ray Wallace’s family said that Wallace had made artificial footprints using carved wooden feet.
In 2002, his son Michael described a 16-inch wooden foot carved from alder being used to leave tracks around logging equipment as a practical joke.
The surviving Wallace feet were later documented as carved alderwood devices with straps for attaching them to the wearer.
That makes the Wallace story important for another reason.
It gives us a known example of deliberate Bigfoot footprint fabrication in the same general historical setting.
But when we compare the known Wallace apparatus with the characteristics Meldrum later discussed in the Patterson–Gimlin trackway, an important distinction appears.
The Wallace feet were not the same thing as the features Meldrum was studying
The surviving Wallace devices are essentially carved wooden foot forms.
They provide a rigid external shape that can be pressed into the substrate.
There is no documented anatomical skin surface on the wooden soles capable of producing genuine dermal ridge patterns, and there is no documented articulated midfoot mechanism in the surviving examples corresponding to the flexible midfoot movement that Meldrum argued was expressed in some Patterson–Gimlin footprints.
That matters.
Meldrum’s interpretation of the Patterson–Gimlin material was not simply based on the footprints being large.
He described the tracks as flat, broad and lacking a fixed human-style longitudinal arch, while also identifying indications of transverse flexion through the midfoot and, in some impressions, a midtarsal pressure-release ridge or disc.
In his 2007 paper, he linked the particularly pronounced ridge seen in one footprint to dynamic movement of the foot through the substrate.
A simple wooden stomper and a dynamically flexible foot are therefore two rather different mechanical propositions.
A rigid carved foot can produce a large outline.
The more interesting question is whether it can reproduce the deformation produced by a foot that actually flexes during the step.
And then there is dermal texture.
Some later Bigfoot casts have been claimed to preserve dermatoglyphic or dermal-ridge detail. Those claims are themselves a separate and contested area of footprint research, and we should not simply transfer them onto the Patterson–Gimlin casts.
But conceptually, a smooth carved wooden sole and a living primate foot with friction-ridge skin are obviously very different recording surfaces.
That doesn’t mean a hoaxer couldn’t deliberately add surface detail.
It means that the known Wallace feet themselves do not provide an obvious explanation for every unusual feature that has subsequently been claimed in other trackways.
But this does not automatically rescue Patty
This distinction is important because it is easy to take the argument too far.
The fact that the known Wallace feet appear mechanically simpler than the foot inferred by Meldrum does not prove that the Patterson–Gimlin footprints were genuine.
It only tells us that:
The Wallace-style explanation and the Meldrum-style anatomical interpretation are not necessarily describing the same mechanical process.
A more sophisticated artificial foot could theoretically have been constructed.
It could potentially have incorporated flexible materials, a deformable midsection, shaped toes or even deliberately added surface texture.
So the question becomes much more interesting than:
“Did Ray Wallace fake Bigfoot tracks?”
We know that artificial tracks were made using carved feet.
The more relevant question for Patty is:
“Can the specific morphology and dynamic features documented in the Patterson–Gimlin trackway be reproduced by an artificial foot?”
That is a separate problem.
The Wallace tracks also don’t simply match the 1967 material
There is another important historical point.
Photographic comparisons published during the later Wallace debate found that the known Wallace fakes did not match the Jerry Crew cast from 1958, nor did they match the Bluff Creek filmsite prints from 1967.
The surviving wooden foot and the known 1967 prints therefore should not simply be treated as interchangeable examples of the same footprint pattern.
That doesn’t settle who made the Patterson–Gimlin tracks either.
The Wallace story should therefore be treated as context for the possibility of fabrication, not as an automatic explanation for Patty.
The evidence should be kept separate rather than allowing one hoax to automatically explain another.
👣 12. What About Dermal Ridges?
This is one area where caution is especially important.
Dermal ridges are often discussed in connection with Bigfoot footprints because some later casts have been claimed to preserve fingerprint-like skin patterns.
Humans and other primates do possess friction-ridge skin on the soles and palms, so their existence would not in itself be biologically extraordinary.
But the Patterson–Gimlin casts should not be casually described as having proven dermal ridges.
Meldrum’s 2007 paper is principally concerned with footprint morphology, midfoot flexibility, pressure distribution, heel and toe morphology, and related ichnological characteristics. Its formal diagnosis does not depend upon dermal ridges.
Claims concerning dermatoglyphics belong to a separate evidential question and need to be tied to specific casts and specific examinations.
For this article, we would rather leave that question open than quietly import a claim from another footprint case and attach it to Patty.
That’s exactly the kind of distinction an evidence-led investigation should make.
🧬 13. What Does Anthropoidipes ameriborealis Actually Mean?
The name sounds dramatic.
Anthropoidipes ameriborealis.
But it does not mean:
“Jeff Meldrum scientifically named Bigfoot.”
This is one of the most important misconceptions to avoid.
Meldrum proposed Anthropoidipes ameriborealis as an ichnotaxon — a taxonomic name for the trace itself.
In other words:
Biotaxon = the animal
Ichnotaxon = the trace left by the animal
The distinction is crucial.
Meldrum explicitly stated in his 2007 paper that naming the tracks does not establish the identity of the trackmaker and does not resolve the controversy over the existence of Sasquatch.
His stated purpose was to provide a formal framework for discussing and comparing the footprints.
The type material was based on the Patterson–Gimlin trackway, including the original Patterson pair and additional Titmus material.
The name itself translates approximately as:
“North American ape foot.”
It describes the trace.
It does not identify the animal that produced it.
🔬 14. What Does the Track Actually Tell Us?
This is where it becomes useful to separate observation from interpretation.
What is physically documented?
There are casts and photographs associated with the 1967 Bluff Creek trackway.
Patterson cast a right and left pair.
Titmus later cast ten successive footprints.
Forest Service timber cruiser Lyle Laverty photographed footprints three days after the encounter and followed the tracks of a single trackmaker for several hundred feet.
Some of the prints show unusual morphology and apparent pressure deformation.
The casts and photographs preserve enough detail to permit anatomical and biomechanical analysis.
What did Meldrum infer?
He interpreted the morphology as representing a large hominoid foot with:
- a relatively flat plantar surface;
- no pronounced fixed human-style longitudinal arch;
- a broad and elongated heel;
- a poorly differentiated ball;
- distinctive toe proportions;
- and evidence of midfoot flexibility.
He considered the pressure-release ridge/disc to be associated with midtarsal flexion.
Importantly, Meldrum did not base this interpretation on a single isolated footprint.
His 2007 paper discusses the Patterson pair, the later Titmus series, Laverty’s photographs and additional footprint material.
He reported examining more than 200 footprint specimens and described a programme of three-dimensional scanning intended to allow quantitative geometric and morphometric analysis.
What remains disputed?
Whether those features necessarily require a biological hominoid foot.
Whether comparable morphology could be produced by an artificial foot.
How strongly substrate mechanics can account for individual features.
Whether the film and footprints can independently establish the identity of their producer.
And, ultimately, whether the anatomical interpretation is sufficient to establish the existence of an unknown North American primate.
Those are different questions.
⚖️ 15. The Skeptical Counterargument
There is a substantial skeptical literature surrounding the Patterson–Gimlin evidence.
Anthropologists David Daegling and Daniel Schmitt, for example, published Bigfoot’s Screen Test in Skeptical Inquirer in 1999.
Their analysis focused on the film rather than serving as a direct experimental refutation of every footprint claim.
They argued that uncertainties involving camera position, subject position and gait analysis limited what could confidently be determined about the identity of the film subject.
David Daegling subsequently criticised aspects of Meldrum’s anatomical interpretations, including the proposition that the midfoot evidence was necessarily diagnostic of a non-human foot.
The important point is not that one side “won.”
It is that the interpretation is contestable at the level of biomechanics.
That distinction is often lost in popular discussions.
A footprint can genuinely contain an unusual feature while researchers can still disagree about what produced it.
👣 16. So What Do the Patterson–Gimlin Casts Actually Show?
The most defensible answer is also the least sensational.
They show large, unusually detailed footprints associated with the 1967 Bluff Creek encounter, preserved through photographs, casts and subsequent duplication.
They contain morphology that Jeff Meldrum interpreted as consistent with a large hominoid foot, including a relatively flat plantar surface, broad heel, distinctive toe proportions and evidence of midfoot flexibility.
The pressure-release ridge is particularly interesting because it appears to represent a dynamic interaction between foot movement and substrate, rather than simply the static outline of a foot.
But the ridge is not synonymous with “proof of Sasquatch.”
It is an anatomical interpretation. And the distinction matters.
The strongest version of the argument is not:
“There is a ridge, therefore Bigfoot.”
It is:
“There are repeated morphological and dynamic features in the trackway that Meldrum interpreted as evidence of a flexible hominoid foot. The question is whether those features are biologically diagnostic or can be reproduced by other mechanisms.”
That question remains open to investigation.
🧭 What We Can and Can’t Conclude
What we can say
[👣] The Patterson–Gimlin site produced a documented sequence of unusually detailed footprints.
[🧱] The original trackway was photographed and cast by multiple people at different times.
[🧑🔬] Jeff Meldrum approached the tracks using specialist knowledge of anatomy, primate locomotion and ichnology.
[🦶] He identified several features that he interpreted as evidence of a large, flexible hominoid foot.
↔️ The midtarsal pressure-release ridge is one of the most interesting of those features.
[📚] The interpretation has a genuine anatomical and biomechanical basis and is documented in published scientific literature.
What we cannot say
[❌] The pressure ridge by itself proves the existence of Sasquatch.
[❌] Anthropoidipes ameriborealis is not a scientific name for the animal itself.
[❌] We cannot assume every footprint contains a dramatic midtarsal ridge.
[❌] We cannot assume that an unusual footprint must have been produced by an unknown animal.
[❌] We cannot assume that a feature capable of being reproduced artificially was actually fabricated by Patterson.
[❌] We cannot assume that Patterson knew the specialist anatomy necessary to deliberately reproduce every feature.
🔎 The Bigger Patty Investigation
This is why the footprints deserve to sit alongside the film rather than underneath it.
We’ve already looked at Patty’s estimated size.
We’ve examined how much those estimates change depending upon assumptions about camera speed and perspective.
We’ve looked at the costume technology available to a potential hoaxer in the 1960s.
We’ve examined gait, locomotion and body proportions.
Now the feet give us another layer.
And perhaps the most fascinating thing about them isn’t that they supposedly prove anything.
It’s that they give us a physical interface between anatomy and behaviour.
A footprint is an animal’s movement temporarily written into the ground.
If Patty was a living hominoid, the tracks potentially preserve clues about how that animal’s foot was constructed and used.
If Patty was a human performer, then the same tracks may preserve clues about how a costume or artificial foot interacted with the substrate.
Either way, there is something there to investigate.
And that is where we think the Patterson–Gimlin footprints deserve to be examined.
Not as sacred relics. Not as automatic proof. Not as something to dismiss without looking.
But as evidence.
REFERENCES
D. Jeffrey Meldrum, “Ichnotaxonomy of Giant Hominoid Tracks in North America,” New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin 42 (2007), pp. 225–231.
Read Meldrum’s 2007 paper — full PDF
Official New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science — Bulletin 42 full volume
Further reading
D. Jeffrey Meldrum, “Midfoot Flexibility, Fossil Footprints, and Sasquatch Steps: New Perspectives on the Evolution of Bipedalism,” Journal of Scientific Exploration 18(1) (2004), pp. 65–79.
David J. Daegling & Daniel O. Schmitt, “Bigfoot’s Screen Test,” Skeptical Inquirer 23(3), May/June 1999.
Read “Bigfoot’s Screen Test” — Skeptical Inquirer
