Why is Dr. Jeff Meldrum a Fraud? The Bigfoot community doesn't want to hear the truth

                                   BIGFOOT + Meldrum = MONEY MAKING SCAM


Meldrum’s  university colleagues and scientists in his own field—that same collection does not constitute valid evidence, and Meldrum’s examination of it is pseudoscientific: belief shrouded in the language of scientific rigor and analysis. “Even if you have a million pieces of evidence, if all the evidence is inconclusive, you can’t count it all up to make something conclusive,” says David J. Daegling, an anthropologist at the University of Florida who has critiqued Meldrum and the Bigfoot quest in the Skeptical Inquirer and is the author of Bigfoot Exposed (AltaMira, 2004).

Dr. Meldrum is a "faith-based" "pseudo-scientist" who accepts only "evidence" that tends to support his ideas. His laughable mis-interpretation of the "Skookum cast" is a good example. Comparing his claims to actual scientific advances is fallacious; he uses hoaxed/fraudulent data, and substitutes circular reasoning for proof. Meldrum is worse than your "Bafoons" because he masquerades as a scientist who seeks the truth; in reality, he is not a truth seeker; like the creationists and the global-warming deniers, he seeks only to validate his beliefs.

Dr. Meldrum misinforms the Michiganders about the height of Patterson’s “bigfoot”

Over the Line, Smokey! has previously created a months-long post on Dr. Melba Ketchum’s excellent “bigfoot science” adventures. We have now been informed of an interesting fiasco involving the other principal proponent of “bigfoot science”, Dr. Jeff Meldrum, now full
professor at the Idaho State University. To wit: at Dr. Meldrum’s Facebook page, one of Dr. Meldrum’s many attentive followers, “Andrew”, pointed out a problem in a video that had been posted there, of a recent lecture given by him, which contains oddly out-of-date claims about the size of the supposed bigfoot seen the 1967 “Patterson-Gimlin” film (PGF).

The “A” denotes the “city” of West Branch, MI

Seems that Dr. Meldrum has recently taken his dog, pony, bigfootprint cast and book show on the road (as he frequently does) to a small town called West Branch (pop. 2139), in Michigan, and there he unloaded some preposterously outdated and withdrawn “research” on the locals ie that the figure shown in the iconic Patterson-Gimlin film is well over 7 feet tall.

the “bigfoot” in the “Patterson-Gimlin film”

Dr. Meldrum should have realized that if the locals had somehow scraped together his speaker’s fee (which we have been informed is customarily $5000), to hear the world-renowned bigfoot scientist/expert hold forth, then they probably had both the internet and video cameras, and they probably wanted the up-to-the-minute, straight poop on bigfoot “research.”

Instead, what they got for their ?5K was…., well, not so much. They got kind of the “oooh, scawy,” long-since-retracted, early-2009, version….and, embarrassingly, it was recorded on video, and then, wonder of wonders, uploaded to Dr. Meldrum’s Facebook page, where it got noticed.

Oops.

Here’s the long version of what went down:
Dr. Meldrum, at one point in his presentation to the rapt Michiganders (see video posted  on Don Jeffrey Meldrum’s Facebook page) August 13, 2013, “Bigfoot Discover Days West Branch MI 8/3/13 clip 5, Dr. Meldrum’s Presentation, Brought to you by the MN.B.R.T” at about 15 minutes in) launched into a discussion of his recent collaborative efforts with Mr. William “Bill” Munns, whose name has previously been mentioned at the this blog, in our lengthy post on Dr. Melba Ketchum. And, in fact, Dr. Meldrum has obtained grant money for Mr. Munns, from the Michele and Agnese Cestone Foundation, and invited him to submit papers to Dr. Meldrum’s online journal.  Back to the West Branch MI presentation/video: After nearly five minutes of extolling the virtues of Mr. Munns, his film background, his camera collection, his computer and photogrammetry skills, Dr. Meldrum says:

     …using photogrammetry, [Bill Munns is] able to create, using triangulations on landmarks visible from varying perspectives in the film, a model of the [Patterson-Gimlin filming] site. We then visited the site and he was able to resurvey the whole area and found that there were some discrepancies between his model and the actual survey. And that was to be expected because we believed that the camera lens was not only not corrected for chromatic aberration, but it was a very low focal length lens, it was a panoramic lens, which would have a slight fisheye effect on the view and distort the image around its margin. The degree of distortion then corrrelates with the focal length.
Well, that was very important to establish, because if you know the height of the subject on the film itself, and you know the focal length, the actual focal length of the lens, and you know the distance to the subject, then it’s just a simple proportionality to solve for x, the height of the film subject. There’s been a lot of controversy about how big his creature really was…trying to use objects in the scene, using the length and appearance of the foot in the film, correlating that with the tracks, and so forth. This shows very clearly that the subject was about 7 feet 3 inches tall, was just over 7 feet tall. So work with the scene itself is very important. Using his abilities with makeup and materials that were and weren’t available in 1967, he’s done a lot of re-creation….[end of clip]

Well, very nice, Dr. Meldrum. But 4 years out of date. Do you get your bigfoot information from cable television reruns?

Four years have passed since Bill Munns proposed and then quickly withdrew the idea of a 7 ft-3 inch “Patty” bigfoot

And this briefly held and now long disavowed idea is presented by Mr. Munns self-proclaimed “collaborator,” who must have (?) just recently reviewed Mr. Munns qualifications, for the Cestone Foundation grant proposal. What’s going on here? Why is Professor Meldrum still talking about a 7 foot 3 inch monster, a result that Mr. Munns himself withdrew back in 2009, a matter of months (maybe weeks) after it appeared on a MonsterQuest television show on the History Channel, Critical Evidence (#3.19- Original Air Date: 7/8/2009) and probably before a similar National Geographic program, “American Paranormal” (#1.3, 13 Jun. 2010) even aired.

Why is Dr. Meldrum still pushing the three-four-years-withdrawn version of bigfoot? Does the giant version of bigfoot sell more books? does he think that bigfoot devotees won’t notice? does he even care?

Dr. Meldrum sells his bigfoot stuff at one of his speaking gigs

Well, back in 2006, when Meldrum’s book Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science came out, he was interviewed and admitted that “size matters:”

FLATOW: Hm-hmm. And there are still people who are analyzing the film?

Dr. MELDRUM: Well absolutely. In fact just a few weeks ago I returned from a trip to Stanford University where as part of a production for the Discovery Channel we were working with a motion and gate analysis lab there on campus to give the film one more fresh look, and particularly from this newer enhanced version.

And we even brought in an actor who we coached in order to simulate the posture that was exhibited by the subject. He was able to do that after considerable coaching pretty closely approximate the posture of the body, the angles of the joints.

But what fell short was the obvious difference that he wasn’t seven feet tall. He wasn’t three feet across. He…

What about Mr. Munns? By his own account, he began to work on the “Patterson-Gimlin film,” (“PGF”) in 2008. The next year, Mr. Munns caused a stir in the bigfoot community when he appeared in a cable television “bigfoot” programs and launched his website, “The Munns Report.” Mr. Munns claimed that his computerized analysis of the film showed that Roger Patterson had used a wider angle lens (15mm focal length) than the 25mm lens on the camera when Patterson rented it. As a result, mathematically, Mr. Munns felt he could show that the subject “bigfoot” seen in the film was something like 7 ft 4 inches tall, thereby making it pretty unlikely that this was anything other than one real big hairy scary monster, people. Yipes !

from National Geographic program in which Munns appeared; he had already withdrawn the 7 foot claim by the time the show aired

OTL,S! would like to be able to show where in Mr. Munns’ website (The Munns Report) these early 2009 7 foot-4 inch claims are documented. But, you know what? We can’t. Because they aren’t there. They WERE there, once upon a time, and we know that because Mr. Munns does refer to them in Release 1b:
(it is important to note that Mr. Munns website does not show these “15/7″ claims at the present time. The logical place to look on his site would seemingly be “Release 1-A” which now bears the date May 29, 2009. But the claim is not there. OTL,S! does not know whether these claims were ever there, or whether (more likely) they were, in early 2009, in “Release 1a” or elsewhere on the site, and have been removed (“updated”) out of embarrassment or some other motive on Mr. Munns’ part. We can say that by November 27, 2009, when Mr. Munns released his “Beginners Guide” at the Munns Report site, there was no mention of the 15mm lens/7ft-4 inch Patty. )
ADDED 9/1/2013: Apparently Mr. Munns “reorganized” his material sometime in the past, moving most of it to another site. Thanks to commenter Ray G, who gives us the URL of the material ie the 15mm lens/7 ft 4 inch height, which was not moved to the present website:http://themunnsreport.com/tmr_site_022.htm
So while some credulous folks rushed out, after the Monster Quest program in early 2009, to order military surplus howitzers to protect the Boy Scout Jamboree from 7 foot 4 inch bigfoots, others were questioning Mr. Munns’ software, his skills, and his results. Well, given Mr. Munns’ now-established “exuberance” in reviling those whom he perceives have failed to give him props, it is not surprising that at that time, in early 2009, Mr. Munns was less than generous with his critics, as can be seen in Release 1B at his site.

Nonetheless, Mr. Munns had to admit, in “Release 1b” at his Munns Report site, in early to mid 2009,that he was wrong about the 15mm lens/7-4 inch Patty:

In May of 2009, at an event honoring Bob Gimlin,I made my announcement about the 15mm lens and why I felt it was more likely than a 25mm lens to be used on Patterson’s camera. I also launched this website with a lot of supporting information on my effort to analyze this. What I had not counted on were two things: One was that there are more variables in the solution than my first appraisal of the problem indicated; and Two, I was completely unprepared for how powerful the internet is in spreading information and how helpless we are to try and correct something in error once it has spread.

and,

the specific focal length may not be the 15mm I described in my report release….

-July 6, 2009.

[Mr. Munns does not tell us which 'report release" he is referring to, but since this quote is from Release 1b, it would seem reasonable to assume that he is referring to "Release 1a", but there presently (Aug 23, 2013) is nothing, not a word, in Release 1a about the 15mm lens/7ft-4 inch Patty idea. We assume Mr. Munns removed it from Release 1a in 2009 either to spare himself embarrassment or to stop the spread of disinformation.]

Munns also refers to the “withdrawing” of the 15 mm lens/7 foot height in his “Release 1g”, September 25, 2009:

Sept. 25, 2009, Munns Report, Release 1g

And furthermore, later, (by 2011 if not earlier) that his software and his skills were not up to the task.

6. For photogrammetry software testing, I have concluded that the best results would be achieved if I rely on people extensively experienced in those software packages instead of my getting the software and trying to solve this matter as a novice user on a learning curve with the software. This is the primary reason I don’t try to move forward with this at present. Such experts will require some compensation for their time and effort, and funding is not yet secured to do so. October 3, 2011

Whew. All across the country, howitzer orders were being cancelled.

Now, OTL,S! can imagine how hard it is for a busy full professor like Dr. Meldrum to keep up with all the bigfoot literature, as there are literally dozens of reports of sightings every month (or every week, wherever the crew for “Finding Bigfoot’ shows up), chronicled faithfully at the websites of the Bigfoot Research Organization and dozens of other smaller bigfoot enthusiasts across the interwebs. However, not a single one of these reports has ever been verified, so that should simplify the task for scientists like Dr. Meldrum. And of course the only scientific bigfoot journal that Dr. Meldrum should have to read is his own, the “Relict Hominoid Inquiry,” and only a handful of articles have been published there in the two years that it has existed. So all in all, Dr. Meldrum shouldn’t have much bigfoot science to follow, other than that of Mr. Munns. But apparently he didn’t. This is nothing new for Dr. Meldrum. Recently he published one of his own papers in his own Relict Hominoid Inquiry, in 2012, in which he cited the finding of a supposed unknown “Yeti” hair in Bhutan in 2001. Problem was, the story was based on a press release, representing some preliminary results that are now more than ten years old:

Robson next implies that the physical evidence for sasquatch is found wanting based on an identification of an alleged sasquatch hair sample as in fact bison (Coltman and Davis, 2005). This sweeping generalization based on a single case, glosses over the accumulating samples of primate-like hair that indeed defy attribution to recognized species. This can be said of not only samples attributed to sasquatch (Gragg et al., 2011), but has also been the case with hair samples from other corners of the globe, such as samples from Bhutan attributed to the yeti of the high forests of the Himalayas subjected to DNA analysis. (ref: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn583-mystery-beast.html)
—-The RELICT HOMINOID INQUIRY 1:67-71(2012), From the Editor; ARE OTHER HOMININS (HOMINOIDS) ALIVE TODAY? by Jeff Meldrum

A quick google by Dr. Meldrum, and/or a call to the source (Dr. Bryan Sykes), would have revealed that the hairs yielded bear DNA.

A well publicized expedition to Bhutan reported that a hair sample had been obtained which by DNA analysis by Professor Bryan Sykes could not be matched to any known animal.[63] Analysis completed after the media release, however, clearly showed the samples were from a Brown bear (Ursus arctos) and an Asiatic black bear (Ursus thibetanus).[64] ^ Chandler, H.C. (2003). Using Ancient DNA to Link Culture and Biology in Human Populations. Unpublished D. Phil. thesis. University of Oxford, Oxford.

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Science by press release/cable television program. We understand that Dr. Meldrum discovered his error earlier this summer when he sat down with Dr. Sykes regarding a DNA project. We wonder if Dr. Meldrum will print a correction to his paper in his online journal.

Back to the present: When confronted with the facts about Mr. Munns 2009 claim and retraction, did Dr. Meldrum cop to a lesser plea of, let’s say, being drunk, or being inpersonated, Dr. Meldrum attempted to slither out from under the embarrassing truth with a combination of a diverting ad hom attack and a transparently deceptive “clarification:”

Appears, Andew, that you feel you are my personal peanut gallery. There’s that chip again…. An incomplete study is not without preliminary results. My intent was to emphasize that Bill’sreconstruction provides another line of evidence pointing to a height in excessive of simply “a average man in afur suit.” Perhaps I didn’t qualify that point sufficiently. Do you have evidence to contradict that generalization? If not step down from your bully pulpit and if you have a question fo rpersonal clarification, use a PM rather thanattempting to draw attention to yourself on my timeline.August 17 at 11:24pm · Edited

Really?

So Dr. Meldrum was actually just trying to “emphasize” the idea that the height of the subject of the PGF is in excess of 5 ft 10 inches? Really? then why did he say “7 ft 3 inches”? And Mr. Munns reconstruction provides evidence? That isn’t Mr. Munns position, as here Andrew comes back with:

You posted the clip to the Michigan video on your Facebook page, and here is where Bill says it is not confirmed:http://www.sasquatchforum.proboards.com/thread/503/abominable-science-damning-damned?page=5&scrollTo=9943#ixzz2cBjAZHmw
Just so I’m clear, it is ok to post on your Facebook page if I have a bad footprint, or I am experiencing Bigfoots braiding my horse manes, but not ok if I think you are using outdated material in a video you posted online?

No response (so far….) from Dr. Meldrum.

So Andrew posted more evidence of the “faux pas:”

Here is a quote from Bill Munns at the BFF ” Posted 27 February 2013 – 10:35 AMThe height measure of over 7′ tall is based on a 15mm lens, and with the new comparisons of McClarin’s footage with the PGF, a 15mm lens for Patterson is simply not possible, so a PGF height of over 7′ is also notpossible.The two current alternatives which are still possible are a 20mm lens, which puts Patty at about Jim’s height, plus or minus 2″, or a 25mm lens, which puts Patty much shorter than Jim McClarin.” I am sorry if you think I am being a jerk, I just hate to see misinformation spread by the very people who are trying to bring the discovery of Bigfoot to the masses, in a scientific manner.

in other words:

Still no response (so far…) from Dr. Meldrum.

As if it weren’t bad enough that the chief scientific advocate for bigfoot is selling (yes, you heard me) discredited four-year-old stories of monsters to clumps of dumpy camo-devotees in the soft underbelly of rural Michigan (and probablyelsewhere), ?for years? Over the Line, Smokey! notes another issue with Dr. Meldrum’s apparent lack of information about Mr. Munns’ research: Dr. Meldrum may well have also inaccurately touted Mr. Munns abilities, software and results in the recent successful grant proposal which resulted in funding of Mr. Munns recent research, by the Michele and Agnese Cestone Foundation (some of which money likely flowed to Dr. Meldrum). Perhaps Dr. Meldrum would be good enough to disclose that portion of the proposal which deals with Mr. Munns research on the height of “Patty.”

Here is a book review of his book=

http://www.physics.smu.edu/pseudo/bigfootreview.pdf     Must read