Sasquatch "Alba Vernix" and The Hand Model

 Recently, I had the honor of discussing dermal ridge evidence with Doug Hajicek, who has run numerous groundbreaking cryptozoology programs such as Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science and MonsterQuest. He had sent me this PSA/diagram, of sorts, discussing the oily white substance that accompanies many sasquatch handprints, which some have dubbed "alba vernix". Essentially, sasquatch alba vernix is theorized to be a type of epidermic bodily oil that is left behind in footprints, handprints, fingerprints, etc in the alleged species.
The post contained a handprint, which I have had difficult tracking down, that very much resembled the amateur anatomical sketch I posted on this blog quite some time ago. Make of it what you will. The comparison is interesting, but not necessarily conclusive by any means. 

A Follow-Up On The Candy Hicks Print

 The previous post on this blog discusses one alleged handprint left on the window of a claimed eyewitness named Candy Hicks. The photo was posted on Facebook earlier this year, and possible displays signs of palm creases. Of course, this is not definitive evidence of a sasquatch handprint.

    Someone on Facebook named Steven Nadeau, who happened to see that blog post replied with an alternate explanation that seems to fit very well. This does not necessarily mean Hicks is not a sasquatch eyewitness. Rather, it suggests this particular handprint may be a case of mistaken "evidence". 

    The paw in the photo can be seen to match fairly well with the general shape of the alleged handprint. A big thanks to Steven Nadeau for the comparison. 

    There are some misgivings with the comparison. For one, the arch of the paw on the black bear's paw is inverted in the print on the window, even though the "thumb" of the paw is in the same location, lower than the rest of the digits. The shape of the palm is also less raised and more broad on the print than it is on the photo of the paw. The digits themselves line up rather well, save for their inverted arch. One is left to wonder how the fact that this print is left seemingly only through humidity affects the discrepancies in appearance. 
    Still, it is a more likely explanation than sasquatch. The print is largely ambiguous, as indicated several times in the previous blog post, but bears the most resemblance to, well, a bear. This does not mean it is not a sasquatch, and that possibility does not mean it is not a bear. 

The Candy Hicks Handprint

    This handprint in particular is actually a new addition. This blog has often examined more well-known older prints, but now I have the lucky opportunity to look at something truly new.

    The Candy Hicks handprint first pops up online on Facebook in a post by Candy Hicks on March 1st, 2021. Hicks describes the encounters that surround the print, as well as some opinions on it, in her post. 


    "I had a visitor last night. Looks like the fingers was curled over like a gorilla does. And I have big hands myself.You can see how big this hand print is. Plus I live way off the main road. And my brother , sister in law and there son was driving back the lane lastnight and they all seen a huge upright thing running from my truck. N today I found foot prints all over in the woods behind my place. 4 different sets of tracks. Plus Iv been hearing vocals from the woods. My son has herd them two. Last year it was bad all summer till archery season. A lot of nights I was locked n loaded cuz I didn’t know what was going to happen when we have had rock n branch thrown around all night on many occasions. And pounding on trees. It’s been seen by many family members including me 2 times." 

  

  Candy Hicks seems to live a pretty normal life, if her Facebook profile is anything to go off of. It doesn't mean this couldn't be a hoax, but certainly does suggest it would be incredibly spontaneous if it was.

    The handprint itself is quite interesting. Unfortunately, there is no proper measurement to determine the dimensions of the print. It is also difficult to make out details. However, Candy does provide some of her own observations, and using those as a jumping-off point, some estimates and further observations might be inferred. 

    Firstly, Candy tells us that she has somewhat large hands, herself. The average length of the human female hand is about 6.8 inches (17.272 cm), with the average width being 3.1 inches (7.874 cm). If her hands are larger than average, the dimensions may fall into the ballpark of about 7 inches (17.78 cm) by 3.5 inches (8.89 cm). This would give her a rather broad palm, which may match up to her description. Of course, this is simply a hypothetical set of dimensions, and while it may be close to the real dimensions, is not as accurate as it could be. It is, though, the set of dimensions we will be working with here.

    If these dimensions are assumed, we have a reference to estimate the dimensions of this alleged sasquatch handprint. Looking at a comparison, (attempting my best to account for the angular nature of the photo), it might be estimated that the handprint is around 8 inches (20.32 cm) by 5 inches (12.7 cm). This is not accounting, though, for the claim Candy posits that the fingers are curled into knuckles. If this is the case, the length of the fully flexed hand may reach around 10 to 11 inches (about 26.67 cm), since a curled finger with its nails facing forward, which Candy suggests is the case here, is about 1/3rd longer flexed out. This would give the subject particularly long fingers; the thumb is also rather long and positioned either high on the palm, or low with a wide degree of flexibility up and down.

    It is also the curl of these fingers that indicates something very interesting about the handprint. If it is the case that these fingers have curled "like a gorilla does", it is somewhat reminiscent of the Paul Freeman handprint's anatomy, which displays fingers that curl very acutely. It cannot be ruled out, though, that Freeman's handprint is not fabricated. The resemblance is probably superficial at best, but is interesting to note nonetheless. It certainly resembles the way gorilla fingers curl much more, with the nails seemingly facing the same direction as the palm.

    The palm is one of the most interesting aspects of the Hicks handprint. Although no dermal ridges can be seen in the substance left behind by the handprint, the moisture on the print has revealed a key detail.

    Between the middle and ring fingers of the print, the moisture cascades in a V shape downward, connecting the water at one point and dripping downwards, (as droplets tend to do on glass). However, where it drips down and the shape of the V cascade suggest that it had shaped this way because something was blocking it. That is to say, the way the hand was curled, (if a hand did make this), made it so that the moisture was blocked on the left and the right by the meat of the palm in this V shape, and as it cascaded downwards, filled in the areas of the palm that were not blocking its path. Interestingly enough, if looked at as a hand, the droplet of water perfectly fills out the outline of the middle and thenar crease of the palm, which is the crease of the palm that curves downwards and to the side, pointing to the thumb.

    Again, all of this is exceedingly hypothetical. Viewing this handprint under the lens of a primate hand allows us to see interesting details that may have been otherwise ignored; this does not equate to proof that this handprint is, in fact, a handprint. 

    

The Finding Bigfoot Skunk Ape Handprint

     In one of the first seasons of the show, the television program Finding Bigfoot took a look at an alleged primate handprint left behind by what the witnesses referred to as a Skunk Ape, (which is a common name for Sasquatch and other mystery primates in the southern states, mostly Florida).

    The handprint could not be preserved, as it was left in only an oil smear on the sliding glass door of the witnesses' home. A photograph and video, however, were taken of the evidence. Although the photograph is low quality, it can be observed that there is a hand-like impression, seemingly made in oil, on the glass door. 

    The handprint seems to display a rather elongated and wide nature, with a noticeable bulge near what would be the trapezium bone at the base of the thumb, fingertips that are long enough to not be properly picked up by the imprint, narrow finger structure, and a generally wide palm.

    Below is the original photograph, as well as a mock-up of what a rather humanoid hand would need to look like to make a similar imprint without too much dragging. The photo's labels are credited to Bigfoot Lunch Club.

       The hand seems to match up rather nicely, (if dragging is not ignored but factored into the appearance of the print), with the handprint of an orangutan. The handprint of the orangutan would also match rather well with the original alleged Skunk Ape handprint, save for the rather short thumb of the orangutan and the slenderness of its palm.

    The most likely answer, in this case, is that this was made by a human. The similarities to human and non-human primate hands seem equally strong and hold no superior merit either way. However, this does not mean that a positive identification should be assumed. It is my own opinion that there is not enough information available on the print to make any kind of positive identification; only hypothetical comparisons.

The Olympus Track

 The Olympic Project is a sasquatch research time with the aim of collecting and analyzing evidence. One of their founding members, David Ellis, cast what he posited might be the track of an infant sasquatch. Unfortunately, I am unaware as to the date of the discovery. The location is also unknown, although I believe I've heard it was found in Olympic National Park in Washington state. 
The Olympus track is significant to the Sasquatch Print Project because it is one of the only alleged footprints to demonstrate defined dermal ridges. Usually, we would expect from any animal with hands and feet that their handprints would leave dermal ridges the most often. The same appears to be the case with the sasquatch, (or with sasquatch hoaxers), as most of the alleged dermal ridge images out there are attributed to hands or individual fingers. The Olympus track, however, is to be interpreted as a foot.
The dermal ridges seemingly present on the Olympus track are rather small, and as such, their full formation is not visible. Because of this fact, I cannot make any identification as to the type of ridges we are seeing. As a matter of fact, because these dermal ridges are on feet, no classification can be made anyway, as feet ridges do not have classifications in the same manner that fingerprints do.
Overall, the entire length of the ridges is around an inch, on a track that is 3 1/4 inches long. Make what you will of the images and the enhancements included.

Fabricating Dermal Ridges

Hello, everyone. It's been a while since I've posted, a little over a year now. I'm looking to get back into posting on this blog.
As I'm sure most reading are aware, this blog is dedicated to the study of alleged sasquatch dermal ridges and, therefore, making an attempt to build a dermal ridge profile of these supposed animals; that is, if they exist.
Of course, to discuss dermal ridges as a form of evidence, it must also be admitted that such evidence can be faked, although in some cases it would appear to be much more difficult than in others. The following scientific paper by John Bodley of Washington State University's anthropology department outlines one way dermal ridges can be faked in cases where sizes could be similar to those of people. Smaller tracks and handprints, for example, would be easy to fake in this paper's argument. It's a very good read and really highlights the most important philosophy to keep in mind during any scientific inquiry, including this one.
Always question your own hypothesis. 

https://research.wsulibs.wsu.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/2376/1729/v62%20p129%20Bodley.PDF?sequence=1&fbclid=IwAR151NP8vcB_Cp3CpJTPjndQbWwKJw-tVA51nzZSzXQR-RVjShIOANe8QQE

Patty's Hand Follow-Up

This is a really quick, short post. I found the image I had unfortunately lost making the Patty post five days ago, it's one that displays her left hand and the potential knuckles on her right quite well. Rather than confuse people and just redo the previous post, I decided it'll be a bit more comprehensive to just upload this here.