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.