I attended the lecture presented by Dr. Ron Brown on Wednesday June 25th. There was a little better than 20 people who attended the lecture. The Lake Oroville Visitor Center is part of the California State Park system, and the state park employee who was present at the visitor center commented a couple times that there are usually a lot more people who turn out for the presentation. The state park employee suggested that the large number of wildfires in the surrounding areas, evacuations, and the lingering smoke was the reason for a lower than normal turn out for what has become a somewhat yearly event. Many of the fires in the area are still going today, and the smoke is so bad it is reminiscent of coastal fog & clouds. . . . . (..the nearly $5 a gallon gasoline price may have something to do with the low turn out as well...)
 
I was pleasantly surprised that Dr. Brown covered some information I had not heard before. His presentation was factual, informative and easy to follow. Dr. Brown did not draw any conclusions from the evidence he presented; instead he encouraged the audience to draw their own conclusions. He started with some historic/documented information (the Jacko story out of BC) to show how far back written records of sightings Bigfoot exist. He talked about names of the similar creatures around the world, and in Native American oral history. 
 
He showed & discussed the Patterson & Redwood footages. He showed still images of the creatures side by side, remarked on similar features. He stated that the 2 film sites are 16 miles apart as the crow flies (which I was unaware of previously). He commented that gorillas, orangutan and other primates could get instant erections when challenged, surprised or fighting. He stated that both he and Dr. Jeff Meldrum were intrigued when the creature in the Redwood film got an erection after the high beam lights were turned on. He also pointed out that the animal in the Redwood footage had long hair. He showed some slides of adult orangutan and asked us to take note of how the males have hair several inches long, while females have shorter hair. He showed a daytime picture from a trail game camera of something with long dark hair, but it was so close up that all you could see was the hair, and could not tell what type of animal it belonged to. You could see pine forest to the side of the hair. Dr. Brown indicated the trial game photo was taken in the Pacific Northwest. 
 
Dr. Brown also showed some night vision video footage, which he indicated had two unidentified animals on the other side of some thick brush. You could see the two animals moving about, but it was nowhere near clear enough to tell what they were. The night vision footage was very hard to make out; however, whatever was in the footage appeared to be big & walking on two legs. He used the night vision footage to demonstrate why more night vision footage of the creature does not exist.
 
He had quite a few track castings with him, a left hand print cast, a knuckle print cast, some adult tracks, a pair of juvenile tracks, and a copy of a track from the Patterson site. However the most interesting casting was of a huge butt print (no joke) it showed two developed/muscular butt cheeks separated by a wide and distinct butt crack. You could see hair impressions in the casting, and the casting was about the same diameter as a full size automobile tire. If I recall correctly, he said he & a research team followed a track way in a research area in the state of Washington, and the tracks came to a creek, the creature sat down on the bank of the creek, leaving the butt impression, and then lowered itself into the creek and proceeded to cross it. He commented that you might be able to find a human who could make a butt print as large as the one he cast, but stated the difference would be that a human would have a very tight/thin butt crack due to fat on the buttocks being pressed together while sitting.
 
There was a lot of other information covered in the presentation. The presentation was about 90 minutes long, and he did a Q&A for another 15 minutes or so. He had a lot of photos, many with Dr. Jeff Meldrum & himself in them, including photos of the Skookum cast being studied. . . . .
 

Review courtesy of Fred Thurman
aka CryptoHunterJD

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