Where's the Bell?
Searching for Murphy's "Bell-Shaped Object"

On January 10, 1999 the Associated Press carried a news story regarding the 1967 Patterson footage. A Pacific Northwest man named Cliff Crook called a press conference to announce the discovery of new "evidence," which he claims indicates the footage was a hoax. The evidence is a small fuzzy detail visible in some of the published reproductions of still frames of the 1967 footage. Buffs of the controversial footage immediately scoffed at this new "evidence," because the proffered detail had never before been identified by any of the formal scientific investigations directed at the footage over the past 30 years. Crook claims the new evidence shows an "artificial object" in the fur of the bigfoot figure. He asserts this object is part of a costume. At the press conference Cliff Crook exhibited a pretzel-like, clay model of this "artificial object" built by associate Chris Murphy, based on Murphy's interpretations of the fuzzy detail.

Murphy had previously issued a statement describing how he found this detail in an enlargement of a color plate from the book Manlike Monsters on Trial (Majorie Halpin). This color plate depicts the widely recognized "frame 352" of the Patterson footage. Murphy and Crook claim this "object" is visible in the waistline of the bigfoot figure when the color plate is magnified or closely examined. In his written statements Murphy claimed this object is, for some unexplained reason, not visible in all reproductions of the footage, but is visible in the Halpin book. Murphy also stated that anyone can see this "bell-shaped object" simply by enlarging the color plate of frame 352 in the Halpin book.

On January 11, 1999 the color plate of frame 352 was carefully examined by imaging specialists at a color technology laboratory in Ventura, California. State-of-the-art scanners were used to magnify the image down to the color-point level. Below you will find some of the unaltered, high-resolution scans of the book image which were obtained in the lab examination. The final image in the series shows the detail in question at approximately 1600% magnification. At this level of resolution the individual points of color are clearly visible. Murphy's "bell-shaped object" is not readily discernable at any level of resolution. To the naked eye the "object" appears to be a diffuse blotch of light reflecting off the fur. At increasingly higher magnification this detail still appears to be a diffuse blotch of light reflecting off the fur. Several other parts of the bigfoot figure show similar blotches of light reflecting off the fur. The detail in question has no clear edges, and has no visible "artifical" shape. The lab tests demonstrated that a clear magnification of the color plate does not reveal anything like the pretzel-like object displayed at Crook's press conference. The image analysts stated that Murphy seems to be relying on some "highly imaginative, Rorschach-like interpretations of fuzzy details in enlargements of the color plates."

Browse through the series of high-resolution scans below to view the area of detail that Murphy and Crook claim shows a "bell-shaped object."

Is it a "bell," or is it a diffuse blotch of reflected sunlight? You be the judge.

Click on the images to right to see larger, clearer versions.

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Where's the Bell?Searching for Murphy's "Bell-Shaped Object"

Where's the Bell?
Searching for Murphy's "Bell-Shaped Object"