Matt Crowley

*Photo of Matt Crowley*


I became interested in Sasquatch as a child growing up in Montana. I had seen a film about Bigfoot when I was quite young on the University of Montana campus. It was most likely Roger Patterson’s original documentary. I read John Green’s book On the Track of the Sasquatch when I was about 9. My interest began to fade in the mid 1970’s, as I simply stopped hearing about the subject in the mainstream media. My interest was awakened in 2000 by an Internet story on the Skookum cast. As I “caught up” on Bigfoot, I was particularly intrigued by the “dermal ridge” evidence. I read everything I could about this subject. Despite everything that I read, one question that was not addressed in what I read nagged at me; could soil really capture features as fine as dermal ridges, and could cement casts really capture detail that fine? Since I was not finding the answer in what I read, I decided to simply find out for myself. I made a cast of my own foot in a very fine mineral powder called fly ash. Indeed, I saw my own dermal ridges. But in addition, I saw other ridges, casting artifacts, which were not my own. About this time I watched the Sasquatch; Legend Meets Science DVD. The program contained a quick shot of a Sasquatch cast that was claimed to contain dermal ridges. I saw a degree of similarity and I began to investigate. Under certain conditions, cement casts can spontainously form ridges that might be interpreted as dermal ridges. My presentation “Dermal Ridges and Casting Artifacts” is about how these ridges can occur on cement casts.