Thom Powell: I'm inclined to say that the Elbe trackway looks fake

When the Elbe, WA trackway was first discovered by Scott Taylor last week, Thom Powell was one of the first investigators to show up at the scene. According to early reports, the tracks were real and showed some incredible details such as visible signs of dermal ridges. Powell thought the first tracks collected by investigator Rick Noll and others were some of the most detailed tracks he had ever seen. The trackway is one of the longest in history, with 150 footprints; it easily surpasses the "London Trackway" from early this year by about 30 prints.

Now that the dust has settled, investigators are now finding suspicious details about the casts that they hadn't noticed before. For example, considering how fresh the tracks were when they found them, most of the prints are missing dermal ridges (skin ridges). Powell claims the tracks that he recovered showed "absolutely no dermal ridges".

In the London tracks, one does not find any dermal ridges. The lack of dermal ridges is understandable in light of the fact that the tracks were rained upon for the better part of a week before they were cast. In the Elbe trackway, the tracks were cast within days of their creation, and, absolutely no rain had fallen with the entire previous month. Yet these super fresh tracks that I have show absolutely no dermal ridges that I could find. Granted, there are other tracks that were taken before I got there and I assume they were the best of the lot. Still, there ought to be something by way of dermals on my casts but, for the life of me, I can't find them. Yet, other barefoot tracks (clearly human) from the same beach had dermal ridges all over them. Suspicious indeed!

Another problem was how the tracks were conspicuously placed-- as if they were meant to be found. Powell says he doesn't understand why a creature that's so elusive would be so careless about its tracks.

When I first saw the Elbe tracks, the other thought that immediately occurred to me was that the tracks were so conspicuously placed that it seemed we were meant to find them. This baffled me somewhat, because I have always said (and written) that the sasquatch are smart enough to avoid leaving obvious tracks. The Elbe tracks were a clear departure from my rule. Granted, the London tracks were also rather conspicuous, but at least they were laid down in winter when daylight is short, people get out less, and the location was more remote. In contrast, the Elbe tracks were laid down on a beach right outside the hamlet of Elbe, there was a busy road adjacent to the beach, it was late summer rather than winter, and most damning, the trackway went right through the softest, wettest, most perfect mud for tracking that could be found anywhere on that particular beach. I even mentioned to Joe on the way home that the tracks seemed like a 'throw down'. That is, they were so ideally placed, and in such an ideal time of year, that it seemed to be a virtual invitation to find and cast these conspicuous tracks. Joe and I even discussed the possibility that, if they were genuine bigfoot tracks, maybe the sasquatch was doing us researchers a deliberate favor by leaving such ideal tracks in such an ideal location.

You can read the full article at www.thomsquatch.com.