Merged: Finding Bigfoot

[The Shrike]

Originally Posted by LTC8K6

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxqO3fAFXuU

I still think that's what I see.

Clarifying my position, I agree with LTC8K6. I don't think the image in the video looks like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNy7m-2Tjq4

So do we have any independent corroboration of a hoax? If not, I'll stick with bear as the most parsimonious explanation.

[Drewbot]

Moneymaker proved that a dash cam can be obtained.
Perhaps the hoax was that the hoaxer purported that the dash cam footage was from a police car.

It looks like a bear galloping to me as well, but the hoax may be in the presentation, not in the execution.

There is no upright Torso on the 'bigfoot' so that leaves, Bigfoot in 4x4 mode as the option. They better get Bobo to do a 4x4 jaunt across the highway.

[Drewbot]

It really is a dreadful show.
I have tried watching it three times, and have fallen asleep at the 20 minute mark each time. Perhaps tonight I will make it to the 40 minute mark.

[Finn]

The name of the show says it all - they seem to find Bigfoot everywhere.

[Drewbot]

I like when Moneymaker says something like "I was the one who discovered wood-knocking and calling was effective in locating Bigfoot"

Another thing, imagine someone who could go into a strange forest and locate something like a black bear, or a bobcat, or a puma, nearly every single time they tried. This guy can take a crew anywhere, find a bigfoot, and then of course walk away.

At one point BOBO and The guy from BFRO, who practices his Bigfoot calls in the shower, hear one right on the other side of the tangle that they are walking by, they call Moneymaker on the radio, 'there is one right here, he just broke a branch or threw a rock', and what do they do? They say "OK let's head back to the road."

[William Parcher]

Originally Posted by The Shrike

If not, I'll stick with bear as the most parsimonious explanation.

Given the circumstances, a bear is the least parsimonious explanation.

1. Using their own eyes, the witnesses in the car were shocked and baffled as to what they had just seen. A bear wouldn't elicit that reaction. A completely black running biped would get that reaction.

2. The Deputy and the Sheriff (maybe others too) would have had the original dash cam video to review which is undoubtedly better than our YouTube version or even the HD version from the program. If it looked like a bear the investigation would have ended right there.

3. The Sheriff decided to question people living in homes around the sighting. He presumably would not have done this if the video showed a bear in addition to the personal opinion given by the Deputy. Their opinion was probably that this was a person in suspicious circumstances. Something isn't quite right when a person dressed in bulky black from head-to-toe darts across the road in the wilderness at night.

No, it wasn't a galloping bear.

[Drewbot]

There is no upright torso on the bigfoot in the dash cam.

[MD 20/20]

Start watching at about 5:05

http://www.youtube.com/user/strangen.../0/PjykKJNpTcA

[The Shrike]

Originally Posted by William Parcher

1. Using their own eyes, the witnesses in the car were shocked and baffled as to what they had just seen. A bear wouldn't elicit that reaction.

A poorly seen bear could've elicited that reaction. Even a well seen bear moving unusually fast could've looked strange to them. We also shouldn't assume that the eyewitness views mirror what we can discern in the video.

Like Drew, I'm hard-pressed to see this figure as much taller than the guard rail. It looks low and fast to me.

What do we really know about the Sheriff's investigation? Has it been established that this even happened or is this just hearsay?

[MD 20/20]

We know that the good Sheriff's name was printed in a local (as in his jurisdiction) newspaper with a claim that he exposed the hoax. We also know that the newspaper hasn't printed a retraction and the Sheriff hasn't publicly gone after the newspaper for posting an erroneous claim that he discovered a hoax. Of course, there's always an FOIA request.

[MD 20/20]

That video unit uses a proprietary format to store video/audio onto a removable hard drive so it can't be edited by your average Joe. It has to be converted to an mpeg or some similarly available format and burned onto a disk before it can be shared, uploaded, etc...This does degrade the quality of the video.

[William Parcher]

Upright running biped with a bulky torso, and is obviously taller than the guardrail. From here.

[LTC8K6]

This prank was quite dangerous. We should have heard more about it. A driver might have been startled and swerved. The prankster might misjudge and get hit.

The police should be lecturing about this, and punishing the pranksters.

I'm beginning to wonder, if this is a prank, if the car is part of the prank?

How do you judge the distance so well that you just barely show up on the dash cam when you run across?

What are the odds that you'd decide to do this, and then run out in front of a car with a recording dash cam?

Are there other reports from other cars that these pranksters ran in front of? Or did they run in front of a single car, and it happened to be a car with a recording dash cam?

Note that the occupants of the car both mention that they thought "bear" when they first saw the subject.

Yet they turn around with emergency lights on and investigate? Why would you do that if a you thought a bear ran in front of you? You wouldn't.

The mention of a bear in the audio recording is part of the story line of making sure the prank victims know it couldn't have been a bear, imo.

[MD 20/20]

I would call it an unfortunate (for the prankster) circumstance that he ran out in front of a marked Sheriff's patrol unit. There's not a chance the Deputy was involved, on any level. That would have been a bigger story than the prank itself.

[LTC8K6]

Originally Posted by William Parcher

Upright running biped with a bulky torso, and is obviously taller than the guardrail. From here.


http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w...r/132bcc9a.png

Not that it's a bear, but a black bear viewed from the side while running at night under poor conditions could appear bipedal. Look at the way the bear walks, versus when it runs. Walking, it moves each leg independently. Running, it moves them pretty much in pairs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxqO3fAFXuU

[The Shrike]

Originally Posted by William Parcher

Upright running biped with a bulky torso, and is obviously taller than the guardrail. From here.

Uncle! OK, I can see the torso there. Thanks.

Agreed - not a bear.

[LTC8K6]

Originally Posted by MD 20/20

I would call it an unfortunate (for the prankster) circumstance that he ran out in front of a marked Sheriff's patrol unit. There's not a chance the Deputy was involved, on any level. That would have been a bigger story than the prank itself.

It would also be a reason for the story to disappear...

Which it seems to have done.

[LTC8K6]

Originally Posted by The Shrike

Uncle! OK, I can see the torso there. Thanks.

Agreed - not a bear.

The bear is actually quartering away from you, making you see a torso.

But it's gliding, like it's on a bicycle!!!

[William Parcher]

From Cryptomundo...

Originally Posted by Matt Moneymaker

The comments by (Sheriff Stacy) Jarrard were not true, as we discovered while we were there. He wouldn't take questions from us when we tried to nail down his story.

No one from the sheriff's department went out to speak with any of the neighbors after the incident … We spoke with the neighbors though when we were shooting the episode. There was never any college students living in the area, and there was no photo of college kids with a gorilla costume. Jerrard's story sounded unlikely from the beginning, and apparently it didn't happen.

None of the other sheriffs had heard about this story that Jarrard told to a reporter. It seems he came up with the story to quell any fear that local people might have about a monster in the woods, and to prevent hunters from going to look for one.

[Skeptical Greg]

Quote:

It seems he came up with the story to quell any fear that local people might have about a monster in the woods, and to prevent hunters from going to look for one.

Yeah, we know that always works...

[The Shrike]

So can I go back to thinking that it looks like a bear again?

[William Parcher]

I give you permission to unsee what you have seen in post 52.

[William Parcher]

The wood knocks and returned howl were faked.

Matt Moneymaker has just admitted to the inner circle at the BFRO that Animal Planet "inserted…simulations" for the wood knocks and the howl.

Originally Posted by Matt Moneymaker

We heard both the scream and knocks in the field, but they didn't get a good recording of either so they inserted their own simulations during editing, apparently. We didn’t know what they were going to do in that regard. They wouldn't tell us whether they actually recorded the sounds we heard, and they wouldn't let us see the finished episodes either … as if they thought we'd complain to the network about their casual Hollywood approach to what we consider evidence.

But there really was a Bigfoot making those sounds. It just wasn't loud enough.

[LTC8K6]

I'm unhearing those then...

[LTC8K6]

Next we'll hear that the whole show is fake. It's a reproduction of the actual show, because they forgot to record it when it actually happened...

[Correa Neto]

Please, bigfootery can present better explanations. Behold, below, three of them:

1. Bigfoot stole the tapes. Damn clever stealthy buggers! Somewhere out there, beneath the pale moonlight, there's a bigfoot nest (stick structure?) with bean cans, screw drivers, propane tanks and videotapes as trophies / decorations.

2. NSA agents aboard a black helicopter (maybe even a stealh fighter) used an EMP weapon to erase the DVDs where the show was recorded.

3. The material was heavilly edited and re-created to hide any clues about the bigfoot clan slaughtered by the filiming crew.

[Drewbot]

Did animal planet edit-in the part where they walk away from the spot where Bobo is sure there is a Bigfoot hucking rocks at them?

Originally Posted by William Parcher

I give you permission to unsee what you have seen in post 52.

Your mind powers will not work on me, boy.

[William Parcher]

Cliff Barackman explains and sorta apologizes with behind-the-scenes information.

Quote:

...I was a little nervous how I would be portrayed. I was also wildly curious as to what the editors would choose to show and what they would leave out...

...hundreds of hours of raw footage that need to be whittled down to 44 minutes of viewing time. Obviously, things that are important to bigfooters like me will end up cut from the show...

As far as the Georgia episode goes, I was pretty pleased... The educator in me was satisfied. (Barackman is an elementary school teacher)...

If it were up to me, the tracks alone would have filled up 40 minutes of the show...

Moneymaker continues to write abrasive and arrogant responses on Cryptomundo.

[Weak Kitten]

Ok, found some nice video reference. Here is one of a bear running:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxqO3fAFXuU

Note how even though this is a very young bear you can see the legs moving together when it picks up speed. It would make it look almost like a biped if you only saw the legs on a dark night.

Next we have a very large dog running at about the same angle as the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNnZx...eature=related

Look familiar? See how the legs look almost bipedal as it is running towards you? Again, imagine this on a really dark night with the shadows hiding how tall the animal actually is.

Conclusion; there is nothing to indicate that this is anything more than a video of a large black quadruped on a dark night.

[Drewbot]

Originally Posted by Cliff Barackman

Footprints are among the rarest of hard evidence for sasquatches

http://www.cliffbarackman.com/findin...commentary.php



They are also among the goofiest looking things I have ever seen.

[William Parcher]

Originally Posted by Weak Kitten

Look familiar? See how the legs look almost bipedal as it is running towards you? Again, imagine this on a really dark night with the shadows hiding how tall the animal actually is.

Conclusion; there is nothing to indicate that this is anything more than a video of a large black quadruped on a dark night.

You seem confused about what is shown on the dash cam. The subject is essentially running perpendicular to the camera plane... straight across the road. Refer again to the frame grab in post 52. This shows the subject with one leg angled forward which is pretty distinct. That leg is planted on the pavement. The other leg is in rapid motion and is indistinct. The body (torso) can be seen above the planted leg and gives a sense of vertical height and some bulk.

I made a graphic showing the expected body forms of a quadruped and a biped. The legs are not included. The high resolution dash cam frame shows body form #2.

[LTC8K6]

Originally Posted by Drewbot

http://www.cliffbarackman.com/findin...commentary.php



They are also among the goofiest looking things I have ever seen.

They look pretty much like bear tracks to me. Typical partial overlay of the front and rear feet.

[William Parcher]

Big picture of footprint. It has a strange "double halo" of squish mounding around it.

[Drewbot]

Originally Posted by William Parcher

Big picture of footprint. It has a strange "double halo" of squish mounding around it.

I see 1 built-up mound around the outer edge for casting purposes, the ground where the print is, is the whiter dirt, they must have grabbed mud and built that outer halo up so they can overfill the cast and make it sturdier.

[William Parcher]

Okay, that explains the strange outer mounding.

I think I read that they claim to have found dermal ridges in the tracks.

[Cainkane1]

I want the loveland frog.

[Drewbot]

Parcher, can you get any other frames, similar to the one you have in post 52?

I still think it is a bear at full gallop.

[William Parcher]

I'll try Drew, but the problem is that YouTube clips don't really allow you to advance one frame at a time.

Versions that are not high def have so much noise blur that it mostly looks like a moving blob. When you view it at 720p or 1080p you see the necessary definition to determine that it is upright.

[William Parcher]

I think I understand the optical illusion that is causing people to see a running bear. The problem is that for some of the run (mostly near the end) you visually "lose" the upright black torso against the black background. You are forced to only use the light guardrail as your background to silhouette the subject. At that point, what looks like a bear is actually the hoaxer from the waist down. You see only his legs but you think you are seeing a complete bear (body and legs).

[William Parcher]

Both of the legs and the upright torso are visible. The legs look bulky (thick) because it's a hairy gorilla costume. Possibly one of the bulky arms is swung backwards.