© Josh Highcliff/Youtube
Bigfoot has been "spotted" hundreds of times over the years. It usually turns out to be someone in a gorilla costume, or a bear. But sometimes, just sometimes, it turns out to be a man dressed up in animal skin from head to foot, performing
shamanic rituals in the woods.
In perhaps the most famous footage, known as the Patterson-Gimlin film, a figure walks through the Six Rivers National Forest, briefly turning to look at a camera filming at an undetermined speed.
Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin shot the footage, claiming that on October 20, 1967, they came across the hairy figure crouched beside Bluff Creek. The two say they chased the figure before filming it walking along, turning back to look at the camera at one point.
Though largely dismissed by the scientific community as a hoax, the footage is still popular among Bigfoot fans and conspiracy theorists. Stabilizing the film might make you wonder why, given that without the camera shake it is virtually indistinguishable from a person walking along inside an ape-like costume.
This is not the first time the video has been put under such scrutiny. In 1999, one researcher - a believer in Sasquatch generally - claimed to have found a fastener of some kind on the creature's waist, after blowing up frames of the footage using a photocopier."When the guy in the suit turned to look at the camera, it probably snapped loose and dangled from the fur," Cliff Crook, who still believed in Sasquatch after determining this foootage to be fake, told Wired in 1999. "It's a hoax. Why would Bigfoot be wearing a belt buckle?"
More scientific studies of Bigfoot claims include analysis of hairs that various people have claimed to be taken from a Sasquatch. They turned out to mainly be from
bears, other known animals, and dogs.
Comment: The author seems quite sure of himself, but the number of "giant hairy men: stories told over the centuries would belie his opinion. Smoke and fire?