February 21, 2013

Behind the Scenes of Finding Bigfoot: “Bigfoot Hoedown” with Cliff Barackman

Cliff posted his behind the scenes views for the episode of Animal Planet’s Finding Bigfoot entitled “Bigfoot Hoedown” on his website.

Cliff Barackman home Page

Finding Bigfoot Season Three – Bigfoot Hoedown

The West Virginia expedition was one that I very much looking forward to. I had heard numerous excellent accounts out of this state before, but had only had the opportunity to drive through its mountains on the way to other locations. I knew the habitat was excellent for bigfoots, and I was most anxious to give it a try for myself.

The evidence that brought us to West Virginia came in the form of a couple of photographs taken by a young man named David Stennes. Seven years ago when David was only ten years old, he was outside playing near the wood line. Some noises caught his attention a short distance inside the woods. David could see that the source of the noises was a very large man-shaped figure that appeared to be covered with hair. The creature was very slowly walking parallel to the clearing from right to left. He stared at it in disbelief for a few moments before running into his nearby house and grabbing a camera. This took only 30 seconds or so, and soon he was able to snap three quick photographs of the figure.

Photos copyright David Stennes of the WV Bigfoot Research Organization

The photos are not the best I’ve ever seen, but they certainly aren’t the worst either. In fact as far as bigfoot pictures go, they aren’t half bad especially when one considers that David was only ten at the time he snapped them. In two of the photographs, what seems to be the head and shoulders of the creature can be made out. Unfortunately, they are pretty blurry. Our recreations at the location indicated that David could have very well taken a couple of pictures of a bigfoot that day. The context was even more compelling than the photos. We saw at least fifty deer over the few hours we were there, and David lives in a small private community mostly made of astronomers and physicists who work at the National Radio Telescope Observatory near Green Bank, WV. The likelihood of a hoax is miniscule.

Our first night investigation yielded little on Ranae’s and my end. Apparently the other team might have heard something, but I don’t know much about that. Hopefully they did, but mostly because I think it would be cool for David since he was out with them. However, at one point a branch fell from above Ranae and I and nearly hit us. It smacked into the ground only a few feet behind us as we passed. I have no idea why that happened. It is true that throwing branches and whatnot is a well-documented ape behavior, and I’m aware of bigfoots doing this same thing, but I thoroughly scanned our surroundings and saw no signs of any mammals. I believe it was just a coincidence, though a strange one.

The sightings that I investigated were very convincing. Bob, a retired sheriff, chief of police, and NASA employee had a multiple-witness sighting of a bigfoot running across an open field after it came up from a creek draw and made its way down into another. Where it ran across was the shortest distance from cover back into cover. It also headed down into the area on the private land that the owners call “Bigfoot Hollow,” for all the strange noises that come out of there.

James, the gentleman who saw a bigfoot through binoculars while crossbow hunting, had an experience that would make any bigfooter jealous. He saw the figure well enough that he could see it blink its eyes. The creature was probably coming around this location (which was only a mile or so from where Bob saw his) often because James hunts this property often. In West Virginia, one is allowed to harvest seven deer a year, and James never buys cow meat from a store. Most of the deer he kills are cleaned in the field, and usually the gut piles are left very close to where James witnessed the bigfoot. I think that this bigfoot, like many other bigfoots across the country, has learned to scavenge the gut piles on a regular basis, especially when clued in by the sound of James’ ATV roaring through the woods.

~ Cliff Barackman

See Cliff’s photos and the rest of the report here.

About Craig Woolheater
Co-founder of Cryptomundo in 2005. I have appeared in or contributed to the following TV programs, documentaries and films: OLN's Mysterious Encounters: "Caddo Critter", Southern Fried Bigfoot, Travel Channel's Weird Travels: "Bigfoot", History Channel's MonsterQuest: "Swamp Stalker", The Wild Man of the Navidad, Destination America's Monsters and Mysteries in America: Texas Terror - Lake Worth Monster, Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot: Return to Boggy Creek and Beast of the Bayou.

Filed under Bigfoot, Bigfoot Report, Call Blasting, Cryptozoology, Evidence, Expedition Reports, Eyewitness Accounts, Finding Bigfoot, Photos, Pop Culture, Sasquatch, Television, Wood Knocking