Update: New Michigan Bigfoot Photo?
Posted by: Craig Woolheater on March 14th, 2013
Yesterday, I received the following message from Gregory Prina (@gtprina), the person who captured this photo.
I have 3 more of these pictures if anyone is interested, but they don’t show anymore detail. I did watch this thing walk for about 60 seconds on my iPad on a live camera feed app. It’s weird because the zoomed in picture looks like there is something behind it, but there was not. If anyone wants to see the other 3 I’d be happy to share!Gregory Prina (@gtprina)
Here are the additional photos with his commentary:
Hey, Craig!
Thanks for the reply! I know you’re incredibly busy!
So I’ll tell you the story. Hopefully I won’t bore you to tears with the details…
First, I have an app on my iPad called Live Cams. It takes live camera feeds from all over the world and put them into categories. This is a really cool app. Many cams you can control and it has a zoom in/out function. You can also take pictures of whatever is on the screen.
On Saturday morning I was watching the camera at the Chippewa Nature Center and roughly a couple clicks from left I caught something walking on 2 legs, but it was moving quick. It was entirely black and big. It wasn’t running just moving it like it had somewhere to be. Normally people wobble and are careful walking in snow, but this was smooth and quick.
I watched it walk from left to right then right to left. When it was walking back I took 4 pictures. It’s weird, in one of the posts I saw online they zoomed in and it looked like something was behind it, but I assure you nothing was. It was by itself.
The wife suggested it was a hunter, but this nature center barely allows fishing let alone hunting. There’s no way a hunter would be out there in the middle of a Saturday. It’s definitely not a bear, but she did suggest an all black ski suit. I was hoping someone could tell me! It’s just that it moved too well to be a person in any kind of suit.
Anyway, I will forward you the pictures. Please let me know if you are able to make anything out of them! Sorry for the crappy resolution. That’s how they copied to my iPad camera roll.
Thanks again for taking the time to reply! You are awesome!Gregory Prina (@gtprina)
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.
While I think it is possible that those photos are real (they’re on the more convincing side), the pictures seem like they could just be anyone wearing black, walking. I used to have a photo of from a hike, where I am in the background (It was at Multnomah Falls, so if you get the sense there is lots of space for background) wearing a black jacket, black pants, and gloves, and because my hair is fairly long and black, it looked like I was a Bigfoot in the background. I no longer have the photo but we used to joke that I was the sasquatch in the background because that’s what I looked like. Given the circumstances (It’s snowy, so of course you’d wear a jacket) I think it’s not real. Not a hoax, per se, but a case of mistaken identity. I wish it was real, though. Still looking!
As a followup to my last comment, I forgot to mention that there are people who like walking in the snow (me) and for some people who like walking in snow, it can be just like walking on plain old cement/dirt pathways. They should go to the site of the camera, walk to where they saw the Bigfoot/person, and see about them footprints. Before other people trample them would be a great time to get photos/casts of the prints!
Move along, folks. Nothing to see here.
Cross-country skier?
Well, there is not much to be done here, as far as improving the the images for photographic analysis. Because of the lower quality still digitial image, it is so pixelated, that enlarging it to a usable size should not be attempted. It would be a waste of time for those attempting it.
Lightening or increasing the contrast, the previous would apply here, just a waste of time.
However, we need not throw the baby out with the bathwater. There is some knowledge to be gained, even with poor resolution images. Since the photographer was able to take a series of photographs, it does shed some light on the subject.
I did slightly enlarge each photo to the same exact size. Too much enlarging just shows pixels, but slight enlargement, does not degrade the photograph or make it unusable. So I did a slight enlargement.
I then stacked the photos, in progressive order, putting photo 17 on top of the stack and then lining up the rest of the photographs in numeric progression. Photo 17 was followed by photo 25, followed by photo 32 and photo 42 was the last in the progression. It made the images like one of those old flip books we use to see as children–a choppy movie if you will.
Those resulting flipped images show an animate bipedal figure moving from right to left in the background of the photos. So the photos do show something. However, given the distance covered in the time increments between each photo, it does not show movement outside the parameters of a normal sized human being walking through snow. The distance covered is what one would expect to see, even for a nonathletic human walking that path.
I would say what the photographer captured a subject that was human. This human was simply out for a walk in the snow as I or others would do and have done many times. There is nothing unusual about the stride length or more accurately stated, the distance covered by the subject given the time parameters in which the series of photos was taken.
To say this was a Bigfoot would be jumping to wrong and inaccurate conclusions.
I do not think the photographer is trying to hoax anyone. I think he just captured images, which might be considered unusual because seeing a solid dark figure walking in snowcovered territory, might seem out of place to some–given their frame of reference. From my and others frame of reference, walking on virgin snow through the woods or by a river or creek, is just something to do. I take my camera with me and get some photos of untouched snow. So this would be normal for me and to others. But maybe not so normal to him.
It was not an intentional hoax by the photographer. I do not believe it was an unintentional hoax perpetrated on the photographer either. I do not think someone would go out of their way to dress in a uniform dark color or don a gorilla suit, in hopes that their was someone there by chance, at that particular location, trying to fool the photographer.
So I am ruling out intentional hoax by the photographer and unintentional hoax perpetrated on the photographer.
What I think we have here is just a simple outdoorsman, wearing what they normally wear, and taking a walk through the countryside. Plain and simple, the photographer captured an ordinary event with his camera or app. But because of his frame of reference, it seemed a bit unusual, so he supplied the photos for further analysis.
Unfortunately, do to the low digital image quality, I can not say with 100% assurity, that it is not a Bigfoot. I have no enlargements or data to go by to definitely say that. However, I can say because of the distance covered and time parameters, that the subject of this photo is most likely human, and say that with 99.9999999% of assurity.
If the subject had been wearing a yellow or orange coat or blue jeans and a red coat, the photographer would come to that same conclusion as well–we all would. But because of the uniform dark color scheme and the photographer’s frame of reference, it made the subject seem more unusual than just a human being. Fortunately stride length and parameters of time constraints versus distance covered tells us with overwhelming assurity that it most probably is human, with a very miniscule amount of error.
Good try and thanks to the photographer for supplying those images to Craig. Sorry, but no Bigfoot or should I say, no cigar. Keep on shooting!
Cool!! Instead of just one BlobSquatch there 3….yippie! ;p *shakes head* yeah i’m with semillama on this one, skier.
PhotoExpert, thank you for taking the time to analyze the pics I took! You are probably correct in your hypothesis. And I wasn’t trying to hoax anyone. That would be a pretty lazy attempt!
I really wanted it to be something other than a human, but facts are facts! Hopefully, I’ll have better luck next time!
Thanks again!…
What is interesting to me is not so much the images captured here, but rather the implications that these live cam feeds have for cryptozoology.
I am familiar with these sorts of apps and indeed they are pretty cool. You can hook up to live cam feeds all over the world and just sort of be a fly on the wall watching life go by in a place you may never go to. I always thought it was a bit of an entertaining novelty, but I never really thought about what it could mean for cryptozoology.
If there were cameras set up in areas of known cryptid activity, who knows what could turn up? Apparently there are already live cam feeds set up at Loch Ness, and it seems like this idea could have some merit. I doubt that anything other than an undeniably clear image would ever be accepted as worthy as evidence, but it could at the very least point whoever had the funding to go look in the right direction.
Remote cameras and camera traps are already proving useful with studying and tracking known species, so it seems that this could provide one more avenue in the pursuit of unknown species. The potential seems to be there.
gtprina–You are very welcome! You did the right thing. You caught something digitally that seemed to be out of place for you and you wanted to know more. There is nothing wrong with that.
Unfortunately, there are those who visit sites like this, and beat up on the photographer instead of taking the evidence presented at face value. That only disuades the photographer from presenting any other evidence in the future that they may capture. So I made a point of explaining and emphasizing, that this was not a hoax attempt on your part. I wanted to head off the naysayers and troublemakers at the pass. Apparently, I succeeded. LOL
Anyway, keep bringing your camera out with you and keep taking digital images! If you get something interesting again, send it in. As you can see, you got a pretty warm reception and Cryptomundians analyzed the photos supplied and did not take pot shots at you personally.
Keep on shooting! Digitally that is!