Freeman “Bigfoot” Footage Revisited
Posted by: Loren Coleman on May 30th, 2009
Since many people have mentioned the Paul Freeman alleged Bigfoot video, perhaps it is time to have a new look.
Was Freeman an authentic researcher or a Bigfoot contactee? Neither or both? A lucky Bigfooter or an obsessed hoaxer?
Paul Freeman (August 10, 1943 – April 2, 2003) was an American Bigfoot hunter who discovered alleged Bigfoot tracks showing dermal ridges. The plaster casts Freeman subsequently made were convincing enough to be considered critical pieces of evidence by anthropologists Grover Krantz and Jeff Meldrum, who both put considerable time and resources into studying them.
On June 10, 1982, Freeman reportedly sighted a Bigfoot near Walla Walla, Washington which he described as being nearly 8 ft (2.4 m) tall and covered in brown body hair.
In 1994 Freeman allegedly captured a purported Bigfoot on video near the Blue Mountains region. The footage is considered to be authentic by many Bigfoot investigators and can be viewed in the documentary “Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science.” It was also spoofed many times by Kokanee beer ads.
Some researchers, notably René Dahinden, believed Freeman may have been nothing more than a publicity-seeker. In any case, Freeman once said he spent approximately $50,000 into searching for the creature, sometimes three days a week at a time, and made only $2,000 once for a television commercial.
In my 2003 book, Bigfoot! The True Story of Apes in America, I wrote, without judgement, of a special class of Bigfoot eyewitnesses. Frankly, I classified Freeman among what I call “Bigfoot contactees.” These folks have an uncanny ability to go out and almost always find evidence or see Bigfoot. Freeman was even so bold as to tell Jeff Meldrum when Meldrum came for an allegedly surprise visit: “Would you like to see some fresh tracks? I just found the first tracks of the spring earlier this morning.”
A few of Freeman’s “Bigfoot-related” discoveries were found to be faked, including manmade hair samples, and a few of his finds remain “unknowns.”
Some historical highlights include these events:
1982 – June 10 – Forest Services employee Paul Freeman says he sees an 8 ft tall Bigfoot, but he is soon driven from his watershed patroller job because he appears to have hoaxed evidence.
1982 – Grover Krantz shows Paul Freeman a copy of the handcast that Ivan Marx claims is from a Bigfoot hand. Later this year, Freeman finds and casts “knuckleprints” he says are from a Bigfoot. Freeman also finds prints with “dermal ridges” that local forest services officials feel are hoaxes. Krantz declares the Freeman dermals as a remarkable piece of the Sasquatch puzzle, and they would change Bigfoot research forever.
1986 – Paul Freeman finds a handprint he claims is from a Bigfoot, near the Mill Creek watershed, near Blue Mountains, Washington-Oregon border.
1993 – May – Freeman says he finds an imprint of a buttocks from a Bigfoot, he alleges, along Dry Creek, in the Blue Mountain area. (This is years before the Skookum buttocks cast.)
1994 – Paul Freeman says he stumbles across two Bigfoot in the Blue Mountains, near the Washington/Oregon border, and tapes them on video. Some have mentioned the taping was on the Oregon side of the border; still others have noted some confusion on the exact dating of this footage.
1995 – Again in the Blue Mountains, Washington, Wes Sumerlin, local Bigfoot hunter and friend of Paul Freeman, finds a Bigfoot handprint, as had Freeman and Ivan Marx.
2003 – April 2 – Paul Freeman, 59, dies at Airway Heights, near Spokane, Washington, from complications of diabetes.
There is little doubt that one of the greatest proponents of Paul Freeman today is Jeff Meldrum, who has discussed how he has purchased the majority of Freeman’s Bigfoot cast collection for serious scientific study.
A December 2007 Scientific American Magazine article sums up Jeff Meldrum’s and Paul Freeman’s first contacts with each other:
One overcast Sunday morning in 1996, Jeffrey Meldrum and his brother drove to Walla Walla, Wash., to see if they could find Paul Freeman, a man renowned in Bigfoot circles as a source of footprint casts. Meldrum–who has followed Bigfoot lore since he was a boy–had heard that Freeman was a hoaxer, “so I was very dubious,” he recalls.
The brothers arrived unannounced, Meldrum says, and chatted with Freeman about his collection. Freeman said he had found tracks just that morning, but they were not good, not worth casting. The brothers wanted to see them regardless.
“I thought we could use this to study the anatomy of a hoax,” Meldrum says. Instead Meldrum’s visit to a ridge in the Blue Mountains set him firmly on a quest he has been on since.
Meldrum, an associate professor of anatomy and anthropology at Idaho State University, is an expert on foot morphology and locomotion in monkeys, apes and hominids.
He has studied the evolution of bipedalism and edited From Biped to Strider (Springer, 2004), a well-respected textbook. He brought his anatomical expertise to the site outside Walla Walla.
The 14-inch-long prints Freeman showed him were interesting, Meldrum says, because some turned out at a 45-degree angle, suggesting that whatever made them had looked back over its shoulder. Some showed skin whorls, some were flat with distinct anatomical detail, others were of running feet-imprints of the front part of the foot only, of toes gripping the mud.
Meldrum made casts and decided it would be hard to hoax the running footprints, “unless you had some device, some cable-loaded flexible toes.”Insights: Bigfoot Anatomy; December 2007; Scientific American Magazine; by Marguerite Holloway; 2 Page(s)
I noted in my Paul Freeman obituary that while his supporters like Grover Krantz, Jeff Meldrum, and Vance Orchard would back him, others did not know what to make of Freeman’s claims. The late Canadian Sasquatch researcher Rene Dahinden thought Freeman was manufacturing evidence. Freeman’s old Forest Service employers regularly would withhold comment about Freeman’s findings because of a less than clear past involving produced evidence.
Because of the checkered nature of the man himself, the “Paul Freeman Bigfoot Video” can be viewed as one of the best pieces of evidence for Sasquatch by some or just too good to be true by others.
Paul Freeman cast photographs courtesy of the late Vance Orchard to Loren Coleman.
Update: In catching up on my reading, I see that by mere coincidence, D. B. Donlon has posted that Stan Courtney has uploaded photographs from the Paul Freeman cast collection by the owners Ken, Linda & Brent Steigers of Northern Idaho, with those photographic images courtesy of Dr.Jeff Meldrum, Idaho State University. here.
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
Once a hoaxer always a hoaxer. Since he was shown to hoax some pieces of “evidence” then no finds from Freeman can be taken seriously. He obviously believed in bigfoot and went searching non stop for bigfoot, but he is a fraud in my opinion. If you take a look at all the casts he has made he has obviously found so many different species of bigfoot due to the many different feet anatomy that he is to be admired, or he is to be shamed and never discussed again. Which is more believable? Many types of bigfoot with different feet found by Freeman a known hoaxer, or a complete hoax? His voice on the video is pretty comical and not a good acting job either. “Whoa there he goes” LOL come on, that is terrible acting. I think Dr. Meldrum loses some credibility by sticking by Freeman. Meldrum on a documentary declared the “snow walker” footage a genuine Yeti, so he can be fooled by a hoax.
Personally, I would find Dr. Meldrum’s advocacy of sasquatch more impressive if he had not latched onto Freeman’s “evidence”. To say that Freeman’s artifacts and film are dubious is not really a controversial statement. Dahinden reportedly discovered signs of hoaxing at one Freeman track site, while state trackers called in to verify a set of Freeman tracks concluded the tracks were likely fakes.
Added to such assessments is the obviousness of the situation: an advocate singularly produces all of the types of alleged bigfoot evidence used to advance belief in bigfoot (sightings, multiple tracks of hand and feet, bigfoot film, etc.). And yet, of course, no capture, no body, no ton of fecal matter left by giant apes, or no evidence at all that could not be manufactured by a hoaxer.
Why would one accept the Freeman film, regardless? It purports to show a docile, large, bipedal ape out moseying around, tranquilly. If Freeman could find so many tracks again and again, and if bigfoot were such a virtually domesticated animal as the almost cowlike subject in Freeman’s film suggests, then there would be no bigfoot mystery today.
We should not be kind and use euphomisms like “contactee”, unless we want to be uncritical of any bigfoot advocate (while happily besmirching any bigfoot skeptic that comes along).
As for Dr. Meldrum, I would love to accept his arguments based on his expertise. But his acceptance of Freeman’s evidence reminds me of the various scientists of a hundred years ago who endorsed transparently hoaxed cases of spiritualism. If Drs. Meldrum and Krantz can be fooled by a Freeman, who then can we turn to for a real assessment of the bigfoot mystery?
Although Freeman may have hoaxed some of his evidence I have always felt this footage could be real and almost as good as the P/G film. Although the quality and clarity is just not good enough to say yes this is definitely bigfoot, Freeman really didn’t have the money to build a convincing suit from what I have read and heard. Also why would someone take the time and trouble of throwing in a young one being picked up? I don’t think Freeman even mentioned a little one in the video did he? I thought the producers of LMS discovered this evidence. I could be wrong though as I’m not an expert just a guy with an opinion that I believe this footage to be real.
While his admitted hoaxing of some of the Sasquatch artifacts permanently lowered some of his credibility, I still think the footage cannot be easily or conveniently dismissed. The big question is—if he hoaxed this, HOW did he do it???
The first time I saw the Freeman footage years ago, I thought it might have been authentic. But one thing started nagging me almost from the beginning, and that is:
Freeman’s lack of FEAR.
The one thing that irrevocably dooms any film/video as a hoax, specifically from that close. The lack of stomach churning FEAR of a huge, unknown pissed off primate with nothing between you but AIR that otherwise would negate such retarded spoken aloud dialogue as “Woah, there he goes”. I don’t care how much of a badass backwoods he-man you are, an 8ft tall hairy behemoth in your general vicinity will make you profoundly AFRAID.
FOR YOUR LIFE.
I wouldn’t be making a peep and hoping that the motor in the camcorder wouldn’t be loud enough to raise its ire.
Also, the Freeman creature can be seen looking down as it’s walking, like someone in a costume with fake feet would *need* to, to avoid tripping. I don’t think a real squatch would bother. And like jerrywayne points out, it does seem too “cowlike”, just ambling through the forest, apparently unconcerned a human is nearby.
Nope, I think the P/G film is still the only real footage available. Here’s hoping these trailcams pick up something in the next few years…
I want so badly for it be “real” but unfortunately for me it falls into the heap with most of the other videos out there that just seem too shady.
you know Grafikman, I have wondered the same thing. I’m out in the woods a lot and, since I’m a photographer, I have my camera with me nearly all the time. Having read as much as I have about Bigfoot, and knowing that it has no consistent history of attacking humans, (yes I know there are a few uncertain examples) I don’t know that I would be all that afraid either. I mean, I certainly wouldn’t get too close nor would I try to annoy it by any stretch, but I like to think I would try to get close enough to get a good picture using extreme caution!
Now as to Freeman, well I don’t know. He might have been comfortable enough in the woods that he wasn’t inordinately afraid, just very curious and careful. That makes sense to me. But again, I really can’t get over his getting caught in apparent fakery either. I’m afraid I’ll have to take his reports with a certain amount of scepticism.
t
To Hoosierhunter:
I’m pretty much certain it’s fake. Not from lack of wanting it to be opposite tho, (I’ve even had my own experience which stopped just this side of actually seeing it, dagnabbit!) but it seems nobody can make a decent hoax video, even after having authentic reports to model it from. We, as in those who accept the creatures’ existence, need to be almost more skeptical than the scoftics to weed out the charlatans.
The Freeman footage has never particularly impressed me. Nothing about the alleged sasquatch in the film seems to be in any way beyond the bounds of human physical parameters. It is impossible to say, with the camera shaking and apparent lack of ability to hone in on much except the ground, what we are seeing here.
In addition to the overall appearance of the subject, the behavior of the alleged sasquatch in question is a bit suspect to me. You have this guy with a camera making all sorts of noise, crashing around not in the least bit stealthily, and filming an animal that is presumably well attuned to its forest surroundings. How would you expect an animal or even a human being filmed under such conditions to react? I see several possible reactions that would be standard for most apes and other animals.
1) The animal would be quite aware of an intruder in its area and would hide, meaning it likely would not be filmed at all.
2) The animal, upon realizing it was being watched (not hard with all of the noise Freeman is making) would flee.
3) The animal would be curious, sticking around a bit to get a look at this human in its domain, or otherwise at least show some reaction. Very few wild animals in their natural habitat are just going to nonchalantly go about their business without the slightest sign of wariness or curiosity in a human’s presence.
4) The animal would become aggressive or try to bluff the intruder away.
What I would not expect to see is a sasquatch fully aware of this noisy human’s presence just stroll along out of sight as if it was taking a Sunday walk in the park. Surely it must know of Freeman’s presence there? If this is a sasquatch, it either doesn’t seem to know someone is there, or doesn’t care. If it’s the latter, that seems odd for a creature renowned for its keen ability to remain hidden from human discovery and being properly filmed.
I realize that many accounts and even the PG footage portray sasquatch as not being in any particular hurry to get away, but it is still a bit bizarre that an elusive animal like this would be so completely nonchalant in full view. Even Patty had the good sense to look over its shoulder to get a look at the intruders.
This video could easily be a hoax in my opinion, and I really don’t agree that it would be even particularly difficult to fabricate what we see here. I’m not even convinced that it is a suit we are seeing in the clip rather than just heavy clothing of some sort. While the subject of the footage could be a sasquatch, nothing really says to me that we should suppose as much. If anyone has seen some telling signs in the video that point well away from the likelihood of this being human, then by all means I’d love to be wrong about this.
As far as Freeman’s cast evidence, one scenario might be that we have a little good with the bad. Perhaps Freeman did find actual tracks at some point, and was so excited by the reception they got that he decided to try to fabricate more, in which case we’d end up with some potentially real tracks mixed in with hoaxes. Conversely, he may have been hoaxing tracks and then came across real ones. If indeed some of the tracks are good enough to be compelling evidence to an expert on bipedalism such as Meldrum, then by all means let’s consider them. A hoax does not immediately dismiss everything the person has ever found. I certainly wouldn’t want to throw the baby out with the bath water here. However, considering Freeman’s patchy record, we should naturally be wary.
OK, I have heard very little nice about the Freeman footage. But this is the first time I’ve seen it.
My basic response? Well, you’ve heard it before. If no one buys Patterson-Gimlin, a film with no obvious hoax markers whatsoever, why buy this one? The dubious pans are a big negative, particularly the one AWAY FROM THE SUBJECT, a definite I-don’t-want-a-close-look hoax marker.
But there’s lots of “analysis” here with which I take issue.
“Once a hoaxer always a hoaxer. Since he was shown to hoax some pieces of “evidence” then no finds from Freeman can be taken seriously.” Wrong attitude, this and all the similar statements here and elsewhere. You analyze the evidence as presented. This is exactly what I get sick and tired of with regard to Roger Patterson. I don’t want to hear about petty theft. What is on that film? It’s all that is relevant. Analyze the film. As a matter of fact, here’s something I use to determine whether your “analysis” can be taken seriously. If you have zero chops and zero understanding of the science that should be brought to bear here, you won’t directly analyze the evidence at all; you’ll just call the guy a faker and leave it at that. Nice, neat…and wrong. The boy who cried wolf got it right, once, and once is all you need.
“…[O]ne thing started nagging me almost from the beginning, and that is:
Freeman’s lack of FEAR.” This is why I tell you to read sighting reports, gang. This is one of the easiest reservations to dismiss. Patterson didn’t have any; he CHASED it, after being thrown from his horse, the first one he’d ever seen, with no weapon in his hand. Numerous other sighters have experienced wonder and curiosity, and not a jot of fear. Although very many do, quite a few don’t. I can tell you, without reservation, that if I ever had a sighting like Patterson’s, I wouldn’t be a jot scared and would probably chase it too. ‘Course I’ve done this with bears; you might not’ve.
“What I would not expect to see is a sasquatch fully aware of this noisy human’s presence just stroll along out of sight as if it was taking a Sunday walk in the park. Surely it must know of Freeman’s presence there? …it is still a bit bizarre that an elusive animal like this would be so completely nonchalant in full view.”
On two separate occasions – one in CA, one in TN – I have had a pair of huge black bears wander, close together, right across a trail, right in front of me and at least one other witness, not a leaf, not a twig, nothing but air between us and the two of them, offering not the slightest hint of any indication of any sort that we were on the planet, much less a few short yards away. So it could happen; and it would be quite likely to happen if the animal knew Freeman was there and knew he was nothing to worry about. A number of reports describe behavior like this (although sometimes it’s mixed with some passing curiosity).
I will admit that this video is (again) too ambiguous for it to be difinitve proof of Ole Hairy, but I WILL agree with DWA as to the “Fear” part, at least.
Folks here are simply projecting what they think their reactions would be if confronted by a Sasquatch.
Nobody ultimately knows how he/she will react to one until they actually see one. Unfortunately, we may never know whether this one is fake or not.
I stand by my hypothesis. I think that most of what I consider authentic sightings are where people experience at the least a healthy dose of nervous intimidation and at the most outright terror. Freeman displays nothing of the kind. I knew nothing about his past at hoaxing before reading this story, all I really knew was that he had shot the video. But regardless, the video as it stands alone is still just too convenient.
As for Patterson, he may have been an adrenaline junkie, but you can’t really say, 37 years posthumously with any degree of certainty, what level of fear dwelled in his psyche. Which brings up 2 points:
I may be wrong, but didn’t Patterson and Gimlin have hunting rifles with them on that day? For personal safety only, to be sure, but having personal weaponry like that would make me feel just a bit ballsier in the woods, despite any real or perceived effect against the creature.
And this may be going out on a limb, but when was Patterson diagnosed with cancer? If I knew I had a terminal disease I think I’d be much less concerned about bigfoot aggression, and what a way to go.
So to sum up, I think fear, or lack of, is a very telling component of this video. For without that instinctive fear of big furry things with poin-ted teeth, we wouldn’t be sitting here bandying this about on a PC. Our bones, or rather the bones of our direct line of family ancestors, would be the ones being dug up in a quarry somewhere.
grafikman: guess I’m just saying that fear doesn’t have to be on the list for me to have reservations about this one.
P&G did have guns. They’d sworn not to use them unless their lives were at stake… but still, they had them. Don’t think Patterson had a cancer diagnosis yet, although of course who knows. Some really really scared sighters had the animal in their sights and a weapon presumably big enough to do the job. Some not-scared folks were unarmed.
The camera shifting is downright bizarre; it all but invites you to call it contrived.
I don’t remember ever seeing that footage before. I’ve got a couple of problems with it. I don’t have sound at the PC I’m at so if I miss something due to lack of speakers I’m sorry. 🙂
1) The video starts off with him filming the ground. I don’t understand why. If I was out in the forest trying to film a creature, well I was going to conserve my battery for when that happens. If I were to film something like this (and it would be real, no hoax from me) my footage would start off aimed directly at the creature. If it were walking away, you would hear me yell “HEY!!” in hopes it would stop, and look at me. The longer I can keep it in frame the better.
2) The creature walks like a dumb animal just out for a stroll. It doesn’t seem to walk as if it belongs in that environment. It just looks hoaxy. It’s not the speed of the walk… I don’t think the steps the creature takes look very real.
And why does every bigfoot walk perpendicular to the camera?
I actually think Freeman would have made a half-decent director, and the guy in the suit could be a half-decent actor. The basics are all there… “and… ACTION!” Bang on cue. Edited as they went. Well done. Much better than the PGF… that enhanced lip movement on Ol’ Patty which is knocking around the interweb? You know she’s saying “should I keep going?”, right? Terrible editing!
Loren, I’ve never looked at this before, (possibly because of the guy’s reputation).
You do get people – weirdness magnets, as they might be called – who seem to have a preternaturally high chance of running into Hitler and Elvis waiting at the same back of beyond, middle of nowhere busstop, so I’ve no problem with his high hit rate.
The film, though…either this is Bigfoot’s freakishly large baby son Sasquatch Jnr. – hence the first one’s weird, “I’m some kid staring at my feet while playing giant steps” stride pattern – or it’s some bloke straining but failing to look like he’s so tall and heavy he’s got feet made of solid lead, something Patty achieves effortlessly.
Freeman’s ‘acting’ seems pretty convincing – to me – in fact, I’m suprised by his breathlessness he wasn’t tempted to say, “To hell with it!” and charge down there, risking life and limb for that one killer shot.
Feebfoot, though, with that crappy stride pattern…mind you, when Brad Pitt thinks he’s not on camera he’s probably perfectly capable of abandonning all pretence of superstar magnificence and going for a root in the lost Dutchman’s mine or digging for nasal gold.
After watching this footage for the very first time, which I’m really surprised and ashamed to say; And reading the comments left here. I came to a couple of my own conclusions:
1.The Fear Factor (or lack thereof)> There is a slight twitter in Freeman’s voice and the camara is vibrating. That leads me to believe that either there is at least a little bit of apprehension in Freeman, or some adrenaline is pumping. Either way, it shows to me that he is a bit surprised to see the “creature”. I believe if I had hoaxed a bigfoot vid, then there would be a complete lack of adrenaline, cuz I would know what was happening. If I came around a bend and saw an animal ahead of me, my first reaction would be “Woh, look at that” (2nd reaction, for me at least, would be RUN LIKE HECK if I was unarmed and/or LET IT RAIN!!! if I had a firearm lol.)To me, Freeman’s voice sounds a bit surprised when he says “There he goes”.
2.Taping the Ground> It sure looks to me like he was only out to videotape tracks, and got a little more than he expected. All the ground footage looks to me as following a set of prints, but who knows.
In any case, either real or hoaxed, I am of an open mind to the footage. If it is real, then it is the sweetest thing since sliced bread for our field. If it is a hoax, it sucks that it is a hoax, but it is still fun to watch. Remember, you gotta take the good with the bad and the day with the night.
Bigfoot must have survived until now… But it’s a hoax.. He hoaxed it… I wonder which foot is in the left and which foot is in the right???
He’s a hoaxer.Why does he have his camera mysteriously turned on when hes randomly walkin through the forest… somethins fishy
After rewatching the video a few times, I firmly believe that Freeman is filming what he believes are tracks. Although they are not visible on the video, at least not to my eyes, he is talking about them and pointing to them. Now that leads me to understand why he has his camcorder on while in the woods. It does make sense ya know. As for the rest of the vid, I stand by my original post: If it’s a hoax, that’s a real shame, but it’s still fun to watch. If it is real, then we have compelling evidence that we are all searching so hard to find.
God bless those, like Loren and John Green, just to name a couple, who work hard and long to uncover the truth. Thanks to all of you…