Gable Film = Werewolf Or Bear Attack?
Posted by: Loren Coleman on July 19th, 2009
Remember the Gable Film is merely what I called the “Blair Dog Project” in 2007. I stated at the time that it seemed to be an alleged hoax.
Chris Noel did an enhancement of the supposedly more gorilla-like moments of the film now on video:
Well, it’s back, thanks to Fox News.
But luckily, there are sane investigators around. New footage has been discovered that throws light on this case.
Javier Ortega has this to say:
The “Gable film” is an edited 8mm film that has been raising a lot of questions and theories for the last few years. Many have declared this to be an elaborate hoax created by someone wanting to capitalize on the “Michigan Dogman” stories. The film itself is owned by MindStage Productions and can be seen online in a very edited and low quality version. It shows what many have said to be the actual cryptid creature lurking around the Wisconsin and adjacent states. Many researchers have claimed that this is just a hoax created by a radio DJ by the name of Steve Cook. The same person who helped create a fictional story of the “Michigan Dogman” as an April Fool’s joke, stated that he had acquired an old 8mm film with the images of a strange beast that attacks the camera man. He stated that the film was found in an estate sale in the lower peninsula of Michigan.
The 8mm reel did not have any detailed information about who or where the film was shot. The only information known was the inscription “Gable Case #MPO41177-1” that was on the film canister.
All the recent chatter about the “Beast of Bray Road” and “Michigan Dogman” is kicking up dust again since the news report on Fox’s Sean Hannity show last week in which Linda Godfrey was interviewed and the Gable film was shown on national television….
See the rest of the story, with all the goods, including good comparative images, here.
Linda Godfrey will be speaking at Paranormal L.A. 2009 on August 21-23, 2009, with new revised Sunday afternoon times, alongside Loren Coleman and Barry Conrad. If you are in California, check out the event.
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.
I’m sorry,but it still looks like a hoax to me !
The movement suggests a gorilla, but no gorillas naturally live in the Michigan area. It is either wierd mutation in a bear, a real werewolf, or possibly a gorilla set loose by a collector.
Seems like a hoax to me, still.
The new footage DOES make it interesting. I’d like to know the origin of it all but I don’t think it’s real.
Clearly the victim and the person chopping wood aren’t that similiar. The hair is but the shirts are definately different unless blood is covered all over that white O.o.
But looking at the “body” it just doesn’t look real to me. I’m a person who likes to hunt down all those extremely gruesome films that get a lot of heat for being “real”. And this just doesn’t look real to me. The intestines do not look consistant with the area that the body as cut in half. There are no signs anywhere else that we can see of an attack. It just looks like a clean cut. Also, where the intestines end up laying on the ground makes it look even faker. They’re placed just a little too far behind too look like they’ve poured out or fallen out.
This thing really gives me the impression of it being a bear, to be quite honest. I don’t see what makes people go with the werewolf explanation, except maybe the locale this was supposedly filmed in.
First time I’ve seen this video.
Head looks small for a bear.
I don’t what that thing is. Part of me links it with the infamous “Santilli Authopsy” hoax; but I admit, I’m intrigued.
But the new video looks suspicious; Specially the (supposed) mangled & partially-eaten upper thorax.
Why am I thinking of The Beast of LBL and Pleistocene relic raccoons?
The second film is not at all convincing.
The first thing I thought of when I saw the first film was that the subject moves more like a gorilla than a bear in the early frames – some of the later movement looks more bearlike. The second thing I thought of was “it looks like a guy in a suit trying to do a gorilla-like movement.”
And we need to get rid of the “w” word. You can say “unidentified wolf-like animal” or “unidentified ape-like animal” or whatever you want, but cryptozoologists should not even go near the idea of a “real werewolf.” We’re trying to do science here, and no one should use the word “werewolf,” except as a direct quotation from a witness.
Supposedly the creature “shifts shape” while running towards the camera. I’ll take another look at the enhancement.
Has anybody noticed the “shifting?”
Whether this is a hoax or not, it IS a creepy video.
Thanks for giving an update on this, Loren.
It sort of looks like it shifts shape if you REALLY watch it. In my opinion though, I think it’s just crouching or something along the lines and the video cuts away from the creature too quickly to say if it’s “shifting” due to the running.
To me, in the original video, it does look strangely ape-like and the movements are animalistic. I believe that if it were someone in a suit, they would move akwardly whereas the creature seems comfortable and even naturally moving.
After doing research and looking the videos over a couple times, I believe thatthe original footage could have been an authentic attack from some sort of known primate. Old footage easily gets lost so I don’t see how it couldn’t happen. I think the second video could be something just to add to the speculation once the first video started being claimed as a “werewolf”.
I just watched the FULL length video here and it is pretty interesting, its about 3 minutes long or so and shows the people doing different things such as snowmobiling and chopping wood, it looks as though the woman in both videos is the same but the timeline of the full video looks as though it could have been taken over several different trips, Hence the different blouse. the other part that is interesting that is right before the beast in the video comes into frame they are in the truck and looks as if they see the creature and stop though the first creature looks very thin and moves differently. just something to ponder, i agree that the intestines do not look real, ive been in emergency medicine for 15 years and have seen my fair share of organs so i dont know what to make of that, it almost appears the woman is wearing a device under her blouse and if it were an animal eating it would have been much more destruction to the body and abdominal area then a clean cut. just my two cents
I viewed the video once again. I viewed it in full view and I did a little “pause/play” thing over and over and over during the time the creature is present. I made out the snout and ears of a bear when it starts to turn to attack the cameraman. It’s head is turned to the side and you can clearly see a snouth. But I also saw what seemed to be a tail. The tail is visible at 3:16. The head becomes more visible around 3:14
It’s a hoax, but it is a good one. It’s spooky for sure.
The first film felt like a hoax. I have to say, though, that this ‘new’ one adds a new dimension. Unlike the Santilli film, where showing more footage actually made the original a clear fraud, this actually deepens the mystery. What it does is remove the first film from the realm of ‘it’s a simple hoax’. Not that the first film didn’t show a great deal of effort, if only to make it impressively ‘retro’.
Here’s my analysis:
1. We have a new individual involved in the filming that didn’t exist prior. The ‘cop’.
2. I agree that the intestines absolutely do not look real. The injuries in general don’t look real. That doesn’t mean the effect looks fake, on the contrary it’s a pretty excellent display of gore FX. (The body looks real, has ‘weight’, yet isn’t obviously a person with a prosthetic torso attached.)
3. The involvement of ‘Mindstage Productions’ and the DVD for sale definitely tarnished the original footage. This footage comes free of that association, which either means this is authentic or (more likely) they’re stepping up their efforts to make it seem more authentic.
4. This video includes a couple of ways to debunk this once and for all. This is good news for us. The uniform and the victim’s name are solid, quantifiable elements that can be researched.
My opinion? Still a hoax, but the hoax is getting better, at least.
Quite a few things scream fake to me about the new footage.
First of all is the fact that, like others have stated here, this looks more like a special effect than a real corpse. A good effect, yes, but still an effect. However, there are other things that lead me away from thinking that this is real considering the surrounding circumstances.
What really doesn’t seem to make sense is the condition of the body. This is supposed to be an attack by a large, very powerful, aggressive animal on a victim that sees the attack coming. I would expect the upper body to be more ravaged, most likely with lacerations on the arms indicative of a person trying to somehow defend themselves from the attack. There is no sign of any struggle really, just a pristine upper half seemingly carefully laid out and cleanly removed from the lower half. That is very odd for such a savage wild animal attack, especially if the victim sees the attack coming.
This brings me to my next observation. What sort of predator just swoops in and neatly cuts a human in half anyway? This is just not how known predators operate. Even if the lower half was removed afterwards, why would the animal do that and ignore the soft entrails and meat of the upper body? The organs are one of the first things many predators go for, so why would this one leave that behind and just take the legs? Even if this kill was just for “fun,” why just take the legs? This all just doesn’t make any sense.
Even if we ARE dealing with some kind of weird predator that only takes the legs of its victim (already stretching credulity), how would an animal achieve this so neatly? I would expect there to be quite a lot of mess and gore strewn about from something tearing a person on half with its teeth and claws, however the area around the body is pristine.
So which seems more likely here? That we have a predator that cleanly cuts a person in half without any struggle, then takes only the legs away and leaves no mess behind? Is it that we have a supernatural creature that does this? Or is it that maybe we have a clever special effect of something created to be shocking and scary? I would have to say the latter.
Too me, this looks exactly like what a person would come up with to scare the bejeezus out of people, and very little like what I would expect of an actual animal attack of the magnitude suggested.
It is spooky, though, I’ll give it that.
I sat up most of the night thinking about the video and my layman analysis of it. i came up with a couple questions,
1. though the body looks untouched we do not see the front of the body, we could just not be seeing more trauma because of the way the body is resting, the front COULD be ravaged. who knows.
2. the mouth of the beast? it clicked in my head last night that right before the camera drops we get a clear view of the animals mouth and teeth, you can clearly see the ridges of the soft palate, something you are not likely to see in a suit. just something to ponder. i still dont know what to make of it.
Following on the leads from QuinlanOUR12 (the YouTube video poster of “Gable Film Part 2?”), I just contacted the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (the division that Bellaire would fall under, supposedly where the Gable Films were shot) and spoke with the wildlife biologist on duty. He stated emphatically that there were no records of any fatal animal attacks there in the 1970s.
However, of interest is the following info which may be the actual source of the footage.
Name, Age, Gender: Charles Gibbs, 40, male
Date: April 25, 1987
Species: Brown Bear
He was last seen alive following and photographing a female with cubs at Elk Mountain in Glacier National Park. Investigators recovered film of the female approaching in attack mode at 50 yards (46 m).
Source.
Sorry for the false lead. According to this site, it’s not Charles Gibbs. The details do not match.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/t2j81071017861h1/
Not to mention the clues in the footage suggests a much earlier timeframe, from the 1970s.
The question remains: whose half-eaten body is it on the Gable Film Part 2? Or is it all just a hoax? I think labeling it a hoax is too easy for this one.
I’m a professional filmmaker and have some experience in special effects. From analyzing the footage, it would take an awful lot of planning and execution to pull this one off, from the period-type clothing (particularly the police officer) and vintage vehicles, to the fact that it does indeed appear to be shot on 8mm film (versus video made to look like film). Not to mention the lengths one would have to go through to create the animal attacking in the original film, and the severed body in the new footage.
In my humble opinion, I do believe both films to be authentic footage of a real animal attack, probably from the 1970s, most probably a bear. What details people are seeing in the creature (a tail, pointy ears, body shape changing as it charges) I think are simply light and shadow playing tricks on the eye.
Mystery-Man raised an interesting point about the condition of the body. Kills by large predators, especially on animals as small as humans, aren’t as messy as people tend to think – you usually don’t find something as big as this torso just left there – indeed, you’re lucky if you find enough of them for an identification. Many predators, including bears and several big cats, will drag their prey away to a safe spot if they can, and eat it there.
If for nothing else than the amount of body that is left, I think that this video is not an authentic recording of any animal attack, be it a bear, a wolf, or The Walrus.
Is it normal for the police to use hand-held cameras to film animal attacks? This reminds me of Alien Autopsy–the camera is always going out of focus at important moments. Where was the bottom half of the body?
I might be naive, but surely it’s uncommon to find bodies cut clean in half in the woods. This must have made a newspaper, somewhere.
The critter itself looked vaguely like a buffalo shedding its winter coat. Not that I’ve ever seen one, mind you. That’s just what came to mind.
There is no way that this is real. First, if something as sensational as this really did happen, all of the news outlets in America would have picked up on this a long time ago. Second, if someone was ripped in half like that, you’d better bet that the authorities would be on this like white on rice – there would be press conferences, appearances of the local authorities on America’s most wanted, movie and book deals being made with officers that had first-hand experience, etc.
Besides, the whole “camera found in the woods” thing has been done so many times that it is laughable to think that anyone would still believe it.
And for those of you who would explain it away as “this is something the news media wouldn’t cover,” or “this is something that the news media would generally cover up in the interest of not causing a panic” or “this is something that the news outlets are being told to keep secret for military reasons,” I point to the recent stories of a big blob of algae that has been floating around near Alaska lately. If I read one more “Blob from outer space” story on that one again, I’m gonna lose it!!!
No offense meant to anyone, here, but I see this whole thing as a johnny-come-lately Blair Witch ripoff. Nothing wrong with a little fun, but I wouldn’t put a lot of effort into trying to debunk this one, folks…
Well, it’s possible that the bear – if that is a bear, you never get an especially great look at the animal – might possibly be real, but that it ripped the person in half is almost as laughable as it would be if I went further and said that it took the legs so that it could practice giving pedicures to humans so it could get a job in show-biz.
Looking at the film footage of the corpse made me think that maybe the individual was actually a living person standing in a hole with fake entrails (or maybe animals)placed behind to look like the body had been torn in half. ie: it is a fake.
However, assuming that the footage of the body depicts the real remains of an individual it does not much resemble those remains left after a wild animal kill. Where are the legs? Any responsible investigation would conduct a search for further remains, trails to and from the body would be followed. If this is an actual dead body then another possible explanation occurs, the victim has been murdered and the remains dumped. Were there any murder enquiries that fit the locality and dates in question?
The two films may be one real and one faked later by someone who had seen the original. Both maybe fakes. A fake footage may have been shot to discredit the original footage or to expose it as a fake
My son collects and uses old cine cameras and footage that he takes has an authentic look about it. So, although it may seem unlikely, it is possible that either or both have been made in the recent past.
I wasn’t that sure about the original film, but the newest one screams “Fake”…
It does look very much like a gorilla. BUT… something is off. I dont know if it is the gait or pause between the movement of limbs or what.
We already have blobsquatches, so I guess it makes sense that here we have a blobrillawolf. To me, though, this seems less like a gorilla and more like a bear given the supposed location this was shot in-that, and the bloby nature of the film means that a bear could end up very messed up indeed.
Watch a slowed down version of vid #1 – you’ll see that it’s obviously just a fat cat.
Ultimately, no legitimate person submits an ambiguous, low resolution video (when a high-res version could be submitted) unless the intent is to conjure speculation. (A good mystery needs ambiguity.)
It’s clear that the second film could not be on the same reel as the first film so there is no tangible way of connecting the two. In which case, the validity/invalidity of one does not imply the other (considering the modern ability to manipulate or alter video imagery). You have to “believe” the implied story in the first vid to connect the second vid.
I am swayed to believe that the first video is an authentic home movie made by a boy messing around, filming stuff like furry cats in a field (with the animal mouth portion possibly added on digitally). There is nothing in the second vid that implies it cannot be created with a digital camera and some software. This does not guarantee that it is a fraud (it could intentionally be a fictional movie inspired by the first vid), but it is the way in which it was introduced to the online masses that suggests it is intended to be a hoax, or some sort of promo.
I always figured it was a Badger or a Wolverine. Movement seems to match.
The second video seems awfully fake. And clean. Are we really meant to believe that whatever it was ate THE ENTIRE lower half of a human?
Re:the second film-isn’t it just a bit too amateurish? The text on nearly all the paper notices is glared- out and there’s no close-ups or methodical all-round filming of the ‘evidence’.Why not the cop’s badge number? Surely even in the days before crime scene investigation was worthy of TV serials no one would contaminate the body by throwing a blanket over it. Nobody seems concerned about hairs or saliva or tracks?!
The bodies in the ‘Beast of LBL’ story were ripped to pieces, and had wounds inflicted while resisting.
The creature in the first film looks born to quadropedalism, whereas the dogman is nearly always encountered on two legs-if not always, I can’t think of an account of it seen on all fours myself.It seems to prefer ambushing people up close, not charging in from a distance. I first saw this film on YouTube months ago when it was stark black and white and the creature was mostly on white background, maybe so you couldn’t see the joins.
It looks like a puffed-up old baboon in a drive-through nature preserve while on vacation (and who knows actually where), and later someone thought it made good hoax material to work on.
Nobody encoutering something that size as an unkown in the open would be stupid enough to just film it’s charge at them, with a car available at their back.
It’s certainly an animal, in view of the movement.
It’s not a bear, as it has that simian cross-gait, short leaps, and angling. Bears will likely keep charging, while simians aren’t that agressive, just territorial with mostly bluff-charges (this one stops or dissapears to the side).
It didn’t react emmediately because it’s used to traffic, but standing there and staring it down is asking for a rise.
It’s pretty heavy like a gorilla, but the snout, ears, tail say Baboonie.
Forget the “shape shifting”.
The person in the mirror is a child, possibly not the same filmer.
If the “maw” shot is real, maybe it’s filmed through the window glass.
“Found in some estate sale” is so cliche it’s silly.
That’s the only way they could elicite “wonder”, because if it was their own film they’d have to have definitive answers.
“Gee….. do you think?”
No, I think any actual death would result in police inquiries, evidence, paperwork, all respectfully sequestered together. I really doubt someone misplaced their family member’s Actual Sudden Death Vid in the old magazines box, after seperating it to show to friends. They didn’t treat this video as significant, only a forgetable novelty.
If it were a real monster….??? “Oh that one, I think it’s in the laundry closet”?
The bear attack looks fake (hoax or not) :
no bear leaves the top half of a torso unmarked and the entire lower half, skeleton and all, cleanly removed and gone, and minus exsanguination.
The face isn’t visible because that’s harder to replicate convincingly.
It’s hard enough to explain a rare and reclusive Bigfoot species without remains, I won’t be buying a whole managerie of “new unknown”s or “werewolves”
that have hardly ever been cited.
Part 1 of the film is quite interesting. The creature appears to stalk then rush forward. Tail absence might be explained by the creature being afraid and tucking the tail under the belly between the legs. The rush forward suggests restored confidence, maybe because the camera operator ran away. It certainly isn’t a Gorilla they use their hand knuckles to charge, this thing is moving in a different way placing the feet on the ground. Part 2 of the film (are the films linked ?) is sheer rubbish. I question if footage of badly devoured corpses would be made available to the public and that for me ruins the credibility of film 1 ?
My goodness, look what they just posted… they’re turning into The Birds!
Now it appears the authorities have gotten involved.
Maybe this will finally give us some answers.