Bemidji’s Bogus Bigfoot: Updated
Posted by: Loren Coleman on December 11th, 2009
The following is a revised and updated version of what I first posted on December 10th.
The above alleged Bigfoot was taken taken at 7:20 pm, on October 24, 2009, on a rainy night, by a game trail camera in woods north of Remer, Minnesota, according to the hunters who set up the camera.
I am clarifying this posting to indicate by a change in the title and the following text, my sense of this image.
Clearly, for those that read this blog often, you understood that I often upload obviously new, media-breaking images (such as the above) so you may enjoy yourself, through keen eyes, critical thinking, and the skepticism that is part of cryptozoology, by taking a mediated reading of them. Those who took my media course for 23 semesters in my documentary film class learned this was a technique I often utilized to teach how to do it. Giving all the answers does not assist people in learning to use their own notions, instincts, and knowledge to overturn future hoaxes and fakes.
From the beginning, of course, I also placed within this posting the embedded credits for the locations of two early sources for this photo ~ which was shared with the media courtesy of the hunters who may have themselves been hoaxed or who may be part of the hoax. The criticism that I did not do that are, well, to put it mildly baseless.
The primary source was editor Molly Miron’s The Bemidji Pioneer, who first reported this week that hunters near there captured a Bigfoot in photographs in the woods. Tim Kedrowski had told the paper that he and his sons, Peter and Casey, got a photo of a Bigfoot-like creature on a game trail camera set up on their hunting land. (I am sorry if some people are too lazy to realize that clicking “reported” takes them to the source, rather standard practice in blog journalism.)
I was first alerted to this story via The Grand Forks Herald, which published “Northern Minnesota deer hunters say they caught Bigfoot on camera,” which I also linked to in my first posting on this.
I copied and posted the Grand Forks story, again with the credit (even if some missed it) here hurriedly overnight (early am Dec. 10), when I found the contents had disappeared from the source due to them throwing up a registration barrier. My apologies for that sloppiness, which I duly acknowledge, but I did not wish to have those details lost from a public that should know what was behind this obviously faked Bigfoot. We’ve seen that happen too often in the past. I have now noticed that some web mirror sites for the full article have been published, and I have removed the article.
Here is the photo, as freely shared by the Kedrowski family:
The October 24, 2009, trailcam image of what is said to be a Bigfoot.
The Northern Minnesota Bigfoot Research Team of Don Sherman and Bob Olson are now involved with the case, trying to assess if there is any evidence of any kind of huge, hairy hominoid’s presence in the area where the trailcam image was captured. Or even what trickster might have been behind this media melodrama.
I have retained the comments, below, which have evolved into a heated debate about Bigfoot evidence, in general.
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.
There’s no muscles in the legs, they just look like trouser legs. The hand seems to be protruding from a sleeve. Somebody in a suit.
I do believe in Bigfoot as I know the statement above is true but this photo looks a little too much like Tom Biscardi walking around in a gorilla suit. I always use the Patterson-Gimlin film as almost proof positive (another debate) and the arm length is wrong according to this photo. I still believe though.
Greetings All!
Must have been cold, that Bigfoot is wearing gloves! Looks more like a hunter trespassing, and dressing so as not to be noticed to me.
Not having any experience with these cameras, wouldn’t it have taken a picture before the “thing” got to that point in the frame? In the above picture, “it” doesn’t seem to be moving all that fast, in my opinion. If that had been a deer, even moving at a trot, the camera would have missed it. I’d also like to see some other game pictures from the same camera placement, both for scale and to see that it wasn’t just a picture taken by someone with a hand-held camera.
It was a rainy evening according to the story. This fact mixed with the photo leads me to believe this is a man in a rainsuit. You can see the glare on the wet hood, and you can see the gloves coming out of the sleave. Also if you just slightly magnify the picture you can see the break where the jacket overlaps the pants.
On another note, the witness claims, ““I’ve hunted there for 43 years,” Tim said of their property near Shingle Mill Lake. “I’ve seen one bear off my deer stand. I’ve seen three timber wolves.” If this is all he has seen in 43 years of deer hunting then he is really dedicated. I would definitely find a place that at least had deer, if that is what I was hunting for. LOL.
I vote for a hoax perpetuated by someone other than the two guys who own the camera. I can see a prankster randomly discovering a trail cam while walking in the woods (maybe scouting for their own hunting places) and then coming back dressed in a suit just to mess with camera’s owner.
I think if it was a hoax by the camera owners, they would have kept trying until they got a picture that looked less like a guy with furry pants.
This doesn’t look good.
No muscle definition.
I’d stop looking for footprints and start looking for costume rental receipts. Late October you say?
I’m a little disgusted the IBW is brought up as “evidence” for this… Komodo Dragons exist, why not real flying firebreathing ones in England? Reign of Fire is a documentary.
I’ve spent too much time on this…
I’m no photo expert, but I agree with Jmonkey in that it’s likely just a man in a rainsuit due to the obvious glare seen in the photo on the head of the subject. To me that glare indicates a reflective surface, such as a rainsuit.
I can’t explain the 7′ estimate, unless maybe it is just wrong.
Hands down it’s either Elvis or Jimmy Hoffa.
Cue Tom Biscardi.
Obviously a guy in a suit.
I agree it looks a little too much like a guy in a suit…I also say it is suspicious…maybe not hoaxed by the camera owner, but if someone knew they were going to put one up and it was accessible, then anyone knowing could have gone tromping through there too…
The leg looks more like pants than furry leg…and the hand looks too un-hairy.
As for the wildlife manager…he’s talking about nobody finding one and how somebody should have? Has he never spent time in the woods….I think it’s been well documented (or undocumented as the case may be) how few critter carcasses are discovered in the woodlands–free food on the ground doesn’t last long in the wild…Mama Nature and her critters do not let food go to waste!
Seems like the only 2 options are Bigfoot or a hoax. In response to some of the other comments, the glare could possibly be the underside of a leaf attached to the tree, opposite the bigger leaf. The hands are also too large to be a human, from the bend at the wrist to the fingertips. If it was a sleeve coming down to a glove, it would be bunched up above the whole length of the glove, which is not how people typically wear their jackets and gloves. Someone wandering the forest at night would also likely have a flashlight. I think this makes the rain suit theory somewhat implausible.
On the left edge of the tree it appears that you can see the corner of an eye and the mouth and the face would be behind the tree. I think a hoaxster would have to be very lucky to end up with this positioning when the trailcam went off. This would be a very well executed hoax.
On the other hand, it doesn’t appear that there are feet large enough to be Bigfoot, unless they are sunken down deeply in the leaves. I zoomed to 400% and played with the contrast and color settings and could not pick out any distinct features of clothing. I’m no photo expert, so I would be interested to see some deeper analysis from someone who is.
I have to agree with bigfoot73, no muscle tone in legs, body is way to slight, hands look like bad rubber gloves, it is missing the vitality of an animal that lives on the land, looks more like a shuffling teenager in a bad monkey suit to me.
That “trail cam” cam has a flash! You’d think there would be a second pic of the figure looking about and wondering where the flash came from.
Suit looks cheaper to buy than rent, so expect more photo’s from these guys…
Yes; compare to Patty picks…once again the realism of them is bourne out by comparisons to fakes like this.
wait…what? I can’t stop laughing…no seriously, Bigfoot has style witht hat tailored suit. lmao, I still can’t stop laughing. I needed that, thanks. 🙂 still laughing…
When I was at Bass Pro Shops in Harrisburg about six months ago, a game trail camera manufacturer was advertising a million-dollar prize if someone captured evidence of a Bigfoot with their product. I wonder if this was inspired by the prize?
Seems pretty hokey to me and my initial reaction is fake. The 7′ height estimate bothers me though, I’d like to see a picture of a person next to the sapling before I completely dismiss it.
Trail cameras can be set with a delay or to take almost any number of pictures so the positioning in the frame or lack of other pictures doesn’t bother me too much.
Toying around in Photoshap with contrast, colour and inverting and that sort of thing is fun with pics of this sort. Fleece suit of some sort, baggy trousers and hooded jacket over a skinny person. Right leg, obvious fabric wrinkles on the back side of the leg. Small buttocs, and the trousers fit like a bag. The back: The backside of the jacket bulges out, far beyond the slim buttocs. The sleeves are far too short for this person. The hood is pulled well forward to hide the head, and it hangs loose where a jaw should have been. No sign of fur or hair of any kind.
How do people bother? So baaaad its funny.
It doesn’t take a photo expert to see that this is quite obviously a person in a suit. No question in my in mind about it. There is absolutely nothing here that says “this is a bipedal ape,” and absolutely everything that says “guy in suit.” I don’t even think it’s a gorilla suit, just dark baggy clothing, so “guy in dark clothes” works too.
It doesn’t even really seem to be something worth analyzing in depth since we can’t really be expected to do that with every single photo of a person in dark clothes. If there was some reason to suspect this was not a person, then fine. But as it stands this looks exactly like a person in a suit.
Even if it somehow was a sasquatch, this particular image is worthless as evidence of anything other than perhaps a sense of humor.
LMFAO….why is this even being discussed? NOT a bigfoot at all…simply a man in a rainsuit and gloves or a real bad ape costume. This is why we arent taken seriously by mainstream science..this isnt even worthy of discussion. Oh well…..
I would never consider this definitive evidence but merely the fact that its (left) knee is locked almost rules out the possibility of Sasquatch in my mind. No details…I’m thinking hoax or hunter most likely.
Did anyone notice how the “pose” of the creature is similar to the famous frame in the PG footage? It almost seems like if a credible photo (or attempt at a hoax) is taken, it must be in that same position.
If the glove don’t fit, you must acquit! Ha ha!
Things like this give cryptozoologists a bad reputation. That this is fake is obvious (though not necessarily intentionally hoaxed). Those involved, both the hunters and newspaper drum up sales and attention a bit with some sensational story about capturing bigfoot and the general public thinks cryptozoologists are looking at it as serious evidence.
alright, its obvious that you think its fake at first. But having to personnally know the family who captured this picture, i cant rule out it being real. These people are true honest people, who I would never imagine who would pull a prank like this. If its fake, I feel sorry that somebody fucked with them. In the area where this was taken, is a very remote area in a dense woods in northern MN. They have talked to all hunter & neighbors in the area before even thinking about going public with this photo and nobody knew anything. Google earth Remer, mn, look a couple miles north and you decide if its not heavily wooded. All in all, it come down to personal belief, you can nick pick every little detail, but these are good people.
UGP03- Good point and glad you made it – if you frequent this blog you know the level of “discourse” by most of the posters. It always amazes me.
One thing that we can do with things (I use the kindest word I can think of) like this:
We can read sighting reports, and see for ourselves just how different all of those are from all of these.
One can draw a very neat demarcating line between what is described in sighting reports and what is seen in these guess-what threads and on Youtube.
To wit: people are most emphatically not seeing guys in suits.
Unless they’re filming them, on purpose, as a joke.
ugp03: Even if they are honest, that doesn’t mean they aren’t the victims of a prank, quite possibly one that was not mean to go this far (with public release of the photo). I can easily imagine someone pulling a prank on family or neighbors like this with the expectation of needling them privately about it the next day, only to be surprised that the victims actually publicized the photo. What may have started as a fun joke is now a bit embarrassing, so the prankster might just lie low until it blows over. Frankly, I wouldn’t even consider this dishonest: there does not seem to be enough effort put into faking it to make it a real attempt to fool anyone.
But if “it all come[s] down to personal belief”, there’s no need for photos at all!
springheeledjack is right about the whole “never finding a dead body” debate. A true hunter/outdoorsman would know that even in an area densly populated with black bear, you will almost never just stumble upon a black bear carcass. The bodies don’t last a week in the forest. So that whole debate by nay-sayers is irrelavent in my opinion.
The thing that sells me on the idea that this is a hoax is the lower legs (calf muscle) of the subject. Like mentioned earlier, there is no muscle definition. Everyone claims that this was a rainy night, so a wet animal would have their hair/fur matted against their body, and muscle definition would be even more pronounced. This “animal’s” lower legs are completely straight, showing no calf muscle at all. I’m no expert, but I would think a large biped animal that is usually described between a weight range of 300- 700 pounds would have a large and well defined calf muscle to support its weight. Not a straight, tree trunk leg LOL!!
Allow me to be a devils advocate, if you will, and you can take your shots at me after I have posted.
Many of you, in fact the vast majority, believe this to be a hoaxed picture. It may be, and unless the creature is captured or photographed smiling for the camera, it will probably always remain a mystery.
Be that as it may, consider a few points before damning it completely as fake. The measurement at the head was about 7 feet tall. If we take that as a true and reputable measurement, there is a slight problem here with this being some person in a rain suit. Oh, and did I just mention rain suit? I did that because literally to a person here, no one doubts that it was raining that night. So if no one doubts that it was training that night, how can we doubt the 7 foot tall measurement?
Since everyone agrees that it was raining out, let’s consider what happens to hair or fur when it gets wet. It flattens out and gets stringy.
Look at any dog after a shower. It does not not matter how big and brutish that dog looks when the fur is all dry and fluffy, but every dog I have ever seen that comes out of a bath looks like a drowned rat! And to my eyes, the creature in the picture looks like a giant sized human looking drowned rat.
Take the leg, for instance, that some people have singled out as a trouser leg. Flattened and wet is going to make the fur conform to the shin structure just like it does in the pic. Why no musculature? It’s raising that leg and the muscles are relaxed. Take a good look at the one on the ground and see the calf slightly bulged out, exactly as you would expect when pushing off from the ground.
What about the reflection on the head? A rain suit hood or wet hair reflecting the flash? Wet hair is very shiny, just look at your own hair after a shower. It reflects light, and wet hair could be reflecting the flash in this pic also.
The hand that might be a glove? Once again, the rain would flatten out the hair at the same point where it intersects with the non-hairy hand. The wet flattened and stringy hair might leave a distinct line at that very juncture, causing the illusion that it’s a person with an off colored glove. Which may work in the exact same way with long body fur.
Long wet body fur would flatten and string together making it appear as though there was a definite clothing line between a coat and pants. My own dogs body fur used to clump and be stringy when he was soaking wet, and from a distance it gave the effect that he was wearing knee-high stockings. And let us all remember, we are looking at whatever this is, at a distance.
It appears that the witnesses with the camera are true and upstanding people who would never even consider a hoax. That leaves the only possibility that someone in the middle of the night, raining no less, with no flashlight or other lighting source, knew exactly where to walk to create the perfect trail cam pic on the first try. Obviously it had to be on the first try or the camera would have recorded otherwise.
Hoax or no hoax? I don’t know, but I am keeping an open mind on this one.
While I am very skeptical of this report, I do want to point out that the conclusions based on low muscle definition and slender body can be wrong. If you are making these statements you’re probably basing them off your own idea of what Bigfoot is and what it looks like. If we ever find a carcass or live animal, we may be proven that some of the animals could be less muscular or so on. Also Bigfoot are generally accepted as elusive animals that have rarely been caught on film. May I bring up the possibility that this “Bigfoot” may be severally ill or dying and therefore it would be less built and also more likely to make the mistake of being in the wrong places. Once again I would like to state that I am no longer persuaded into believing fully by one article but I do entertain the possibility.
Man In Suit.
To be followed by Biscardi, AKA Foot In Mouth.
Next slide please! 😀
It seems somebody forgot to return the Gorilla suit after the Halloween party, reminds me of those Gorilla grams suits they have up here in Seattle. Looks to me like they didn’t put any time into the hoax, just put a suit on and take a picture no effort involved. I’m sure the hoaxers are having a laugh reading these comments and watching the picture make it’s rounds on various websites. 15 minutes of fame/shame. Anyway Merry Christmas everyone.
I wish they’d get things straight; that’s no bigfoot, it’s a NINJA! (a rare creature to be sure:))
I hope this person has access to a bullet proof vest.
Lets’ see a pic of a human standing there to verify the size. Also, here in louisiana our hunters bring booze to go hunting so I would not take any chance wandering around at night with no reflective gear on. In fact even with the reflective gear it can be quite dangerous. I want to believe.
jMart says: “While I am very skeptical of this report, I do want to point out that the conclusions based on low muscle definition and slender body can be wrong. If you are making these statements you’re probably basing them off your own idea of what Bigfoot is and what it looks like. If we ever find a carcass or live animal, we may be proven that some of the animals could be less muscular or so on. ”
Well, not exactly.
The figure in this picture has low muscle definition and HUMAN PROPORTIONS. These are two things that many, many reliable eyewitnesses – the vast majority, in fact – attest are not characteristic of the sasquatch, which has uniformly substantial muscle definition (which alone sets it apart from any other North American animal; citing extreme muscle definition in a report rules out misidentification) and substantially non-human proportions (for example, extremely long arms and thick torso, neither of which we see here).
Slender animals have been reported, as well as ones that aren’t so extremely muscular. But they are anomalous reports; they stick out like a sore thumb. I think there is a wide variance in individual appearance in the sasquatch, just as there is in humans. But it is always the best thing, in evaluating unknowns, to go with the mainstream of the anecdotal evidence. And that evidence says this is in all likelihood not a sasquatch. Eyewitnesses uniformly describe an animal that is very clearly, to them, not human.
My rule is this: if it looks like a human, and it is not otherwise OBVIOUS that it is not, it IS human.
This? Toss.
What else can you do with it? You sure aren’t getting a research team to follow up that photo, which is ALL you can do with it.
I agree with hetzer88 , will wait and see with open mind
This can’t be a bigfoot unless Santa is coming in a couple of weeks!!!!!! LMAO
You can see the camo pattern on the jacket for Pete sake. Some of you spent so much time analyzing this and it was just a waste of time. Over active imagination is result of all this stuff with some drugs thrown in now and then.
Remmber back a few years when someone saw a bigfoot and actually got a hair sample? And that sample turned out to be a bison? LMAO
Seeing a bison and thinkin it is a bigfoot??????????? I rest my case. LMFAO
Enough with the clown suits, everybody is trying to make good on these bogus videos.
Hetzer88- Oh alright, I’ll bite.
It all comes down to the law of parsimony, or Occam’s Razor, really. When faced with something like this photo, when considering the mundane explanation and the unknown explanation, it is typically better to go with the mundane unless there is very good evidence to suggest otherwise. This doesn’t mean the unknown is always wrong , it just means that given the information we have, it should not be taken as the first option unless the mundane one doesn’t hold water.
DWA pretty much illustrated this concept with his statement-
“My rule is this: if it looks like a human, and it is not otherwise OBVIOUS that it is not, it IS human.”
Or at least it’s most likely a human.
So let’s look at how this applies to this photo.
You said, “So if no one doubts that it was training that night, how can we doubt the 7 foot tall measurement?”
It is established it was raining this days. We can check that and demonstrate that irrefutably with a check of the weather report from that day in that area. It is a fact. Is that 7 foot tall estimate a fact? Really? And how can we be sure of that? Where did that figure come from?
I look at this photo and can’t tell that this is 7 feet tall. Did someone go out and measure it? Perhaps someone could go to the location and photograph themself in the same location and we could see for ourselves whether that is accurate. See, the thing is we have no way of knowing at this point if that is a fact or not to everyone’s satisfaction.
You said it yourself when you stated “If we take that as a true and reputable measurement, there is a slight problem here with this being some person in a rain suit.”
The key word is if . True, that would change the way we look at this photo, but we just can’t know that for sure. However, we can be sure that it was raining.
That brings us to the rainsuit. It is in human dimensions for all we can tell, save a 7 foot figure that is unsubstantiated. It displays all of the characteristics of a rainsuit, with the bagginess and what appear to be gloves. Nothing really falls out of the norm to any degree.
So why bring up the characteristics of wet, matted fur, when it looks just like a person in a rainsuit should look, and we know that what we see fits in with the characeristics of a raincoat? The glove looks like a glove, why rationalize it to look like anything other than that without good reason? Why add all of these unknowns when the known fits just fine? Fur is a conclusion that we have no real reason to jump to with the information we have.
There would have to be some good reasons for us to suspect that this was anything other than what it appears to be, which is a figure of human dimensions exhibiting the characeristics of someone in a raincoat.
If the 7 foot tall measurement is correct, and that can be demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt, then we could talk about this being a sasquatch. That would be something to give us reason to think this might be something else.
As it stands, which is more likely given what we know for sure? That this is an undocumented, 7 foot tall bipedal ape? Or that it is a guy out in the rain in a rain suit?
Just some thoughts.
Hetzer88- I also wanted to add that it strikes me that even if we can get a reliable 7 foot measurement, it is still likely to be disputed. The subject of the photo, if it is as I suspect a human, is obviously wearing a hood of some type. There is no way to tell where the head falls within that hood, but it could raise the height a bit. For instance, I myself am 6’3″. If I wore a puffed up hood on a bulky jacket, it would make me seem to be a pretty formidable height and size. Get a guy out there who is 6’5″ with a pooped up hood and you could be approaching a 7 foot measurement.
I think it is going to be difficult to completely convince everyone that this is a 7 foot tall creature.
If we had something more to show us that this is not precisely what it appears to be, such as proportions, musculature, or a height beyond plausibility for a human in a hooded jacket, then I would be more open to this being a sasquatch. As it stands, it just looks like a person in a bulky jacket walking around in the rain.
Most of the time if it looks like a duck, sounds like a duck, waqlks like a duck, and smells like a duck.. well…
Boondocker there are better possibilities than your worst case scenario. I do not remember the location, but if Bison are found there, its quite possible a sample of their hair was picked up regardless of Sasquatch being in the area. I expect Bison do a bit of tree scratching and hair left behind can persist for years, DNA being well protected within the medullar. Its also possible, but less likely, that Sasquatch could have been carrying some bison fur or had some in its own hair. If a mixed sample was picked up the analyst would probably select the Bison hair to work on as Sasquatch hair has been shown to be lacking in DNA and hair follicles are less likely.
I am not sure about the camo pattern you see, its a matter of interpretation. One important thing about the figure it does rather look propped up much like a window on a building site where plank with a nail in it is used to prop it up until it is fixed.
Also the right arm should be back not forward if the creature were walking. I think it is the right arm we can see with the blue looking hand. I think we have someone having a bit of fun at haloween. But being the way of things without all the facts it might just be a real amazing creature.
I cannot dispute a thing you have said, Mystery Man, it could just as well be some 6’5 inch person if they were wearing a popped up hood, but that is another one of those “if’s” that seem to be so prevalent when discussing Squatch pics.
Ideally, I’d love to see every pic from the trail cam to see if there was any “monkey” business going on before this picture was shot. Unless all the facts, as we know them are bogus, and that possibility also exists, it still seems a bit interesting to me how someone in a rain suit could get the perfect pic, walking through woods in the middle of the night, during rain. Particularly after the witness said that no one would have known where that trail cam was to begin with.
We already have one person here who vouches for the honesty of the witness, and yes, witnesses aren’t always on the up and up. So, if someone was wearing a rain suit, and if they knew where the cam was, and if they understood exactly where to position themselves for the perfect shot, they would need to do it in one take, because if they didn’t, there would then be more than one pic of some goof standing out in the pouring rain trying to figure this out. A lot of “if’s” in this scenario too, however.
The witness and the rest of the trail cam pictures are the key to this, and until we can have access to them, I agree with you, if it walks like a duck, or looks like a duck, or dives like a duck it must be a…well, it could be a platypus I suppose. They do waddle and look like ducks and they dive really well too.
I am leaning your way Mystery Man, but I sure as heck would love to see the rest of the trail cam pics.
Hetzer88- I like the platypus comment. 🙂
I could take that analogy even further though, and ask what if the “duck” was seen in North America, or any of the many other places where platypus are not known to exist? I suppose you could add in new factors and say that someone lost a pet platypus or that it escaped from a zoo, but this is adding unnecessary and unsubstantiated complexity. In the end, given the data you have, which is more likely? That it is a duck in this North American lake or a platypus?
And that is what all of this stuff about Occam’s razor is about. It’s about which is more likely given the data that we have to work with. It is about not adding unneeded complexity or unknown factors if a mundane explanation could equally fit. If you have two hypotheses fitting the data you have, one known and one that is not, then it is probably better to go for the mundane explanation until something new turns up that challenges that. Otherwise, why not say this is a ghost, an alien from another planet or an inter-dimensional fairy passing through?
Now like I said before, all of this doesn’t mean that the more complex or unknown explanation is wrong or that the mundane explanation is always right. It basically just means let’s stick with the mundane explanation that matches the facts for now. In other words, in this case it is better to stick with the data and avoid adding in new factors such as matted fur and such when a raincoat fits what we see just fine. The data we have so far matches a person in some sort of suit, so the rational thing to do is stick with that until we are shown otherwise.
Regarding the difficulty in getting the shot, all I can say is that after all, we expect the camera to take a pic like this of a sasquatch don’t we? Why could it not take a pic of a human in this position? The person doesn’t have to know where the cam is, they just have to trip it like a real sasquatch would do.
I would say this is a person in a suit, and probably not an intentional hoaxer. But I’d like to see the other webcam pics too. If they turned up something that was obviously out of the norm for a human being, then we could be on to something. I’d eat my words. As it stands, we don’t that, and so it is more logical to stick to what we know. It was raining, we see something fitting the description and characteristics of a person in a rain suit, and we know people in rain suits exist, as opposed that this is a sasquatch that just has matted fur making it look like that.
Until we get more data and can dispute that, it is the more likely explanation here.
Or it’s a platypus on vacation dressed up like a man. 🙂
Yes, like I said, I am leaning to man-in-a suit, no doubt, and I agree it’s the more likely explanation here, but the little devils advocate in me wouldn’t allow this to go by if I didn’t ask questions. I cannot disagree with anything you mention EXCEPT, you would think that a platypus dressed up like a man wouldn’t need a rain suit, since they like water anyway. Maybe it’s a new style from down under, I don’t know.
…….and theres another thing….. apart from the rt arm being in the wrong place(probably)…….the locked knee. The neck looks too long for Sasquatch, then there appears to be a strange foxy face looking back with two ears on top.
I think what the figure is, is a quickly constructed joke, knocked up a few days before halloween and the result is something strange looking that we cannot quite rationalise and thus almost like an art form piques our attention.
But could it be one of these werewolf type creatures, is there a history in this area ? Or another creature that gave rise to these type of sightings.
I think its the job and joy of cryptozoology to follow the less mundane explanation even where it only equally fits the facts. The less mundane explanation may often not be so readily appreciated by those with a more mundane outlook!
We do not know the full facts of this photo and shouldn’t we not keep an open mind?
Hetzer88- Hey, asking questions is never a bad thing. I would never discourage that.
By the way, you bring up a very valid point. I think you have done a pretty good job of soundly debunking my platypus dressed like a man in a raincoat hypothesis.
A man in a suit, for all the reasons most people have listed above… I wouldn’t be surprised if Biscardi had something to do with in some deranged way!
I’d say nice try… but it wasn’t even that good of an effort. LOL