New Skamania Tubesquatch
Posted by: Loren Coleman on May 30th, 2007
Here’s the latest new Bigfoot video posted on YouTube, forwarded to me by a reader. Gosh, I certainly don’t go looking for these, that’s for sure.
Maybe it’s just me, but I am beginning to feel like YouTube’s Sasquatch scenes are a total waste of my time, your time, and any serious researchers’ time.
I haven’t seen a video that’s appeared on YouTube initially first (versus those taken from documentaries) that has been worth more than a moment of idle speculation.
The visual online world seems to be having an explosion of the cinematic version of one blobsquatch after another. Therefore, I shall call this one today merely another “tubesquatch,” and I will use that term for all others I might post here in the future. Just think, if I have a tubesquatch and a living Sasquatch in my basement, well, then I have proof of Bigfoot!
I suppose these tubesquatch have some kind of entertainment value (although not for me), but as far as evidence, they seem to have less merit than any good detailed eyewitness Bigfoot account backed up by footprint casts.
The formula seems to be, (1) rent a gorilla suit or gather a lot of loose fitting dark clothing; (2) find a friend who doesn’t care if he/she gets shot while tramping about in the forest as a Bigfoot; (3) make certain the location has lots of trees for the foreground; (4) stand some distance away so that nothing detailed can be seen in the viewfinder; (5) take some moving pictures of your friend in the outfit; (6) post it on YouTube or a similar online location; and finally, (7) see if you can get Cryptomundo or some other site to post the link to it.
Excuse me if I don’t find any humor in these endless uploads of apparently hoaxed or pranked or whatever you want to call them footage of Bigfoot in the woods. Tubesquatch, all.
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.
Well Loren, what you say may be true but it does pose a problem where one automatically rejects evidence, which is just as bad and unscientific as automatically accepting evidence. In this case the provenience is non-existant, which seems odd until you recall the kind of attention that others have recieved in the not too distant past.
For example; the Tofino video from just a couple of months ago. It was widely disregarded as a black bear but after stabilization it clearly shows that it’s not a bear moving to all 4s (it’s at Bigfoot Forums), but by now the news cycle for sasquatch has passed. Again, at the Bigfoot Forums a stabilized version of this has been posted for viewing. Maybe it’s a hoax but it doesnt’ look like it’s just a guy in a run-of-the-mill gorilla costume either. My point here would be that it’s an error to let the hoaxers frame the investigation just because they make it more difficult. By rejecting the element of dispassionate objectivity would-be researchers who would like to see this kind of subject taken more seriously are possibly tossing the baby out with the bathwater…which is not very bright and is exactly the quality that hoaxers presumably are trying to provoke.
I have to second dogu4, in that you just can’t tell anything definitive, one way or another. But there isn’t enough to go on to spend any time on these “tubesquatches” either.
Yes, I understand and do not fully think that open-mindedness and critical thinking would be lost with a new category for these YouTube videos.
I wrote “apparently” hoaxed on purpose. Maybe in 1000 uploads, one will be authentic. Who knows?
I would only label something a “tubesquatch” that underwhelmed me as much as most blobsquatch photos do. Calling something a tubesquatch does not, necessarily, mean that it is a hoax, although I would bet the majority are pranks. Terming something a tubesquatch does not necessarily translate into it being a definite hoax; sorry if my blog did not make that point more clearly.
Of course, as is probably obvious, I am frustrated by the YouTube after YouTube posting of yet another new piece of Sasquatch “footage.” A few of these are turning up on blogs without reference to their background from the YouTube world. I am merely trying to create a pigeonhole that immediately identifies the imagery’s source.
I am not rejecting evidence, merely trying to label it, just as someone else might be calling something “Native American folklore,” “First-hand sightings,” “Contactee incidents,” or “Close encounters of the Sasquatch kind.”
Yes, Loren, I am inclined to agree with you that the You Tube stuff is hardly worth the look. Especially if you are stuck with a dial up modem and it takes forever to download a film clip, only to see some obviously bogus clip of “Bigfoot/Sasquatch”. The sad thing is that in this day and age with all the various advancements in film technology, photographic wizardry a la the computer, you really have to be careful about accepting or rejecting any photographic evidence of cryptids. It is one reason why I think the Patterson film remains the “gold standard” — things weren’t so sophisticated then and even today the film still stands up well under close technical scrutiny. I thing dogu4’s post is spot on with the problems of You Tube. But you know we will keep looking, keep hoping for that clip that comes across as tantalizingly as being the real deal.
As the producer of The Bigfoot Field Guide series of videos, I have had to post them to YouTube due to bandwidth (97,000 views) but they are training videos for new researchers just getting started. If I did have a video of what may be a Bigfoot, I would definately put it on a site that would give credibility to the video itself.
I do download these videos, and convert them to avi’s and use them to compare what a hoax looks like to video when it is brought to me to look at. Whether they are crappy or not, they do give you another tool to do research with. Comparison footage is always great to have.
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I’ve had to post the Bigfoot Field Guide training videos on YouTube due to bandwidth, over 97,000 views. They are for new researchers just getting started.
If I did have a video of a possible bigfoot, I would post it to a credible website instead of YouTube for the reasons stated above by Loren.
But I do still download and convert these types of video to avi for use as comparison videos to any video that is brought to me, so I can look for the same tell-tale signs that it may be hoaxed. It’s always great to have stuff like that to look back at. JMHO.
I treat ALL YouTube anonymous cryptid posts as bogus, ALL OF THEM!
But, as Darkwing2006 sez, “If I did have a video of a possible bigfoot, I would post it to a credible website instead of YouTube…”
Really? Which “credible website”? This one? So it can get torn to shreds by all the know-it-alls, losing all its evidentiary value in the ensuing melee?
Surely there must be a better way, some resource that can treat “real” cryptid photos and videos properly.
Who ya gonna call?
fuzzy: GHOSTBUSTERS!
But anyway, I do believe that the non-faked and convincing evidence will surface on other sites than youtube (or other sites + youtube), mainly because of three reasons: 1) Credibility, 2) youtube quality and 3) the impact of having the evidence to a truth-oriented witness.
Hey everyone. Firstly, I like the term “Tubesquatch” secondly I have no trouble believing that a clear video of BF would appear on Youtube first and not a more “credible” website. Credibility is LARGELY a matter of perception and for countless millions of people Youtube is credible because it allows someone to get an unedited video to the people. The other reason I believe that it is possible for a genuine BF video to hit there before Cryptomundo is that the odds are the person taking the video has never even heard of cryptozoology. Considering how few cryptozoologists are actually out there looking it would make more sense for some random hiker or hunter to come across Bigfoot first. When “random” guy (who thinks cryptozoology is the study of crypts) wants to show the world what he saw where would he turn?
YouTube is populated by narcissists hoping to punk the dupes who’ve lost the ability to think critically. Videos posted there deserve to be rejected out of hand.
I’m on the fence on the YouTube thing. On one hand, I want to say I think that something should not be ragged on too much solely because of being on YouTube. There was a good point made by Excelsior Comics above about people who are not involved in this field not knowing where else to turn. What some here might lose sight of is that not everyone knows about this field or what to do if they did make a video, who to turn to, or where to send it, so they go to the only place they can think of, which is YouTube. This however doesn’t add up if you consider the arguments that people who have seen a sasquatch are the subject of ridicule or fear they will be. It seems odd to me that someone fearing ridicule would post a vid for all to see, whereas someone playing a joke would. But I suppose it is possible that someone might not know what to do with the footage and so anonymously post it in the hopes that someone else would know more than they do as well as to judge responses to it.
On the other hand, YouTube is undoubtedly a magnet for hoaxers and prank videos, and allows pretty much anybody with a camera to go out and make one of these videos for a laugh. So although there may be some genuine ones, they are overwhelmed by the bad ones. There is certainly a lot of muck to sift through.
In the end, I personally don’t care too much if it is on YouTube or on any other site. I try to look at these videos on their own merit, and like Loren, I don’t think many of them are up to scratch. It is a shame that some potentially genuine ones might get short shrift, but I feel that any video that is going to be truly intriguing will be so based on what it shows, not where it is posted. I don’t think anybody would be inclined to completely write off something along the lines of the PG footage even if it was posted on YouTube. So I say give them a look, but don’t get high or unrealistic expectations.
I wouldn’t get too upset about these videos. YouTube is a pop-culture clearing house and like it or not Bigfoot is a pop culture icon. Every fool in the world puts a video up on youtube. Get a few yahoos in the woods with a camera, a case of beer and an old holloween costume and no one should be surprised that a Bigfoot video is produced.
I would see these videos as more of an acknowledgement that people are interested in Sasquatch. Its seems to me the Bigfoot after falling off the rader for a few years is reemerging back into the public’s conciousness.
I would scared to death to send a video to this site and be ripped to shreds as fuzzy said.
I hope Loren or Craig would help guide me in the best course of action if all of a sudden I were to have the GENUINE ARTICLE in my possesion.
How is this image any different than Patterson’s? The creature even looks like Patty! Is that because Patty has been digitally pirated? Why bother? How much money does one of these vignettes generate? I think the fact is, nobody cares except the same ten people that post on here all the time. When I used to talk to border gaurds they would razz me about Sas, but would admit to ‘anamolous images’.Now, those same guys are worried-looking,close-mouthed and they mutter about dirty bombs. Where does Sasquatch rate on the list of priorities?
I agree that the signal to noise ratio is such that it doesn’t make sense for high-end researchers to spend their time looking through the menage on YouTube.
BUT, if amateurs were to do so, and only bring them to the attention of Loren and the other researchers, when they aren’t obviously fakes, that might be worthwhile for someone to do, who doesn’t actually get out into the appropriate habitat to search.
hey loren & everyone this new sasquatch filmfootage is definetly very interesting indeed. but alot possible research & study needs to done to this filmfootage. it does look kinda authentic. just my opinion. thanks bill green ct sasquatch researcher 🙂
If you were to conduct a straw poll of just people walking around on a street or in a mall – -and ask them where they would post video they wanted to share, my guess is that the overwhelming majority would say YouTube. It has become the standard of video sharing — just like we say “I googled it” instead of “I looked it up on the internet”.
I agree — while there’s a lot of garbage and hoaxes posted there, I have no trouble at all believing that somebody who shot a video of something they couldn’t identify would post it on YouTube in the hopes that someone would help them figure out what it was.
I love reading Cryptomundo, and I don’t mean this as a putdown by any stretch of the imagination, but the ordinary person on the street or in the mall doesn’t know that you exist.
Why do people never use the zoom on their camera’s when filming stuff like this….? I wish just once somebody would use their dang zoom…..!
DARHOP: They don’t use zoom because it might reveal too much of the monkey suit. 😉
Perhaps they want to stay anonymous to stay clear of the ultimate jokester clown Tom Biscardi and company. That’s all they need is the likes of T.B. harrassing them with ongoing phone calls and showing up at their door in the middle of the night with his relentless attempts and childish tactics for attention. This would be even less credible than u-tube and it seems that anyone who comes out with something they have experienced, this narcissistic lowlife is breathing down their throats in a flash and they can be sure even if they had something worth research, once he gets his ‘Big Foot’ in it, all credibility is lost on even the most innocent of bystanders. Unfortunately, its u-tube or down the tube with Biscardi!
Unless of course, T.B. is actually learning from past mistakes by staying anonymous on u-tube, trying on another of his monkey costumes to see if he can do a better job than his many failed hoaxed attempts of the past.
Am I the only one who doesn’t have this kind of time on his hands?
That or also that they are so startled that they forget things like that.
‘Genuine researchers’ have forgotten mundane matters like lens caps, before.
When a human is in a state of severe startlement, we tend to forget things like that.
That might also explain some of the cases where they are filming something, then it goes all haywire. They have it, they see it, and then they think, ‘hey, I oughta zoom in’ or something like that, and lose it.
Hey don’t forget the cgi sasquatches! Those are my personal faves.