What Did You Think Of “Finding Bigfoot”?
Posted by: Loren Coleman on May 31st, 2011
The sneak preview of Animal Planet’s “Finding Bigfoot” aired Monday night on Animal Planet.
The program revealed some rather clear items of potentially good pieces of evidence: a law enforcement dashcam video (which has been since rumored to be a hoax, although Matt Moneymaker disagrees here), new footprints, and a thermal image of an unknown, apparent upright heat signature in the woods, all from Georgia.
What did you think of this episode?
Also, it revealed some candid moments of Matt Moneymaker bragging to the camera that he was the researcher to have invented the use of “wood knocks” out in the field.
Moneymaker’s claims to “firsts” are also documented on the biography of him (“provided by Matt Moneymaker, President and Founder of the BFRO” and) posted on the “Finding Bigfoot” site. The passage includes the following:
Matt Moneymaker is well known among bigfoot researchers and is credited with being…
- … the first person who introduced sound blasting and howling as a technique for locating bigfoots.
- … the first person who proposed and argued the connection between bigfoot sightings and deer kill stashes, after being shown evidence by Mennonite Farmers in Ohio.
- … the first person to record the long moaning howl of a big male sasquatch — the “Ohio Howl.”
- … the first to formally describe the knock sounds made by bigfoots in 1992, at a scientific conference at Rutgers University for the International Society of Cryptozoology.
- … the first person to organize big expeditions to gather observations and evidence in various parts of North America.
- … the first person to debunk the “Georgia Bigfoot Body” hoax in the summer of 2008.
Well, I wonder if members of the Tom Slick family would disagree with the statement about the “first person to organize big expeditions to gather observations and evidence in various parts of North America”?
And of course, Moneymaker knows that Cryptomundo, Cryptomundians, I and Jeff Meldrum, all debunked the “Georgia Bigfoot” hoax too, before the news conference of August 15, 2008, i.e. “first.”
Others may have some things to say about the “first claims” about sound blasting, tree knocking, and more, later.
Wish to share your thoughts of this episode?
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.
Hey Matt,
Come on up to Bigfoot Country. We will tell you how it really is! Here you will spend months – not some hollywood show tunes – contact real researchers – get over yourself – or stay home. Or keep up your play screeching. You have slandered real people. Real researchers are welcome to Oregon.
It is now conceivable that the thermal image shown on the program as coming from “Georgia of Georgia” was an inserted re-enactment, as well as the noises we hear in some segments. If the thermal read was real, I would have expected the “Finding Bigfoot” team to have been shown huddled around a television monitor at the end of the episode, trying to analyze it.
In some ways, we should not be surprised, but we should not, henceforth, call “Finding Bigfoot” a documentary television depiction presenting real evidence for Bigfoot. Despite the high critical acclaim that Michael Moore received for his movie Roger & Me, it should be recalled that it was denied submission for an Academy Award as a documentary for it exaggerated the social impact of GM’s closing of the plant and depicted the actual events of Flint’s troubles out of chronological order. If a production company inserts, for dramatic effect, sounds and wood knocks that viewers are encouraged to assume were made by Bigfoot, and actually did insert a thermal read of what is taken to be a cryptid, “Finding Bigfoot” has drifted from documentary, to reality television’s form of a docudrama. Re-creations not properly labeled as such become viewer manipulations.
I taught for 23 semesters a credit course at a four-year university in documentary film, and even by the standards of most documentary filmmakers, “Finding Bigfoot” is turning out to have been produced under a cloud, ethically, through no fault of Cliff Barackman’s, the BFRO’s or Matt Moneymaker’s, I hastened to add.
Loren Coleman
Here’s the way I see it Loren. When a person puts themselves out there as the front man of a show claiming to be a documentary type show based on finding truth and fact you must expect a certain amount of backlash when it starts coming out that certain aspects are down right deceptions. Even if the people involved with the show have no control over it you have to handle it in certain ways. You don’t become angry at those pointing out the deception. You be a man, step up and say it straight up. That you had nothing to do with the deception and you are sorry that the show turned out this way but you had no control. You use humility and tact. I have seen none from MM. It is in my humble opinion that there is a chance MM had no clue about the deceptions but for a researcher to not be allowed any access to the data he gathered nor to be allowed any type of screening of his program about his life’s work should and would have thrown up red flags in anyone’s mind and prompted certain actions. MM comes off as a smart aleck and a bit shady, maybe through no fault of his own. His actions and comments on this website prove otherwise to myself and many others. He acts like we are supposed to assume he did certain things were done when we did not see nor were we told on the show that they were done. MM may be guilty of nothing more than poor judgment yet his attitude and actions on this site say otherwise. Honesty, humility and manners go a long way when one is attempting to get a group behind his or her body of work. A question I raise is why would a cryptozoologist go out of his way to offend the very group of people who would support them?
Very eloquently stated, much better than I could do.
“… humility and manners go a long way when one is attempting to get a group behind his or her body of work.”
Those who care about the facts first should not be so concerned about “humility and manners.”
Larry everyone no matter who it is should be concerned with manners.
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I have a few questions regarding the show.
1. The police video: If I am seeing this correctly; If “Bobo” can cross the highway in 3 to 4 steps (approx), why does the BF need 3 to 4 steps to cross 1/2 the highway?
2. Finding the footprints: Was there any indications of a left footprint? Scuff marks etc. Did the location and ease of discovery raise concerns among the researchers?
3. Knocks, howls, thermal video etc,: There have been concerns raised that these events have been recreated by the producers. Is there a way to obtain the original recordings/videos even if they are of lesser quality?