Brooklyn Bigfoot Hoax

Fort Greene performance artist Brian Whiteley said he carried out the stunts — and e-mailed the documentation to reporters — as artistic acts that were supposed to provoke a reaction, not for laughs.

“I’m not trying to gain notoriety for a prank,” he said. “I want to do something that combines people on a universal level.”

The artist statement on his website is more blunt:

“I am not asking you to look, I am forcing you to pay attention.”

Whiteley shot and starred in the video, and sent it out to local news publications in late January using the pseudonym Russell Strark. He claimed to have been recording a time-lapse video of a snowstorm and discovering the Sasquatch when reviewing the footage. He came clean to legendary reporter on the paranormal Lee Spiegel, of the Huffington Post, the following week.

Whiteley said he has a longstanding a fascination with Bigfoot that has led him to dress up as the mythical creature in staged videos shot across the country, and to conduct interviews with Bigfoot “experts” and conspiracy theorists. In early videos, he said he walked too much like a human, but over time, driven by critiques from Bigfoot fans, he honed his hunched lurching.

Whiteley’s Prospect Park video was not the first time he has attempted to use the press to spread fake Bigfoot sightings, but it garnered more notice than videos past, and he said he began to worry that true believers would misconstrue his intentions.