Marble Mountain Bigfoot Video
Posted by: Craig Woolheater on July 14th, 2011
A Cryptomundian sends an email message this morning:
New video on YouTube – definitely worth watching. I checked out the gentleman who filmed this (Google search: “campus life” youth group “jim mills”). Apparently he passed away last year, but the minister himself and the youth outing where this was supposedly filmed are not made up.
This video is not new however, it was filmed in July 2000 and was submitted to the BFRO on August 1, 2001. It was uploaded to youtube on July 6, 2011.
Here is the link to the report on the BFRO website: Eighteen campers find hut; videotape distressed bigfoot walking down mountain ridge.
This Video footage of Bigfoot was taken in June, 2001 By Jim Mills the leader of the youth group “Campus Life” on the annual Marble Mountains backpacking trip. This is the longest know video of bigfoot ever recorded. In no way was this faked or some kind of hoaxCampusLifeArchive
Co-founder of Cryptomundo in 2005.
I have appeared in or contributed to the following TV programs, documentaries and films:
OLN's Mysterious Encounters: "Caddo Critter", Southern Fried Bigfoot, Travel Channel's Weird Travels: "Bigfoot", History Channel's MonsterQuest: "Swamp Stalker", The Wild Man of the Navidad, Destination America's Monsters and Mysteries in America: Texas Terror - Lake Worth Monster, Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot: Return to Boggy Creek and Beast of the Bayou.
When the camera guy said “footage is all we need” or something like that..good grackle fiddle sticks.
The vid is interesting, the figure seems quite tall, but its hard to figure out something’s accurate size from miles away. Sure is one of the longest, if not the longest bigfoot footage i’ve seen, I’ll give it that.
‘Nuff videos. Body, bones or fossils, please.
Wow, forgot all about this one! This video feels right, but with such low quality resolution it’s hard to be definitive about what we’re really seeing. Gut reaction is that it’s legit. Thanks for posting!
🙂
I do not recall ever seeing this video before. It is intriguing. The “bi-pedel” creature looks strange. Legs look thin, arms look long. The gait is not quite what we have been fed over the past 20 years. Maybe because it’s so far away? I’m hung up on this one.
three things stand out for me in this video.
1. at 1:30 you see a pink/red piece of rope that is used to tie together the structure.
2. the figure appears to be wearing a backpack.
3. they keep talking about the figure’s arms are soooooo long, but from what i can see they don’t look that long.
Just doesn’t strike me as a bigfoot.
Looks to me to be a person because I don’t think Bigfoot would be so unsteady on his or her feet. The figure in this video nearly falls flat on it face at least three or four times in this video.
In the beginning when he’s looking at the structure, in addition to the red string, it looks like there’s a hatchet notch in the main vertical log. But it’s only visible for a second. Also, if you look at frames around 6:12 in the footage, it almost looks as if this is a person who is facing the opposite direction and reaches back to pull a t-shirt up, as if he’s tacking it off, but drop it back down again. It’s weird video, because in a couple of frames, you can see the arms and shoulders, which appear high – indicating it might not be a backpack creating illusion of a head. It’s also odd that this bigfoot seems to be fairly carefree and neandering, doesn’t seem like a cautious animals instinctive gait in an open area. Still it is somewhat intriquing.
Do Bigfoot have claws? They mention claw marks at the start.
I recently viewed the enlarged and stabilised footage which really sent a shiver down my spine. Here’s a clip that incorporates an absorbing analysis which also includes ‘follow up’ BFRO research data.
BFRO’s comparison with a 6 foot tall person at certain points on the ridge determined the sasquatch was between 9 and 10 feet tall!
Thought provoking to say the least!
PS: Thanks Craig
What/whoever it is needs to lay off the booze…it’s walkin around like my uncle on Christmas Eve!
Really really interesting video.
A few things….
Apparently, bigfootencounters.com has ‘debunked’ the video. It’s interesting how they did it. They extrapolated color from the bigfoot image, apparently showing that the creature is not a uniform color but rather a mixture of colors, hinting toward the likely possibility that the creature is in fact wearing clothing. Pretty interesting.
However, I also watched the video that dermal ridges are proof posted. I think it’s a pretty great analysis of the footage. But from there, I checked out the posters (TeamYin) page on YouTube to leave him a comment as the commenting for the video had been disabled.
Of notable interest was two other comments from 1 week ago made by people who were 1.) a friend (Timsays) of the people who filmed it claims that they have a better quality version of the video and that none of the kids in it are disabled (I believe TeamYin makes references to the kids being autistic, something I agreed with after it was pointed out–but according to a family friend, it is a false claim. And 2.) a relative (Xochaedo) of the family that filmed it says that the claims made in the video are completely false, that the poster does not own the video and asks for it to be taken down. I take all of this with a grain of salt, but do find it interesting. If Xochaedo is telling the truth and is indeed a family member of the filmers, it leads me to believe that the claims made in the video being false would also be the autism claims. I would defend my family if some stranger was leaping to conclude that they were handicapped when they were in fact not.
But it could also be that the false claims referred to could also be the bigfoot analysis, as the family should know first hand if they hoaxed it.
What do I think, you ask? I think it’s innocent, until proven guilty.
And very much an unrelated question… are
redacted by Cryptomundoand CDC still around or did they get banned? Or maybe they just show up to rag on Finding Bigfoot. Things seemed to have gotten pretty heated with those guys. But in general, I enjoy their comments, venom filled as they are. They entertain me as much as the show does.Excellent Vid Craig. Thanks for posting.
Some of the various other alleged films indicate some sasquatch are more tall, big & lanky than huge broad pecs & shoulders like Mr. Universe scaled up 2X.
In the final minutes, I detect a sagittal peaky “conehead” at the limit of the video’s resolution capabilities. Weaving pliable fibers has been previously documented as being being among the upper limits of their behavior, aside from burying their dead, which could be partly hygenic getting rid of the stink, septis & rememberance as in new Alpha Male or mate.
@ dermal_ridges_are_proof
The clip you posted was indeed thought provoking. I am taken by the height, body movement and arm length here. When I watch it, my eye keeps zooming in on how odd the movement is, and how short the legs seem to be to the body. You can’t really see that on the first vid posted.
Excellent follow up to a interesting video!
I think it’s interesting how most/all of the branches in the “nest” (even the really large ones) are broken off – not cut. That fits with a lot of stories and I’m not sure how you’d fake that real easily. I know it’s possible, especially with a lot of young guys around, but it would still take a lot of effort.
Some of the commenters mention that the figure seems to be “staggering”. First, I don’t think it all unusual that something that size would walk “differently” than we do, especially on terrain like that. Secondly, there is a part of me that would absolutely love it if it is ever discovered that on occasion the Big Guys stagger and fail around like that just for the fun of it. Who knows, right?…
I feel that the truth as to the contents of the video are far less complex. The “nest” looked very much, in my opinion, something a human may create for shelter (not trying to beat a dead horse, but I also noticed the red string-like object). Also, it seems that this structure is relatively close to a less dense stretch of forest. I find it hard to believe that such a reclusive/elusive creature would nest so openly. The figure looked very much like a human with a backpack or satchel of some sort. In my opinion, it is not impossible that some one could be living as a hermit or a recluse and that the individual may or may not be mentally ill, in the form of paranoia or some sort of psychotic episode. That would explain the figures frustration and pacing; that and the fact that a bunch of goofy campers are messing with his/her campsite. Or the figure could just be one of those thrill seekers who like to have survival camping trips, but if that were the case he would have probably just walked up to the campers and told them to get lost. Lastly, it seems very unlikely that a Sasquatch would be demonstrating the behavior in the film. I don’t think this was a hoax, just a bunch of overzealous campers getting way too stoked over something they don’t seem to know a lot about.
At first, I figured they just stumbled upon some extreme camper’s camp, and the shape in the distance was just some guy hiking or whatnot.
Upon seeing the video in the comments, I have come to the conclusion that it could be one of three things: either it’s bigfoot, the guys made it up somehow with a rather good costume and a tall person, or they stumbled upon and disturbed the camp of a tall and possibly homeless mountain hermit.
Verrry interesting. A couple of thoughts: in both videos, but more evident in the stabilized version, at about 4:45 (stabilized) the subject seems to stumble a bit, then turns and looks back at what tripped it up (“Where’d that rock come from?”) just as we might. Just a human reaction? Don’t know. Also, I wish the person recreating the video had worn a hoodie so we could compare the covered head and shoulders to the subject in the original video. The legs will appear thin due to the overexposure of the sky “blowing out” and distorting the image (along with what looks like digital zoom, which can get very distorted). I’m not really sure about the height analysis, as zooming will compress nearer and more distant objects, making it hard to judge them against each other. Hard to tell without being at the site. As I said, veerry interesting and worth more study.
Redrose999
Thanks. You echo my own thoughts on this one.
We have that vital context of size comparison here (as shown in the 2nd clip); the ‘gangly beast’ is truly huge, and the long flailing arms have a life of their own; sasquatch arms!
Although other posters are speculating that it might be either a tall hiker with or without a backpack, or a homeless human hermit with mental problems coming back down to his ‘survival nest’ etc. How do they reconcile those notions with BFRO’s jaw dropping size comparison?
The figure has clearly been demonstrated to be at least 9 to 10 feet tall !!!
I saw this ages ago, and as then as now this has to be one of the worst blobsquatch hoaxes ever… I really think the fact that FB/FB and others put a huge effort into analysing this footage to be risible. People need a little sense and some people need to pack this game in.
So, we’ve this group of kids on the mountainside… they’re not supposedly looking for sasquatches… however they ‘discover’ a ‘nest’… the hammy comments then go try to stress ‘someTHING’ has built this nest, and that the branches are all broken off, rather than cut. Now, how many creatures have the opposable digits and dexterity necessary to make such a structure? Well, man anyway… and then… oh my, what if! Sasquatch? Jimminyjillikers!
My point is if they HAD found (rather than built, cut and tied together that mess themselves) why would they not think a human bedding down for the night had made it, for example? Immediately they start trying to suggest to the dimmer viewers that this might be a Sasquatch nest by implication… and then low and behold…. he appears! Wowzers.
And where does our Sasquatch appear? Well on the ridge-line, of course… nice silhouette, very good for the shot. Mentioned above we have the cut-marks and the string, but leave that glaringly obvious hoaxery aside for a moment. What does the commentator say? As noted above he says several times ‘WOW…. his arms are so long! Down to his knees or below!’. Well, looking at the video the arms go to just below the hip, as you’d expect of a human. You have eyes, so use them and don’t be codded. Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see and you’ll do ok.
Then the staggered gait, the ‘drunksquatch’, and the evident height? Well, if you aren’t as impressionable as some have been and ignore the idiotic ham-fisted commentary which is trying to lead you… you can see that the height comes from the legs, which are way out of proportion to the torso. Not very Squatchy, that, quite the opposite…. I’ll tell you what it is, though… it’s a bit stilty. Yes, there is a moron on the ridge, and yes they are wearing stilts and no, they are not very good at using them. Hence skinny drunksquatch. Does this require further serious scientific investigation? Does it ****.
Case closed. Once again the ardent fundamentalist believer, e.g. FB/FB crowd, are made fools of by some kids playing with a camcorder. No shame at all why you’ve blind faith and are particularly dim. Too many frauds spoil the broth, folks. If you’ve got charlatans analyising in depth these japes and you defer to them then nobody will ever take you seriously, and rightly not.
Might be just me but this video reminds me of a camping trip when I was a kid and the adults made a big production of the “snipes” running through the woods and we should go hunt them. Finding the structure and then seeing the thing on the ridge and making a big deal about the arm length really looks like a group of adults trying to make the trip very exciting for the kids.
I should add that it is well established that some Northern NAPES and Russian “ape-men” have in fact a two-tone, multi-colored or piebald hair coat much like some hamsters or domestic cattle.
In fact I well recall seeing very hirsute human adult men with large distinct patches of nearly colorless or striking gray hair in contrast to the rest of their dense brown or black body hair (or head hair).
As to the movement of the subject of the video, it is exactly what I would expect of a large lumbering being half-way between a human & a gorilla.
After viewing the comparison/investigation video, it is apparent that whatever this is it is tall! This is a very compelling video. It is up there with the Patterson film. I am more convinced, than before. Definitely could be a Bigfoot.
When the subject comes out of the trees at the 4 minute 40 second mark it quickly turns back and appears to be ‘kicking’ at something lower down to the right. Or is it just me seeing that?
Looks like some dude hiking and wearing a back pack. The gate is human like, the arm length is normal and so on. To me the guy looks like a guy hiking not a bigfoot.
This is (or used to be) one of the “classic” pieces of video evidence that seems to come up whenever the list of such (hint: very short) is compiled. I think BFRO called this one of the “three best pieces of footage” at one time, although they don’t seem to give it that elevated status anymore.
It’s a weird figure, behaving weirdly, at least when seen through the low-quality video. One can’t conclude – as one can with the vast majority of clips – that the figure is almost certainly human as it exhibits human body proportions and moves like a person in a suit and not a wild animal. But one can’t conclude anything with the quality of the footage.
They sure went through one hell of a lot of uneventful footage to shoot a hoax. Most clear fakes don’t bother, at least not with this much extraneous stuff.
Conclusion? None. Interesting; but we won’t get there by perusing video.
To use a “moneymaker” on this one…I know squactches and that is certianly no squatch.
If we are to accecpt the patterson footage, and I do, with that being the standard this figure is nothing like the patterson bigoot in terms of locomtion. It resembles a crazy person walking on a ridge.
Hey, everyone.
Not being an expert on kinesiology, I can’t say how difficult it is for a human to imitate the creature’s hip movements or whether those lie within or outside human range.
But I am an expert on height (since height requires no expertise) and can say that for this video to have been hoaxed, the actor who played the BFRO expert would have to have been 4 feet tall in order for the branch used for the height comparison to be within the range of human height or at a height of about 6 feet.
If it can be proven that the BFRO subject indeed was 6 feet tall then I don’t see why this video shouldn’t be hailed as one of the more important ones.
To the extent that I can interpret hominid body language I would agree that the creature does seem to be in a state of distress. Perhaps feeling frustration that its territory has been violated.
But why would it walk as if on a tightrope? It seems to be less at ease on that terrain than a human. Clumsy, if you ask me.
The contribution by dermal_ridges_are_proof was great.
The comments by the people seem genuine. The comments of the kids around the filmer as he videoed the hut sounded just like mine and their friends. So I don’t think it was hoaxed. Still, after watching the figure walking, I don’t think its a bigfoot. I think the people had bigfoot on their mind so that is what they saw.
To me, the figure looked like a guy carefully stepping down a slope that has loose rocks on it. That is why he moves abnormally. The footing is not stable enough to walk naturally, but not steep enough to need the arms outstretched for balance. I’ve noticed that when walking down a slope (not a steep one) where the footing is iffy, guys tend to keep their arms lowered and hands closed. (Girls spread their arms out/up with hands opened.)
It is very easy to see his knees bending as he walked and his hands were not below them. At some points his arms looked long, but he was slightly hunched over as he tried to keep his balance.
When between the trees he is not jumping up and down, he is “stepping” down a steeper slope towards the people to get a better look. The height between the “steps” are too high to step down naturally, but not high enough to have to jump down. This time he does need more balance so his arms are outstretched and they move up and down as he goes from step to step. He is moving left and right as he picks the easiest route.
It looks like the white strip down his chest is just a light t-shirt showing through his unzipped “hoodie” jacket. The hood pushed back made the silhouette of his head look bigger and his neck look shorter/muscular. It almost looked like he had a backpack, I can’t say for sure though.
I think he was mad. He spend some considerable energy setting up his camp only to come back and find a bunch of people poking around. That is why he waved his arms and grabbed his head. I bet he was cussing up a storm. Because of them, he had to find a new spot and start over.
Its true that some of the large branches making up the hut were broken, not cut. One explanation could be that they were on a tree above his head and he jumped up, grabbed them and used his weight to break them off. Not everyone brings an axe or saw camping. This isn’t a great explanation, but the hut just doesn’t look like other examples I’ve seen of structures created by bigfoot. It looks more sophisticated and finished.
Something I do find hard to explain away is the height comparison in the second video. I did notice that the branch used for comparison looked like it ended below the bottom foliage of the tree on the left in the original video. In the comparison, the branch ended above. Its hard to tell with the difference time makes.
I can’t believe people think this is real! You think some people were just out camping, come across a makeshift hut and are like “it’s a bigfoot house, aaaaand, here comes bigfoot”.
To me it looks like a (tall) person in a poncho. Also during some frames of the footage, when the figure is between the trees and the person filming is saying that the figure looks angry, it looks to me as if the figure mocks the stance of a person holding a rifle. As if to imply, essentially, he’d want those people out of the camp and he’s so angry he’d shoot at them (obviously a threat not to be taken seriously but something one might do in anger).
My son is autistic, and I can say with 100% faith, that if he saw a unidentified “thing” that everyone was making such a big deal out of, HE WOULD FREAK OUT! So if they would lie about that…
@Ragnar
The piece of rope is actually (apparently; in my opinion) a scaley frond of the tree’s branches from which the hut like structure is made, i.e. Calocedrus decurrens, or California Incense-cedar, a very likely candidate for that kind of construction because it intertwines so wonderfully and as well the branches are easily broken off at the main trunk because of their relatively small diameter. Yes; the young, damaged or dying frond scales are sometimes pinkish to yellowish in color, especially in drought or near drought conditions. This structure was probably not made by the boys.
@EastTexan
I agree, digital photography enhanced by digital magnification etc., with bright back-lighting tends to distort distant, (.43 miles), subjects; making dark objects appear thinner.
I really wish we could enforce a requirement for anyone carrying a camcorder afield to also carry and use a tripod! How much nicer would that be. LOL
The fact that there are no visibly cut branches is interesting as some are quite large in diameter, (to large for humans to break at their bases at least)
I think it somewhat unreasonable to assume that all sasquatches are carbon copies of each other. There is undoubtedly some variation in physique throughout the population just as there is with man, (probably to a lessor degree). So; to judge a half-mile distant figure on the subjects apparent physique is altogether risky.
The Marble mountain video is interesting and I, for one, am unable to ascertain the films authenticity.
I keep coming back to this video. I’ve spent a bit of time looking at everything the video offers and, for one thing need to amend my earlier supposition that the ‘string’ seen by some is a scaly frond from the tree, as I now believe, after much viewing, its piece of capillary root, which is frequently blood red to brown. Also noted; there seem to be a couple of stout elements (2”-3”) that appear cut by an axe or hatchet. Also, the campsite location appears to be quite public, its difficult to imagine a sasquatch building a structure in such a location.
The scratches (clawmarks) on the tree trunk look manmade. Due to the relatively recent construction of a supposed structure would we not also expect that the scratches to also be recent? If they are natural I would bet that they are ‘bearmade’.
Having said all that: I am astonished at the results of an exercise I just now concluded in duplicating and measuring the entity filmed on the ridge (video timeline @10:57). Working in AutoCAD® and allowing for the foreshortening due to estimated distances from focal plane etc., I used variously assumed tree diameters for the cedar tree immediately uphill of the subject as a set of possible reference dimensions. Doing this, I came up with a subject height of between 9’-6” and 15’-0”! I scaled the subject many times with many different tree diameters. The range of estimated tree diameter I used in this experiment were between 20 and 36 inches, with the most probable statistically being 27”. Again, this for the one uphill tree nearest the subject. If the tree were actually a smaller diameter this would proportionally diminish the apparent dimension of the subject. Should any of you want to duplicate my experiment; remember to adjust the apparent distance of the ref. tree to the subject. I fully realize the subjective, imprecise nature of the extrapolations in this exercise, it does though get us close to a possible (likely) dimensional range and helps to eliminate the extremes on the curve..
Finally, and albeit contradictory to this finding of the subjects huge stature is that the subject’s arms in no way reach its knees.
I find the mini lecture the videographer gives on autistic kids to be somewhat strange, under the circumstances. If you are in the midst of this strange encounter would you take a moment to wax nostalgic about the value of autism in our society? It just seems rather out of place for an urgent scenario that’s unfolding minute by minute in the present tense. I also find it strange that they aren’t concerned with safety at all, if they believe this giant creature is heading their way, they are presumably in its camp, and the guy is responsible for several challenged kids who may, or may not, fully understand what’s going on.
Regardless of what this video actually depicts or what anyone believes about it, here’s a bit of background history about it, since I was not only one of the very first to see it but also the first to bring it to the attention of BFRO.
The video was made by a good Christian friend, Jim Mills, who lived with his wife Anita and family about ¼ mile from my home on Bitney Springs Road in Grass Valley. During my first year (1980) in Grass Valley, I had met Jim while attending the large local First Baptist Church, where he was involved with the youth program and also working as a security guard at Nevada Union High School across the street. We both enjoyed wilderness camping and continued to stay in touch even after I had switched to another fellowship. Kids loved him and “Nita”, and along with holding very popular and stimulating weekly Bible studies at their home (in association with Christian youth organization Campus Life) they always took supervised groups of older youth on summer campouts to favorite spots in the Marble Mountains. Jim had a gentle and loving spirit and a kind sense of humor, but was serious minded and never known to use humor at someone else’s expense, pull practical jokes, or mount hoaxes.
He first mentioned the video to me about a month after it was taken, saying that Nita had given him the camera the Christmas before and this was his very first use of it. One of his sons had found the hut and had been crawling in and out of it. While taping the hut, the distant figure was spotted and he had to back up against a tree in order to help steady the unfamiliar hand-held camera. I asked if he’d mind showing me the video, so he rather reluctantly brought it over to my house where I saw it for the first time, and of course I asked if this was a stunt he’d devised. He was adamant that it was the real thing; and in a later talk with his wife she also assured me that nothing had been staged, and that no one in their group, including Jim, would have had time to construct such an elaborate hut between the time they arrived and set up camp and the time it was found. In fact, during our visits he had never mentioned the term “Bigfoot” and was uneasy when I introduced the idea. Though baffling, he initially believed it must have had some other explanation.
The written BFRO report was submitted by J. S., a friend from Gold Country Calvary Fellowship (where I was serving as a deacon and working in the men’s ministry), after hearing me tell about it at a July 26-28, 2001, “Big Boy’s” men’s church campout at McRae Meadows near Johnsville, CA. A couple of months before this campout, I had done a Google search on “Bigfoot”, had found the BFRO site (which seemed less sensational and wild-eyed than some of the others), and had suggested to Jim that he contact them. Again, he was reluctant to make anything of it, and was a bit fearful about being labeled a crackpot and damaging his credibility as a serious follower of Christ. He finally gave me permission to contact BFRO with the story and supply them with contact info. So I had already called BFRO and was awaiting their response when J.S. told me that he had also submitted my campfire version of Jim’s story. BFRO subsequently contacted me by phone once or twice before paying a visit to Jim and getting an interview and a copy of his video.
Thus, although also unsure of what was filmed, I can at least offer reasonable assurance that if found to be a hoax it would have been someone other than Jim Mills or his camping group involved in staging it.