Marble Mountain Bigfoot Video Background
Posted by: Craig Woolheater on November 6th, 2012
We received a new comment from a Cryptomundian regarding the Marble Mountain Bigfoot Video and I felt it deserved to be elevated to a full post, so here it is:
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.
~ Chainsaw
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.
“In fact, during our visits he had never mentioned the term “Bigfoot” and was uneasy when I introduced the idea” and yet the word Bigfoot is used at least twice in the video?
I would think based on the short strides and behaviors of the figure on the ridge that this would indicate a human.
I also noticed that about at the 6:58 mark there seems to be a zipper-line on the figure’s chest.
Also, at the 1:29 mark there is a reddish-orange twine that seems to be supporting one of the logs on the ‘hut’.
Well, Mr. Mills wasn’t the one that mentioned “Bigfoot”. One of the students did.
if you’re claiming this is a bigfoot… you’ve gotta have some crazy proof… otherwise to me, its just nonsense.
this video, IMO, is a person.
I’ve seen this before.
To me it looks like a man with a backpack on the ridge. The structure is interesting though: you can see that the trees were broken down instead of being cut, and some of them were rather larger than would be possible to tear down by a person.
However, I also noticed the orange twine mentioned by zytebac, and it looks suspicious.
zytebac: Wait. You see a zipper?
You can barely see a figure!! It seems to turn and pose now and again, as if to say, “Ja get that?”
I’m amused by the suggestion, also, that “a good Christian” would never lie. Based on a comment in the film, I’m calling this being “Longhands”.
The shelter is a type used by primitive survival-type campers. It takes more than a few minutes to construct. I think this is what the campers found, constructed by a previous camper.
As for the subject itself, it spends a lot of time going back and forth atop the ridge line for no apparent purpose.
I’ll not comment on the authenticity of the “Bigfoot”, as I can not make out detail at that distance. But its behavior is certainly not what one would expect from a highly secretive creature.
I agree that the gait of the figure looks rather human. Moreover, it seems to walk in an uncertain and unbalanced way, as if unused to navigating a rocky ridge. If a Bigfoot, it looks like a novice
Also, I was surprised that there was no report of any smell in the shelter, as strong smell is a common element of Bigfoot reports.
A brand new Bigfoot! I love that! It certainly fuels the fires of the Bigfoot-as-Alien crowd. Well, not crowd, really. Claque. I’m not dismissing the AAB theory out of hand; I simply don’t believe it.
This is another one of those “linchpin” films that, well, I’m just not seeing it.
It’s not only plausible that the shelter could have been constructed by a person; the figure looks to me like a person with a daypack.
You can’t see it well enough to be sure. But when I talk about the pile of evidence – which is big, and getting bigger all the time – this isn’t on it.
DWA: even if the “Bigfoot” had been waving a handful of red flags, we’d have been unable to see that. I do agree it could be a human-constructed shelter. Or, just as easily, constructed expressly for this “documentary” footage.
Who do these idjits think they’re fooling?
Look kids, a crude wikiup that “some creature” has made. Look kids, downed limbs from a storm that appear to be snapped by hand and look at the stretch marks on the bark that are claw marks. Tell Will up on the hill to keep watching his step. Hilarious! Thanks for sharing.