Stacy Brown Thermal Bigfoot Footage a Hoax?
Posted by: Craig Woolheater on January 21st, 2014
From William Dranginis of Virginia Bigfoot Research Organization:
As a FLIR trained Thermographer out of FLIR’S Infrared Training Center in Billerica Mass., and having used thermal imaging in my own Bigfoot research, it’s my opinion that the Stacy Brown thermal Bigfoot footage is a hoax.
I exchanged several emails with Cliff Barackman to obtain filming dates and times regarding the Stacy Brown footage as well as the recreation conducted by the Finding Bigfoot television show. By obtaining the dates and times of the Brown footage and Finding Bigfoot recreation I could check weather archives for those dates.
What I found was the temperature differential for those days was only a few degrees apart meaning the Brown footage and the Finding Bigfoot recreation should be a very close match in relationship to the shades of gray you see on the thermal camera’s display. Both the Brown footage as well as the Finding Bigfoot footage were recorded using the “black hot” menu selection, meaning the hottest temperature in the image would be a dark color and the coolest temperature would be more lighter in color.
Both the Brown and Finding Bigfoot footage show a dark subject but in the the trees in the foreground of the Brown footage appear to be a very light color meaning the trees are much colder than the subject. In my years of research and as a FLIR certified thermographer, trees are normally the warmest heat signature in the woods besides animals so the trees in the Brown footage should also be a dark gray, not white as the Brown footage demonstrates.
[Below is a screen grab from the Finding Bigfoot episode. It shows Bobo walking the same path as the subject of the film. It is unknown if the two frames are at the same zoom level or not, which could change things, but it appears that Bobo is significantly smaller than the figure. Bobo stands at 6 ft, 4 in. He is walking with a bent-knee gait, similar to the film subject, which makes him shorter. This introduces some discrepancy as well. I would argue this discrepancy in true size is negligible for our purposes.]Cliff Barackman
The Finding Bigfoot recreation shows the dark colored subject but also shows the trees in the foreground as dark. From my training and field experience, I feel that the Brown footage was originally filmed in the “white hot” mode and then the subject was later added or colored in as a dark subject after the filming. The clean edges of the Brown subject are not normal for a subject that was filmed at that distance, to me, I feel the subject in the Brown footage was manipulated or added at a later date to make it appear as a dark, large subject.
I have viewed both the Brown footage as well as the Finding Bigfoot footage many, many times before I made this conclusion. The filming times and dates were needed to document the correct temperatures and temperature differentials to come to this conclusion.
Thanks to Cliff for providing the times and dates. Cliff also stated that the same thermal camera was used to obtain the original Stacy Brown footage as well as the Finding Bigfoot recreation footage. You can compare the Stacy Brown footage and the Finding Bigfoot recreation footage on Cliff Barackman’s website.
I have never spoken to Stacy Brown about the footage as the evidence in the footage is all that was needed to draw my conclusion. I am open to discuss my conclusion’s with anyone through email or phone.
Some people may not know of me as I fly under the radar most of the time so no offense taken. I have been using thermal cameras in this research since 1999 but started using them for my full time job as far back as 1995, I did manage to get that dinosaur of a FLIR system out to the field a couple times but not on a normal basis.
I am a FLIR Certified Thermographer so I do have a solid background in thermal cameras and similar technologies. But due to my extensive use of thermal cameras in Bigfoot research there were a couple things that made me question the authenticity of the Brown footage.
Stacy Brown stated that representatives of FLIR certified the video so I’m reaching out to FLIR in hopes of making contact with those people to determine how it was “certified”.
I am hopeful that someone can catch a rare glimpse of a Bigfoot creature using thermal imaging cameras but over the years I have witnessed many people hoaxing Bigfoot evidence so I don’t take things at face value anymore but I am willing to seek out the facts and provide my opinion to those interested.
~ William Dranginis
This is Stacy Brown’s rebuttal:
OK there has been article written by a “thermographer” who claims me and my dad’s footage is a hoax. My statement regarding that is this. First I stated at the beginning that it had rained that afternoon. Almost an inch. It also rained the day before. The reason the trees do not hold the heat is because they were wet. Making them cooler than they would normally be. The guy who makes these accusations should know this. After all he looked up the temp for that day, he just decided to leave out the fact that it had rained. He knows this so I believe his claims are just an attack on me. Also he claims to have been certified in 2008. With the constant firmware updates he is not up to date with the model I was using. Thermography is something that should be recertified every year this way you can stay up to date with the new technology. Last but not least my footage was unveiled to the world at the 2012 flir conference in Orlando. About 500 people watched it on a screen about 20ft x 20ft. All experts on flirs and no one saw anything out of the ordinary except that there was a sasquatch in the footage. I normally wouldn’t respond to this but my fans keep tagging me in these threads so I decided to make a statement. With the release of the show I have received a lot of hate mail and attacks on me personally. Its no big deal and I ask my fans not to worry about them. Jealousy is the ultimate form of flattery. Let them hate. They have nothing else to do. So please do not email me or tag me in anymore of the hate comments you see about me. I don’t have time to respond to all of them nor do I care to get into a pissing contest with those people. I’m sure you guys know who I’m talking about so I will not name them. All they are doing is trying to attach themselves to someone so they can get views on their crappy site. Now that this is out there let’s see if the guy has the dignity to admit he was wrong. I bet he doesn’t but I could be wrong. Thanks for the support guys, I really appreciate it.
~ Stacy Brown Jr
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.
After watching the new bounty show, not impressed with him so not surprised at all.
I mistrust – severely – any “debunk” that doesn’t answer the central question.
So.
What is that?
If the times of shooting are as stated, it’s unlikely that was a human. The discrepancies in size go untouched in the “debunk.”
Debunking is showing how it was done. If you didn’t….um….you didn’t.
If you are a FLIR-trained thermographer….duplicate it.
Saying something was thrown in later is like saying “Patty’s a horsehide thrown on Bob Hieronymous.”
Show your work. (Video it so I can trust you.)
…and by the btw, not having spoken to Stacy Brown is “not wanting to call someone a liar to his face, cyber- or otherwise.”
This is all about, to me, another one of these silly schisms that arise among proponents, and about bad science.
Good science is never claiming something happened unless you can claim something that either you did, and can show it in detail, or that the reader, or anyone technically qualified, can GO OUT AND DO.
Bigfoot skeptics keep talking about that “replicable” aspect of science (and without exception, utterly misusing the idea).
This is a perfect application, however. Pristine crystal perfect. Replicate. Make something that we go, crap, that’s likely what he did. I mean there are the steps, right there.
Duplicate it, or one has just made a very serious misstep.
Greetings Bill & Stacy,
Both of you make good points and Bill’s analysis is logical but that doesn’t mean it’s totally correct. Since I do know what Bill does for a living, which I won’t go into, but I will state for the record he’s seldom wrong because his livelihood depends on being right.
I suggest you turn the technical question of the authenticity of Stacy’s image over to the lab at FLIR. They should be able to determine from the evidence if the image has been altered.
Bill is accusing Stacy of hoaxing and this is a serious matter in the Bigfoot Community. If true, Stacy can forget associating with reputable researchers. However, if the image has not been altered then one of our more credible researchers has made a serious error. My best,
So it begins, this is fake, that’s fake, someone traveling around with a stuffed taxidermied Bigfoot charging people money to view it. Crazy!
I knew nothing about Stacy Brown, before the Finding Bigfoot episode, but after seeing him on that show and the Bigfoot Bounty show, I believe the thermal footage was a hoax. He doesn’t seem credible at all. I’d put him in a category with Smeja and Dyer.
DWA makes good points..if it’s a hoax-show how it was done.
I already have at least some doubts about all footage I see anymore-PG stands up for numerous reasons but all others-especially since the advent of CGI etc. are likely to be held to a higher standard.
No one on the show has come off as particularly like-able, not even the host and judges.
But, If Stacy did actually film a Bigfoot on his flir..I hope he wins this challenge to put the icing on the cake.
I do agree he doesn’t come off great on the show but NONE of the contestants do…selective editing is a weapon- just watch political ads-they take out of context, or cut statements short, mis-apply stuff; it’s insidious what can be done anymore.
And shows like this are NOT above that kind of stuff.
My first impression was it looked fake.The creature reminded me of a character you might see in an old video game from the 80’s.
So even durin’ thermography Bigfoot insists on dry humpin’ ev’ry tree it comes across?
Weird.
…don’ know ’bout all the technical bollocks but it’s sure good t’know there’s at least one Sasquatch out there still able t’squeeze themselves in drainpipe kecks.
Man them’s some seriously skinny legs! Any thinner an’ we’d be talkin’ pipe cleaners.
In fact I’m wond’rin’ if what we’re really lookin’ at’s the Muppets’ Grover lookin’ for a little forest bride action by way of research for writin’ Sasquatch porn.
Actually Alan, the “skinniness” of the legs lends itself toward credibility.
When fakers wear gorilla costumes-the legs usually look too fat-especially below the knees.
Now, if you really pay attention to this figure and stop frame it, You’ll notice (or should) that the torso is very short, the arms are long and the legs are long.
Also the forward jut of the head is very unlike a human. Now; it’s possible to thrust your head forward and draw your shoulders up but the effect this has is to make the arms look shorter when a human actor does it.
This figure maintains a long armed, short neck, forward head posture the whole time and has extreme knee bend.
Anatomically speaking this looks very credible to me.
Now, is it an animation of some kind? I don’t know… a pixel dissector would have to determine that.