January 21, 2014

Stacy Brown Thermal Bigfoot Footage a Hoax?

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.

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 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

Filed under Bigfoot, Bigfoot Report, Cryptozoologists, Cryptozoology, Evidence, Finding Bigfoot, Hoaxes, Pop Culture, Sasquatch, Television, Videos