Full Gable Film

Posted by: Loren Coleman on March 23rd, 2010


Here is MonsterQuest’s pre-screening upload of the Gable Film, so it could be shown at Cryptomundo:

AMERICA’S WOLFMAN
History says that a large and wolf-like beast is the stuff of legend, but recently uncovered film footage and new witnesses say something frightening is out there. MonsterQuest heads into the dark, isolated forests of the Midwest to search for this creature and analyzes the evidence to finally end this mystery.

This MONSTERQUEST airs Wednesday March 24, 2010: 9 Eastern/8 Central on History

Remember, this is more than MonsterQuest’s 4th series finale. This is the final episode of the program. I am sad to see it end. I feel it will be seen in the future as having had a lasting impact, in terms of television taking the topic of cryptozoology seriously, skeptically, and open-mindedly. Many of us will miss it greatly.

Loren Coleman About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct). Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015. Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.


33 Responses to “Full Gable Film”

  1. TheHighlandTiger responds:

    First time I’ve ever seen this footage.

    Not really sure what to make of it. Although the creature appears to move more like a bear than a wolf.

    Is it genuine footage, I’m not sure.

  2. Dr Kaco responds:

    I’m not saying this is a hoax but there are a few notable instances in this clip. The creature in the video moves more like a man trying to act like a gorilla or bear. Well more like trying to run like a four legged animal, we’ve all seen those cheesy Godzilla movies 😉 And the end of the clip, VERY Blair Witch Project finale….just sayin 😉
    ~Peace!

  3. JBrook responds:

    Ive seen this film several times and the more I see it the more I think its a bear. I think some tricky lighting and old film make it extremely hard to discern exactly what it is but it appears to me that the head is quite large and much more round than any kind of ape and that the tricky lighting accounts for people mistaking this animal for a silverback as the light hits the animals back in a way which illuminates the back but shadows the rest of the body. I can even make out ears on the animal which I believe people are mistaking for a different head shape. IMO this is most definitely a bear.

  4. JBrook responds:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6GcWhlGF3o

    This is about the best video I could find of a bear charge. Bears are very athletic, agile animals, much more so than most people realize. Ive read many people talking about the apelike lateral running movement of the animal in the Gable film, I believe this is somewhat a trick of the eye. the animal is obviosuly not head on with the camera but at a slight angle and when it begins its charge it is running a straight line to the left of the camera and immediately cuts back towards the camera giving the illusion of lateral running movement. I think this film shows that with with low res film, bad lighting and a shaky camera that a bear could easily be mistaken for an ape or gorilla, theres even a few frames in this film where when paused the bear looks a bit ape-ish, at least its body does.

  5. Dib responds:

    As a hobby, I used to collect and use old home-movie cameras. The quality and graininess is about right for 8mm film of that time. But, of course, it could have been hoaxed back then. And old movie cameras and even film (though getting harder to get) are still available today.

    One thing clearly bothers me. All of the cameras from that time, that I’m familiar with, will stop filming as soon as you release the trigger. That makes the last few seconds very suspicious to me.

  6. Cryptoraptor responds:

    The black specks that randomly appear in the film to suggest a degraded film look appear overdone and generated by a post production editng related program like Adobe After Effects.

    Selling most people on bigfoot is a very hard sell, much less a giant wolf-like creature.

    Good luck.

  7. skeptik responds:

    Personally I think the film is real, that is, not a hoax. It seems to be a couple filming everyday events (just playing around with their new toy) taken over a certain period of time. Then one day the woman is driving down the road when she sees a bear (black bear?) from the car. Stops the car, run after the bear to get it on tape, and forces the bear to attack. Wild animals are dangerous, please leave it to the experts to study them up close.

    Also, there was a corresponding movie released a while back of police officers examining the body of a woman brutally slain in a similar terrain with a similar body build and hair color. As I remember, someone pointed to their simple uniforms as being evidence of a hoax, while other Cryptomundo users confirmed it was the kind of uniforms wore back then.

    I just think it is a tragic piece of footage of an animal attack, of which there are plenty, unfortunately. We should show some respect and tact as spouse/children may be alive today and stumble over it.

  8. skeptik responds:

    Oh, and let me add to that; there is no reason why this would be a wolfman, gorilla or even a human being. It looks like a bear, it moves like a bear, it most probably is a bear. Just because the camera(wo)man is an amateur and the equipment is old rendering footage full of artifacts, doesn’t mean we have the liberty to jump to conclusions disregarding all the other factors/facts that are portrayed in the film (the people in it, the terrain, etc).

    And from what we’ve seen of hoaxes this one seems too elaborate (sort of like the PG film). Yes we can do it with CGI but it is expensive. If someone paid to create this footage artificially then I think such a sizeable project would’ve spilled the beans. People talk.

    I think the reason why this got so much attention outside the “faces of death” scene is because someone added scary music to the copied version and upped it as a “cryptozoological” flick.. It’s tragic.

  9. Redrose999 responds:

    I’m rather disappointed in this. I think Monsterquest is more interested in the sensational rather than showing real cryptozoology. Either this is a huge hoax, based on the history behind the film, or a real animal attack, which is in bad taste to post to begin with.

    The “creature” really looks like a suit to me, but it movement is very animal like when it runs. My husband pointed out the way it changed direction. I keep noticing the light reflecting on the fur (it reminds me of my poodle when she charges). Other than that, I see nothing worth spending an hour episode on.

    That is unless they plan on proving it’s a hoax. The “fuzz” of the film toward the end has me really suspicious. I think it was made at a later date then the claims says it was. Real 22mil film does not show snow fuzz, like this film does. It blurs, it’s burns, and jiggles and it has tons of dust, but it does not “fuzz” with pixilated snow.

    So I’m in the camp of it’s a man in a giant poodle suit, filmed with a 22mil camera and edited by computer enhancement to make the movement look fluid and the teeth show up. 😛

    As for the second film, I think it was a fake as well, the gore with the lack of blood (on the body and around it) and trauma to the clothing has me seriously suspicious. The body itself managed to capture the weight of a real bisected corpse though. I’ve seen a few in the medical school my father went too. If it is a real bear attack body, it’s pretty darned sick for a joke inspired by the Faces of Death movies.

  10. semillama responds:

    I agree it’s likely not a cryptid – but the movement and shape is still somewhat odd. Has wolverine been considered as a possibility?

  11. wuffing responds:

    OK, I have managed to stop laughing. I was expecting a splash of red over the lens at the end but heck, you can’t have everything. It’s not a 800lb bigfoot, or a 500lb bear, it’s a 100lb kid in a Halloween suit running on all fours.

    This is the last MQ ever? Promise? W.

  12. Cryptidcrazy responds:

    That video looks totally different than the short excerpt that I saw yesterday. This one looks way more in focus. All I can say is, it reminds me of a film called “Spaceballs”. John Candy played a character that spoofed the “Chewbakkah” character, in “Star Wars”. The outline of this creature looks exactly like Candy, in that suit, running on all fours. The ears are even shaped the same. This thing screams hoax, to me.

  13. kittenz responds:

    The “creature” looks fake, like a person crawling. But then it turns sort of sideways and is backlit for a bit and it looks like it has long, bristling spines or quills, rather than bear-like fur. Those quills, combined with the flat-bellied, waddling gait, make me wonder if it’s a porcupine. In fact I think I’ll look for footage of a porcupine running on the ground for comparison. Porcupines are pretty common in Michigan so it would not be unusual to see one in a rural wooded area.

  14. Asherz_Carrion responds:

    XD. So. I watched the video for about 2 minutes and decided “hey wait, I never checked to see if there was any sound to this thing.” So I turned my speakers up and I heard talking which I was shocked by. Around the 2:15 mark when the camera switches from the video of the dogs to the woods the voice said “And there you have it. Perfect parallel parking”. That’s when i realized that it wasn’t from the video, but from a video advertisement that was being played at the bottom of the screen. The timing was so right for it. The camera shot went to the truck and the advertisement started talking about the car it was advertising. =P.

    Anyway. I don’t see any resemblance to a bear. I never have. I think it’s more ape like with the way it carries itself. When it starts to run, you can see an outline of the back left leg and the buldging muscle there. Bears don’t have that much definition. But you can also see something similiar to a tail. I see a tail, anyway. Just my two cents. I find it interesting that there was a “part two” with almost identical traits. Although I find it suspicious that the user deleted the video. O.o

  15. occulus responds:

    Now that I’ve seen the actual film and not an enhancement it still looks like a Chow charging the camera, I think I even see the tail curled over its back. Also if you pause the film on the “mouth” part it looks like there is some kinda wire or link around the mouth…possibly filming said dog through a pen?

  16. kittenz responds:

    Well, shucks, most of the films I found of porcupines running are porcupines running away. Youtube is chock-ful of short films in which people are harassing wildlife 🙂 . But even though the waddling, flat-footed, belly-to-the-ground movement of this “creature” resembles that of a porcupine (or a groundhog!), I think it’s a person crawling. I agree with those who say it smells like a hoax.

  17. inbetween responds:

    Having spent a great deal of time around bears when I lived in Alaska I can see several problems with the bear statements , not withstanding the latter part of this comment , if it’s a bear it would have to be a grizzly since that is most assuredly not the charge of a black bear and ther appears to be a hump on the back which would mean a grizzly in that part of the country , of which there are none.More importantly having actually seen this same beast in real life in the early seventies I know all to well that this is not a bear , it’s exactly what it is being portrayed as and that is one very scary Bray road beast that myself and a friend saw first hand way back when .Frankly I find the video disturbing as it took me back to the fear of our encounter, something I have not felt in years and was very surprised to have it come back to me so very quickly.It is the Bray road beast .Normally I am very critical of data without provenance but not this time.

  18. AUtiger responds:

    70’s eh, they had me until I saw the stonewashed, loose fit jeans homey was sportin’ while he chopped wood . . . thanks for playin’.

  19. mawas responds:

    Looking at the majority comments above suggested its a fake/hoax. Personally, I agree with Skeptik. Man in a suit?????? U guys must be kidding!!!Probably a bear attack incident to me.

  20. TheHighlandTiger responds:

    “All of the cameras from that time, that I’m familiar with, will stop filming as soon as you release the trigger. That makes the last few seconds very suspicious to me.”

    An excellent point made by dib, would someone still be holding the “trigger” if they were being attacked by a large animal, I doubt it.

    More likely they’d throw the camera at the animal, to try and scare it away.

  21. skeptik responds:

    @inbetween: please enlighten me on this beast.

    It’s about time we put down the discussion. It’s clearly a series of otters.

  22. mcis101 responds:

    i persenoly think the gable film is a fake.

  23. cryptidsrus responds:

    Personally tend to think this is bogus, but who knows… 🙂

  24. T.Richman responds:

    14 years of working with film of all types and age, repair, restoration and transferring. The wear and tear on this film seems fabricated to me.

  25. Cryptoraptor responds:

    T.Richman, I agree. Your assessment is similar to what I posted above.

    Everyone else seems to be focusing on the blurry, indiscernible “creature” but I couldn’t get beyond the seemingly doctored film quality.

  26. marzook responds:

    According to the filmmaker, on Linda Godfrey’s myspace site, the hairs and stuff were real, not effects, as he used old film stock and vintage camera. she has posted some stills of how it was done.

    http://blogs.myspace.com/lindagodfrey

  27. inbetween responds:

    Well , time for me to eat crow , although the film accurately portrays what we saw in the early seventies it clearly isn’t .I said that I was sure this was real, I was wrong .So maybe I should return to my more skeptical side so as not to make the same mistake twice.Look for me in skeptics aisle.

  28. jerrywayne responds:

    The MQ dealing with American werewolves and the “Gable” film is instructive. It revealed the Gable film to be a hoax, just as many here suspected. What else can we take away from the program?

    Interestingly, although the show strove to give credence to the idea of werewolves (in typical MQ fashion—-damn the implausibilities, full speed ahead with eyewitnesses), one could take a larger view and see this as a culturally driven phenomena. MQ even suggested (but only suggested) this by noting the immigration of belief (superstition?) in werewolves from the Old Country to the New World. However, the program didn’t look at much more recent influences.

    The eyewitness accounts of werewolves presented on MQ have a striking resemblance to Hollywood depictions, especially found in THE HOWLING franchise. This image of the werewolf is of a large, vicious wolf standing upright and able to move bipedally. This is more of Hollywood than it is of Old World folk tales (in folk lore, the were-animal was believed to look like the beast it represented, be it fox, wolf, bat, etc., but was depicted in art with human traits to distinguish it visually from true animals).

    So, we have “wolfman” tales from the Old World which became a staple of the cinema horror genre, which in turn evolved a virtual “Wiley Coyote” image of a bipedal wolf, which is now turning up in “eyewitness” accounts of werewolves in the American hinterland. Is there a lesson here for serious students of cryptozoology?

    The “Gable” film is a hoax, but there is lesson to find here too. The image on the film has been variously described as an ape, a Chow dog, a cat, a bear, or an animal unknown to science. I thought it resembled an ape (it had broad shoulders that rolled as it shifted its weight), but I also realized that since it traveled only a short distance on all fours, it could have been a human in a costume (and I thought it probably was, the skeptic that I am).

    What WAS surprising about the confession of a hoax is that the actual re-enactment of the “dogman” segment revealed the costume used to look different and more “real” on the original film than it did “in person” (startlingly so, so much so even the film maker was surprised). What is the lesson here, I wonder?

  29. MrInspector responds:

    Chow, Bear, Porcupine, Werewolf, Bigfoot, etc… It just goes to show what sensible people will “read into” something. Ghillie suit! I admit that I was scratching my head watching this piece of footage when I first saw it. I watched it over and over and never really formed an opinion on “the creature” in question. Reel two made it obvious to me that it was a hoax, but I was still trying to figure out just what this “creature” was. The first reel was a good hoax, I have to chuckle.

  30. jan09 responds:

    The folks who put out things like this tend to overthink or overdo things just enough as to remove all doubt as to what is going on. In this case, the lingering shot of the camera operator in the side mirror, to “prove” a vintage camera is being used, and the almost subliminal shot of the teeth at the end are melodramatic flourishes that snapped me right out of any willingness to go along for the ride, long before the MQ revelation.

    Tip for future hoaxers: less is more 😉

  31. skunkmonkey2002 responds:

    It looks like a brown bear with light reflecting off its back. And just because I think it’s a “real” bear doesn’t mean I believe this isn’t a hoax. The attack at the end where we see the teeth clamping down in front of the camera could easily have been added later, as well as the various scratches and even the hair in the early part of the film. I don’t buy it. The whole thing, especially the DJ who claims to have “discovered” this footage from a yard sale just has HOAX written all over it.

  32. Loren Coleman responds:

    For those that missed the show or the news, the Gable footage is a full-blown, created, therefore, hoaxed film.

    If you would like your comment removed from this section in which you rationalized and justified why the film is “real,” please direct your request to editor@cryptomundo.com ~ which is the admin end of things for the new ownership – not to me personally.

    Thank you.

  33. Angrylandlord responds:

    It obviously isn’t a human but it looks like a gorilla for the first few steps till it starts to run forward and it starts too look more like a wolf.

Sorry. Comments have been closed.

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