Bigfoot and YouTube: Worthless Combo?
Posted by: Loren Coleman on May 29th, 2008
Are videos at YouTube of any value to the research leading to the solution of the question of Sasquatch reality?
Here’s a new video (posted May 28, 2008) from Snowshoe West Virginia, just north of the Widowmaker trail. What does it tell us? Is it even real?
Others take and post videos, claiming they aren’t Bigfoot, as with this one:
The above video is dated February 2008. The poster at YouTube wrote: “Black Bear we ran into in Olympic National Forest (startled both of us!) walked part of the way on his hind feet….In response to several emails, no, this isn’t some kind of bigfoot or sasquatch. We’ve seen black bears in the same area several times before. This is the first time Ive seen one rear up and walk on his back feet though. We lost sight of it after the video clip ends, assume it walked away on all fours!”
Needless to say, everything you see on video is not what it seems to be….
So what good is YouTube to further an objective of proving there are Bigfoot?
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.
Honestly?
Youtube videos are entertainment value at most.
Latest one shows any number of tricks-superimposed gorilla pics, torch trails, heartbeat sounds, day for night with a green filter-not for one moment did I consider it real.
Second one-man in a suit. Certainly NOT a bear. “Methinks he doth protest too much”.
They are good for laughs….
Although one never knows, one day we’ll get one that is worth sudying and might be detailed enough to be considered “the real thing.”
Might actually be proof. Hope springs eternal…
Do not despair dear Loren; we may still hope that on Spielberg’s upcoming social networking website “The Rising” we’ll be able to find more important and credible content of real cryptozoological value.
Youtube is like a sewer: What you get out of it depends on what you put into it.
When someone shoots something worthwhile and posts it, then Youtube will be worthwhile. Until then … (see above).
The video tries too hard to make a false suspenseful feel. I mean, if I caught a bigfoot on tape, I’d remove the fluff and just post the bigfoot part. Who cares about the bear, who cares about the looking around for 5 minutes in the dark.
If all it was was a few seconds of the “bigfoot,” it might be believable. But even then, adding in the inlay of a baboon or monkey destroys whatever credit there may have been.
Youtube probably has some good stuff. For example, I just came across this. ‘Trunk Monkey 11 Sightings’.
Well, if it’s You Tube, then you can forget anything sasquatch as being useful unless you want to see some of the classic stuff like Patty. I will have to admit that I REALLY enjoyed the Salmon commercial. My whole family laughed and howled at it. 🙂
The point is – if anybody had a recent clip with CLEAR footage of something that they genuinely believed to be a Bigfoot, would they simply release that evidence to YouTube?
I think you could ask the same question of any new development used in searching for truth. If it is in fact about reality in the objective scientific sense, then every advancement, while it seeks to answer questions, ultimately leaves the questioner with new and more perplexing questions. If it is about practical solutions instead, then be prepared for some rather unsatisfying and stultifying answers.
Thinking that a new gizmo will finally bring resolution to a favorite and long held question does a disservice to both the subject’s and object’s worthiness of being examined in the first place.
If tomorrow the definitive piece of video appears, along with a body, I’d still have lots of questions, which is why I find the phenomenon so compelling.
Thanks for posing this question.
YouTube is neither a scientific forum nor a bastion of solid journalism. Nothing presented therein should be construed as either. It’s entertainment – INFOtainment at best.
Youtube is like programming a computer. you get out what gets put in. That production (the first one) that was so fake.
No one would be out in a true forest at night like that. Green filter to make reflection of the eyes look scarier. Then the Blair Witch run away scene. Please, get original.
“Bigfoot and YouTube: Worthless Combo?”
I think Patty has more than proven this: as far as proof goes, absolutely. We will need a specimen, as that is recognized by science, for proof.
As far as inspiring people – one or more of whom we hope will be a scientist with time and $$$$$ – to look: bring it on. (What in the HECK happened to the Peguis, Manitoba video…?)
And as far as the Snowshoe video is concerned: what I opened looked to be from Alaska.
As far as the “bear” in the second video is concerned: maybe I’m looking at the wrong one there too. That IS NOT A BEAR. No one who has “seen black bears in the same area several times before” would think that is a bear. Not only are the legs too long; there is no way a bear walks bipedally. People: under any conceivable natural situation, THEY DO NOT. (Dancing bears have crippled scientific advancement. Sigh…)
Of course, there is more than one clever way to disguise a hoax.
(“No, we do not think that [man in suit] is a sasquatch…”)
As to the third one: YouTube has its inspirational limits, for sure.
I suggest that if you talked to the person who made the first movie, nightvision, he would tell you that yes the movie was shot out in the woods at night, yes the bears are scary at night, yes the imagination runs wild, and yes the bigfoot phenomena has become like a religion, complete with prophets, false prohpets, idols, and mysterious sightings. .
Yeah, definitely worthless…I have yet to see any BF footage or other Cryptid footage that was worth anything coming from YouTube…YouTube is for people with nothing better to do than make crap videos of all kinds of…well, crap! 🙂
springheeledjack: not so fast man! Remember the Peguis video? I want to know what that is!
I guess here it is: YouTube is here, whether we like it or not. People have all kinds of reasons for putting stuff there. We will – we WILL – have to wade through tons of crap. But I’m not willing – totally – to rule it out for leads.
Because, well, it’s there, and people post to it. For all kinds of reasons.
DWA: Well put. Considering the singular lack or results the enthusiasts and self-identified experts have had in producing much of anything, it stands to reason that any evidnce will just as likely come across as the result of luck to someone who doesn’t actually any good idea of what they’ve encountered and “luckily” captured on their cellphone video.
For most people these days, if they were to find themselves with an enigmatic piece of video taking up space on their cellphone’s memory or their camera’s memory stick along with the vacation pics, on asking themselves what to do, would more than likely, naturally and overwhelmingly answer “youtube”. And why not? If they tried to post it on a specialized website, they’re just as likely to recieve a wall of negative criticism if it didn’t look exactly like some enthousiast thinks it should look like…and then if it looked too good it would be pointed out that it “looked too good”…either way the result would be that the owner of the video would think it’s not worth the grief. I think the sasquatch community could very well be shooting itself in the collective foot. It’s a condiditon endemic to all organizations and something to be aware of and to guard against…and so filtering through haystack for the possible needle seems to be the only way. That is in keeping with the modern scientific method to filter through huge amounts of data. If it were easy, it’d already be done.
dogu4:
“I think the sasquatch community could very well be shooting itself in the collective foot. It’s a condiditon endemic to all organizations and something to be aware of and to guard against…and so filtering through haystack for the possible needle seems to be the only way. That is in keeping with the modern scientific method to filter through huge amounts of data. If it were easy, it’d already be done.”
Can’t say it much better than that myself. Particularly the first sentence.
The kneejerk-debunk crowd is doing nothing for the field. They’re usually right. But when you do the same thing, no matter what, all the time, of course you’ll sometimes be right, just as a busted clock is right twice a day.
(Once, if it’s digital and shows am/pm. Sheesh.)
the video of the bear is suspect. look at its arm motion and feet balance. i have never seen a bear walk like that. fake?
I’ve been trying to use YouTube to promote skepticism – but it is a great place to see what people are passing off as “real”. If you think a lot of the cryptid videos are lame, take a look at the ghosts. Pathetic.