- Tonight on "The Proof is Out There."
In this special episode,
a deep dive into the most provocative evidence of Bigfoot.
- I am convinced this evidence demonstrates the existence
of an unrecognized species.
- [Tony] From thermal imagery some consider a slam dunk.
- I knew exactly what we had on camera.
- [Tony] To scientific analysis of footprints.
- This particular animal's footprints have been found
on a number of occasions.
- [Tony] To photos that light up the internet.
We'll show you why some skeptics are becoming believers.
- Every year that passes brings us one year closer
to academic acceptance of the species.
- [Tony] This is no hoax.
- If this were a fake suit, we'd be able to tell.
- [Tony] But is it proof?
(creature screeching)
"The Proof is Out There: The Bigfoot Files."
(dramatic music)
- Good evening and welcome to another season
of "The Proof is Out There."
We are back.
Tonight, we're focusing a whole episode
on one of the most compelling mysteries in history, Bigfoot.
We'll be investigating some of the freshest,
most compelling evidence Bigfoot hunters
say they've ever seen.
The question, is the creature real?
Is it a legend simply stuck in our cultural consciousness
or is it just the world's longest running hoax?
(tense music)
The big problem with Bigfoot is that much
of the alleged proof turns out to be faked
like this video from 2013.
- It's one of the complications of undertaking an investigation
of a topic that's this controversial
is that it seems to attract hoaxers like moths to a flame.
- It really irritates me because it diminishes those
of us who take this very seriously.
- [Tony] And yet, serious Bigfoot researchers seem
to be growing in number.
A recent article on the cover of the Wall Street Journal
reported that real scientists are devoting real effort
to the study of and search for Bigfoot, AKA Sasquatch,
even if most are doing it secretly
to avoid reputational harm.
- I think that this generation of scientists are open-minded
to the prospect of other relic hominoids living
alongside our own species.
- [Tony] How can that be?
Well, many experts are reexamining the evidence
of previous hoaxes and finding flaws
in the arguments of the doubters.
Take the ongoing debate between believers
and skeptics over Ray Wallace,
the man who was involved with the event
that first made Bigfoot famous.
Bluff Creek, California, 1958.
Hundreds of massive footprints are found
in the soil by men constructing a road
into a remote area of northern California.
A headline in a local paper gets national pickup
and the name Bigfoot is born.
The contractor on the project was Ray Wallace
and when he died, his kids told the press
that their dad was Bigfoot all along
and had used these carved wooden stompers
to leave prints all over the Pacific Northwest.
Case closed? Not according to believers.
- The carved wooden feet alleged
to be the source of those footprints simply
do not match the footprint record
that has been collected and studied from that region.
- [Tony] In fact, compare the print on the right,
which Meldrum believes is a real Bigfoot print
to the known hoax on the left.
Meldrum points to the identical oval shaped toes of the fake
that are not reflected in the other footprints.
And while the hoaxes' credibility
has been deteriorating,
belief in the earliest reports
of Bigfoot has been gaining strength.
We're talking about the folklore of Native American tribes.
- Native Americans have had the longest relationship
with the creature we now call Bigfoot.
- [Tony] Field researcher Cliff Barackman points
to the images like this,
the so-called Hairy Man pictographs thought
to have been created by the Californian Tule River tribe
around the year 500 AD.
- They say this is a depiction of a Sasquatch
that they just happen to call Hairy Man
in their particular language.
- The male is literally eight and a half feet tall
and his arms are spread six feet wide.
- [Tony] Note this interesting detail.
There are other animals depicted in this cave.
- Centipede, deer, beaver, coyote.
You name it. They're all real animals.
So why would this one example show something
that is fanciful and mythological
when everything else there is basically a drawing
of things that are still found there?
- Now, I wanna show you something.
Possibly the most confounding artifact we have ever seen.
This is a photo of a ceremonial mask
of the Tsimshian people of British Columbia, Canada.
It was collected around 1914.
Take a close look at the skull, the nose, and the teeth.
This sure looks like a primate of some kind.
Just one problem.
There are no known primates indigenous to North America.
- This mask was such an accurate
and naturalistic depiction
of what could only be a great ape.
The very prominent eyebrows with very sunken eye sockets.
The nose with nostrils that are laterally directed,
a broad nose, but really significant
is this distance between the nose and the upper lip.
So what would've been the inspiration
if some form of great ape didn't exist in North America?
- [Tony] If this mask, believed to have been carved
in the middle of the 19th century,
really is a depiction of a real creature,
we still have to explain how
that creature got to North America.
One current theory is that Bigfoot originated
from some common Asian ancestor, possibly gigantopithecus.
Over the millennia, that species could have branched
into other legendary hominids like the Yeti of Asia
or the Yowie of Australia,
while the subspecies we call Bigfoot might have migrated
to North America via the Bering land bridge.
- The most likely scenario is that a population
of giant, terrestrial, bipedal apes
that had dispersed through Southern and Eastern Asia
had expanded its range into North America.
- [Tony] But if that's true,
where are the Sasquatch skeletons?
We find bones of fossils of other things like dinosaurs.
Why not Bigfoot?
Dr. Meldrum says that fact
doesn't discount Bigfoot's existence.
- It seems like there's fossils everywhere,
but when you consider the periods of time
and the number of organisms through that period,
it's a remarkably small fraction
that ever are fossilized and discovered by paleontologists.
We continually find fossils of species
that we had no idea existed.
The absence of evidence
doesn't mean the evidence of absence.
- As we've said, there are no Bigfoot fossils,
but there are alleged Bigfoot footprints.
So let's take a closer look at a particular collection
of prints that has gained notoriety
amongst the Bigfoot community, which is...
No small feat.
This story begins all the way back in 1991
in the Blue Mountains
of Washington state just north of Mill Creek.
Former U.S. forest patrolman
and Bigfoot investigator Paul Freeman has come here
with a colleague looking for evidence of Bigfoot.
- Sure enough, what they found were hundreds
of tracks of a Sasquatch.
- [Tony] Freeman measures the prints
and makes these plaster casts.
He's convinced this area is a Bigfoot hotspot.
And over the years, the evidence just keeps piling up.
1992, in the neighboring Deduct Spring area
of the Blue Mountains,
Freeman shoots this video showing
what he claims is a Bigfoot ambling through the woods.
- (bleep). (camera shutter)
- [Tony] The creature allegedly left more prints like this.
And four years later,
even more prints found in the moist ground
in the nearby Five Points area.
Look closer. These whoppers are 14 inches long.
If they're real, whatever left them is big.
Really big.
- Many of these footprints penetrate
into the ground quite deeply.
And this photograph right here,
you can see right there, the midtarsal pressure ridge.
- [Tony] Check it out. According to Barackman,
this midtarsal pressure ridge is one
of the key differences between human and Sasquatch anatomy.
- Behind the metatarsals is a big jumble
of bone right beneath the ankle.
But that jumble of bones in human beings,
it doesn't bend at all because we have an arch
that holds our foot stiff,
but Sasquatch can actually bend their foot
to some degree at that location.
It is called the midtarsal joint.
- [Tony] Of course, some have claimed this
was all one big hoax perpetrated by Freeman,
but Barackman says we know what faked prints look like.
You can see when we compare Freeman's
to a known fake made with a wooden prosthetic.
It sure looks like there's a difference.
- Upon push-off, sometimes a mound of dirt
is raised up behind the metatarsals.
This was not possible with a fake wooden prosthetic.
- The idea of the midtarsal break was actually developed
by our very own Bigfoot expert, Jeff Meldrum.
Meldrum's hypothesis has been, no pun intended,
a major step
in the investigative research of Sasquatches.
Let's see what our experts have to say
about these particular prints.
(tense music)
Anthropologist Kathy Strain explains
there's always been some skepticism
when it comes to the findings of Paul Freeman.
- A lot of people said he found so much evidence.
He was outside all the time
and he found prints here and he found prints there.
And he has that well-known video
that there's just no way that he could be authentic.
- [Tony] We know Professor Meldrum believes in Bigfoot,
but he's also on the lookout for any potential hoaxes.
That's why Meldrum decided to drop in unexpectedly
on Freeman to verify his evidence firsthand.
- I was a bit incredulous,
but I thought, what have I got to lose?
- [Tony] Then he saw the latest Five Points tracks up close.
Meldrum quickly concluded they couldn't be prints
from some local animal.
- And the most likely candidate out there is the bear.
The bear isn't completely flatfooted.
Its heel does not entirely rest on the ground.
The heel of a bear has a very pointed
in appearance as opposed
to the very rounded, full heel pad of the Sasquatch foot.
- [Tony] But the real a-ha moment was, you guessed it,
evidence of that same midtarsal ridge ruling
out prints made by any human foot.
- The heel is elevated.
This, retaining that midfoot flexibility,
the advantage of a very flexible grasping foot
for climbing up in the trees.
Another one that jumped out is this track
from Mill Creek in 1991,
separated by a considerable number of years
and yet showing this exact proportions, the orientation.
- [Tony] Now to quote Lewis Carroll,
"It gets even curiouser."
Since all of these prints show evidence
of the midtarsal ridge and are the same size,
Meldrum and Cliff Barackman not only believe
that these prints are real,
but that they could be coming
from the same individual specimen of Bigfoot.
- This particular animal's footprints have been found
on a number of occasions in 1991, 1992, '96.
- There were remarkable similarities
that suggested these could in fact be the same individual.
- [Tony] And get this.
Based on research, Meldrum thinks Sasquatch can live
to be about 30 to 50 years old.
So this specimen could very well be
at least 15 to 25 years of age.
- This evidence demonstrates the existence
of an unrecognized species.
(tense music)
- Our verdict? Potential primate print.
We're sure these prints don't come from a bear.
They sure look different from known fakes
and that midtarsal ridge appears
to eliminate the human foot too.
If they're real, they could be valuable evidence
in proving Bigfoot's existence.
(dramatic music)
- It's been said that Bigfoot exhibits nocturnal behavior.
Perhaps to hunt or to avoid detection.
But the cloak of darkness couldn't hide the creature
in the stunning footage you're about to see captured
by two campers armed with a night vision camera.
It's May 2012 near the town of Quincy, Florida.
Retired army ranger, Stacy Brown Sr., now deceased,
and his filmmaker son, Stacy Brown Jr.,
are camping into Torreya State Park
on a search for the elusive Bigfoot.
They start hearing some noises,
so they pull out their Flir thermal camera
and head off down a trail.
- We would hear something running on our right
and then we would hear something running on our left
and it just stopped real quick.
And then dad looked up at the, you know,
up at the tree and he is like, "Oh, I see something."
- [Tony] The thermal camera is rolling
as Stacy Sr. notices a little black object sticking out
of one side of a tree.
- Then it takes off and crosses this gap
and he goes into full blown panic mode.
The camera goes dead.
He's like, "We gotta go. We gotta go."
He's like, "Do you got your gun?"
- [Tony] Back at their truck, Stacy Jr. gets a first peek
at this eye popping footage
and this money shot that looks just like
the iconic lookback frame of Patty
from the famous Patterson-Gimlin film,
which claimed to capture Bigfoot strolling
alongside a northern California creek in 1967.
- I knew exactly what we had on camera.
It was proof to me and my dad
because who on a Tuesday night is a mile and a half
into the woods running around with no flashlight?
- [Tony] Noted Bigfoot investigator Steve Cole
says he's not surprised by the area
where this footage was captured.
- In Florida, they have something called the skunk ape
and there's been a lot of sightings
over many years of what they describe
as a Bigfoot type of creature.
What they call that is the skunk ape,
partly because it smells skunky,
but for all intents and purposes,
it's the same thing as a Bigfoot.
It's not quite as big or robust
as the ones in say, the Pacific Northwest,
but that is kind of expected due
to the climate being a lot more tropical.
- These swamp sightings go back to the native tribes.
The Seminoles and the Muskogee
called the creature Esti Capcaki, or Tall Man,
and claimed he was the protector of the forest.
So could this be what the Browns encountered?
We turned to our experts for answers.
(tense music)
We first asked the most obvious question.
Could this just be a person?
- It was shot with a thermal imager
and so it's picking up the heat signature.
Typically, if any clothing is being worn,
it masks the intensity of the heat emanating
from those covered parts of the body.
Honestly, don't see any of that.
It's just a pretty uniform signature
that would suggest a body a la naturale.
- [Tony] But why would a person be walking
around nude in the woods?
Wildlife biologist Stephanie Manka
instead notes the way the figure moves seems more
like a different animal that doesn't wear clothes.
- It looks to be like a large primate,
but it doesn't seem to match the body structure
of the living apes, of chimpanzees,
or gorillas being the most prominent ones.
It seems like its legs are too long
and when gorillas walk on their hind legs,
they're not hunched over like that.
They're more upright.
- [Tony] Some have theorized that gorillas
or large chimps could have escaped
from one of the private zoos
that have littered Florida over decades.
But anthropologist Kathy Strain says
neither this creature's morphology
nor its gait support that theory.
- The way it comes out of the trees
is what we call a groucho walk.
It's very typical of what witnesses say
Bigfoot walks like.
You can see it on the Patterson-Gimlin film.
You can see it in other examples
where it's this strangely bent knee gait.
It seems to be out of human proportions
in the sense that you can't see a neck.
It has very beefy looking arms.
It has interesting legs that seem shorter
than what you would see in humans.
- Whatever this was, it was pretty big.
In excess of six, six and a half,
seven feet in height perhaps.
And quite bulky.
It appears very substantial.
That is the arms and the legs are not spindly.
They appear to be thick and muscular.
- [Tony] Or could this all just be a hoax?
- In order to have this video be credible,
I would expect to see a lot
more thermal imagery through the trees.
I wouldn't expect it to just completely disappear.
- [Tony] Stacy Brown Jr. claims the reason the clip ends
is because the camera stopped working.
So what does Meldrum think?
- I know Stacy actually, personally,
and have visited with him.
I have no reason to suspect that he contrived this.
And so the only other question would be
is anyone foolish enough
to traipse around buck naked in the dark?
(tense music)
- Our verdict? Unknown creature.
Given that this footage was filmed at night
with an early generation thermal imaging camera,
we don't quite have enough information
to reach a definitive answer,
but whether this was indeed the Florida skunk ape
or merely a subspecies of Florida Man
with a proclivity for nocturnal nudism, we can say this.
The situation definitely warrants further investigation.
(dramatic music)
- There have only been a handful of instances
where someone reported seeing a juvenile Sasquatch.
You're about to see one of them.
A rare glimpse at what some are calling a baby Bigfoot.
Take a look.
May 23rd, 1997, the Catskill Mountains of New York,
and Doug Pridgen is filming his friends around a fire.
It's a Friday night and they're camped out
for a nearby music festival, but they are not alone.
- Are we filming now? - [Doug] We're filming.
- Okay. Okay. Okay. (camper talking indistinctly)
- [Tony] In the background of the footage,
a shape emerges between the trees.
It appears to be a small, bipedal creature
that proceeds to climb and swing from the branches.
Look again, especially at that swinging motion.
- This is not a dude in a suit.
There's no way a person could imitate
that kind of motion up in a tree.
Most of those branches probably
couldn't even support an adult human male's weight.
It has to be an ape of some sort.
I think that is a Sasquatch
doing baby Sasquatch stuff up in a tree.
- [Tony] While reported sightings
of young Sasquatch-like primates are rare, they do exist,
including one story from British Columbia
that dates all the way back to the 1800s.
- The story goes that on the Trans-Canadian railroad,
the railroad workers saw a juvenile Sasquatch,
even though they didn't call it that,
'cause the word didn't exist yet.
They hit it with a rock,
knocked it out, and basically captured it.
People came and looked at it.
A couple newspaper accounts depict
how big it was, how tall it was.
It wouldn't eat this. It would eat that.
And then it disappears.
Some people think that they are gonna ship it back to the UK
and it died in transit and they threw it overboard.
Dr. Grover Krantz suggested
that perhaps P.T. Barnum bought it
because it was around that time
that Jojo the Dogface Boy became part
of the traveling circus for P.T. Barnum.
- [Tony] Barackman also believes that if you look closely,
you can actually see a potential mama Sasquatch
in this footage.
- Right there. Look at that.
It's moving. It just moved back that direction.
One of the most common misconceptions
about Bigfoot is that it is an individual.
But it's not true.
They clearly reproduce as any normal animal would
and right here, this is the proof of that.
We have a larger one down below and a juvenile up in a tree.
- Many Sasquatch researchers
believe the reason juvenile Bigfoot sightings
are so rarely documented, may be the same reason
you've probably never seen a baby pigeon
or a baby squirrel.
The mothers of these animals
secretly protect their young offspring
in secluded nests or shelters
until the moment they are big and strong enough
to reveal themselves to the outside world.
Let's see if this potential baby Bigfoot is ready
to reveal himself to our experts.
(tense music)
Some question if this could possibly
be a human child swinging on these branches.
- The problem is humans, for all their agility,
don't have the capability
to cavort around amongst the branches of a tree
as the individual that I witness in this film.
That points to at least the infant
being something other than human.
- [Tony] So if it's not human, what about a small bear?
Infant bears are known to climb trees.
But Meldrum says this creature's anatomy
is much closer to an ape's.
- Its limb proportions aren't
that different from a small chimpanzee.
Either what we're looking at
is something like a chimpanzee infant
or it is a young Sasquatch.
- [Tony] Private investigator Steve Coles was one of
the first people to investigate this mysterious video.
- We had to confirm, and we did with the property owner,
that they did not allow any animals
whatsoever on the property because of insurance purposes.
I did make calls around to see if there was any escapes
from zoos or medical laboratories and there weren't.
- [Tony] We checked with wildlife biologist,
Stephanie Manka, to see if she could shed any light
on this potential primate.
- So based on primate behavior,
I would expect the young to be closer
to the adult because primates,
they tend to have fewer young
and the young tend to stay around the mother
for a long period of time.
I wouldn't expect it to be so far away
from the mother in the trees.
And I highly doubt that a mother
with its young would bring it so close
to people at an event like a music festival
where there is a lot of noise and a lot of people there.
- [Tony] In fact, it is this behavior
that makes Manka disagree with Meldrum
on the potential identity of these creatures.
- With bears, they love to scavenge on human foods
and in fact, a festival like this could even attract bears
because they could realize
that there's a lot of free food around
for them to scavenge.
Black bears can easily climb trees
and often moms will encourage their cubs
to go up trees to protect them from predators.
I think it's most likely a bear cub
that's swinging in these branches and not a primate.
(tense music)
- Our verdict? Unidentified animal.
Manka thinks the creature's behavior says bear cub,
while Meldrum thinks its limb proportions mean primate.
Seems like the only thing our experts can agree on
is that whatever this thing is, it certainly isn't human.
(dramatic music)
- With the proliferation of trail cams in America's forests,
it's often asked why we haven't recorded the Sasquatch on one.
Well, maybe we have, as you're about to see.
September 16th, 2007, Ridgeway, Pennsylvania.
Rick Jacobs fastens a motion sensing camera
in a remote section of the Allegheny National Forest
about 115 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.
He's hoping to photograph deer that may be using the trail,
but when he reviews the pictures he's captured,
he sees this.
(ominous music)
Two furry bear cubs foraging at 20:04:23.
But check out this second image, taken 28 minutes later,
where we see an ape-like animal from a rear side angle
with its head obscured by its shoulders.
In the third image, taken 30 seconds later,
the animal, lean and elongated,
appears to be smelling the ground near
where deer attractant mix had been scattered.
Field researcher Cliff Barackman tells us that
where these photos were taken is definitely Bigfoot country.
- I've spoken to several witnesses
who have seen Sasquatches just a few miles away
from where this particular picture was taken.
One gentleman was driving his van down the road
when this thing came out of the forest
and you know what his number one observation was
besides the mass and the size
of the thing was the size of its butt.
That's no coincidence.
It's one of the prominent features.
Bigfoot got back.
- [Tony] Bigfoot got back?
As ridiculous as that may sound,
it's consistent with that famous image
of Patty we keep referencing,
the alleged Sasquatch captured on the Patterson-Gimlin film.
- [Cliff] Your butt muscles,
which are the largest muscles in your body,
are used for keeping your torso over your pelvis.
And they're used for bipedal walking.
That's why bears don't have big butt muscles.
They're quadrupeds.
- [Tony] But wait,
this creature doesn't have that same big hindquarters.
So what gives?
- All the other pictures that I think are real
of Sasquatches have well-developed butt muscles,
but yet this one does not.
- [Tony] Barackman theorizes that it could be possible
that what we are seeing is an underdeveloped specimen,
a Bigfoot junior if you will.
- This clearly would not be a full sized Sasquatch.
It doesn't look like it's that big
and it is generally thought
that Sasquatches lean a little bit more
towards going on all fours when they're young.
- The Bigfoot Field Research Organization
agrees with Barackman.
Even though the derriere of this creature
appears to be flat, similar to a bear's bottom,
they claim the limb-to-torso ratio seen
in these photos can only compare to a bipedal primate.
Let's see what our experts think.
(tense music)
We checked in with wildlife biologist Stephanie Manka.
- I think it is most likely a bear,
given the body shape and the body size.
A younger bear.
They're smaller, but they can have lengthier limbs
and be a little bit thinner.
The reasons why it doesn't look like a bear
is because you can't clearly make out a snout
and that might be because of the angle of the head
or the blurriness in the photo.
- [Tony] But even if the strange shape
and size can be attributed to this being a young bear,
its patchy exterior still looks a little odd.
- I think that its skin is exposed because of mange.
Mange is an insect-like arachnid.
They're very tiny and they burrow into animals' skin
and this causes a lot of pain and itching,
and if left untreated,
the animal can lose a lot of hair
and it can make the skin exposed and looked scaly.
- [Tony] As we've seen, anatomist and Bigfoot expert,
Dr. Jeff Meldrum knows a thing or two about feet
and he agrees with Manka
after spotting a key piece of evidence.
- Those are the feet of a bear.
They aren't the plantigrade feet of an ape.
And if you adjust the lighting ever so slightly,
guess what pops up?
A tail. It has a short stubby tail,
which is a dead giveaway that it's a bear.
- [Tony] Meldrum suggests that if more frames
from the trail camera were made available,
the truth would've been immediately obvious.
- There seems to be some cherry picking
in the depiction of selected frames
and it's very misleading.
(tense music)
- Our verdict? Black bear.
Our experts agree and we're inclined to agree with them.
There's really nothing big about these feet.
This is most likely just a growing bear cub suffering
from a nasty case of mange.
However, we do know
that trail cams are more prevalent than ever,
so we'll be sure to bring you more relevant images
as they come in.
(dramatic music)
- Several counties in Washington state
have created Sasquatch preservation laws,
making it illegal to hunt such a specimen
if ever discovered.
However, the Texas Parks
and Wildlife Department actually stated
that since Sasquatch is technically not
on the endangered species list,
it is legally open season on any pesky Bigfoots.
And after hearing the sounds in our next story,
I can understand why some Texas residents
may be getting itchy trigger fingers.
(ominous music) (birds chirping)
It's January, 2022, and Boyd Sims,
a "Proof is Out There" viewer,
is on a month long expedition 50 miles north
of Houston, Texas in the Sam Houston National Forest.
He is there to record wildlife sounds.
And what he discovers is music to his ears.
(creature screeching)
- I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
I was shocked. I was in shock.
- [Tony] Boyd has made dozens of strange recordings
of what he describes as Bigfoot calls.
- I spent years looking for explanations
of the audio recordings I have
and can't find any animal that makes any
of the sounds that I have recorded.
Sasquatch is definitely here in Texas.
(creature screeching)
- This area of the country has a ton
of Bigfoot reports out of it dating back
into the 1800s.
I have personally spoken to a dozen or two people
that have seen Sasquatches in this area.
One fisherman found footprints that were about 13 inches.
- [Tony] In fact, there are more than 40 Sasquatch reports a year
inside the Sam Houston National Forest.
- That's a pretty significant number of people
that have seen Sasquatches in this area.
- Boyd's recordings are hardly the first time
an alleged Bigfoot sound was captured.
Made in the early 1970s,
the Sierra sound recordings are touted
as the gold standard of evidence for Bigfoot language.
(creature whooping)
According to one respected linguist,
these sounds captured
in California's Sierra Nevada mountains
reveal an actual intelligent conversation
in an as of yet undocumented language.
(creature whooping)
Could we be hearing more evidence
of Bigfoot talking in Boyd's recordings?
We'll let our experts sound off.
(tense music)
- The whoops (creature whooping)
may be the means by which males and females
of this relatively solitary,
widely dispersed, very rare species find a mate.
(creature screeching)
These loud calls are probably territorial.
By comparison,
large male orangutans broadcast their territory
by a loud raucous call that booms out through the jungle.
(orangutan vocalizing)
They've even developed extensive laryngeal air sacks
that act as almost like amplifiers
and so it stands to reason
that perhaps Sasquatch have these same air sacks.
- [Tony] Meldrum suggests that these air sacks
may also enable Sasquatch to produce infrasound,
a low frequency sound used
by animals such as elephants and whales.
These sounds allow animals to communicate at great distances
and can even affect the physiology of a listener.
- It can cause the stimulation of receptors
in the brain that will evoke fear
and trepidation as well as other emotions.
I've talked to witnesses who said, you know,
that their very core vibrated
from the intensity and the pitch of these sounds.
- [Tony] Could Sasquatches possibly be using infrasound
to keep people away as a desperate effort
to keep their dwindling species alive?
We checked in with forensic audio analyst Dr. Robert Maher,
who first compares the recording
to known animals found in the area,
starting with the wild boar.
(boar screeching)
- It's making a kind of a chirpy kind of sound
rather than a long howl like the Sam Houston recording.
(creature screeching)
- [Tony] If it's not a boar,
could it be another local animal like the fox?
Maher doesn't think so.
(fox screeching)
- Rather than being a howl,
it's much more of a modulating kind of,
(imitating fox) kind of thing.
So it didn't seem like the fox would be a likely candidate.
- [Tony] However, when it comes to the coyote.
(coyote howling)
- We can see the sound starts at a lower pitch,
goes up, and then sustains at that level.
And that's similar to what we heard
in the Sam Houston recording.
(creature screeching)
(coyote howling)
I can't say that it's absolutely certain,
but it's similar enough that I think that's a possibility.
- [Tony] Okay, so maybe a coyote.
But what about the big man himself?
Maher checks for a Bigfoot match
using the popular Sierra sounds.
(creature whooping)
- We see a continuous sort of tone,
but it's very short in duration
and tends to be more of a yippy quality
where the observation in Sam Houston was more of a howl.
(creature screeching)
(creature whooping)
The characteristics are different enough
that they're not the same source.
(creature screeching)
(tense music)
- Our verdict? Unknown animal noises.
While we have ruled out most of the local wildlife,
the coyote was similar, but not a clear match,
and the Sierra sounds had a different tone.
Nothing lined up well enough to make a clear call,
but if you ever find yourself
in the Sam Houston National Forest like Boyd,
be prepared for something strange to happen.
Be prepared to record it and be prepared to run.
(dramatic music)
- We'll conclude our special Bigfoot episode with a question.
We know how people behave
when they think they've seen Bigfoot,
but how would Bigfoot behave when he sees people?
One intrepid family claims they found out the hard way.
It's April 2009 and Chuck Newton has taken his young son
into the Appalachian mountains of Virginia
to have some fun with the family's ATV.
Chuck barrels over rocks in the ravine,
showing off for his young son
when suddenly something strange appears.
A hairy humanoid crossing their path nonchalantly.
Chuck stops cold in his tracks.
- [Tony] It's a wide shot.
So let's push in and slow down so you can get a better look.
We see that it's a bipedal figure
that appears to be very large from this perspective,
possibly exceeding seven feet in height.
- [Witness] What was that?
- [Tony] Field researcher Cliff Barackman says Bigfoot sightings
in this area go all the way back to Native Americans.
- In Virginia, the Cherokee people had stories
of giant, hair covered, people-like things in the woods.
They were doing the same sort of things
as the people the Pacific Northwest described.
The most reasonable explanation
for these different people describing the same animals
is that they were describing the same animals.
Sasquatches have a continent-wide distribution.
- [Tony] During the turn of the 20th century,
local newspapers in the area reported
on strange Sasquatch encounters.
- An old newspaper report
from 1892 reports a large upright being
with thick hair covering its head and shoulders.
But the word Sasquatch didn't exist then.
They chose to call it the Woodbooger.
- [Tony] The Woodbooger was rumored to be
a horrifying sight that was known
to carry away small children who wandered off in the night.
- And booger, or Woodbooger, actually shares some
of the same word roots as boogeyman
and are used in much of the same way.
A lot of times, people will say,
"Now, you don't go out in the woods at night
because the booger will get you."
- [Tony] Although this video has its fair share of skeptics,
Barackman thinks this could be real.
- I find Chuck's reaction to be very natural, unstaged.
When he turns and looks at the camera
and points it, did you see that?
And then he immediately looks back
and watches the animal as it walks away.
I find that many times,
hoaxers focus on the camera itself
instead of at this amazing thing that they just saw
that was unexpected right in front of them.
I've had the opportunity to go to this location
with the witness, Chuck,
and I found him to be very believable.
(ominous music)
- Interesting fact.
Sasquatch sightings gained momentum
in the American South right after the Civil War.
One theory is that Confederate soldiers
who refuse to surrender
and hid out in the woods were being mistaken
for these hairy creatures.
Of course, that doesn't explain
the older Native American legends.
Let's see what our experts have to say.
(tense music)
- The creature that we're seeing
in this video is clearly bipedal.
The only other animal in this area
that would be able to walk bipedally
would be a bear walking on its hind legs.
But when they do, they typically waddle more
and take shorter steps.
This being is clearly taking larger steps
than a black bear would.
- [Tony] So if it's not a bear,
could we be looking at a real life Bigfoot?
Biologist Floyd Hayes isn't so sure.
- I'm just a little astonished to see
that it's just casually crossing the stream.
Doesn't seem to be the least bit concerned
about this loud, noisy vehicle that's approaching it.
I think this is either a human being
in an ape-like costume that's crossing the river,
or it is a fabricated video.
- [Tony] Anatomy Professor Dr. Jeff Meldrum disagrees.
He finds that this behavior
could be perfectly acceptable for a Sasquatch.
- The two most common circumstances
under which encounters occur are on roads or near water.
And so here we have the latter
and even an ATV trudging up that creek bed
might not have sounded as intrusive
or intimidating as it would otherwise,
given the muffling effect of the white noise of the stream.
The witness interaction
with the videographer is also very spontaneous,
very natural, very convincing.
- [WIness] What was that?
- [Tony] And as for this being a man in a suit,
Meldrum is doubtful,
but is hesitant to make the call without evidence
of the actual scale of this creature.
- I would probably put it no more than seven feet.
All these off the shelf costumes are made
for average people, but they're not made
for a seven or eight foot tall person.
So if we could establish larger size,
that would certainly lessen the chances
of it being someone donning a costume.
(tense music)
- Our verdict? An unknown mammal.
Our experts are stumped.
And honestly, I am too.
If this is not a hoax, it's nice to know
that some Sasquatch seem pretty content
to mind their own business when humans disturb them.
And that's our show for tonight.
Thank you so much for joining us
and if you ever encounter Bigfoot, remember,
don't panic and keep those cameras rolling.
(dramatic music)