Just as the news that the vampire monster el chupacabra has finally been all but debunked, his bigger buddy Bigfoot has decided to make an appearance.
A Charlotte, N.C.-based man named Thomas Byers claims that he and a companion videotaped a Bigfoot a few nights ago. According to Byers, "On the evening of Tuesday, March 22, 2011 while driving down Golden Valley Church Road I and a friend Carolyn Wright observed the Big-Foot Knobby or one similar to it cross the road in front of the truck we were in and run into the woods. I jumped from the truck and took this video of it as it crossed the road in front of us. At one point in the video it made a snarling growling sound and looked back at me."
Not only could the Bigfoot (or guy in dark clothing, or whatever it is) use some reflective clothing so it doesn't get hit by a car in the near-darkness, but Byers says it also needed deodorant: "The smell of it was horrid. It smelled like a cross between road kill and a skunk."
As the video's authenticity is debated on the Interwebs, there are a few curious things to note about the video, including that the truck Byers and his friend claimed to be in when they saw the Bigfoot does not appear. [How UFOs and Bigfoot Could Save Earth]
Byers states that he got out of his truck and began taping the beast, but we are left to wonder how long it took him to notice the creature, slow down, pull over to the side of the road, get out, walk in front of his truck, turn on his video camera, and start filming. Most Bigfoot reports claim that the animal moves quickly (if it moved slowly we'd expect to see more videos of it), but this one does not seem to be in much of a hurry, and almost looks like it's waving as it wanders into the woods. If his story is true, Byers is also quite a brave man, because he apparently got very close to the dark, humanlike form.
Furthermore, if it was as dark as the video makes it appear, the truck should have had its headlights on, and those lights should have illuminated (and reflected off of) the Bigfoot as it crossed in front of them; they do not. It's also a remarkably low-quality video. It's almost as if the video is intentionally of just poor enough quality to make a definitive analysis impossible...
The most famous recording of an alleged Bigfoot is the short film taken in 1967 by Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin. Shot in Bluff Creek, Calif., it shows a dark, humanlike creature striding through a clearing. It has never been proven real, and in the nearly 45 years since the film was shot, it has remained (quite suspiciously, in many people's eyes) the best evidence for Bigfoot.
You might think that better videos would have emerged since Lyndon Johnson was president, but apparently not. It seems that good video evidence of Bigfoot remains as elusive as the creature itself.
Benjamin Radford is managing editor of Skeptical Inquirer science magazine and author of Tracking the Chupacabra: The Vampire Beast in Fact, Fiction, and Folklore. His Web site is www.RadfordBooks.com.
