I have been a fan of the Huffington Post’s Weird News for a long time. As someone who’s addicted to all things strange and spooky, how could I not be? Huffington Post consistently puts up articles on everything from ghosts and monsters to alien encounters and the occasional conspiracy theory. Some of it gets way out there, even for someone like me. But all in all, a wonderful mixed bag of weirdness that I devour on an almost-daily basis. But in late August, Huffington Post released an article and video that first had me scratching my head and now seems to have angered a lot of people.
The August 23rd article, which can be read here, was entitled Bigfoot Encounter in Grand River Ohio and discussed a video posted on YouTube. The article doesn’t go into many specifics and basically just repeats the information in the video’s description. But that description says the video, which was posted by HowTo101, is of a Bigfoot-like creature that ran across the road in front of an unknown person riding some sort of recreational vehicle through the woods “in the Grand River area of northeast Ohio”. The article states that the video was shot in April of 2012.
Like everyone else who read the article, I immediately clicked on the link to watch the YouTube video. As soon as I did, two things popped in my head. First, the video was obviously fake. So fake, in fact, that I remembered having seen it before. Only problem was, I didn’t remember the video having been shot in Ohio.
Lucky for me, I am horrible when it comes to deleting my History files on my computers. So after some digging, I found the link to the YouTube video people had sent me back in July. You see, people love sending me links to weird videos (and I like watching weird videos, so it works out well). Turns out, I actually had 4 e-mails from people telling me to “check out this Bigfoot video”, all of which pointed me to the same clip. But guess what? While it was the same exact video, there was a major difference; the original video wasn’t shot in Ohio.
In the description accompanying the original video, which can be viewed here, the person who posted the clip (several months before the HowTo101 video) states that his brother (who was filming) was riding a quad through the woods in Washington State when the creature ran in front of the vehicle.
So where was the video taken, Ohio or Washington? It’s becoming clear that the answer is “Washington”. As I mentioned, the original “Washington state” clip was uploaded to YouTube in April of 2012. The “Grand River Ohio” version didn’t appear online for another few months. But perhaps most telling is that the HowTo101 clip has since been removed from YouTube “due to a copyright claim”. And both the Huffington Post article as well as the original video clip now feature comments from visitors about how the video was indeed filmed in Washington.
Of course the biggest question (aside from whether or not it shows Bigfoot) is how a video shot in Washington managed to magically transform itself one shot in Ohio. The early favorite appears to by “shoddy journalism”, but for now, the jury’s still out. I’ll keep you posted!
But you know, I would be remiss if I didn’t at least give my personal thoughts on the video itself. Let’s be honest; it’s obviously a fake. I don’t care who you are (even a jaded skeptic like me). If you’re driving in the middle of the woods and a big, hairy thing (carrying a stick, no less) comes lumbering out of the undergrowth, you’re not going to casually make a rough 3-point turn and head back home. No. You’re more than likely going to veer wildly off into the trees and fly headlong over the handlebars. If, and only if, you’re not rendered unconscious by the fall, you’re going to leap to your feet and run screaming into the woods, all the while praying to the god of your choice that Bigfoot doesn’t decide to come up behind you and brain you with that stick he was carrying.
And just when did Bigfoot, the ever-elusive creature that apparently knows how to conceal itself and vanish and re-appear in the blink of an eye, turn into a bumbling idiot that wanders out into the middle of oncoming traffic? It’s like he was just sitting there on the side of the trail, thinking to itself: “man, I don’t know what that loud, mechanical noise is coming my way, but I think I’m going to just lumber out into the open and have a look-see. Everything will be cool. I got this big-ass stick to protect me.”
The full Huffington Post article can be viewed here (although the link to the video is now dead “due to copyright claim”).
The original video that was posted on YouTube can be viewed here.
While you make some valid points the bottom picture of the man in a Gorilla suit is obviously a fake. The top picture is not so obvious.
That is not to say this was not a hoax but that the picture in question does not appear as obvious as the second photo. It really does not prove your point in my opinion.
Now if this guys video is legit and he took it in Ohio he will contact the investigators of Finding Bigfoot and submit the video to some professional observation.
Since that has not yet happened I lean toward this being a hoax.
Gary,
Thanks for the note! And yes, that first screen grab does make it appear to be more Bigfoot-like. However, since all the screen grabs are taken from the same video, when looked at them all together, it’s pretty obvious that it’s a guy in a gorilla suit.