Analyzing the New York "Bigfoot" baby footage report

An analysis of the New York "Bigfoot" baby footage, by D.W. "Darkwing" Lee, MABRC Executive Director.

For years, many of the researchers in the Bigfoot Community have struggled with the past evidence of famous and infamous events, and some of the proclamations made about such evidence.  With newer technology and software, reviewing these pieces of evidence is now even more critical so that we may either be able to debunk the evidence or at least confirm it as "probable" or "possible".

To that end, a recent post on my YouTube channel where a copy of the New York "Bigfoot" baby footage was placed, it stated that the so-called "Bigfoot" baby in the tree was a flag on an antenna on the white car in the background.

So that caught my attention and I decided to run the footage through the software I use to analyze video with, which does what is called deshake, a term for removing the shakiness of the camera operator and stabilizes it as much as possible and allows for better viewing.  The second part is to run it through software that professional athletes and trainers use that allows you to slow the footage down and magnify parts of the footage so you can get a better look at it.

This software was not available until about a decade ago, nearly 10+ years after this footage came to light.

I studied the previous reports that was made when this footage was first brought forward, as it went through the BFRO and I looked at their map for New York to see if there were other sighting reports for that part of the state.

Ulster County is in the downward funnel that goes down towards New York City, and has 4 counties that have reports from.  Ulster County itself only has one Class "A" sighting report of an encounter in December 1985, while Columbia to the Northwest has a Class "A" sighting report of a May 1983 encounter.    To the Northwest, Delaware County has a Class "A" sighting report from March 2001-2004 of a multiple observation over a three year span.  The other two counties have Class "B" encounters, which I have discarded as data for this analysis as most Class "B" encounters are not relevant.

So this is what the encounters list looks like on BFRO's Ulster County, New York sighting reports.

Previous claims that the area has a history of encounters and activity have to be severely questioned with only 3 reported Class "A" encounters stretching from 1983 to 2004.  

I am placing the BFRO Report here with the investigator comments for everyone to read.

Report # 7514  (Class B)

Submitted by witness on Sunday, December 7, 2003.

Video footage shot at dusk shows a primate in a tree in the background

YEAR: 1997

SEASON: Spring

MONTH: May

DATE: 23

STATE: New York

COUNTY: Ulster County

LOCATION DETAILS: Lake near Modena, New York.

NEAREST TOWN: Modena

OBSERVED: Original submission from Doug Pridgen.

I have a tape you may want to see. It's that of a few friends drinking around a camp fire up state New York.

The tape was shot in 1997 and not looked at until a year or two ago.

My girlfriend was watching the TV while we were transferring the tape and said what is that in the tree? I had to rewind the tape ten or more times. I did not know what to make of it at first, but I knew it was not from the wilds of N.Y. state!

At first, you think "big monkey," but what the hell would a monkey be doing in the woods of N.Y.? The thing swings from one tree to the next and moves up and down it with ease! It hangs by one arm and pulls its self up and around in this tree at a speed you have to see. It looks to me to be about 5 to 5-1/2 feet in height, dark in color, very strong upper body and fast as hell in the trees.

ALSO NOTICED: Not a thing.

OTHER WITNESSES: None of us at the camp saw a thing that night. It was not till 5 or 6 years after the event that the thing was spotted on the tape. Everyone that was on the camping trip saw the tape and thinks it might be an ape or a baby bigfoot.

OTHER STORIES: I was at this camp site for 4 days. I never heard a thing about the spot before or after.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: It was at dusk. Clear sky, a cool night.

ENVIRONMENT: The camp site was in a apple grove next to a small lake that sat in a valley. All around it is farm land.

Follow-up investigation report:

After reviewing the tape, doing a frame by frame analysis, and speaking with the film maker for some three months, I have come to the conclusion that the tape was not hoaxed. The film was taken at dusk, and appeared to capture two unknown bipedal creatures in the background. Because of the lighting conditions, details of the creatures are silhouetted.

Weather conditions, including sunrise, sunset, and temperature, were cross referenced for the date of the video. They matched the conditions shown on the video for the time given.

Subject one is a large bipedal figure . It appears to have a conical shaped head. A second smaller subject apparently springs from the back of the big one and climbs into a tree, hand over hand, with great speed and agility. Subject one moves to the left of the screen perhaps fifteen feet, returns to its original location, stands in a wooded area, and apparently enters it after several seconds. All of this is in silhouette.

The "baby" appears to have no tail. After climbing the tree it swings out on a large branch approximately 20 feet in the air.

The big one is on film for approximately 10-14 seconds; the "baby" for approximately 40 seconds.

The property is privately owned, but allows camping, fishing and hosts ATV races. No pets are allowed on the property.

The campsite in the footage was set on the opposite side of the lake from the other campers.

There was a small outdoor music festival (100-200 people) happening on the property when the footage was shot. At the entrance of the property, vehicles were searched for glass bottles and pets. One man tried to bring in a parrot and was turned a way. A chimp or gibbon would have been difficult to miss ... even if someone dressed it up and put a Raiders hat on it ...

The property owner did not know about this footage, and has not heard of any anomalous events on the property.

See feature on the BFRO homepage for more information on this footage and follow up efforts.

The initial follow up was by investigator Steve Kulls. Further follow up was done by investigator Paul K (lawyer - NYC).

In terms of historical information, I also used Google Earth to look at the overall area from different times in the past, starting with March 1995 shown below:

Then an aerial view from 2006 as shown below:

Then the current view:

The forest around this area is fairly sparse, with large open tracts of farmland and orchards with quite a few houses and other buildings spread throughout the area.  Not an ideal place for a female Bigfoot to raise a young one with all the human activity and habitat in the area.  The land where this event occurred was also a working orchard, among other commercial ventures that the landowners were involved in.

In my previous blog post about this footage, I noted that I made three clips out of the footage that showed the "figure" in the tree, out of the 2+ minutes of the footage, this was the times that showed the "figure".  Those times are listed here for a refresher.

Times:
Minutes:Seconds:Milliseconds
00:01:23 to 00:07:64 
00:10:08 to 00:26:32
00:47:20 to 01:19:17

The footage was slowed down to 25% speed, and the magnification is set to 2.5x in the larger square viewer window.

The screen captures below are close ups and concentrate on a short section of the video in which the subject swings back and forth between a branch and the tree trunk.  Upon viewing the video in slow motion and one frame at a time, it becomes apparent that the figure is grasping the branch and the tree trunk with it's feet.  Take a few minutes to preview the pictures below:

As Steve Kulls has pointed out, New York state has laws constricting private ownership of most exotic animals, including chimpanzees.  However, as with most laws, there are lots of people out there who violate those laws and this can be confirmed to be the case in New York simply by searching Google for the news stories of people being caught with animals.  

I bring this up for a reason, the figure in the tree is clearly grasping the branch with it's feet, before swinging back to the tree trunk and clutching it with it's feet.  If this is a baby bigfoot, it's feet would more resemble this below:

Based on what we speculate about Bigfoot feet, they do not have the ability to grasp things the way monkeys and chimpanzees are able to with their feet as shown below:

The claims that this is a baby "bigfoot" is not supported by the evidence presented by the analysis of the footage, it does support that this is a monkey or small chimpanzee as it swings more in common with one of those types of animals than what is known about bigfoot.

Jim Whitehead, MABRC Oklahoma State Director, and biologist noted that it could also be an Eastern Hoolock Gibbon, or similar type animal as shown in the YouTube video below:

With all due respect to my colleague Steve Kulls, this is not a baby bigfoot and I do believe that all who were associated with the initial investigation went into the investigation with confirmation bias that this was indeed a Bigfoot.   I am the first to admit, that when I got into Bigfooting back in 1991, I suffered from having confirmation bias as a beginner, but once I seasoned up and was shown the right way to investigate by the old timers with a skeptical view of the evidence and allow the evidence to produce the results.  While some may shout that I am skeptical of Bigfoot evidence overall, I am searching for the answers and if I have to debunk some of the long-standing evidence that others have presented in order to bring forward the evidence that is truthfully presenting a Bigfoot.

The Cherokee Search for Bigfoot

The Mid-America Bigfoot Research Center was honored by a request from Osiyo TV, the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma's video production company to put together a piece on Searching for Bigfoot in the Cherokee Nation Tribal areas, many of our Oklahoma members are members of many of the tribes here and this is the result.  We are proud of the way the producer and crew made the episode with a serious note to it, and not like many of the production companies make us look like these days.

The New York Baby "Bigfoot" Footage Analyzed

By D.W. "Darkwing" Lee, Executive Director, MABRC

Not in my official capacity as the Executive Director of the Mid-America Bigfoot Research Center, but on my own accord, I decided to check further into the "famous" or "infamous" New York Baby "Bigfoot" footage that has been around since about 2004/2005.  In this footage, what appears to be something swinging in the background behind some festival goers has been repeatedly claimed to be a juvenile Bigfoot swinging in the trees.  What is it really?  We will never really know for sure, but with the advances of technology, we can delve into the footage and see more than was previously viewable in the past.

What made me decide to look into this was a post made on the Bigfoot Field Guide episode that showed the New York Baby "Bigfoot" footage.  Which can be viewed here:

What did the post say?  Here is a screen capture of the post.

There is a lot of debate about whether it's a small flag tied to the antenna, but I decided it was worth looking at the footage to see if there was any credibility to that statement.

Just some quick background information from Steve "Squatchdetective" Kulls website about the investigation he conducted into the footage.  I highly recommend checking out Steve's site for not only this footage, but a lot of other investigations he has conducted.  Squatchdetective Website

I will give just a quick rundown of the information here.

The Event
On May 23rd, 1997, Doug Pridgen and his wife were camping at Lembo Lake Campground, located in Modena, New York, in the heart of New York's apple country.

A music festival was occurring at the campground and pets were not permitted at the campground, due to insurance reasons, which property owner Mike Lembo confirmed.

A couple, in which tent was visible in the film, was working the festival and had asked Pridgen and company to keep an eye on their tent while they were across the lake working the festival that evening.

What followed was a video clip of about a minute and a half, carrying a 45 second glimpse into a strange occurrence in the background. It should be noted the subjects intended to be shot in the film were not the strange bi-ped and climber shot in the background. Nothing was observed by Doug and his crew.

 The Investigation

The film was shot with an Video 8 Sony Handycam, model number TR64, shot in NTSC format, on May 23rd, 1997 at approximately 7:30 - 7:45 PM EST, in Modena, NY, specifically at the Lembo Lake Campground.

Weather information was compared to both the videographer's account and as indicated on the video and was accurate. The property owner Mike Lembo was contacted and confirmed the information per not allowing pets was accurate, and it was. Nearest game farms and zoo's were contacted and none reported loosing any primates in that time period, and newspaper articles were searched for any plausible explanations and none were found.

The campground, unfortunately had since been turned into an ATV park, now called "ATV Park New York," and the original campground terrain is nothing as it had been in 1997, many trees being removed and original trails bulldozed.

Immediately behind the area is a large apple orchard and the area is ripe with farms and orchards, and is immediately adjacent Plattekill, NY, an extremely rural community.

Upon initial examination of the VHS tape, videographer had supplied me with, which was eventually sent off to the parent organization I belonged to at the time,  it was discovered that there were actually two unsubs in the film. One larger and on the ground, and one which appeared to start, either being carried by the larger one, or on its back.

The larger unsub walks from right to left in the video, and appears to stop and move back to right to the point of where the small unsub had begun to climb the tree. The larger unsub then walks away from the focal point of the camera and out of sight. The smaller unsub, climbs the tree in under ten seconds, appears to swing twice between the two trees and the begins to hang off a tree. The height estimate from the ground, of the creature in the tree ranges from about 25 feet to about 20 feet depending on which part of the film is being explored.

I had the VHS tape converted to a DVD and the VHS was sent off to my parent organization at that time. (BFRO), but retained the DVD, which made video capture and analysis easier.

Throughout the years the videographer's story has remained consistent and concise and no deception has been indicated.

The videographer even sent Steve a drawn out layout of how the camp and trees were situated.

So what did I do to analyze the footage?

First I obtained a 1st Generation copy of the footage from it's conversion from videotape to DVD from Steve Kulls.  I converted this into HD avi format and ran a deshaking program on it, as shown below:

I then used software that is used by world class athletes to examine their motions by being able to slow down the video and by magnifying certain parts of the video so that a trainer is able to view anything that may be unhealthy or that needs to be worked on.  

Doing this, we discovered that out of the entire 2 minute and 12 second video, that there were only three short periods of time that the tree and figure were viewable, so we selected only those time frames for the analysis.

Times:

Minutes:Seconds:Milliseconds

00:01:23 to 00:07:64 

00:10:08 to 00:26:32

00:47:20 to 01:19:17
The footage was slowed down to 25% speed, and the magnification is set to 2.5x in the larger square viewer window.

The first video (00:01:23 to 00:07:64 ) is posted here:

The second video (00:10:08 to 00:26:32) is posted here:

The third and final video (00:47:20 to 01:19:17) is posted here:

So what did the analysis reveal to me?  I will reveal that in the next post here on the Bigfoot Field Guide Blog, so stay tuned.   (Also because it's 2 a.m. in the morning and I'm exhausted, so another blog post will be made.)

Using EXIF Reader

While doing research, in particular, photo analysis, the importance of using an EXIF viewer on the photos is very critical, in that it reveals a lot of information that the researcher can use in that analysis.  The following slides are from the MABRC Training Facility and is used to train MABRC Researchers in this very important aspect of research.  ALWAYS!! use an EXIF viewer to look at the details on a photo, don't never take anything at face value, no matter who it is that provides you with a photo.

Download EXIF Reader here

2019 Arkansas Bigfoot Conference

The 2019 Arkansas Bigfoot Conference is September 21st! Hope to see you there! Shirt artwork is attached. Circle of front and Razorback BF on Back. Shirts will be brick red.

Play Me Something Cool!

Written by Randy "Rebelistic" Savig, MABRC Missouri State Director

You know I wish I had a dime for every time I’ve heard this sentiment.  When it comes to bigfoot the public and wanna believers seem to only want the great videos, pictures and audio.  They want the Oohhs and aahhs so they can say they now know bigfoot is real.  Details don’t matter as long as it is cool!   So here goes a couple of questions, does this help research or get us closer to proving the existence of an undocumented species?   Is it only the cool stuff that matters?

With humans being so used to be entertained by all the available media out there it is hard to suffice the appetite for being entertained.  Sadly, real research seldom sees the cool stuff when they go out.  There are the hours in the woods.  There are the hours of review.  There are hours of planning.  There are the hours of try to put patterns together to make the time in the woods more productive.  On and on it goes.  Another sad fact is that what is cool to researchers ain’t always what is cool to the public.  You bet we love to hear and record the screams etc., see the possible structures or manipulations, or get lucky enough to catch something on video or thermal.  

Yes, we also appreciate the pat on the back when we do catch something from the public and other researchers.  Unfortunately for a lot of folks the Oohhs and Aahhs become addictive.  I think that is why there is such a hoaxing problem that we see every day on Facebook and Youtube.   It would seem like once you put something out there that is cool and possibly bigfoot related the public’s appetite just gets bigger.  At times it seems that they get demanding and what more from you.  Any researcher worth their salt know that we spend a whole lot more time without the so-called cool stuff happening.  We still do the planning, head to the woods, review what we have recorded, try and figure out things.  But we don’t get the Oohhs and Aahhs from that.  I’ve seen so many get into the trap of letting the notoriety get in the way and try and force things to happen.  If that fails, try and hype up the stuff that does happen just because they feel an obligation to fulfill the public’s appetite for so something cool.  I’ve seen scary bigfoot pictures added to audio, scary background music during talks about experiences, all in hopes of feeding the public’s hunger.  Sorry folks, that doesn’t do much but muddy the waters and takes away from the research.  All those scary pictures and music won’t help find the evidence needed to prove the existence of bigfoot.  

Now don’t get me wrong, I realize that folks are interested in bigfoot.  When putting presentation on for conferences and radio shows we need to share the cool stuff we get as that is what folks want when attending them.  Just don’t let the cool stuff be all that you are after.  The data is in the details.  The little stuff.  I can’t even begin to state the importance of how sharing the little stuff around campfires has made new ideas and filled in the blank to help others in researching their areas.  

So, one final thought.  As a researcher is your priority to the insatiable hunger of the public or to adding to the possible evidence to further push the existence for an undocumented species, we call bigfoot. 

Is a Knock Just a Knock?

An article written by Randy "Rebelistic" Savig, MABRC Missouri State Director

This is one of those things that at face value seems to be accepted as a typical Bigfoot activity by most field researchers.  Why?  Where did it come from?  The history of wood knock reports go back generations for Bigfoot researchers.  There has been written accounts in newspaper, even some reports that have been collected.  Some of those can be see in the MABRC forums. 

So, if this is an activity of bigfoot, why is it done?  Hunting?  During the day that would make sense.  I could see knocking on a tree to scare a small critter to a smaller tree in hopes of shaking it out of the smaller tree.  But what about at night?  I can’t see that being viable.  Could we be missing something?  We know other primates do this type of thing, why is at this time not been answered, but they do.  We still don’t know if the knock that we hear is wood on wood, rock on wood, or another mechanism all together.  Is it possible that it is a hand clap?  Maybe chest slap?  The reality is that we just don’t know.  One thing is clear.  We hear knocks in areas of bigfoot sightings areas, associated with tracks and possible manipulations to nature so we can’t discount it.  

The sad fact is I had pretty much quit clipping knocks out during audio review because a knock is just a knock, right?  I would log it in the review file, but it wasn’t a cool sound so why bother?

In this article I would like to present what I have found while working with audio that may shed some interesting insight to the topic.  I’ve regularly recorded what we call knocks in many of the areas that member of the MABRC has been researching for years as well as my primary research area.  This article is by no means proof of anything, just what I have been able to come up with using audio analysis in the same way I do when identifying known and unknown vocalizations that have been recorded.  Every sound whether natural, known, or unknown have a signature that can be seen on a spectrogram.  They all have certain profiles, tones, how they start and end that can help identify what the sound is.  Nature allows variables in the sounds as no critter is the same.  However, the structure or signature will still follow patterns of the known sounds.

One of the more interesting things about knocks is that they have different tones to the knock.  You may say “duh” but let me explain what I mean.  In doing the Silent Hills Project it was realized that the sound of the knock comes from the object that we do the knock with not the sound of the tree.  The axe handle we used didn’t change tones when we hit on three different trees.  The only change was the volume, NOT the tone of the knock.  Some were softer, some were louder depending on the softness of the bark or the strength behind the knock.  However, if the handle was held closer to the middle of the axe handle the tone would change.  With that being said, the number of knocks that are reported verses the number of sightings report that are only a small handful that ever say things like carrying a stick or club.  Now if a stick was used to make the sound, you would expect a lot more reports than what is there.  Even the sightings reports that talk “as it disappeared into the woods we heard a knock” sort of thing none of those talk about a club being carried during the sighting.  That brought me to the thought that they could maybe pick up a stick to hit with.  It didn’t take long to realize the problem with that.  It is a lot more difficult to walk through the woods, pick up a stick of any size to use as a knocking stick.  The majority of what is on the ground and rotted to make it useless for more than a pale knock as it breaks.  Nature just claims things back too fast.

For several years I have suspected that for the most part knocks were a way of locating other when they were foraging through an area.  The reason for that was based on drop box recordings where you could hear faint knocks that got louder then soft again.  It was like something came up and passed the recorder and continued until it got too distant to record.  These knocks were not evenly spaced or even the same volume, but it always came together.  Like one knock and a reply a few seconds later almost as one was answering the first one.   It wasn’t until the Silent Hills Project that it hit me that the tones of the knocks would be the same if it was one knocker was doing the knocking.  When I did a spectrogram analysis of the knocks, I was taken aback when it should that there were two different tones to the knock.  Those two tones of the individual knockers didn’t change.  Whether close or far, the tones didn’t vary.  It was easy to see the difference in the frequency (hertz) each knock.  Using that information, we started what we called knock - knock games to try and lure them in.  We have had some interesting results.  Other researchers have over the years had results also by returning knocks and getting responses back.  Here are some links to what we recorded.    

Now if you paid attention to the dates on the three clips you will notice that there were two close together and one a lot later.  The third was recorded in a new listening post we just started to use and a seldom in that area.  If you watch how they evolved, you’ll notice that the knock – knock game changed after the first one.  It was almost like they learned our knock’s tone.  They seemed to be able to challenge us to see if it was one of them or us.  I understand that it is to a lot for folks a big pill to swallow.  I know it was and is for me also.   When I brought it up to some of the MABRC members a couple years ago needless to say I got mixed opinions.  One piece of advice they all basically had was collect the data and follow the evidence.  

Because of the lack of sightings where them carrying clubs or stick, it made me highly suspicious that it was actually wood on wood sounds we were hearing.  Even a rock on wood would not be sensible as there is NO reports of any carrying rocks from what I have read.  I also can not find reports of other primates that carry rock with them as they travel from place to place.  Yes, chimps have been known to pick up rocks and strike a tree for an undetermined reason but the drops it as it leaves.  It is also a rare situation for other primates but knocking sounds seems to be fairly prevalent with Bigfoot.  

All primates have an ability to make a knock like type sound with their bodies.  Chest slap, and clapping are the two.  To my knowledge only the gorilla uses its chest.  But all do clap their hands.  Could that be what is happening that we think is knocking?  With the quick response to our knocks like is recorded it would seem highly unlikely that they could be that quick if they had to swing a stick.  Then you add the rapid one that we caught, it is not possible for us to knock nearly that fast using our ax handle.  Then add the two tones ones and that is impossible using a stick or handle.  

During the Thumperville Expedition with the Western MABRC Team last fall I had them help me collect more data by trying hand claps and knocks from different trees and distances.  We did a simplified version of the of the Silent Hill Project so the folks in attendance could experience the results of the experiment. Here is the baseline knocks for each person there.  

With all the participants using the same ax handle as was used in the Silent Hills Project you can hear they are all a little different.  Hand placement, hand grip used, and even the size of the person using it made a difference.  

In the first field round, we had adults and a young teen doing the knocks.  With the recorded audio it was easy to hear which person was doing the knocking even though they could not be seen.  Each had distinct difference in the tones of the knocking stick and could easily be identified with who it was.  They all used the same knocking stick on the same trees as they went further and further from the recorder.  Even with the volume decrease as the space widened, the signatures on the spectrogram stayed mostly consistent with each person. Here’s the results of the knocking as they moved away from the recorder.  During this portion of the experiment I also had them do a long vocal as a way of showing how the howl/whoop compared to a knock as far as how the different sounds travel.   

Again, notice the different tones each person knocking produces using the same knocking stick.  Even without seeing who was doing the knocking if it was compared to the baseline knocks you could pretty much figure out who it was that was doing the knocking.

We did not do a hand clap during the experiment but with the significant difference with the initial baseline of the experiment it was truly remarkable the sounds of the individual claps among the whole group.  Here are the results of the clapping.  

It is easy to hear the difference between each participant’s clap.  Big hands, small hands, soft and rough all had a different tone.  Now I know that our clapping sounds don’t travel as far as the ax handle.  But with the individual clapper’s tones being so different and distinct, it would make one question if a stronger species with apparent bigger and stronger hands could it travel further if not the same as us swinging an axe handle?  If in fact they do clap to make the sound we call a knock, could their clap be as distinct as ours?  
  

We recently had a night out in our primary research area where we recorded knocks that happened on and off for 3 hours.  No, they were not consistent but in total there were over 50 knocks on the camp recorder alone.   This has been recorded several times in this location and I suspect it is used as location during foraging behavior.  However, there hasn’t been this may in such a short period of time before.  Maybe they were out of sight from each other but not out of sound range?  With some knocks having the same tones that were recorded before my arrival back at camp and may have been done to alert others of people presence.  This was a recording from the camp recorder using the Zoom H2n which have less distortion than my other recorders.  However, you will also hear some camp noise being fire snaps or other man-made audio.  This was a quick cleanup to eliminate as much audio between knocks a possible.  

With the knocks being close to one after another it is easy to hear the different tones of the different knock.  While listening and observing the signatures on the spectrogram it would appear like there is 3 possibly 4 different tones of the ones the recorder picked up.  I highly suspect as with what the Thumperville Experiment shows, that this is more than one critter producing the knock. 

So, what does this all mean?  I’m not sure, but it does seem to point to that each Bigfoot may have a unique tone to their knocks however they are making them.  Could we use this as a way of counting how many individuals are in the area at a given time?  Could we use their distinct tones as a way of identifying certain individuals?  Maybe even track them year to year?  All these questions need to be answered by the bigfoot community if we want to solve the mystery.  Hopefully others will also look at this and see if they can collaborate what I have found.  The answer is in the woods.  Let’s see if we can start putting the puzzle together using a more thorough analysis of the possible evidence.