I know that I’ve been very Bigfoot-centric lately, but there’s been a lot of interesting Bigfoot stuff to report on lately. Now before you think that I’m criticizing the new documentary airing on The History Channel entitled “Bigfoot: The Definitive Guide,” let me just say that I haven’t seen it yet (it’s waiting patiently on my DVR for some watching later tonight). But I did come across this article in the L.A. Times, and something about it irked me, something that all skeptics seem to have in common: they are very quick to dismiss witness accounts about ghosts, UFOs, Bigfoot, or whatever unexplained phenomena they are debunking, and yet if someone comes forward to claim that they were behind the supposed sighting (also without proof), they accept it as unequivocal evidence of the event not happening. Witness this specious piece of reasoning:
It’s too bad they didn’t do a Google search on the Patterson film. In a few seconds, they would have learned that a Hollywood special-effects expert claims that he provided Patterson with the costume, and that a friend of the filmmakers says he wore the costume over football shoulder pads. Patterson was shooting a film about Bigfoot at the time, and it is not unusual for documentaries to depict Bigfoot using a human in costume. What is unusual, though, is to release that footage with the claim that it is a genuine sighting.
If Ed Stockly, the author of this article, had Googled a bit more, he’d know that Roger Patterson went to his grave claiming that what he saw was a genuine Bigfoot. Bob Gimlin, who is still alive, has also never wavered from his account of their sighting. Bob Gimlin could sell the hoax story for millions, and yet he is not profiting from the Patterson-Gimlin footage, and in actuality, he rarely grants interviews about it at all. He’s not seeking fame and fortune, obviously. Furthermore, if this special effects expert created the suit, how come the suit has never been found? Why has he not created a duplicate to prove that he was in fact the person who created it? Of course, none of these arguments proves that Bigfoot exists. But to claim that the footage is fake simply because some people, who apparently have no proof to back up their claim, say so, is irresponsible and more than a bit hypocritical.
