Two new videos that claim to document recent encounters in B.C. with the legendary Sasquatch are garnering plenty of attention. But more than a few viewers are wondering if the videos are legitimate or part of a larger marketing stunt.
In one video uploaded about two weeks ago, a group of Chinese tourists comes across a shadowy creature in the woods near Mission, B.C., and grab their cameras to get a shot. The camerawork in the video is shaky and zooms in on the dark figure standing close to a lake. The creature doesn’t seem fazed in the least by the tourists.
A second, perhaps more realistic video shows a tall creature walking upright on a distant mountain ridge.
The videos have collectively been viewed more than 1 million times in the past week. Both were posted by “Legend Tracker,” which just so happens to be the name of a new geo-caching app that allows users to search for creatures like Bigfoot or Ogopogo in an “augmented reality adventure.”
The app’s developer, PlayMobility, says they recently issued a call-out for footage of legendary creatures and that’s when they received these two, never-before-seen videos taken in the same area from two separate anonymous sources.
The company’s Miles Marziani says the first video was submitted by one of the Chinese tourists while the second is from a couple hiking a logging road near Mission.
“We actually started putting out requests for sightings, whether they be photographs or videos, and one posted was Chinese tourists and then one that was a remote mountain area of Mission, B.C.,” Marziani told CTV News.
CTV British Columbia showed the videos to John Bindernagel, a wildlife biologist who has spent decades researching Bigfoot, writing two books and talking to those who say they’ve seen the creature.
He says it’s difficult to determine in the videos what’s going on, because there isn’t much scale or perspective in the short clips.
“One’s often reluctant to say (whether they’re real), because, you know, the next day someone could say ‘Gotcha! That was my brother jumping around out there’,” he said.
Bindernagel says he isn’t ready to accept the videos as fact yet – but not because he doesn’t believe in Bigfoot.
“I come from a position of knowing -- and this might sound arrogant -- of knowing, feeling that the evidence is so compelling that it exists,” he said.
With a report from CTV British Columbia’s Gord Kurbis
