“Finding Bigfoot” Just a Reality TV Show
Thursday May 30th, 2012, UFOnut.com received an email from two female eye witnesses (names on file) reporting their Bigfoot sighting in the Pike National Forest here in Colorado.
On Saturday June 2nd, 2012, the UFOnut team consisting of myself, Matt Morgan and Trina Bivens met with one of the eye witnesses at the sighting location in Bailey. We spent the next four hours investigating the area where the eye-witness and her friend had the encounter finding a multitude of evidence which verified and solidified their sighting. A full report plus a video of our investigation “Episode 010: Bailey Bigfoot Returns” was released on the UFonut.com website within a couple of days after that investigation.
I then returned the following week with Bailey area Search and Rescue tracker Dennis, to retrieve a motion sensing camera I had left at the site. While there I utilized Dennis’s expert tracking techniques to confirm the evidence the team had found a week before. To much surprise, not only was Dennis able to confirm what we found was very unique and not of human origin, but that Dennis himself found new exciting evidence we had missed. Thank you Dennis!
After releasing this investigation to the public, Animal Planet’s Finding Bigfoot staff had seen the video and read my investigative reports. Very interested in the eye witnesses sighting and the evidence from my investigation, they decided to visit Bailey while in Colorado researching an old 8mm film footage of a possible Bigfoot.
The following information is about their Episode 31, portraying my eye witnesses sighting.
In late September early August, I was contacted by a representative with the Finding Bigfoot show, asking for my help by delivering to them notes and detailed pictures of my investigation. One of the eye witnesses had also been contacted by the show asking permission to film her about her sighting too! The other eye-witness had since moved, and was enjoying the sunny weather in Florida.
Show taping day, my wife Tammy and I arrived in Bailey early Saturday morning September 9th, to meet with one of the eye witnesses. She wanted to go back to the site and go over the investigation I did, so as to refresh herself with my findings and be fully prepared for her taping.
The UFOnut truck at the beautiful Bailey Lodge.
Dennis met us at the sighting location to help me mark with orange flags, all the places we found evidence Bigfoot had been in the area. Our intention was to have the area marked and ready for the Finding Bigfoot team which would help them with their investigation while filming with the eye-witness. This would make my eye witness’s sighting more solid with evidence than other “hear-say” sightings, which have been on their shows in the past.
Based on my notes, my pictures, and still outstanding evidence, we were able to recreate the path Bigfoot ran marking it with orange flags.
One section of Bigfoot’s run, depicted by the orange flags.
Another section of Bigfoot’s run, depicted by the orange flags.
To our surprise, evidence still existed from the Bigfoot encounter. One crucial piece of evidence was this log in which something large and heavy had stepped on, damaging it from its weight. The log was in direct line with Bigfoot’s run.
Original evidence from investigation still there.
Another crucial piece of evidence was found by Dennis while with me a week after my initial investigation. This evidence which you can still clearly see, shows something extremely large had sat down. Dennis verified this was not an animal den and clearly showed a rump and right hand depression showing something very large had sat there and pushed himself up to leave.
Remember Dennis is a Search and Rescue tracker and looks for evidence like this pointing to the direction of lost hikers. He’s familiar with similar evidence like this made by humans but not of this magnitude of size. Someone very large and heavy replicated a much smaller human sitting, then getting up.
Original evidence of investigation still there.
After spending a couple of hours marking the area Bigfoot ran and marking all still existing evidence, we ventured back to the lodge area for the Finding Bigfoot Town Hall Meeting scheduled for 5:00pm that night.
Witnesses and spectators arriving for the show’s Town Hall taping at the Moore Dale Event Center.
The building where the Town Hall meeting was taped, packed up with eye witnesses, investigators, and friends of friends who had Bigfoot encounters. The meeting ran about three hours and the Finding Bigfoot team was very patient and professional.
Note: For all future Finding Bigfoot town hall guests; If you haven’t personally experienced an encounter with Bigfoot, please don’t waste everyone’s time by telling a story about a friend of a friend. Without first hand personal experience and no evidence to back it up, it’s just a story, maybe a good one, but it’s still just a story.
Eye witness describing her sighting to the Finding Bigfoot team, Cliff, Matt, Ranae and James (Bobo) listening.
(photo taken from aired TV show “Finding Bigfoot Episode 31, Bigfoot Merit Badge”, which aired Sunday 01-20-2013. )
The episode shows the team splitting up with James Fay and Ranae Holland investigating the eye witnesses sighting while Matt and Cliff take off on other adventures.
Now this is where the episode goes somewhat sour for me, as a real investigator.
At the location of the Bailey sighting we had previously marked Bigfoot’s run including locations in which evidence still existed. While the eye-witness was there for over three hours of taping, not once did Bobo or Ranae ever look at the evidence we marked. Sure they asked her a lot of questions, but never inquired about the orange flags! They never took the time to have her walk out to the area where the flags were located so she could explain them. She could have easily pointed out the flags depicting Bigfoot’s run which would have helped Bobo and Ranae’s investigation and recreation. During the show you can clearly see my orange flags behind Bobo while he was talking, so you know the flags were there during taping.
Bobo (James) did re-create Bigfoot’s run, but according to the eye witness, ran less than half the distance I ran, and not exactly where I had placed the flags. Bobo’s run might have been done for camera angles, lighting and other, and it appeared it was just for a production shot and not for a real investigation. Bobo mentioned during the episode, the reason he didn’t run very fast, was fear of falling down on the uneven terrain. In my investigation video, I ran the total distance twice at top speed wearing knee pads and heavy gloves in case I crash and burned. Neither Bobo nor I was able to recreate the speed of the Bigfoot in which the eye witnesses had experienced. This proves at least two men, one just under 6 foot, and one well over 6 foot, couldn’t recreate the Bigfoot run at speed!
What the women saw that day was not a man running through the forest! Too bad for you skeptics.
So here is a TV staged mockery of my investigation and the sighting. Out of all the evidence I gave the production company, out of all the evidence we marked for them reflecting the actual investigation, none of it was ever considered. Not that I was expecting to see my evidence on the show, I was at the least expecting real investigators to at least look at it.
So now the hundred (bad economy) dollar question? Why did James (Bobo) agree the eye-witness actually saw a Bigfoot if he never even considered the evidence I left for him? Was it because my previous investigation blog and video was so good, that he accepted the sighting as valid? Or was he there just to tape a show?
I’d like to thing it was because of my investigation. 🙂
As for Ranae, I had talked with her and described my investigation in some detail. I also told her I marked key areas for them to see when they film the eye witness . All she could say was, “We don’t know who or what investigations we’ll be looking at, we’ll decide that after the Town Hall Meeting”. But it was the eye witness’s sighting and my investigation which brought them to Bailey, we know this because we were both contacted by the production company separately!
Is there a lack in communication between the production company and the investigators? No, I’m sure the team knows, the sightings they investigate need to be kept a secret until the show airs. Ranae was just doing her job.
So what about their investigation? Is it real or TV Reality?
It appears the Finding Bigfoot Team are more reality actors than actual investigators now, well at least for the show. Matt, James and Cliff have a history of being investigators before the show aired on Animal Planet, so we know they are authentic. While I was there I was able to spend a little time with Cliff, James and Ranae and we talked about investigations in general. They’re really nice individuals and are very up-in-their-game when it comes to “Squatching”, so I know they know their stuff. Unfortunately the show may be limiting them to what they can or can-not do. What a shame.
Will I ever work with the show again? Not sure, I’ve worked with Ping Pong Productions in the past and it’s always about the show and never about the witnesses or the investigations. It’s, “What can you do for us, and do it for free”, never about the human side of the investigation portraying the evidence properly. Like I said, they are a production company, and very good at what they do. They may come across seeming like A-holes from time to time, but they’re just doing their job they’ve been contracted for.
As for the Finding Bigfoot Team, it appears they’re just doing their job too, which happens to be Reality TV, at the moment.
Category: Bigfoot, Chuck Zukowski, Investigations
