A rebuttal to a recent analysis (NY Baby Video)

A recent analysis of what has become known as the “NY Baby Video”  was done by Darren Lee, Director of the Mid-America Bigfoot Center (MABRC).

Now in this analysis Darren did work on a few misconceptions and I do admire Darren’s efforts in the field and consider him a friend.

In  February 2008 I was on “The Creature Chronicles” on WNYT Channel 13 out of Albany, where I am on record of saying, “we at least have something here on video that is not human.”

For sure whatever it was (because we shall never know with 100% certainty, is not a normal resident of New York State.

Know let me address Darren’s misguidance on what he perceived was “confirmation bias”

For those who know me, I am a real…well “prick” when it comes to evidence. Now please do not quote me on exact dates of the investigation, but even where the initial report showed up, it was incorrectly placed as well.

It was late 2003 when I saw a report out of Ulster County pertaining to a film. The initial investigator (not the follow up) was by Paul Kutscera. He blew the film off without even seeing it. (Now there is bias right there.)

I asked if I could reach out and see what the guy has and was extremely skeptical. When I observed the film I knew what I was seeing was not at all human, let alone a flag on an antenna (one other theory floating on the internet).

I was the only investigator. ONLY. For the folks that know me “confirmation bias” is not in my nature.

Even in the screenshot of my report for the BFRO you see what is around the word, “baby”.

Now I will address some of the points in Darren’s write up…

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 hate to say it, but the BFRO does not get the lion share of Bigfoot reports in New York and is not the only game in town.

I had personally in the same time frame investigated 3 sightings from Greene County (Which includes the Catskill Mountains) immediately to the north, and have heard of several in Orange County (Base of the Appalachin Trail) which an old research partner of mine was investigating. Historically, there was a late 1800’s account in Margaretville, NY which is almost dead center in the map above. These reports consisted of actual sightings of the creature, not track finds, audibles or the ilk.

The BFRO database as well, has been scrubbed of some older reports, because at the time there were way more than just one report for Orange County or Columbia County. Now I am not entirely sure of what was edited in the BFRO report, either added or removed over the years.

Which brings me to the point of Darren not knowing the Bigfoot history of the area. For example, the 1980’s “Kinderhook Creature” flap. Kinderhook is a community in Columbia County.

Sightings occurred on December 1978, 12/5/1979, April 1980, 9/24/1980, 2 in November 1980, April 1981, 5/8/1981, June 1981, November 1981, May 1982, July 1982, On the border of Columbia County –August 1984,  January1990. Seems pretty “rich” to me and considering the time frame 2003… they were a lot more recent than they are today.

The drop off in some volume of sightings in those areas of course could be due to urban sprawl.

What I do know is the area of the video upon visiting the site in 2012, was ripe with apple trees, (there was an orchard in the background) and wild berries of all sorts and colors.

Darren provided a satellite photo of the area in 1995 and went on to state:

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.

Here is a workup of where the sighting had occurred using Darren’s satellite photo.

What Darren states is he believes that the premise is a baby being raised in the area. That’s quite an assumption. No where does it say one was being raised there. If you follow primate behavior models quite the opposite. It’s behavior was of a primate just passing through. No Sasquatch would call that area a territory. But as with all primates, they are opportunists.

Below is some of the closest sighting reports in Whitehall, NY. In the 70’s one was actually seen disturbing garbage cans in a more rural part of the town. Whitehall has not much changed in urban sprawl at all since the 70’s. In fact I have seem some urban shrinkage over the years.

Darren believes it’s grasping the tree trunk with it’s feet. Well given the quality of the video, the distance to the subject and it’s relation to sunlight, how in the world can you say it is “grasping” with it’s feet. Even humans use their feet to stabilize when climbing.

What is known is in the video the little one, “Unsub #1” climbs hand over hand into the tree.

It is not uncommon for baby gorillas to take to the trees as they are nimble enough, and primates go through an exploratory stage with their hands and feet. Often we see human infants using their feet to hold things. And that’s also why in human culture, we have something called “monkey bars.”

 

In the second picture, the baby gorilla is not using his feet to grab the tree, he is merely using his feet for support.

Darren surmises that what we are looking at is a Gibbon owned privately and in New York illegally.

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. 

But what Darren failed to mention was, and I confirmed this with Mike Lembo, the owner of the property and event organizer at the time was, they were searching at the gate for animals and would not let anyone in because they were not insured for it.  Now we expect someone with a gibbon not to cause a commotion and keep it hidden during the entire event for the weekend? And common sense says you wouldn’t let your pet gibbon up into a tree unleashed would you?

Next we come to the behavior of what Darren believes to be the handler. “Unsub #2” in the video, seen walking from the right to the left, where Unsub #1 appears to leap off of into the tree. The behavior and characteristics of Unsub #2 are completely ignored in Darren’s analysis, an not to offend Darren, but he seemed to be predisposed to what it was and shows his own bias by omitting any commentary on Unsub #2’s behavior.

First, Unsub #2 is uniformly colored. One would expect that with the backlighting. However when it enters out of the area of the backlight, it almost becomes invisible, head to toe.

Next is the behavior. If your pet monkey jumps in a tree without a leash, you would expect that person to “about face” immediately and there would be some sort of commotion. There was no such commotion as when the videographer was interviewed, his party did not hear, see or notice anything. Common sense would have told you that there would have been a fuss, or a flashlight. But there was not.

Furthermore it does not explain why Unsub #2 continues it travel path for a while and then after some distance turns around and walks toward the tree Unsub #1 is and out of sight somewhere behind the tree. This is not consistent with someone who has snuck an illegal pet into a venue they are not supposed to have one.

As I have stated in the past, investigations and analysis run by Bigfoot Researchers seem often to be two dimensional. We are presented with a film or a photograph and we run with that alone. We forget to look at behaviors and testimony of eyewitnesses. To me in my opinion, that can suffice for about 75% of what we get, because it is so blatantly obvious. But in certain circumstances, we must look at behavior, motive as well. 

When I first got this video to investigate I had to rule out Motive #1; a hoax. First, given the time that had passed since the video was taken, over five years, I found it unlikely.

Second, Doug Pridgen never noticed Unsub #2 nor any of his party noticed any commotion of any sort.

Third, the people staying in the visible tent in the video, had asked Doug and his party to keep an eye out as they went to the festival across the lake. In the video our back is to the access to the area where Doug and company were staying. The did not return until well after the video was taken.

So do we now have a prowler with a pet monkey?

Next I contacted the property owner to confirm about the “no pet” rule and it was confirmed.

Then came the search for any escaped lab, zoo or circus animals in the area; Bupkis.

Mind you, I was looking for an out, for an explanation, and the norm, if you can call it that just did not seem logical.

I even let the case marinate for a few months, to cross my T’s and reevaluate, reevaluate and reevaluate.

To me the possibility of a Sasquatch with it’s young visiting a nutrient rich area at dark, especially when we have known them to do this in the past seemed more logical than a guy prowling around someone else’s tent after illegally bring in a pet primate into NY, and sneaking a type of primate that is usually cantankerous past people searching for such cantankerous things at the gate, the only egress to the area, and then allowing such illegal and not allowed primate to frolic in a tree unharnessed.

At least that’s the way I see it.

Is it proof, or is it evidence? No, the dang video just isn’t good enough, given the fact we are still debating it after 22 and a half years.

At least that’s the way I see it.

Thanks Darren however, you at least are in the camp that this is a biological and I thing it puts to rest that this is something on the end of a car’s antenna! On the rest we have to agree to disagree.

And of course it is more of an interesting debate than most possible Sasquatch videos out there.

Till Next Time

Squatch-D