The Why Files: Operation Podcast - 535: Creatures & Cryptid Files Vol 1: Bigfoot, Loch Ness Monster, and El Chupacabra

Episode Date: March 4, 2024

Cryptids have captured our curiosity for ages. Tales of mysterious and elusive creatures roaming the wilderness spark our imagination.  In this first installment of... quite a few, we explore three famous cryptids that have left big footprints on popular culture (ahem).  Bigfoot sightings go back centuries. We investigate theories on Gigantopithecus, hear (and see) compelling accounts from seemingly credible witnesses. And, of course, we'll discuss the famous Patterson-Gimlin Film.   The Loch Ness Monster. One of my personal favorites. There are photographs, film and video. Could Nessie be the last surviving dinosaur?   The Chupacabra. Starting in 1995, this vampiric predator terrorized Puerto Rico, massacring livestock. Theories on alien experiments and genetic mutations attempt to explain its sudden appearance.

You searched for your informant, who disappeared without a trace. You knew there were witnesses, but lips were sealed. You swept the city, driving closer to the truth. While curled up on the couch with your cat. There's more to imagine when you listen. Discover heart-pounding thrillers on Audible. In 1925, John Burns was a school teacher at the Chilean Indian Reservation deep in the coast mountains of British Columbia. His students told him stories about a strange

giant lurking in the forest. It was a tale told by the local tribe for generations. Burns became curious. Were these stories true? The Indians insisted it was just a myth. But one night, an elder admitted they weren't exactly truthful with him, fearing the white man would mock their beliefs. But over time, Burns earned their trust. The elders told him the story of the giant was no myth. Many of the Indians had seen this creature with their own eyes, and not from a distance. It had chased them. Burns was shown the house this mountain giant destroyed with its bare hands as the family ran in for safety. They had a name for the giant.

It was hard to pronounce. In the native Salish language, it was spelled S-E-S-Q-E-T, and it meant wild man. Mainstream media anglicized the pronunciation and called it Sasquatch, and a legend was born. In June of 2020, a husband and wife were on a long-distance hike in the wilderness of Trinity County in California. It was a clear day just after 10 a.m. when they approached a creek. Then they heard an unfamiliar, high-pitched animal call. It could have been a bird. That's no bird.

Then they saw it. An animal crouching down, drinking from the creek. They were about 20 feet away. Then it sensed their presence and looked up. Their eyes met. Its eyes were human-like. What? Humans have very creepy eyes.

No, we don't. Well, you got the colored ball that just floats around in the white goo. Ugh, I don't know how you can stand it. Those things are gross. You look in a mirror lately? What? Everybody tells me I got gorgeous peepers, I take after my mother. Now that you brought the exciting part of the story

to a screeching halt, do you mind if I get back to it? Go ahead, gross eye. All right, I lost my place. Ah, you were talking about how the lady was freaked out at the gross balls and the white goo in that thing's head. It's eyes. What'd I say? The creature jumped.

Then it ran up a steep hill, first on all fours. Then when it reached the opposite bank, it stood on two legs and ran with long strides up the mountain. They knew it wasn't any of the common animals seen in the area. It was. They were sure of it. By 2020, this animal, disavowed by mainstream science, was wildly famous, and people saw them all the time. Over the years, investigators have logged and followed up on over 3,000 Bigfoot encounters, including over 100 tracks encased in plaster and archived. In fact, it all started with a footprint. In August of 1958, Jerry Crew worked construction near Buff Creek deep in the woods of Northern California. About a quarter mile beyond camp, he saw animal

tracks at the end of the road. When he climbed in his tractor and saw the tracks from above, he realized they weren't from an ordinary animal. end of the road. When he climbed in his tractor and saw the tracks from above, he realized they weren't from an ordinary animal. These were human-like feet, and they were huge, 16 inches long, which meant an animal at least eight feet tall, Crew told his boss. And eventually, over 20 men from the job site reported seeing huge footprints by the Mad River nearby. Crew realized the prints he found needed to be saved for investigation. So he encased them in plaster. And they informed the local newspaper what they found. And they printed the story.

Suddenly, this local incident became a national sensation. Reporters from all the wire services arrived. Representatives from the New York Times, LA Times, San Francisco papers, everywhere. Bigfoot had become a celebrity. Now, of course, plaster feet didn't convince everyone it was real. People wanted hard evidence. They wanted a photograph. A few years later, they got much more than that.

Roger Patterson was among the many Americans obsessed with Bigfoot in the 1960s, but he took his passion further than most. He lived in Yakima, Washington, right where these creatures were most often seen. And he was determined to prove they existed. So he got a camera, he hunted for tracks, he interviewed witnesses. In 1966, he released a book with detailed accounts of footprints

and actual Bigfoot sightings. He asked his friend Bob Gimlin to join him on a two-week trip to investigate some tracks he heard about. And in October of 67, they got way more than they bargained for. A few days into their trip, they were exploring a remote region of Bluff Creek on horseback. Both Patterson and Gimlin were armed with rifles and cameras. A pile of fallen trees blocked their trip in the canyon, so they stopped to find a way around.

And that's when they saw it. About 80 feet away, Bigfoot was crouched by a creek. It was massive. It sensed they were watching it, then it stood up and just stared at them. Oh, with the creepy human eyes? Yes. Then Patterson's horse started bucking. He managed to pull his camera out of the saddlebag before his horse ran off in fear.

Then Gimlin's horse got agitated. He hopped off and his horse bolted too. Things were getting chaotic. The Bigfoot had seen enough and started heading for the dense forest. Patterson was running out of time. He ran toward it with the camera filming, trying to keep the creature in the shot. Then his foot caught a branch and he tripped and fell. The Bigfoot turned to stare at him. It looked seven feet tall and it looked female. It seemed

to have breasts. They nicknamed her Patty. And this last look back mid-stride has become iconic. It's the image we all think about when we think of Bigfoot. They followed the tracks for 600 yards into the canyon and saw the prints go uphill. They did not pursue. If a female was this big, they didn't want to risk running into a male. But they did take casts of the footprints. Based on the depth and size, scientists estimated the creature weighed 600 pounds. But even better, they had film footage.

And to this day, the footage has not been debunked. Experts have analyzed the footage over and over, and the details remain compelling. This just doesn't seem like a guy in a costume. The creature in the film has contracting calf muscles. Its arms are longer than an average human, and its legs are shorter, consistent with an ape. It had a peak on the back of its head, like the sagittal crest of a gorilla. And there's more. When it walks, it flexes its midfoot like an ape. The fur on its back below its head is darker and standing up,

just like it would on a gorilla who's agitated or afraid. If this was a prank, those are a lot of details to get right. So why don't we just say it's an ape? Because apes don't walk upright, not like humans. And Bigfoot clearly does. Not to mention, there haven't been apes or primates in the wild of North America for 26 million years. But here it was, a bright walking Bigfoot in the wild.

To this day, Patterson's film is the most important piece of evidence of the creature's existence. So what is this half-human, half-animal creature? Some speculate it's from a different dimension or some kind of shapeshifter. Some correlate Bigfoot sightings to UFO landings. But we don't need to speculate. We know a lot about Bigfoot's and again, there have been over 3,000 logged by investigators, describes a creature between 6 and 8 feet tall. All the sightings report similar behavior. They're curious, but often watch us from afar, like the Sasquatch seen in 2013

by a hunter in the Cispas River area of the Cascade Mountains. The witness used his game call, which let out a squeal like a rabbit, and 60 feet away, behind a tree, he saw a Sasquatch take notice, and it watched for nearly a minute before walking away.

Bigfoot has very long strides and can cover distances impossible for humans, as witnessed by a father and son fishing in Sacamania County, Washington in 2002. They saw a Sasquatch from 100 yards away. It was startled by their truck's engine, and they watched it move in six-foot strides straight up a hill and disappear up a mountain. People consistently describe its eyes as very close to humans,

like the former U.S. Army infantry sergeant camping in the Mount Adams wilderness in July 1991. He was walking up to a river and froze when he saw it across the bank 20 feet away. He described it in all the familiar ways, between six and eight feet tall, with broad shoulders and long arms. And like many who've been that close, he added that the Sasquatch had human-like eyes. Yeah. And there's the scream.

A hunter heard it on November 16th, 2014, in the woods of Winlock, Washington. He described it as yelling mixed with a growl. He watched deer run away from the sound and said the scream was something I never want to hear again. Campers in Humboldt County in 2007 reported prolonged screams from Bigfoot every morning for two days. It sounded like a wild animal, but with eerie enunciation, almost like a language. Now, skeptics say after the 1967 film became famous, all the other accounts are just copies. Before the Patterson film, nobody talked about Bigfoot. So researchers scoured old newspapers looking for reports that might match modern Bigfoot.

And they found way more than they expected. Isolated reports of mountain giants matching Bigfoot went back decades, maybe centuries. The first published report was from 1846. A 22-inch long footprint was found in eastern Arkansas, and there have been actual sightings every year since. Clearly, Bigfoot has been running into humans for a long, long time. But despite all these examples, mainstream science refuses to acknowledge Bigfoot exists. The species is called Gigantopithecus americanus, but officially that's a species that doesn't exist.

So in 1985, zoologist J.E. Wall coined a term. He coined it for any animal that remains unexplained by science. He called them cryptids. This branch of study is called cryptozoology, taken from the Greek word crypto meaning hidden. Now, why the need to create a name for a whole category of mysterious, unexplained creatures? Well, because Bigfoot is far from the only one. You sailed beyond the horizon in search of an island scrubbed from every map. You battled krakens and navigated through storms.

Your spade struck the lid of a long-lost treasure chest. While you cooked a lasagna. There's more to imagine when you listen. Discover best-selling adventure stories on Audible. In 1933, there was a major change around Scotland's biggest freshwater lake. They built a road. For the first time ever, a large number of people were passing through.

People built lake houses. Some would go on hikes and have picnics around the shore. Tourists would visit Urquhart Castle on the north end. And that's when it started. People started reporting something in the water. One group of witnesses was staying at a house overlooking the northeast end of the lake. A woman named Miss Gracie saw it first. It was about 1,200 yards away,

swimming toward Fort Augustus on the south end of the Long Lake. And it was moving fast. The group figured it was going about 15 miles an hour. They watched it for a full four minutes as it swam away. Another witness said it looked like a huge caterpillar. It moved with an up-and-down motion. At first, people thought it was a huge eel, but eels move side to side, not up and down. This creature propelled itself by bending its long body in a series of humps,

with water spaced in between each one. The group counted seven humps visible several feet above the water. This thing was long. Finally, it submerged around 2,000 yards away. Reports like this kept coming into the local paper. Nearly all mentioned the dark humps. Some even saw its head and neck. B.A. Russell didn't buy into the rumors there was some creature out there. He figured it was probably a seal or a boat distorted by the sun on the waves. Then he paid a visit to the lake. He was walking on the rocks near Fort Augustus. He was 100 feet above the lake with a clear view, and he saw a snake-like head not much bigger than its long neck cutting through the water.

It was 800 yards out, swimming slowly by. It had dark skin with a rough texture. The creature swam in a straight line, then disappeared under the water. This was no seal. He told the newspaper he had never expected something as remarkable as what he witnessed that day. He had just seen the Loch Ness Monster.

You might think finding a giant sea creature in a lake would be easy. But Loch Ness is not your typical lake. It's huge. It's the largest freshwater lake in the British Isles. It stretches 24 miles long, and in some places it's two miles wide. And it's deep, between 700 and 900 feet before you hit the bottom. Plenty of room for a creature whose natural habitat is in deep water. And cut into the underwater cliffs are giant caves, big enough for a whale or something even bigger. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Okay, enough with that.

Sorry, sorry. I was an extra on Jaws, so this story takes me back. Really? Oh, yeah, it's how I got my SAG card. You know all the fish in the underwater scenes? Yeah, underwater scenes is where you typically see fish. Yeah, one of those was me. With all those fish, how are we supposed to know which one is you? Because only two fish in that movie had teeth.

Me and the big guy. You know the shark was fake. Oh, yeah, he was a real Hollywood phony. No, I... Can I get back to this? Oh, excuse me. I thought the people would like a little flavor. For a water story, this one's a pretty dry. During the 1930s and for decades after, this creature would appear on the surface, and people would line up around the lake armed with telescopes and binoculars,

all hoping to get a glimpse of the sea monster they called Nessie. The official Loch Ness Sightings Register grew to over 1,100 sightings. The most famous is the iconic image of the serpent head and long neck rising up from the water. This is called the surgeon's photo after the doctor who took it in 1934. But the thousands of eyewitness accounts and photos were not enough for mainstream scientists to take this giant marine animal seriously. All except for one. Tim Dinsdale would soon become the most important figure in the Nessie saga. He was a British biologist, and he was obsessed with the Loch Ness Monster. He interviewed over a hundred witnesses.

He was sure there was a large, unknown animal in that lake. So in April of 1960, he went to see for himself. Day after day, he scanned the lake. Nessie was a no-show. On the fifth day, something on the lake caught his eye. Then it started to move. Dinsdale grabbed his 16mm camera with telephoto lens and started filming. And what he saw was astounding. This thing made a wide V-shaped wake, much different than a boat, and he'd seen plenty of those on the lake to know the difference. And there was no sign of a propeller wash you'd expect from an engine.

Humps were coming out as it moved, high above the water. He noticed a swirling water on each side, as if it was paddling below the surface. He estimated it was going at least 10 miles an hour. And as it reached the far shore and turned west, the creature did something no boat could do. It submerged. Tim moved closer, hoping that the monster would reappear, but it never did. But it did have 60 seconds of film showing the elusive Loch Ness monster. And the film was a sensation. It was shown on British television and captivated the nation. British intelligence examined the film. It was authentic, and it showed something with humps three feet above the water.

The film led to the launching of the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau. People came from all over the world, hoping for a glimpse of Nessie. Yet mainstream science remained skeptical. Photos and films could be faked. They wanted something more definitive. The only way to get more evidence

was to go down below. The Academy of Applied Science came up with a high-tech plan to prove there was a giant animal living in the caves at the bottom of Loch Ness. They started with a sonar array dropped from a single boat

to a depth of about 200 feet. And on this first mission, they had several contacts in mid-water with something too large to be classified as a fish. They knew they were onto something. In the next mission, they planted a sonar unit behind an underwater camera. It had a powerful flash unit at the bottom of the lake,

120 feet deep. The sonar would run nonstop. The camera took a flash photo every 55 seconds. And on August 8th, the camera caught something. Two enormous creatures swimming by. But the image was dark. The waters of Loch Ness are murky. It was impossible to make out any detail.

So they sent the photos to NASA. And some of the most advanced computers in the world were put to work on the images. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on, hold on. What? Nobody has faked more images than NASA. Well, why send it to NASA? NASA had the right equipment. Yeah, the right equipment to fake stuff.

I can't argue with that. NASA fake images linked below. NASA was able to isolate the fog and muddiness of the water. Then the detail was revealed, and the results were mind-boggling. Scientists were looking at flippers over six feet long. Whatever animal this was, it was huge. Encouraged, they launched another expedition. This time, the sonar didn't detect anything.

But the camera caught a blurry image that looked pretty compelling. It seemed like a large body of a creature, and this time there seemed to be a small head perched at the end of a long neck. They checked the next picture in the sequence, the same giant object, but this time the head had more definition. One scientist said it looked like a crocodile. One more picture caught the creature passing by, and this was the stunner. A detailed head with a pair of small horns and what looked like eyes. It was dark and blurry, but it looked like an animal's head.

On October 9, 1987, they launched the most extensive search of Loch Ness ever taken. It was called Operation Deep Scan. For two days, scientists covered the body of the lake with a flotilla of 24 boats. Um, it's pronounced float-ee-ah. No, it isn't. Eh? They had enough boats to cover the entire width of the lake. Each boat had advanced sonar rays capable of finding objects 1,300 feet away, as small as a foot long, with separation between objects as small as an inch.

If there was anything down there, they would find it. The operation attracted reporters and television crews from around the world. Everyone awaited the results, and they were not disappointed. One of the boats reported three strong contacts, between 250 and 590 feet. Something was down there. The reading suggested a creature larger than a shark, but smaller than a whale,

and the object was tracked for over two minutes. The next two days of the operation brought no more readings. Whatever was down there had retreated into the caves. The sonar just wasn't strong enough to reach the caves. What a waste of a good flotilla. Flotilla. Agree to disagree. So, what was this creature?

Based on the descriptions, it matched nothing else on Earth, at least nothing that lives here now. But there was a time when animals like this were thriving. They were everywhere. They were in Loch Ness. The time was called the Jurassic. Until the 1800s, we figured all the animals on Earth were, well, all the animals on Earth. We didn't realize there were entire worlds of dinosaurs walking the planet, not until we found the bones.

One of the first fossils discovered was the plesiosaurus, named in 1821. This creature was a marine reptile with a long, flat body, four flippers, and yes, a long neck and serpent head. This description matches the thousands of sightings of the Loch Ness Monster. Only the plesiosaurus lived 200 million years ago. Could any have survived the Ice Age and made their way to the ocean up the River Ness, which connects to the lake? Now, mainstream science remains skeptical, but is Nessie an actual plesiosaurus? We don't know. No bones have been found in Loch Ness, at least not yet. Yet sightings of Nessie continue to this day.

There were 10 official sightings of the Loch Ness Monster in 2023 alone. On April 5th of 2023, a woman was driving by the lake when she saw a dark shape emerge from the surface. She saw humps rise from the water, like the back of a whale. She watched it move for about 30 seconds before it submerged. And like so many who witness the creature these days, she took a picture. You can see it on the official Loch Ness Sightings Registry, link below. They even have live webcams at the lake. You can check it out online.

Maybe you'll catch a glimpse of Nessie yourself. Now that's the thing that the Loch Ness monster and Bigfoot have in common. People want to see them. But there is another kind of cryptid that you never, ever want to see. On the morning of March 11th, 1995, a group of farmers arrived at work in central Puerto Rico, and they found a massacre. All the sheep on the farm were dead. There were eight bodies, clearly attacked by something in the night. But it wasn't obvious what killed them. There were no signs of a struggle, no wounds or bites you'd expect from a typical predator.

And there was something off about their skin. It seemed translucent and strangely loose and wrinkled. One of the farmers figured it out. Each corpse had a wound on its torso. Two small incisions, like from fangs. And every single sheep had the blood drained from its body. Every drop. The local police were notified, and their first instinct was to play it down.

There'd been livestock killings over the years forever. One more wasn't that alarming. But then there was another. And another. That first month, more than 40 animals were slaughtered in night attacks. A farmer lost five sheep he'd raised since he was a kid. Yeah, I see what you did there. People boarded up their homes in panic.

Guards were hired to protect livestock and escort children to school. These weren't stories. Actual animals were getting killed. They were under attack by a creature they called the goat sucker, or el chupacabra. Right. No one knew what this thing looked like, but six months into the attacks, someone actually saw one. Madeline Tolentino was a housewife in Canovanas, just east of San Juan. She lived in the heart of the Chupacabra's attack zone. Let me guess, she was home making fresh tortillas, right? Look, the word is pronounced flotilla, can you just let me... Whatever.

She was sitting at her window in the early afternoon when she saw the bizarre creature moving down her street. It was between three and four feet tall, walking on two powerful legs with small, slender arms. Its eyes were dark, and they looked damp, and they ran up to its temples and up the side like alien eyes. She said its feet were webbed, and it had no nose, just two breathing holes. And spikes of feathers ran from the top of its back down its spine.

A neighborhood boy was watching the whole thing, and he chased after it. And when he caught up to it in the woods, the chupacabra opened its mouth and threatened him with long fangs. The boy froze, and the chupacabra escaped. Right. There were many, many other witnesses. But since Tolentino had the longest sighting, she worked with UFO researcher Jorge Morton to develop a sketch of the creature. It was published in the San Juan newspaper.

The image quickly spread around the world. To this day, it's the iconic image of the Puerto Rican chupacabra. In many occasions, these are puncture wounds. In most occasions, we have found that they seem to go right to the brain of the animals and kill the animals. In other occasions, they go right straight into the animals in different areas, as if looking for certain organs. By the end of 1995, the chupacabra caused more than 1,000 animal deaths, all resulting from blood loss. People around the world were riveted by the story of the Puerto Rican attacks,

but they were relieved this was happening on an isolated island nation. Then somehow, it got off the island. In March 1996, police in Miami, Florida responded to reports of a violent incident. They arrived at a family home in the neighborhood of Sweetwater. They had never seen such carnage. There were 69 animals scattered around the yard, a mix of goats, chickens, geese, and ducks, all with their blood drained. Until that moment, the chupacabra had not been seen outside Puerto Rico, where it spent the last six months terrorizing the island.

Now, it was on the mainland. In Mexico, sheep and goats were found dead. The Associated Press reported dead animals all had two tooth marks about a third of an inch across their necks and appeared to be drained of blood. Panic was spreading. Search parties went out every night, but they never found it. They just kept finding dead animals every day. And the chupacabra seemed to be moving south.

In Brazil, nine pigs were found dead in Sao Paulo. Again, the newspapers reported carcasses drained of blood. Not far from the pig massacre, a housekeeper on a ranch heard loud noises outside the main house. She went outside. The sounds were coming from the corral. As she approached the gate, she could hear the sheep bleeding. But there was another sound, a loud rumble of a growl she'd never heard before.

When she unlocked the gate and entered the pen, the 12 sheep were dead. But whatever killed them was gone. In Chile, a farmer heard dogs howling on his ranch at night. The next day, he found 35 sheep dead, again drained of blood with bite marks on their necks. Footprints were discovered at the scene, but the government said the tracks were from dogs. But of course, dogs aren't known for sucking blood. But Chilean UFO researchers had a different explanation. They'd been keeping watch on the Chilean military because the military was spending a suspicious amount of time in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile. There were rumors of a secret facility out there and the

military was out there searching for something. During one search they uncovered three eggs with odd coloring. They did not look like bird eggs. According to the UFO researchers, the military was forced to turn the eggs over to NASA, because these eggs were from a chupacabra. NASA again? Well, NASA was well aware of the chupacabra. Wait, what? Because they created it.

No, now it all makes sense. The secret facility in Atacama was a top-secret lab where NASA was trying to genetically modify animals that could survive on Mars. Was the Chupacabra and experiment gone wrong? Well, we've heard the stories about Plum Island and the Montauk Monster. Link below! It seems like whenever the government tinkers with nature, it doesn't go well for the rest of us. Gain of function.

Mm-hmm. Scientists have identified over 700 species of dinosaurs, and the number grows every year. Now, how do they know all these animals existed? Through fossil findings, bones, hard evidence. That's what we need to prove if any of these cryptids are real. So what do we have? Let's start with Bigfoot.

Real. Well, there's no hard evidence of a Bigfoot. When scientists have tested hairs people claimed to have come from the Bigfoot, they turned out to be from a deer or other familiar animals every time. There's nothing beyond witnesses' accounts and plaster feet and blurry images to prove that Bigfoot exists. The movie, dear, the Bigfoot movie. The Patterson-Gimlin film. This whole story is a mess. First, for people who say it's a bad fake, with all due respect, they're wrong. If it's a fake, it's a great one. The film is still being debated. Patterson went to his deathbed saying it was real.

Gimlin also said it was real, but admitted he might have been hoaxed by Patterson. Also, we don't have the original film. We have no idea when it was developed, only Patterson's word. But we do know when and where Patterson rented the camera. Now, when people who knew Patterson were interviewed, they didn't have nice things to say about him. He borrowed money and didn't pay it back. He lied. He didn't pay

his bills. He was lazy, that kind of thing. So the people who knew him didn't trust him. Not a good start to the story. Now, Patterson tells the story about shooting the film, riding three miles back to camp to get the plaster, then back to the creek, then they set the plaster, wait for it to dry, then back up to camp. They loaded their horses in the trailer, then drove 25 miles through dirt roads to get to Yakima around four in the afternoon, or six, depending on when you asked. Either way, the timeline is impossible. Remember, they had to go find their horses, and then go three miles back to camp and then three miles back to the creek and wait for the plaster,

then back to camp. It doesn't work. Now, when confronted with the timeline issue, Patterson and Gimlin changed their stories a few times. Oh, it's an exciting day. They got some times wrong. Who cares? The Bigfoot movie's real.

But just 10 days after the sighting, Patterson, with an investor, formed Bigfoot Enterprises and started raking in dough. Lots of it. For years, everyone involved sued everybody else over the rights to the film. Like I said, it was a mess.

In 2004, writer Greg Long unraveled everything. Oh, no. Now, remember, in 1966, Patterson wrote a book about Bigfoot. Well, he had been making trips to Hollywood to try and get a movie or documentary made about his book, and the studios didn't want it. But American National Enterprises, or A&E, liked the idea. They were a wildlife film company. They gave Patterson the money to rent the gear and gave him a crash course on movie pre-production. A&E also bought a gorilla suit from Philip Morris, a Hollywood costume designer. Morris altered the suit to fit Patterson's friend, Bob Hieronymus. The arms were lengthened,

which is why the Bigfoot's hands kind of flop when they swing. He wore a football helmet to make his head look bigger, and he stuffed footballs in the shoulders and the chest to add more size. Now, people call this Bigfoot Patty because they believe those are breasts, but primate breasts aren't covered in fur, even when the rest of the animal is. Those aren't boobs, they're footballs. Oh no! Now they needed to make these enhancements because Bob wasn't a huge guy, just over six feet tall. Patterson said this creature was seven feet tall, but LIDAR scans of the area proved that she, or he, was actually about 6'2 or 6'3 at the most. Bob Ronimus finally came forward because Patterson promised to pay him

$1,000 to wear the suit. And typical of Patterson's reputation, he stiffed him. Also, the camera store where Patterson rented the camera, they actually filed charges of theft against him. Patterson quickly parted ways with A&E, who lost all their investment. And there are more problems.

Things like the arches on the feet don't match the casts that Patterson had. Patterson's own father-in-law said he saw the casts and they figured out how to make them heavy enough to leave prints. And that's just the tip of the debunk. I put a few links below that debunk even more details, more than you can ever want.

No! But there are a few problems debunking. Yes! Bob Hieronymus' description of the area and the way to get to the film site was wrong. He swore he could find the location, but he couldn't. None of the landmarks were in the right place. The location he said was off by 23 miles. So what? All those woods look the same.

They do, but he was asked if he wore the suit during a lie detector test and he passed. Were you the Bigfoot shown in the 1967 Patterson film? Yes. Lie detector proves nothing. But Patterson also passed a

lie detector test. Lie detector proves everything. Really? I want a Bigfoot to be real. Do you want Bigfoot to be real or do you want to know the truth? I want the truth. Pardon? The truth. I want the truth.

Fine. But he's real. The original footage was a shaky mess, but modern technology allows us to stabilize and enhance it. Now, if this is a suit, it's a good one. Believers have pointed out that you can see musculature. You can see that it plants its foot more like a gorilla than a human. Humans plant their heel, then their toes, then use their arch for stabilization.

Big primates' feet bend mid-foot, and it looks like Patty's feet do this. Now, when I see these analyses done, they're pretty convincing, but we often see what we want to see. If the film is a fake, it's a really, really good one. And honestly, I only lean toward fake because Patterson was not an honest man. If this turned out to be real, I wouldn't be fake because Patterson was not an honest man. If this turned out to be real, I wouldn't be shocked. It's very convincing. We'll likely never know. Bigfoot is an industry now.

Almost everything is a hoax. We have no clear footage of this animal. People constantly complain, everyone has a phone in their pocket. Why don't we have a clear image of Bigfoot? The answer is probably because a clear image would reveal that it's fake. The Patterson encounter was over 60 years ago, and that's

still the best we've got. I want to see more. A skeleton, hair, even feces. No physical evidence of Bigfoot exists. A pile of Bigfoot poop would be hard to miss. It would. Now, I've covered a lot today, and there's more than enough information out there for you to make up your own mind. And honestly, Bigfoot believers aren't changing their minds.

But the Patterson film has won over a few skeptics. No, the Loch Ness Monster. I think everybody already knows the famous surgeon's photograph is a fake. We only ever see the uncropped version of the photo where Nessie looks pretty big. But in the real image, she's tiny. That's a toy submarine with a little fake dinosaur shape on it. Here's a rendering of what it looked like. And that film of Nessie? As soon as we had

the technology to increase the contrast in the black and white 16 millimeter film, new details appeared that were invisible in the original film. It was a boat. Now, I love the idea that Nessie is a plesiosaurus, but they were air breathers. So if that's what it or she is, we'd see them all the time. Besides, Loch Ness was created about 10,000 years ago when the ice sheets receded. Plesiosaurus went extinct 65 million years ago. And a lot of the enhanced photos we've seen, they're either hoaxes or lots of liberties were taken with the enhancement. NASA did the photos.

That's true. And we know NASA fakes photos. But I don't know why NASA would want to prove the existence of the Loch Ness Monster. Now, even though there are still sightings of it, there are actually fewer and fewer every year. That's the sign of an urban legend dying. Now, locals think it's a giant eel, and scientists have found a lot of eel DNA in the lake.

But there are still scientific teams hunting. Just six months ago, a big expedition went out to find Nessie, but they came up empty. Still, I don't think we can completely rule out that something big is living in Loch Ness. Now, for the goat sucker. El Chupacabra! Madeline Tolentino was the first witness to describe the animal with webbed feet,

alien eyes, spikes on its back, all that. But most Chupacabra reports in later years sounded more like dogs, coyotes, or wolves.

Now, in 1996, Madeline Tolentino gave an interview that throws a lot of cold water on the story. She'd seen the movie Species a few weeks earlier. She thought that what she was seeing was an actual alien hybrid, water on the story. She'd seen the movie Species a few weeks earlier. She thought that what she was seeing

was an actual alien hybrid, like in the movie. She even described it with similar features. Also, a few weeks before she saw the chupacabra, there were reports of cattle mutilations in the area. Now, of course, the UFO researchers were all over that. It turned out to be coyotes and other predators. Hey, who did that interview with her? UFO Digest.

Oh. Whenever UFO reporters are around, you're gonna get UFO reports. That's how they make their living. Now, there's no corroborating evidence of any of the other attacks. Nobody's ever come forward. There's no physical evidence.

Patrick Hugh and Lauren Coleman are well-known cryptozoologists who have interviewed a lot of witnesses. They have a term they call the lumping problem. People tend to lump a bunch of stories into one. Now, on this channel, have you noticed how many people are abducted as children, taught psychic powers, become super warriors on Mars, then time travel back to their childhood bodies. These people are lumping all the UFO tropes into one story,

and they're doing it for money and attention. Madeline Tolentino was lumping the cattle mutilations with the packs of coyotes in her town with a science fiction movie she just saw, which, by the way, she thought was real. It got her a lot of attention, but the story wasn't true. So Chupacabra, no. Loch Ness Monster, maybe something.

Bigfoot, probably no, but maybe. I went into this episode absolutely certain I could debunk Bigfoot. If you follow the channel, you know I'm not a fan of the Bigfoot story. I thought it was going to be a layup. But now I'm not so sure. Yeah! Now, I'm not saying

I'm a believer, but seeing the stabilized and enhanced Patterson film has made me a little more open-minded. But no matter how good AI or photo enhancement software gets, we're never going to get a cleaner version of the Patterson film. So that's all we've got to determine if it was a hoax.

Now, people on both sides are going to be debating that film and that story until the end of time. It's a story without an ending, without closure, without resolution. It's a story where the ending is up to you. Hollywood hates those kinds of stories. But me, I think they're perfect. learn anything, do him a favor, subscribe, comment, share. That stuff really helps the channel. And like most topics we cover on the channel, today's is recommended by you. So if there's a story you'd like to see or learn more about, go to the Y-Files.com slash tips. Remember, the Y-Files is also a podcast. Twice a week, I post deep dives into the stories we

cover here on the channel. I also post episodes that wouldn't be allowed on the channel. It's called the Y Files Operation Podcast, and it's available everywhere you get your podcasts. Now, if you need more Y Files in your life, check out our Discord. There are thousands of people on there 24-7, and they talk about the same weird topics that we do. It's a great community, it's a lot of fun, and it's free to join. Now, if you want to know what's going on with the Y-Files, check out our production calendar. It's at the Y-Files dot com slash Cal. And we post our episode schedule, podcasts, live streams, everything with the channel is there.

Now, special thanks to our patrons who make the channel possible. Every episode is dedicated to you and I could not do this without you guys. So truly, I'm grateful for you. And if you'd like to support the channel, maybe become a member on Patreon. It's only three bucks a month and you get access to perks like videos early with no commercials,

get access to merch only available to members, plus you get two private live streams every week just for you. Another great way to support the channel is grab something from the Y-File store. Grab yourself a heck of a t-shirt or a coffee mug, then you can stick a beverage in or your fist or both. Get your fist nice and wet inside a fistable

heck of a coffee mug or get a hoodie or one of these squeezy stuffed animal heck of a talking squeezy talking dolls. And those are the plugs. Until next time, be safe, be kind, and know that you are appreciated. Maybe a scenario 51, a secret code inside the Bible said I was. I love my UFOs and paranormal fun as well as music, so I'm singing it like I should. But then another conspiracy theory becomes the truth, my friends, it never ends, no it never ends

I fear the crabcat and got stuck inside Mel's hole with MKUltra being only two away Did Stanley Kubrick fake the moon landing alone On a film set with the shadow people there? The Roswell aliens just fought the smiling man I'm told, and his name was Code And I can't believe I'm dancing with the fishes Heckle fish on Thursday night, Wednesday day too

And the wild boars have been beat all through the night All I ever wanted was to just hear the truth So the wild boars have your feet all through the night The Mothman sightings and the solar storm still come To have got the secret city underground Mysterious number stations, planets are both two Project Stargate and what the Dark Watchers found In a simulation, don't you worry though The black knight said a lot, he told me so

I can't believe I'm dancing with the fish And the fish are Thursday nights when they chase you And the white balls are my feet all through the night All I ever wanted was to just hear the truth So the wild birds love me, feet all through the night Hedgehog fish on Thursday, next Wednesday, J2 And the wild birds love me, feet all through the night All I ever wanted was to just hear the truth So we walked by the summer beach all through the night

Gertie loves to dance, Gertie loves to dance Gertie loves to dance, Gertie loves to dance Gertie loves to dance on the dance floor Because she is a camel And camels love to dance when the feeling is right or wasting time Gertie loves to dance, Gertie loves to dance Good luck then