Bigfoot & Aliens

Several days ago, news agencies were reporting that North Carolina resident Thomas Byers had allegedly come into contact with the elusive Sasquatch also known as “Bigfoot.” According to Byers, he and a friend were driving along a rural highway when they spotted the creature as it emerged from a nearby field. They then parked the vehicle, fired up a camcorder that they had with them and filmed the animal’s progress across the highway from about fifteen feet away. The resulting six seconds of footage have been offered by the duo of irrefutable evidence corroborating their version of events. 

After watching the video, several characteristics of it bother me:

First and foremost is the quality. Why is it that every time a teenager takes one to the plumbs or a tornado touches down in Arkansas high-definition footage appears all over YouTube, but when an alien spacecraft appears or Sasquatch drives by in a Chevy Tahoe everyone’s cutting-edge imaging devices suddenly looks like the Zapruder film?

This guy is standing fifteen feet away from a seven-foot tall slow moving object and his Amish-built camcorder cannot so much as discern facial features. What‘s more, while the footage is so blurry it could have been shot through Vaseline-coated stained-glass, the microphone is miraculously able to pick up the animal’s grunts without so much as an inkling of ambient noise.    

And while I am on the subject, I find it hard to believe that in a world where practically everyone over the age of ten is in possession of a smart-phone, aliens just can’t seem to appear in front of anyone with auto-focus. Lindsay Lohan can’t exit a Costco bathroom without verifiable footage hitting the Internet but let a mutated ape-monster wander across a state highway and suddenly we are all caught off guard and unable to find the camera function on our iPhones.  

The second problem is logic. In order for this creature’s existence to be plausible, we must accept that a 7 to 10 foot tall carnivorous beast has been able to hunt, procreate, and die for hundreds of years without producing a single piece of verifiable evidence to its existence. Furthermore, if such a beast did manage to largely elude the detection of humanity, it is somewhat doubtful that it would wave at curious motorists as he crossed paved highways.

The third problem is credibility. Why is it that Bigfoot only appears to people who already believe that he exists? According to his site, Thomas and his female companion were riding around looking to film floating “orbs” at old churches when they came across the mythical creature. Poor Sasquatch just can’t manage to stumble upon a normal camera-wielding citizen to save his life. It’s always two guys on their way to a ferret-themed disco cookout or some woman who just happens to host a chupacabra dating service.

When asked if the creature he filmed could have been a man in a suit, Byers insisted that he could clearly see Bigfoot’s “male parts” and “anal region.” In his mind this eliminated the possibility of a human in a costume because most costumes are not so anatomically correct. I find it disturbing that he was unable to discern the eye color, facial features, or even number of fingers possessed by the animal (supposedly due to the fading daylight), but spotting Biggie’s poo-shooter was no problem.

I am not saying that it is impossible for Bigfoot or even aliens to exist; I am just saying that it is far more likely that this was grainy footage of a guy who lost a bet and was able to procure a disturbingly-detailed Sasquatch costume.