“Backyard Bigfoot”: Final Verdict?
Patterson/Gimlin Bigfoot
It seems to many that the “Backyard Bigfoot” incident was nothing more than an elderly man, who might be suffering from dementia, had made up. At least that is the latest news from the various Bigfoot researchers that are looking into the case have concluded.
Bigfoot researcher Sharon Lee wrote the following on her blog:
I just got off the phone after a quite lengthy conversation with the now well known to you, Lan Lamphere of Overnight AM radio.
Overnight AM is an internet talk show that touches on many subjects. A successful radio show is designed to entertain, enlighten, instigate discussions and encourage people to open their minds and consider other points of view.
Lan’s interests have never been Bigfoot oriented as it is well known that he is a UFO enthusiast.
When William Birnes came to his good friend Lan about Mr. Mike, (and yes his name is Mike) they had no idea how cruel and devastating the shark filled waters of Bigfoot Research could be. As I stated in my previous blog post, the people in this field can be quite nasty to one another, even their so-called friends.
Lan wants you all to go away. He doesn’t care if you listen to his show ever again.
The story of Mr. Mike will most likely end tonight as far as Overnight AM is concerned but not without a bang. Overnight AM is not a dedicated Bigfoot show and Lan would like to get on to producing his show as he has done for the past 9 years.
I have a statement from Lan that I would like to pass on to you, the Bigfoot community.
“The reports of Mr. Mike’s encounters with Bigfoot have been highly exaggerated and over exaggerated not on the part of Overnight AM but on the part of Mr. Mike. He is suffering from a form of dementia. Now this is according to the researchers that were there. Whether that is true or not I do not know because I was not there. I only have the Bigfoot community and these researchers inside of it and their integrity and moral compass to go on. That’s all I have. That’s all that anyone who listens to this program has. But there’s more to this story than just hallucinations or chain of events that have led to him reaching out to this radio show and to UFO magazine. There’s more to it than meets the eye. And I think that the story falls within the realm of the pretentious and mean nature of the Bigfoot community as a whole rather than falling back to Mr. Mike’s “alleged” mental illness, hallucinations or instability.”
Overnight AM did not make any claims that this event was real. Mr. Mike’s opinion and testimony was confessed on Overnight AM in his own words.
Did Lan hire a private investigator? Yes. Did the private investigator discover any negative information about Mr. Mike? No. Did the Bigfoot community attack and shred the story as the witness told it? Yes. Do you trust that any Bigfoot Research group is going to tell you the truth about what they found on the property? Even when people in this field turn on each other every day?
Tonight Overnight AM will put the Mr. Mike saga to rest. But rest assured my “friends” the story is not over.
In the words of the infamous Bill Green, “To be continued indeedy!”
And I can guarantee that The Bigfoot Field Reporter will be the only place to get the real story.
More will unfold in the weeks to come, but ask yourself who do you trust? Who can you believe?
From Sharon’s post, we can conclude that the most possible scenario is that “Mr. Mike” does suffer from dementia and that may have certainly contributed to his belief that he has interacted with a group of Bigfoot. It sounds like the most probable scenario. Although without a thorough evaluation or examination of his medical files, we cannot be certain.
Many researchers argue against this. Calling it an unfair ad hominem attack.
Bigfoot researcher David Rodriguez left this message on GhostTheory today:
David Rodriguez says:
July 13, 2010 at 7:08 AMI ended up listening to the blog radio show until late last night. I even decided to call in.
There is a complicated series of events and much has been misconstrued. There is still an ongoing investigation. The investigators on site do appear to be the colleagues of Chris Noel. He clearly was getting nervous when questioned by Lan. He should come clean to Lan. It would seem that the statement about Mike “seeing things” has been completely blown out of proportion too. Many statements were taken out of context on the blogs since.
I’m not so inclined to have much faith in the present investigation. Most researchers just don’t understand that just their presence and new activity will contaminate the situation immediately. Not to mention all their fancy equipment and cameras. Do they really think that any bigfoot present will hang around to be identified?
There was one incident Lan talked about after the period when ‘Jack’ (the investigator) had the FLIR out. Jack and Mike apparently had seen some kind of hot spot, but when Jack investigated further, he saw nothing. This is the ’seeing things’ episode. BUT apparently Lan had his PI put some other cameras up at the scene beforehand, which caught something standing there when Jack went to look. I would really like to correlate these two pieces of footage because it may reveal some things that the bigfoot field does not want to hear.
I remain inclined to believe that there is truth in Mike’s claims regardless of how the rest of the community sees it. The majority of the community doesn’t quite understand the dynamics of a habituation. However we may never find evidence because its the same investigative techniques being used now. You don’t just start putting cameras up with teams working the area and expect for the sasquatch to continue their visitations as usual. I think the team there had already grown frustrated and that is what Noel published. I wish I had the opportunity to visit there myself. Alone. This is where having my own encounters over the decades would come in handy. I now know how to ‘behave’ around sasquatch. Most people who have never had an encounter can’t understand that either.
But, its in the hands of a ‘team’ of researchers right now. It sounds like they are close to writing it off however because of his supposed mental status. If Lan didn’t inform them that he had something on his camera, well I think they might be done. Now they won’t know what to make of it because it will contradict their scientific methodology. That is sad, I understand how they are making this conclusion. That is why we don’t understand these Sasquatch. They will eventually rationalize the scene as a dead end, but the damage will be done and the sasquatch will stop visiting Mike. At least for a while. As is the norm, it may take a while for him to rebuild their trust after having all these strangers show up. Hopefully he has enough time in his life to do so.
I hope to be talking with Lan a little more privately about this matter. Maybe something can be salvaged? Apparently others have tried to explain that people and cameras showing up to a habituation will ruin it. My opinion is that what he really needs to do is pull everyone out and allow the residence to ‘cool down’. These sasquatch need to be recognized as being highly intelligent and they aren’t going to put up with being proven. Assuming Mike is being visited, then we need to try and understand ‘why’. There’s a lot that is involved in that which most people may not comprehend. Sasquatch know things. They may well be trying to bring Mike comfort in his last years on earth. They probably ’see’ that he is caring for someone and this empathy is transferred to them.
So that’s my take for now. Yeah I believe there is something to Mike’s claims because I have had my own share of activity. I understand my own mistakes made, I too put up cameras and lost their trust. Now I also realize that I need an opportunity to visit one of these other habituations myself because I can ‘relate’ to the witnesses. This one may be too late but there will be others. Maybe someone will read this and contact me next time. If not, that’s OK too.
Mr. Rodriguez’s belief is that this whole case is still not over. He beliefs that there are as many holes in the debunking process as there were in the initial investigation. David believes that there could be something there; we just won’t know for sure since all this negative attention has taken away from what really is important: A scientific investigation.
He believes that if a group of Bigfoot were in fact visiting “Mr. Mike”, they won’t be after all this media circus. David thinks that most researchers will destroy a supposed Bigfoot habitation. Not on purpose, but by merely being there. It makes sense since some known animals act that very same way when humans encroach in their nests or habitat.
Then again, there are others (like Sharon Lee) who believe that Lan Lamphere is mostly responsible for fluffing up this story.
In a private email, Bigfoot researcher Matt Moneymaker, talked to me about Lan Lamphere and how he might be using this whole story to get ratings for his show. It was apparent from his email that he knows Lan Lamphere and is used to his ways.
I can only deduce from Matt Moneymakers email and Sharon Lee’s post that this whole incident could be just another failed attempt by some over-the-top showman at getting more ratings. I hope that is not the case.
As the ebb from the media buzz starts receding, we can only sit here and wait for the researchers to really get to work and get to the bottom of this case once and for all.
Written by Javier Ortega - javier@ghosttheory.com
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Once it starts getting into this level of ridiculousness, I tune out.
What I do know is that my father had a form of dementia and he saw the North Korean Army in the forest behind the house, where they were advancing on the house.
BTW, its Mike’s Sister who has been diagnosed with dementia, not Mike. Mike is taking care of her there on the property. But this is how the bigfoot field generally misconstrues crap and b4 you know it, you end up with a false verdict. I tend to dissect more then just what the conclusions of the masses are, because so much is often misunderstood or misconstrued as claims are told and retold through the grapevine.
What I do think we have here is a likely habituation and certain researchers were cut out of the process. So why should anyone else have a fair chance? First task in that is usually to discredit the source it seems. Thing is, Lan didn’t come up with this whole matter. Mike contacted another person who then contacted Lan because he remembers Lan once had a sighting and so thought he could relate.
There is a natural progression of events unfolding here. Unfortunately some of it is because most researchers really don’t understand the dynamics that are occurring at a habituation site, mainly because they themselves have never really had any lengthy interactions with sasquatch. It’s like anything else. When you become more familiar with something, you become more knowledgeable. When you’ve been in someone’s shoes, well you’ve got just a little more knowledge then the rest. Following the opinion of the status quo of bigfoot researchers, most of whom have never had much interaction themselves, is not a major foot forward. I tend to read between the lines because I see other telltale signs that ring true.
Bigfoot isn’t going to turn out to be what the field wants them to be. On the contrary, the field will eventually have to accept what bigfoot is, no matter how much it conflicts with our preconceived notions about our universe. No worry though, we haven’t evolved enough ourselves to enable us to understand yet. We may continue to chase the true mysteries of our world for a long time to come before we are faced with a true awakening.
Sadly its too easy for people to throw that term dementia out there to discount witnesses. I’ve seen it done before in other forums. Mike appears to be a loyal responsible brother taking care of his blind aging sister. I don’t even feel right talking about it in a defensive manner because we shouldn’t talk about people like that in the first place.
After listening to the very first interview of Mike, he definitely appears to have all his faculties intact and his account is very convincing. For anyone who hasn’t heard it, I recommend taking the time to listen. I put my money on Mike right now and feel the field of bigfooting is the one being dysfunctional and even demented themselves.
Unfortunately, Mikes place may simply be a stopover for the group, and with all the human activity there, they may not stick around long. We shall see…
David Rodriguez, we haven’t evolved enough ourselves to enable us to understand yet why you need to write long streams of repetitive, airy, empty rhetoric to make a few slight points.
Every time I open a comment I get nervous inside. Believe it or not, I do get some nasty email!
William Mayes sent me a comment on the Mr. Mike situation and although I wanted to let this story fade away, I felt that William actually read between the lines of my story and he understood what was not said.
William Mayes said…
‘Why would a person with mental problems be in charge of a 90 year old blind person? What were the qualifications of the people who claimed that Mike has dementia. Were they Psychologists?
I listened to the show and Mike seemed not only sincere but very sensible. One wonders that an organization that makes money off the mystery of bigfoot might be worried that if that mystery disappears then their whole reason for existence is gone.’ ~W. Mayes
We all heard Mr. Mike. I do not know enough about dementia to diagnose the severity of one’s condition. But if I were to practice Psychology 101, I would think that Mr. Mike’s story might have been a little more…well…demented!
His story in fact, mirrored the accounts of many eyewitnesses! He said they were big, he didn’t claim that they were giants towering over his house. He said they were very loving towards one another and had a lot of contact with each other. He didn’t claim that they were violent animals trying to break into his home and eat him and his sister. I would think a person with dementia or hallucinations, or a crazy attention seeker would come up with something more unbelievable.
There is more to this story folks. You might not hear another word about this for 6 months to a year…then one day you will be watching television and see something that makes you say….”oh crap!”.
Terry, I suppose you are one of those who must see the world in black and white? And so it would make sense that what I write would be air to you. But there are others who also realize there is more going on at Mike’s house then meets the eye.
You are right though in that at least our species hasn’t yet evolved enough to understand, but there are those who have come further along in this so called ‘quest’. It’s always a few who lead into new directions. History should tell everyone that. At least I contemplate these possibilities openly.
“There is more to this story folks. You might not hear another word about this for 6 months to a year…then one day you will be watching television and see something that makes you say….”oh crap!”.”
I’ve got $100 that says your wrong.
This is a closed subject IMO.
No offense intended.
Thought I’d go back and re-read the initial story here at GT and re-address a few important elements.
Anyone who can’t understand why witnesses don’t take pictures. Please, you’re not in the witness’ shoes. You cannot even comprehend the precarious nature of the situation. You do NOT know what it is like being in close proximity to one of these creatures, plain and simple. When you are there, you KNOW that if you do ANYTHING wrong, you can quickly become mince meat. They are massive and primal and in charge, even if you are in your house.
Recognize this too, the area is dark. That is when the bigfoot are allegedly there right? OK so the first thing you need to realize is that IT WILL require use of a flash for any standard camera. YOU DO NOT want to have a flash go off in their face or even in their direction. Until you’ve been there, please don’t discount this fact. It will always be a factor in any situation when confronting a sasquatch.
OK so then there are video cameras with night vision right? I agree, this seems a little less of a threat. But it still means POINTING a camera and said cameras are not without emitting light. It is believed by the vast majority of researchers that sasquatch DOES see most Infrared Light. The Nightshot features on these vid cameras DO use IR that could make them threatening. We don’t know what it looks like to sasquatch either. It could look like a solid filled area of red light for all we know? Whatever it looks like, it is the same reason Sas appears to avoid trail cams, which use a similar trigger method to detect movement and gauge distance in front of those cameras.
And then there is the simple ACT of pointing something that may appear threatening at these creatures. You realize it can appear no different to them from pointing a rifle. You are pointing an object at them that can be threatening! And if you get a growl or see teeth, well you IMMEDIATELY realize, NOT a good idea! You realize YOU are not the one in charge here. Most non-witnesses don’t understand this fact when they are criticizing people for not taking what they think are proper steps. Well, until you’ve been in those shoes, the unexperienced just doesn’t get it.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t situations where you would pull out a camera. Such as if they are departing, like with Patterson and the Freeman footage. I would do the same then. But if its on an approach or a standoff situation, not a chance. This is just part of the dynamics.
I’ve read on some forums where some people just can’t understand why he didn’t take a pic when his face was near the window. This is just ignorance. First off, you would probably get mostly glare from the glass reflection for one thing, and any secondary face image would immediately be claimed was photoshopped. That aside, if you’ve had these visitors for weeks, you’ve developed empathy for them. You’ve seen how they’ve watched out for the young ones just like we humans do. You’ve seen how they accept your gifts. You’ve seen that they are trusting YOU. That is something you recognize you don’t want to violate. That is a gift in itself you begin to consider as you weigh your options.
Assuming his story is true, Mike said he now wants to share this with the world so they are protected in case their aren’t many of them. This is something new to Mike, he doesn’t know how many of them there really are out there. If this story is true, well this guy has been bombarded with conflicting emotions. Sheesh, not many people can comprehend what it would be like being in his shoes. I only have insight because I’ve had my share of encounters and a limited habituation in the field. But you know what? I violated their trust by trying to hide cameras. Those who haven’t been there, faced them, will have a difficult time understanding just how delicate these situations are. Many of you still think we are dealing with some big ape animal that isn’t at a level of understanding to outthink our movements or attempts to document them. Trust me, they are much more attuned then that, and any action on our part will be met with an equally intellectual response, even though it will seem more primitive in nature. They have more substance in their inner self then people realize.
If you haven’t listened to his actual initial interview, please take the time to do so before making conclusions based on hearsay.
David Rodriguez, your argument is, no one believes this Mike nonsense because we are insufficiently evolved? Spoken like a true fringer.
LOL Terry, nice try. But why are you here at a (excuse me) fringe site like GT if we knew everything about our universe? Fringe as in the majority of the world still sees the topics as fringe. So I guess we’re all in the same boat.
But the fact is, there ARE topics that some people are more knowledgeable about then others. That goes for UFO’s, Ghosts, Bermuda Triangle, Bigfoot, etc. Its about from whose perspective that one is labeled. I’m sure I could find a few posts at GT where you can be pickled into a corner by some, although others might recognize you might actually have more experience in that area then they. Recognizing this is about growth, the same growth that leads to our species’ evolution as a whole.
David you did make one good point, any photograph taken would be discounted as fake. I think this would be true for ANY photo or video captured. As much as everyone would like to see photographic evidence, it would never be taken as proof positive. Who knows how many genuine photos are already out there or have been posted here on GT and we all assumed it was fake.
oh crap terry, you did it now……
red,
I don’t believe that. I think a real picture will provide more evidence than you think. There are certain things that can’t be faked even in a picture.
I recently watched the American Paranormal series show on the Patterson film. They provided new analysis of the video that is astounding IMO. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it. It’s actually here at GT in the archives as well as easily accessible at youtube.
Redngreen, I only made ONE good point?
lol
jbondo, but the specific scenario I was referring to with this photo was ‘through a window’, because you IMMEDIATELY have a double exposure. You have the reflection off the glass either back to the camera or off some wall due to the flash, then you have the image behind the glared surface. So it is that which is soon considered photoshopped and ‘placed’ into the overall photo, never mind it may be a real being standing there. Most simply couldn’t get beyond the double image trap.
That’s not to say that some truly high quality photos or video couldn’t do the trick. I spent many hours trying to accomplish that at my site with a camera that I could almost completely conceal. They didn’t seem to be bothered by audio recorders, but when I brought the camera in, the activity seemed to stop. Go figure. So yes I still do believe that some really good lengthy close up stills or video could go along ways. Imagine having extensive quality video footage of Patty from 10 feet away in daylight, where you could see the moles & freckles on her face, individual hairs, scars, cuticles, er ‘private parts’, eye lashes, ear hairs, veins protruding, etc. Why we can’t achieve that? Because they know when we are trying. Somehow they know.
j, good point. I don’t really think I’m a believer in the Patterson film due to some info presented in a documentary I watched not too long ago. Could have been here on GT.. I can’t remember what the name was. I’ll check out American Paranormal, thanks.
It would appear there is yet another chapter to the Mike story. Sharon Lee of Bigfootfieldreporter.com has just reported that the History Channel has been on scene for two weeks now. This raises a few questions for me. Was their equipment present when the Facebook Researchers were there? Does this explain the mystery video that Lan claimed shows a shadow when the FB guys saw ’something’ on FLIR?
I remain inclined to believe Mike is seeing something, even though the bigfoot researchers couldn’t corroborate this. I’ve experienced the unexplainable myself and I know that mainstream bigfoot researchers can’t venture there. So it doesn’t surprise me that they came up with the conclusion they did. That doesn’t mean there isn’t something we can’t explain going on.