"That Kentucky thing.." --again

I just read over at Cryptomundo that there's a "new" video out of Kentucky showing the "first full facial footage of bigfoot."

The Erickson Project has a website that you can visit if you are interested.

The only reason that I am getting involved in this at all is because I know something about this case and I believe all the facts ought to be brought out before people get too excited.  In 2009 I wrote a post about the film in question -- here's a bit of that post:

On the question of the film that is rumored -- everything that I have heard and seen indicates that it is the same film that Gregg [Clay] described to me in the summer of 2005. I heard then that there were four pieces of footage obtained not by the investigators, but by the original witnesses. All of them were described to me, and of these, two of them would have been very interesting. But the best piece, which is what I assume Dr. Bindernagel and the others have been referring to, was not something that would have convinced me due to the circumstances in the filming. 

(One day I will describe exactly why the film wouldn't have convinced me, but I'm sure the owners of the footage want the most bang for their buck when they release their film, and I don't want to take coin out of their hands. And, anyway, it's only my own opinion having never even seen the film!) 

I do believe that something was going on at that location, but I do not believe that any legitimate film was taken there. Of course, this is just my belief, and I could well be wrong about it. The central issue about the KY situation will, to me, always be about that cast that Stan made, in which I had clearly seen the dermals in the mud and then [that they had been] transferred successfully to the cast. Recently I learned that Dr. Jeff Meldrum was invited to the location some time ago, and I sent him an email asking whether he had ever been shown the cast, but he did not answer it. If I ever have him on the radio again I will surely ask him in person.  

But to the question raised [of] why has it taken so long for this film to go public, my suspicion is that my reservations are shared by the folks who have the film. They have stayed at the location for several years now trying to get more film, and some say that they have, but that none of it is quite as good as the original stuff. 

So what would you do? What if you had some film that clearly showed an animal, but you couldn't vouch for the circumstances of the filming? What if you thought you were in the right spot, that you had a lot of secondary evidence that supported the belief that bigfoot were around, and were hell-bent on coming up with your own film? Maybe you'd want to hold off on releasing the film until you had complementary evidence of similar quality. I think this is what has happened, and I don't blame them in the slightest.

That's what I wrote in 2009.  I also have a series of posts about the Kentucky films that I wrote in 2007 that I may repost if it seems necessary.

But some other facts need to be kept in mind:

• The property on which the original film was made was sold to Erickson for a large sum of money.
• The original filmmakers filmed at least four bits of film and the one mentioned by Cryptomundo sounds exactly like what Gregg described to me back in 2005; if it is the same film, that would mean that it was filmed by the property owners and not Erickson's crew.
• The property owners also had several other bits of "evidence" including a tape of grunts and growls and of course the footprint that Stan Courtney cast.
• The original film (which is different from the film in question here), the cast of the footprint, and the tape of grunts and growls have all been lost.  It was my opinion that a detailed analysis of any one of these items would have proved that they were hoaxed.  Notice I said this is my opinion, but it sure would be nice to have these items around to test them.  I consider it extremely suspicious that they would have been lost.  (If you had evidence of bigfoot that you thought would possibly make you money, would you lose it?)  I know the first film was "accidentally" erased.  I do not know what became of the taped sounds or the footprint cast.

Now, the reason I bring all this up is because of the way that Erickson is presenting this video.  Here's a snippet from his site that describes the project and how the video was obtained:

In 2005, I started the Erickson Project. The objective was to conduct the first long term study that would once and for all, prove the existence of the sasquatch. In order to do so I asked Dennis Pfohl and Leila Hadj-Chikh to join me, and we set out to try to awaken the scientific community, attempted to bring awareness to the general public, while silencing the armchair critics, and tried to vindicate the tens of thousands of witnesses who have been ridiculed for speaking out. With only a handful of short video clips ever previously recorded of a sasquatch, the team focused on acquiring more and better video, especially close ups. After many months of frustrations the knowledge gained by the team’s experiences enabled it to finally achieve success in capturing several video clips of different Sasquatch, including the first 'facial' footage ever recorded.

Note the part that I bolded there.  We know that the original witnesses recorded a "full facial video" of what they said was a bigfoot before Pfohl and Hadj-Chikh were onsite for the project, because Gregg Clay saw it and described it to me in the Summer of 2005 well before the home had been purchased and Leila took up residence there.

[Note: I have updated the below to cut down on confusion some of my wording had caused, and to add a bit more info.]

I believe this is the video that Erickson is making reference to in his description.  If it is, why has he misrepresented it as the product of a scientific effort?  Because that video was produced by the original witnesses by themselves.  If he is referring to video obtained later it is striking that it is described using terms almost exactly like those that Gregg used to describe it to me in 2005.  This is how it is described in a recent YouTube video:

A full facial close-up:
~ nose similar to ours (but w/ larger nostrils)
~ slightly chapped, rosy lips
~ pink mouth, blackish tongue
~ pointed teeth, like fangs
~ deep set eyes that dart around and don’t blink
~ her head is round, shaped more like ours than a gorilla’s, but her brow is much more prominent
~ she has lots of fine, flowing hair on her head (dark reddish brown) and soft short hair on her face
~ when she walks away, she moves just like the female in the Patterson Film

That's essentially what Gregg told me  in 2005 (though he did not mention chapped lips nor a gait like the Patterson film).  He emphasized that there was an animality to the creature.  It did not appear at all human like.

More information that Gregg gave me which isn't on this list is this -- you never see the creature's lower legs as this is obscured by brush, and, that he thought the face looked very much like an orangutan.  (He also told me that he saw the same creature, or a similar one, in real life through a night vision scope on the witnesses' property, though he only saw the head at that time.  Gregg also told me that he was convinced the film in question was legit.)

It sounds like the same video to me.  If it is NOT the same video, then the Erickson Project's version would be the 2nd "full facial video" of a bigfoot, but it's not described like that.  Would that be because the first was determined to be a hoax?  If it was, that should be part of the story.  ANY hoaxing on the part of the original witnesses should be part of the story.

I do not forget that weird things happened while I was there.  I saw and experienced plenty that would have supported there being something "not ordinary" going on -- the reaction of the dogs alone attests to that.  But I did not believe that any convincing evidence had been produced.

There wouldn't be anything new in that..

So let's be clear that I'm not saying that there wasn't a bigfoot there.  I have no idea and experienced plenty of weirdness in one day that I thought was quite suggestive.  I'd be prepared to learn that there was indeed actually a bigfoot there, whatever that is.

I'm just saying there are reasons to question any evidence that came before the property was inhabited by Hadj-Chikh and Pfohl.

So my question is why has this video apparently finally been made part of a documentary almost six full years after it was filmed?  A documentary has long been rumored, but never released..  Is this finally it?

Is the documentary really going to be complete?  Nobody interviewed me, for instance.  I have pages of notes and emails that can build a timeline of the events of that Summer.  I was there to see parts of it first hand, heard other events on the phone as they happened, read reports of other events shortly after they happened, etc.  I don't know if anyone else kept this information.

It is all strange to me.

I mean this sincerely -- if someone made a documentary of how this all went down, even without a bigfoot, that would be one fascinating film.

[UPDATE]

Artists rendering of bigfoot face from film?:

Mask available in 2002 for $275:

Not so different.