This is one of the most famous Bigfoot clips ever shot. The footage was shot by Lori and Owen Pate in 1996 at Chopata Lake in north central Washington state while on a camping trip with family and friends. A figure, resembling a man covered with dark hair, runs across an open area, then stoops to pick something up. Then it disappears into the woods. Notice how much it looks like a man. There had been two previous sightings of this figure shortly before this footage was shot.
The general impression amongst many researchers in the field is that this video is some kind of an elaborate hoax. It runs like a man, not like a Bigfoot. Never has a Bigfoot been observed to have run in this manner. When it stops at the end to supposedly pick something up, purportedly a baby Bigfoot, actually it is probably taking off its ape mask. One actor wearing an ape mask died in the production of a movie. That mask would have gotten awfully hot running across that field.
On the other hand, it does look like a Bigfoot, and it also walks like one.
Debunkers had a runner run across the landscape in an effort to duplicate this footage. The runner easily ran faster than the figure in the video.
Nevertheless, the father of the girl who shot the video continues, 15 years later, to vouch for its reliability, as do the people who shot it. The girl and her boyfriend made enough money off the video to buy a new camcorder and some gas for the car, but they didn't really make much money off it.
Furthermore, 30 people watched this figure walk quickly across the landscape. Were they all in on the hoax? The evidence seems to be that most of the witnesses did not even know each other, but were just strangers at the lake. Were a few in on a hoax and then 30 innocent people watched the hoax? Who knows? That would make more sense. The kids who shot this footage haven't made much money off of it. If the Bigfoot really did pick up its kid at the end of its walk, that makes sense as a reason why it put itself in full view like that.
A few days prior, a fisherman had seen a Bigfoot at this same lake. He estimated the height to be 6.5-7 feet. Owen Pate saw a Bigfoot running across the field shortly before this one. It was also 6.5-7 feet tall. Then they got the camcorder and this one started to run across the field too. But it was smaller, maybe 5.5 feet tall.
And in this sequence, the filmed object does indeed appear to slow down or stop, pick something up, and put it on top its head. Then its head appears 8 inches taller. It really does look like it bent down and picked up a baby Bigfoot and put it on its head.
Problems with the mask theory are as follows...
1) A mask would be too small to account for the apparent size of the lifted object.
2) The object first lifts up, then down, and then quickly up again. Why??
3) The object lifts up without the use of any hands. How??
4) The object can be seen, in a few stills, to be slightly behind the subject's head. (Exactly where an infant would be seen, if it were sitting on the subject's shoulders...btw.)
5) The subject's head/face never changes color, even after the supposed mask is taken off.
Furthermore, the object, a female Bigfoot, already has one baby on her back when she starts her run. Then she runs over and picks up another baby. So in this video there are three Bigfoots. A mother Bigfoot with first one, then two baby Bigfoots on her back.
Or, alternatively, there is a baby Bigfoot on the mother's back. At some point, it falls off, then she picks it up again and puts it on her shoulders.
On the other hand, a film expert has supposedly conducted an enhanced analysis of this video that shows the guy taking off his monkey mask at the end. Another analysis showed that using a color technique, the subject in the film appears to be wearing a brown suit with a green base that shows through when run through certain filters.
When the people who shot the film contacted a major Bigfoot researcher, their primary concern was how much money they could make off of it.
Grover Krantz, in a recent book, said he did not want to waste ink in this footage.
At the end of the day, no one seems to know what to do with this footage. It has not been reliably proven to be either a hoax or a real Bigfoot. However, my personal opinion was first that it was real, then that it was fake, and now I have come back around to being certain it is real.
The clincher for me was a slowed down sequence showing the female Bigfoot obviously lifting the baby Bigfoot onto her shoulders as she runs. Furthermore, I have learned more about the makers of the video and their family and I no longer think that they are hoaxers.
It has been 15 years since this footage was taken, and no one has yet come forward claiming to be part of a hoax, and 30 people witnessed the event. Further, no one has yet come forward claiming to be the guy in the suit either. In addition, there were multiple other Bigfoot sightings in the area in the preceding three days before the footage was shot.
