A Sasquatch Expert Says the Colorado Train Video Was of 'a Guy in a Suit'

When Dante first posted this video last week:

... my first inclination was to believe that we may have just witnessed the greatest anthropological discovery in human history. That after centuries of lore - from Siberia to the Native Americans, from Teddy Roosevelt to West Coast newspaper accounts in the 1920s - and thousands of hours of unwatchable TV with names like Finding Bigfoot in which the one thing that no one ever does is find Bigfoot, we may have finally found Bigfoot. 

I mean, after all, not only does that creature look and move like an actual mysterious hominid, it's out in the middle of nowhere. The fact someone could randomly spot one out a train window seemed more likely than some guy buying a costume at Spirit Halloween, parking his car someplace, and trudging out into the vast expanse of wilderness over harsh terrain to wait until his buddy's train could come by and capture him on video, just for a lark.

Then came the Community Notes added to the bottom of that original X post. And I began to have my doubts. Now comes this little bit of debunkery:

Source - A Bigfoot expert has revealed the couple who recently claimed they spotted the mythological creature in Colorado probably saw a guy in a suit. 

Shannon Parker and her husband Stetson Tyler said they saw the beast during a Narrow Gauge train ride from Durango to Silverton on October 8. …

But specialist Michael Rugg, curator of the Bigfoot Discovery Museum in California, doused their claims. 

 'I have to say I looked at the video and [the creature] had a strong possibility of being a guy in a suit,' Rugg told The New York Post. 

He was not able to say for certain the footage was not of Bigfoot despite having his suspicions. 

'It didn’t look right to me. It’s not muscular enough. There’s not enough detail to be able to judge it but it wouldn’t surprise me if somebody from [another Bigfoot] museum was out to build up publicity.' 

Really? Is this really what we're doing here, people? Going through all this time and effort to hoax the world just to sell tickets to some exhibit? Where does this end? What, are we going end up with shows on basic cable like Bigfoot Museum Wars, where rival curators compete for Squatch enthusiasts hard-earned dollars? 

Is it just too much to ask that they leave us alone? That we get to believe that there's and offshoot of Australopithecus still out in the wild, avoiding all human contact? That they've survived through the eons where other primates perished due to their superior adaptability, senses and intellect? Can we just be allowed to imagine this without getting scammed by the Sasquatch Museum Industrial Complex? 

I say again, I'm not necessarily convinced Bigfoot exists. But I do believe it's entirely plausible. I defy anyone to visit Alaska or fly over the Yukon, to gaze out over the incomprehensible size of the deep forest and uninhabitable mountainous terrain, unspoiled by humankind, and come away convinced nothing could exist there without us knowing about it. 

But to some extent, if this does turn out to be fake, I'll be almost relieved. The Bigfoot I like to think could exist isn't some bumbling idiot so stupid he'd get caught out in the open when a train is whipping by, then decide to duck behind a little shrub like a toddler playing Hide & Seek with dad. I like my Squatches to be brilliant at the art of camouflage. In fact, that's one of the reasons the legend is so powerful. I refer you to a Doctor Who episode that opens with The Doctor talking direct to camera where he points out nature has evolved perfect predators (jump cut to a lionness pouncing on a gazelle), perfect defenses (jump cut to a puffer fish blowing up like a balloon), so why not perfect hiding? The answer: Because if it did, how would we know? I like to think Bigfoot has evolved perfect hiding. Too perfect to be caught on camera out a train window.

Which means the best proof we have of its existence is still the Patterson-Gimlin film, which is almost 60 years ago. Credit where it's due to the show The Proof is Out There for  using modern techniques to take the shaky cam out of it and clean up the frames so we can see the floppy Squatchboobs and Bigfoot buttcrack to make it seem all the more convincing. Zoom in … enhance …

Until something better comes along, I'll keep relying on this as the reason I won't stop believin'.