Bigfoot believers are fired up about a video, shared by OutThere Colorado on Oct. 10, that was recorded from inside a tourist train in southwestern Colorado. The footage shows a large, hairy biped walking across a hillside before squatting in the sagebrush. Some Sasquatch hunters are pointing to the clip as obvious proof of Bigfoot’s existence, while skeptics say it’s clearly a prankster in costume.
In an email to OutThere Colorado, Shannon Parker said she saw Bigfoot over the weekend of Oct. 7. Parker and her husband were riding on the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad Train when they spotted the creature on the hillside. Another passenger seated next to Parker recorded the video on their phone while she snapped photos with hers. That video has since been viewed 3.5 million times on X (formerly known as Twitter) alone.
The short clip clearly shows the creature walking and then squatting as the train passes by. When crouched, it blends in perfectly with the surrounding grasses.
Parker told the news outlet that “seeing was believing,” and that she and her husband were convinced the creature was Bigfoot in the flesh. She said employees on the train agreed that it could have been a legitimate sighting.
However, the footage still falls within the dubious genre of Bigfoot videos, which are about as credible as your Uncle Kenny’s latest UFO sighting. And while the video is less shaky and more in-focus than your typical Sasquatch flick, there are plenty of people who just aren’t buying it.
Several users on the Bigfoot Believers Facebook page have said it’s clearly a prankster wearing a costume or a ghillie suit. Others point to the zoomed-in image of the creature’s face, which could pass for an ape but also looks a little bit like a man wearing sunglasses.
“We’ll take archery hunter for $200,” Colorado Parks and Wildlife wrote in its response to the video post.
There’s also the location to consider since the creature was seen within eyeshot of a well-known tourist train. Skeptics wonder why such an elusive creature would pop a squat by a train route frequented by hundreds of tourists if not for a prank or a publicity stunt.
“Much as I want it to be real, a train full of tourists would be a prime opportunity for a hoaxer or a practical joker,” another user wrote.
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Others in the Centennial State will keep on believing, as Colorado ranks among the top 10 states in the U.S. in terms of the number of Bigfoot sightings, according to the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization. Out of the 130-plus sightings recorded there, a fair number of those have taken place in and around the rugged San Juan Mountains.
Traipsing around those mountains in a Sasquatch suit would be risky proposition, even though the laws around Bigfoot hunting are unclear in Colorado. (Shooting a Skunk Ape is perfectly legal in Texas but it’s against the law in Washington, for example.) Regulations aside, it seems some believers in the state will only feel vindicated by a corpse and not a recording.
“I don’t know why we keep posting videos and pictures,” one commenter wrote in the Bigfoot Believers group page. “The issue won’t be resolved until a body makes it into the hands of the scientific community before the government has a chance to suppress it.”