The video was made by a good Christian friend, Jim Mills, who lived with his wife Anita and family about ¼ mile from my home on Bitney Springs Road in Grass Valley. During my first year (1980) in Grass Valley, I had met Jim while attending the large local First Baptist Church, where he was involved with the youth program and also working as a security guard at Nevada Union High School across the street. We both enjoyed wilderness camping and continued to stay in touch even after I had switched to another fellowship. Kids loved him and “Nita”, and along with holding very popular and stimulating weekly Bible studies at their home (in association with Christian youth organization Campus Life) they always took supervised groups of older youth on summer campouts to favorite spots in the Marble Mountains. Jim had a gentle and loving spirit and a kind sense of humor, but was serious minded and never known to use humor at someone else’s expense, pull practical jokes, or mount hoaxes.

He first mentioned the video to me about a month after it was taken, saying that Nita had given him the camera the Christmas before and this was his very first use of it. One of his sons had found the hut and had been crawling in and out of it. While taping the hut, the distant figure was spotted and he had to back up against a tree in order to help steady the unfamiliar hand-held camera. I asked if he’d mind showing me the video, so he rather reluctantly brought it over to my house where I saw it for the first time, and of course I asked if this was a stunt he’d devised. He was adamant that it was the real thing; and in a later talk with his wife she also assured me that nothing had been staged, and that no one in their group, including Jim, would have had time to construct such an elaborate hut between the time they arrived and set up camp and the time it was found. In fact, during our visits he had never mentioned the term “Bigfoot” and was uneasy when I introduced the idea. Though baffling, he initially believed it must have had some other explanation.

The written BFRO report was submitted by J. S., a friend from Gold Country Calvary Fellowship (where I was serving as a deacon and working in the men’s ministry), after hearing me tell about it at a July 26-28, 2001, “Big Boy’s” men’s church campout at McRae Meadows near Johnsville, CA. A couple of months before this campout, I had done a Google search on “Bigfoot”, had found the BFRO site (which seemed less sensational and wild-eyed than some of the others), and had suggested to Jim that he contact them. Again, he was reluctant to make anything of it, and was a bit fearful about being labeled a crackpot and damaging his credibility as a serious follower of Christ. He finally gave me permission to contact BFRO with the story and supply them with contact info. So I had already called BFRO and was awaiting their response when J.S. told me that he had also submitted my campfire version of Jim’s story. BFRO subsequently contacted me by phone once or twice before paying a visit to Jim and getting an interview and a copy of his video.

Thus, although also unsure of what was filmed, I can at least offer reasonable assurance that if found to be a hoax it would have been someone other than Jim Mills or his camping group involved in staging it.

The scratches (clawmarks) on the tree trunk look manmade. Due to the relatively recent construction of a supposed structure would we not also expect that the scratches to also be recent? If they are natural I would bet that they are ‘bearmade’.

Having said all that: I am astonished at the results of an exercise I just now concluded in duplicating and measuring the entity filmed on the ridge (video timeline @10:57). Working in AutoCAD® and allowing for the foreshortening due to estimated distances from focal plane etc., I used variously assumed tree diameters for the cedar tree immediately uphill of the subject as a set of possible reference dimensions. Doing this, I came up with a subject height of between 9’-6” and 15’-0”! I scaled the subject many times with many different tree diameters. The range of estimated tree diameter I used in this experiment were between 20 and 36 inches, with the most probable statistically being 27”. Again, this for the one uphill tree nearest the subject. If the tree were actually a smaller diameter this would proportionally diminish the apparent dimension of the subject. Should any of you want to duplicate my experiment; remember to adjust the apparent distance of the ref. tree to the subject. I fully realize the subjective, imprecise nature of the extrapolations in this exercise, it does though get us close to a possible (likely) dimensional range and helps to eliminate the extremes on the curve..

Finally, and albeit contradictory to this finding of the subjects huge stature is that the subject’s arms in no way reach its knees.

@EastTexan
I agree, digital photography enhanced by digital magnification etc., with bright back-lighting tends to distort distant, (.43 miles), subjects; making dark objects appear thinner.

I really wish we could enforce a requirement for anyone carrying a camcorder afield to also carry and use a tripod! How much nicer would that be. LOL

The fact that there are no visibly cut branches is interesting as some are quite large in diameter, (to large for humans to break at their bases at least)

I think it somewhat unreasonable to assume that all sasquatches are carbon copies of each other. There is undoubtedly some variation in physique throughout the population just as there is with man, (probably to a lessor degree). So; to judge a half-mile distant figure on the subjects apparent physique is altogether risky.

The Marble mountain video is interesting and I, for one, am unable to ascertain the films authenticity.

To me, the figure looked like a guy carefully stepping down a slope that has loose rocks on it. That is why he moves abnormally. The footing is not stable enough to walk naturally, but not steep enough to need the arms outstretched for balance. I’ve noticed that when walking down a slope (not a steep one) where the footing is iffy, guys tend to keep their arms lowered and hands closed. (Girls spread their arms out/up with hands opened.)

It is very easy to see his knees bending as he walked and his hands were not below them. At some points his arms looked long, but he was slightly hunched over as he tried to keep his balance.

When between the trees he is not jumping up and down, he is “stepping” down a steeper slope towards the people to get a better look. The height between the “steps” are too high to step down naturally, but not high enough to have to jump down. This time he does need more balance so his arms are outstretched and they move up and down as he goes from step to step. He is moving left and right as he picks the easiest route.

It looks like the white strip down his chest is just a light t-shirt showing through his unzipped “hoodie” jacket. The hood pushed back made the silhouette of his head look bigger and his neck look shorter/muscular. It almost looked like he had a backpack, I can’t say for sure though.

I think he was mad. He spend some considerable energy setting up his camp only to come back and find a bunch of people poking around. That is why he waved his arms and grabbed his head. I bet he was cussing up a storm. Because of them, he had to find a new spot and start over.

Its true that some of the large branches making up the hut were broken, not cut. One explanation could be that they were on a tree above his head and he jumped up, grabbed them and used his weight to break them off. Not everyone brings an axe or saw camping. This isn’t a great explanation, but the hut just doesn’t look like other examples I’ve seen of structures created by bigfoot. It looks more sophisticated and finished.

Something I do find hard to explain away is the height comparison in the second video. I did notice that the branch used for comparison looked like it ended below the bottom foliage of the tree on the left in the original video. In the comparison, the branch ended above. Its hard to tell with the difference time makes.

Not being an expert on kinesiology, I can’t say how difficult it is for a human to imitate the creature’s hip movements or whether those lie within or outside human range.

But I am an expert on height (since height requires no expertise) and can say that for this video to have been hoaxed, the actor who played the BFRO expert would have to have been 4 feet tall in order for the branch used for the height comparison to be within the range of human height or at a height of about 6 feet.

If it can be proven that the BFRO subject indeed was 6 feet tall then I don’t see why this video shouldn’t be hailed as one of the more important ones.

To the extent that I can interpret hominid body language I would agree that the creature does seem to be in a state of distress. Perhaps feeling frustration that its territory has been violated.

But why would it walk as if on a tightrope? It seems to be less at ease on that terrain than a human. Clumsy, if you ask me.

The contribution by dermal_ridges_are_proof was great.

If we are to accecpt the patterson footage, and I do, with that being the standard this figure is nothing like the patterson bigoot in terms of locomtion. It resembles a crazy person walking on a ridge.