Cliff Barackman's Thoughts On The Kentucky Eye Shine Video

The Kentucky episode of Finding Bigfoot featured an amateur video from Fort Knox, Kentucky. The video was obtained by Charles Bowles using a Sony DCR-TRV480 camera on the night of June 14, 2008 purportedly showing eye-shine from a Bigfoot.

During their investigation, there were disagreements within the Finding Bigfoot crew about what the two glowing eyes in the footage could possibly be. Ranae stated that it could have been an owl while the Matt and Bobo suggested something bigger than an owl, possibly a "squatch".

A few days ago, Cliff Barackman finally posted his "Finding Bigfoot - Kentucky Field Notes". After talking with the witness and going to the site, Cliff had this to say:

What I found at the site was the video was obtained from the top of the ridge looking down the slope. There is a road at the bottom of the hill, but the two glowing eyes are not headlights, as some have suggested. They seem to be eyes, but it is unclear what those eyes belong to.
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At the film site, I determined the tree next to the rock to be four inches in diameter. By counting some pixels on a still from the video, and using this horizontal measurement with a little basic algebra, it can be determined that the distance between the two eyes in the video is just under three inches. I used the centers of the two glowing eyes for this measurement. If I use the outside edges of the eyes, it only increases the distance to four and a quarter inches. I do not know the distance between the eyes of a sasquatch, but I would think that a nine foot bigfoot would have eyes a bit further apart than that. My own eyes (measured at the center of my pupils) are about 2.6 inches apart. I do not know how wide apart various owl species' eyes are, but I would be very interested to find out.

As I see it, in order for the video to show a bigfoot that is NOT standing on the rock, the creature would have to be well in excess of 12 feet tall. This is pretty much outside the range of all but the largest of size estimates by bigfoot witnesses. Since bigfoots of this size are either extremely rare, or their size estimates are exaggerated due to seeing conditions, distance, or fear, I see this possibility as most unlikely. If this video shows a bigfoot's eyes that is standing on that rock, then we run into the problem of why the rest of the body isn't visible in the film, when the tree at its side (and in the same film plane) is easily visible. It has been suggested to me that the bark of the tree is very reflective to infrared light, and sasquatches have somehow developed fur that absorbs these wavelengths, rendering them practically invisible in infrared illumination. I suppose this is possible, but I see it as pretty unlikely.

My conclusion on the film is that it probably does not show a bigfoot, though I could be wrong. I suspect that it shows the eye reflection of an owl sitting back on a branch that has broken off sometime in the three years between the filming and my on-site investigation. If I had more information about the distance between the eyes of owls, I would be a bit more sure in my assessment, but at this point, the sasquatch hypothesis seems less likely than other explanations.

But, of course, I could be wrong. That's part of the fun of doing these investigations. I get to find out what could be possible, what couldn't, and then come up with my own opinion on things. Sharing my conclusions is simply part of the process of the scientific method called "peer review." If new information comes to light about my conclusions which proves my conclusion to be incorrect, it doesn't make me a bad investigator or a stupid person. It makes for better science. Amateur science, I admit, but science nonetheless.

You can read the full "Finding Bigfoot - Kentucky Field Notes" by Cliff Barackman here.