Mid-America Bigfoot Research Center

By Daniel Dover

February 2015

The Florida BFRO did a great job investigating a series of hoaxes in Florida. Here is a link to their report: Florida BFRO Report

Three men in Florida who were all in the same hard rock band are likely responsible for at least three hoaxes committed in that state. The primary suspect is bass player Justin Arnold who is a taxidermist and has long engaged in bigfoot art. costume, and mask making. Below is the two headed alligator he created and blitzed media outlets with photos of his alleged discovery. But notice none of the legs touch the ground, hovering just above the surface. If he would have been more intelligent he would have dug the bank out below the body of the prop so the legs would touch the surface.

Arnold includes his wife in the role of possible conspirators when he makes this comment about his find, “”My wife and I were walking our dog in Seminole Heights when we noticed a few people gathered near the river,” Arnold wrote. “We went over and saw that there was a two-headed alligator on the river bank.” Arnold & wife are not the only ones likely perpetrating this hoax. Fellow band member Andy Stern also discovered the two headed alligator independently of them and also sent a photo to the media.

“On Monday, Stern told Tampa Bay Times he was walking near Epps Park in Seminole Heights on Friday when his dog started barking at the shore. “I looked over and saw the gator and obviously was in shock,” he wrote in an email. “I got close enough to take that picture but didn’t want to get any closer. It didn’t move while I was there and I wasn’t about to give it a reason to!” Tampa Bay Times

Now, what are the odds of two fellow band members stumbling upon a two headed alligator independent of one another with both sending photos of it to the media, an alligator whose legs hover above the surface because it’s likely a stiff creation of faux taxidermist Justin Arnold, as we see here with the legs and tail hovering stiffly above the surface.

A second hoax

Another likely hoax was supplied by another fellow band member and close friend of Justin’s and Andy’s, Matt McKamey, who blitzed the media with the following video of a skunk ape in Lettuce Lake Park filmed from a rented canoe. What are the odds of these supposed mythical/freaks of nature independently falling into the laps of three close friends/band members? There is a bit of a smoking gun when three close friends independently make such finds, especially considering it involves a fake two headed gator.

Lettuce Lake Skunk Ape Video

compelling_footage_of_possible_skunkapebigfoot_from_lettuce_lake_park_florida_240p.mp4

(6.03 MiB) Downloaded 552 times

A Third Hoax

The Hillsboro River runs through Lettuce Lake Park, the same river where the two headed alligator was found, and its the same water where it seems a third hoax was perpetrated. Someone named John Rodriguez blitzed the media with his own skunk ape photo. Rodriguez’s photo is a spitting image of artwork previously done by Justin Arnold prior to Rodriguez taking the photo of the alleged skunk ape. Moreover, real descriptions of bigfoot (skunk ape) do not have a white skunk stripe nor a turned up gorilla nose like is depicted in Justin’s art or the prop below. What are the odds of artist/taxidermist Justin Arnold happening to paint a picture before an exact physical replica of that painting is sent to the media?

Is John Rodriguez another conspirator or an alias penned by serial hoaxers (no one can locate him)? Justin Arnold dug his ditch deeper when responding to criticisms of his close friend Matt (who claimed to capture video of the Lettuce Lake skunk ape from a rented canoe) and also to criticisms of the similarities between his artwork and the skunk ape photo. Justin sent the following response to “Bigfoot Evidence.” This is what Justin wrote,

“I wanted to comment on the false allegations published about me by the BFRO. The lettuce lake skunk ape video is real and BFRO’s debunking is irresponsible, unfounded and misleading. Those accusing me of being part of an elaborate hoax never contacted me or got statements from any of the people slandered in the “report.” That alone should cause you to question the entire approach. All they had to do was ask and I would have answered. They didn’t even try. To the readers of this, now like a credible report, you’ll hear both sides. To address their accusations, first of all, yes, I have done faux taxidermy. If that’s enough for you to put me in a gorilla suit, read no further. In your mind my guilt has already been decided. Secondly, yes, I have painted many pictures depicting the skunk ape. When I was a child I was hiking with my grandfather in Green Swamp I saw a skunk ape. The experience was incredible and it always stuck with me. Like most artists, I use my personal experiences in my work. Does my depiction resemble the photo taken by John Rodriguez last month? Yes. If it’s a hoax did the perpetrator take influence from my art? It would appear so. Did he photograph the same or similar skunk ape that I saw as a child? Equally possible.” Alledged Hoaxer denies allegations

So, Justin Arnold stated his artwork of a skunk ape was built on what he saw as a child, commenting that perhaps John Rodriquez had either copied his art, or photographed the same or similar skunk ape that he saw as a child. Considering no skunk ape has ever been observed sporting a white skunk stripe ALL of the above is very questionable. Justin likely invented his claim of seeing a skunk ape with a white skunk stripe. Depictions of bigfoot do not include a turned up gorilla nose either. Thus Justin confounded his situation, bringing more scrutiny on himself, making it worse, by continuing to defend these frauds and friends, claiming the photo looked just like a skunk ape he had seen before to justify his art being a spitting image of the skunk ape photo.

He never mentioned anything about the hoaxed two headed alligator in his rebuttal of hoax allegations, only commenting he did faux taxidermy. Furthermore, Matt McKamey declined to meet the Florida BFRO at the site he allegedly filmed the skunk ape in Lettuce Lake Park; so, statements by Justin that the Florida BFRO had not contacted people he claims were slandered in the BFRO report is false.

What are the chances of these good buddies being connected to three independent cryptid sightings, even independent of each other, all occurring in the same general area? Is this just a great coincidence or is this a smoking gun? Justin Arnold has the skills to fabricate props and costumes. Considering the two headed alligator is definitely a prop, as well as the skunk ape photo, the Lettuce Lake skunk ape video, being tied to this same possible group of serial hoaxers is likely just more of their shenanigans.

[url=http://bfrofl.com/the-debunking-of-the-lettuce-lake-skunk-ape-footage/]The Debunking of the Lettuce Lake Skunk Ape Footage[/url] wrote: By BFRO Investigator R. Monteith

“There’s a sucker born every minute” is a phrase most likely spoken by David Hanum, in criticism of both P.T. Barnum, the American showman of the mid 1800s, and his customers. The phrase is often credited to Barnum himself. It means “Many people are gullible, and we can expect this to continue.”

It is ironic that when investigating the recent Lettuce Lake video out of Tampa, P. T. Barnum’s history was found amongst the blogs of the participants. I believe the men involved intended in every aspect to hoax the public and get publicity for their “joke”. These men knew their hoax needed much more than a monkey suit and fake feet. They did their homework in regards to fooling the public, but neglected to cover their big hairy tracks.

Through the process of The Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (BFRO) collecting proactive data, false data becomes apparent. When the “witness” contacted us, sending his video, we investigated and this is what we found.

January 20th

The Florida BFRO posted an announcement on their website that they were taking reservations to join Finding Bigfoot on January 31st as they filmed a town hall meeting in Sarasota, FL. Their announcement was picked up by other blogs including Bigfoot Evidence which published it online Thursday, January 22nd. It was now public knowledge that Finding Bigfoot would be filming in the Tampa/Sarasota area on and around January 31st.

January 23rd

We received the following email:

—–Original Message—–

From: No Reprieve [noreprieverecords@gmail.com]

Sent: Friday, January 23, 2015 1:21 PM

To: Info@BFROFL.com

Subject: Hello

Id like to RSVP for the Sarasota town hall with some friends. Is it by

reservation only? What time and where is it exactly?

Thanks

And responded back the same day:

Thank You for contacting the Florida BFRO.

To RSVP we need your name, your email address, and the names of those
attending with you. We will send more information regarding the time and
place next week.

We look forward to seeing you.

We never heard back from noreprieverecords@gmail.com. At the time we didn’t think much of it. (Later though, this email address became the smoking gun that helped us prove the Lettuce Lake video is a hoax, that Matt McKamey and his friends have a history of hoaxing, and that they are knowledgeable of bigfoot behavior. But more on that later…..)

January 25th

Bigfoot Evidence and other bloggers published more stories about Finding Bigfoot filming in the Sarasota area. At that time, the news went viral in the bigfoot community.

January 26th

The BFRO received this email:

From: Matt <mattmckameyxxxxx@xxxxxxx.com>
Date: Mon, Jan 26, 2015 at 7:08 PM
Subject: Tampa video
To: “contact@bfro.net” <contact@bfro.net>

I was canoeing some of the swamps around Lettuce Lake Park and saw what I thought was a bear. I told a park ranger about it and he said that bears don’t generally get into the swamp and that there were never many sightings in general. I showed her the video and she said she didn’t know what it was. I saw the Fox13 story about the bigfoot a few weeks ago that mayor Bob Buckhorn made a statement about and thought this might be related in some way. I never put much faith in the old skunk ape legends but when I looked closer I noticed that it had long, swinging arms and moved through very thick swamp with ease. Certainly can’t explain it myself. I didn’t get very close but I hope that this footage can be enlarged. You have my permission to use it and edit it however. Made you can shed some light on it. I can give you my phone number. Email said the file is too big so I put it in a Google Drive folder.

Matt



We watched the video and more or less thought it inconclusive. It was another blurry, dark video. Myself and another BFRO Investigator, Marian Gant live very close to Lettuce Lake park. We know the area the video claimed to have been filmed at. There have been reports near it and we’ve found prints. So we thought it possible a bigfoot would be there. Still, we didn’t like that the creature in the video wasn’t too concerned of their canoe close by or the noise of their paddles hitting the metal sides. Just two weeks prior, another hoaxer’s claims of a bigfoot in the Hillsborough River turned out to be a gorilla statue, so there was the possibility this video’s maker was a copycat. We thought maybe the sender’s name “Matt McKamey” with the initials “MM” was mocking the name of the BFRO’s founder Matt Moneymaker’s. We also took into consideration that people knew Finding Bigfoot was in town.

January 27th

We discovered the video was posted all over the internet. Bigfoot Evidence had it, Phil Poling had analyzed it. A dozen Facebook groups were talking about it. We investigate all videos, photos, and reports sent to us before releasing them to the public. That EVERY bigfoot organization had seen or heard of this video within 24 hours of our receiving it meant that we weren’t the only ones it was emailed to. This was a huge RED FLAG.

Another red flag was that the email Bigfoot Evidence and Phil Poling received with the video told a different story of the incident:

“If it’s a person that they are either a moron or completely insane. They are walking, swimming and diving in an area where there are hundreds of 12 foot gators and water moccasins everywhere. I was there watching it for a while. Seemed to notice me and walked toward deeper water. It went underwater and vanished. Paddled up there and it was nowhere to be seen.

You can do whatever with the video. I’m not looking for anything.”

The story was not only changed, it didn’t depict what was in the video. In the video the figure didn’t swim or go underwater, it walked off into the swamp. In the video the witness wanted to get out of there and turned his boat away. He didn’t paddle up to where the figure was last seen. If he returned to the location, then why didn’t he mention it? Why didn’t he video it?

Another question we had was why was he out there in the first place? The weekend the video was supposedly taken was cold by local standards. On Saturday, January 24th, a weather front came through. It rained all day, and the winds were blowing more than 25mph. The video was obviously not taken this day. On Sunday, January 25, the Tampa area had a low of 46 and the temperature hovered in the low 60’s all day. Most Florida locals do not go canoeing in what we refer to as COLD weather. Visiting Canadians may, but people who live in Florida don’t. Suffice to say, this was yet another Red Flag.

It seemed odd that the new story was more alarmist. It said there are “…hundreds of 12 foot gators and water moccasins everywhere…” in the area. Why add this to the story? Unless he wanted to fabricate a reason why it couldn’t have been a person in a costume. A reason why a person wouldn’t be out there.

Why didn’t he include this part in the story he emailed to us? Maybe because we’d know better. We have been on this river many times. There are not hundreds of 12 foot gators and waters moccasins everywhere. The ones that are there never bother us. It was in the low 60’s that day. Gators and snakes would be sluggish and more interested in finding a sunny spot to warm up than going after someone sloshing around in the cold water.

January 28th

A producer of Finding Bigfoot asked us to contact Matt McKamey. The producer acknowledged the video was most likely a hoax, but wanted the Finding Bigfoot team to determine it.

We emailed him and this was his reply:

Hello,

I’m usually available to talk nights and weekends. If you don’t get me, try back.

(813) 625-XXXX

Matt

January 29th

We forwarded the number to the producer and his assistant called Matt. Instead of returning the call, we received this email:

—Original Message—–
From: Matt <mattmckameyxxxxxx@xxxxxxx.com>
To: xxxxx <xxxxxxx@xxxxx.com>
Sent: Thu, Jan 29, 2015 7:04 pm
Subject: Re: From FL BFRO
Talked to a lady and she wanted me to drive like an hour and a half to Myakka. That’s just too far. If you’d like to meet up at my house or at Bigfoot Bar on the river up in Tampa that’d be cool.

If you just want to use my video, you’re welcome to and I don’t need anything in return. I’m not looking to make money or be famous.

Someone brought this up to me today, thought it might interest you. There was a monkey loose in a residential neighborhood here. The entire animal control and fish and wildlife couldn’t find it for three years.

http://www.abcactionnews.com/news/myste ... petersburg

When he complained that the hour drive was too far to go, we pretty much knew it had to be a hoax. I thought it odd he wanted to meet at a “Bigfoot Bar,” and thought the mention of the mystery monkey was a bit of misdirection.

The timeline above lists the events that led to our making the decision to investigate deeper into this hoax. We had in mind to find the location of where the video took place and recreate the video with a person. We thought a side-by-side comparison might show the quality of the video. It turned out we didn’t need to go to the river at all. We just needed to Google.

We started by googling the information we had so far on Matt McKamey: email, name, and phone number. This is when everything got very interesting.

We found he is a musician in a hard rock band with the record label No Reprieve Records. Turns out the email for the record label was our “smoking gun”: noreprieverecords@gmail.com. It was the same email address used on January 23rd in response to our post about Finding Bigfoot taking reservations to attend a town hall in Sarasota. When we replied asking for names, they never answered. This was three days before anyone received the video.

http://www.discogs.com/artist/2175699-Matthew-Mckamey.

More googling provided the names of his band members Justin Alan Arnold, and Andy Stern. There are many websites where all three are listed or photographed together. They also list each other as friends on various social media sites.

http://digital.turn-page.com/i/304545/49

http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/soundchec ... on/2054236

We found this link which reveals Justin Alan Arnold is an artist that has been drawing bigfoot for years! He makes masks and other bigfoot “things.”

http://www.tumbex.com/blog/justinalanarnold/0/skunkape

Then we hit pay dirt!

We found a story from the Tampa Bay Times on July 30, 2014. It shows a photo of a two-headed alligator sent in by a Justin Arnold. An Andy Stern also sent them a photo claiming he saw it, too.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/humaninter ... ck/2186639

The story was picked up by the Huffington Post.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/0 ... 52300.html

In this photo, Justin is now a “local naturalist” claiming Florida Wildlife officials explained the two headed alligator as “an anomaly due to failed separation of monozygotic twins which is common in reptiles.” Notice that now he claims the two headed alligator was caught by local trappers and preserved.

http://justinalanarnold.tumblr.com/

The final nail in the coffin was found at this link. Remember the gorilla statue found in the Hillsborough River a few weeks before McKamey sent out his video? Turns out he wasn’t a copycat. He and his friends were responsible for that hoax, too.

http://bigfootevidence.blogspot.com/201 ... going.html

http://beforeitsnews.com/paranormal/201 ... 81446.html

The Orlando Sentinel also had a story about Justin and the Skunk Ape photo before the video:

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/features ... -post.html

Given all the evidence we listed above, it is our belief, that the picture and video of a bigfoot in the Hillsborough River are both hoaxes perpetuated by the same group of people – Matt McKamey, Justin (Alan) Arnold, and Alan Stern.

On Friday, August 9, 2013 on Justin’s Tumbler Blog he mentions Matt McKamey being one of his favorite people in the world, but also mentions how P.T. Barnum fooled the public with great fanfare, when the Fiji Mermaid was an obvious fake. I imagine this gave him some ideas on fooling the public.

http://justinalanarnold.blogspot.com/20 ... chive.html

Florida man claims to have Big Foot picture in viral hoax wrote: Despite evidence to the contrary, a Florida man is insisting that he captured a crisp picture of Big Foot bathing in the Hillsborough River the day after Christmas.

Fisherman John Rodriguez sent the picture to the Huffington Post's Lee Spiegel, who contacted Ben Hansen of the Syfy Channel's "Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files" series, who then examined the photo and pointed out the digital editing flaws.

Although the photo looks like someone in a gorilla suit standing in a swamp, Spiegel says the inconsistent shadows and digital touch ups around the beast's fur makes it seem as though someone pasted in the animal after the fact.

Plus as some of you may remember, this isn't the first time the Hillsborough River has supposedly been home to a too-strange-to-be-real creature.

In July, Justin Arnold posted a photo online of what he said was a two-headed alligator he spotted along the Hillsborough River. The photo quickly circulated online but its authenticity was heavily scrutinized, especially since Arnold is an artist whose work focuses on strange and mythical creatures, as you can tell by the content on his Tumblr.

In that instance, experts told the media that although two-headed animals do exist in nature, it's very rare that they survive and no one had reported the alligator.

Arnold hasn't mentioned the Big Foot sighting online yet, but BigFootEvidence.com has pointed out that the most recent Sasquatch picture looks almost identical to Skunk Ape painting Arnold did back in 2013.

Still, Rodriguez tells the Huffington Post that the picture is real and no Photoshopping was involved. Click here to see the picture and read the full story at HuffingtonPost.com.

Copyright © 2017, Orlando Sentinel

That photo of a two-headed Seminole Heights alligator? It's a total crock! wrote: Neville Green, Editor, tbt*
Monday, June 30, 2014 8:59pm

Aaron Conrad of Lutz was among those not buying that photo of a two-headed alligator on tbt*'s cover Monday.

"I am going to have to call fake on your picture," he wrote in an email. "The gator looks dried and stuffed like something from a tourist shop. The front and back legs aren't even touching the ground and the tail looks dead. The skin looks like it is covered in lacquer. I think you need to take a closer look. I think you have been had."

Yes, indeed it seems we were.

But was that alligator, as Monty Python would describe it, an ex-gator and "bleedin' demised," or was it a quite adept piece of Photoshopping?

The answer is proving elusive. The reader who sent us the photo, Justin Arnold, was ducking our efforts — and those of several TV stations — to contact him on Monday.

He did attach a chatty note to the photo when he sent it to tbt* on the weekend. "My wife and I were walking our dog in Seminole Heights when we noticed a few people gathered near the river," Arnold wrote. "We went over and saw that there was a two-headed alligator on the river bank. I called a friend who works for Fish and Game and he told me that it was not all that uncommon and reptiles and amphibians often have failed separation of a monozygotic twins creating two headed animals. I Googled it and that appears to be true."

He wasn't the only person to send a photo of the gator to tbt*. Andy Stern did, too. "I've never seen anything like it!" he wrote. "I don't know if anyone else may have seen it, but I thought I should send this in to you in case you've gotten other reports."

On Monday, Stern told tbt* he was walking near Epps Park in Seminole Heights on Friday when his dog started barking at the shore. "I looked over and saw the gator and obviously was in shock," he wrote in an email. "I got close enough to take that picture but didn't want to get any closer. It didn't move while I was there and I wasn't about to give it a reason to!"

Alas, as the hunt for the two-headed gator was mounted Monday, skepticism quickly emerged.

WTSP-10 News reported that the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission had no reports of a two-headed alligator in the area. University of Florida professor Dr. Frank Mazzotti (the "Croc Doc") told WTSP that "conventional knowledge is that when these deformities occur, the hatchlings do not survive unless cared for (by humans) and often, not even then." But he did allow that the chance of finding a two-headed alligator in the wild is "not impossible."

Al Tompkins of the Poynter Institute noted that Justin Arnold has a collection of "astonishing photos on his Tumblr, including a fur-bearing trout and other oddities. One posting of a mythical water creature was reportedly captured by Arnold two hundred years ago." Tompkins pointed out that there were no tracks of the gator's claws or tail in the mud.

WTVT-Fox13 was also skeptical, but said some viewers had reached out to say they had seen "something similar" in the area before.

With Justin Arnold not returning our calls, we turned back to Andy Stern with the direct question: "Do you think it was a hoax?"

Stern replied: "All I know is what I saw," he said. "I'm no zoologist."

The conspiracists no doubt will think that Justin Arnold and Andy Stern were in cahoots in this affair. But here at tbt*, we will simply accept the egg on our face — and view reader photos with much more skepticism in the future.

Two-Headed Alligator Spotted In Florida River — Or Was It? wrote:
By David Moye

A two-headed alligator may have been spotted near a Florida river. Photos of the supposed creature, however, are making people think twice about whether it’s a hoax.

Justin Arnold claims he was walking his dog in Seminole Heights this past weekend when he spotted a crowd near the Hillsborough River. Walking closer he saw what he claims was a living two-head alligator and posted a photo on Facebook.

So far, the photo has been shared more than 4,300 times, but popularity breeds skepticism, least of all from Florida wildlife officials.

In his post, Arnold claims that officials from Florida Fish & Game have heard reports about the double-domed reptile, but the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission told WTSP TV that they’ve received no reports of a two-headed alligator in the area.

University of Florida wildlife ecology professor Frank Mazzotti, known as the “Croc Doc,” told the station that while it was “not impossible” that such a creature might exist in the wild, it was not likely.

“Conventional knowledge is that when these deformities occur, the hatchlings do not survive unless cared for [by humans] and often, not even then,” Mazzotti said.

The two-headed gator also has attracted skeptical comments from non-scientists like Aaron Conrad of Lutz, Florida.

He saw Arnold’s alleged gator photo on the front page of the Tampa Bay Times and immediately cried foul.

“The gator looks dried and stuffed like something from a tourist shop,” he wrote. “The front and back legs aren’t even touching the ground and the tail looks dead. The skin looks like it is covered in lacquer. I think you need to take a closer look. I think you have been had.”

The paper explained they published the photo by saying they had also received a photo of the creature from a man named Andy Stern, but promised to be more skeptical about reader-submitted photos in the future.

It’s unknown whether Stern was in cahoots with Arnold, who has not returned media inquiries about the alleged two-headed alligator.

According to My Fox Tampa Bay, Arnold is an artist who likes to create paintings and sculptures of unusual creatures and post them on a Tumblr blog.

Meanwhile, wildlife officials have sent out trappers to the area of the alleged two-headed alligator sighting just in case the creature actually exists, South Tampa Patch reports.

This Florida Skunk Ape Photo Is Going Viral! wrote:

The bigfoot world is buzzing with the release of the first major photo of 2015. John Rodriguez, a 66-year-old fisherman from Florida, claims to have taken the crystal clear photo of a bathing skunk ape seen above. The photo and story were released by HuffingtonPost.com.

It isn't very often such a clear bigfoot image is seen, and this one is certainly being passed around and discussed. The image is being heavily debated, with everyone having their own opinion. Some believe the image is real, others believe a costume.

Capture.JPG (7.51 KiB) Viewed 11342 times

Ben Hansen of the SyFy channel's 'Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files' thinks the image is photoshopped:


"To be more precise, the face of a gorilla that has been digitally added to the photo with editing software. Although I originally suspected the creature suit was actually in the water when the photo was taken, I started to notice shadows in front of the Bigfoot that appeared to be an inconsistent length and shape with the rest of the photo."

"Additionally, there appears to be some heavy digital editing touch-up to the fur around the face and where the body meets the water. I'm now leaning more toward believing the whole creature was pasted into the image and then branches and twigs were added in the foreground. The branches also could have really been in the scene, but they were later edited as separate layers so Bigfoot looks like he's now behind them, sitting in deep contemplation."

The skunk-like stripe on the creature is also something we find interesting, seeing how the Florida bigfoot is known as the "Skunk Ape". We found some artwork by artist Justin Arnold that bears a striking resemblance to the creature in the photo.

So what do you think? Is the Rodriguez photo the real deal, or just an elaborate hoax?

Fisherman Says He Saw Bigfoot Bathing ... And He Sent Us A Picture!
By Lee Speigel

One occupational hazard of reporting on unexplained phenomena: You can always count on waking up in the morning to find an email from someone swearing that they’ve just seen Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, a hybrid human alien or a UFO on the moon.

2015 began with a photo from John Rodriguez, a 66-year-old retired electrician, who claims that he was fishing Dec. 26 on the Hillsborough River near northeast Tampa, Florida, and came upon an incredible sight.

“I fish for gar in the river and I bring my camera to take pictures of the birds and what not. I heard a squishing sound, looked over and saw this thing walking through the water and crouch down in the duck weed. It did not look like a guy in a suit — it was definitely an animal. I took this picture and got out of there as fast as I could.”

Here’s the image that Rodriguez sent to HuffPost:

Rodriguez claims to have seen and photographed — in a completely clear and non-blurry moment — that tall, hairy, elusive creature often reported in North America and other parts of the world that goes by many names: Bigfoot, Sasquatch, Yeti. In Florida, it’s known as the Swamp Ape or Skunk Ape (primarily from descriptions of an extremely pungent odor it supposedly gives off).

“I’ve heard of Skunk Ape prints around Green Swamp [in Florida], but never anything like this,” Rodriguez told HuffPost in an email. “My whole life, never seen anything like it.”

Of course, the fact that the photo looks a little too crisp at some points, made us suspect it to be a fraud. Just look at the jagged line between the hairy beast and the water. That could be the work of a novice who just downloaded Photoshop for the first time.

However, we’ve got some time to kill. And doesn’t this man deserve to be taken at his word? After all, wouldn’t finding Bigfoot be a great way to kick off 2015?

Rodriguez said he snapped the picture in the early afternoon at an area where the Hillsborough River becomes a cypress swamp. The map below shows a small section of the 59-mile-long river that flows through Florida, filled with wildlife preserves that include many not-so-friendly creatures, such as alligators, known to jump into canoes and attack unsuspecting humans.

So, what are we to make of this fantastic tale? Did Rodriguez take the clearest, most definitive picture to date of Bigfoot?

Not so fast, according to Ben Hansen, lead investigator of the Syfy Channel’s “Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files” series.

“It’s a relief to finally have a clear picture of the creature,” Hansen, a former FBI agent, told HuffPost. “Every other photo and video we get is usually too blurry or the Bigfoot too obscured in brush to allow for any useful identification. Thanks to the clear photo, I’m excited to announce that the photographer has captured a real-life... gorilla in a Bigfoot suit!”

“To be more precise, the face of a gorilla that has been digitally added to the photo with editing software. Although I originally suspected the creature suit was actually in the water when the photo was taken, I started to notice shadows in front of the Bigfoot that appeared to be an inconsistent length and shape with the rest of the photo.”

“Additionally, there appears to be some heavy digital editing touch-up to the fur around the face and where the body meets the water. I’m now leaning more toward believing the whole creature was pasted into the image and then branches and twigs were added in the foreground. The branches also could have really been in the scene, but they were later edited as separate layers so Bigfoot looks like he’s now behind them, sitting in deep contemplation.”

Digital photographs use a format called EXIF data, which stores a lot of accessible information within each image — like shutter speed, if a flash was used, date and time of the image, etc. Hansen pointed out that the EXIF information of the Florida swamp creature picture suggests the image was digitally created on Dec. 26 with Photoshop.

Since those details are extremely important when trying to research unexplained phenomena images, we asked Rodriguez about this.

“I did not Photoshop this at all. Believe me or not,” Rodriguez said. “When I plug in my memory card, it asks to import and opens in Photoshop. I just changed the name and saved. It seems like people get publicly crucified for coming forward with this kind of stuff.”

Rodriguez also said this debunking attitude is what caused him to initially hesitate sending the original picture to HuffPost.

A March 2014 smithsonian.com story about the search for Florida’s Skunk Ape pointed out the following:

The belief in mythological animals might be as old as humanity itself. Nearly every culture’s folklore contains at least one imagined creature in its folklore that has no place in modern science.

It’s easy to imagine how, in the days when much of the planet had yet to be explored and catalogued, you might have reasonably believed in the existence of any of these beasts. But in the present day, when every square mile of the earth’s surface has been photographed by satellites, and scientists have identified 1.3 million species (with mostly plants, tiny animals and microbes remaining to be found), how could you still believe in a lumbering, seven-foot-tall ape, hiding out in one of the most well-studied countries on the planet?

When dealing with reports and discussions about things like Bigfoot, UFOs, lake monsters, ghosts, etc., there’s always a fine line walked by those who make the claims and the skeptics or outright debunkers who do their best to make the stories go away.

In the most literal sense, that’s the nature of the beast — especially where large, hairy creatures are involved.

Hansen brings up another item about this current alleged Skunk Ape sighting near Tampa.

“The white stripe down the middle of the head and chin is a nice touch. If it’s a Skunk Ape, why not make it look like a skunk, right? In reality, I have yet to come across a story with any merit where witnesses describe the Skunk Ape with an actual white stripe like a skunk.”

Par for the course, these stories produce strong opposing points of view. And still, one clear photograph of something that may or may not be a real Bigfoot is not definitive proof that the creature exists, the way DNA evidence — or an actual body — would be.

We still, apparently, don’t have either of those things yet.

Exclusive! Man Accused In Lettuce Lake Bigfoot Scandal Denies Allegations, Claims Video is Real! wrote:

Justin Arnold, one of the individuals accused of hoaxing the Lettuce Lake Skunk Ape video, has reached out to us with his side of the story. He's not only denying the accusations made against him, (which can be seen here) but is also claiming the video is real. He has given us permission to post the following:

"I wanted to comment on the false allegations published about me by the BFRO. The lettuce lake skunk ape video is real and BFRO's debunking is irresponsible, unfounded and misleading. Those accusing me of being part of an elaborate hoax never contacted me or got statements from any of the people slandered in the "report." That alone should cause you to question the entire approach. All they had to do was ask and I would have answered. They didn't even try. To the readers of this, now like a credible report, you'll hear both sides.

To address their accusations, first of all, yes, I have done faux taxidermy. If that's enough for you to put me in a gorilla suit, read no further. In your mind my guilt has already been decided. Secondly, yes, I have painted many pictures depicting the skunk ape. When I was a child I was hiking with my grandfather in Green Swamp I saw a skunk ape. The experience was incredible and it always stuck with me. Like most artists, I use my personal experiences in my work. Does my depiction resemble the photo taken by John Rodriguez last month? Yes. If it's a hoax did the perpetrator take influence from my art? It would appear so. Did he photograph the same or similar skunk ape that I saw as a child? Equally possible.

Arnold's artwork left, Rodriguez skunk ape photo right.

Justin also included a new painting he has done, titled "Titans of the Swamp"