Month: July 2009

The Museum of the Weird is expanding, both the brick-and-mortar location and our new online presence. That being said, we have a couple of announcements, of which you can read the full details below:

1. We are offering a paid position in our physical store (which today marks our four year anniversary, by the way!). 
2. Also, museumoftheweird.com is seeking story submissions from writers, as well as artists to provide illustrations (note, until the website becomes semi-profitable, submissions would be for exposure only, and is non-paid).

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WANTED: ASSISTANT MANAGER
If you live in the Austin, Texas area and would like a job that’s somewhat out of the ordinary (but pretty cool), then this might be the place for you. The Museum of the Weird and it’s gift shop, Lucky Lizard Curios & Gifts, is looking for a full-time assistant manager. Experience in retail and/or sales is mandatory. Job responsibilities include overseeing and delegating tasks to other employees, as well as basic day-to-day operation of the store and museum, including checking out customers, restocking inventory, and keeping the place clean. 
Benefits kick in after you’ve been with us for a year, and include Health (PPO), Dental, Prescription, and 401K. Base pay starts at $12/hr but is commensurate with experience.
Please send a resume and cover letter to:
steve@museumoftheweird.com
Again, if this sounds like something you’d be interested in, we look forward to hearing from you!
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WANTED: WRITERS AND ARTISTS
Since our newly revamped website museumoftheweird.com became a daily news site for weird and unusual stories, I’ve been overwhelmed with trying to write all the stories for the “Weekly Weird News” column, as well as continuing to run the business end of things both online and in the store. To help ease some of that burden on my shoulders, we are now accepting submissions from aspiring artists and writers who would like to contribute to the site. Whether you consider yourself a professional or not, if you think you’ve got what it takes to tell a great story in words or pictures, we’d love to see what you’ve got!  Here are some examples of what we’d be looking for:

• Current events – While we are primarily interested in short news bytes running 5 or 6 paragraphs long, we would also be interested in publishing some multi-part investigative journalism pieces (if you read our recent week long investigation into the Gable Film, this is a good example of what I mean).

• Historical research – Interested in investigating that UFO crash in Aurora, Texas in 1897? Or maybe covering the history of voodoo in New Orleans? How about relating the legends of werewolves and vampires in European culture? Here’s your opportunity to share your research with an eager audience.

• Plug your product – Wrote a book about your expedition in search of the Yeti? Tell us about it!  Just finished your Nessie documentary and need a place to tell the public about it? Write about it here!  Sponsoring a ghost hunt? Let us know!  You get the picture. And it beats advertising, because it won’t cost you a dime!  Just make sure you provide it to us in a finished article, and we’ll post it.

• Personal experiences – preferably ones that can be verified with documented evidence (eg: Bigfoot encounters, alien abductions, sightings of cryptids, personal ghost stories, etc.). This is your chance to tell your story to the world!  (however, we will do our best to verify any and all claims you make… we’re not looking for fictional stories, if you know what I mean.)

• Original artwork – whether your forte is photography, painting, pen-and-ink, or digital multimedia, museumoftheweird.com is interested in the rights to publish your original artwork to go along with current or future stories. You will get to keep your copyright and get 100% credit for the artwork, as well as a link to your website if you have one. Illustrations we would need: Bigfoot and other cryptids, ghosts and haunted houses, aliens and UFOs, myths and legends… the possibilities are endless.

Keep in mind just because you submit something does not guarantee it will be posted. If we decide to pass on your story or artwork, you will not be contacted, so please don’t email us back with questions or asking if we liked it  (sorry, but I’m already strapped for time as it is, that’s why we’re accepting submissions). However, if we do like what we see, we will most definitely get in touch with you, so please leave up-to-date contact information. Also if we do decide to accept your work for publication, please realize it is still subject to editing for grammar, style or content. 
If you are alright with all that, then please send a sample of your original piece, be it a story or illustration, to: steve@museumoftheweird.com.  Good luck, I look forward to seeing what you’ve got!

Hundreds of applicants lined up in Wookey Hole, England to get a chance to apply for the role of the Wookey Hole Cave Witch. The position pays £50,000 (about $82,000 in American dollars), not bad for a cackling old hag.
According to legend, in the Dark Ages the Wookey Hole Caves were home to a witch who was blamed for pestilence and disease plaguing the surrounding countryside. Finally an abbot sprayed her with holy water, causing the witch to turn to a stone pillar which, if you ask the locals, can still be seen in the caves to this day.
Today the caves have become a tourist attraction run by Wookey Hole, Ltd., the entertainment company that put out the casting call. In the end the job went to Ms. Carla Calamity, a Somerset estate agent, and a rather attractive woman for a witch I might add. Of course, she may have just put a spell on me…

Embed:<script src=”http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/.element/js/2.0/video/evp/module.js?loc=dom&vid=/video/living/2009/07/29/siraj.uk.which.witch.itn” type=”text/javascript”></script><noscript>Embedded video from <a href=”http://www.cnn.com/video“>CNN Video</a></noscript>

If you didn’t just catch the latest MonsterQuest, you missed a good one. Surprisingly, they just concluded they had the remains of an unknown creature that defied scientific identification, including DNA analysis. Above is a photo of the creature (supposedly when it was alive), which could fit in the palm of your hand. While alive, it was apparently very aggressive toward its captors.
My initial reaction was it was a small skinned monkey, which was also the first reaction by the researchers; however they ruled that out since the scientists determined the creature did in fact have a thin layer of flesh. So the question remains: what exactly was it???

Around 10:00 pm Monday night, a mysterious UFO crashed into the Ottawa River, seen by dozens of eyewitnesses in Canada’s capital city of Ottawa, Ontario as well as Gatineau, Quebec. Witnesses described a streak of light, followed by a “thunderous boom” as the object hit the water. 
While some have suggested it may be a meteorite, at least one website reports, “the object had lights on it and appeared to change course several times, like a small plane struggling to stay airborne, before it hit the water.”
While there were no reports of missing aircraft, local authorities took the matter seriously enough to coordinate a full on search of the waters, attended to by police, firefighters, and EMS workers. There was even a helicopter on scene conducting an aerial search.
On Tuesday morning the search continued, when at approximately 1:30 pm there was a sonar hit of a large object over nine meters down.  The search was called off when they realized the unknown object was too far out of reach of their underwater camera.
According to Ottawa police Constable Alain Boucher, “The size and the shape doesn’t lead us to believe it’s any piece of an airplane or fuselage or anything like that… It could be a rock, it could be a bunch of logs stuck together, it’s hard to say.”
This breaking news follows hot on the heels of a report last week that the Russian Navy has recently declassified Soviet-era records pertaining to USOs, or “Unidentified Submerged Objects.”
“Fifty percent of UFO encounters are connected with oceans. Fifteen more – with lakes,” says Vladimir Azhazha, a renowned Russian UFO investigator and former navy officer. “So UFOs tend to stick to the water.” 
We will keep you posted on any new developments on this breaking story from Canada.
Sources: The Inquisitr, The Welland Tribune, CNews, Russia Today

now the name of my “Weekly Weird News” blog is an homage to the late, great tabloid “Weekly World News,” but this story sounds like something ripped straight from their headlines… only the source of this one is none other than the esteemed BBC.
A Saudi Arabian family in the city of Medina has filed suit in a local court against a “genie” that they claim has been harassing them.   The accusations against the genie range from threatening the family and throwing rocks to stealing their cell phones. They even reported disembodied voices telling them to “get out of the house.” The genie’s shenanigans ultimately forced the family to move out of their home of 15 years.
A local court is investigating the claims. 
My question is this:  if it’s a genie, can’t they just wish him away?
All joking aside, while it may seem comical at first, in all seriousness there does appear to be a correlation between this family’s experience and that of what we in western society would call “poltergeist” activity. Any thoughts?

Source: BBC  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8145862.stm

For the past week, I’ve been reporting on a mysterious piece of film footage that has been sparking a lot of controversy since it’s initial discovery five years ago, and even more so now due to a new “sequel” that came to light recently. That film is known simply as “The Gable Film.”  I suggest you start from the beginning here and get caught up before reading this post.
Throughout this past week, I have discussed the Gable Films in depth, analyzing the film footage scene-by-scene and sometimes frame-by-frame.  There were times when, as soon as I was convinced it was a hoax, I would suddenly see something I hadn’t noticed before, and it would make me wonder. Then there were times when, as soon as I’m convinced that it might actually be authentic footage, something else would come to light that would make me cast doubt on the whole thing. 
In the end, I’m as perplexed by the whole thing as I was in the beginning.
If viewed from beginning to end, everything seems like it really could be authentic vintage footage of an unidentified animal attack, and if you include the second film, the gruesome aftermath documented by the police.
But there’s something that’s been bugging me all along, something that just didn’t feel right from the beginning. The “fatal flaw”, if you will, of this film, and that is…

There’s just something about them teeth.

The teeth I’m referring to are the ones that mysteriously come out of nowhere in the original Gable Film right before it comes to it’s jolting end, at exactly 3 minutes and 23 seconds.
That’s right, notice I said “come out of nowhere,” not “come into frame.” That’s because if you notice, there is no transition blur one would expect if they were to suddenly come into frame. It just jumps from an image of the forest to an extreme close up of the teeth (in relatively good focus, I might add). Here are the two sequential frames side by side.

There’s just something about them teeth.

The teeth I’m referring to are the ones that mysteriously come out of nowhere in the original Gable Film right before it comes to it’s jolting end, at exactly 3 minutes and 23 seconds.
That’s right, notice I said “come out of nowhere,” not “come into frame.” That’s because if you notice, there is no transition blur one would expect if they were to suddenly come into frame. It just jumps from an image of the forest to an extreme close up of the teeth (in relatively good focus, I might add). Here are the two sequential frames side by side.

If you heard my interview with Chris Walden on last week’s “Shadow Hour” radio program, you’ll remember that I had doubts about those few frames of footage. And if you read Steve Cook’s rebuttal, you’ll know that he is insistent that he did not add those frames, that they were indeed on the original film when he received it.
Then if that’s the case, is it possible they were edited on the original 8mm film?  Of course. There’s a couple of ways this could have been done.
In the olden days when I was a kid, I used to go around making stop-motion animation movies using the same type of film camera as used on these films, only mine was a Super-8. One time I had a fake rubber hand that I wanted to make crawl around on the ground. The title of my film, of course, was “The Crawling Hand!”  Positioning the hand on the ground and my Super-8 camera mounted on a tripod, I would press the trigger on the camera’s pistol grip, a frame or two would roll through the camera, and I’d release the trigger. Then I’d go move the hand a little, bending the fingers, and press the trigger again. I would continue this process over and over until the hand had moved quite a distance from where it started. When I got the developed film back a week or two later and played it through my projector, Voilà!  I had magically made the hand “crawl” across the ground!  This was known as stop-motion animation using “in-camera” editing. 
So yes, it is possible to shoot off just a few frames of film using the same technique as I describe. This could have been done using in-camera editing, where right after filming the beast running at him, the cameraman could have released the trigger, gone to another location hours, days, or even weeks later, found a dog or other animal, and filmed a single second of close-up on the teeth, released the trigger, then later go back to the location (or any other field for that matter), and filmed as the camera drops to the ground.

Another way to edit on film would be a splice. That’s where you take two pieces of developed film and splice them together. One piece of film is cut at a certain point in between frames where you want that shot to end, and basically “taped” with a special type of splicing tape to another piece of film where you want a different shot to begin. It’s how movies have been edited since the beginning of motion pictures, before the advent of the digital age (nowadays we use computer programs like Final Cut Pro or Avid).
So if the Gable Film were spliced, Steve Cook, having the original film in his possession, would certainly know about it if he were to look at the actual film itself at the exact frames in question. That is, UNLESS the film he received was a copy or film transfer from the original, meaning the spliced film had a copy made of it onto another piece of 8mm film. If that were the case, no splice would be visible. I’m sure given the amount of investigation Mr. Cook put into the Gable Film, he would have surely mentioned something as obvious as a film splice, especially at such a questionable portion of the footage.
Now another thing that always bothered me about the teeth were those weird lines on the sides of the mouth.
Were they whiskers?  Hair?
Now it seems we may have an answer.

A new YouTube video by user “borough110” came to light recently which may put to rest the entire authenticity of both Gable Films (because if the first one’s a fake, then surely the second one would be as well).
Originally pointed out by “amb3rfaith” (her screen name), her discovery of this video analysis of those few frames may prove to be the smoking gun. I won’t try to elaborate, I think this clip says it all.

So after discussing the ways the teeth could have been inserted into the film, and after viewing this video about the possible explanation of the “lines” around the mouth, does this definitively prove the Gable Film to be a hoax?
Well, maybe… and maybe not.
You see, we still don’t know what that creature really is. Is it a dog? A bear? An ape, as some have suggested? Or is it a true cryptid?
Sometimes, when people find evidence of something authentically unexplainable, they do something stupid. For reasons known only to themselves, sometimes they will embellish it. They will add something that they feel completes the picture. Or enhances it. Or adds to the mystery. Whatever the reason, once they do this, they unwittingly compromise the integrity of their entire evidence and their testimony. 
It’s happened numerous times in the past with Bigfoot witnesses. Ivan Marx and Ray Wallace are good examples of people who may have had a legitimate encounter that was later tarnished by proof that some of their evidence may have been hoaxed.  

In fact, I’m in possession of a recent Bigfoot video that might be authentic, but I have my reservations about it simply because the guy who shot it admitted to me he ADDED A SCENE BEFORE THE ENCOUNTER FOR “DRAMATIC EFFECT.”  Why did he do that????  I mean, the guy just destroyed any integrity or credibility of the film BY EMBELLISHING IT!!!  
The man originally was trying to get money for the video by selling it on eBay back in 2007 (you can read about it on this archival post on cryptomundo.com).  But when the winning bidder did not come through with the $2616.00 cash, he just gave up on trying to profit from it. I contacted him after the auction and said I would be seriously interested in seeing his footage, but I would not pay anything for it.  So he agreed to send me a copy, in exchange I promised Paul (his name) that I would not share it with anyone or upload it to the internet since he entrusted me with it.
I was dismayed and extremely disappointed when I saw he added a whole scene right before the supposedly real footage, I guess to add substance.  In my opinion, nobody would take it seriously now, it’s ruined.  Maybe, if Paul agrees to it, one day I’ll post his footage here. 
But I digress.

My point is, everything else in the footage of both films feels real to me, with the exception of the “teeth,” which I feel, just as I did from the beginning, were added for effect.  Perhaps not by Steve Cook, but maybe by the person who gave the film to him. Or maybe by the person who held the supposed estate sale where the film was found in a box. Or maybe by Aaron Gable himself. Who knows.

IN CONCLUSION
People love a good mystery. And for you, our faithful reader, I don’t want to spoil whatever YOU believe by giving you my unimportant opinion as fact. It’s just my opinion, and everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion. 
So here, my friends, I leave any conclusions to be drawn about the authenticity of those mysterious few minutes of film up to you. Let the Gable Film be whatever you believe it to be.
As for me, the truth behind the Gable Film may forever remain a mystery. And you know, I think I’m alright with that.

August 8th, 2009 UPDATE!  Authorities Investigating!CLICK HERE!

In a darkened room, a shadowy person turns on an 8mm projector. All that can be heard is the rolling of film, and on the screen before us we see something terrible…
Sound like a horror movie? Actually, this is an accurate description of “The Gable Film Part 2,” a supposedly real YouTube video that made the rounds on the internet last week before suddenly disappearing. 
Or did it?
I was able to capture the footage and upload it to my YouTube Channel before it became lost forever. You can view it here (again, a word of warning: the film you are about to see is of a gruesome and graphic nature. Viewer discretion is advised.)

The saga began last week (I would recommend starting at the beginning to get the whole story) when this video showed up on YouTube. It has since caused a minor internet sensation in that it appears to be the aftermath of the original Gable Film, which some have claimed is “evidence” of a, get this… werewolf attack.
Or dogman, depending on who you ask.
Or, if you are like Steve Cook, the owner of the original Gable Film footage, you remain wisely neutral about the evidence, leaving it to the viewer to come to their own conclusions.

In any case, I have analyzed this new footage and will simply present to you my findings.  I will try to refrain from any speculation for now, and simply present the facts.
As stated earlier, we can’t see the person who turns on the projector at the beginning of this film. He, or she, remains in the shadows and off screen. All we know is the YouTube poster who put this video up goes by the screen name “QuinlanOUR12” (Clue #1). Whether this is the same person running the projector is unknown.
The first thing we are able to clearly see on the screen is a light blue 1968 Ford F-250, which appears to be the same type of vehicle we see on the original Gable Film. We also see behind it what appears to be a Michigan State Police vehicle. 

    Gable Film 2
            
We next see someone in a vintage Michigan State Police officer’s uniform holding up some sheets of paper. The first sheet appears to say “Reel 2 Attack Site.”  He flips that over to show a sheet that apparently says “Vehicle Reg. Aaron Gable.”  He then points his left hand in the air as if to tell the camera man to “go over there.”

Next the camera pans around getting an establishing shot of the wooded surroundings. It cuts to an officer far away in the distance waving the cameraman over.

After this, we see one officer walking over to where another stands by a green tarp on the ground covering something.

The next cut we again see an officer, apparently the same one as before, holding up a notepad.  He flips the page, but the footage is blown out so we cannot see anything written on the paper (perhaps if we had the original film to analyze we’d have this important detail). 

Next he proceeds to uncover the tarp, revealing (this is the gory part) the severed upper torso of a person.  

I will speculate here. It appears to be the same person that can be seen in the first Gable Film.  Hairstyle, clothing style, body type all seem to match. Unfortunately, we are never able to see the face.
If real, it is a very disturbing and haunting image.
From here, the cameraman turns and walks over to a movie camera lying on the ground. Again, it appears to be the same camera used by the boy in the original Gable Film, which others have determined to be a Bell & Howell 8mm Zoom Reflex Electric Eye Autoload Cartridge Camera.* 
           Gable Film 2
          Original Gable Film
The cameraman turns from here to a few feet away in the grass. There’s something on the ground, we can only see the first three letters written on a sheet of paper next to it, which appears to read “GIA.”  Upon closer inspection though, it appears that he is filming a pair of black, thick-rimmed glasses, thus making the paper read “Gla…” as in “Glasses.”  

The interesting thing to note here is this. If this “Gable Film 2” is in fact a hoax, as some in the blogosphere have suggested, then why would the hoaxer have added a superfluous clue such as a pair of glasses, when they were never established in the original Gable Film?  
We never see the face of the victim, if indeed it’s the same person, in either films.  It seems to me to be too far of a stretch for a hoaxer to add such a detail for no apparent reason.
Finally, there is one last thing the camera turns to,  but it is unclear if it is a new piece of evidence, or that the filmer has done a 180 to see the same camera on the ground again.  It jump cuts from here to a grassy knoll,** before the film suddenly rolls out of the projector.  It looks like at some point the film had been broken, as evidenced by the ragged edge seen here.

So, where does this all leave us? Well, frankly, with a lot more questions than answers. 
It appears that either these two films are related, or someone has made a very clever “sequel” to the original Gable Footage as a hoax, although I feel this is unlikely. My reasoning? While not impossible to fake, I feel it would be more work to pull off than the ultimate payoff of such a hoax would be worth. 
Think about it.  You’d have to find the same exact type of vintage truck; the same exact type of vintage camera; the same body type, hair, and wardrobe for the alleged victim to match the original film. Not to mention if it were a real person playing the part of the victim; you’d have to dig a hole in the ground deep enough to stick their legs into, without disturbing the ground around them. Have you ever tried digging a hole that deep and narrow? Not as easy as it sounds.  And if it were a fake prop body, you’d have to create that too, not to mention the intestines and blood. I don’t know about you, but that arm looks pretty realistic.
And don’t forget the vintage police car, vintage police uniforms, film to shoot and develop it onto… do you see where I’m going with this?  Do you see how ridiculous this is starting to get??
I do not believe this film to be a hoax film made to match the original Gable Film. I challenge anyone to come up with their own version of the Gable Film 2, just to see how closely they could match it. I can guarantee you it won’t happen, because people have much more valuable things to do with their time and money. 
That being said, another possibility is that BOTH films are a hoax. Now, this could be more likely the case, however I don’t think it would be a recently-made hoax, due to much of the same reasoning I gave earlier. Just getting your hands on vintage vehicles, clothing, camera, snowmobiles, etc. would be either very time-consuming or very expensive. 
One possibility is that it’s a vintage hoax, that’s just recently come to see the light of day. Meaning, the hoaxer who pulled this off tried making their own “Blair Witch” type film way back in the 1970’s. This, in my opinion, is the best case scenario if the films are indeed a hoax.
But that’s IF it’s a hoax. What if the footage is authentic?
Well, then that opens up a whole new can of worms. That means that we have a dead and horribly mutilated body of an actual real person, presumably “Aaron Gable” or someone close to him.  It also means we have a real mystery on our hands, in that: what kind of creature could have killed and eaten a human being like that?  What is it on that film, that charges at and ultimately makes a meal of the person filming it?  Is it, in fact, a bear attack, like QuinlanOUR12 asserts his Uncle John was asked to assist in documenting it’s aftermath? Or is it a bobcat, mountain lion, or even a dog?  Or Dogman??? 
And if it is a real animal attack that took place in Michigan in the 70’s that ultimately ended up in someone’s death, then why would the Michigan Department of Natural Resources deny any attacks ever occurred in the state during that decade???  If you listened to my interview with Chris Walden on Wednesday night’s “Shadow Hour” program, you may have heard me mention that the first thing I did when this mystery arose was contact the Michigan DNR’s wildlife biologist on duty, and he emphatically denied ANY deaths attributed to animal attacks in the state in that decade. 
And yet, a quick search of Wikipedia yields these results, which appear to contradict the DNR’s claim:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_bear_attacks_in_North_America
You see, according to the content on Wikipedia, on June 19th, 1978, a Michael Scott Patterson was killed by a black bear in Porcupine Mountains State Park in, where else… Michigan. 
Was the wildlife biologist I spoke with just ignorant of the facts, and thus, may be equally ignorant of the Gable Case? 
Or… are they trying to cover something up?
For now, the surfacing of the Gable Film 2 is only raising more questions than answers…

Courtesy a post by Dr. Scott on ghosttheory.com

Wednesday night’s broadcast of “The Shadow Hour” included a 20 minute segment of a discussion between host Chris Walden and myself concerning this week’s investigation into the mysterious “Gable Film.”  In case you didn’t get a chance to catch it, here is the complete unedited interview from that segment of the show.

(Insert link to The Shadow Hour-Gable Film Discussion)

A few hours before the broadcast, I had invited Steve Cook, the man who owns the original Gable Film, to call in to the show but he didn’t get the message in enough time to tune in to the live show. He did however get a chance to listen to the broadcast afterwards, and had a few things he wanted to clarify. I was granted his permission to share this with our readers, so here is the email I received from him regarding his position and clarifications (annotations in brackets are my additions – S. Busti):
*******************************************************************Hi Steve –
Sorry I couldn’t join the show last night. I had a chance to listen to your interview with Chris Walden on iTunes this evening. Overall it was well done and fairly presented, but I did want to clarify a couple of things.
First, I did not buy the film. It was given to me [by] a family who purchased a box of hinges at an estate sale in southern Michigan in 2004. The film was in a carton at the bottom, with a tag attached that read “Gable Case” followed by a sequence of numbers [MP041177-1]. They had the film for over a year before borrowing a projector to watch it.
One of them was familiar with my song “The Legend of the Dogman,” (which by the way was recorded in 1987, almost 20 years before this film surfaced). He knew that people had been sending me sighting reports for years, and originally tried to sell me the film, but I told him I would not purchase any kind of evidence. Eventually, he returned and gave the film to me in August of 2006.
Second, you suggested that I had somehow inserted the ‘teeth’ frames at the end of the film. I assure you the film you see is exactly the film that is on the original 8mm reel. A film expert who examined the frames stated that while it appears the mouth and teeth bite the camera, one must remember that in the sequence immediately before, the lens had been on its highest zoom setting. It is unlikely that the person reset the lens while running, so it follows that the ‘teeth’ sequence is actually shot while the animal is several feet from the lens. He speculates that the camera was either thrown to the ground or at the animal itself to fend it off.
Third, much has been made of the ‘video lines’ that are visible just after the teeth frames. These do not appear on the original film. They only surfaced following the last digital enhancement project, which was completed largely on Apple’s Final Cut Pro Studio software. The studio technician tells me that the lines are artifacts caused by a contrast filter he used to boost the image quality.
I have never stated that the film is of a dogman. It is my policy to remain neutral on all evidence  presented on the website. I prefer to let the viewer decide.
It’s also important to note that I’ve never attempted to market the film for profit. Recently, I released the entire film under the Creative Commons License. It’s available for anyone to download from my website to study, enhance, or use in any way they choose. Although portions of the film are shown in a documentary on my CD/DVD set, all profits from the sale of the set are donated to charity. I invite you to visit my site and view the contributions list: http://www.michigan-dogman.com/00_news.html
This latest development, the “Gable Film Part 2” is very disturbing. I have no idea if it is real, and frankly, I’ve expended so much time and energy on the original film that I lack the enthusiasm to pursue it.
There is a great deal more I could tell you about this matter, but this message has grown far too long already. If you have any other questions, feel free to ask.
Best regards,Steve Cook
*******************************************************************I’d like to thank Mr. Cook for taking the time to clarify several of the facts, I apologize for not being entirely accurate and for inferring certain things when in fact, that was not the case. His claims that the “video lines” were artifacts created during the digital enhancement makes sense, as I am familiar with Final Cut and can see how that might occur.
As for the numbers on the film box, it appears this was an important clue that nobody had picked up on until recently. The number, MP041177-1, could possibly stand for “Michigan Police 04/11/1977, Film 1.”  If that assumption is correct, then we have a date.
As far as the new “Gable Film Part 2?” is concerned, the original user, QuinlanOUR12, pulled the video from YouTube late last night, shortly before George Noory’s Coast To Coast AM radio show aired with Beast of Bray Road specialist Linda Godfrey as guest (and yes, they did discuss the Gable Films). Not to fear, though; before it disappeared, I was able to upload the video to my YouTube Channel here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/MuseumOfTheWeird
Next, I’ll discuss a scene by scene breakdown and analysis of the Gable Film 2, and see if in fact it appears to be related to the original Gable Film.

TO BE CONTINUED: GABLE FILM 2 ANALYSIS

If you haven’t read the first two installments, you can do so here and here.  
I feel it necessary to give the reader a fair warning here:  the new evidence recently discovered and presented below is of a shocking and graphic nature. Viewer discretion is advised.
*******************************************************************
This post appeared on YouTube on Friday, June 17, 2009. According to the poster, who goes by QuinlanOUR12, this is the story behind the new footage (annotations in brackets are mine):

“I was at my little brother’s house Friday June 10th and my sister-in-law was watching Fox News. (She’s madly in lust with that Sean Hannity guy). A short segment came on about “the Beast of Bray Road” [click to watch -Steve]. Hannity then played a clip from a film named…”The Gable Film”.  
Sirens went off in my head.  
Our only uncle was a film nut in college, back in the seventies. He was always making home movies and beer commercials. He was even hired, (not for pay), to help the Michigan Department of Natural Resources investigate and document a bear attack, just north of Bellaire. (Our Grandmother worked in the Antrim County Courthouse,…. she had a hand in getting him the gig). The victim’s name was Aaron GABLE.  
…..GABLE!!!  
My mother tells us that after filming the attack scene, our Uncle John was so distraught that he packed up his stuff and moved to Florida, two weeks later!. Mom says his behavior was becoming very psychotic, he couldn’t sleep at night and he kept going on about how “bears have FIVE toes,….. dogs have four”!. Just a week after he left, a DNR officer hand-delivered the film that Uncle John made to my Mother’s house. It’s been in a box in the basement ever since.   
Now, I seem to recall that these films usually lasted about five minutes or so, but the film we have is only about a minute long… and the end of it was obviously torn off, not cut clean. 
I wonder just how much is missing? We almost threw this film away just a couple of years ago, but I wound up buying a vintage projector on eBay, just to see what was on this film. (Boy, was I suprised). NOW,….. I find that there’s this “Gable” film out there?  I wonder if these two films are related. I’ll see if I can get it in better resolution, other than with Wifey’s camera-phone. (It might be expensive,….. but I’m sure it’ll be worth it).    
One thing’s for certain, whatever it was on that clip that they played on Fox News,….. it sure didn’t look like no Bear.”
*******************************************************************  
Now, without further ado, we present to you the new evidence… “Gable Film Part 2.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDAR-bEdAY4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CShNKGRY5tw

Presented here is a rehash of yesterday’s post, as well as a shot-by-shot analysis of the film, including our take on the mysterious and frightening creature that appears in the final seconds of the film. 
*A few years ago, some mysterious footage surfaced and quickly made the internet rounds. For reasons unknown, it had been simply known as “The Gable Film.”  Little else was known about it’s origins, other than the supposed fact that the 8mm film was discovered in an attic and later purchased at an estate sale. 

You can watch the complete Gable Film here.

The three-and-a-half minutes of footage starts off with two (or maybe three) people snowmobiling through some snow-patched forests in an undetermined location.  One of the snowmobilers appears to be a young, blond boy; another has short dark hair. It appears that the snow covering has partially melted, so maybe the time of year is late winter/early spring. 

At about the minute-and-a-half mark, the footage jump cuts to an image of either a very burly woman, or possibly a man with a 70‘s hairdo (the face is obscured by the hair) chopping a small log with a single swing of an axe. The subject is wearing a unisex plaid shirt and jeans, further making gender determination difficult. There is no snow on the ground now, but the fact that the subject is chopping wood would still put the time of year in the colder months, and not summer. 

The next two shots are, again, of a snowy wooded area, which at first glance appears to have no particular subject… or is that a human figure standing in the distance at 1:48?
Next jump cut appears to be a winding country road, with a rather friendly dog running around, sniffing the snow and at one point perking his ears up at a sound off in the woods, just as the camera pans over to find…nothing.

Next is an important clue. At about the 2:19 mark, we see a long shot of a light blue 1968 Ford F250 pickup truck with the hood up. It looks like the person checking under the hood is the same individual that appeared earlier in the wood chopping scene. Unfortunately, the distance from the camera again makes gender determination difficult; however, as the person looks up at the camera, ending the clip with a shrug of the shoulders, there does appear to be a left breast visible. This is the best indication we have throughout the rest of the evidence to determine this person’s gender. Therefore, from here on out we will simply refer to this individual in the feminine. (By the way, notice the same dog in the lower right hand corner?)

In the next shot, the woman’s apparently gotten the truck working, because it’s barreling down another country road. Now, there is no way to tell a few things for certain, like that the woman is indeed behind the wheel, or that the next few sequences even happen right after another.  In fact, the only thing we know for certain is that at one point, the person filming the woodland scenery catches a fleeting glimpse of himself in the side mirror’s reflection… and he’s a young boy. Could it be one of the same boys snowmobiling at the beginning of the film?

We also get a clear glimpse of the type of camera he’s using, and we know now without a doubt it is in fact an 8mm film camera (which rules out the possibility that the footage was shot with a modern video camera and made to look like old film footage with the use of video filters).
Suddenly, the camera appears to catch something (an animal?) moving on the side of the road. The door of the truck can be seen swinging open at precisely 2:40, and the passenger (the same boy?) appears to jump out and run after the beast. 
Here’s where things get interesting.
If you look at the frames between 2:39 and 2:41, the creature appears to have some simian characteristics to it’s movement. Here are the three best screen captures I could get.

Then, for a few moments, it appears that the camera person has lost his quarry. There’s just some eerie few seconds of nothing but barren woods. 
What happens next is spine-chilling, to say the least.

At exactly 3:08 there is a jump cut. Several yards directly in front of the camera, crouching low, is this… thing.  Then, it gets up off its haunches, AND CHARGES DIRECTLY AT THE CAMERAMAN! 
Realizing they’re in trouble, the cameraman just starts running for his life!  Within seconds, the creature is on him. The last image we see is a flash in extreme close-up of canine-like teeth, right before the camera drops to the ground as the film continues to run out…

*OK, if you’re not creeped out by now, just wait until we get to the shocking NEW footage that just surfaced over the weekend!  A word of warning, it is not for the squeamish.

TO BE CONTINUED…
TOMORROW: PART 3 OF THE GABLE FILM MYSTERY!