Some new footage, seemingly related to the Gable Film/Michigan Dogman attack has surfaced. And it’s very disturbing. But is it real?
I’ve been following the Gable Film since its inception. So have the folks at the Oregonbigfoot.com members’ forum. In fact, we’ve got a thread that’s nine pages long, started back in September of 2007, where we’ve hashed out the authenticity of the film and our very own artist/Photoshop Expert extraordinaire, Scott Davis, has done some wonderful analysis on the film.
For those who might have missed the Gable film, here it is in its entirety. A brief introduction as I remember it: The film appeared on the internet back in 2007. It was available on youtube.com only for a short time, then was pulled. It was “copyrighted” by Mindstage Productions and pirated by several youtubers who found the video, downloaded it and reposted it. Apparently, the story goes, the film was found in a box of things purchased in 2004 at an estate sale and would up in the hands of Steve Cook, webmaster of www.michigan-dogman.com.
At first glance, the film appears authentic – at least, there are no glaring anachronisms. It looks like the footage you’d expect to see from a family in the 1970’s who acquired a video camera and was playing around with it. Riding snowmobiles, Mom chopping wood, the family dog and a boy on his bike in the background…
The strangeness begins during a “driving sequence”. A young boy (age 10-12?) is filming: you can see him for a moment in the sideview mirror. There appears to be some animal on the side of the road. The boy gets out of the truck and moves into the field, filming. The thing charges on all fours. Watching the video at the end very carefully, a mouth with large canines flashes in front of the viewfinder before the camera falls still to its side, leading one to believe that the creature attacked the photographer.
THE COMPLETE GABLE FILM
ENHANCED GABLE FILM
A couple of things about the film. First, the creature. Here we have two enhancements pulled from the film by Scott Davis:
The creature in this film does not appear to move like a bear, or a dog. Now, some will argue that point with me. Some have suggested that it appears similar to a chow, or a bear. I have a problem with the bear theory – not only because of the shape of the creature, but also because of the fact that bear will often STAND to smell the air before charging. The power in the shoulders, to me, is more reminiscent of a gorilla than anything else.
Here’s a youtube video of a bear attack for comparison. Note the number of times she stands, to assess the situation, prior to charging:
Despite the fact that I can’t attribute this footage to any known creature, it still appears very real to me. The creature, that is. And the problem with that is that, if you’re creating a hoax, you either have to have a well-trained animal or a guy in a convincing suit. If this is a trained animal, I sure don’t know what kind it is. And the movement of the creature pretty much rules out a guy in a suit, as far as I’m concerned. All in all, the Gable Film was somewhat convincingly authentic to me.
OK, so the Gable Film is weird. But now it gets definitely WEIRDER.
A couple of weeks ago, a guy on Youtube posted the following:
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”. 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.
GABLE FILM PART 2
WARNING: VERY GRAPHIC FOOTAGE
(The original Gable Film has been removed. However, I had the forethought to download it and repost it. Hopefully, it will remain up. If not, email me and I’ll figure something out!)
The first thing I checked, of course, was his Youtube account. Sure enough, he activated this account on July 15th, shortly after the Hannity special aired on July 10th. Nor does he have any other videos posted. At first glance, the state of his account shows exactly what you would expect from someone who found something in the basement that blew his mind and wanted to share it with the world.
Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. He could have created an account specifically in keeping with the perpetration of a hoax… (amazing how we’ve become so cynical nowdays, isn’t it? Is the world so full of liars that we disbelieve and analyze everything to death? Yep. Anyway, moving on…)
The second video is disturbing. The scenario goes something like this (pardon me while I take a bit of creative license and throw in an assumption here and there. I’ve earned it, I think. But you can disagree and I’ll still love you.)
Gable Mom and Gable Boy went out for a drive. Gable Boy decided to take the camera, since it’s a neat new toy. While driving along in the late winter/early spring woods of Michigan, Gable Boy is happily filming along. Suddenly, he sees something out there in a wooded area. Gable Mom stops the car, Gable Boy gets out and is filming this weird thing. Suddenly, it charges. Gable Boy’s last visual is this thing’s mouth bearing down on him. Gable Mom steps in to break up the attack and ends up getting attacked herself.
Flash forward. Someone finds the Gable truck alongside the road. Maybe they do or do not see the bodies. They call in the vehicle… it’s abandoned. The Michigan Police arrive on the scene and call the DNR (Department of Natural Resources for those of us in the PNW who have Fish & Game). Or maybe DNR gets called first. DNR calls in dude-man’s uncle to film the “bear attack”, since he’s got the equipment and they don’t. (It’s the 70’s… cameras weren’t terribly prevalent back then.) They realize that the truck is registered to one “Aaron Gable” and write that on the placard. Aaron Gable would be husband, most likely, of said Gable Mom and father of aforementioned Gable Boy. They find half of a female, the camera, a pair of eyeglasses (labeled G1A – thanks to Scott Davis for the discovery on that one) and… what else? We don’t know, because the footage appears to have been torn or broken off. What happened to Gable Boy?
Another scenario: Someone is planning the release of a documentary, or mockumentary, Blair Witch-style, and brilliantly decides to release the first part of the footage, cause a stir, wait for it to get national attention (i.e., Hannity) and then releases footage part deux. (We’ve been assuming all along that this is Dogman footage. Perhaps it’s a female. We could, conceivably then, call it the “Blair Bitch Project”, could we not? Ok… please groan loudly so we can move on…)
The footage of the corpse causes some issues for me. First of all, how did she manage to lose ONLY her southern half? It just doesn’t make much sense. In fact, that, and the fact that the entrails are bright red (fresh) and the shirt appears to have come through the de-southing relatively unscathed, in adsition to the fact that there do not appear to be any defensive wounds (yeah, I watch Forensic Files every night before I hit the sack) just plain bugs me. The head and arms appear real and bear striking resemblance to the hair and arms of Gable Mom chopping wood in the original Gable Film. Did they dig a hole, let Gable Mom stand in the hole with the head and arms protruding, and build a fake torso with blood and guts in order to acheive the desired effect? Maybe.
BUT. There are a few things that stop me in my tracks when I try to wrap my brain around this being a hoax. First, the creature. It moves too realistically. I just can’t ascribe it to a guy in a suit. Secondly, Scott pointed out the glasses. At no point in the footage is anyone seen wearing glasses. Not the boy while he’s filming, anyway. And that leaves Mom Gable. If she wore glasses when she drove, did they get knocked off in the fray? We never see Mom Gable during the last bit of footage on the original. We never see Boy Gable during the second piece of footage… the “evidence” footage. And that bothers me. If THAT happened to Mom Gable, what in the HELL happened to Boy Gable??? He was the one holding the camera, for crying out loud.
A point, before I forget. In the original description the poster left of the Footage #2, he said the “victim’s name was Aaron Gable”. That’s not necessarily true. The TRUCK was registered to Aaron Gable, but the victim – or half of one – shown in the footage appears to be a woman. The same woman from the original Gable Film, if I’m not mistaken. And since Boy Gable was sitting in the passenger seat, I think it may be safe to assume that Mom and Boy were on a drive together. Don’t know where Dad (Aaron Gable) was. But the fact that the poster said the victim’s name was “Aaron Gable” leads me to believe that he was not involved in the hoax, since the body was apparently female. Catch my drift?
Do ANY of my readers live anywhere near Bellaire, Michigan? I’d love it if someone would check back through the newspaper archives and look for an article about this!!!
I’ll continue to update as I know more. I’ve contacted the video poster and am waiting for a response.
*****
Update: Posting a photo of the woodcutter per my comments below in reply to Torrey. Notice the arms, the large, wide hips. At first glance, would you assume this is a man or a woman?
