Oregonbigfoot.com Photo Research Journal
August, 2002

Cultus Lake Video Hoax

On the 20th of August, we received the following report:

Witness: C.M.
approximate date: August 16, 2002
Time: 5:00 am, dawn
State: OR
County: klamath
Nearest Town: Bend
Exact location: Cultus Lake at a first cove

I Was taping the lake on our last day of camping and i smelled a musty pee smell and this loud cracking noise and saw a huge animal-like person about 8-10 feet tall run into the water and stand there in about 6 feet of water with its hands touching the top of the water. I guess it might of been fishing or something because it just sprinted at an in-human speed up the side of a hill about 50 feet and steep with dead trees everywhere. Later that morning my brother and i (craig) tried to hike that hill but it was neer impossible. I have it on video.

The witness (age 19) left a phone number within the report, and a subsequent phone call was answered by a person of the same name. He was relucant to talk at first and claimed his younger brother (15) must have filed the report. He gave details which sounded promising; however, I received the runaround for approximately a week, was asked to call back numerous times, and the promised copy of the tape was never made. Since our group was coincidentally taking a trip to that part of the state the following weekend, I offered to drive up to the Portland area, to the claimant's home, and copy the tape off myself. I told him I would bring the necessary equipment. He agreed, and gave me directions to his apartment (which were slightly inaccurate but I found the place nonetheless). The night before we were supposed to leave, I received the following email from the claimant's father:

Hi, my teenage kids have been in contact with you about a cultis lake sighting. I have only seen the tape on a small view finder on my sons camera, not on a large tv screen. I believe it may only be a fisherman.

Please do not waste time or resources on this until I can get a look first. Chris has been putting off letting me see it for weeks. Please wait. I will e-mail you if it is real.

Since my partner had already scheduled time off work to accompany me and the weekend was fast approaching, we decided to risk it and travelled the hour and a half up the freeway to the claimant's house.

We were there 10 minutes early. After knocking on the door three times and hearing "You answer it!" and "No, YOU answer it!", finally two very stoned teenagers answered the door. Amidst a billowing cloud reeking of marijuana smoke, the first said our witness had just left two mniutes ago. The second then said he'd been gone about two hours. Neither was willing to make eye contact. Subsequent calls to the witness' cellular phone went unanswered and Bob and I gave up. We were disgusted (this young man obviously didn't realize or care that we had spent valuable time and money on his wild goose chase), but we had taken the steps to rule out the likehood of potential genuine footage.

Unless an astoundingly clear tape of something anomalous miraculously appears, the witness' behavior and lack of credibility have damaged any hope of making a case for any claims or evidence brought forth by him. This report is considered a hoax and will not be included in the OregonBigfoot.com database.

Autumn Williams

Text and photos by Autumn Williams

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