The year 2001 marked an interesting year in the world of Sasquatch research, with “evidence” popping up that is still hotly debated today. The controversial pieces of evidence may be familiar to those who have an interest of Bigfoot, and may have seen the above picture circulated around the internet before. Many things have been said about it but the story is not often told in clarity outside of a few resources, something our show and this article can help change.

To begin the story in full we must start on December 22, 2000 in Sarasota County, Florida, when an envelope was mailed to the Sarasota Sheriff’s department. The envelope found itself at the destination on December 29, but wasn’t opened for another few days. The envelope contained a letter and two photographs.

[Typed up for clarity]

Dear Sir or Madam,

Enclosed please find some pictures I took in late September or carly Oct of 2000. My husband says ho thinks it is an orangutan. Is someone missing an orangutan? It is hard to judge from the photos how big this orangutan really is. It is in a crouching position in the middle of standing up from where it was sitting. It froze as soon as the flash went off. I didn't even see it as I took the first picture because it was so dark. As soon as the flash went off for the second time it stood up and started to move. I then heard the orangutan walk off into the brushes. From where I was standing, I judge it as being about six and a half to seven feet tall in a kneeling position. As soon as I realized how close it was I got back to the house. It had an awful smell that lasted well after it had left my yard. The orangutan was making deep “woomp" noises. It sounded much farther away then it turned out to be. If I had known it was as close to the hedge roll as it was I wouldn't have walked up as close as I did. I'm a senior citizen and if this animal had come out of the hedge roll after me there wasn't a thing I could have done about it. I was about ten foot away from it when it stood up. I'm concerned because my grandchildren like to come down and explore in my back yard. An animal this big could hurt someone seriously. For two nights prior, it had been taking apples that my daughter brought down from up north, off our back porch. These pictures were taken on the third night it had raided my apples. It only came back one more night after that and took some apples that my husband had left out in order to got a better look at it. We left out four apples. I cut two of them in half. The orangutan onty took the whole apples. We didn’t see it take them. We waited up but eventually had to go to bed. We got a dog back there now and as far as we can tell the orangutan hasn’t been back.

Please find out where this animal came from and who it belongs to. It shouldn't be loose like this, someone will get hurt. I called a friend that used to work with animal control back up north and he told us to call the police. I don't want any fuss or people with guns traipsing around behind our house.

We live near I75 and I’m afraid this orangutan could cause a serious accident if someone hit it. I once hit a deer that wasn't even a quarter of the size of this animal and totalled my car. As the very least this animal belong in a place like Bush Gardens where it can be looked after properly. Why haven't people been told that an animal this size is loose? How are people to know how dangerous this could be? If I had known an animal like this was loose I wouldn't have [approached] it. I saw on the news that monkeys that get loose can carry Hepatitis and are very dangerous. Please look after

this situation. I don't want my backyard to turn into someone else’s circus.

God Bless

I prefer to remain anonymous

Researcher Loren Coleman, who was one of the first to properly scan and reproduce these photographs in high quality, reports that as far as he could tell, much of the Sheriff’s Department laughed this off. At least at first.

On January 3rd, 2001 a member of the animal control division contacted a man named David Barkasy, owner of Silver City Serpentarium in Sarasota. Barkasy was given black and white photocopies of the photographs and felt that they might be definitive evidence of the Skunk Ape. Barkasy contacted Coleman that same evening to begin to develop a game plan on how to best tackle the possible evidence.

Loren Coleman published his overview of the case on his website on February 5, 2001 in an article called “The Myakka Ape Photographs”. The Bigfoot Community discussed the many possibilities of the authenticity or hoax ability of such photos. Meanwhile, Barkasy was doing some major digging into the photos.

By using the photo processing numbers on the prints, he was able to track down the exact location of where the prints were developed. Eckerd Photo Lab just off the I-75. The photos were taken in the fall of 2000 but not developed until December of that year. So the witness testimony and the evidence seemed to line up, however, Barkasy could not find out who had the photos developed and the trail stopped there.

(Copyright of Loren Coleman and David Barkasy)

The biggest single obstacle in this case is the fact that the witness is anonymous. Unfortunately that throws much of this case into an overwhelming shadow of doubt, because no one can find the original location (though some have claimed they have) and no one can interview the witness to gain further insights. All we have is the letter and the photographs and a very large area to search.

However, that does not mean there are not interesting observations to made from the photographs. The first major observation is the fact that the animal actually moves in the two shots. We can see that it is more erect in the second photo than it is in the first, supporting the witness’ claim that it was standing up.

The eyes of the creature are seemingly contracting. Usually in the dark, an animal’s pupils will dilate in order to receive more light into the eyes. When exposed to a bright light source, such as a camera flash, the pupil’s will then contract to not be overwhelmed. The eye shine shift from photo 1 to photo 2 is interesting as it is roughly 40% smaller in the second than the first, suggesting that the pupil’s are contracting in reaction to the light stimulus.

Another factor of the eyes is that they are shining. In order for eyes to shine an animal needs what is called tapetum lucidem. It’s a layer of tissue just behind the retina, reflecting visible light increasing the light available to the photoreceptors, improving night vision for animals that have it. House cats have this, cows have this and many other nocturnal animals have this. However what makes this a unique case is that no ape has tapetum lucidem. So if this creature is real and not a person in a costume, it would be the first ape in the world to have tapetum lucidem. However, many Bigfoot reports include mention of eye shine, so it is possible (and this is now entering the realm of pure speculation) that Sasquatch are the only apes with this biological feature.

Additionally, the facial expressions of the animal in question have been compared to other apes, most notably chimpanzees.

Sketches of Chimpanzee facial expressions from a student at Dartmouth College

There appears to be two facial features displayed in the two photos. In Photo 1 the creature seems to have the full toothed smile expression, suggesting fear. The creature was crouched in this woman’s backyard, when she unknowingly walked up to it and flashed it with a bright light. The creature stood up and began to walk away. If it was truly caught off guard, the smile expression would embody its expression of fear.

Furthering that point, the second photo shows a scream face, showing extreme distress. Photo 2 is the last photo taken before the creature walks away from the woman’s yard, presumably because it was afraid and distressed.

While comparing the expressions a known ape species to another unconfirmed ape species, might not be the most accurate, the coincidences are striking to say the least. However, many have pointed out that one leaf from the Palmetto covers the mouth of the creature “conveniently” in both pictures. The interior of the mouth would have added more clarity to the idea of it being real or a hoax, as ape costumes don’t typically design an anatomically correct mouth interior. Since the mouth is covered up, a decision cannot be made one way or the other.

Many have suggested the eye shine is merely a reflection from the flash on plastic eyes and that the luminosity decrease from photo 1 to photo 2 is due to the changed position of the subject. The argument can go either way it seems, but there is still one last piece of the puzzle. The size.

A good friend of the podcast and frequent guest, Karac St. Laurent worked on size comparisons for this article.

“This guestimate uses the plants in front of the subject, which appear to be silver saw palmetto, as a reference. If they're relatively young palmettos, they're only about five feet tall, and the witness described the animal in a "crouching" position so it's between 5 to 6 feet when crouching down like in the art up there. And standing up it might be something more like 6 or between 6 and 7 feet tall.”

Certainly the numbers line up with what the witness described, making it larger than an orangutan as she referred to it as multiple times, not to mention the coloration being off.

In the end, the debate still goes back and forth on the creature’s identity. Is it proof of an undiscovered primate in Florida, or a clever hoax. Many believers of the photograph may be eager to point out the fact there is no (at least not obvious) financial gain for a hoaxer in this scenario. But a hoaxer’s main goal, more so than making a quick buck, is to deceive people. And if it is a hoax, props to them, because it is still being discussed 21 years after the photos first emerged.

Karac has a great breakdown video of someone calming to have found out not just how the images were hoaxed but by who. Watch the video below and decide for yourself!

If you enjoyed this article check out our second Skunk Ape Safari episode, out now!