Kathleen Lavey

Lansing State Journal

The blurry photo from an Upper Peninsula trail camera shows a beast next to a barrel. It has black fur and long legs. It's hunched over so you can't see its torso or face.

The photo, posted on the blog CryptoSighting Sept. 4, sparked some debate: Could it be another U.P. sighting of the hairy monster popular in American folkore?

Or something more mundane?

The answer isn't what believers had hoped: After a few days of debate and further research, a photo taken on the same trail 13 minutes later shows that the possible Bigfoot sighting is, indeed, a bear.

But Bigfoot believers have plenty of other unsolved U.P. sightings to keep them speculating.

For example, the Upper Peninsula Bigfoot/Sasquatch Research Organization reports on its Facebook page that there was a sighting as recently as Sept. 5 near the northern Lower Peninsula community of South Branch in Ogemaw County. A motorist driving in light fog at about 7 a.m. reported a "large figure" that looked like a person in a ghillie suit. That's a type of hunting camouflage.

According to a follow-up report, the driver was an experienced hunter who described the figure as "thick and wide, and all black. He knew it wasn't a bear because he figured once it started moving, especially when it went into the ditch, it should have gone down on all fours. He slowed down to 5 mph as he passed the location, and to his surprise there was no trail or driveway. A hunter in a ghillie suit didn't make sense since it was not hunting season yet."

There have been enough Bigfoot sightings in the Upper Peninsula that the Animal Planet show "Finding Bigfoot" recorded an episode in Au Train in 2013, and the first-ever Bigfoot Convention took place in August in Newberry.

The Department of Natural Resources tracks cougars, bears and wolves. It has had only a few reports of mythic creature sightings, said spokesman John Pepin.

“We have only rarely received reports of sightings of Bigfoot or Sasquatch in the Upper Peninsula or across Michigan," he said by email. "Rarer still are first-hand accounts. Most of these infrequent reports we have received are provided second-hand, from someone who says they heard a story from someone else.”

Contact Kathleen Lavey at (517) 377-1251 or klavey@lsj.com. Follow her on Twitter @kathleenlavey.

Learn more

Check out CryptoSighting at cryptosightings.com

Check out the Upper Peninsula Bigfoot/Sasquatch Research Organization at www.facebook.com/UPBSRO