Bigfoot Sighting? North Carolina Man Posts Footage of Sighting

March 25, 2011 — -- Is the legendary beast Bigfoot roaming the woods of North Carolina?

Thomas Byers of Shelby, N.C., seems to think so.

Earlier this week, he posted a five-second video on YouTube of what he says is the mythical Sasquatch crossing a local road in Rutherford County. Despite the video's short length and blurriness, it's making the rounds online and has already racked up more than a million clicks on YouTube.

In a description of the sighting on his Hubpages profile, Byers said that while driving Tuesday night, he and friend spotted a 6- or 7-foot-tall furry beast emerge from a field by the side of the road.

"I jumped from the truck with a small video camera and started shooting a video of the Big Foot as it ran across the road in front of the truck and into the thick woods and road side brush on the side of the road in front of the truck," he wrote. "It was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen."

From his position about 15 to 20 feet away from the beast, Byers said he could hear its snarl and detect its "horrid" smell.

"It smelled like a cross between road kill and a skunk. And it did not like the fact that I was there on the road with it," he wrote.

But while the alleged sighting has attracted a lot of attention, it isn't finding too many believers.

"I used to be out in the woods all the time hunting and stuff, and I've never seen anything that would resemble anything like it," one local resident told WLOS, the ABC News affiliate in Charlotte, N.C.

On YouTube, one commenter wrote, "This is definetly [sic] a human.. The walk pattern confirms this human not an ape."

Video May Be Entertaining But Not Believable, Skeptic Says

"Everything about it says hoax," said Benjamin Radford, managing editor of Skeptical Inquirer magazine and paranormal investigator.

The skepticism stems from not only from the fact that Byer had enough time to get out of his truck and film the "beast," but also the low-quality of the video almost makes it seem as though it was intentionally of poor quality to make real analysis impossible, Radford said.

Though people may be passing the video around online, he said, they're likely forwarding it for the novelty of it, not because they actually believe it.

"There's always the curiosity about Bigfoot and Elvis sightings, and that will always be with us. But it's a mistake to think that they're actually buying it," he said.