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The number of alleged sightings of Bigfoot over the years has been innumerable.
The creature has supposedly been seen so often that it has accumulated 58 different names around the world including Sasquatch, Yeti, Wendigo, Skunk Ape, Yowie, the Ohio Grassman, and Monkey Man.
Recently, an alleged 1883 photo of Bigfoot standing next to a man in Alabama was widely shared on social media.
“BIGFOOT OR SASQUATCH This photograph, taken in 1883 this year on Okey Mountain, Cleburne County, Alabama USA, was found buried in a glass jar on the family estate,” read one tweet making the rounds on the internet.
The image, with the same caption, was also shared on Facebook.
“I have seen several I saw a family once the peninsula in Washington State is a real hotspot when you get on the mountain at night. Every time I have seen one it was the top of a mountain right around midnight,” read one comment on the post.
That post, however, now has this covering the alleged Bigfoot photo, “False information. Checked by independent fact-checkers.”
It turns out that the alleged 1883 photo of Bigfoot was actually created by Dan Lyle and originally shared on his Instagram account @the_ai_experiment.
“The Giants That Built The West,” reads the caption on his Instagram post.
Lyle told Reuters in an email that the Bigfoot photo was actually generated using the AI tool MidJourney V 5.1 with the following prompt: “Picture of the last known giant Neanderthal on earth, walking amongst normal height men, black and white, tattered vintage photo –ar 9:16 –v 5.1 –style raw.”
Interestingly, despite his account being named The AI Experiment and Lyle using the hashtags #ai, #aiart, #aiartcommunity, #midjourneyai, #digital, and #digitalart, some people appear to have still believed that the images were real.
“Are these ai generated or real pics? I don’t doubt them, just want to verify,” one person commented.
“For the love of God, it says AI GENERATED in the caption,” someone else replied.
So, unfortunately, the well-created image is not actually proof that Bigfoot exists.
Now if we can just figure out with certainty whether or not the infamous Patterson-Gimlin film is real we’ll really be on to something.