Bigfoot in Clarence?

[From 2 News, May, 31/ 2006.]

Hans Mobius of Clarence says he was clearing brush on his large horse farm Saturday, and was taking pictures of some trees he plans to have cut down, when something very strange happened.

Mobius claims that about 200 feet away, he saw what appeared to be a large ape. He started snapping pictures, then the creature, or person, took off into the woods.

"He had sort of a loping gait," Mobius said. He said he has lived on his horse farm for five years and has never seen any evidence that an animal other than the horses lives there.

Shown the pictures, Jerry Aquilina, Buffalo Zoo General Curator, said, "Gut reaction is it looks like something in a costume."

Aquilina was skeptical about the shape of the heads, hands, the coat color, even the posture. He was even reluctant to comment on the mystery.

"Zoologists in general, especially taxonomists and anthropologists, are usually reluctant to believe anything like that exists unless they have a specimen in hand," Aquilina said. He did say that a large primate could adapt to and survive in the climate of Western New York, but that such a large animal would need to forage for a lot of food, and so is highly unlikely to go undetected for long.

Mobius admits it might just be a hoax, but has to wonder, because he says it would be quite an effort for someone to don such a costume and find him out on his 100-acre property, though he was visible from the road at the time.

"If it was someone in a suit, this was a hoax that was played on me. Somebody went through a lot of trouble to do this," he said.

While Mobius is in the midst of lawsuits over property he is selling on Elmwood Avenue, where a developer wants to build a hotel, he doubts that controversy would spark a Bigfoot joke. He also said he didn't plan on releasing the pictures, but did so at his daughter's insistence.

WCSRO, 2006.