"I’ll probably lose my filmmaker card for sharing this, but 90 percent of what I watch are shows about the paranormal and cryptozoology."
The authenticity of a Florida Skunk Ape video has been debated since 2000, when David Shealy supposedly captured footage of the creature in Ochobee’s Big Cypress National Preserve.
The two-minute video shows a large, hairy creature strolling on two legs through swamp.
It has been viewed more than 250,000 times on YouTube, shared by numerous media outlets, including the Smithsonian Magazine, and helps bring curious visitors to Shealy’s Skunk Ape Research Headquarters that doubles as a gift shop and campground office.
Is his footage real? More importantly, is the Skunk Ape?
“When people do not believe, it is ridiculous to me,” Shealy said.
Filmmaker Ryan Justice admits his own Skunk Ape footage captured in the wooded area behind the Museum of Science & Industry on Fowler Avenue is fake.
But he hopes it brings the same attention to the Florida legend as has Shealy’s video.
The Tampa producer and director spent September shooting a film with the working title The Wild Man throughout Hillsborough County in September.
Read more at the Tampa Bay Times