Filmmaker hunts elusive cryptid
creature that threw a series of rocks over a distance of 20m, with one measuring around 15kg.
“A number of people have been chased off that mountain,” Coppell said, who added a “big ridicule factor” contributes to their stories never being conveyed to media.
“I don’t think these things are malevolent,” Coppell said — despite picking up a mysterious voice uttering his name and saying, “We scare you,” while on one of his investigations.
Coppell is the first to admit he has his detractors. He comes prepared for the sceptical inquiries he regularly fields from the general public online and those in the scientific and paranormal community, who often rubbish the claims of an undiscovered ape-like creature lurking in the New Zealand bush.
A well-worn story from 1924 is often trotted out as an explanation for the sightings of the hairy man.
Legend tells of a pet gorilla or baboon that supposedly escaped from a boat anchored in a bay near the ranges by scaling the rigging after being teased by the crew.
The animal subsequently leaped into the water only to swim ashore and escape into the bush.
Another theory is that the term Moehau Monster was coined from the name of a Yankee steam log hauler, and over time, the story became exaggerated.
Unrepentant, Coppell points out the holes in the theory, one being the lifespan of a baboon or gorilla is 35-40 years. That would mean any such creature is long dead, thus making modern accounts of the Moehau Man less explainable.
Secondly, he has documented video and cast evidence of footprints
I’ve been followed, had feelings of being watched, stuff thrown at me and come across large footprints in an area with no public access. Marc Coppell, filmmaker and paranormal investigator
collected from the search area, which he says are huge and “human-like”, potentially dismissing the dissimilar tracks of primates and great apes.
“A typical Sasquatch print is like humans but bigger and very flatfooted,” Coppell said.
New evidence that Coppell refers to as “the motherlode” can be seen in The X-rated Files: Followed from Skinwalker, allowing true believers and scoffers alike a chance to look and listen to the evidence he has painstakingly collected over the best part of a decade — and decide for themselves.
Being Auckland-based, Coppell will continue to hunt for the Moehau Man as time allows and said new evidence recorded at night “when there is a different type of energy” has propelled him to keep looking for answers to one of the Coromandel’s unique mysteries.