 About a year ago my neighbor,
who is a taxidermist and an accomplished artist, was visiting when I jokingly
said "If we could get a Bigfoot, you could stuff it and we could make
money exhibiting it." To my great surprise he piped up and said he
had already done that and preceded to tell me the story.
-
- In 1968, he contracted with a carnival man he faintly
remembers was from California to make a Bigfoot-type creature. At the time,
Wayne was a Canadian resident living in British Colombia.
-
- The creature's skeleton was made from wood. The body
was formed using paper-mache and was anatomically correct in every detail.
He put on four heavy coats of tinted rubber cement. On the last coat, he
cemented bear fur - on end - to the creature. He said that operation took
a long time. The finger and toenails were made from lead.
-
- When completed, he stated the creature looked real. He
mentioned the heavy coats of rubber cement made the feeling of real flesh.
He received $750 for his creation.
-
- He remembers that the man stuck the creature in ice and
took him around to fairs. Sometime later, the man was contacted by the
FBI probably because the creature was so lifelike and anatomically correct.
After convincing them it was a fake, he was asked to go on the local radio
and expose the hoax.
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- If anyone has seen this 'creature' or has any information
on what might have happened to it, please email Jeff. Please put 'Fake
Bigfoot Information' in the email Subject line.
-
-
-
- Response to "NW Taxidermist Once Created A 'Bigfoot'"
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- Comment
From Loren Coleman
lcoleman@maine.rr.com
11-20-3
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- This "Faked Bigfoot" Is No Minnesota Iceman.
-
- I am really a rather open-minded kind of guy, but I have
to call a false claim a false claim when it is so very obviously so.
-
- In response to my discussion of the Minnesota Iceman
with Brad Steiger and Jeff Rense on your recent radio program, Mr. Tom
Solberg has forwarded an item posted on November 18, 2003 to Jeff's website,
about a friend of his named "Wayne," whom he reports created
a "fake Bigfoot."
-
- Mr. Solberg writes: "When completed, he stated the
creature looked real." Of course, as the photograph of this creation
has been forwarded with Mr. Solberg's item, we all can see with our own
eyes that this fake has little overlap with the descriptions of Bigfoot/Sasquatch
given for hundreds of years by Native Americans, First Nations Canadians,
Inuits, Western settlers, and modern residents of the Pacific Northwest.
-
- Mr. Solberg then says the fake's creator, Wayne "...remembers
that the man [who came to pick it up] stuck the creature in ice and took
him around to fairs. Sometime later, the man was contacted by the FBI probably
because the creature was so lifelike and anatomically correct. After convincing
them it was a fake, he was asked to go on the local radio and expose the
hoax."
-
- Of course, Mr. Solberg was saying this in his response
to the program and here in his posting because he feels he had solved the
mystery of the Minnesota Iceman. Perhaps we should excuse Mr. Solberg
for not remembering the exact details of what he was told some years ago,
but since this is being presented as a new "hoax exposed" news
item, it has to be noted that the facts recorded could not be more remote
from the facts of this case. Let's look at dates and size, for example.
-
- A remarkable example of a relatively recently killed
unknown hairy hominoid was first documented by zoologist Terry Cullen in
the fall of 1967, when he saw it being exhibited by Frank Hansen, in a
block of ice, in Milwaukee. This specific "Missing Link" (as
it reportedly was once billed) had been on the exhibition circuit for some
time. Mr. Hansen had been showing it at stock and state fairs, not carnivals,
for a few years. Cullen attempted to interest academic anthropologists
in looking at the body but none would. Zoologist Ivan T. Sanderson, who
had then been contacted by Cullen, and zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans, visiting
Sanderson in New Jersey at the time, quickly journeyed to Minnesota to
examine and photograph this dead carcass over a three day period, December
16 to 18, 1968. The body they observed late in 1968, matched the one seen
by Cullen in 1967, and measured six feet long. This specimen has, of course,
since been labeled the "Minnesota Iceman," although Sanderson
gave it the nickname "Bozo," and Heuvelmans formally named it
Homo pongoides in his scientific study of the specimen in the Bulletin
of the Royal Institute of Natural Science of Belgium.
-
- This NW Taxidermist's "fake Bigfoot" does not
match the Minnesota Iceman, on many fronts. The man, Wayne, in the photograph
is 5 feet 8 inches tall (which Mr. Solberg has noted in private emails
to me on this matter). Since Wayne appears to be almost 2/3 of the height
of this "fake Bigfoot," we can safely note that this constructed
non-Bigfoot was approximately 8.5 feet tall in 1968. The length of the
Minnesota Iceman was 6 feet in 1967-1968, and was housed in a 9 foot long
block of ice. The six foot body photographed by Sanderson and Heuvelmans,
of course, looks in no way like this fake giant 8.5 feet tall taxidermy
creation of Wayne's, shown in the photograph with the date "Summer
1968" on it. This "fake Bigfoot's" long head hair, facial
features, body hair covering, height, and bearskin shorts look nothing
like the Minnesota Iceman. And the Minnesota Iceman was already (at least
by 1968) in ice *before* this fake was said to even be put in ice (after
the summer of 1968). This thing from Wayne's world is not what Sanderson
and Heuvelmans photographed in December 1968.
-
- We can rather convincingly say that this rather poor
example of a Bigfoot that doesn't look like a Bigfoot has nothing to do
with the Minnesota Iceman, no matter how many ways the tale of this 8.5
model is twisted, cut up, or made to fit into a six foot long account.
-
- It seems to be a fad these days to come forth and try
to explain various Bigfoot stories with testimony that has more holes in
it than the original accounts (e.g. the Wallace wooden fake big feet models
don't even match the 1958 Jerry Crew Bigfoot tracks they were suppose have
made). Upon looking a little more closely at them, most turn out as thin
as this "NW Taxidermist" explanation, I am afraid.
-
- The mystery of the Minnesota Iceman remains.
-
- For the most detailed accounts about the Minnesota Iceman,
please see specific chapters in these books:
-
- BIGFOOT!: The True Story of Apes in America (NY: Paraview
Pocket-Simon and Schuster, 2003) http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0743469755/cryptozoologi-20
-
- Living Fossils by Mark Hall (Wilmington, NC: MAH Publications,
1999) http://home.att.net/~mark.hall.wonders
-
- Loren Coleman © 2003
-
-
-
- Reply from Tom Solberg 11-20-3
-
- Hi Jeff
-
- Nowhere in the posted story did it say this particular
recreation was the Minnesota Iceman or a Bigfoot. The title, done by others,
unfortunately mentions Bigfoot in it.
-
- Let me say again: THIS CREATURE WAS NOT MADE TO RESEMBLE
A BIGFOOT, IT IS A HUMANOID "WILD MAN" CURIO -- ONE OF A KIND,
OPENLY MADE FOR A CARNIVAL SIDESHOW ATTRACTION.
-
- It seems that Mr. Coleman can't get this through his
head and continues referring to it as a poor resemblance of a Bigfoot.
I question whether Coleman's response - which mentions emails that were
circulated in private - should be made public all. In fact, I was the
first to request you to drop the idea that this was the 'Minnesota Iceman'
after Brad Steiger and Coleman expressed doubts. Now, that dismissed idea
it is being resurrected again in Mr. Coleman's statement.
-
- Why couldn't there be two, or for that matter, numerous
fake humanoid 'wild men' exhibited at the scores of carnivals and fairs
throughout the country? Coleman is now trying to show the public that
Wayne and myself are whackos or con men, which I deeply resent.
-
- I even freely provided Wayne's phone number, urging everyone
to talk to him and get the information first hand, question him further.
Did anyone do so? No.
-
- Coleman's response should pertain to the posted article
only and the Minnesota Iceman was not mentioned. COLEMAN SHOULD SAY THIS
CREATURE IS NOT THE ICEMAN THEN GIVE HIS BACKUP SUPPORTING IS OPINION BUT
TO GO ON AND ON SLAMMING WAYNE AND MYSELF IS NOT RIGHT. He is reading far
too much in the article posted. He accused me of changing my story. he
only thing that has changed is that this creature might or might not be
the actual Iceman AND THAT IS WHY WE REQUESTED RENSE.COM READER RESPONSE
TO WAYNE'S CREATURE'S CURRENT WHEREABOUTS. I tried through numerous private
emails to support the idea that this creature might possibly be the Iceman
because someone *could* have remodeled it. I then viewed existing Minnesota
Iceman websites which clearly note that Hansen was stopped by the border
patrol entering the US from Canada with a 'wild man creature' in his Truck.
Hansen, the exhibitor, changed his story on how he obtained his 'Iceman'
more often than he changed his socks.
-
- First-hand accounts by viewers of the Iceman posted on
the various websites mentioned the foggy ice made for hazy viewing. This
unclear viewing makes for an illusion of sorts and each viewer gets a different
impression of what he saw. That makes for an terrific side show attraction.
Legends die hard, so, let the idea that Wayne's 'creature' was the Minnesota
Iceman R.I.P.
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