Hoaxes, Hoaxers, Frauds, And Con-Men In The Bigfoot Community

[norseman]

Ray, did you really add Green to your list because he wrote an April Fool edition in his paper?

And I cheated on my IRS tax form 20 years ago and may have forgotten to pay a parking ticket at some point in my life........so I guess anything I say and do in Squatchery is a hoax? Or fraudulent?

(I also pranked my aunt and uncle in the 8th grade with a pair of board feet I made in wood shop too.)

[Guest RayG]

Ray, did you really add Green to your list because he wrote an April Fool edition in his paper?

Yes, were you aware that he had done so? If not, why not?

And did you also see this bit of mine from post #21?

All the names/incidents listed have some form of hoaxing associated with them or attributed to them. It may seem a very small touch of hoaxing/chicanery, or it may be a full-blown, elaborate hoax, but there are sources for each of them.

norseman: Had you been wearing some form of gorilla suit when you cheated on your IRS form, I may have considered adding you to the list.

RayG

[roguefooter]

This is the list of a skofftic, not a skeptic. "Factual information" clearly has nothing to do with it.

[Guest RayG]

Which people/incidents on the list do you feel are incorrect?

RayG

[roguefooter]

I already pointed them out. Show me the facts.

[Guest RayG]

The story of Morgan is more fully explained in Blu Buhs excellent book. On page 193, Blu Buhs reports that Morgan received $45,000 ($40k of that from the Louisa D. Carpenter Foundation, and the other $5k from an anonymous Floridian) in the form of grants administered by the National Wildlife Foundation, to hunt for bigfoot in Washington. This was back in 1974. According to the footnotes, Byrne's comments were from the American Yeti Expedition papers.

RayG

[roguefooter]

Grants for pursuing Bigfoot is not evidence of hoaxing Ray, unless you want to add Meldrum and Munn to the list for receiving grant money.

Accusations from Byrne, a rival researcher, also don't equal facts. If I accused you of hoaxing would you add yourself to the list? That's seems to be the only requirement.

You stated that Patterson took money and "failed to mail back any memberships". Where are the facts to support this?

You also stated Patterson dug a footprint with his hands and poured a casting for his documentary- how exactly does this equate a hoax?

Edited January 6, 2013 by roguefooter

[adam2323]

Yea RF +1!!!

[Guest]

Interesting thread, it should also have a running list of great contributors that are non-hoaxers. A couple I have great respect for are:

Cliff Barakman

Jeff Meldrum

[Guest]

I agree completely with RayG. All those people have at least been on the periphery of some controversy. It seems that most in this field can't stay above the fray. The more one goes along, the more hoaxers, quacks, kooks, baffoons, seem to come out. If one starts out a believer, then just reads all the accounts, it is hard to at least not move toward the skeptic camp. I remember once what some one said about UFO's. Why don't they ever land in Carl Sagans back yard? I wan't ad to the list, but it would not be a stretch to ad Dr. Ketchum, just based on her PR people. Some should be added to the list, simply for not calling BS on others. Every bump or knock in the woods is Bigfoot. Please. You cannot go along with this and not be added to the list.

[bipedalist]

And I cheated on my IRS tax form 20 years ago and may have forgotten to pay a parking ticket at some point in my life........so I guess anything I say and do in Squatchery is a hoax? Or fraudulent?

(I also pranked my aunt and uncle in the 8th grade with a pair of board feet I made in wood shop too.)

You rascal you, and they let you on Steering Committee?

[Guest RayG]

Grants for pursuing Bigfoot is not evidence of hoaxing Ray, unless you want to add Meldrum and Munn to the list for receiving grant money.

I partially addressed this back in post #10...

>>Morgan's inclusion is because of his fiasco with the National Wildlife Federation back in the 70's. Morgan claimed that he and his heavily financed team had "found 161 tracks, collected fur, seen the beast, and recorded its vocalizations.... [Peter] Byrne accused Morgan of faking the tracks--and was promptly fired... He [Morgan] left behind a load of unpaid bills." -- from Joshua Blu Buhs, The Life and Times of a Legend: Bigfoot, page 194.<<

Accusations from Byrne, a rival researcher, also don't equal facts. If I accused you of hoaxing would you add yourself to the list? That's seems to be the only requirement.

Actually, Byrne was one of Morgan's scientific consultants.

Blu Buhs wrties on page 194: "If it was only Byrne's word against Morgan, there might not be much to the story. But Morgan's actions were those of a con artist. He made grandiose claims, saying that he had been behind Skamania's law against killing a Bigfoot. He misrepresented his hunting team: the scientific experts had bachelor's degrees and a smattering of graduate work, but nothing that could be considered real scientific expertise. (One was Ed Killam, who had won the grants to study Bigfoot.) He left behind a load of unpaid bills. The National Wildlife Federation, leery of the whole situation, tried to distance itself from Morgan, but he repeatedly asserted that the federation itself had sponsored him, and continued to do so after the grant was gone and the National Wildlife Federation no longer had any dealings with him. Even the people who Morgan had brought with him to Washington considered him a liar. One said, "I have dropped all relations with the man, and think associating with him in any way is a threat to anyone's professional reputation.""

Blu Buhs footnote for the paragraph above indicates the following correspondence: Morgan to Byrne (July 24, 1974), Byrne to Morgan (October 15, 1974), Edward W. Killam to recipients (November 5, 1974), Isadore Hanken to Whom it may concern (November 18, 1974), Laymond Hardy to Thomas L. Kimball (February 1, 1975 [quotation]), and Thomas L. Kimball to Edward J. Lehman (July 24, 1975), all contained in the American Yeti Expedition papers.

So, as you can see, it wasn't merely Peter Byrne who had issues with Robert Morgan.

You stated that Patterson took money and "failed to mail back any memberships". Where are the facts to support this?

My use of 'any' memberships did not truly reflect the situation. I'll admit that Patterson (or someone on behalf of Patterson) mailed back 'some' memberships, but 'many' memberships and books were not. According to Rene Dahinden:

"Patterson told me that the Yakima postmaster hauled him in two, three times because he collected money off people for books and never sent them out." -- from Greg Long's, The Making of Bigfoot, page 192.

Long also includes a Dahinden quote on page 192, that originated in a newspaper interview Dahinden gave in the Clackamas County News, published August 23, 1979 -- "Patterson was a shiftless deadbeat "and jerk" who never paid his bills, etc.,... Patterson was also a crook."

You also stated Patterson dug a footprint with his hands and poured a casting for his documentary- how exactly does this equate a hoax?

If he dug a footprint with his hand, then he faked it, it wasn't a real footprint, which he could have easily manufactured using his own foot. Aren't documentaries supposed to be factually accurate and contain no fictional elements?

RayG

[Guest]

Why don't they ever land in Carl Sagans back yard?

Sagan had no back yard, per se. His house was built onto the cliffside of Fall Creek Gorge. (Just being pedantic; your point stands. Carry on.)

[Guest]

Thanks Saskeptic, one more thing pushing my thinking in a more skeptical manner. It seems these days that every patch of woods, anywhere in the country is home to a clan of bigfoot. Some people seem able to find them anywhere. This is what got me on the Sagan thing. I think he felt statistically, the probability of ET was nearly certain, but would have been agast by the far out claims with no supporting evidence. Every light in the sky is a UFO, every bump in the forest is a Sasquatch? Hoaxers of both genre have it easy. I think back to the spirit of the topic, if one goes on a bigfoot hunt, quest, they invariable will find evidence, ie Finding Bigfoot. This makes the point that almost anybody involved with the search for Bigfoot could fall into camp of, if not hoaxer, at least easilly hoaxed.

[Guest]

Even if the list is twice as long as Ray's, there are many, many more reliable, dedicated people in the field than there are hoaxers and conmen. They just don't get the same press.