Minnesota Iceman Hoax

[Guest LAL]

Why tell people his attraction was a fake when they would line up to see it if they thought it was real?

That doesn't answer the question. If the eyes were to be blown out and/or obscured why have them made in the first place?

When he was retired? When Langdon was retired? When Napier could care less because he was going on digs with the Leakeys?

I meant when he was approached about making artificial eyes.

Oop, oop, oop-oop

Now you're getting it.

[Huntster]

Huntster, on 28 April 2011 - 05:38 AM, said:

So? Images like these go back thousands of years of recorded human history:

So where are the satyr reports today? Why are the few that exist not distributed in biologically acceptable densities like sasquatch report densities (higher in areas of greater precipitation, just like black bear densities)?

And if someone displays a satyr in a block of ice, and someone starts telling you that it couldn't be fake because that person had nothing to base it off of, you would know they were wrong, right?

I would believe that it was a fake because I don't believe satyrs ever existed, not because there were or were not historical pictures of them. There have never been satyr fossils (unlike bipedal apes and/or hominids), a half-man, half-goat is biologically impossible, and there is no current evidence of the existence of satyrs.

Sometimes I wonder if you guys are even reading the threads to see what people are responding to. It seems like you are just skimming through looking for certain posts and responding to that with no idea what the subject is.

Sometimes I wonder if you guys even want to understand the sasquatch phenomenon. It seems like you are just skimming through looking for certain posts to cast doubt about and doing so with no concern that the ultimate goal of this phenomenon is to establish whether or not the subject exists.

[wolftrax]

That doesn't answer the question. If the eyes were to be blown out and/or obscured why have them made in the first place?

Because Hansen couldn't see the future and that the eyes wouldn't be as obvious on film.

I meant when he was approached about making artificial eyes.

Making a like for business would go for the whole enchilada.

Now you're getting it.

Along with Darwin, Kong, the Abominable Snowman, The Manster, The Apeman, on and on...

[Guest LAL]

“Bozo’s face is his most startling feature, both to anthropologists and anyone else – and for several reasons. Unfortunately, both eyeballs have been ‘blow out’ of their sockets. One appears to be missing, but the other seems (to some, at least) to be just visible under the ice. This gives Bozo a gruesome appearance, which is enhanced by a considerable amount of blood diffused from the sockets through the ice. The most arresting feature of the face is the nose. This is large but fairly wide, like that of a Pekinese dog – but not like that of a gorilla, which actually doesn’t have a nose, per se. The nostrils are large, circular, and point straight forward, which is very odd. The mouth is only fairly wide and there is no eversion of the lips at all. His ‘muzzle’ is no more bulging, prominent, or pushed forward than is our own; not at all prognathous like that of a chimp. One side of the mouth is slightly agape and two small teeth can be seen. These should be the right upper canine and the first premolar. The canine or eye-tooth is very small and in no way exaggerated into a tusk, or similar to that of a gorilla or a chimp. But – to me at least – the most interesting features of all are some folds and wrinkle lines around the mouth just below the cheeks. These are absolutely human, and are like those seen in a heavy – jowled, older white man.â€

Does anyone know how long the hair on the body and forelegs of a male black bear gets?

[Guest LAL]

The above should read "blown out". I copied and pasted from Matt Crowley's site (which I was reading) and didn't notice the missing letter until it was too late to add it. Emphasis was mine.

Lloyd Pye's take:

"The Iceman your correspondent [Doug Hajicek] saw in 1968 and what I saw in 1976 were definitely two different things. As I mentioned to you earlier, I went through the line 3 times to view the creature, allowing me in the range of 30 minutes with it. I was 30 years old then, half my age now, with absolutely perfect eyes. Before my experience with it, I had already read Sanderson's report, studied it, and knew what to anticipate and look for. It was all there, everything he described, but most especially - and I can't stress this enough - the hair on the body was IMPECCABLY NATURAL! What your correspondent described was definitely not what I saw. I saw the hairs crystal clearly because the water had "lifted" each strand up off the body so you could see right down to the skin's surface virtually anywhere you could see it (there were indeed some "cloudy" areas). Each hair was thick relative to a human hair, the size of a fine pencil lead, and smoothly round, tapering very gradually out to pointed tips. At the base of each hair - and this was EXTREMELY visible - was a perfectly round dimple into which the hair was rooted. Each dimple was indented INTO the skin and tucked TIGHTLY around each hair. I looked very hard to spot the tell-tale "nicks" I had read would be evidence of hair "punched into" a wax or latex surface in the manner used for the figures at Madame Tussaud's famous museum in Amsterdam, where I visited three years ago, and saw no resemblance whatever to the hairs I saw on the Iceman's body. With my glasses on I could see the tiny nicks because they still haven't managed to improve on the original technique.

These are extremely clear memories for me, Chris, imprinted when I was in my prime, and described on several occasions for friends and acquaintances with an interest in the matter. I KNOW what I saw, I studied it closely, and it bears no resemblance whatever to what your correspondent reported. Furthermore, when I saw it in 1976 it had NEVER been thawed out because the bullet wounds still appeared to be extremely FRESH, and the pink tendrils of plasma and blood oozing out of every wound (chest, from mouth, both nostrils, left eye socket, right eye socket, and left wrist) very clearly extended up THROUGH the ice from wound to surface, and then pooled out into circles there about the size of my palm. Someone with poor vision could not have missed those, much less someone with my eyes at that time in my life. If your correspondent didn't see THOSE, then he didn't see the Iceman I saw.

What I saw was REAL and was, without doubt, a recently living creature that had been shot by a high-caliber bullet, apparently in the middle of the back in order to blow open such a large hole (nearly palm sized) in the center of the chest. Apparently the assailant moved around to finish the creature off with a head shot, and the creature, possibly paralyzed from the chest down from a bullet that severed its spine, must have lifted its left arm to shield its face from the unfamiliar weapon and creature wielding it. A second bullet was fired, which blew through the left wrist, into the left eye, and out the back of the head (the head rested an inch or two lower than normal in the freezer because at least part of the back portion was missing). In that process the right eyeball was ruptured and rested like an empty sac on the right side of the upper cheek.

That was not the handiwork of a hoaxer. A hoaxer couldn't possibly conceive of all those details, much less carry them out with such incredible authenticity. I say again, whatever your correspondent says he saw, he didn't see the Iceman I saw in 1976. That was a freshly killed creature that was apparently hosed off of the blood it must have been covered in, thrown into the freezer, and was still a fresh enough corpse when the water froze such that its oozing wounds left those UNMISTAKABLE pink tendrils threading up through the ice."

http://www.hancockhouse.com/article.php/20060128143634357

Of course we can't take Lloyd Pye seriously because of that Starchild business.

Doug saw the model, unfrozen, in Hansen's barn. He noted the way the hair was sewn in with several hairs in the same hole.

"'In or about 1968 I saw the 'original' Iceman at a fair. I looked at it closely and what struck me the most was that the hair on the creature appeared to be set into the skin like that on my little sister's Barbie doll. Indeed, I noticed that more than one hair was coming out of the same pore in some cases. Certainly there was all the blood and gore sort of thing, but I pretty well wrote it off as a fake from this particular observation. Nevertheless, another concern was that the body looked too firm—there was no shrinkage, wrinkling, bloating, appearance of rotting, and so forth. Even a body frozen in ice will change dramatically, depending on its exposure to air or wet ice.

About ten years later, my girlfriend (wife-to-be) and I were driving out in the Minnesota countryside and we saw a large "Antiques" sign on a farm-like spread. We stopped in, and the owner, who I believe was Frank Hansen, came out to greet us. He was somewhat attracted to my girlfriend and proceeded to take her for a walk, leaving me standing there. I saw an old barn not far off with the door ajar, so I wandered over to have a look inside. There were tons of rusty iron stuff and other junk all over the place and, as I proceeded, I saw a large glass box in a corner. I walked over to it, and there inside was the Iceman, in all his latex rubber glory — covered in dust and grime, as there was no cover. I inspected him closely and noted the hair-attachment anomaly I have mentioned. I then moved one arm to sort of see what the thing was like. I went away thoroughly convinced that what I saw in the barn was the same "creature" I had seen at the fair.

As the years went by and controversy mounted on the Iceman issue, I decided not to further confuse things or perhaps 'break the bubble' with my story. I am certain Hansen did not keep the thing refrigerated when he was at home (not on tour). Why would he incur the expense if it were not necessary? He probably let it thaw and then refilled the 'coffin' with water and froze it when he wished to display the "creature. Now, each time he did this, slight body movement (arms legs, hands) would occur, and some configuration details would change (hair and other details would definitely move slightly). Also, the ice itself would change (bubbles, ice clouds, white ice), resulting in a changed appearance of the entire 'display.' Finally, the underside of the glass on top would vary in terms of fogging, cloudiness, and clear spots. It is these processes and conditions that resulted in the difference between the photographs taken by Heuvelmans and those taken by others at a later time.

Now, as far as the cost to fabricate such a creature, I really don't think it would be very high. What I saw was simply a rubber (latex) dummy with hair implanted, like that on a doll's head. It did not look like a bigfoot, just a hairy old man or perhaps an “early man.†As to the smell that Sanderson and Heuvelmans experienced when they inspected the thing, this was likely semi-rotting animal viscera strategically planted (blood and gore). If the water was frozen in two stages (layers), such material could have easily been placed near the surface (as it was) adding greatly to the overall effect.

Certainly, just because someone (Hansen?) created a sideshow corpse (as he admitted) does not invalidate witness testimony and other evidence that indicate there was (and might continue to be) an authentic original “Minnesota Iceman.†However, I do feel that if such were the case, it would have found its way to mainstream science by this time."

http://www.hancockhouse.com/article.php/20060123164813416

[kitakaze]

So where are the satyr reports today? Why are the few that exist not distributed in biologically acceptable densities like sasquatch report densities (higher in areas of greater precipitation, just like black bear densities)?

I would believe that it was a fake because I don't believe satyrs ever existed, not because there were or were not historical pictures of them. There have never been satyr fossils (unlike bipedal apes and/or hominids), a half-man, half-goat is biologically impossible, and there is no current evidence of the existence of satyrs.

The reports are there...

http://www.unknown-creatures.com/maryland-goatman.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goatman_(Maryland)

Don't be a satyr hater.

[Huntster]

Does anyone know how long the hair on the body and forelegs of a male black bear gets?

Yup. I sure do:

It depends. Just like with humans, individual genetics can vary. But there are trends. For example, black bears in the Prince William Sound area of Alaska are well known among hunters to have long, luxurious fur, much more so than interior bears. Many folks believe that this is because Prince William Sound is extremely glaciated, but I've never read anything to indicate that this is a scientific conclusion. In another example of black bear genetics, the black bears of Prince of Wales Island tend to be huge in body (among the largest on Earth), but their fur is not said to be as long as that of Prince William Sound bears.

The only black bear I ever mounted into a rug is a 6'8" squared boar from Prince William Sound (skull squared right at 19") that was estimated at 15 years of age when harvested. I just went over the rug with the tape. The fur length varied. On the outside of the front leg and along the top of his back, it was about 2". It was 3" in the inside of the same front leg and near the belly area. The fur was longest as one got closer to where the groin was. That was 4" long. His hair on top of his head was only 1/2" long.

[Guest Blackdog]

I'm sorry but this is just sad.

This was a carnival gaff. To make anything more of it is fantasy and I think (hope) most folks can recognize that.

I get the feeling if some of us said the world was round there would be people here that would argue it was flat just to disagree with us.

I think what some of you old timers forget (and what the newbies don't know) is that many of the folks you hang the "skeptic", "scoftic" or "denialist" tag on started out on the BFF (and in most cases well before that) as proponents.

But now that we, through a very careful look at the evidence presented, find that much of the evidence presented is lacking tangible quality we are the bad guys. That isn't because we don't want to find it tangible, it's just because it is what it is.

This is a losing battle for us because the proponents can play the "we can't know anything about sasquatch", "science ignores sasquatch" and "science doesn't apply to sasquatch" cards, which are arguments based on fantasy but are arguments, that on the BFF today, can't be countered because of the vocal believers whose goal is to quash any type of rational discussion without any dissension.

I honestly have a hard time trying to figure out why the honest examination of the evidence is so objectionable to some people here and why the idea that some of the evidence presented in the past might just be intangible.

I also understand that people don't want to let go of their core beliefs, but when the emperor wears no clothes, the emperor wears no clothes.

Let the usual dissection of this post commence....

[Huntster]

Huntster, on 28 April 2011 - 05:38 AM, said:

So where are the satyr reports today? Why are the few that exist not distributed in biologically acceptable densities like sasquatch report densities (higher in areas of greater precipitation, just like black bear densities)?

Huntster, on 28 April 2011 - 04:46 PM, said:

I would believe that it was a fake because I don't believe satyrs ever existed, not because there were or were not historical pictures of them. There have never been satyr fossils (unlike bipedal apes and/or hominids), a half-man, half-goat is biologically impossible, and there is no current evidence of the existence of satyrs.

The reports are there...

Thank you:

1) The Maryland Goatman. Any others?

2) If no others, why not?

3)) I also asked, "Why are the few that exist not distributed in biologically acceptable densities like sasquatch report densities (higher in areas of greater precipitation, just like black bear densities)?": So, are they only in Maryland? I've never heard of such in either California or Alaska. Is that because California is too hot, and Alaska too cold? Because Alaska has goatman eating bears?

4) Got goatman reports in Japan? For that matter, got Bigfoot reports? If not, why not?

5) I can offer answers to all the above questions. You?

Don't be a satyr hater.

I'm not. As I wrote, I'm a satyr disbeliever. Sorta' like you being a bigfoot disbeliever.

Don't be a put-words-in-another's-mouther.

[kitakaze]

Koola-Aid is cheap and delicious for people who like sugar water...

[Huntster]

That isn't because we don't want to find it tangible, it's just because it is what it is.

You don't know what it is any more than I do. You believe one thing, and I believe another. Both beliefs are based on what evidence (including testimony) that is available, or the absence of evidence/proof.

This is a losing battle for us because the proponents can play the "we can't know anything about sasquatch", "science ignores sasquatch" and "science doesn't apply to sasquatch" cards, which are arguments based on fantasy but are arguments, that on the BFF today, can't be countered because of the vocal believers whose goal is to quash any type of rational discussion without any dissension.

As one easily swayed, you are indeed in a "losing battle". You cannot destroy belief (even though you, just like everybody else here and everybody walking the planet) are a creature of belief. Interestingly, the understanding of belief is one of the most basic tenets of humanity, and you don't appear to have a clue.

Sad, indeed. You are clearly destined for many "losing battles"...............

For the record, I have no idea what the Minnesota Ice Man is/was, but clearly, Ice Men can be found, and great scientific evidence can be found in circus side shows while the "great minds of science" remain in complete denial:

Victorian showmen had fewer scruples. They knew that a gorilla meant money, whether it was genuine or not, and so they happily showed off any ape they could get their hands on as a "gorilla". But in one of the great odd twists of ape history, it seems one live gorilla had already toured England without anyone realising it.

In 1855, a strange sort of chimpanzee was kept by George W. Wombwell’s famous travelling menagerie. "Jenny" survived a few months before dying of pneumonia in Scarborough in March 1856. The dead creature was promptly sold to Charles Waterton, an eccentric naturalist-***-taxidermist. Waterton was fond of creating fanciful "nondescripts" from assemblages of animal parts, and so Jenny’s skin was altered and stuffed to form a hideous horned simian sculpture titled – for Waterton was an ardent Catholic – Martin Luther After His Fall.

But what the menagerie had been touring with was not a chimpanzee at all. Later examination revealed that Jenny was a juvenile gorilla. The remains of the first gorilla to live outside Africa now survive only as a bizarre taxidermic joke in the Waterton Collection at the Wakefield Museum in Yorkshire. It would be decades before any other gorilla survived in Britain for as long as Jenny had. And so it was that squalling babies, runny-nosed urchins and exasperated mothers unwittingly witnessed the world’s rarest captive animal, and for a few pence on English village greens were granted a sight denied to the most respected men of science.

[wolftrax]

The above should read "blown out". I copied and pasted from Matt Crowley's site (which I was reading) and didn't notice the missing letter until it was too late to add it. Emphasis was mine.

That blown out eye was what Chambers claimed to have made.

Lloyd Pye's take:

"The Iceman your correspondent [Doug Hajicek] saw in 1968 and what I saw in 1976 were definitely two different things. As I mentioned to you earlier, I went through the line 3 times to view the creature, allowing me in the range of 30 minutes with it. I was 30 years old then, half my age now, with absolutely perfect eyes. Before my experience with it, I had already read Sanderson's report, studied it, and knew what to anticipate and look for. It was all there, everything he described, but most especially - and I can't stress this enough - the hair on the body was IMPECCABLY NATURAL! What your correspondent described was definitely not what I saw. I saw the hairs crystal clearly because the water had "lifted" each strand up off the body so you could see right down to the skin's surface virtually anywhere you could see it (there were indeed some "cloudy" areas). Each hair was thick relative to a human hair, the size of a fine pencil lead, and smoothly round, tapering very gradually out to pointed tips. At the base of each hair - and this was EXTREMELY visible - was a perfectly round dimple into which the hair was rooted. Each dimple was indented INTO the skin and tucked TIGHTLY around each hair. I looked very hard to spot the tell-tale "nicks" I had read would be evidence of hair "punched into" a wax or latex surface in the manner used for the figures at Madame Tussaud's famous museum in Amsterdam, where I visited three years ago, and saw no resemblance whatever to the hairs I saw on the Iceman's body. With my glasses on I could see the tiny nicks because they still haven't managed to improve on the original technique.

These are extremely clear memories for me, Chris, imprinted when I was in my prime, and described on several occasions for friends and acquaintances with an interest in the matter. I KNOW what I saw, I studied it closely, and it bears no resemblance whatever to what your correspondent reported. Furthermore, when I saw it in 1976 it had NEVER been thawed out because the bullet wounds still appeared to be extremely FRESH, and the pink tendrils of plasma and blood oozing out of every wound (chest, from mouth, both nostrils, left eye socket, right eye socket, and left wrist) very clearly extended up THROUGH the ice from wound to surface, and then pooled out into circles there about the size of my palm. Someone with poor vision could not have missed those, much less someone with my eyes at that time in my life. If your correspondent didn't see THOSE, then he didn't see the Iceman I saw.

What I saw was REAL and was, without doubt, a recently living creature that had been shot by a high-caliber bullet, apparently in the middle of the back in order to blow open such a large hole (nearly palm sized) in the center of the chest. Apparently the assailant moved around to finish the creature off with a head shot, and the creature, possibly paralyzed from the chest down from a bullet that severed its spine, must have lifted its left arm to shield its face from the unfamiliar weapon and creature wielding it. A second bullet was fired, which blew through the left wrist, into the left eye, and out the back of the head (the head rested an inch or two lower than normal in the freezer because at least part of the back portion was missing). In that process the right eyeball was ruptured and rested like an empty sac on the right side of the upper cheek.

That was not the handiwork of a hoaxer. A hoaxer couldn't possibly conceive of all those details, much less carry them out with such incredible authenticity. I say again, whatever your correspondent says he saw, he didn't see the Iceman I saw in 1976. That was a freshly killed creature that was apparently hosed off of the blood it must have been covered in, thrown into the freezer, and was still a fresh enough corpse when the water froze such that its oozing wounds left those UNMISTAKABLE pink tendrils threading up through the ice."

http://www.hancockhouse.com/article.php/20060128143634357

Of course we can't take Lloyd Pye seriously because of that Starchild business.

No, it's just 1976 was well after the time Hansen claimed he did the "Switcheroo" and it would have had to have been the fake.

Doug saw the model, unfrozen, in Hansen's barn. He noted the way the hair was sewn in with several hairs in the same hole.

"'In or about 1968 I saw the 'original' Iceman at a fair. I looked at it closely and what struck me the most was that the hair on the creature appeared to be set into the skin like that on my little sister's Barbie doll. Indeed, I noticed that more than one hair was coming out of the same pore in some cases. Certainly there was all the blood and gore sort of thing, but I pretty well wrote it off as a fake from this particular observation. Nevertheless, another concern was that the body looked too firm—there was no shrinkage, wrinkling, bloating, appearance of rotting, and so forth. Even a body frozen in ice will change dramatically, depending on its exposure to air or wet ice.

About ten years later, my girlfriend (wife-to-be) and I were driving out in the Minnesota countryside and we saw a large "Antiques" sign on a farm-like spread. We stopped in, and the owner, who I believe was Frank Hansen, came out to greet us. He was somewhat attracted to my girlfriend and proceeded to take her for a walk, leaving me standing there. I saw an old barn not far off with the door ajar, so I wandered over to have a look inside. There were tons of rusty iron stuff and other junk all over the place and, as I proceeded, I saw a large glass box in a corner. I walked over to it, and there inside was the Iceman, in all his latex rubber glory — covered in dust and grime, as there was no cover. I inspected him closely and noted the hair-attachment anomaly I have mentioned. I then moved one arm to sort of see what the thing was like. I went away thoroughly convinced that what I saw in the barn was the same "creature" I had seen at the fair.

As the years went by and controversy mounted on the Iceman issue, I decided not to further confuse things or perhaps 'break the bubble' with my story. I am certain Hansen did not keep the thing refrigerated when he was at home (not on tour). Why would he incur the expense if it were not necessary? He probably let it thaw and then refilled the 'coffin' with water and froze it when he wished to display the "creature. Now, each time he did this, slight body movement (arms legs, hands) would occur, and some configuration details would change (hair and other details would definitely move slightly). Also, the ice itself would change (bubbles, ice clouds, white ice), resulting in a changed appearance of the entire 'display.' Finally, the underside of the glass on top would vary in terms of fogging, cloudiness, and clear spots. It is these processes and conditions that resulted in the difference between the photographs taken by Heuvelmans and those taken by others at a later time.

Now, as far as the cost to fabricate such a creature, I really don't think it would be very high. What I saw was simply a rubber (latex) dummy with hair implanted, like that on a doll's head. It did not look like a bigfoot, just a hairy old man or perhaps an “early man.†As to the smell that Sanderson and Heuvelmans experienced when they inspected the thing, this was likely semi-rotting animal viscera strategically planted (blood and gore). If the water was frozen in two stages (layers), such material could have easily been placed near the surface (as it was) adding greatly to the overall effect.

Certainly, just because someone (Hansen?) created a sideshow corpse (as he admitted) does not invalidate witness testimony and other evidence that indicate there was (and might continue to be) an authentic original “Minnesota Iceman.†However, I do feel that if such were the case, it would have found its way to mainstream science by this time."

http://www.hancockhouse.com/article.php/20060123164813416

I was looking for that story, yet another person claiming it was a fake.

[wolftrax]

I would believe that it was a fake because I don't believe satyrs ever existed, not because there were or were not historical pictures of them. There have never been satyr fossils (unlike bipedal apes and/or hominids), a half-man, half-goat is biologically impossible, and there is no current evidence of the existence of satyrs.

That's nice.

Sometimes I wonder if you guys even want to understand the sasquatch phenomenon. It seems like you are just skimming through looking for certain posts to cast doubt about and doing so with no concern that the ultimate goal of this phenomenon is to establish whether or not the subject exists.

And how is that going for you? Making any progress by arguing about it on the net?

[Huntster]

Huntster, on 28 April 2011 - 04:46 PM, said:

I would believe that it was a fake because I don't believe satyrs ever existed, not because there were or were not historical pictures of them. There have never been satyr fossils (unlike bipedal apes and/or hominids), a half-man, half-goat is biologically impossible, and there is no current evidence of the existence of satyrs.

That's nice.

Sure is. Appropriate, too. Wise to apply to similar phenomenon, as well.

Sometimes I wonder if you guys even want to understand the sasquatch phenomenon. It seems like you are just skimming through looking for certain posts to cast doubt about and doing so with no concern that the ultimate goal of this phenomenon is to establish whether or not the subject exists.

And how is that going for you? Making any progress by arguing about it on the net?

It's going fabulously! It's more than commensurate with the opposing arguments on the net from denialists who argue that sasquatches don't exist. You see, neither side can prove squat, but as one who has no problem with belief (which denialists gnash their teeth at the very thought of), I don't need to prove squat.

I just believe that which is believable, point out the beliefs of those who falsely believe they have command of reality, and bask in both my belief and my success.

It's great!

Thanks for asking.

[Guest]

This thread serves as a prime example the credulity that still plagues Bigfootery. Regardless of how many lies Frank Hansen told and how many times he changed his stories, regardless of the people who did the hoax explaining exactly what they did, you will still have believers that a carnival huckster actually had a Vietnamese Bigfoot creature frozen in ice. You can learn nothing about Bigfoot from the MIM hoax and everything about the perpetuation of hoaxing in Bigfootery.

Kit,

I've got to disagree with that first statement. I really think in this case the vast majority of individuals who are convinced or think it is likely that bigfoot is real, place the Iceman into the 'nonviable' category. I'm guessing that the vast majority in this case would be upwards of 90+% that think the Iceman was merely an illusion in rubber. I also think that most of that vast majority of proponents that think that bigfoot is real or likely is real probably think that those arguing in favor of the Iceman are doing more harm than good by by trying to push really poor evidence to the forefront. I could be way off base here. I think a poll might have been helpful in this one and likely would have revealed that most proponents simply don't see the Iceman being remotely viable.

I also agree with the basic premise that there's a ton of similarities between the Georgia hoax (GH) and the Iceman. I do think Hansen was on a different level than the GH perps though in that they were very foolish and cornered themselves by selling the goods as the 'real deal' where as Hansen simply sold the opportunity to view his fabricated illusion for a token amount with the implication that it was nothing more than a fake offered up purely as entertainment.