Minnesota Iceman Hoax

[Huntster]

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

Does beer qualify as "sugar water"?

If so, does that mean that I must buy Koola-Aid (sic) because it is cheaper than beer?

Can't I just continue with my beloved beer?

Why do you like to dictate what others believe and drink?

[wolftrax]

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

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.

Well, good for you. I happen to believe in sasquatch and definitely believe in bipedal apes and would love to see anything to support it actually stand up to scrutiny. Unfortunately in this case the person who produced the Iceman had at least 4 different stories of how he got it, one of those he admitted he had a fake made, and that part was the only story that was confirmed by others. Those people, Napier, Chambers, and Langdon, all agree, and that it was a fake the whole time, and confirm each other and who made it. That was the OP of this thread and what it is about. Add Hajicek to the mix and you have yet another person saying it was a hoax. Add comments from others who believed it was real yet the time they saw it placed it in the time period Hansen said it was fake, and that adds even more weight to it being fake the whole time.

So if my belief shaped reality, it would be real. Unfortunately, reality acts on it's own. But that's not such a bad thing.

[Huntster]

I could be way off base here.

You could actually be in the wrong ballpark. Playing the wrong game. In the wrong uniform. All of the above.

The good part is that you at least realize it.

I also agree with the basic premise that there's a ton of similarities between the Georgia hoax (GH) and the Iceman.

What do you think of this story?:

Following is an article that was published in New Scientist magazine in the October 2005 issue that details Thomas Savage’s discovery of the Western Lowland Gorilla.

Histories: Gorillas, I presume

New Scientist Magazine

01 October 2005

Paul Collins

Before 1847, the gorilla was unnamed and only known by rumour. The Reverend Thomas Savage described it to an incredulous scientific world...........

...........Wyman and Savage’s paper, published in the Boston Journal of Natural History in December 1847, was the first full description of the creature that Wyman, mindful of Hanno’s account, named Troglodytes gorilla. Savage provided anecdotes about the gorilla’s behaviour and habitat, while Wyman wrote sections that carefully demonstrated the substantial differences between the gorilla and other great apes. But it was a close-run thing. The

American pair narrowly squeaked into print two months before Stutchbery and Owen, who had named the new species Troglodytes savagei. When Owen heard that the Americans had beaten him to it, he conceded defeat. And so Wyman’s name stuck until a later taxonomic reclassification of the Western Lowland Gorilla resulted in the wonderfully emphatic Gorilla gorilla gorilla.

Wyman went on to achieve some measure of fame for his careful work as a naturalist and as a teacher to US philosopher William James. Reverend Savage lived rather more quietly, working for most of the rest of his life as a rector in Mississippi. At first, the impact of their discovery was largely limited to the scientific world, and it was another decade before whole gorilla specimens began appearing in any numbers in Europe. Shot by such adventurers as the French-American writer Paul Du Chaillu, they were preserved for the long sea-voyage with whatever happened to be on hand at African seaports, typically by sealing them into a cask of spirits. After a long sea journey, the pickled apes gave off an unbelievable stench, but they were such rare finds that nobody much cared.

Displays of stuffed gorillas and gorilla skeletons became the hot tickets of the day, with newspapers reporting that fashionable young women were suddenly befriending stuffy museum trustees in the hope of seeing "those dear, dear gorillas". A "gorilla ballet" took to London stages – though without any actual gorillas. Cartoons in Punch proclaimed the ape "The Lion of the Season" and the Gorilla Quadrille For Piano flew off the shelves of sheet-music stores.

So what about bringing a live gorilla back from Africa? After Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859, the public clamoured to see these mysterious primates. But gorillas proved fragile in human hands, and appeared particularly vulnerable to pulmonary ailments. The few that reached Europe almost invariably died shortly after their arrival. America, with its even longer sea voyage, failed to get hold of a live gorilla until 1897, and that one died four days after landfall. The misery of captured gorillas was so apparent, and their mortality rate so appalling, that in 1908 the London Zoo finally refused to buy them; a decision that would stand until 1932.

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.

See any "similarities" with the Minnesota Ice Man story?

[kitakaze]

Thank you:

1) The Maryland Goatman. Any others?

Texas, Florida, and possibly Virginia...

As early as the late 1980s the Goatman has been sighted at various locations in Texas, including White Rock Lake in Dallas and Cameron Park in Waco. The Texas version is known to harass lone couples in classic fashion, but is also known to scream and throw heavy objects at people, such as rocks, debris and tires. Its form is similar to the mythical Satyr but some sightings describe this goatman as wearing tattered clothes.

Florida sightings are sometimes attributed to the Skunk ape, a local legend.

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

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?

This is a biologically acceptable density?...

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

It's called hibagon...

And is reported mostly from Hokkaido.

The cryptid goatman is called hitsugiotoko in Japan...

http://umafan.blog72.fc2.com/blog-entry-37.html

[wolftrax]

You could actually be in the wrong ballpark. Playing the wrong game. In the wrong uniform. All of the above.

The good part is that you at least realize it.

What are you talking about? What ballpark, game, and uniform?

Edited April 29, 2011 by wolftrax

[kitakaze]

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.

I realized too late after the OP that I had forgotten a poll. Let's do it.

Could a mod possibly attach a poll to this thread with the following options?

Do you think the Minnesota Iceman was at any point a real creature encased in ice and toured by Frank Hansen?

- Yes, I think there was a real creature in ice.

- No, I think it was always a gaffe by a carnival showman.

- I am undecided.

I am going to lay odds that the difference between yes and no will not be very large, and that no and undecided together will outnumber the yes votes.

[Huntster]

Huntster, on 28 April 2011 - 08:45 PM, said:

You could actually be in the wrong ballpark. Playing the wrong game. In the wrong uniform. All of the above.

The good part is that you at least realize it.

What are you talking about? What ballpark, game, and uniform?

Let's review:

willinyc, on 28 April 2011 - 08:25 PM, said:

I could be way off base here.

You could actually be in the wrong ballpark. Playing the wrong game. In the wrong uniform. All of the above.

The good part is that you at least realize it.

"Off base". Standing near the base, but off of it. Ready to be thrown/tagged out. As in baseball. It's an old adage. Ever play ball?

Here, try this:

off base

1. Lit. [of a runner in baseball] not having a foot touching the base. (*Typically: be ~; get ~.) The runner was off base but the first baseman didn't tag him out.

2. Fig. unrealistic; inexact; wrong. *Typically: be ~; get ~.) I'm afraid you're off base when you state that this problem will take care of itself. You're way off base if you think I was to blame!

Worse than being "off base" would be "in the wrong ballpark". "Playing the wrong game" (as in coming to a baseball game with a hockey stick). "In the wrong uniform" (as in coming to play a baseball game wearing football shoulder pads).

http://bigfootforums.com/index.php?/topic/4991-minnesota-iceman-hoax/page__view__findpost__p__58650

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'd guess that would be lower. Maybe 75%?

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'd bet most of those arguing "in favor of the Iceman" are really just arguing that "there is no proof that the Iceman is fake".

Absolute statements on either side require proof. You have no more proof that it is faked than anybody has that it is not only flesh and blood, but not "reassembled" by someone into a fake species, then frozen in ice.

I think a poll might have been helpful in this one

As long as everybody can ask questions of their own and not just get a multiple choice selection of somebody else's questions.

I also agree with the basic premise that there's a ton of similarities between the Georgia hoax (GH) and the Iceman.

Yes, but there are also differences.

[Guest]

Kit,

You may be correct, but I'm betting that most individuals that have an interest in bigfoot really think the Iceman needs to be put on ice. Naturally, at this point though, I'm not really willing to put significant amounts of money on the table, so this will have to be gentleman's bet.

You could actually be in the wrong ballpark. Playing the wrong game. In the wrong uniform. All of the above.

The good part is that you at least realize it.

Indeed, and that would prove Kit to be right. Are we in agreement?

What do you think of this story?:

That it isn't remotely relevant to the Iceman story.

See any "similarities" with the Minnesota Ice Man story?

No.

Let me ask you a few questions. Let's say you were hunting caribou some place, say Siberskoye and you happened onto a frozen carcass of a creature barely 6 feet tall with 10" wide feet and hands the size of tennis racquets. Clearly not human, but clearly bipedal, what would you do with it?

Or let's say you were attacked by an identical critter in a forest outside of whatever replaced the Metrodome after watching a Twins game (where the ghost of Kirby was sighted by all in attendance patrolling center, in the right ballpark, dressed in the correct home uniform...) and you had to shoot it through the eyeball to preventing it from shredding you limb from limb; what would you do with it?

If you're intent was a money grab and you knew it was the real deal, would you parade it around the country in a freezer for all to see at $.35 a pop? Or would you sell it for whatever the market would bear for what would prove to be the most significant biological discovery in modern history and literally retire into the proverbial sunset with a lot more cash than decades of sideshowmanship would bring?

If you weren't interested in money would you think the best way to show your discovery to the world would be to haul it around the continent in a freezer charging everyone who was interested to take a gander at it? All the while calling your credibility into question by changing your story of discovery from finding it frozen and already dead in Siberskoye, to killing it in your (or Kirby's..) own backyard.

[Guest LAL]

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

Then why was it collapsed in Pye's description? Actually, tho OP says "This guy’s story was really good, and he brought it to me wanting artificial eyes, and I gave him artificial eyes and I gave him the people that would do the hair, and then he had it implanted in ice. " Sounds like Chambers didn't actually make the eyes. I don't think collapsed eyeballs are stock.

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.

Or, there was more than one switch. I think Pye might have noted Barbie Doll hair instead of being so adamant the hair was naturally grown.

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

Hajicek saw the model, with Barbie Doll hair, in the barn. Again, it's not in dispute that Hansen had a model made.

Note the last paragraph:

"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."

Napier dismissed it without seeing the exhibit. The Smithsonian lost interest and that could be one reason it didn't find its way to mainstream science at the time.

Napier implied Hansen used someone to get to Sanderson and Heuvelmans because he needed publicity but the articles indicate the exhibit was doing quite well. Cullen tried to get his anthropology professor to look at it and only contacted Sanderson when the professor refused. Cullen was not Hansen's shill.

If Hansen needed publicity and the exhibit was just a model why risk exposure if Sanderson decided to write an article exposing it as a fake? That really makes no sense, IMO.

[Guest LAL]

More from Murphy's blog:

"The more I review the Iceman issue, the more amazed I become with the contention that Dr. Bernard Heuvelmans and Ivan Sanderson were "taken in" on the reality of a fabricated corpse. I have listened again to what Heuvelmans said on camera, as seen in the images shown here, and I present below exactly what he said.

Quoted from an interview with Bernard Heuvelmans by Arthur C. Clark (Mysterious World #6).

"There was no doubt that we were looking at some sort of man, not Homo sapiens, but some sort of strangely hairy man who was judged by many things - the enormous hands and the enormous feet; and also more especially the features of the face, because it was absolutely unlike any man on earth. It was obvious that this creature had been killed because the one eye was completely missing, and the other was hanging out of the socket, and it had blood all around, so we thought it was probably shot in one eye and the bullet made the other eye pop out.

From seeing it, there's no question that the iceman could be a hoax, a faked dummy, rubber dummy, or what have you, as they told in the press when you have seen something. We examined this creature for three days, very carefully, and we were very suspicious I can tell you at the start, but after a while that was quite ruled out. Now there is absolutely no doubt for me that I have [had] been examining a Neanderthal man, a surviving Neanderthal man."

End of Quote

What bothers me the most here is that the iceman was examined in 1968. So if it was a fabrication, then it was created in or before that year. Granted, the "body" was frozen in a block of ice so it could not be seen clearly, but certainly clear enough for a reasonable examination as the photographs of it reveal. In essence, what we have here (given it was a hoax) is a bit of a testimony to the "state of the art" at that time.

Personally, I am really not so sure it was a hoax, but I am sure it was not a sasquatch. My conclusion is, if it were real, then it was a North American almasty. Also, that Hansen shot it and was fearful of repercussions (charges) if anyone got "too close." I would say he had the dummy made as a safeguard in case he was forced to produce the corpse to authorities. It appears he thought this out, and what he feared would happen, did happen. We can reason that the dummy was made (designed) by providing photographs of the actual creature. Here Hansen would simply say that they were photos of a dummy that had been destroyed."

http://www.hancockhouse.com/article.php/2006110913232577

Hansen had drawings, not photos.

I don't agree it was a Neandertal or a North American Almasty, but Homo georgicus showed it wasn't necessary to have clothing, fire and an advanced toolkit to get out of Africa.

[wolftrax]

Then why was it collapsed in Pye's description? Actually, tho OP says "This guy’s story was really good, and he brought it to me wanting artificial eyes, and I gave him artificial eyes and I gave him the people that would do the hair, and then he had it implanted in ice. " Sounds like Chambers didn't actually make the eyes. I don't think collapsed eyeballs are stock.

He could have made them any way he wanted to.

Or, there was more than one switch. I think Pye might have noted Barbie Doll hair instead of being so adamant the hair was naturally grown.

lol! You can't be serious!

Napier dismissed it without seeing the exhibit. The Smithsonian lost interest and that could be one reason it didn't find its way to mainstream science at the time.

The guy pretty much admitted it was a hoax. The people who made it were known.

If Hansen needed publicity and the exhibit was just a model why risk exposure if Sanderson decided to write an article exposing it as a fake? That really makes no sense, IMO.

The guy wrote about a 15 foot penguin. People were and still are convinced, he'll buy it.

[Guest LAL]

He could have made them any way he wanted to.

If he made them, that is.

lol! You can't be serious!

Why not? When was the incident with Canadian Customs?

The guy pretty much admitted it was a hoax. The people who made it were known.

No, he did not admit it was a hoax. He told Sanderson and Heuvelmans he'd had a model made, they made inquiries of three companies and all this was in print in 1968.

The guy wrote about a 15 foot penguin. People were and still are convinced, he'll buy it.

Don't forget the cheetah. Writing in Argosy that the MIM was a hoax would be a crowd killer. Hansen did not have to allow them to examine it at all, let alone for three days while putting them up as houseguests.

[wolftrax]

Why not? When was the incident with Canadian Customs?

He claimed to have made the switch right after the Argosy article:

"

Then I was sent a copy of Argosy magazine, with a story by Sanderson about this thing, calling it Homo pongoides, which I found out was what Heuvelmans had called it in his paper published by the Royal Institute of Natural Sciences of Belgium.

The decision was made for me to get out of this as quickly as possible and not long after that my good friend Sheriff George Ford of Winona County showed up and said: 'Frank, would you believe I got an enquiry from Mr. Brewer at the FBI office in Rochester who has received a letter from J. Edgar Hoover asking for him to find out what is in this coffin.

Is it flesh and blood? Is it something that should be confiscated? Is it something that's been shot and frozen artificially? What is it?'I said 'Well, George, it's what I tell everybody it is, it's a fabricated illusion which I had made in a studio in Hollywood: He said: 'You don't mind if I look at it, do you?' and I said, 'No I don't mind' and he said, 'Well, I'll be back tomorrow with a pathologist, I've got to answer this enquiry for Mr Brewer in Rochester.'

That night I got my neighbor from across the road to come over with his big tractor with his big front end loader and got my tractor with the front-end loader out and we dug my trailer tractor out of the snow bank; it was completely covered in snow; and backed it underneath the semi. Before daylight the next morning we were heading south. <br>

"

http://www.bigfootencounters.com/articles/showman_hansen.htm

No, he did not admit it was a hoax. He told Sanderson and Heuvelmans he'd had a model made, they made inquiries of three companies and all this was in print in 1968.

He let people believe it was the real deal and made up stories about it, then later when the heat was on he makes up another story about it yet has admitted he had the model made. That's a hoax, Lal.

Don't forget the cheetah. Writing in Argosy that the MIM was a hoax would be a crowd killer. Hansen did not have to allow them to examine it at all, let alone for three days while putting them up as houseguests.

Hansen said it was only one night of drinking booze and a morning before they took off...

"They thought I might be illegally transporting a cadaver across the international border. It turned out the Smithsonian had contacted the Department of Health, Education and Welfare in Chicago, who set out to seize the Iceman and get a core sample to find out whether it was real or a fabricated illusion as I claimed it was, or whatever.I called up Senator Mondale from Minnesota and told him what was happening. He said: 'don’t let them touch it that would be an illegal seizure. You have proper documents saving it was made in the USA and it was going to Canada for exhibit and coming back to the USA.' I spent the night standing guard over the coffin. They were nice enough to let me back up to a dock and plug in to 110v electricity to keep my freezer going so I didn't have to run my generators. I don t know what Mondale did, but the next morning the telephone was ringing itself off the hook and I was getting apologies from all over the country. I had a chance to thank him some time later.We came back into the United States and then we got involved with Bernard Heuvelmans and Ivan T. Sanderson. Mr. Sanderson called me one day and said that he was coming to Wisconsin to investigate the sighting of an abominable snowman and he'd like to come over and visit me. I asked him what for and he said, 'I've heard about that thing you've got frozen in ice and I want to see it' I told him: 'It's not on exhibit so you're just wasting your time.' But two or three days later, in a blizzard, in comes this station wagon, so loaded down with stuff in the back it was practically standing on its tail. Sanderson gets out and introduces himself and his colleague from Belgium, Dr. Bernard Heuvelmans. Who just happened to come to the States for something, and he'd brought him along.I told them they couldn't even see it, but that night we spent in my basement bar, where Sanderson, although he claimed he never drank, put away a whole quart of gin and we got kind of mellow.

I finally agreed to show them provided they promised not to write anything about it without first giving me a copy so I could get the owner's approval. Next morning it was cold ; about 20 below zero; and we went into the trailer out in my driveway.

There was ice all over the top of the coffin, which I scraped off. They rushed down to their station wagon and got out more camera equipment than I'd ever seen. They took some pictures and complained that they couldn't get a decent picture through the triple thermo glass on the top.

They asked if I could take the top off and I said 'No way'. Then Dr. Heuvelmans asked if there was some way I could get them some more lighting. I had a light suspended from the trailer roof and it was fairly close to the glass, but it wasn't down close enough, so I said, 'Well, I'll go up the house and get a longer cord and come back and extend the light down.

Once the light's right over the face then you can shoot photos of the face.'I came back and was just walking in the trailer when I heard this tremendous crack.

Dr. Heuvelmans had taken a cord down and laid this 150 watt bulb right on that cold glass and it had just shattered it. It didn't break, I mean it didn't fall apart, but it just shattered it in cracks.

A very strange odor came out which I had detected on occasions myself, but I didn't know what it was.

Ivan Sanderson went into hysterics. 'Oh my God!' he said, 'The worst has happened!' I asked: 'What do you mean by the worst?'

He said: 'It's real! That's putrefaction coming out of there! Don't you know the smell of putrefaction?' 'No, I don't' I replied.

He said: 'We've got to get this thing in scientific hands immediately!' Dr Heuvelmans started packing his stuff away and said 'Come on, we've got to get out of here, I've got to get back to Belgium, let my colleagues know what I've discovered.' 'Wait a minute; I said, 'what have you discovered?' and they said: 'We've discovered the abominable snowman does exist and you've got a baby right here!'

'Remember your promise to me,' I said.I'll never forget Heuvelmans' reply: 'I'm a scientist first and a gentleman second.'

They jumped in their car with all the stuff and took off. That was, I think, in December and not long after that I got a call from Sanderson telling me to watch the Johnny Carson show which would prove he was a man of his word. Sanderson was a guest and Carson asked him about this great scientific discovery he'd just accidentally stumbled upon.

He said that it was too bad he couldn't reveal what he'd seen at the time, but he had to keep his word to the caretaker and he couldn't do this and he couldn't do that. He wasn't on very long, four or five minutes."

[Huntster]

Huntster, on 28 April 2011 - 08:45 PM, said:

You could actually be in the wrong ballpark. Playing the wrong game. In the wrong uniform. All of the above.

The good part is that you at least realize it.

Indeed, and that would prove Kit to be right. Are we in agreement?

You're joking, right?! Dude, that was rich! "Either/or", and I'm supposed to sucker for that? That has to be a joke. There is no way you could possibly think I'd fall for that!

No, we are not in agreement, and no, if you're "off base", Kit is not "proven right".

But I'll tell ya', you do have an interesting sense of humor!

Huntster, on 28 April 2011 - 08:45 PM, said:

What do you think of this story?:

That it isn't remotely relevant to the Iceman story.

Maybe you weren't joking.

If not, you have just given us the most remarkable demonstration of denial I think I've seen in a long time.

Both stories are about side show attractions. The difference is that one was proven to be an animal that science had been seeking and that the carnival types had gotten first, and the other was not proven to be anything, and science didn't much care.

The irony is stark, and your refusal to recognize it is telling.

Huntster, on 28 April 2011 - 08:45 PM, said:

See any "similarities" with the Minnesota Ice Man story?

No.

Well, I suppose there's confirmation of the utter denial. You really weren't joking, were you?

Amazing.

Let me ask you a few questions. Let's say you were hunting caribou some place, say Siberskoye and you happened onto a frozen carcass of a creature barely 6 feet tall with 10" wide feet and hands the size of tennis racquets. Clearly not human, but clearly bipedal, what would you do with it?

Absolutely nothing. The last thing I need is to be jailed or fined out of prosperity by fooling with an antiquity, fossil, or endangered creature. I've had enough experience with the law to know when to keep my fingerprints to myself.

Or let's say you were attacked by an identical critter in a forest outside of whatever replaced the Metrodome after watching a Twins game (where the ghost of Kirby was sighted by all in attendance patrolling center, in the right ballpark, dressed in the correct home uniform...) and you had to shoot it through the eyeball to preventing it from shredding you limb from limb; what would you do with it?

Hopefully, absolutely nothing. The problem is that if I had to shoot the thing full of holes, there might have been witnesses. Then I'd have to do the legal thing: report it, hire a lawyer, and watch my a$$.

If you're intent was a money grab and you knew it was the real deal, would you parade it around the country in a freezer for all to see at $.35 a pop? Or would you sell it for whatever the market would bear for what would prove to be the most significant biological discovery in modern history and literally retire into the proverbial sunset with a lot more cash than decades of sideshowmanship would bring?

Neither. I have plenty of money, thanks. Again, I don't like jail. Been there. It truly sucks.

However, I do have some experience with criminals. The smart ones mitigate their exposure to capture. The dumb ones get caught.

And going for the big bucks would be the best way to get busted. Selling looks at something in a block of ice while the denialist community kept the law off them with their assurances that it was "fake" seems like a great way to generate bean money.

If you weren't interested in money would you think the best way to show your discovery to the world would be to haul it around the continent in a freezer charging everyone who was interested to take a gander at it?

Nope. If it was me, I wouldn't be interested in any money, but I am interested in stuffing crow down a whole lot of throats (fully feathered), so I think I'd simply mail the stinking carcass to somebody like Dr. Meldrum (after taking a whole bunch of photographs of it myself, keeping a sample of the flesh and hair, and otherwise keeping evidence of the thing and it's shipment).

[Guest LAL]

He claimed to have made the switch right after the Argosy article:

I was hoping for a date on Canada.

On April 7, 2002 he said:

"H: I tried to take it (the exhibit) into Canada for a show, was stopped at the border. It was the Bureau of Customs, and they stopped me because they thought I was transporting cadaver across the border. It was seized at the border. I explained to them it was just an exhibit, neither man nor beast, but they didn't believe me until a US Senator bailed me out. Because of, who was he, Irene? Well, I was a good friend of him, and had given him a lucrative donation, yes, it was a Senator in Washington. It was through Walter Mondale, the Senator, that they got an order from Agriculture and Forest Products to "let them go." After the border incident and with "all the people" that were after me, I got tired of the whole thing and phoned the owner to take back the Iceman."

He let people believe it was the real deal and made up stories about it, then later when the heat was on he makes up another story about it yet has admitted he had the model made. That's a hoax, Lal.

That's not a hoax; That's Entertainment!

What the Georgia boys did was a hoax.

Hansen said it was only one night of drinking booze and a morning before they took off...

.

So Hansen was telling the truth about that? A quart of gin? And it didn't kill him? Good article, though. Thanks for posting.