Minnesota Iceman Hoax

[Guest]

Ok so this is real except for using the real creature for reference:

Proof that it didn't happen that way?

This is made up:

Again, proof?

I like this part:

Nudge nudge, wink wink

That is EXACTLY what a person in his position would HAVE to do to stay out of legal trouble.

You're still batting 0 wolf.

[wolftrax]

Ok, the part that has been confirmed by others that he had the model made, that was real. Proof of that? The photos that are identified as real and fake both look exactly the same. Confirmation by others he had approached, his own admission confirming what others had said. The parts that are not real, like his claim that it was a "real" Iceman, the evidence for that is that he never had a straight story, it always was dramatically different.

So far, what has been posted is that the FBI did not have any interest or effort into pursuing him legally. So there just went that excuse.

I don't need to bat at all. Hansen struck out.

[wolftrax]

So here we review what Hansen said and Hajicek said.

Hajicek said:

"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. "

Hansen said:

"Our tour continued until November 1967, when we closed at the Louisiana State Fair and returned to our farm home in Rollingstone for the winter. By March 1968, I had convinced myself that it was safe to substitute the real specimen for the coming fair season. I cut off refrigeration to melt the ice from both specimens and made the switch using my farm tractor loader and an "I" beam. I worked the creature into a position closely resembling the model by cutting the tendons in the arms and legs. I then started the difficult task of creating ice around the specimen. 'This will be the greatest exhibit to hit the fair circuit,' I said after the job was completed. 'Even a trained scientist would be shocked to see this.' "

So Hansen lodged up for the winter starting in November of 1967, and then decided to use the "Real" Iceman in March 1968 for the fair season. Hajicek saw the exhibit at a fair in 1968. Guess what? That's the fair season in 1968. That means Hajicek saw the "Real" Iceman, but it was apparently a fake.

[Guest LAL]

I take that to mean you wouldn't know the difference between a vinyl mask and a latex one.

I take that to mean you won't answer my question.

It doesn't matter whether I can tell the difference or not. These stories apparently were spread around without anyone really checking. Did Doug Hajicek know the difference? He examined a model without the ice.

[Guest LAL]

So here we review what Hansen said and Hajicek said.

Hajicek said:

"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. "

Hansen said:

"Our tour continued until November 1967, when we closed at the Louisiana State Fair and returned to our farm home in Rollingstone for the winter. By March 1968, I had convinced myself that it was safe to substitute the real specimen for the coming fair season. I cut off refrigeration to melt the ice from both specimens and made the switch using my farm tractor loader and an "I" beam. I worked the creature into a position closely resembling the model by cutting the tendons in the arms and legs. I then started the difficult task of creating ice around the specimen. 'This will be the greatest exhibit to hit the fair circuit,' I said after the job was completed. 'Even a trained scientist would be shocked to see this.' "

So Hansen lodged up for the winter starting in November of 1967, and then decided to use the "Real" Iceman in March 1968 for the fair season. Hajicek saw the exhibit at a fair in 1968. Guess what? That's the fair season in 1968. That means Hajicek saw the "Real" Iceman, but it was apparently a fake.

So now you believe Hansen? How nice.

Hajicek doesn't say exactly when or even which fair. If Hansen switched again after the Argosy article came out (and/or after the Canadian incident) perhaps it was in '69.

It can be difficult to pin down the time of an event when there's not much to date it with. I remember my mother taking us to the Railroad Fair in Chicago and her getting a headache, a Navajo dancer in blue and white regalia who'd had smallpox and was scared from it and the parking lot but I have no clue about what year it was - or even what it had to do with railroads.

If the thing Sanderson and Heuvelmans examined had Barbie Doll hair their enthusiasm might have been dampened. Let's review this too:

"The specimen at first sight is representative of man or preferably, the description at the first stage could be an adult human of masculine sex. Height 1 metre 80 centimetres (5.9 ft). Of fairly normal proportions, but excessively hairy. Except for the face, the palms of the hands, soles of the feet, the penis and testicles, the creature is entirely covered with very dark brown hair, of seven to ten centimetres long. His skin is of the wax-like color characteristic of corpses of men of white race when not tanned by the sun.

"This is detectable over the whole body, more particularly outside the frankly hairless zones, such as the chest center, and the knees. Hairs were more separated on other body parts. Altogether, the hair situation reminds one of a chimpanzee's fur and not for instance, the dense fur of a bear."

I just saw the photos Reuters released of the scenes inside the Bin Laden compound and was struck by how much one hand looked like it was made of wax.

And this:

"Dr. John Napier, was at the time, chief of the primatology department at the Smithsonian, and eminent in his field, but was curious. Frank Hansen refused to let him examine the exhibit closely, just as he had refused others.

Dr. Napier said that the chances now seem high that the Iceman was merely a fabricated model. But he is still interested and wishes he could have examined it. He added that it was difficult to believe that Heuvelmans could have been fooled so easily."

If Hansen was involved in smuggling, or thought he could be prosecuted for transporting a dead body across a state line or international border it wouldn't matter if the FBI was really investigating or not. He had reason to be paranoid.

Edited May 5, 2011 by LAL

[Bill]

"I take that to mean you wouldn't know the difference between a vinyl mask and a latex one."

Actually, chances are nobody would unless they could inspect it in hand and had experience making both. The vinyl orgasols had a fairly well documented use in maxillofacial prosthetics and similar anatomical castings for medical purposes in the 60's and even before (as that was John Chamber's background before he came to Hollywood, he likely was up on vinyl materials moreso that the usual Hollywood crowd), but never really gained a popular foothold in the "creature business" in the 60's or before. Rick Baker's use of vinyl for the Starchild baby in "Starman" is one of the few examples of successful use (early 80's I believe).

Don Post in the 60's generally did all his masks in latex alone, simply because you could use molds made of pottery plaster and the latex was poured at room temperature. A minimum wage laberor could pour the latex, slush the mold, let it stand, then pour out the latex and flip the mold to drain and dry. Cheap and easy. Vinyl on the other hand was more likely thermoplastic types, not solvent types, and needed to be melted and poured at around 300 degrees, but plaster molds have trouble handling temperatures over 250. And to get a smooth flow of the vinyl in a mold, it helped to have the mold pre-heated to near pour temperature, because pouring into a room temperature mold caused snap-sets of the vinyl on waves across the surface, and thus resulted in flow lines that were unacceptable for commercial use. So between the temperature to pour the vinyl and the prospect of needing to pre-heat the mold, plus ideally using metal molds instead of plaster, and a machine to rotate the mold (too hot to handle for a worker's hand holding), it was a rarity in the mask & creature business to make vinyl masks. Now-a-days, the asian manufacturers have set up the necessary metal molds and mechanized the vinyl casting process, so most masks today are vinyl.

John Chambers did use vinyl for his bald caps back in the 60's, and they were the gold standard then (Don Post's latex bald caps were the cheap standard, better for stage and Halloween than any quality movie work), but the vinyl compound he used for caps was a spray vinyl solution in a solvent, and it only worked well on a positive head form that allowed the solvent to easily evaoprate. In a negative mold, the common one for masks, building thinkness was hard because the evaporation was poor. So the cap vinyl compounds weren't used for masks.

But in terms of color, surface texture, etc. most people, even veteran makeup artists, would likely not be able to tell a latex mask from a vinyl one, and the few that could would need to hold it in their hands to feel the flex, the weight, and the possible presence of some solvent or plasticizer residue, while the latex would have a faint ammonia residue smell.

Not sure if this helps anybody's argument, but felt forum readers might benefit by some background info.

Bill

[Guest]

Because "the first documented and verifiable type specimen" was not fully "discovered" nor "possessed by western science" until Paul Du Chaillu came back with a full specimen in 1859, fully four years after Jenny was possessed alive and displayed in a travelling carnival in England by George Wombwell. Dr. Savage possessed skulls and some bones (not even a full skeleton), and these were not obtained first hand (but third hand from natives), and he had not seen a gorilla.

The first type specimen wasn't "fully discovered" until 1859 by Paul Du Chaillu? You've got to be kidding. So what you are saying is that you don’t believe that Savage and Wyman were the rightful discoverers of the Gorilla and that the discovery of the gorilla didn’t irrefutably happen until 1859 and should be attributable to Paul Du Chaillu because neither Savage or Wyman was in possession of a complete carcass and/or that neither had ever seen a living gorilla? Would you also argue that Leakey didn't "fully discover" A. boisei because she only found a skull and never actually seen a living Australopithecine in the flesh? You might want to look up the definition of type specimen because you're clearly attempting to redefine the term so that your reference somehow fits your completely warped interpretation.

And that the significant portions of skeletons from numerous specimens that were jointly possessed by Savage and Wyman at the time of publication somehow were not verifiable? Really? Did a skeptical colleague somehow argue these out of existence? Savage was a physician and graduate of a reknown Ivy league medical school, and Wyman being the same was also at the time of publication a professor of Anatomy and Physiology at an equally reknown southern university somehow don’t qualify as being men of the western scientific establishment who were in possession of a type specimen? Do you think there’s anyone else on the planet that would remotely agree with what you’re waxing poetic about with the revelation of this interpretation of yours? Let’s see a single reputable source that credits the discovery of the gorilla to Du Chaillu as you claim should be the case. Your opinion here is way off base to say the very least.

Again, from your own source:

"Examining the bones back in Boston, Savage’s partner Wyman also had an advantage over his British rivals: he had a chimpanzee skull from his previous collaboration with Savage. Owen at the Royal College of Surgeons – inheritors of the vast collection of specimens built up by the great 18th-century surgeon John Hunter – had just about everything else, but no chimp. Wyman’s material advantage made it easy to establish that the gorilla was something more than an overgrown chimp.

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.

Actually, it seems that you're grasping at straws because you can't even accept being incorrect on (1) something you never knew about before I informed you, and (2) which demonstrates something that you are unwilling to accept. It is a wonderful example of denial, and it appears to fit well.

I'm grasping at straws? Really?

He is, and (apparently) so am I.

Big deal. I'm not a primitologist. Savage was an amateur naturalist, and apparently, more astute than the "professional" naturalists of the day.

Amateur Naturalist? The man was a physician and degreed anatomist. But now your arguing that Savage did discover the gorilla? Doesn’t that defeat the above argument that you wax poetic about above that the gorilla was discovered by Du Chaillu and not Savage and Wyman in 1847?

Enough of the back pedalling. Get on with your denial, please.

Back pedaling and get on with the denial? Really?

That is mostly correct. The skulls and what bones were there were enough to begin the process of recognition of the species.

You're really getting silly now. If that’s the case why did Stutchbery and Owen concede defeat to Savage and Wyman if they had not conclusively established the existence of the gorilla?

And it was alive, in England, and four years before the first full specimen (hide, full skeleton) arrived at the Royal Geographic Society, courtesy of Paul Du Chaillu (not a scientist).

And your point is what?

Yes, I did. And much, much more. You might want to perform some research of your own before you further embarrass yourself.

Yes you have, where much, much more is equivalent to an entire mental rewrite that only you seem to think is valid. I think someone is embarrassing himself, but that someone clearly isn't me IMO.

What you've just offered up has clearly got to be the most ranting I've ever seen on this forum. It's amazing that you've been one of the harshest critics of the scientific process when you clearly don't seem to understand how the process works or is defined.

The problem as I see it with bigfootery, is that there are no restrictions on whom can join the hunt. There are no minimum standards for the application of logic, or even a consensus, minimum, rudimentary knowledge of the scientific process and how it works, or even the common sense to maintain some semblance of courteous civility. As a result, the most vocal proponents seem to be the one's with the least substantive opinions who lead the way with the intellectual equivalent of "suicide charges" with no real goal in mind, no relevance to add, and no forethought on the damage that these arguments offered up do to their own credibility and the credibility to other proponents who are attempting to separate the wheat from the chaff to the best of their ability. All the while hurling personal insults at anyone who disagrees with their opinion and claiming that science won't give them any thoughtful consideration.

Edited May 6, 2011 by ChrisBFRPKY
removed negative term

[wolftrax]

I take that to mean you won't answer my question.

It doesn't matter whether I can tell the difference or not. These stories apparently were spread around without anyone really checking. Did Doug Hajicek know the difference? He examined a model without the ice.

Sure it matters whether you can tell the difference or not. As I talked about before, as Bill talked about, you wouldn't know the difference, Hajicek wouldn't, Napier, nobody who saw it would know the difference between it being made of latex or vinyl. They would just assume it was made of rubber or latex. So trying to use that as a contradiction doesn't work.

So now you believe Hansen? How nice.

No, I don't believe Hansen, that was the point. He put the time frame of when the "Real" Iceman was used, and like it or not that was the same time period Hajicek said he saw it and it was fake. Hansen's words and conditions, again, show he is lying.

If the thing Sanderson and Heuvelmans examined had Barbie Doll hair their enthusiasm might have been dampened. Let's review this too:

Read what they are saying. They talk about the areas of the body that are sparser with hair. Now remember what Langdon said about hair ventillation. The sparser areas of hair he inserts one hair at a time. Only in the thicker areas of hair does he insert several at a time like a barbie doll.

[wolftrax]

And there is no reason to believe that Wombwell would have allowed the scientific butchers of the day to dissect his "chimp", either. He probably paid well for his gorilla.

Go get your own...........

(Getting the message yet?..................No, I didn't think so..............)

Correct. It was the "science didn't have a friggen clue" thing that I like to tout here.

Maybe. Maybe not. And you'll never know for sure.

And there you truly have it.

And now with that brief nonsensical interruption we get back to our regular program.

[Huntster]

Huntster, on 03 May 2011 - 11:16 PM, said:

Because "the first documented and verifiable type specimen" was not fully "discovered" nor "possessed by western science" until Paul Du Chaillu came back with a full specimen in 1859, fully four years after Jenny was possessed alive and displayed in a travelling carnival in England by George Wombwell. Dr. Savage possessed skulls and some bones (not even a full skeleton), and these were not obtained first hand (but third hand from natives), and he had not seen a gorilla.

The first type specimen wasn't "fully discovered" until 1859 by Paul Du Chaillu? You've got to be kidding.

No, I don’t have to be kidding, and no, I’m not kidding. It wasn’t until Paul DuChaillu brought back and gave to the Royal Geographic Society the gorilla he shot that “western science†actually possessed a full specimen.

So what you are saying is that you don’t believe that Savage and Wyman were the rightful discoverers of the Gorilla and that the discovery of the gorilla didn’t irrefutably happen until 1859 and should be attributable to Paul Du Chaillu because neither Savage or Wyman was in possession of a complete carcass and/or that neither had ever seen a living gorilla?

Do you really have such a difficult time reading the simple words I type? Indeed, I accredit the “rightful discovery†of the gorilla to neither Du Chaillu or Savage/Wyman. I accredit it to Hanno the Navigator. Now, why don’t you run along and do your own research to learn who Hanno was. I’m tired of educating you just to have you challenge the facts by attempting to re-write my words.

And that the significant portions of skeletons from numerous specimens that were jointly possessed by Savage and Wyman at the time of publication somehow were not verifiable? Really?

Everything Savage and Wyman had could have been “verifiable†if they had the resources carnival man George Womball had.

Did a skeptical colleague somehow argue these out of existence?

No. But, as this forum and your very existence shows, they likely sure tried. But, ultimately (and, eventually, like with sasquatchery), they failed.

Savage was a physician and graduate of a reknown Ivy league medical school, and Wyman being the same was also at the time of publication a professor of Anatomy and Physiology at an equally reknown southern university somehow don’t qualify as being men of the western scientific establishment who were in possession of a type specimen?

That is not what I wrote. I have no intention of defending something I did not write.

Do you think there’s anyone else on the planet that would remotely agree with what you’re waxing poetic about with the revelation of this interpretation of yours?

I wouldn’t know if there is anyone in the galaxy that would agree with anything I write (not to mention what you’re writing and trying to attribute to me), and really wouldn’t give much of a rip. My opinions are mine to have and hold, and I don’t care if anyone agrees with them or not.

Let’s see a single reputable source that credits the discovery of the gorilla to Du Chaillu as you claim should be the case.

Try the National Geographic Society. This is from DuChaillu’s obituary in that publication:

The following article appeared in The National Geographic Magazine in the July 1903 issue: Volume 14, Number 7, pages 282-285. It was made available by the generosity of Dr. Lew M. Begley of Mesquite, TX, who has one of the largest collections of The National Geographic Magazine in the world. It was scanned from an original issue of the magazine. I tried to retain the original formatting and therefore have indicated in brackets the original page breaks - Kenneth W. Fuchs (Thandar), December 1999

[page 282]:.......................

................... "I traveled - always on foot, and unaccompanied by other white men - about 8,000 miles. I shot, stuffed, and brought home over 2,000 birds, of which more than 60 are new species, and I killed upwards of 1,000 quadrupeds, of which 200 were stuffed and brought home, with more than 60 hitherto unknown to science. I suffered fifty attacks of the African fever, taking, to cure myself, more than fourteen ounces of quinine. Of famine, long-continued exposures to the heavy tropical rains, and attacks of ferocious ants and venomous flies, it is not worth while to speak.

"My two most severe and trying tasks were the transportation of my numerous specimens to the seashore and the keeping of a daily journal, both of which involved more painful care than I like even to think of."

In the book he told of gorilla, of which he had brought back the first specimens and which he had been the first white man to see and hunt............

[Guest]

No, I don’t have to be kidding, and no, I’m not kidding. It wasn’t until Paul DuChaillu brought back and gave to the Royal Geographic Society the gorilla he shot that “western science†actually possessed a full specimen.

Do you really have such a difficult time reading the simple words I type? Indeed, I accredit the “rightful discovery†of the gorilla to neither Du Chaillu or Savage/Wyman. I accredit it to Hanno the Navigator. Now, why don’t you run along and do your own research to learn who Hanno was. I’m tired of educating you just to have you challenge the facts by attempting to re-write my words.

Everything Savage and Wyman had could have been “verifiable†if they had the resources carnival man George Womball had.

No. But, as this forum and your very existence shows, they likely sure tried. But, ultimately (and, eventually, like with sasquatchery), they failed.

That is not what I wrote. I have no intention of defending something I did not write.

I wouldn’t know if there is anyone in the galaxy that would agree with anything I write (not to mention what you’re writing and trying to attribute to me), and really wouldn’t give much of a rip. My opinions are mine to have and hold, and I don’t care if anyone agrees with them or not.

Try the National Geographic Society. This is from DuChaillu’s obituary in that publication:

And I'm the one supposedly in denial? Really?

[Huntster]

And I'm the one supposedly in denial? Really?

Yes. I'm afraid you are.

And to prove it, let's review in simple terms:

Do you admit that it was Paul Du Chaillu who brought the FIRST FULL SPECIMEN of a gorilla to a western scientific organization in the Year of Our Lord, 1859, and that Paul Du Chaillu was not a "western scientist"?

Or do you disagree?

[Guest]

You're right that no one is going to prove definitively that the Iceman was a fake to those that seem to what to believe it was real. However, the 'null set' hypothesis is that it was fake and not real.

No scientist would ever establish such a "null set hypothesis". This is the core mistake that Skeptics make. True scientists are objective, and have no "null set hypothesis" in terms of evaluating data. There is the data, and the conclusions that the data lead to. They don't seek to find "alternative" explanations for the data, or reasons to discard the data (other than those that show the data is somehow invalid). They go where the evidence goes, no matter how uncomfortable or incredulous they may be at where they wind up.

[wolftrax]

Baloney, science is based on looking for alternative explanations for the data, it's called testing your hypothesis.

Not only that, but the "Data" here has pointed in every way to the Iceman being a hoax, but of course some people here still don't want to follow that.

Edited May 6, 2011 by wolftrax

[Guest LAL]

Sure it matters whether you can tell the difference or not. As I talked about before, as Bill talked about, you wouldn't know the difference, Hajicek wouldn't, Napier, nobody who saw it would know the difference between it being made of latex or vinyl. They would just assume it was made of rubber or latex. So trying to use that as a contradiction doesn't work.

I'm merely pointing out that there are several different versions of the model-making story - too. Apparently Napier didn't see it at all.

No, I don't believe Hansen, that was the point. He put the time frame of when the "Real" Iceman was used, and like it or not that was the same time period Hajicek said he saw it and it was fake. Hansen's words and conditions, again, show he is lying.

Except that Hansen seemed sure of the timeline and Hajicek said it was in or ABOUT 1968 - he could easily have the year wrong. I ordered Pickled Punks and Girlie Shows: A Life Spent on the Midways of America

by Rick West last night. It purports to tell the "true" story of Frank Hansen and his Iceman, among other things. I'm hoping there will be some outside confirmation of dates.

If the thing was such an "obvious fake", as Loren Coleman called what he saw, why would Terry Cullen have been impressed enough to alert anybody?

Read what they are saying. They talk about the areas of the body that are sparser with hair. Now remember what Langdon said about hair ventillation. The sparser areas of hair he inserts one hair at a time. Only in the thicker areas of hair does he insert several at a time like a barbie doll.

Yes, and Sanderson and Heuvelmans were looking for signs it was an Ainu, a composite or a carny gaff. Not all the ice was opaque and they were examining it with light. They weren't stupid.