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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
 Posted - 12/07/2002 : 22:07:24
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This from the Associated Press:
quote:
SEATTLE (Dec. 7) - The man who used 16-inch feet-shaped carvings to create tracks that ignited the ``Bigfoot'' legend has died. He was 84.
Ray L. Wallace's family admitted his role in the creature myth after his death Nov. 26 from heart failure.
``The reality is, Bigfoot just died,'' his son, Michael, said.
In August 1958, a bulldozer operator who worked for Wallace's construction company in Humboldt County, California, found huge footprints circling and then leading away from his rig.
The Humboldt Times in Eureka, California, coined the term ``Bigfoot'' in a front-page story about the phenomenon.
Family members said Wallace asked a friend to carve the wooden feet that he and his brother Wilbur wore to create the tracks.
The nation - fascinated by tales of the Himalayan Abominable Snowman - quickly bought into the notion of a homegrown version.
``The fact is there was no Bigfoot in popular consciousness before 1958. America got its own monster, its own Abominable Snowman, thanks to Ray Wallace,'' Mark Chorvinsky, editor of Strange magazine, told The Seattle Times.
Wallace cut a record of supposed Bigfoot sounds, printed posters of a Bigfoot sitting with other animals and provided films and photos that purported to show the creature eating elk and frogs, Chorvinsky said.
Chorvinsky believes the family's admission raises serious doubts about key ``proof'' of Bigfoot's existence: the so-called Patterson film, with its grainy images of an erect apelike creature striding away from the camera operated by rodeo rider Roger Patterson in 1967.
Wallace said he told Patterson where to spot a Bigfoot near Bluff Creek, California, Chorvinsky recalled. ``Ray told me that the Patterson film was a hoax, and he knew who was in the suit.''
Michael Wallace said his father called the Patterson film ``a fake'' but claimed he'd had nothing to do with it. But he said his mother admitted she had been photographed in a Bigfoot suit, and that his father ``had several people he used in his movies.''
The disclosure is not fazing others who study such creatures.
Jeff Meldrum, an associate professor of anatomy and anthropology at Idaho State University, says he has casts of 40 to 50 footprints he believes were made by authentic unknown primates.
``To suggest all these are explained by simple carved feet strapped to boots just doesn't wash,'' Meldrum said, noting 19th century accounts of such a creature.
Chorvinsky says those early reports were mistakes, myths or hoaxes.
Well, ya just can't keep a good myth down....
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Slater
SFN Regular
USA
1668 Posts |
 Posted - 12/07/2002 : 23:25:26 [Permalink]
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| They had his son on local TV here in San Francisco. He took the reporter down to his basement and showed him several sets of his Dad's big feet. Then he went over to a plastic garbage bag and pulled out a handful of fur. "This is left over from the gorilla suit he made for my Mom." he explained. Then he told how much his Dad laughed while he was writing the "ancient Native American big foot lore." They showed a photo of Ray and if there was any doubt of him being a trickster one look of his face would dispell it. |
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I learned something ... I learned that Jehovah's Witnesses do not celebrate Halloween. I guess they don't like strangers going up to their door and annoying them.
-Bruce Clark
There's No Toilet Paper...on the Road Less Traveled |
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Tim
SFN Regular
USA
775 Posts |
Posted - 12/08/2002 : 02:34:57 [Permalink]
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Big Foot Dead
No doubt he will be resurrescted soon and often.
Anyway, thanks, (Kil & Slater), for the info. I'll add it to my bigfoot folder |
"We got an issue in America. Too many good docs are gettin' out of business. Too many OB/GYNs aren't able to practice their -- their love with women all across this country." Dubya in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, 9/6/2004
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Randy
SFN Regular
USA
1990 Posts |
Posted - 12/08/2002 : 08:50:48 [Permalink]
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In the recent past we've had a deathbed confession about faking the Loc Ness monster http://skepdic.com/nessie.html , along too with the "UFO" crop circles http://skepdic.com/cropcirc.html .
Now, Big Foot has just stubbed his last toe.
What we have here is a collection of rapscallions out for a laugh, attention or whatever. And they sure got it.
Interesting that they've owned up to it. That's playing fair ball.
Now bear with me, suppose all religions started out as a practical joke, - just some caveman bedtime story embellished over the eons of time. Too bad the rest of the world - that doesn't get it, does not have the luxury of those perpetrators coming forward and confessing to their pranks (us Atheists don't need that luxury!)
In that regard maybe Separation of Church and State should be changed to "Separation of Buffoonery and State", and too maybe our monies printed with In god We Trust changed to "In Monkeyshine We Trust".
Yeah, I like that. I could live with that.
Randy |
"We are all connected; to each other biologically, to the earth chemically, to the rest of the universe atomically."
"So you're made of detritus [from exploded stars]. Get over it. Or better yet, celebrate it. After all, what nobler thought can one cherish than that the universe lives within us all?"
-Neil DeGrasse Tyson |
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riptor
Skeptic Friend
Germany
70 Posts |
Posted - 12/08/2002 : 09:04:06 [Permalink]
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Sorry, but I think this guy is just searching for attention - after his Dad's death. This guy just can't have made all the tracks.
Or, to say it clear: This is a faked fake. |
Hail the Big bearded Jellyfish up in heaven above. |
| Edited by - riptor on 12/08/2002 09:04:48 |
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Slater
SFN Regular
USA
1668 Posts |
Posted - 12/08/2002 : 10:44:04 [Permalink]
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And every one knows that there is only one trickster in California...and he's passed away now.
LOLFTG (laughing out loud from the grave) |
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I learned something ... I learned that Jehovah's Witnesses do not celebrate Halloween. I guess they don't like strangers going up to their door and annoying them.
-Bruce Clark
There's No Toilet Paper...on the Road Less Traveled |
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Legallee Insane
Skeptic Friend
Canada
126 Posts |
Posted - 12/08/2002 : 18:30:42 [Permalink]
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At first I thought that it wasn't fair when American's got to have a hideously ugly monster and we didn't.....
....Then I thought it over again.... |
--"Only the fool says in his heart: There is no god -- The wise says it to the world"
--"I darn you to HECK!" - Catbert
--"Don't worry, we're not laughing at you, we're laughing near you." |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 12/08/2002 : 18:45:50 [Permalink]
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| NOOOOOOOO!!! HA! |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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Espritch
Skeptic Friend
USA
284 Posts |
Posted - 12/08/2002 : 21:24:10 [Permalink]
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| The truely sad thing is that the creator of bigfoot confessed, but the bigfoot researchers still insist that bigfoot is real. The creators of the first crop circles confessed: the cereologists still claim there is something mysterious going on. The most famous Nessie pictures were clearly shown to be a hoax, but Nessie remains a lively cottage industry. Once this kind of crap gets started, it takes on a life of it's own. |
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Kilted_Warrior
Skeptic Friend
Canada
118 Posts |
Posted - 12/08/2002 : 22:19:21 [Permalink]
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If I were going to hoax something, I would let it slide for awhile, then BAM tell the world it was a hoax (I know Randi has already done it, but it was a good idea) that way, people can see how easily they can be mislead.
How did this guy live with himself for that many years, knowing that others had dedicated their entire lives persuing something he faked?
I think he needed a new conscience. |
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a65phalcon
New Member
USA
44 Posts |
Posted - 12/09/2002 : 00:17:12 [Permalink]
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| Not to be to absurd, but have any of you considered that there may, or may not be things in this world the we do not know about yet? Granted there are hoaxes, but it seems that most just want to diffuse anything that is outside scientific knowledge. I am not saying I subscribe to the UFO BS or big foot, but is it not fair to at least ponder or reasonably debate such things. For instance, I do believe the whole big foot notion has been around longer than this man's 84 years on Earth. But I will leave up to you people to decide. |
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Boron10
Religion Moderator
USA
1266 Posts |
Posted - 12/09/2002 : 03:16:15 [Permalink]
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quote:
a65phalcon:...I do believe the whole big foot notion has been around longer than this man's 84 years on Earth.
I think it was shown that he forged some "earlier" documents to give validity to his hoax. It is also not difficult to peruse native folklore and find something that is similar to BF, I am sure. There was a myth about the thunderbird, but that does not mean it ever existed, eh? |
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Terryt88
Skeptic Friend
USA
120 Posts |
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riptor
Skeptic Friend
Germany
70 Posts |
Posted - 12/09/2002 : 09:58:53 [Permalink]
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Okay, how would this one guy do ALL the bigfoot-tracks all over america for more than fifty years. Creating a monster is quite a hard job to do.
I could also run around here in Germany, telling press "I faked Hitler!"
Now, how many people do you think would believe in my statement and thus make the conclusion, Hitler was a fake? |
Hail the Big bearded Jellyfish up in heaven above. |
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a65phalcon
New Member
USA
44 Posts |
Posted - 12/09/2002 : 10:21:20 [Permalink]
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| My point wasn't to fight for or against the validity of "Big Foot". I am trying to state that there are too many people that feel the need to discount the possiblity of anything that is outside popular science. Granted Big Foot is probally a hoax for the most part, but are we to totally discard the work of several renound scientists? Let me restate I am not FIGHTING for Big Foot, I am merely saying to discount the work of so many people based on the fact some guys son said "my dad was bigfoot" is pretty insane. People at one point and time considered the Giant Squid to be a hoax or even non-exsistant. I am just saying give it some time an maybe, just maybe, we might find a clue. |
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Infamous
Skeptic Friend
85 Posts |
Posted - 12/09/2002 : 10:56:13 [Permalink]
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I am responsible for hoaxing El Chupacabras. I don't know who was in the El Chupacabras suit, I don't even have the suit anymore, but it was my hoax. LOL
Apparently we're supposed to take the word of a known liar and believe that the Patterson-Gimlin film is a hoax, without any evidence to support his claim. Multiple "true" accounts of his hoax contradict each other, he never told who was in the suit, and the costume hasn't turned up.
There is absolutely NO EVIDENCE to back up his claims. Apparently blind faith isn't restricted to believers after all. |
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