Last word on Wallace (for tonight):
"Bigfoot researchers knew more about the Wallace family's claims, because they had dealt with Ray since the 1960's:
Ray's fake tracks and stompers were on display, hanging on the walls of his roadside tourist shop for years. The Wallace family recently implied that Ray had kept them in hidden since the 1960's.
Ray himself never claimed to have created the original "Bigfoot" tracks. His family attributed it to him only after his death -- conveniently when he wasn't around to deny it, or to be cross-examined by the surviving people who had been to the site at the time. Even the locals, like Al Hodgson in Willow Creek, who knew Ray Wallace well in the 1950's, say he wasn't in that part of California when the first tracks were found. All Wallace did, according to Hodgson, was complain that the footprints were making his workers quit and driving his company out of business.
The family didn't realize that Ray's fake casts weren't even the same size and shape of the 1958 casts. The news media didn't want to complicate their hot story with that troublesome fact -- Wallace's fake casts and stompers do not match the "Bigfoot" casts. No one in the media bothered to look at the obvious discrepancies in the photos. In one photo a Wallace family member holds the stompers he claims Ray used to make the original "Bigfoot" tracks found by Gerry Crew. The other one is the famous photo showing Gerry Crew holding the large cast which inspired a local reporter to coin the term "Bigfoot". It didn't matter to the media that they are visiblly different foot shapes. The story was too hot to treat responsibly. And it was about a "myth", so it didn't require any of the usual fact checking.
The scariest 'Big Brother' anecodate from the Wallace media blitz: The New York Times story.
On January 3, 2003, the New York Times ran a front page story with the headline "Search for Bigfoot Outlives the Man Who Created Him". In the story reporter Timothy Egan painted the whole subject as one driven by foolish beliefs of people in the Northwest, and suggested there was no credible evidence.
Like many of the other misleading stories, it completely bought into the Wallace family claims. It credited Wallace as the one who created the whole legend, and perpetuated it over the years.
In one part of the story Egan writes, "Bigfoot defenders, including at least two scientists and a clinical psychologist who says he ran into the Big Guy two years ago in southern Oregon, are undeterred. They give Mr. Wallace credit for the hoax, which led to news stories around the world and began thousands of campfire debates. But, they say other evidence is too strong ..."
The three people Egan was referring to are Dr. Jeff Meldrum, Dr. Henner Fahrehbach, and Dr. Matthew Johnson.
Dr. Johnson told Timothy Egan squarely that he didn't know one way or the other about the Wallace family claims. He didn't give Wallace credit for any hoax whatsoever, and didn't know anything about him.
Dr. Fahrenbach told Egan right up front that he knew Wallace faked tracks in the past, but Fahrenbach made no comment about the 1958 tracks -- the "hoax" Egan refers to above. Egan didn't question Fahrenbach about his stance on that episode, and Fahrenbach says he certainly "did not give Wallace credit for that one." Fahrenbach was shocked to read Egan's article, wherein he found more than one statement falsely attributed to him.
The most egregious false attribution came from Egan's interview with Dr. Meldrum. During Egan's phone interview, Meldrum similarly did not "give Mr. Wallace credit for the hoax". But, unlike the others, Meldrum did have something to say about it. He explained to Egan how he could prove that Wallace didn't have anything to do with the 1958 "Bigfoot" tracks. Egan asked Meldrum detailed questions about how he could demonstrate it. Meldrum explained himself in detail.
Regardless of whether Egan accepted Meldrum's analysis, Egan clearly got the message that Meldrum did not give Wallace "credit for the hoax". Meldrum did say he had some likely fake casts from that region which could have been made by Wallace, but those were clearly distinguished from the specific track finds Egan was asking about.
Of the two PhD's and the one clinical psychologist who were interviewed by Egan for this New York Times story, all of them say that Egan falsely attributed statements to them. Of those three people, only one had any comments about the 1958 track finds, and those comments were exactly the opposite of what Egan attributed to all three of them. Egan's cross-examination of Meldrum over the phone during their interview makes it certain that Egan knew Meldrum did not give Wallace credit for the tracks in question, yet this is what Egan wrote, for the front page of the New York Times, January 3, 2003.
If a politician, celebrity or prominent businessman had done something like this, it would have been a major scandal ... and would have been vigorously investigated by the New York Times."
http://www.bfro.net/news/Wallace.asp
