The Minnesota Iceman

[kitakaze]

I haven't checked the whole thread. This put, I really think someome should say a word or two there regarding Dfoot's position, since he was right on spot regarding this issue. He deserves the credit, regardless of the grudges some footers may have with him.

Sorry if this was already made.

That was a partial quote of a post from the PGF thread that Dfoot made May 28th of this year detailing Patterson's Hollywood connections and details of how the PGF hoax came together. Literally everything that he said regarding Langdon was bang on. I listened to the lengthy BFF interview by Brian Brown with Langdon. He was contacted by a friend who had seen the G Boyz presser and thought Bigfoot actually had been found. Langdon watched and immediately realized it was Minnesota Iceman Part Deux. That is how he wound up at BFF where right off the bat the cult members jumped on him when he referred to Patty as a 'crummy suit'. Brian Brown (Bipto) quickly realized that he was for real and thus came the interview (which is excellent and full of hilarious anecdotes. I love when he refers to Patty walking like Richard Prior).

I used to think that barring Gimlin confessing his role in the PGF hoax we would never be able to put the thing to bed. Considering recent events I'm having seconds thoughts. I think eating crow served by Dfoot is the least thing a bunch of heart-broken Bigfoot enthusiasts are going to be worried about, more like getting their Wheaties in their mouth and their pants on the right way after the world crush. I'll talk more about this in the PGF thread.

 

[AtomicMysteryMonster]

Correa,

I provided a link to Dfoot talking about Mr. Langdon's comments on the Iceman in my first post of the thread. However, it's admittedly easy to miss due to all of the links in it, so I'm not upset that you missed it. Here's something interesting: In one of the BFF Iceman threads that I linked to, Dfoot actually mentioned the Cult Movies magazine article on the matter that Mr. Langdon said he was surprised nobody had found (He made that comment during the "Bigfoot Show" podcast).

 

[kitakaze]

Correa,

I provided a link to Dfoot talking about Mr. Langdon's comments on the Iceman in my first post of the thread. However, it's admittedly easy to miss due to all of the links in it, so I'm not upset that you missed it. Here's something interesting: In one of the BFF Iceman threads that I linked to, Dfoot actually mentioned the Cult Movies magazine article on the matter that Mr. Langdon said he was surprised nobody had found (He made that comment during the "Bigfoot Show" podcast).

Wow, sorry, Atomic. I totally missed that. I actually found Dfoot's comments by complete fluke while randomly clicking on posts of his looking for his gloved hand wave gif. The weird thing was that I had just listened to the Bipcast interview with Langdon the night before. I'll go into it later in the PGF thread but a convergence of events regarding the Minnesota Iceman gaff, Georgia Boyz Hoax, and PGF has me at the highest level of confidence in the PGF being a hoax that I personally have known.

 

[AtomicMysteryMonster]

Over in the PGF thread, a poster known as crowlogic commented that she had seen the Iceman exhibit in 1972 and that:

The creature I veiwed in ice in 1972 was NOT the same creature that appeared in the Argosy magazine article of 1968.

There are two possibilities here:

1) crowlogic saw a Minnesota Iceman knock-off. As noted earlier in the thread, such exhibits did exist and someone passing a rip-off of a gaff as the real deal isn't unheard of (Barnum's Cardiff Giant).

2) What crowlogic saw was the original iceman with a few details changed and frozen in a way that didn't disguise it as much as it had been in the 60's. I suspect this is what happened, as a BFF poster named wolftrax did a series of .gifs comparing the two supposedly different Icemen. I personally feel that this .gif animation best shows how the original Iceman and the "replacement" are actually one and the same.

I should also note that animation reminds me of the YTMND.com "doesn't change facial expressions" fad, as shown here.

 

[Crowlogic]

Over in the PGF thread, a poster known as crowlogic commented that she had seen the Iceman exhibit in 1972 and that:



There are two possibilities here:

1) crowlogic saw a Minnesota Iceman knock-off. As noted earlier in the thread, such exhibits did exist and someone passing a rip-off of a gaff as the real deal isn't unheard of (Barnum's Cardiff Giant).

2) What crowlogic saw was the original iceman with a few details changed and frozen in a way that didn't disguise it as much as it had been in the 60's. I suspect this is what happened, as a BFF poster named wolftrax did a series of .gifs comparing the two supposedly different Icemen. I personally feel that this .gif animation best shows how the original Iceman and the "replacement" are actually one and the same.

I should also note that animation reminds me of the YTMND.com "doesn't change facial expressions" fad, as shown here.

After clicking the link to the Iceman gif from Wolftrax at BFF I'm more certain than ever that what I saw was either a different model or a modified original. When I saw the Iceman the blown out eye and empty socket was very visible as was a plume of blood and tissue? More than what is shown in the color photo of Iceman (prototype). I also remember the mouth being more open and could have maybe seen some lower teeth in the front. The nose of the model I saw had a more pronounced pug with the nostrils nearly forward facing. Nevertheless it does lend creedence to the story that the exibit was changed early on. Photos of the Iceman from 1972 would be helpful.

 

[AtomicMysteryMonster]

After clicking the link to the Iceman gif from Wolftrax at BFF I'm more certain than ever that what I saw was either a different model or a modified original. When I saw the Iceman the blown out eye and empty socket was very visible as was a plume of blood and tissue?

Based on what you've said here when shown a picture of the "replacement" Iceman, I'm certain that you didn't see the real Minnesota Iceman. In fact, your description seems to indicate that you saw the knock-off owned by Jerry Malone (as described here by ringmaster).

 

[JohnWS]

Hopefully it's not already here and I've missed it, but primatoligist John Napier had this to say about the Iceman (the 'original') when he was brought in by Sanderson who thought the Smithsonian Institution should become involved.

I think this extract is from his book Bigfoot (1973), but I first saw it in a mildly edited form in Jerome Clark's Unexplained (1993). I Googled the text and found a fuller version on the Bigfoot Encounters site.

My first reaction, based on the creature's anatomy, was extreme dubiety; the characteristics of the Iceman seemed to me then-as now-to combine the worst features of apes and man and none of the best features which make these two groups extremely successful primates in their respective environments. As described, the Iceman's foot was specifically adapted neither for climbing, as in a chimpanzee for example, nor for a two-footed walking gait on the flat as in man.

I also love Clark's summing up of the Iceman chapter:

Reasonable human beings do not seek the truth in carnival sideshows. It may, of course, reside there on some exceedingly rare occasion, but even if we choose to ignore the Balls' apparently devastating testimony and allow ourselves to imagine that Hansen managed to pull off the greatest switch in the history of zoology, we cannot escape Napier's troubling obsevation that the iceman, even when scrutinized before all the excitement began, looked not at all like anything that could have ever walked the earth.

 

[Drewbot]

As described, the Iceman's foot was specifically adapted neither for climbing, as in a chimpanzee for example, nor for a two-footed walking gait on the flat as in man

Would John Napier's criticism of the foot of the MIM, be the catalyst for the theory of the Mid-Tarsal-Break foot? In order to overcome this same criticism of the Bigfoot foot, a talking-point about Mid Tarsal Break was utilized to explain Bigfoot's Specialized foot which is adapted for both climbing and walking.

Here is an excerpt from an Email I recieved from Dr. Meldrum, I had asked him

Would your scientific study of sasquatch allow you to say that Sasquatch has a well-developed Achilles tendon, similar to humans? If yes, then why would the foot require a mid-tarsal break similar to great apes, which do not have a well developed Achilles tendon?
If no, then wouldn't that preclude witness testimony saying that Sasquatch walked smoothly/gracefully, and/or was able to run down prey animals? (Lack of Achilles development would require that highly accelerated bipedal travel would be unlikely. (From the Bill Sellers study, detailed here- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6990319.stm )

Was this response coined long ago to overcome the Napier Critiscm? When did the MTB lingo become standard Bigfoot talk?

Sasquatch certainly would be expected to have characteristics associated with bipedalism. If the P-G film can be accepted at face for the sake of discussion, the film subject shows a lengthened Achille's tendon cxompared to a gorilla or chimp, but one shorter than the average human. Retention of the flexible midfoot affords several advantages (enumerated in the book) and associated/correlated anatomies of the foot are evident in multiple independent examples. A flat flexible foot doesn't preclude efficient walking and bursts of speed -- observe a chimp. But ape, and sasquatch I suggest, lack the specializations of the human foot and gracile body form, and physiology, selected for endurance walking and more specifically -- endurance running.

 

[AtomicMysteryMonster]

Would John Napier's criticism of the foot of the MIM, be the catalyst for the theory of the Mid-Tarsal-Break foot?

I think that Dr. Meldrum created it as an explanation for some tracks he saw in 1996. Said tracks sound like they were the result of overlaid bear tracks. Then this was applied to a single track associated with Patty and a trackway found by Paul Freeman.

 

[AtomicMysteryMonster]

The following is a response to a post made in the PGF thread:

Here's the source, AMM.

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

This was a response to when I asked her to provide a source for her claim that Frank Hansen had told Sanderson and Heuvelmans that he had a model made of the Iceman when they first examined it.

Now, wolftrax showed that both "icemen" are the same.

Why would Hansen claim to exhibiting a model of a real creature after the people behind the Iceman model were found? Simple, it because would've killed his business in the long run for him to display something that was commonly known as a fake. But if it was advertised as a "recreation" of something, then there'd still be some interest. Let's not forget that Sanderson and Heuvelmans fought hard for the Iceman being real and that no fake could have possibly fooled them (as noted later in the post).

Bear hair. This was a big deal on BFF because bear hair is agouti. So is Squirrel Monkey hair.

Sanderson said here that:

Would that we could give absolute proof of this observation but, without having examined so much as one hair we cannot; yet, all the long, straight hairs would seem to this observer to be definitely but dully banded in what is known to mammalogists as the typical "agouti" manner. This is to say, each hair has lighter bands, starting wide at the base and decreasing in width towards the top. If this be a valid observation, we have here a most unique item in that no hominid or pongid hair is known with this type of coloration. Not until we come to the so-called monkeys — Cynopithecoids, Coloboids, Cercopithecoids, etc. — do we encounter this condition.

Bolding by me. Notice that he says that he's not 100% sure about the
Iceman having agouti hair. This seems to say that pongids, such as a chimpanzee, would not have agouti hair. This contradicts Sanderson's statement in the link LAL provided:

An object such as this could possibly be constructed, starting with the skin of a large male, pale-skinned chimpanzee, using a human skull, glovemakers wood racks for the hands, and so forth. The original could have been of this nature, and then a copy, or copies, made from it.

Once again, bolding by me. This contradicts his claim that:

You just cannot ‘make’ a corpse like this, either out of bits and pieces of the bodies of other animals, or of wax, with some half a million hairs inserted into it,” he stated. “And you can’t get the kind of hairs that cover this corpse from any other kind of animal that I know of. Also, the proportions of this body, and several of its special features, are just not known at all – or, at least, have never been suggested either by paleontologists who have studied the fossil bones of primitive man-things, or even by the skilled artists who have fleshed out and made reconstructions of what the former have found. In fact, any ‘artists’ setting out to ‘make’ such a thing would have to have a model, and none is available. But, apart from that, you can’t completely fool two trained morphologists with zoological, anatomical and anthropological training. No! Bozo is the genuine article.

Sanderson also noted the following regarding his observations:

Any conclusions that follow amount, frankly, to little more than speculation because the specimen could not be handled and had to be viewed from no closer than a foot at best, through four sheets of plate glass and a varying amount of clear, frosted, or totally opaque ice.

Hilariously enough, a detailed reading of the above article, LAL's link, and this confirm that Sanderson made those statements in the exact same Argosy article!

Oh, and check out the dates given in those articles. Sanderson and Heuvelmans examined it in December 1968, but Hansen didn't tell them the copy story until January 1969. In other words, Hansen didn't tell them about the model when they first examined it.

S&H found two companies claiming they made models. Note the date: 1969.

Verne's downloaded. I'll look forward to trying to work in headphones.

After listening to the podcast, I think you'll understand the truth about the "two companies" claim. Although I should note that other Iceman-type sideshow exhibits were made, so it's possible (seeing as Sanderson didn't name the studios he was talking about) that they got mixed up about which one was the Minnesota Iceman. I suspect the "Hansen brought it to different companies for different features" one is the correct one, though.

 

[CptColumbo]

Funny. I live in Minnesota, get one of the local papers and occasionally watch the local TV news, yet have not heard about this.

 

[Correa Neto]

http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/reject-iceman/

How long it took for him to reach this brilliant conclusion?

ETA- don't you think something is missing at Coleman's text? Say, like a new information given by someone who was involved with the making of MIM gaff? Or a certain poster who was shown to be correct in his reasonings? Or at least something like "yep, skeptics were -once again- correct".

Hey footer, want some crow?

 

[kitakaze]

http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/reject-iceman/

How long it took for him to reach this brilliant conclusion?

ETA- don't you think something is missing at Coleman's text? Say, like a new information given by someone who was involved with the making of MIM gaff? Or a certain poster who was shown to be correct in his reasonings? Or at least something like "yep, skeptics were -once again- correct".

Hey footer, want some crow?

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=13585

Cryptodoofus Coleman is pushing new frontiers in hackness.

In the midst of the Georgia Bigfoot hoax, which held many metaphorical Minnesota Iceman moments for me, with its block of ice, the body in the ice, the huckster, the media, and the learned saying what they said, I had a stark revelation. I could no longer support the promised hopes that had been embodied for me in the Minnesota Iceman.

Yes, Coleman. You did have a revelation. The name of that revelation is Verne Langdon, you lying ass.

You minimize your involvement in the Georgia Boyz hoax, shirk your responsibility in creating hype for it, try to pretend cryptomumble scooped William Parcher on finding the suit, and now spin your realization of MIM gaff as a revelation of insight. You punt this when you know damn well it had nothing to do with insight and everything to do with Verne Langdon, the man at the center of the events leading to its creation coming forward with his story after he saw the hype of MIM Part Deux in Georgia.

Coleman, you are a complete loser and try to pass off pseudo-intellectual blather to try and keep people tuning into your cryptozoology and hominology pseudo-science woo woo garbage. You make your living in encouraging people to suspend their disbelief, to hope beyond hope for the Boss in the woods and the beast in the loch. A tree frog gets reclassified as a separate species or someone finds a new grasshopper and you spin it as a victory for cryptozoology. Horse poo, sir. Garbage that you've been pushing for decades is exposed as such and you pretend like you had an epiphany.

It's a cryptid world.

You, sir, are a shameless hack and a blatant spinster. Do the world a favour and try some real introspection on your crypto-idiocy.

 

[tube]

Contratulations, Loren Coleman, for finally listening to what the skeptics have been saying for the last 40 years.

I'm tempted to gloat over this; after all, I was the one who uploaded several damning pieces about the "Iceman" on my website; you know, Ivan Sanderson with his 15 foot penguins, and his rubber-suited chickens... Sanderson was most certainly a Crypto-Crank, and was really the only toe-hold the true believers had that the "Iceman" was anything more than a gaff.

But rational skepticism was there long before me, so I cannot really take much credit.

But gloating is not good skepticism, so I'd like to publicly congratulate Loren Coleman for his "moment of clarity" in terms of critical thinking.

Like other skeptics, I have to wonder of Coleman is simply not mentioning whether Verne Langdon's recent and public first-person account had anything to do with his change of heart.

Hot-melt vinyl. Howard Ball. Ventilated hair. Exhibit obscured by thick ice. Sideshow exhibit. Case closed.

 

[Correa Neto]

What? How dare you saying "case closed"?

It was never proven to be a hoax!
There were two icemen, one was the real thing, the second was a hoax, the first, the real deal.
The real body was hidden and probably destroyed by a Christain fundamentalist who thought its existence threatened his faith.
No one would bother making those details!
There are reports it was brought from Asia!
It disappeared because the ehxibitors were afraid of possible lawsuits, since they were ehxibiting the carcass of something which was too human-like.
It disappeared because mainstream science turns a blind eye towards bifoot!
The corpse was destroyed after a failure on the refrigerator caused it to rotten.


Am I the only one with the impression of seeing a potential implosion at bigfootery's not-very-far horizon?

Only the tru-believers and the ignorant ones staying aboard...

 

[kitakaze]

Am I the only one with the impression of seeing a potential implosion at bigfootery's not-very-far horizon?

Only the tru-believers and the ignorant ones staying aboard...

You are not the only one. I think Bigfootery is in big trouble and knows it. The faithful are circling the wagons. The dermals got tubed, an elk sat on the Skookum Bigfoot body imprint and elked it all up, the Freeman footage came from Paul Freeman, the Memorial Day Footage took a hike, the sound recordings were a coyote/elk karaoke party, nobody can bear the Pennsylvania photos, the Georgia bigfoot body on ice is in hot water, and the Minnesota Ice Man is history (no what I mean, Verne?).

Patty is very close to getting pantsed and watching a a live feed of fat hick point at the bushes is what passes for entertainment now.

Bigfoot has definitely jumped the shark.

 

[AtomicMysteryMonster]

You are not the only one. I think Bigfootery is in big trouble and knows it. The faithful are circling the wagons.

Agreed. This is exactly what I was thinking when I saw a Cryptomundo entry with an embedded Youtube video of the PGF that was posted not long after the Georgia fiasco. "Quick everyone, get behind Patty! It hasn't been duplicated yet, so it's still safe to believe!"

Also, it looks like Coleman is slightly owning up to his support of the Georgia hoax:

I had hopes, fleeting ones, yes, but hopes, nevertheless, that, against all my instincts regarding the unholy three Biscardi-type personalities, an actual body would be revealed during the summer of 2008, too. But that hope lasted for about ten minutes.

And this vaguely reminds me of his "The Surgeon's Photograph isn't of Nessie...but it could be" stance:

For me, it does not matter if the Minnesota Iceman is a carnival gaff, a Hollywood model, or an actual body, at this point, for it never existed in any state of physical reality within hominology.

Verne Langdon finally got a mention:

AlbertaSasquatch responds:
September 10th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
I would have to totally agree with you Loren. The Iceman should be thrown out and we should all turn our backs on it and get back to researching “real” encounters, evidence, etc. There is also the fact that Verne Langdon pretty much outed Hansen on the BFF not very long ago and told his side of the story, which involved Hansen trying to get many people in Hollywood to make a model for him. The person that eventually made the model was the same man the made the dinosaur, mammoth, etc models at the La Brea Tar Pits in California. Throw it out, it’s just another hoax.

 

[AtomicMysteryMonster]

Peter said that the MIM may have been originally the 'real thing'......and that Sanderson and Heuvelmans were not easily fooled.

If you look at page one of this thread, you'll see that the chance of the MIM originally being the real thing is terribly low. In addition to the giant penguin hoax, Dr. Sanderson thought that the stop-motion dinosaur effects in the original 1920's version of "The Lost World" were accomplished by putting chickens in rubber dinosaur costumes. As if that wasn't enough to cast doubt on his ability to judge special effects, his paper on the iceman notes a way to fake such a thing (although earlier in the paper, he said it was impossible to do so). And any proponent who supports the idea that Dr. Heuvelmans isn't easily fooled should remember that he said the PGF was a hoax.

In my opinion, one of the best arguments for John Chmabers not being involved comes from his friend Verne Langdon, which can be basically paraphrased as "John Chambers was a perfectionist and there's no way he would've made something that crummy." This makes sense when you consider the logical flaw with statements like "That's an obvious fake, therefore a highly respected makeup artist was involved."

"So I found John Chambers, and he was, you know, not that well. He was in a nursing home at the time....and I talked to him over the phone, and he told me definitively that he did not design the suit for the Patterson Film...and then he paused for a moment, and he said..."But I built that other one for that Carnival"....and I said "You mean the Minnestoa Iceman?"...and he said..."Yeah, that one".

John Chambers did not build the Minnesota Iceman. In fact, the credit goes to one Howard Ball. However, Chambers did provide some advice to Mr. Hansen about where to go for having hair applied. Also, Chambers was definitely involved in the creation of the "Burbank Bigfoot" and is credited for having created a Minnesota Iceman rip-off for a carnival showman.

Finally, I found two interesting-looking links regarding John Chambers, the PGF, and frozen Bigfoot hoaxes. I say "interesting-looking" since I have some errands to run and don't have the time to check them out for myself right now.

 

[Spektator]

I(snip) In addition to the giant penguin hoax, Dr. Sanderson thought that the stop-motion dinosaur effects in the original 1920's version of "The Lost World" were accomplished by putting chickens in rubber dinosaur costumes. (snip).

By my calculations, you would have to put 31,219 average-sized chickens in a T. Rex costume. And how would you get them to move together to make the costume walk?

(Graham Chapman voice) Stop that. It's silly. (/Graham Chapman voice)

 

[desertyeti]

Your calculations are off.
It would in fact require 63,479 chickens...

wait...what?