Shave My Yeti

Shave My Yeti. What is this world coming to?
http://shavemyyeti.com/

Today in BF History: JAN 29

Today in BF History: JAN 28

Today in BF History: JAN 27

Today in BF History: JAN 26

Today in BF History: JAN 25

Today in BF History: JAN 23

Today in BF History: JAN 22

Today in BF History: JAN 20

Today in BF History: JAN 19

Today in BF History: JAN 16

Today in BF History: JAN 16

Today in Bf History: JAN 14

Today in BF History: JAN 13

Dont worry Lunch Clubber's. The staff here at BfRLC have not been neglectful of Bf history. In fact we have a post for about every day of the year. Unfortunately some days our cracker jack research team gets stumped. However, we are back on track and I am proud to announce today January 13th in 2009 (yes I know this is actually in the future, but by tomorow it will be history.) Science Fiction in San Francisco (SFinSF) posts a BF event as a part of the Ask a Scientist lectures.



Tuesday, January 13th, 7:00 pm
Topic: Bigfoot and Other Wild Men of the Forest
Bummer. The recent claim by two Georgia men to have discovered the remains of a Bigfoot corpse turned out to be a hoax. Sure, you didn't fall for it, but somehow a couple of blockheads and a frozen gorilla costume did manage to capture public attention and create a minor media stir. After all, Bigfoot, Yeti, and hordes of other cryptoid missing links have been igniting human imagination for ages. Even the most skeptical of us must wonder if it's possible there really could be large, undiscovered primates on earth, still unknown to us humans. Can we be so sure we've found them all? And if some enticing evidence presented itself, how would we test it scientifically? Tonight physical anthropologist Eugenie Scott will help us answer the question of whether or not we might one day be able to welcome some long lost relatives to the family tree. This event is presented in collaboration with the Bay Area Skeptics.

Speaker: Eugenie Scott; Physical Anthropologist and Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education

Location: Axis Cafe, 1201 8th Street (btw. 16th & Irwin) San Francisco



Science Fiction in SanFrancisco
Science Fiction in San Francisco (A Perfect Fit) stages a monthly series of readings hosted by Terry Bisson. There is also a monthly series of movie screenings. All events take place at The Variety Preview Room, 582 Market St. @ Montgomery (1st floor of The Hobart Bldg.), San Francisco (map). Proceeds from the events go to the Variety Children’s Charity. See here for a full list of our sponsors and partners.

Ask a Scientist
Modern science is evolving faster than laboratory fruit flies.
How are busy, curious people supposed to keep up with all the latest information? Even if you read Scientific American and watch Nova faithfully, you still probably wind up with more questions than answers.

Ask a Scientist is an informative, entertaining, monthly lecture series, held at a San Francisco cafe. Each event features a speaker on a scientific topic, a short presentation, and the opportunity to ask all those burning questions that have been keeping you up at night. No tests, grades, or pressure…just food, drinks, socializing, and conversation about the universe’s most fascinating mysteries!

Today in BF History: JAN 11

Today, January 11, in 1999 the color plate of frame 352 from the Patterson/Gimlin film was carefully examined by imaging specialists at a color technology laboratory in Ventura, California. State-of-the-art scanners were used to magnify the image down to the color-point level.

All of this came about due to a press conference called by Chris Cook and the supporting testimony of his associate Chris Murphy. Murphy claimed to of found a bell shape (aka zipper pull tab) within the grainy film image and even took the time to hand craft a pretzel-like, clay model of this bell shape.

The final image in the series shows the detail in question at approximately 1600% magnification. At this level of resolution the individual points of color are clearly visible.

Murphy's "bell-shaped object" is not readily discernible at any level of resolution. To the naked eye the "object" appears to be a diffuse blotch of light reflecting off the fur. At increasingly higher magnification this detail still appears to be a diffuse blotch of light reflecting off the fur. Several other parts of the bigfoot figure show similar blotches of light reflecting off the fur.

The detail in question has no clear edges, and has no visible "artificial" shape. The lab tests demonstrated that a clear magnification of the color plate does not reveal anything like the pretzel-like object displayed at Crook's press conference. The image analysts stated that Murphy seems to be relying on some "highly imaginative, Rorschach-like interpretations of fuzzy details in enlargements of the color plates."

It is important to note The Oregonian on this same day had a headline "BIGFOOT PROOF CALLED 'MAN IN MONKEY SUIT'" The article was released by United Press International and begins with these two paragraphs...

BIGFOOT PROOF CALLED 'MAN IN MONKEY SUIT'
PORTLAND, Ore., Jan. 11 (UPI) _ Two longtime trackers of the legendary creature Sasquatch say grainy film footage that allegedly proves the existence of the beast also called Bigfoot shows nothing more than a ``man in a monkey suit.''

The Oregonian newspaper reports today that Bigfoot trackers Cliff Crook and Chris Murphy have determined that four magnified frames from the so-called ``Patterson-Gimlin Film'' show tracings of a bell-shaped fastener on the creature's waist, indicating that the image is likely that of a human being wearing a costume.

The Associated press chimes in as well with this report reprinted below...

CLAIMS AGAINST BIGFOOT FILM SET ENTHUSIASTS AT ODDS
By JOHN M. HUBBELL
Associated Press

BOTHELL, Wash. (AP) - In the hearts and minds of true believers, Bigfoot's existence has long been enshrined in a single minute of jerky, grainy footage of a startled sasquatch retreating into the upper California woods.

But two enthusiasts of the legendary being are alleging four magnified frames of the 16 mm footage show tracings of a bell-shaped fastener at Bigfoot's waist. They say the creature in the so-called Patterson-Gimlin Film can finally be dismissed as a man in a monkey suit.

"It was a hoax,'' said Cliff Crook, a longtime Bigfoot tracker who devotes rooms to sasquatch memorabilia in this suburb north of Seattle. "How can an artificial, manmade object end up on a Bigfoot?''

The film, purportedly showing a female Bigfoot fleeing a stream-bed, was taken by Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin on Oct. 20, 1967. It has largely withstood independent scrutiny and, for many steeped in the lore of the man-beast, has become bedrock evidence of its very existence.

"There's no way of really detracting from it,'' said Ray Crowe, president of the Western Bigfoot Society in Portland, Ore. The image captured in the footage "has a fluid motion. It's a wild creature of nature.''

The film is important because many Bigfoot believers compare all plaster casts of telltale footprints against those made by Patterson the day he purportedly filmed the creature slinking across a sandbar in the Six Rivers National Forest.

Discredit the footage, experts agree, and the gold standard for Bigfoot tracks will be washed away.

Crook bases his assertion on computer enhancements performed by Chris Murphy, a Bigfoot buff from Vancouver, British Columbia, who maintains he discovered an aberration in the footage in 1995 while helping his son Daniel prepare a class project.

Murphy declined to be interviewed, instead supplying a written narrative detailing his discovery.

According to that account, the Murphys used a color photocopier to duplicate a frame of the Patterson film. Zooming in again and again, Chris Murphy became suspicious.

To him, something geometric - vaguely the shape of a bottle opener - seemed to take shape at Bigfoot's waist. Murphy maintains that four sequential computer-scanned frames of the film show the object in different positions, as if it were swinging. He theorizes something is cinching the sasquatch costume in place.

Murphy made a clay model of the object and in October gave that and the enlargements to Crook, a charter-bus driver transfixed by sasquatch stories since 1957. That's the year he made a camping trip with teen-age friends on Washington's Olympic Peninsula that ended with telltale signs of a sasquatch encounter: a rustling of brush, a throaty growl and an ever-worsening hallmark musk.

Decades later, at 58, spare rooms in his home are dubbed "Bigfoot Central,'' stuffed with photos, plaster casts and maps dotted with push-pins that chart sasquatch sightings.

Now his hoax assertion is giving rise to a howl that would make a Bigfoot proud. Longtime enthusiasts smell a deserter.

One recent e-mail was typical of the incredulity Crook's allegation of a costume fastener is up against.

"Cliff, Cliff, Cliff,'' it scolded. "That's matted feces.''

"There are two witnesses (and) there are footprints,'' said Rene Dahinden, a Richmond, British Columbia, researcher who shares the film's copyright. "We've never had anything like it previously, and anything like it since.''

Dahinden, 68, discounts Murphy as an amateur. "He wasn't involved in this until 1993,'' Dahinden said. "He couldn't spell the name 'sasquatch' before that.''
Grover Krantz, a Washington State University anthropology professor and Bigfoot expert, also believes firmly in the old footage.

"I fully accept the Patterson film,'' Krantz said. "If there was a fastener, it could not be seen in an enlargement. The film grain is such that it cannot hold an image of something that small.''

The truth of the Patterson-Gimlin film remains as elusive as Bigfoot itself. Enthusiasts such as Krantz and Crowe see the film as a building block for their faith. And the faiths of Crook and Murphy endure in spite of it.

Crook knows that, in dissent, he and Murphy are "far outnumbered.''

"There's a few broken friendships because of this,'' Crook said. "I just figured, 'This is a search for the truth. When it becomes something different, that's when it should stop.'''

Maybe a Bigfoot will one day view the film, Crook figures, and offer its own disapproving grunt.

"There's just too much evidence that these creatures do inhabit certain areas out there,'' Crook said, ever sanguine. "Even though the Patterson film is a hoax, it doesn't mean Bigfoot doesn't exist.''

Today in BF History: Jan 10

Today in 2008 Blake Suárez posted on his design:related portfolio his tshirt design.

It is a self promotional piece discribed as.

The sasquatch shirts are 3 layer screenprints drawn and registered with sharpies. The typographic shirt is a 2 layer print and the hairy heart a single. All revolve around the use of sasquatch hair.

Well Bfrlc salutes your grand design and couln't think of a better way to commemorate your art than a tshirt.

$1M Dollar Trail Cam Winner is...

Hello Lunch Clubbers! Taking a break from our seven-day-strong trip down Bf history. I said to myself, "Y'know Epic, don't forget to do what you do best."

"What's that?"

"Your site is the absolute best at keeping up with topical bigfoot news as it exist in the mainstream media. Don't deprive your fellow Lunch Clubbers all across the globe. Dammit Epic, if Bigfoot is alive in mainstream media and you got you finger on the pulse KEEP US INFORMED"

Okay, okay! Stop shouting with all those capital letters. I'm on it.

You may remember our previous post way back in in on Jun 9th 2008. We announced the million-dollar contest by the magazine publication Field and Stream. Today they are revealing the winners

Above is the Million dollar winning photo submitted by Erik Stenbakken of Greeley, Colorado. To see all 11 notable photos you can check them out at Field and Stream's website.

You can see the four runner-ups by clicking on the Expand full article link below.

Today in BF History: JAN 09

Today in 2003 a documentary film, Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science, aired on the Discovery Channel. The program features scientists from various disciplines analyzing the most compelling evidence for the existence of Bigfoot, including the Skookum cast and the Patterson-Gimlin film.

The documentary has since been released on DVD and VHS. A companion book to the documentary written by anthropologist Jeffrey Meldrum was published in 2006 (ISBN 0-7653-1216-6)

The book is available for preview t Google Books.
The description by the book publisher is as follows

n this landmark work on a subject too often dismissed as paranormal or disreputable, Jeffrey Meldrum gives us the first book on Sasquatch to be written by a scientist with impeccable academic credentials. He gives an objective look at the facts in a field mined with hoaxes and sensationalism. Meldrum reports on the work of a team of experts from a wide variety of fields who were assembled to examine the evidence for a large, yet undiscovered, North American primate. He reviews the long history of this mystery--which long predates the "Bigfoot" flap of the late fifties--and explains all the scientific pros and cons in a clear and accessible style, amplified by over 150 illustrations. Anyone who has pondered the mysteries of human evolution will be fascinated and eager to join Dr. Meldrum in drawing their own conclusion.

Today in BF History: JAN 08

Today in 1905 The Washington Post publishes an article regarding the sighting of a wildman.

The wildman was describe with all the bigfoot features we have become familiar with.

The story continues to speculate the wild man may have escaped from a traveling circus during a train wreck. You would be surprised how often "a wild animal escaped from the circus" is used to explain a bigfoot sighting, in the book Historical Bigfoot by Chad Arment there are at least 24 counts in as many papers suggesting circus train wrecks as the origin of the escaped wildman. Here is a quote from the Jan 8th 1905 event.

Several persons give it as their opinion that this creature is a wild animal of some kind that made its escape from the Robinson & Franklin circus that was touring this peninsula a number of years ago. The circus train met with a railroad wreck, and several wild animals were freed from their cages, many of these beasts were captured, and others were shot, and while others were never seen by the circus people again.

The source of all of this can be read online at google books. The Historical Bigfoot ,by Chad Arment, covers sightings of Wild Men, Gorillas, Yahoos, and What-Is-It's, from the early 1800s to the 1940s. Before the term "Bigfoot" was coined to signify an unknown species of North American primate, sightings of towering bipedal apes were reported throughout the continent, but called a variety of names. This book compiles and sorts the most significant sightings, but also provides a look at hoaxes, mis-identifications, and the influential perspective of newspaper editors as they dealt with reports of a strange hairy manlike ape.

Today in BF History: JAN 07

Double Dose today! Yes Lunch Clubbers we can officially say we have two items of note today in bigfoot history. Lets begin with the fellow to the left.

Today in 1811 the first recorded account of an overly large foot print by a non-native person was on January 7, 1811 by the explorer, David Thompson. (The guy commemorated on the stamp above.)

David Thompson (April 30, 1770 – February 10, 1857) born Dafydd ap Thomas,[1] was an English-Canadian fur trader, surveyor, and map-maker, known to some native peoples as "Koo-Koo-Sint" or "the Stargazer". Over his career he mapped over 3.9 million square kilometres of North America and for this has been described as the "greatest land geographer who ever lived."

Thompson was known for keeping detailed records. When he found curious animal tracks in the snow near Jasper, Alberta which he wrote about the 14 inches long footprints in his journal on January 7th, 1811. (see T.C. Elliott, "Journal of David Thompson", Oregon Historical Quarterly, 15 March-June 1914) Some years later, a book of Thompson's, Narrative of His Explorations of Western America, based on his journal, was published. In it he says:

I now recur to what I have already noticed in the early part of last winter, when proceeding up the Athabasca River to cross the mountains, in company with.... Men and four hunters, on one of the channels of the River we came to the track of a large animal, which measured fourteen inches in length by eight inches in breadth by a tape line. As snow was about six inches in depth the track was well defined, and we could see it for a full hundred yards from us, this animal was proceeding from north to south. We did not attempt to follow it, we had not time for it, and the Hunters, eager as they are to follow and shoot every animal, made no attempt to follow this beast, for what could the balls of our fowling guns do against such an animal? Report from old times had made the head branches of this River, and the Mountains in the vicinity the abode of one, or more, very large animals, to which I never appeared to give credence; for these reports appeared to arise from that fondness for the marvelous so common to mankind: but the sight of the track of that large a beast staggered me, and I often thought of it, yet never could bring myself to believe such an animal existed, but thought it might be the track of some Monster Bear.

Now as for the second item in Bigfoot History: The death of Bigfoot in 1899.


Today In a land and at a time known for its tough and colorful characters, William A. "Bigfoot" Wallace felt right at home. During his sixty years in Texas, he set the standards as a ranger, backwoodsman and folk hero.

Born in Lexington, VA on April 3, 1817, Wallace grew up and worked on his father's fruit orchard. But after his older brother and a cousin died in the Goliad Massacre in the spring of 1836, William decided to join the Texas Revolution to avenge the deaths. He would have to wait, however, for by the time he arrived, the Texan's war for independence had already been won.

Wallace first settled near LaGrange. In 1840, after Wallace had been in Texas for over two years, he decided to help in the layout and construction of the new capital at Austin. While there, it is said, he was once misidentified as an Indian, named Bigfoot, that had ransacked a neighboring settler's home. After finding that Wallace's foot was actually smaller than the 14-inch imprint of the Indian, he was found innocent of the misdeed. As a result of the episode, however, Wallace acquired the nickname of Bigfoot, and the name stuck.

Bigfoot participated in a number of the early Texas conflicts. He fought in the Battle of Plum Creek in 1840, and against Mexican General Adrian Woll's invasion of Texas in 1842. Later that year, he volunteered for the retailatory Somervell Raid across the Rio Grande River, and subsequently joined the Mier Expedition organized to penetrate further into Mexico. Wallace survived the Black Bean executions that followed the capture of the Mier participants, and was imprisoned at Perote Prison east of Mexico City. After his release, he joined other Texans in the Mexican-American War. In the 1850s, he commanded a company of Texas Rangers fighting border bandits and Indians on the frontier.

Wallace lived a long life and spent his declining years in Frio County. He enjoyed telling stories of his past, frequently with much embellishment and humor. The publication of some of these stories in 1870 by biographer John Duval contributed to Bigfoot's reputation as a Texas folk hero.

Bigfoot died on January 7, 1899 and is buried in the State Cemetery in Austin.

Today in BF History: JAN 06

Today in 1997 according to the book Bigfoot Exposed, on a posting to the Internet Virtual Bigfoot Conference, an email based BF research community; Jeff Meldrum stakes much of his academic reputation on the evidence that Paul Freeman has discovered several authentic bigfoot casts from the Blue Mountains near Walla Walla, Washington.
This was a pretty big deal since Jeff Meldrum, a member of the Biological Sciences faculty at Idaho State University and Grover Krantz’s professional heir-apparent in the field of anthropology. Krantz was the first academic scientific university professor to publically support and research the possibility of bigfoot’s existence.
But let’s back up and discuss Paul Freeman the third member of this bizarre love triangle of bigfoot believers.


Paul freeman is described in an AP article.

Freeman, 45, does not seem the type to spook easily. He is beefy, bearded and, at 6-foot-4 and 265 pounds, approaches Sasquatch proportions himself. He's a meat-cutter by trade; an outdoorsman and hunter by nature.

Apparently he put down the butchers knife and started to search for bigfoot. Before his death he had claimed to see bigfoot himself 4 times and has collected more cast, most of them with dermal ridges than any other bigfoot hunter. This brings us back to Meldrum. Meldrum not only stake his good name but also put his money where his mouth is, he ended up buying Freeman’s collection for a sum of nearly 2000 dollars.

Today in BF History: JAN 05

On this day in 2003 Theo Stein of the Denver Post writes an article entitled BigFoot Believers. This in turn caused Bayanov of the Darwin Museum, Moscow, Russia to write two letters. The first is to Theo Stien, the reporter who wrote the story, and the second is to Dr. Russell Mittermeier, President of Conservation International.

Bigfoot believers
By Theo Stein, Denver Post Environment Writer

Legitimate scientific study of legend gains backing of top primate experts

Sunday, January 05, 2003 — Edmonds, Wash. — After enduring decades of ridicule, Bigfoot researchers are enjoying support from some of the world's most respected scientists in their efforts to prove the hulking creatures of legend are no myth.
Richard Noll Richard Noll of the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization photographs a site in the North Cascades, northeast of Seattle, last month. Noll and colleagues discovered an imprint near a mudhole where the Skookum Cast was recorded two years ago.

The persistence of reported sightings of Bigfoot-type creatures in North America and elsewhere has convinced leading researchers on primates — including Jane Goodall, made famous by her studies of chimpanzees in Tanzania — to call for something never seriously considered before: a legitimate scientific study to determine whether the greatest apes that ever lived persist in the world's moist mountainous regions.

Skeptics, who include those in the scientific mainstream, scoff at such ideas. They say reported Bigfoot encounters, tracks and other evidence are either hoaxes or mistakes, and that people who believe such nonsense are soft-headed.

But dedicated amateurs and a smattering of professionals are trying to change that attitude. Using accepted scientific methods, they believe they can show at least some of the claimed evidence for Bigfoot — footprints, hair, voice recordings and a 400-pound block of plaster known as the Skookum Cast — are authentic traces of a rare giant primate.

Recently they have received support from a handful of the field's top experts...

...Daris Swindler, for example, is not the typical Bigfoot believer.The flap over recent claims of Bigfoot hoaxing has not deterred Swindler. Most Bigfoot supporters advance Gigantopithecus, or Giganto for short, as the likely ancestor of Bigfoot, if not the hairy beast itself. It was a group of dedicated amateurs that discovered the Skookum Cast. Meldrum and Swindler concur there are only two logical explanations for the cast: Bigfoot and elk. John Mionczynski, a wildlife researcher who has spent 30 summers studying bighorn herds in Wyoming's Wind River Mountains, has his own reasons for believing in Bigfoot.

The article goes on to list leading scientist who support the possibility of Bigfoot
Jane Goodall, George Schaller, Russell Mittermeier, Daris Swindler, and Esteban Sarmiento.

The best part of the article is actually the two letters written by Dmitri Bayanov of the Darwin Museum of Moscow, as a response. Reprinted at The Bigfoot Information Project.



The

Today in BF History: JAN 04

Today in 1976, a newspaper declares mDNA results of a captured “Baby Bigfoot,” while unique, merely a chimpanzee. Oliver (pictured left) was often known as Baby Bigfoot, but a more modern and perhaps cleverer moniker was coined in a recent documentary broadcast on the Discovery Channel. This documentary called "Humanzee," featured a little known upright walking chimpanzee named Oliver. For those who have heard of Oliver before, he's just a chimp according to test results. Chimp or "Humanzee," Oliver was a remarkable, upright walking chimp who appeared to prefer living and behaving as a human being than a chimpanzee for the better part of his life.

Oliver's had a real strange and sordid history. Others have noted Oliver's peculiar smell, eye coloring, bird-like voice and various mannerisms as being very un-chimp-like. And then there is Oliver's sense of himself. The prevailing view is that Oliver is simply a mutant chimp. Could Oliver be the result of clandestine genetic alchemy? A mutant or hybrid chimp? Missing Link perhaps?

BOERNE -- His days on the freak circuit and on tabloid covers as the fabled ``missing link,'' are finally behind him, as are seven lost years in a medical research laboratory.

Now, Oliver, a mild-mannered, middle-aged ape that walks upright like a human, is taking a well-deserved Hill Country retirement, but is no less a scientific mystery than he first appeared 25 years ago.

"Oliver's had a real strange and sordid history. He was exploited tremendously for his very unusual morphological characteristics,'' said Ken DeCroo, a California anthropologist and animal trainer who owned him a decade ago and, like others, has not forgotten him. "His physical appearance was rather different than most chimps. He's bipedal, which means he walks on two feet, and that is very unusual. And another aspect is his very small head,'' he said.

Others have noted Oliver's peculiar smell, eye coloring, bird-like voice and various mannerisms as being very un-chimp-like. And then there is Oliver's sense of himself. "He was not like normal chimps and other chimps didn't get along with him too well. He preferred to be with humans,'' recalled Bill Rivers, another former owner. But Oliver has mellowed with the years. Since May, when he and 11 other chimps were retired from the Buckshire Corp., a research center in Pennsylvania, Oliver has shared a spacious open-air cage with other chimps at Primarily Primates.

Wally Swett, director of the primate sanctuary, said his newest celebrity guest is adapting well, and, after years in isolation, has formed an attachment. "He's bonded with one little female,'' said Swett.

"And he understands a lot and is quite cooperative. And he's not like other male chimps which can get quite grabby and aggressive,'' he said.

Old news accounts assert that Oliver has 47 chromosomes (see results info below), one more than a human, one less than a chimpanzee, but there are no records to confirm it. Quite soon, possibly for the first time, Oliver will undergo sophisticated blood and genetic analysis to resolve, once and for all, exactly who or what he is.

"The prevailing view is that Oliver is simply a mutant chimp. Others think he may be a cross between a common chimp and a pygmy chimp, and soon we'll be able to make a determination,'' said Dr. Gordon Gallup, an anthropology professor at the University of New York at Albany.

But, said Gallup, who has lectured about Oliver in his evolutionary psychology course, there are other possibilities holding infinitely more complicated implications. "It's difficult to know for sure, but I think there is reason to suspect that Oliver may be a human-chimpanzee hybrid. It turns out that humans and chimps are at least 99 percent identical in terms of basic biological chemistry, and you can get hybrids among much more diverse creatures than that,'' he said.

Rumors of such taboo experiments being conducted in China, Italy and the United States have persisted for years, but have never been acknowledged. Could Oliver be the result of clandestine genetic alchemy? The answer may come after a blood sample -- to be taken from Oliver at an upcoming medical examination -- are tested at the University of Chicago, allowing scientists there to finally determine his genetic pedigree.

"Let you imagination run wild. It has such mind-boggling implications for things like religion, and whether such a creature would be covered by the Bill of Rights. It could make people think about their relationship to evolution,'' said Gallup. "But until there is some evidence either way, it's simply an academic exercise rather than anything you can take seriously,'' he said.

Dr. David Ledbetter, who will do the testing, said genetics technology will allow him to determine if Oliver is a normal or mutant chimp, and if he proves to be a hybrid, his parentage. "It seems a little silly to me to have all this rumor and controversy floating around when its a very straightforward thing to do the chromosome analysis,'' he said. A spokesperson for the Yerkes Primate Center in Atlanta, the most prestigious primate research facility in the country, said scientists there had never heard of Oliver.

Oliver surfaced in the early 1970s, when he was acquired as a baby by trainers Frank and Janet Burger whose dog, chimp, pony and pig acts were once regularly featured on the Ed Sullivan Show, at Radio City Music Hall, and once even by dancer Gene Kelly. "He came in from Africa with three other chimps that one of Frank's brothers had sent over from the Congo. But this one we could never use. He was odd and the other chimps would have nothing to do with him,'' recalled Janet Burger, 69. But if Oliver was strange in appearance, and was shunned by other chimps, his intelligence and personality were also quite different from the other apes in the Burgers' entourage.

"You could send him on chores. He would take the wheelbarrow and empty the hay and straw from the stalls. And when it was time to feed the dogs, he would get the pans, and mix the dog food for me. I'd get it ready and he'd mix it,'' she said. As he grew older, Oliver also acquired habits normally enjoyed only by humans, including a cup of coffee and a nightcap. "This guy, Oliver, he enjoyed sitting down at night and having a drink, and watching television. He'd mix his own. He'd pour a shot of whiskey and put some Seven-Up in there, stir it and drink it,'' she recalled.

Oliver also displayed emotions not normally associated with chimpanzees, including tears of remorse at temporary separations. But ultimately, it was another of Oliver's human like traits that forced the Burgers to sell him. By 1976, when he was approaching sexual maturity, Oliver was turning into a masher.

"He had sex on his mind. The old hormones flared up but he didn't care about the female chimps we had, he started trying to have sex with me and any other woman,'' recalled Burger. "I was leery of him. He was as strong as five men, so I told my husband, "I'm not putting up with this. He's going or I'm going," so we sold him to Michael Miller and his partner for $8,000,'' she said.

Miller, a New York City lawyer, had seen dollar signs in Oliver, and took him on the road, including Japan, where newspaper accounts report that 26 million Japanese viewed him.

In the United States and overseas, breathless speculation raged over the ape with the shaved head. Was he "the baby Bigfoot?'' A mutant or hybrid chimp? Or perhaps a newly discovered primitive African humanoid? Miller also hinted at the unspeakable: An ape-human hybrid.

In press accounts of the time, Miller said he intended for Oliver to undergo a full battery of scientific tests to determine his identity, but the results, if any, were never made public. After belonging to Miller for several years, Oliver was owned by a series of West Coast animal trainers, beginning with Ralph Helfer, owner of Enchanted Village in Buena Park, Ca., where Oliver was exhibited as a freak. "They had two or three shows a day. I'd just walk him out on stage while another fellow talked about him. They had theories that he was half-man, half-ape. That was part of the show,'' recalled Bill Rivers, who years later would be the last animal trainer to own Oliver. "It was just like seeing a space alien,'' he said.

Oliver later became part of Helfer's menagerie at Gentle Jungle doing occasional television commercials and shows. But when the facility closed he was given to Ken DeCroo who had worked there. DeCroo, an anthropologist and animal trainer, said Oliver was unlike any of the hundreds of chimps he had worked with in both research and commercial settings. "It was very hard to predict what was happening in that brain and generally he acted more human than chimp in a lot of settings,'' recalled DeCroo.

"This is the classic example. Very often I would sit him down in the living room with me to drink coffee. And one time he was out of coffee. I never trained him to do this, but maybe he knew it from the past. He got up from the table, walked into the kitchen, picked up the coffee pot, poured coffee into my cup, then into his, and then took the pot back into the kitchen,'' he said. "But here's the chimp part. He's making a terrible mess. His brain is telling him what to do, but his body isn't quite doing it. But he had the awareness. He understood where all the elements fit and that I was out of coffee. It was shocking,'' he said. DeCroo is now struggling to put Oliver down on paper. "I'll tell you how much Oliver has affected me in my life. I'm writing a novel, which is very much fiction, but is very much based on Oliver,'' he said.

"It's about researchers in a university that decide to do the experiment: man and ape. This experiment is quite possible, but would you do it?" he asked. "In deciding that, you can imagine the ramifications both ethically and scientifically. And what do you do with the creature in the end? It's quite an adventure and Oliver inspired it,'' he said.

DeCroo said in 1986, when he closed his animal compound, he sold Oliver to Bill Rivers with the understanding Oliver would be given a decent retirement. When he heard later Oliver had ended up at a research facility he was remorseful. "He was a good friend and I've always felt guilty. I failed Oliver. I really thought he wasn't going anywhere,'' said DeCroo. But Rivers said he eventually sold Oliver to the Buckshire Corporation, where he languished for almost seven years, when the ape proved too difficult to keep. "He couldn't get along with the other chimps. I was doing a lot of traveling. I really didn't have a place for him,'' said Rivers.

According to Buckshire president Sharon Hursh, Oliver showed signs of a rough treatment, but was never used for research. "When we got him, we gave him an entrance physical and it was evident to us he'd had a pretty tough life. Somewhere along the line, he must have been a tough chimp. He had scars that indicated rough handling,'' she said. "We basically purchased him for laboratory research but he was never used. He just sort of ate, kicked back and slept all day,'' she said. Fortunately for Oliver, others did not forget him.

Vincent Pace, a concert pianist and circus ochestra leader, met Oliver when the Burgers were traveling with the Vargas Circus in the early 1970's. But when Oliver was put up for sale in 1976, Pace said he was outbid by Miller, the New York lawyer. "I lost track of him totally for 20 years,'' said Pace.

"But two years ago I came into a big sum of money and I made a list of things I wanted to do. I wanted to buy a new Rolls Royce, I wanted a face lift and I wanted a new baby chimp. And in searching for a new chimp, I bumped into Oliver at the Buckshire,'' he said. Initially, he said, the Buckshire appeared willing to release Oliver. "I spent $70,000 to build a room on my house here for him. It's all plexi-glass, stainless steel and Formica. He'd have private eating quarters,'' he said. But after his attempt to get Oliver failed, said Pace, he was glad to see him and 11 other Buckshire chimps end up with Primarily Primates in Boerne.

"I'd lived without him for so long, I thought getting him out and into anybody's hands would be better than him being where he was,'' said Pace. "Someday I'll go to Texas and see Oliver before he dies. This animal is almost human in his emotions,'' he said.

Regardless of the outcome of the genetic testing, Oliver will enjoy a peaceful and permanent refuge in Boerne, said Swett. "He's been dragged around and exploited for over 20 years, but this is his final retirement. He'll never go into research or on exhibit again,'' said Swett. "In terms of significant scientific findings, we'll play it by ear, but never to the point of inconveniencing Oliver,'' he said.

Today in BF History: JAN 03

The New York Times today in 2003 printed a front page article. In summary it begins with Mr. Wallace, 84, died on Nov. 26 at a nursing home in Centralia, Washington, and continues on...

''This wasn't a well-planned plot or anything,'' said Michael Wallace, one of Ray's sons. ''All it means is that Ray Wallace is dead, not Bigfoot,'' said Dr. Wolf Henner Fahrenbach, a zoologist in the Portland area who is retired from the Oregon Regional Primate Research Center.
Though some Bigfoot believers had long suspected that Mr. Wallace created the tracks, he kept his secret, and his family never confirmed it until his death.
Michael Wallace said his father had a friend carve the feet. Dr. Fahrenbach has tried to prove -- by DNA analysis of hair samples -- that Bigfoot is a species heretofore unknown to science. ''Sasquatch feet grow in substantial excess of general body dimensions,'' Dr. Fahrenbach wrote in one study. ''Hence the justifiable moniker Bigfoot.''
Dr. Meldrum said he was a skeptic until he saw Bigfoot prints, then began collecting and analyzing them. Dr. Meldrum and Dr. Fahrenbach may have some academic investment in Bigfoot, but Dr. Matthew Johnson, a clinical psychologist from Grants Pass, Ore., said his conviction could not be dismissed as scholarly bias.
''Ray Wallace may have indeed hoaxed his own tracks,'' Dr. Johnson said. ''But I can guarantee you that Ray Wallace was not walking around in a nine-foot Bigfoot suit in the Oregon Caves at the age of 82. Since the encounter, Dr. Johnson, now president of the Southern Oregon Bigfoot Society, has led numerous outings to feed and track Bigfoot. What nearly all Bigfoot stories lack is proof: a skeleton or a body, or a picture or film beyond dispute. Bigfoot is among the most camera-elusive of beings.
Filmed in the Six Rivers National Forest in Northern California, not far from where Ray Wallace laid his tracks, the short film shows a bewildered-looking apeman walking upright, while glancing at the camera.
The film has its believers, Dr. Meldrum and Dr. Fahrenbach among them. ''As long as Dad was alive, he was Bigfoot,'' Michael Wallace said

Today in BF History: JAN 02

Today January 2nd in 1969, George Haas, the organizer, archivist, and spokesman of the Bay Area Group of Bigfoot investigators, publishes the first issue of The Bigfoot Bulletin a two-page newsletter that allowed Bigfoot researchers to actually compare and share notes.

The Bigfoot Bulletin was a new kind of venture in North American hominology, much approved at the time both by René Dahinden and John Willison Green. In Fact one chapter of Green's Year of the Sasquatch (1970) is devoted to that newsletter. Green writes:

One of the most significant developments of the year 1969, at least from a Sasquatch hunter's point of view, was the birth of an unassuming little publication called the Bigfoot Bulletin. For years people who were spending their spare time and money running down Sasquatch reports have talked about the need for a means of communication, but none ever did anything about it. Some kept in fairly regular contact by letter, but others did little or no writing, only dropping in during their travels or telephoning at intervals that might be years apart. Quite a few didn't know that anyone else was active in the field at all.

The man who changed all that is George Haas, of Oakland, California. George has worked at a variety of outdoor jobs and has been a keen woodsman for many years, but he got into the Sasquatch business via the bookshelf. From correspondence with George I know that his experience included a period as Ranger in Charge of the Calaveras Big Trees State Park in California and six years in Yellowstone National Park where he designed, built, and operated an 18-acre reforestation nursery.

The first issue of the Bigfoot Bulletin came out on January 2, 1969. It was just two mimeographed pages. The first item reported the finding of 16-inch tracks in the snow on the Bluff Creek Road, December 2, 1968. Most of the rest of the first page listed published articles on the subject in current papers and magazines, but on Page 2 was an article by Jim McClarin, who has continued to be the Bulletin's most prolific contributor. It was the first of a series of old-time stories to reach a modern audience in the Bulletin.

Despite its growth in size and circulation, George Haas has continued to distribute it (the Bulletin) free of charge, as well as handling an ever-growing volume of correspondence resulting from it.

A number of Sasquatch hunters are basically more inclined to compete than co-operate — because they each want to be the first to bring one in. From this point of view some already object to the Bulletin as making too much hard-won information available at no cost and no effort to anyone who comes along. But for those whose main interest is to see the facts brought home to a doubting world, the Bigfoot Bulletin is an undiluted blessing. No one can buy the Bulletin. It is sent only to those who contribute information.

As always we at BfRLC Salute all you have contributed to the community

Today in BF History: JAN 01

This photo had been taken on January 1, 1891, two days after the chief was killed by a revengeful Seventh Cavalry gone berserk. Although far from a photo of the crytozoological bigfoot, this photo is important part of the BF lore. Documenting how the bigfoot meme was more than a thread bare idea in the 19th century North-American consciousness, it was in fact already deeply woven for generations in Native American wisdom.

Chief Bigfoot known amongst the Lakota name as Si Tanka (Spotted Elk) Another tragedy of the Wounded Knee Massacre is captured in this photo frozen in time and snow.

The son of Lone Horn, he was cousin to Crazy Horse and half brother of Sitting Bull. He became chief upon his father's death in 1875.

Though skilled in war, he was known as a great man of peace, adept at settling quarrels between rival parties. Known for his political and diplomatic successes, he was often called upon to mediate disputes. Following their defeat during the War for the Black Hills, he encouraged his people to live in peace, and to adapt to the white men’s ways while retaining their native language and cultural traditions. He encouraged them to adapt to life on the reservation by developing sustainable agriculture and building schools, taking a peaceful attitude toward white settlers.

This makes all the more tragic the circumstances of his death. Sick with pneumonia, he was en route to the Pine Ridge Reservation, seeking shelter with Red Cloud's band. Apprehended, he became a victim of the Wounded Knee Massacre (1890) in which nearly 300 men, women and children of his tribe lost their lives.