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The Man Behind Bigfoot Dies
MSNBC ^
Posted on 12/07/2002 3:40:12 AM PST by Fighting Irish
The man behind ‘Bigfoot’ dies
After his death, family confirms Ray Wallace’s role in long-debated hoax
SEATTLE, Dec. 5 — 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,” said his son, Michael.
IN AUGUST 1958, a bulldozer operator who worked for Wallace’s construction company in Humboldt County, Calif., found huge footprints circling and then leading away from his rig.
The Humboldt Times in Eureka, Calif., coined the term “Bigfoot” in a front-page story about the phenomenon.
Family members said Wallace asked a friend to carve the wooden 16-inch-long 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, Calif., 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.”
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.com ...
TOPICS: Culture/Society; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS:
....and another childhood fantasy dies also.....
To: Fighting Irish
Shoot. I liked that myth too. Well I'll still use it as a theme when I tell my children stories around the campfire. Long live the Sasquash.
To: Fighting Irish
Man Who Claimed 'Bigfoot' Legend Dies - SEATTLE (AP) - 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, Calif., found huge footprints circling and then leading away from his rig.
The Humboldt Times in Eureka, Calif., coined the term "Bigfoot" in a front-page story about the phenomenon.
Family members said Wallace asked a friend to carve the wooden 16-inch-long 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, Calif., 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."
Thu Dec 5, 3:17 PM ET - This is a 1977 still photo made from a 16mm film made by Ivan Marx reportedly showing the legendary Bigfoot cavorting in the hills of northern California. The man whose prank launched the 'Bigfoot' legend in 1958 has died and family members say they can now reveal the truth: Ray L. Wallace was the Bigfoot in the movie. Wallace died of heart failure Nov. 26.,2002, in Centralia, Wash. (AP Photo/File)
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. [End]
To: FilmCutter
"Sasquash"... is that a term for a fibrous melon-like vegetable that talks back to you?
I think you meant "Sasquatch". LOL
To: Fighting Irish
5
posted on
12/07/2002 4:30:55 AM PST
by
2sheep
To: Fighting Irish
Bigfoot lives.
To: martin_fierro
Ewwww! It's Big Squat!
To: Fighting Irish
Your link doesn't go to the story. Any help?
And, while the Patterson stuff in this article is interesting, I don't think this guy alone accounts for all the Bigfoot stuff over America's history?
While I don't think a solitary (And REALLY old) 8 foot tall monkey-man has been running around North America for 500 years (Let alone a REQUIRED self-sustaining HUGE population of them), I do like thinking there might be something weird going on out there...
To: martin_fierro
Shame martin!
May your motorcycle be parked under a tree full of starlings!
To: Cincinatus' Wife
Thu Dec 5, 3:17 PM ET - This is a 1977 still photo made from a 16mm film made by Ivan Marx reportedly showing the legendary Bigfoot cavorting in the hills of northern California.I've never seen that picture. It's obviously fake. Not nearly as compelling as the Patterson film.
I saw a Bigfoot show once...They had a group of film makers critique the Patterson film. They all agreed that even in our time (1998-99?) they would have a hard time creating a creature as compelling as the one in the Patterson film...As a matter of fact, they said they couldn't do it, even with an unlimited budget. That impressed me.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2002/12/07/MN238167.DTL
Echoing through the West this weekend are plaintive howls -- not of the long-elusive Bigfoot, but rather of his most faithful followers.
Once more, true believers in the storied beast find themselves absorbing another bit of heresy, a fresh claim that the man-beast is merely the stuff of campfire chatter.
Relatives of Ray L. Wallace, a logger who propelled one of California's earliest publicized claims of the creature's existence, have stepped forward in the shadow of his passing to say their patriarch admitted to trickery that fueled one of American culture's most enduring myths.
They say it was Wallace who stoked a fury in 1958 by slipping into two, carved, 16-inch-long wooden feet, then stomping around his Humboldt County site logging camp as a gag on fellow workmen.
Ray Wallace died on Nov. 26 of heart failure at 84.
"Ray L. Wallace was Bigfoot," his son Michael told the Seattle Times in a story published Thursday, a claim few sons can make beyond metaphor. "The reality is, Bigfoot just died."
And he said 1967's famous "Patterson-Gimlin Film" -- a grainy home movie that allegedly captures a startled specimen fleeing a streambed -- may be only his obliging mother wearing a monkey suit.
The elder Wallace had told the film's shooters where they could spot the Sasquatch, said Ray Crowe, founder of the International Bigfoot Society in Hillsborough, Ore.
Reports of Bigfoot -- also known as Sasquatch, Yeti, Yayoo and Skunk Ape -- are a folklore constant, fed by the occasional camper or rural dweller who steps from the wilds to describe a startling encounter with a musky, hair- covered biped.
The Wallace family's assertion is potent not only for its pop-culture punch but because plaster casts of Bigfoot's purported footprints originate from such sightings. Taken together, the discrediting of both the Wallace and Patterson-Gimlin tales would poke a significant hole in Bigfoot lore.
But no ground was given Friday among the West's loosely knit, largely dissonant camp of Bigfoot backers.
"We all knew (Wallace) was hoaxing years ago," said Henner Fahrenbach, a retired Oregon Regional Primate Research Center scientist who has published a numerical analysis of Sasquatch spottings. Contrasted with the bevy of varied real-life wilderness tales that percolate weekly on Web sites, Fahrenbach said,
the debunking of Wallace's tale "fades into insignificance."
Plaster casts formed at the Six Rivers National Forest location where Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin purportedly filmed the creature on Oct. 20, 1967, should still be considered perfectly valid, he holds.
Cliff Crook, who carries out his "peaceful pursuit" of the legend from Bigfoot Central in Bothell, Wash., agreed with Fahrenbach about Wallace, while contending that the famous movie footage is faked.
"I don't see this as an arrow into the heart of the Bigfoot search," Crook said. If it discourages belief in the phenomenon, he said, "it might keep some of these trigger-happy weekend warriors out of the woods."
Wallace, Crook said, was long known as a playful con artist among the faithful and sent what seemed obviously faked photos to him even in recent years.
Still, the Wallaces' claim continues an annis horribilis for the man-beast, which also saw the death of one of Bigfoot's most quoted academic supporters --
Washington State University Professor Grover Krantz. His demise in February thinned ranks of the West's Bigfoot-testifying Ph.D.s to, it seems, one.
"It is pretty lonely in that respect," said Jeffrey Meldrum, an anthropology professor at Idaho State University who says science points to a real-life Sasquatch. "There still is such a stigma associated with this subject that young academicians trying to establish their reputation . . . shy away. Privately, those people are talking to me."
Fear not, he said -- Ray L. Wallace rests, but the legend of Bigfoot is alive.
At worst, he said, the week's revelation means "about half a dozen casts that are in my collection that were questionable to begin with may be explained away as having been produced by Wallace's feet.
"I've been out there in the field and come upon footprints in the middle of nowhere. In those situations," he said, "where's Ray Wallace?"
To: Fighting Irish; Scott from the Left Coast; Ramius
Oh - Man! - I am so sad!
I loved Bigfoot! - When lookin' out for him out in our woods when we were kids.
Be at peace, Bigfoot.
http://www.thekansascitychannel.com/news/1823767/detail.html
Bigfoot Legend Creator Dies; Family Calls Bigfoot A Hoax
Wallace's Friends, Bigfoot Believers Find Explanation Hard To Believe
POSTED: 9:36 a.m. EST December 6, 2002
Ray Wallace, who started one of the most notorious myths of our time -- the legend of Bigfoot -- has died.
Wallace died of heart failure Nov. 26 at a Washington state nursing home, at the age of 84.
Wallace's family feels that they can finally reveal the truth: Wallace made up Bigfoot.
For the last 40 years, the legend of Bigfoot has grown larger than the mythical monster itself.
Wallace, a native of Clarksdale, Mo., used photos, footprints, and Sasquatch sightings that convinced some people that Bigfoot was real. But his family says it was all a hoax.
Ray Wallace's family remembers him as a prankster whose biggest hoax contributed to the Bigfoot legend.
His family says Wallace asked a friend to carve 16-inch feet, then he and his brother wore them to create huge tracks on the ground at his California construction company in 1958. That led The Humboldt Times to coin the term "Bigfoot" on its front page.
His nephew Dale Wallace still has those "Bigfoot" fake feet.
Mark Chorvinsky, editor of Strange magazine, said the family's admission raises serious doubts about the grainy 1967 film of an erect apelike creature striding away from the camera.
Others are unfazed. Idaho State University Professor Jeff Meldrum said accounts of something like Bigfoot go back to the 19th century.
Some of Wallace's friends and Bigfoot believers are not so willing to accept the family's explanation.
Cliff Lebrecque, a Bigfoot believer, says that the big beast left an imprint on him some 25 years ago.
"I got the, you know, shook out of me and it scared me to death," Lebrecque said.
From his small Independence, Mo., shop, Lebrecque said that he remembers the Missouri man who first spotted Sasquatch.
"In fact, that casting right there was sent to me by Ray Wallace," Lebrecque said.
Lebrecque said that he even filmed Bigfoot years ago and insisted that the creature is not a man in a monkey suit.
"And look real close and see if you can see any zippers and buttons and stuff like that," Lebrecque said.
Lebrecque insists the Bigfoot story measures up.
"From toe to heel, it's about 21 inches. That's big. That makes Shaq look small," Lebrecque said.
Lebrecque said that he is retiring next year and will likely show his Bigfoot artifacts at shows around the country. He said that despite what Wallace's family says, there are thousands of Bigfoots out there and thousands of believers.
To: Fighting Irish
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/12/06/offbeat.obit.wallace.ap/
SEATTLE, Washington (AP) -- 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 November 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 16-inch-long feet that he and his brother Wilbur wore to create the tracks.
Buying the legend
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."
Others unfazed
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.
To: Johnny Shear
I've seen some wierd things out fishing remote spots.
On an island in a lake, I banked my canoe and went ashore.
I spotted a strange contraption made of sticks, rags and old fishing line.
It looked like a crude mock-up of an outdoor grill!
The thing could serve no purpose! Nada... zilch. It was flimsy. No nails were used.
Anyone remember the “cargo cult”? Go figure.
15
posted on
12/07/2002 5:57:08 AM PST
by
johnny7
To: johnny7
What's a "Cargo Cult".
As for your crude grill...I would readily assume that was just someone *wanting* to make you (Or whomever) wonder. I've done similar things...
To: Fighting Irish
Bummer.....oh well better to know the truth and be disappointed in it than to wallow in the comforts of ignorance. (imo)
To: Fighting Irish
Here's 4 * Bigfoot * stories for you.
1) One day over 30 years ago while listening to a shortwave radio program called MOSCOW MAILBAG, broadcast by Radio Moscow, I heard a listener ask if the people of the Soviet Union had ever heard of * Bigfoot * and did any * Bigfoot * live in the Soviet Union? The answer surprised me. The answer was, " YES! ". As stated by Radio Moscow, the official Soviet position on the subject was that * Bigfoot * was actually Neanderthal man who had not gone extinct. Soviet scientists, it was claimed, had never captured a speciman but had spoor, hair, and footprints to prove the creature existed.
2) Someone I once knew was mentioned in a popular book about * Bigfoot * as a witness. This had happened years before I met the man and I believed him to be honest. So, of course, I asked him about it. His response was absolute refusal to discuss the subject other than to say that telling anyone what he thought he had seen was the biggest mistake of his life. He would not even tell me what he had thought he had seen. End of story.
3) While I was stationed at Ft. Lewis WA in the 70's a soldier out hiking in the woods on his own time was admitted to the base hospital in a state of shock and panic. This story was covered in the local paper. Interestingly, the story included a photo of a large footprint that clearly showed the imprint of the arch and the ball of the foot. It was not the result of a flat simple plywood cutout being pushed into the dirt.
4) A * Tourist Trap * by the name of CALL OF THE WILD use to exist in MO not too far from Poplar Bluff MO. Maybe 10 miles? Don't remember for sure. Don't even know if the place still exists. I have not been there since 1985. Anyway, it was founded by a former, big game hunter, (now, dead, I think) who had trophies from all around the globe displayed for the public. One of the trophies was a * Bigfoot *! I asked if the thing was authentic and where did the man shoot the thing? The anwsers were:
a) We have been claiming the thing authentic for years and no university professor has come in here to exaimine it and call us liars.
b) We won't say where it was shot because the country involved might then lay claim to it.
Given the 4 above interesting stories, do I think * Bigfoot * exists? Nope. Nothing can hide in the woods from the technology that exists today.
To: Johnny Shear
"They say it was Wallace who stoked a fury in 1958 by slipping into two, carved, 16-inch-long wooden feet, then stomping around..."
Is there a correlation between foot size and stride length?
Intuitively, I would surmise that there is, and I would think that this would have to have been investigated. Are their any Freeper physiologists out there, or anyone else versed on the subject for that matter, who can address this?
Thanks.
19
posted on
12/07/2002 7:08:06 AM PST
by
VMI70
To: VMI70
Ray Wallace and clan sound like poorly-educated folk who had a need to "get even" with their superiors by making them look foolish. They only muddied the waters - a fitting obituary for muddied, muddled minds.
20
posted on
12/07/2002 7:34:53 AM PST
by
Bub
To: Fighting Irish
Dale Lee Wallace with the original alder-wood feet his uncle Ray Wallace strapped on to help make Bigfoot tracks in 1958.
To: Bub
?????????
Did you mean to reply to me?
22
posted on
12/07/2002 7:55:23 AM PST
by
VMI70
To: Fighting Irish
This guy did not create "The Myth". Lewis and Clark reported the Bigfoot myth as existing among the indians. It is a fun legend.
To: Fighting Irish
He was just someone who created a hoax just to fill his pathetic life.
Ray Wallace went to his grave as a famous liar, a person not to be trusted. I wonder what the family placed on his gravestone?
To: Fighting Irish
Nah! I never believed bigfoot was real, but 'the windego', now *there* is a monster!
25
posted on
12/07/2002 8:11:03 AM PST
by
Ditter
To: HairOfTheDog
Made for great camping stories as a teenager. Who needs some guy with a chain-saw to scare you when you've got Bigfoot?
Of course, it did lead to huge arguements every time a black bear showed up!
To: Johnny Shear
Cargo Cults came about in the South Pacific after WW2.
Once the Marines left, the fuzzy-wuzzies thought that just by having a refridgerator food would show up in it like a miracle.
Maybe whoever built the thing I saw smelled burgers on someones grill.
Oh, by the way, why would you spend your time doing something like this? HA!
27
posted on
12/07/2002 8:19:39 AM PST
by
johnny7
To: johnny7
Oh, by the way, why would you spend your time doing something like this? HA!Just to make people like you wonder why/how/who...
To: Scott from the Left Coast; Penny1
Have you heard of the Black Lake turtle? - Or is that a legend shared only by the kids on my particular street? Curious to know if all kids around Olympia/Tumwater shared in that one?
To: HairOfTheDog
No, I haven't! But I grew up in Tacoma and moved to Olympia in my 20's (too late to get such legends).
To: Fighting Irish
And for every Bigfoot Hoaxster, there are hundreds of people creating UFO hoaxes.
I knew one of those people myself. Back in the 1970s. He loved to have his balloon and shiney-metal tricks show up in the news the next day as a reported UFO sighting.
To: Shooter 2.5
Resentful much?
32
posted on
12/10/2002 7:10:47 AM PST
by
LenS
To: Johnny Shear
No wonder Hollywood is such a mess. If none of them could figure out to put a woman in a modified gorilla suit and film her with a cheap camera, then they really are idiots. Most likely, those "filmmakers" were either drunk or just having fun, assuming they actually existed. That film only works if you keep it blurry. Zoom in and clean the picture up a little, and it looks like the fake that it is.
33
posted on
12/10/2002 7:15:23 AM PST
by
LenS
To: LenS
No wonder Hollywood is such a mess. If none of them could figure out to put a woman in a modified gorilla suit and film her with a cheap camera, then they really are idiots. Most likely, those "filmmakers" were either drunk or just having fun, assuming they actually existed. That film only works if you keep it blurry. Zoom in and clean the picture up a little, and it looks like the fake that it is.Ummm...Wrong.
They put a guy in a suite (He was 6-7)...The best suit they could make. Then they went to the original site and had the guy walk just like the supposed Bigfoot and they shot from where the origial was shot from.
You could easily tell it was a fake.
Guess again...
To: Johnny Shear
Sorry, Johnny, the Patterson film has been thoroughly debunked. Cryptozoologists keep their hopes up, however, because of other sightings and signs.
35
posted on
12/10/2002 8:19:36 AM PST
by
dinodino
To: Fighting Irish
Anyone want to buy this 5,000 lbs. of Purina Bigfoot Chow...cheap ?
To: Notforprophet
"Sasquash"... is that a term for a fibrous melon-like vegetable that talks back to you? I think you meant "Sasquatch". LOL
Isn't her image on the new dollar coin?
37
posted on
12/10/2002 8:26:39 AM PST
by
js1138
To: Fighting Irish
Janet Reno's dad died??? oh that is is very sad news. : (
38
posted on
12/10/2002 8:28:19 AM PST
by
Delbert
To: Fighting Irish
Gee. Big Foot is dead?
Can the rest of the Oak Ridge Boys be far behind?
To: LenS
Resentful? I guess I'm resentful of liars. People on both sides of the bigfoot controversy should be resentful of this liar.
To: Shooter 2.5
In the long run, we got more important things to worry about than Bigfoot and fake films and etc etc.
This guy was just some hick woodsman. I don't begrudge him at all. My opinion is that those who are getting riled over this in any degree have a lot of spare time on their hands.
41
posted on
12/10/2002 11:23:00 AM PST
by
fogarty
To: Johnny Shear
MSNBC had a clip from the Gimlin/Patterson Bluff Creek film up next to the headline - I thought for sure one of them had confessed prior to expiring.
Growing up, I had something of a Sasquatch obsession, but reality and adulthood intruded and I lost touch.
I still try to keep up with developments, there are still a few dedicated organizations out there trying to preach the faith, but with fewer footprints and still no body or even a truly quality photo or video, it seems less likely that the Big Guy will ever turn up.
The Bluff Creek film is compelling, to be sure, as are the anatomically complex footprints discovered over the years. This guy's death hasn't really "ended" anything, although his secondhand comments on the Patterson film are damaging.
42
posted on
12/10/2002 11:44:18 AM PST
by
xsrdx
To: dinodino
I've not seen it "Thoroughly" debunked. I've seen some people question it but I was also impressed by the people who did the test trying to recreate the video...They said it was impossible to do. Something about being able to see the musles behind the fur move. I thought it was pretty cool, anyway.
And no...I'm not a Bigfoot Nut...And I don't believe he exists but it's pretty fun pondering all this stuff.
To: xsrdx
I remember something about someone saying something about that film before they died...Or, someone said someone said something or some other "some" kind of thing. :)
But I don't think it's been obviously debunked. I think that would have made a lot of headlines...Kind of like the guy who said he staged that old Loch Ness Monster picture just before he died...He even still had the model that was used.
To: Johnny Shear; dinodino
45
posted on
12/18/2002 9:31:13 AM PST
by
xsrdx
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