BIGFOOT EXPOSED AS A HAIRY HOAX

Another legend bites the dust.

Word came last week with the passing of eighty-four-year-old Ray Wallace that the lifelong prankster was responsible for the “Bigfoot” phenomenon that has fascinated and perplexed people in this country for more than forty years.

According to his family, the fun-loving Wallace ignited the myth when he wore a pair of sixteen-inch wooden feet to make tracks around a construction site in Humboldt County, California, in August 1958.

After construction workers reported the tracks to the local paper, the front-page story of a huge, primitive man identified only as “Bigfoot” made national news and quickly became imbedded in the nation’s psyche.

Wallace soon grew fearful of the backlash that might arise if the Bigfoot phenomenon was exposed as a hoax. So he did what any enterprising American might do -- he milked it for all it was worth.

The Wallace family has now admitted the jokester made phony recordings of Bigfoot sounds and fake photos of Bigfoot dining on elk and frogs. The most famous recording of Bigfoot in the wild -- the so-called Patterson film -- was allegedly set-up by Wallace. In 1967, he reportedly told Roger Patterson that he might spot Bigfoot in a wooded area near Bluff Creek, California, then sent someone to the location in a Bigfoot costume. The grainy images of an erect, ape-like creature caused a significant uproar.

Though I was only a small child at the time, I have a hazy memory of the film, possibly from a television news report. In my mind I see the tall, dark creature in a clearing, moving quickly away from the camera. Before he disappears into the surrounding woods, I seem to recall a moment where he looks back, as if to say: “If you see any others like me, send them this way -- particularly if they appear to sport a pair of furry breasts.”

Over time, the Bigfoot legend has proven extremely popular -- ranking on a par with the Himalayan Abominable Snowman, the Loch Ness Monster and anyone born with webbed feet.

But now that Sasquatch has been exposed as a hoax, I feel somewhat let down. Like when I learned the man with the foul breath and wondering eye wasn’t Santa Claus but rather an unemployed, recently-divorced autoworker.

Next thing you know, we’re going to discover the Loch Ness Monster was really a late night swimmer with a bad case of scoliosis. And the people sporting webbed feet aren’t really descendants of an ancient race of duckmen but actually the victims of a horrible Superglue accident.

If I sound a little bitter, well, the truth about Bigfoot may have hit a nerve. Though I tend to approach these things with a healthy dose of skepticism, a small part of me wanted to believe. You see, ever since the broadcast of that grainy film I have been a Bigfoot fan. The idea that an eight-foot-tall, hairy beast-like man could manage to avoid capture, as well as the NBA draft, for lo these many years really struck a cord with me.

Living on the edge of the civilized world, watching our daily foibles with a hairy smirk, never having to send out Christmas cards -- there seemed to be something special about this legend.

Perhaps it was the existence of something wild and unknown in the middle of the well known and mundane. I believe we need a little mystery in our lives, a sprinkling of the unexplained, a smidgen of the supernatural. It helps to keep us humble and on our toes. As we map our genes, clone our housepets and fill in our missing links, that mystery slowly disappears. Eventually, we will be left with nothing but cold, hard facts.

The world can be a scary place, but when there’s a little mystery in it, there’s also a little hope.

Today, there’s one less mystery in the world.

So, yes, Virginia, there really was a Bigfoot. His name was Ray Wallace.

(c) Marc L. Prey 2002
All rights reserved.