The creatures of yesteryear

[Otis McNutt 395]

Yay you did the Australian drop bears!!

yeah.. not really any truth behind them but its always fun to poke fun at tourists, threatening them with drop bears when they're in the wild.

and the bundaberg add is awesome.

Yeah Australia has such great mythological creatures, the Bunyip, the Yowie, and the Yarri. But the Drop Bear is the cutest and most terrifying! I mean a koala that falls from the trees and mauls you, BRILIANT!!!

Part 5: Golem

In Jewish folklore, a golem (גולם, sometimes, as in Yiddish, pronounced goilem) is an animated being created entirely from inanimate matter. In modern Hebrew the word golem literally means "cocoon", but can also mean "fool", "silly", or even "stupid". The name appears to derive from the word gelem (גלם), which means "raw material".

The word golem is used in the Bible to refer to an embryonic or incomplete substance: Psalm 139:16 uses the word גלמי, meaning my unshaped form (in Hebrew, words are derived by adding vowels to triconsonantal roots, here, גלם). The Mishnah uses the term for an uncultivated person ("Seven characteristics are in an uncultivated person, and seven in a learned one", Pirkei Avoth 5:7). Similarly, golems are often used today in metaphor either as brainless lunks or as entities serving man under controlled conditions but hostile to him in others. Similarly, it is a Yiddish slang insult for someone who is clumsy or slow.

The earliest stories of golems date to early Judaism. Adam is described in the Talmud (Tractate Sanhedrin 38b) as initially created as a golem when his dust was "kneaded into a shapeless hunk". Like Adam, all golems are created from mud. They were a creation of those who were very holy and close to God. A very holy person was one who strove to approach God, and in that pursuit would gain some of God's wisdom and power. One of these powers was the creation of life. No matter how holy a person became, however, a being created by that person would be but a shadow of one created by God.

Early on, the notion developed that the main disability of the golem was its inability to speak. In Sanhedrin 65b, is the description of Raba creating a golem using the Sefer Yetzirah. He sent the golem to Rav Zeira; Rav Zeira spoke to the golem, but he did not answer. Said Rav Zeira, "I see that you were created by one of our colleagues; return to your dust." It is said that if a golem were made able to speak, that would give it a soul, and

[Otis McNutt 395]

Probably just a legend,but someone actually needs to kill one and bring it in.That's just the idea I had the moment I started reading about the sightings.

I have family in Point Pleasant who were there when the Silver Bridge collapsed. They experienced strange things leading up to that cold winter day. And HF, the Mothman like bigfoot is protected species. Why protect something that supposedly doesn't exist? Makes you think. Like the U.S. government's protocols for first contact, if aliens don't exist why have them?

[Otis McNutt 395]

Part 6: Jersey Devil

The Jersey Devil, sometimes called the Leeds Devil, is a legendary creature or cryptid said to inhabit the Pine Barrens in southern New Jersey. The creature is often described as a flying biped with hooves, but there are many variations.

The most popular version of the Jersey Devil legend begins in the 18th century when Deborah Smith from England immigrated to the Pine Barrens in southern New Jersey to marry a Mr. Leeds, a rather vain man who wanted several heirs to continue the family name. Consequently, the new wife was continually pregnant. After bearing twelve healthy children, she was dismayed to be pregnant with her thirteenth. She cursed the unborn child, declaring a preference to bear the Devil's child rather than another Leeds. Apparently, her wish was granted as the new child had cloven hooves, claws, and a tail. The horrific newborn proceeded to eat the other Leeds children and the parents, before escaping through the chimney to begin its reign of terror. Another Legend about the Leeds devil is that mother Leeds was pregnant with her 13th Child (the jersey devil). On the night when she was giving birth to the devil a Horrific Thunder and Lightning storm broke out, Mother Leeds then screamed out "May It Be A Devil!" when the devil was born they all where horrified by the ugly child, then the Devil Flew up and ate the rest of Mother Leeds' Children before escaping out of the open window to his new life in the Pine Barrens as the Jersey Devil. This version is contradicted by the fact that Mother Leeds has descendants that, as of 1998, still lived in Atlantic County New Jersey according to a New York Times article dated April 26, 1998. There are several variations of the Leeds tale, such as one claiming that when Mrs Leeds became pregnant with her thirteenth child, she remarked, "May it be a devil!" The belief that a deformed child was the work of Satan or a curse was still common during the 1800s.

There is another account of the Jersey Devil's origin known to local people in South Jersey. It can be summarized as follows:

A South Jersey woman was expecting her first baby, which she naturally hoped would be perfect. But the newborn turned out to be the ugliest anyone had seen. Distraught, the mother exclaimed, "This isn't my son. This is the devil's son. May God give the thing back to him!" She threw the infant into the river, where he drowned. To this day, a rock at the riverbottom is said to be haunted by a malevolent air-sucking devil who pulled many swimmers under the rock until they drowned, after which the bodies would eventually rise to the surface.

It should be noted that this description of an air-sucking entity sounds much like a distorted account of a whirlpool, with the bodies rising to the surface due to decompositional gases.

An important piece of the Jersey Devil legend concerns its supposed home at the Blue Hole located near Winslow, New Jersey. According to popular folklore, the blue hole is not only bottomless but also acts as one of the many gateways to Hell. The water in the hole is abnormally cold, even during the summer months, averaging only 58 degrees fahrenheit year-round. In addition, the hole is said to have a whirlpool effect on any person brave enough to enter its temptous depths. Unlike many of the surrounding rivers and lakes in the region, the blue hole possesses crystal clear water, which serves as another one of its many eccentric features. In the 1920s, geologists put forth various explanations for the hole. One theory suggested that the hole is a crater from a prehistoric meteorite while another theory preposed that the hole is a sprung or glacier carved spring, misidentified as a pingo in magazine Wierd N.J.

In 1778, Commodore Stephen Decatur, a naval hero, visited the Hanover Iron Works in the Barrens to test cannonballs at a firing range, where he allegedly witnessed a strange, pale white creature winging overhead. Using cannonfire, Decatur punctured the wing membrane of the creature, which continued flying apparently unfazed to the amazement of onlookers. Dating on this encounter is incorrect, as Decatur was not born until 1779. More likely, this incident occurred between 1816 and 1820, when Decatur was the Naval Commissioner responsible for testing equipment and materials used to build new warships.

In 1840, the devil was blamed for several livestock killings. 1841 saw similar attacks, accompanied by strange tracks and unearthly screams. The devil made an 1859 appearance in Haddonfield. Bridgeton witnessed a flurry of sightings during the winter of 1873.

Joseph Bonaparte (eldest brother of Emperor Napoleon) is said to have witnessed the Jersey Devil while hunting on his Bordentown, New Jersey estate around 1820.

January 1909, however, saw the most frenetic period of devil sightings ever recorded. Thousands of people claimed to witness the Jersey Devil during the week of January 16

[Ryu 7]

these are interesting and very freaky.

[eyeoftruth 2]

I love the golem^^ read a book about him a couple years ago and got hooked. Nice posts your making man, keep up the good work=)

[Knuckle 484]

These are pretty neat. I wonder if any of these creatures really do exist?

[ZuZu 10]

Most I think are built of legends from long ago.. I dont think many of them have solid fact (with evidence) behind the stories.

Nevertheless I find it extremely interesting read - The posts are great DT82!

[Otis McNutt 395]

Part 7: Zombie

A zombie is a reanimated corpse devoid of consciousness. In contemporary versions these are generally undead corpses, which were traditionally called "ghouls". Stories of zombies originated in the Afro-Caribbean spiritual belief system of Vodou.

Other more macabre versions of zombies have become a staple of modern horror fiction, where they are brought back from the dead by supernatural or scientific means, and eat the flesh or brains of the living. They have very limited intelligence, and may not be under anyone's direct control. This type of zombie, often referred to as a Romero zombie after the filmmaker who defined the concept, is archetypal in modern media and culture.

According to the tenets of Voodoo, a dead person can be revived by a bokor or Voodoo sorcerer. Zombies remain under the control of the bokor since they have no will of their own. "Zombi" is also another name of the Voodoo snake god Damballah Wedo, of Niger-Congo origin; it is akin to the Kongo word nzambi, which means "god". There also exists within the voudon tradition the zombi astral which is a human soul that is captured by a bokor and used to enhance the bokor's power.

In 1937, while researching folklore in Haiti, Zora Neale Hurston encountered the case of Felicia Felix-Mentor, who had died and been buried in 1907 at the age of 29. Villagers believed they saw Felicia wandering the streets in a daze thirty years after her death, as well as claiming the same with several other people. Hurston pursued rumors that the affected persons were given powerful drugs, but she was unable to locate individuals willing to offer much information. She wrote:

"What is more, if science ever gets to the bottom of Voodoo in Haiti and Africa, it will be found that some important medical secrets, still unknown to medical science, give it its power, rather than gestures of ceremony."

Several decades later, Wade Davis, a Canadian ethnobotanist, presented a pharmacological case for zombies in two books, The Serpent and the Rainbow (1985) and Passage of Darkness: The Ethnobiology of the Haitian Zombie (1988). Davis traveled to Haiti in 1982 and, as a result of his investigations, claimed that a living person can be turned into a zombie by two special powders being entered into the blood stream (usually via a wound). The first, coup de poudre (French: 'powder strike'), induced a 'death-like' state because of tetrodotoxin (TTX), its key ingredient. Tetrodotoxin is the same lethal toxin found in the Japanese delicacy fugu, or pufferfish. At near-lethal doses (LD50= 5-8

[Otis McNutt 395]

Part 8: Drekavac

Drekavac /drekavats/ (literally "the yeller"), also called drek and drekalo is a mythical creature in south Slavic mythology. Belief in drekavac was widespread in Bosnia, western Serbia,

[Otis McNutt 395]

Part 9: Monopod

Monopods (also skiapods, skiapodes, Monocoli) are dwarfs or dwarf-like creatures with a single, large foot extending from one thick leg centered in the middle of their body. The name Sciapodes is derived from σκιαποδες - 'shadow foots' in Greek, monocoli from μονοκωλοι - 'one legged' in Greek.

These were first described by Pliny the Elder in Naturalis Historia. Pliny describes how travellers have reported their encounters or sights of Monopods, and he records their stories.

Pliny remarks that they are first mentioned by Ctesias who places them in India. Pliny describes them as thus (Natural History 7:2):

He [Ctesias] speaks also of another race of men, who are known as Monocoli, who have only one leg, but are able to leap with surprising agility. The same people are also called Sciapodae, because they are in the habit of lying on their backs, during the time of the extreme heat, and protect themselves from the sun by the shade of their feet.

The legend of the Monopod survived into the Middle Ages. Isidore of Seville mentions this strange creature in his Etymologiae.

C.S. Lewis revived the tale of monopods in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

From the account of Pliny, monopods have one large foot in a shape that somewhat resembles a small boat or canoe, so instead of walking, they would hop from one location to another, landing with a huge thud. Another notable characteristic of the monopods was their method of sleeping. Instead of lying on their side, they would put their foot straight into the air and lie on their back. Thus the foot became a giant umbrella that could protect them from sun and rain.

A stone image of a monopod (bottom), from the Cath

[Ryu 7]

WoW. these are very interesting

[Gaara at the Disco 0]

this is cool

[Otis McNutt 395]

I'm kinda busy today so a short one.... LONG one tomorrow!

Part 10: Sea Monk

Illustration from The Book of Days, published in 1869

The sea monk, or sometimes monk-fish, was the name given to a sea animal found off the coast of Denmark almost certainly in 1546. At this time it was regarded to be a sea monster and described as a "fish" that looked superficially like a monk. It was mentioned and pictured in the fourth volume of Conrad Gesner's famous Historia Animalium. Gesner also referenced a similar monster found in the Firth of Forth, according to Boethius, and a sighting off the coast of Poland in 1531.

The sea monk was subsequently popularised in Guillaume du Bartas epic poem La Sepmaine; ou, Creation du monde where the poet speaks of correspondences between land and sea.

"Seas have (as well as skies) Sun, Moon, and Stars;

(As well as ayre) Swallows, and Rooks, and Stares;

(As well as earth) Vines, Roses, Nettles, Millions,

Pinks, Gilliflowers, Mushrooms, and many millions

of other Plants lants (more rare and strange than these)

As very fishes living in the Seas.

And also Rams, Calfs, Horses, Hares, and Hogs,

Wolves, Lions, Urchins, Elephants and Dogs,

Yea, Men and Mayds; and (which I more admire)

The mytred Bishop and the cowled Fryer;

Whereof, examples, (but a few years since)

Were shew'n the Norways, and Polonian Prince."

In the early 1850s , Danish zoologist Japetus Steenstrup suggested that the sea-monk was a giant squid, a theory more recently popularised by writer Richard Ellis. Cryptozoologist Bernard Heuvelmans[4] , believed the report was based on the discovery of an errant walrus. More recently. it has been suggested that it was an angel shark Squatina squatina, which is commonly called monkfish in English or munk in Norwegian. Other suggested suspects for the sea monk include a grey seal, a hooded seal, a monk seal, or a Jenny Hanniver.

Steenstrup's comparison of a squid with two drawings of the sea monk from the sixteenth century

In Japanese mythology, the Umibōzu is a sea spirit which bears a resemblance to monk, albeit of a Buddhist rather than Christian persuasion.

A monster called a "sea monk" also appears in some fantasy-based computer and card games, such as Lost Kingdoms II and Final Fantasy XI.

Sea Monk Boss from Final Fantasy XI

[Otis McNutt 395]

Part 11: Rusalka

In Slavic mythology, a rusalka was a female ghost, water nymph, succubus or mermaid-like demon that dwelled in a waterway.

According to most traditions, the rusalki were fish-women, who lived at the bottom of rivers. In the middle of the night, they would walk out to the bank and dance in meadows. If they saw handsome men, they would fascinate them with songs and dancing, mesmerise them, then lead the person away to the river floor, to live with them. The stories about rusalki have parallels with the Germanic Nix and the Irish banshee.

In most versions, the rusalka is an unquiet dead being, associated with the "unclean force". According to Zelenin, people who die violently and before their time, such as young women who commit suicide because they have been jilted by their lovers, or unmarried women who are pregnant out of wedlock, must live out their designated time on earth as a spirit.

The ghostly version is the soul of a young woman who had died in or near a river or a lake and came to haunt that waterway. This undead rusalka is not invariably malevolent, and will be allowed to die in peace if her death is avenged.

Rusalki can also come from unbaptized children, often those who were born out of wedlock and drowned by their mothers for that reason. Baby rusalki supposedly wander the forest begging to be baptized so that they can have peace. They are not necessarily innocent, however, and can attack a human foolish enough to approach them.

While her primary dwelling place was the body of water in which she died, the rusalka could come out of the water at night, climb a tree, and sit there singing songs, sit on a dock and comb her hair, or join other rusalki in circle dances (Russian: хороводы, Polish: korowody) in the field.

Though in some versions of the myth, the eyes shine like green fire, others describe them as extremely pale, with no visible pupils, such as in the famous Ivan Bilibin drawing. Her hair is sometimes depicted as green, and often perpetually wet. According to some legends, should the rusalka's hair dry out, she will die.

Rusalki like to seduce men. They can do so by enticing men with their singing and then drowning them. Men seduced by the rusalka could die in her arms, and in some versions hearing her laugh could also cause death.

Specifics pertaining to rusalka differed within regions. Although in most tales they lived without men, in the Ukraine they were often linked with water, while in Belorus they were linked with the forest and field. Where land was fertile, the maidens appeared naked and beautiful. In harsher areas of Great Russia, they appeared as "large breasted amazons" (Hubbs). And often, in the north, they were ugly and covered in hair.

The rusalki were believed to be at their most dangerous during the Rusalka Week (Rusal'naia) in early June. At this time, they were supposed to have left their watery depths in order to swing on branches of birch and willow trees by nights. Swimming during this week was strictly forbidden, lest mermaids would drag a swimmer down to the river floor. A common feature of the celebration of Rusal'naia week was the ritual banishing or burial of the rusalka at the end of the week, which remained as entertainment in Russia until the 1930s [1].

Max Vasmer notes that the very word rusalka originally referred to the dances of girls at Whitsuntide. The word is derived through Greek ῥουσάλια from "rosalia", the Latin term for Whitsuntide week (originally it meant "the festival of roses").

[Otis McNutt 395]

Part 12: Bigfoot

Bigfoot, also known as Sasquatch, is a figure in North American folklore alleged to inhabit remote forests, mainly in the Pacific northwest region of the United States and the Canadian province of British Columbia. In northern Wisconsin, Lakota Indians know the creature by the name Chiye-tanka, a Lakota name for "Big Elder Brother". Bigfoot is sometimes described as a large, hairy bipedal hominoid, and many believe that this animal, or its close relatives, may be found around the world under different regional names, such as the Yeti of Tibet and Nepal, the Yeren of mainland China, and the Yowie of Australia.

Bigfoot is one of the more famous examples of cryptozoology, a subject that the scientific community classifies as pseudoscience because of unreliable eyewitness accounts, lack of scientific and physical evidence, and over-reliance on confirmation rather than refutation. Scientific experts on the matter consider the Bigfoot legend to be a combination of folklore and hoaxes.

According to most accounts, Bigfoot is a powerfully built bipedal apelike creature between 7 and 10 feet (2.10 and 3 meters) tall, and covered in dark brown or dark reddish hair. The head seems to sit directly on the shoulders, with no apparent neck. Alleged witnesses have described large eyes, a pronounced brow ridge, and a large, low-set forehead; the top of the head has been described as rounded and crested, similar to the sagittal crest of the male gorilla.

Various types of creature have been described by proponents to explain the sightings. These descriptions have received little support from the scientific community.

Grover Krantz argued that a relict population of Gigantopithecus blacki would best explain Bigfoot reports. Based on his fossil analysis of its jaws, he championed a view that Gigantopithecus was bipedal.

Bourne writes that Gigantopithecus was a plausible candidate for Bigfoot since most Gigantopithecus fossils were found in China, whose extreme eastern Siberian forests are similar to those of north-western North America. Many well-known animals have migrated across the Bering Strait, so it was not unreasonable to assume that Gigantopithecus might have as well. "So perhaps," Bourne writes, "Gigantopithecus is the Bigfoot of the American continent and perhaps he is also the Yeti of the Himalayas" (Bourne, 296).

The Gigantopithecus hypothesis is generally considered highly speculative. Given the mainstream view that Gigantopithecus was quadrupedal, it would seem unlikely to be an ancestor to the biped Bigfoot is said to be. Moreover, it has been argued that G. blacki's enormous mass would have made it difficult for it to adopt a bipedal gait. An analysis of the Patterson-Gimlin film shows that frames 369, 370, 371, and 372 all show a slender lower mandible, that does not match the massive lower mandible of Gigantopithecus blacki, which, assuming that the Patterson-Gimlin film is legitimate, would eliminate G. blacki as a candidate for Bigfoot. (Bigfoot Coop Newsletter, March 1997, also the documentary Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science).

"That Gigantopithicus is in fact extinct has been questioned by those who believe it survives as the Yeti of the Himalayas and the Sasquatch of the north-west American coast. But the evidence for these creatures is not convincing."

A species of Paranthropus, such as Paranthropus robustus, with its crested skull and bipedal gait, was suggested by Napier and anthropologist Gordon Strasenburg as a possible candidate for Bigfoot's identity.

Some Bigfoot reports suggest Homo erectus to be the creature, but H. erectus skeletons have never been found on the North American continent.

There was also a little known genus, called Meganthropus, which reputedly grew to enormous proportions. Again, there have been no remains of this creature anywhere near North America, and none younger than a million years old.

Bigfoot is one of the more famous creatures in cryptozoology. Cryptozoologist John Willison Green has postulated that Bigfoot is a worldwide phenomenon (Green 1978:16).

Indian Native tribes in the Northwest note the appearance of large creatures they call Sasquatch. Such creatures were said to exist on Vancouver Island and near Harrison Lake.

The earliest unambiguous reports of gigantic apelike creatures in the Pacific Northwest date from 1924, after a series of alleged encounters at a location in Washington later dubbed Ape Canyon, as related in The Oregonian. Reports the pro-Bigfoot authors claim are similar appear in the mainstream press dating back at least to the 1860s. The phenomenon attained widespread notoriety in 1958 when enormous footprints were reported in Humboldt County, California by roadworkers; the tracks pictured in the media inspired the familiar name "Bigfoot".

Mainstream scientists generally dismiss the phenomena due to a lack of representative specimens. They attribute the numerous sightings to folklore, mythology, hoaxes, and the misidentification of common animals.

Ecologist Robert Michael Pyle argues that most cultures have humanlike giants in their folk history. "We have this need for some larger-than-life creature."

Mainstream scientists and academics overwhelmingly "discount the existence of Bigfoot because the evidence supporting belief in the survival of a prehistoric, bipedal, apelike creature of such dimensions is scant". In addition to the lack of evidence, they cite the fact that while Bigfoot is alleged to live in regions unusual for a large, nonhuman primate, i.e., temperate latitudes in the northern hemisphere, all other recognized nonhuman apes are found in the tropics, Africa, continental Asia or nearby islands. The great apes have never been found in the fossil record in the Americas, and no Bigfoot bones or bodies have been found.

Moreover, the issue is so muddied with dubious claims and outright hoaxes that many scientists do not give the subject serious attention. Napier wrote that the mainstream scientific community's indifference stems primarily from "insufficient evidence ... it is hardly surprising that scientists prefer to investigate the probable rather than beat their heads against the wall of the faintly possible" (Napier, 15). Anthropologist David Daegling echoed this idea, citing a "remarkably limited amount of Sasquatch data that are amenable to scientific scrutiny." (Daegling, 61) He advises that mainstream skeptics take a proactive position "to offer an alternative explanation. We have to explain why we see Bigfoot when there is no such animal" (ibid 20). Indeed, many scientists insist that the breeding population of such an animal would be so large that it would account for many more purported sightings than currently occur, making the existence of such an animal an almost certain impossibility.

On May 24, 2006 Maria Goodavage wrote an article in USA Today titled, "Bigfoot Merely Amuses Most Scientists", in which she quotes Washington State zoologist John Crane, "There is no such thing as Bigfoot. No data other than material that's clearly been fabricated has ever been presented."

Although most scientists find current evidence of Bigfoot unpersuasive, a number of prominent experts have offered sympathetic opinions on the subject. In a 2002 interview on National Public Radio, Jane Goodall first publicly expressed her views on Bigfoot, by remarking, "Well now, you'll be amazed when I tell you that I'm sure that they exist... I've talked to so many Native Americans who all describe the same sounds, two who have seen them. I've probably got about, oh, thirty books that have come from different parts of the world, from China from, from all over the place...."[6] Several other prominent scientists have also expressed at least a guarded interest in Sasquatch reports, including George Schaller, Russell Mittermeier, Daris Swindler and Esteban Sarmiento.

Prominent anthropologist Carleton S. Coon's posthumously published essay Why the Sasquatch Must Exist states, "Even before I read John Green's book Sasquatch: The Apes Among Us, first published in 1978, I accepted Sasquatch's existence" (Markotic and Krantz, 46). Coon examines the question from several angles, stating that he is confident only in ruling out a relict Neanderthal population as a viable candidate for Sasquatch reports.

As previously noted, Napier generally argued against Bigfoot's existence, but added that some "soft evidence" (i.e., eyewitness accounts, footprints, hair and droppings) is compelling enough that he advises against "dismissing its reality out of hand" (Napier, 197).

Krantz and others have argued that a double standard is applied to Sasquatch studies by many academics: whenever there is a claim or evidence of Sasquatch's existence, enormous scrutiny is applied, as well as it should be. Yet when individuals claim to have hoaxed Bigfoot evidence, the claims are frequently accepted without corroborative evidence.

In 2004, Henry Gee, editor of the prestigious Nature, argued that creatures like Bigfoot deserved further study, writing, "The discovery that Homo floresiensis survived until so very recently, in geological terms, makes it more likely that stories of other mythical, human-like creatures such as Yetis are founded on grains of truth ... Now, cryptozoology, the study of such fabulous creatures, can come in from the cold."

There are times when a Bigfoot sighting or footprint is a hoax. Author Jerome Clark argues that the "Jacko" affair, involving an 1884 newspaper report of an apelike creature captured in British Columbia (details below), was a hoax. Citing research by John Green, who found that several contemporary British Columbia newspapers regarded the alleged capture as very dubious, Clark notes that the New Westminster, British Columbia Mainland Guardian wrote, "Absurdity is written on the face of it" (Clark, 195).

In the past decade or so, the style of Bigfoot hoaxes winning wider news attention were false claims of hoaxing famous pieces of evidence such as the "Patterson Footage" or the Jerry Crew tracks from Bluff Creek.

In 1958 bulldozer operator Jerry Crew took to a newspaper office a cast of one of the enormous footprints he and other workers had been seeing at an isolated work site in Bluff Creek, California. The story and photo garnered international attention through being picked up by the Associated Press (Krantz, 5). Crew was overseen by Wilbur L. Wallace, brother of Raymond L. Wallace. Years after the track casts were made, Ray Wallace got involved in Bigfoot "research" and made various outlandish claims. He was poorly regarded by many who took the subject seriously. Napier wrote, "I do not feel impressed with Mr Wallace's story" regarding having over 15,000 feet of film showing Bigfoot (Napier, 89).

Shortly after Wallace's death, his children called him the "father of Bigfoot". They claimed Ray faked the tracks seen by Jerry Crew in 1958. There were some wooden track makers among Ray's inherited belongings which the family said were used to make the 1958 tracks. At the height of the publicity, the Wallace family sold the story rights to a Hollywood filmmaker. The film, set to star actor Judge Reinhold, was never produced.

Canadian newspaperman John Green argues that Ray never claimed to have made the Bluff Creek tracks and was not present in the Bluff Creek area when the Crew cast was obtained. Wallace had road-building contracts in various parts of the north-west and was usually not around in Bluff Creek.[citation needed] Years after the fact, Wallace attempted to capitalize on the interest in various ways. He tried to sell various items from a roadside shop, including Bigfoot footprint replicas, which he made behind his shop using a pair of wooden track stompers.

Alleged Bigfoot sightings:

1840: Protestant missionary Reverend Elkanah Walker recorded myths of hairy giants that were persistent among Native Americans living in Spokane, Washington. The Indians claimed that these giants steal salmon and had a strong smell.

1870: An account by a California hunter who claimed seeing a sasquatch scattering his campfire remains was printed in the Titusville, Pennsylvania Morning Herald on November 10th The incident reportedly occurred a year before, in the mountains near Grayson, CA.

1893: An account by Theodore Roosevelt was published in The Wilderness Hunter. Roosevelt related a story which was told to him by "a beaten old mountain hunter, named Bauman" living in Idaho. Some have suggested similarities to Bigfoot reports.[11][dubious