Beckjord’s Bigfoot Sex Book
Posted by: Loren Coleman on August 27th, 2008
In Greg Bishop’s obituary, “Erik Beckjord Has Left The Building,” he writes:
“Jim Moseley, in his book Shockingly Close To The Truth, says that Beckjord was at work on a book called Sex and the Supernatural Sasquatch. I’d sure like to see the manuscript for that.”
As many of you may know, Beckjord had an unhealthy and insane stalking obsession with me (and other people, too). This “book” of his was actually in direct response to the publicity received regarding an early 2001 lecture I gave. That talk would eventually be discussed in Chapter 13 of my 2003 book, Bigfoot! The True Story of Apes in America, which was entitled, not coincidentally after my lectures on the topic, as “Sex and the Single Sasquatch.”
Moseley, in his June 25, 2001, “Saucer Smear” newsletter wrote: “Now [Beckjord] writes us that he is working on a book called Sex and the Supernatural Sasquatch.”
Soon after I gave the spring 2001 talk in Ohio, later in London, and then after my book came out in 2003, Beckjord would call me in the middle of the night, telling me he was going to expose me with his book.
“Bring it on,” I told him. Later, every time he attacked my Bigfoot book, I reminded him, a few more copies sold. That was usually enough to quiet him for a week. I just wanted to be left alone by the guy, but he never did.
Beckjord was promoting his book as something that would be “coming out any day now,” to answer my discussion of the subject. The promised release date shifted forward into the future for seven years. Erik, of course, “knew the real answers” to the Bigfoot question, and he “would share them with everyone,” he said. Beckjord would drop “shocking” hints of what was in the book by writing on his beckjord.com site, things like:
“Five kidnappees (see my upcoming book – “Sex and the Supernatural Sasquatch”) have reported that Bigfoot creatures live in clans or families.”
Erik Beckjord never wrote one book that was published, even privately. Frankly, other than some notes on a yellow paper pad or in his computer, I figured there was no way he ever had a manuscript that made any sense, if one even existed.
Of course, I discussed kidnappings, family groups, and sexual activity in my book, and it drove Beckjord (and some mainstream Bigfooters too) more crazy than usual, because I was so bold as to address such taboo topics.
I’d seen this from Beckjord before.
When I was a publicity spokesperson for Sony/Screen Gems’ 2002 movie The Mothman Prophecies, and doing radio shows all over the country, you may recall that Beckjord started issuing press releases saying he was the real Mothman, having done “out-of-body-projections” in 1966-1967, in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. Beckjord was delusional, and yet the media listened to him, apparently for entertainment value.
Beckjord reacted the same way frequently when certain people got publicity. In 2000, after psychologist Matthew Johnson got worldwide attention for his July sighting of a Bigfoot in Oregon, Beckjord had to issue a press release. The Associated Press picked it up and ran with “Bigfoot: Is It From Outer Space?” Beckjord said that Bigfoot was an android from another planet, and he knew because he’d seen a beer-can-sized metal cylinder attached to the Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot’s arm!
Beckjord was always starving for attention, and what he did was often psychiatrically tied to copying what others were doing. For me, sometimes it was downright spooky, and some of the current blog talk (I’m not speaking about Greg Bishop) that Beckjord was a fun guy that is missed really ignores how creepy Beckjord was to many of us.
Erik Beckjord, 69, died from prostate cancer on June 22, 2008, near his home in Lafayette, California.
His niche remains open.
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
I’m gettin’ creeped out just reading about this guy.
As far as sex and Bigfoot goes, all creatures need to reproduce.
Yuck. For some reason this reminds me of an exchange from an episode of X-Files (Jose Chung’s From Outer Space).
Scully- How did you get a copy?
Jose Chung- One was sent to my publisher. I don’t know what was more disturbing.. his description of the inner core reincarnated souls sex orgy.. or the fact that the whole thing is written in screenplay format.
I just imagine Loren saying something like that after reading the manuscript and it cracks me up. 🙂
It wasn’t until Beckjord became so obsessed with an associate (Scott Marlowe) of mine during the infamous M.K. Davis days of the last year or so, that I realized just how ill this man was (not referring to his cancer). Marlowe and I, along with Davis, had drawn the attention of Beckjord because of all the hype. But Beckjord seemed to focus on Marlowe’s status as an internet instructor with the Florida Keys Community College. Marlowe taught a non-credit course in cryptozoology there. Beckjord was so perturbed by this that his last days on his blog were spent showering disrespectful comments on Marlowe, and me for coming to his defense. Why he backed off of me I will never know, but after he phoned me one night I had my lawyer send him a tidy little note about harassment. If that worked it was a miracle as many others, including Marlowe, had done the same without response. Whatever the case he continued to hammer Marlowe literally until the day he died.
Through the sales of my latest DVD, “Hunt the Dogman,” a project I worked on a year ago with Barton Nunnelly in Kentucky, I have met an anthropologist whose thesis concerned the psychosocial aspects of myths and legends and how those factors affect people in everyday life. Perhaps I will ask her to examine the history of Beckjord. If anyone was “psychosocially affected” it was he.
As to his niche…recently there seems to have been some jockeying for position…in North Georgia.
John Johnsen
Grendel Films.
As for robo foot, i think he had fuzzy memories of a couple six million dollarman episodes.
I was new to the boards, didn’t know the community well (which is not to say that I’m an intimate now), and posted nuggets here or there that I thought represented good sense. Suddenly here’s this guy who wants to correspond with me every time I hit “send.”
Wow, I thought. I must have arrived. I’m one of the guys.
Early on, the messages included faint, oblique praise. “The other stupid people on this board will never figure out the truth” is a decent paraphrase. Buttering me up for something? Trying to recruit confederates? Or genuinely impressed with me?
I never figured out the answer, but it didn’t take long to stop wanting to. Seems like a long time ago.
These days, of course, I have to post an inaccuracy and bait Loren into a “moderator’s note” just to make sure someone’s out there. (Kidding, Loren.)
-Jim Doughty
Chapel Hill, NC
Loren,
Thanks for not including me in the Beckjord was a “fun guy that is missed” category. I never had the public face (like yours) that would engender his attention-seeking wrath, or I might have had a more critical view. I am sorry that he had to go through a bout with cancer, but you are correct in saying that he could be a creep to the right people. He struck me as someone who was continually on the edge of losing it and maybe ripe for medication.
He was probably the Bill Cooper of cryptozoology.
Greg
My first experience with he who shall not be named… cept maybe here… now… was on the old usenet group. I think I called him a kook or something and he went batsh!7 crazy on me. At that point other people jumped on the bandwagon and I actually started defending his right to spout his ridiculous patter.
Uh oh. Whole can of worms that I didn’t want. He went from ultracrazy wants to kill me to my best buddy in the whole world at that point. I had the sense not to give him my phone number, but did give him my mailing address whereupon he proceeded to send me photo after photo after postcard after news clipping after…. you get the idea. I’m pretty sure I still have a couple of postcards from his supposed trip to stonehenge where he saw bigfoot faces in the stones, the trees, and even the clouds. And just in case I didn’t see the bigfeet, he circled them with a sharpie for me. (I still didn’t see em). 🙂
Eventually, since I didn’t reply to any more correspondence I think he gave up. I can’t remember if it was him or another person on the group, but someone also sent me a vhs tape of him on court tv in his american flag tie… Regardless… Crazy as he was. He was entertaining.
If his niche remains open, can Kal Korff step up to the plate?
As Chevy Chase would say – he is still dead. I was told by a friend weeks ago that he was chasing faeries at Milk Hill in England, and knowing how he could not resist getting his “non sensical” two cents in, I am convinced that his evilness has expired – because he never chimed in. He is Lucifer’s problem now. Back to that remark about faeries….one thing that bothered me immensely about Beckjord was a missive on his website in 1999 that spelled out his desire to lure children out into the woods to look for bigfoot under the guise that he was an “Eagle Scout” and that he would “teach them about camping” and “how to be a man”. That’s kind of like taking driving lessons from Lindsey Lohan. I always thought that his approach was very deceptive there. I remember seeing on his website photos of a man on a pond in an innertube drinking beer. Something off the mark there too, but I could not put my finger on it – nor would I want to. Beckjord obviously did though. They were looking for bigfoot – the aquatic version I imagine.
Finally, Beckjord wanted to take a woman out into the woods and have sex with them, so as to attract bigfoot. We all know that the only thing that they would attract is the police.
Beckjord was cruel, dishonest and sinister. His disciple in Alabama should be monitored very closely.