Penn Bigfoot Investigator George Lutz Dies
Posted by: Loren Coleman on December 20th, 2010
George Lutz, left, with investigator Stan Gordon, right, and reporter Roger Marsh, center. Photo by Philip Haddad.
On Saturday, December 18, 2010, George E. Lutz, 89, died in Excela Health Westmoreland Hospital. Stan Gordon passed this news along, by noting that Stan and George began to investigate Bigfoot and other strange phenomena in Pennsylvania during the early 1970s.
George Lutz was born June 8, 1921, in Salem Township, Pennsylvania, a son of the late George Edward and Katie E. Wolfe Lutz. George worked most of his life in commercial construction and owned and previously operated a service station and the Pyramid, a drive-in restaurant. He enlisted in the Army Air Corps several months after Pearl Harbor and entered the Aviation Cadets Training as a fighter pilot and later trained with Trans World Airlines and Western Airlines. He served four years in the Air Force, serving as a transport pilot in Africa and also in the China, Burma, India Theater of operations. He retired as a major in the Air Force Reserves after 29 years of service. George, who lived later in his life in Hempfield Township, Pennsylvania, will be remembered for his love of the outdoors, camping, hunting and fishing and his investigations of mysterious sightings with Stan Gordon.
Indeed, Stan Gordon (left) passes this along about George Lutz (right):
George was a kind and friendly person, and we became very close friends during the many years that we spent together. We spent many days and nights searching for evidence of the strange occurrences that were constantly coming to our attention. His experience and background gave credibility and understanding into the many strange incidents which we investigated together. Lutz was a member of the investigation team that responded to the classic October 25, 1973, UFO-Bigfoot incident outside of Uniontown in Fayette County. I will miss George immensely.
In addition to his parents, he was preceded in death by his wife of 61 years, Gloria Lindsay Lutz, in 2006; and a sister and brother-in-law, Charlotte and George Hutson. He is survived by three daughters, Georgia C. Kilpatrick, of Greensburg, Linda Elliott and husband, William “Bud”, of Peoria, Ariz., and Marcia Anderson and husband, John, of Acme; four grandchildren, William “Bill” and Adam Elliott, of Arizona, Cullene Compton, of Latrobe, and Kristen Buffone, of Greensburg; and seven great-grandchildren, Marine Lance Corporal Steven Kilpatrick, Paige, Ryan and Mitchell Compton and Makenna, Dominic and Miranda Buffone; and numerous nieces and nephews.
Friends will be received from 9 to 11 a.m. this Wednesday at the James E. Lindsay Funeral Home, Inc. 3343 Route 130, Harrison City, Pennsylvania. Funeral services will then be held at 11 a.m. in the funeral home with Pastor Henry Talericio officiating. Interment will follow in Twin Valley Memorial Park, Delmont. The family would like to thank Greensburg Care Center for the care of their father. In lieu of flowers, donations are requested to the Westmoreland County Food Bank.
[George E. Lutz is not to be confused with John A. Lutz of Eastern Puma Research Network, who lives in Maryland.]
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 am going to miss this man, I watched a documentary a while back that had this man and his stories, and he told of what happened while looking into them.
It kept me glued to the screen with what he had to say.
I am glad that he had a long life and as it seemed a good one also.