The World’s Stupidest Idea: Ten Million Dollar Bounty For Bigfoot
Posted by: Loren Coleman on October 25th, 2012
EW reported earlier today,
Spike TV is offering $10 million for proof that Bigfoot exists.
The network is announcing a new one-hour reality show, 10 Million Dollar Bigfoot Bounty, featuring teams on a quest to find the legendary Sasquatch. The teams will include scientists, zoologists, seasoned trackers, and “actual Bigfoot hunters,” according to the network. The series will be shot in various locations around the country.
The prize, underwritten by Lloyds of London, is billed as the largest cash prize in TV history — if it’s actually awarded. The rules require the hunters to produce “irrefutable evidence” of the creature. Somehow we think that Spike is making a pretty safe bet. ~ Source.
I suppose the people behind this offer feel they are the smartest people in the world. Yeah, they will get a lot of publicity in the coming days, between Sandy the Hurricane and the Election news. And perhaps even during the broadcasting of their program. But then someone in the corporate attorney offices is going to wake up in a cold sweat, and realize what their employer has done.
Credit: Guy Edwards for license from his site, but, humm, this Bigfoot looks like the one in, what, the International Cryptozoology Museum. Busted!
What has been created is one of the stupidest ideas in television programming.
I know because I’ve been down this road before. A few years ago I was hired to consult to a company who floated for a day or two the concept that they would pay a million dollars for the ultimate proof of a new large cryptid. This was immediately translated into shooting and bringing back a dead Bigfoot.
But what did all the lawyers realize? They had opened for exposure to lawsuits and worse their company to charges when the first Bigfoot hunter trying to “prove” their case ended up shooting and killing a guy in a gorilla costume, a teenage in a heavy coat, or a kid wearing a brown shirt taking a shortcut to school through the woods!
The company withdrew the bounty, and released a statement: “Prior to the start of the promotion, [the company] reconsidered based on safety concerns for both the public and for creatures-at-large. Specifically, [the company] feared that untrained cryptozoologists would engage in unsafe behaviors in their attempt to capture these legendary creatures and that innocent creatures may be harmed in the process.”
Can you imagine the insanity that will be turned asunder on the countryside by having anyone with a gun trying to kill a “Bigfoot” for $10,000,000?
In a year in which the first human, Randy Lee Tenley, was killed when trying to get himself recorded crossing the road as a Bigfoot in Montana, I would think that reconsiderations might be forthcoming about this bounty.
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This is now being discussed in German (auf Deutsch). Read here.
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.
A bad idea if I ever saw one.
Donald Trump, right?
Sorry, just couldn’t help it.
SJR
The Pink Flamingo
Spike TV. Little head strikes again.
10 mill, huh? I’m sure Biscardi needed a pair of pants after reading that? 😛
To quote a line from JAWS……………….”is that bounty in cash or cheque”.
Cue Quint scratching his fingernails down the blackboard.
Yeah, they are a little lacking in the brains department here. It could potentially turn into something really dangerous. I’m also not too keen on murdering a potential hominid and endangered species for the sake of cash.
It’s just another clown car show with idiots leaping in to darwinize for a moment of fame.
Stupid? Yes. Actionable and sustainable negligence? Probably not. Still, there would most probably be a civil suit to defend.
On a moral level though, this is a new nadir.
This is now being discussed in German (auf Deutsch). Read here.
They are not only lacking in the brains department, they are evidently hurting in the legal advice department as well. Someone will get killed. Now if it’s only these guys, not so bad, but….
‘no reward will be paid if the big guy is dead’
i’m not totally opposed to a bounty for ‘proof’, no one seems to be able to produce anything for free.
Yikes, I can hear it now – “Be very qwiet…I do think there’s a squatch in there.”
I have a good show title – “Squatch-Ass”. For surely only a jackass would try this and hope to succeed. Local supermarkets had better bring their shopping carts inside.
We’ve all seen dozens of photos and videos purported to be a bigfoot, but which were obviously a guy in a parka, hooded sweatshirt, or whatever. The people who took the pictures genuinely thought they were seeing a bigfoot. Now imagine if they were through a rifle scope instead of a viewfinder. As great as it would be to prove bigfoot’s existence, Loren’s right about how dangerous this promotion is.
I guess none of you noticed that the $10 mil was only available to the contestants on the show.
Are you worried that people everywhere are trying to buy a vowel from Pat Sajak too?
It’s a tv show. As long as long as there are web sites, books, blogs and other shows like Finding Bigfoot perpetuating the phenomenon, what wouldn’t you expect some like this to happen?
J. Powell:
Teams.
Around the country.
Does it somehow make a difference if it’s only one of these teams that kills somebody?
eh part of me would be okay if this became an actual thing. I mean if this was an actual bounty, granted in every state in the U.S. And it was basically bigfoot season year round…then hoaxers wouldn’t come out to play anymore. Or at least they wouldn’t after the first few get shot….And then once people are no longer running around the woods in monkey suits, then any material that pops up may be taken more seriously, if there are even sightings after that.
WinterIsComing:
So it’s OK to commit multiple murders to clarify the sasquatch issue?
Oh, OK.
If you actually read reports, you know that there are virtually none that can be chalked up to guys in suits.
So, we’re still getting reports, even now. No murder required. If it looks like a human in a suit, it’s because it is.
This is the worst idea after the invention of styrofoam.I think that lots of people are gonna start shooting sasquatches(and other things)to get the 10 million bucks.Bigfoot never did anything wrong,just let him live in peace.
BTMM: AMEN to that. This is far worse than a bad idea, however: this is an invitation to mayhem and murder, and if it happens, this show’s producers/creators, as well as SpikeTV, should be tried for conspiracy to commit murder. As well as the murder itself. This is the moral equivalent of inciting to riot.
Now this is really getting me fired up! The only thing that would make it better would be to have Vegas taking bets on which team can do this first. My money would be on a team like the Mountain Monster guys, but they need to get dogs involved in the tracking. They have the right idea, but adding dogs would help.