Bigfoot Hoax Body Bid Tops $100,000 [Update: $200,000!]
Posted by: Loren Coleman on October 14th, 2008
All kinds of people are still interested in making money off the Bigfoot hoax, so PhotoShop jokes, such as the illustrated example given in the phony above tee-shirt ad are posted as a kind of social commentary.
I suppose this all issues from last Black Friday, when Matt Whitton, the hoaxing Georgia police officer, was trying to get his job back, and the Bigfoot fake went on eBay.
The ongoing auction of the body that wasn’t a real corpse is turning into its own new media circus.
Unbelievably, the bids on the actual Bigfoot hoax costume, (without the pig, cow and opossum body parts) in the same small freezer that the Georgia boys used, has gone over $101,000. (Over $200,000, as of 3 PM Eastern, on Tuesday, October 14th.) The whole thing is being auctioned off by Joshua Warren on eBay and, obviously, the reserve has been met. The auction will go higher, as there are two days to go.
I interviewed Warren about this auction, by phone earlier in the week, and determined that Matt Whitton, Ric Dyer, and Tom Biscardi will not be involved in getting any of the money. However, if Warren does sell it above $50,000, there is some indication that some items being filed against Whitton and Dyer will be dropped by the Indiana individual who originally fronted the money. Or as Joshua Warren says to me, “If this sells successfully, this should settle the financial suit(s), but any criminal prosecution is beyond civil control. These fellas will still be responsible for what they’ve done.”
Whatever is leftover above $50,000, apparently, will be used by Warren to fund his “hoax investigation museum.” Warren’s previous background has been in haunting investigations, ghost examinations, Bermuda Triangle cruises, and paranormal conferences.
Additionally, Joshua Warren has ventured into the cryptozoological realm before this auction. He has published articles and books regarding cryptozoology (e.g. his piece on the Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot was in Fate Magazine, December 1999; and his Chapter 5, “Bigfoot and Loch Ness and Mothman, Oh My!” in his book Pet Ghosts includes an interview with me, published by New Page in 2006). His Bigfoot casts, analyzed by me, are part of a crypto display in his recent Paranormal Museum in downtown Asheville. He led investigations into sightings of Bigfoot. Mark A. Hall, Joshua Warren and I spoke at D. L. Tanner’s cryptozoology conference in Greenville, South Carolina, and I have been twice invited to speak at Warren’s NC conferences.
Warren was able to get former cop Whitton and former soldier Dyer to agree to go to the location of the trickster Bigfoot body and confirm to the final eBay buyer (during the transfer of the fake and finances) that this is the actual hoaxed costume and freezer. Then the $50,000 obligation against them will be dropped. (see Atlanta Journal Constitution, in the article by Kathy Jefcoast, Thursday, August 21, 2008.)
The eBay hoax auction has gotten quite a bit of Fox News attention lately. As that news service points out, this is not the first time someone’s made money from an eBay auction related to the hoax. The original costume artist in California sold a duplicate head for $600 in late August.
Of course, for $450 or $499 (depending on the quote and the site), you can simply buy the entire complete and same costume Dyer and Whitton used, minus the eBay auction, entrails, paperwork, freezer and personal appearance.
What do you think, a casino is bidding on the hoax Bigfoot body for a display?
I find it quite upsetting, at some level, that this much money exists out there for a fake, and yet legitimate Bigfoot research, Sasquatch museums, and Bigfoot studies have to get by on shoestring budgets.
But then again, in the end, perhaps Joshua Warren’s ideas to put his “profit” to good uses will work out, after all, for the betterment of cryptozoology and his investigations. The extra money for this eBay sale is not going to Biscardi, Whitton, or Dyer. Of course, until he gets his money, Warren could be the victim of an online bidding hoax himself.
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 agree with Loren, it is upsetting that 100K+ can be spent on the leftovers from a hoax, yet serious crypto studies are hindered so much due to lack of funding. That kind of smack could fund a nice expedition, and result in real findings, but is instead spent on a $500 costume for a possible casino lobby display, and for what?
This is truly insulting. 100 grand for a smelly old costume and a beer cooler??? And then you go wondering why the Economy is in such poor state..
I just checked and the bid is now at 200,300 dollars……UNBELIEVABLE
Beyond belief. Disturbing to say the least.
Biscardi must be kicking himself again – for not thinking of this and doing it himself. At first I assumed that he was behind it and was using a surrogate seller to keep his name out of it, but apparently not so. So the Indiana investor will get his 50K back, but not the profit he was looking for. I bet he never does that again.
It’s also possible that they are bidding this up themselves to get even more unwarranted attention.
So the lesson here is that crime doesn’t pay… unless it does, which is sometimes the case (this being an example). I’m so confused…
I think someone is playing a hoax on these idiots bidding it up to a ridiculous price with no intention of paying. This thing will be over a million before long with no person actually willing to pay this much for some balled up costume.
As an avid Ebayer, I can pretty much assure everyone that the “winning bid” is as much a hoax as the one those idiots tried to pull in Georgia…
Take a look at the bid history (the link beside “History”) and click on the usernames of the people who have bid on this item.
Of the top ten bidders (yes I have too much time on my hands), 7 show that 100% of their bids have been made to the hoax body seller (for this and other items). And in one case, a bidder seems to have outbid himself.
And does anyone remember the “ghost in a jar” sale on eBay? People kept putting in outrageous bids (I think it got up to $31 million) as payback for what was obviously a hoax.
So it’s possible that the seller or his associates are bidding on the hoax body themselves to drive up the price (or get more publicity) and/or that people are making fake bids as payback for the hoax.
Don’t give up hope on humanity just yet.
Even more squalid than the memory of that suit in intestine flotsam, is the price! I need to go…
I’m waiting for it to show up on “Things we found on eBay” on “The Tonght Show with Jay Leno.”
You all are being hoaxed again!
It’s another inside job for publicity. Who in their right mind is going to pay almost a 1/4 of a million bucks for that junk?
Anyone can bid on Ebay, especially friends and family or even yourself from another email address. Do these guys have no shame?
I’m with the rest of you guys…I think this is one more lame attempt to try to vindicate a hoax and to try to con someone into buying it…sheesh! They tried conning people with fake scientists on YouTube and other nonsense…I think they are at it again.
AND, for anyone who does have that kind of money, yes, instead of a crappy costume…invest in expeditions! OR INVEST IN LOREN’S M– USEUM!
One thing everyone seems to be forgetting, is that the seller still has to pay eBay seller fees, even if the bids are all hoaxes.
Why would you bid up the price on your own auction and force yourself to pay rather high seller fees in the process?
I agree, the bids are likely bogus, but this is something to consider.
Obviously the bids are phony. Wait and see.
Some of those bids could be real. This thing could be a huge draw for a side show. Heck, I’d pay a few bucks to see it at a carnival or tourist trap “museum”. I might even pay a couple more bucks to take a photo with the wholly bugger.
You have got to be kidding me. I hope no idiot would pay that much for that thing. What the hell is wrong with these people, its people like that that make it hard for anyone to believe in anything. Its hard enough going out there doing the research, hunting these creatures to try and prove their extistance. Then you have some idiots put some costume in a freezer with some other animal parts in it. And these idiots make all kinds of money off the deal, while making it harder for the real researchers like me that dont have allot of money, and that actually want to find the real thing. I think these guys should get the chair. Its people like that that make the sceptiks not believe the truth when someone really does have an experience with bigfoot.
I just looked at the bids on ebay, the bid is upto $250,283.00. I hope proriter is right and the bids are phony, if not peole are allot dumber than I ever imagined.
If casinos are the ones bidding on this hoax item, then that is sadly just par for the course. Other casinos have bid on other weird eBay items in the past. The grilled cheese sandwich with the image of Jesus on it comes to mind.
Maybe I’m making too much out of this, but what really bothers me is the fact that this sets a very bad precedent for all future hoaxers. What they will learn is that you don’t have to pull off any truly convincing bigfoot or cryptozoological hoax in order to make money.
Perhaps the overall lesson won’t be quite so bad. For now the lesson appears hoax = $$$. But soon it may be the opposite. The only real reason this has been bid on so highly is because of the massive amount of media it got. But this sort of thing only tends to work once in a while. Many others will likely try to emulate this cash-producing method at first, but will probably find no one takes it seriously enough – sequels just don’t work like the original.