Cartergate: Follow The Money
Posted by: Loren Coleman on October 5th, 2006
I sometimes get the feeling that scandals are breaking out all around us. It seems to be happening in Washington D.C. this week, and I wonder when it’s going to occur in Tennessee.
Myth or Real? Illustrating an alleged encounter: Janice meeting Fox in house’s basement, April 2002. Click to make Bigfoot even bigger.
My brother Jerry D. Coleman’s "A Carter Farm Investigation – Part Four" has now been posted.
The observations are good, and some of the photographs (see below) stimulated, shared, and debated in this melodrama clearly show a difference of opinion on even the landscape of the Carter "farm."
I think the most interesting question that Jerry’s asks, however, is this simple one:
Why would a researcher invest 3000 dollars to feed unseen creatures?
I want to push the envelope beyond where my brother has in his interesting column, and ask some questions I have from afar. I want to follow the money and more. My questions are:
So, actually, the $3000 wasn’t an investment was it? What did that researcher get back? Was it a payment? Was it, heaven help us all, coverup money? What was it really?
What kind of relationship do the principals in this story have? What’s the links here? What kind of sexual relationships have occurred between "eyewitnesses" and "researchers"? Have any of the principals involved been in trouble with the law? What kind of "front" could the Bigfoot stories there be hiding? Is there any known use of the "farm" for any kind of rural, er, crop?
This may seem odd, but in a couple of Carter Farm books that are overflowing with sexual Bigfoot details (TMI to some), I find it interesting that money, financial support, relationships, sexual affairs, mental health histories, criminal records, job records, human marriages and divorces, conflicts of interests, and farm ownership questions are not more openly being discussed by the promoters of the Carter Farm incidents.
Unanswered questions lead to unanswered feelings, conjecture, and distrust. So yes, Jerry, please follow the money, for starters!
++++ Additionally, in response to Jerry’s column, Will Duncan posted the following photo:
PHOTOGRAPH REMOVED DUE TO NASTY EMAILS FROM MARY GREEN. SEE MORE INFORMATION ON THIS SUBJECT, elsewhere.
To which, Bob Coppen’s reply helped really clear up what all those little numbers mean:
Looking at this photo, it struck me as familiar. Then it hit me: It was from 50 Years With Bigfoot! So I grabbed my copy and turned to page 235 and there it was: the aerial photo of the Carter Farm, as big as life! It even had little numbers on it, just like the photo in Will’s post does. And each number was used to indicate a special point of interest. This was done below the photo. The numbers and what they are supposed to represent are listed below: 1. Large oak tree growing out of a deep ditch line where the Bigfoot were fed for 20 years. 2. The farm house. 3. The tree from which Janice watched the Bigfoot. 4. The Bigfoot would often come out into the open here. Sheba especially broke cover in this area. She would come out of the woods with her young who often played all around her. 5. Another area where Janice would climb a pine tree in this one patch of woods to watch the Bigfoot. This was directly across from the Carter home and the area where the girl’s first noticed the monkey face in the trees. 6. The mobile home where Janice, Lila, and their mother, Melvina, lived. Trouble is, the numbers in Will’s photo have been transposed from the ones in my copy of 50 Years. 1 has become 3. 2 has become 5. 3 has become 1. 4 has become 2. 5 has become 4. 6 has been moved to designate the big barn to the right. And in my copy of the book there is no 7 at all. Or does the picture that Will posted come from an earlier edition? So what’s the deal? Does this book change from printing to printing? Has it really been published? Which of these numbers designates what? Where’s Waldo, anyway?
Gerry Bacon also shares his own photos of the "farm" and the invisible mountains in the background.
Why do I feel I now have even more questions about "fifty years" of contacts on this "farm"?
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.
“Jerry Coleman’s excellent “investigation” notwithstanding, the two women have much to contribute to the study of Bigfoot. Given time, their names will be remembered, like Dian Fossey and Jane Goodall.”
I beg to differ. Both Jane Goodall & Dian Fossey spent years among their animals, making detailed, VERIFIABLE observations, working under the guidance of Louis B. Leakey. They EARNED their acclaim through years of research and documentation.
Saying that the principal women in this case have “names [that] will be remembered, like Dian Fossey and Jane Goodall” is a little over the top.
Please, let’s be realistic.
There is no evidence in the form of photographs of these alleged Carter Bigfoot. Fossey and Goodall, besides their many observations, had photos to back up what they were saying.
The story is not over. We shall see in time.
What is over the top today may very well be accepted tomorrow.
Isn’t it amazing that this discussion continues while the story has moved to the second page of the site? How many times does that happen here?
The Dian Fossey, Jane Goodall comparison to these ladies is preposterous. These two scientists went out, observed and recorded with legitimate scientific methods, collected EVIDENCE that is reliable, and took PHOTOS (and I will say gorillas aren’t too keen on cameras either). This is a fact and not in dispute. Why did they do this? Because they want the world to truly understand these wonderful creatures. If that is the case with the ladies of the Carter Farm, and it seems they want to be taken seriously, then they should have gone through lengths to study, document, and collect evidence properly. We have only their word and some rather shaky evidence. As for the people who think it is too bizarre to be made up, there are novels and movies where whole worlds, languages, etc are created from imagination. Imagination is a powerful thing, but it does not prove anything about this story whatsoever. Scientists like Jane Goodall did not whip up their stories from imagination, they had to do what every scientist works hard to do and PROVE IT. Therefore, scientists don’t go out publishing things until they have the stuff to back it up. I dread the day when we start just accepting everybody’s fantastic stories at face value. I have not seen one piece of compelling evidence to support anything that was claimed at the Carter Farm. And if others involved in this case are truly scientists with all these credentials, then they know what they need to do for people to believe this story and they would not make claims without something to support those claims.
Can anyone tell me what it means to be a ‘market-woman’ in Russia ?
I had to get away from this for a couple days, I got to ramped up.
First of all thanx to Kittenz for that reply (#49) to Igor. I had become fairly frustrated by that point. Him saying I was spreading gossip (calling me a liar) did not help. So here is the ‘gossip’ on the critter cam, right off of Mary Greens own site. I have copied a clip to post here and will give the URL for all to read. I believe that the statement is a veiled claim of conspiracy by the locals.
…The camera was reportedly tripped on every picture, but when Janice took them in to be developed and returned later to pick them up, she was told that none of them were any good. She had to make additional trips at our insistence in order to obtain her negatives and pictures. In the end, the photographs all appeared to be over exposed and the negatives ruined. Lesson learned. Do not take your film to be developed by locals….
The italics are added by me. The URL to this part of the report is here.
In case the URL does not make it, the page is on Mary Greens site. It is page 4 of the updates on the Carter farm.
So I am not sure what gossip he is talking about. Maybe the fact that I think Janice faked it ?
Either way he asks what I want of them. I would like to see REAL evidence to support their very extraordinary claims.
The part where he tells me not to think or speak of them is a presumptive statement on his part.
50 years of BF in one relatively small location and no bodies? No bones? That bothers me even more than the lack of photos.