Bigfoot Hair For Sale
Posted by: Craig Woolheater on June 26th, 2012
From The Lufkin Daily News:
Lufkin man puts ‘Bigfoot hair’ up for sale
By ERIN PRADIA/The (Nacogdoches) Daily Sentinel
The (Nacogdoches) Daily Sentinel
Monsters may not lurk under beds and in closets, but hair from Bigfoot may be bought at a place near you.
While Ty Shafer of Lufkin cannot be 100 percent certain the lock of hair he has in his possession is from Bigfoot himself, he is selling the novelty item for $30.
Shafer, a funeral director at Carroway Funeral Home, thought local residents may be interested in the novelty item because of the rumors of a Bigfoot wandering wooded areas of East Texas.
“A guy from Rush County called and said when he was younger he and some other people — he swears up and down — saw a baby Bigfoot,” Shafer said. “They said they ran it up a tree, but it smelled so bad they left it.”
Bigfoot, also known as Sasquatch, is commonly known as a hairy ape-like monster. The texture of the hair in question might surprise people , Shafer said.
“You would think it would be coarse, but it looks really soft — like you would see on a well-groomed dog or something,” Shafer said.
Shafer, originally from Amarillo, doesn’t have a shop, but he sells novelty items online, in local auctions and by taking out classified ads every other Thursday in The Lufkin News. Shafer has been with Carroway Funeral Home for the past eight-and-a-half years.
“If I sell it, it’s fine, if not I’ll keep it,” Shafer said. “Since I’ve been buying and selling things, my collection just keeps getting a little bigger.”
Having a lock of alleged Bigfoot hair is catching the attention of people across the country. Shafer fielded a call from as far away as Oregon on Tuesday about the item which he got two weeks ago. So far, he doesn’t have a serious buyer.
“People who call about it are more curious than anything,” Shafer said. “They ask a few questions, but then they say they’ll get back to me.”
“I can’t confirm it’s Bigfoot hair. You’d have to have the actual Bigfoot to match the hair,” Shafer said. “He’s just a big Bigfoot fan.”
The man Shafer purchased the lock of charcoal colored hair from had it labeled No. 7 of 10.
If you are interested in seeing the hair for yourself, it will be on display at Nacogdoches Auction beginning Friday. The hair will be on display until it is auctioned on July 7, Shafer said. The auction is located about three miles north of Angelina River at 7821 U.S. Highway 259. For more information about the “Bigfoot hair,” or other items sold by Shafer, call 676-6059. For more information about the auction, contact Bonnie Worley at 462-9400.
Co-founder of Cryptomundo in 2005.
I have appeared in or contributed to the following TV programs, documentaries and films:
OLN's Mysterious Encounters: "Caddo Critter", Southern Fried Bigfoot, Travel Channel's Weird Travels: "Bigfoot", History Channel's MonsterQuest: "Swamp Stalker", The Wild Man of the Navidad, Destination America's Monsters and Mysteries in America: Texas Terror - Lake Worth Monster, Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot: Return to Boggy Creek and Beast of the Bayou.
Um, good luck there, dude.
His report about the nature of the hair certainly comports with some other reports, particularly that of the hunter who claims to have shot one – and closely inspected the body – in 1941.
If any of you folks would like to hop downunder to Sydney Australia some time I’ve got a real swell harbour bridge that I could sell you…..
The question I have always wondered about “authentic” Bigfoot hair is would it or would it not have a strong odor or smell associated with it, especially if you had enough of a sample to form a clump as appears to be the situation here. Yet, I have never read nor heard of anyone having a sample with a pungent odor to it. With the sophistication of fakers out there I am suprised that aspect hasn’t been fabricated as well.
william: not sure where the “sophistication of fakers” comment comes from.
Certainly not from sophisticated fakes.
I have never seen a sophisticated fake, and I’m not a scientist. Bigfoot fakes don’t have to be sophisticated, because they aren’t aimed at sophisticated peoople.
For anything – and yes I’m looking at you, Patterson/Gimlin skeptics – to be characterized as a fake, and yes that would be a sophisticated one, evidence must be presented that it was faked. None has been, in the instance of the film, and none has been for pretty much any other evidence that is still accepted as possibly pointing to an unlisted animal.
The Legend of the Omnipotent Hoaxer is the biggest load of baloney circulating around these big feet.
Pungent odors would likely dissipate on exposure to air, particularly if the hair was not in the area of the body where the scent is generated.
@DWA I get your point, but there have been some fairly sophisticated fake tracks that were even known to initially fool some experts – look up Ivan Marx (I believe that was his name) if you question this. Also, I am not sure about the scent leaving hair of a “smelly” animal merely by being absent from the body and “air” hitting it as you suggest. You may be correct, but I have never personally sampled the odor of hair from a skunk for example to see if there is an associated residual odor after departure from the body of the animal. However, if I was going to fake bigfoot hair samples I believe I would rub the hair over the carcass of a dead or decaying animal such as a road kill ground hog, or possum to give it some sort of odor.
William:
My point is that to presume that fakes are a significant factor in the evidence of the sasquatch is a thoroughly erroneous approach.
That so many consistent fakes of so many consistent features could have been perpetuated for so long, over such a huge geographic area, by any conceivable human agency, is simply beyond tenable. It’s not realistic; and I don’t know anyone who has taken a good look at the evidence who disagrees with this.
(Those who haven’t taken a good look at the evidence make this clear in the first couple of sentences they say on this topic, no matter what they are asked.)
For anything – and yes I’m looking at you, Patterson/Gimlin skeptics – to be characterized as a fake, and yes that would be a sophisticated one, evidence must be presented that it was faked. None has been, in the instance of the film…..
Except for the admissions of a hoax by Philip Morris,Bob Heironimus and Ray Wallace.
You know for a supposed animal that big it loses less hair than my 5 pound cat. Why is that? Real large hair covered animals elk, deer, bison, bears etc…shed large amounts of hair. Yet almost none from a creature that is supposed to be 7 feet tall and 700-900 pounds? I don’t buy it.
@DWA
I’m surprised you make the mistake of saying “there is no evidence” when what you mean is “there is no persuasive evidence”. There’s a huge difference.
There are, for example, any number of attempts to reproduce the motions of Patty. Those are evidence against the validity of the original film. If, however, you find the motions to be a very poor match for what is seen in the film, you will judge this evidence to be from poor to worthless.
(One thing I’d like to see is a control. Take one of the films of a man in a suit that have been made to try to imitate the P-G film and have someone try to match that exactly, preferably with a different man and a different suit. This would give a scale for how significant the differences really are. Of course, this doesn’t speak to the issue of proportions, that’s a different issue.)
Other items of evidence against it include the alleged deathbed confession by Patterson (contradicted on Cryptomundo some time back) and the claim by Heironimus that he was the one who wore the suit. Whether these items are quality evidence is another thing altogether, but even faulty evidence has to be addressed.
This is important because the real difference between someone like you and a skeptic really boils down to what evidence they find credible. A skeptic will not deem an eyewitness report particularly credible, especially since Bigfoot is now a thoroughly ingrained part of our own folklore and mythology. A skeptic will be more inclined to trust that even though he may not know how to fake a given footprint, another person might be clever enough to do it — just as was the case with crop circles; thus he will not find the casts of footprints persuasive. A skeptic will be more likely to think that a man in a suit has captured all of the essentials necessary to be a good match for Patty; he will likely think that these reproductions are good evidence. I would expect your judgment to be the opposite in all these cases.
This state of things defines cryptozoology. If all the evidence for the existence of Bigfoot were so obviously poor that everyone discounted it, we would not be talking about him at all. If really conclusive evidence for the existence of Bigfoot turns up — evidence that everyone will admit is quality — then Bigfoot would no longer be a cryptid, he would just be an ape, or a hominid, or whatever the unambiguous evidence showed him to be.
@DWA RE:
“My point is that to presume that fakes are a significant factor in the evidence of the sasquatch is a thoroughly erroneous approach.
That so many consistent fakes of so many consistent features could have been perpetuated for so long, over such a huge geographic area, by any conceivable human agency, is simply beyond tenable. It’s not realistic; and I don’t know anyone who has taken a good look at the evidence who disagrees with this.
I do not disagree with you on this at all but you seem to have an attitude that there are no sophisticated or minimal impact associated with fakery regarding this subject which I must disagree. For example the Yeti scalp which has proven to be a fake was a pretty cleverly done piece located in a Tibetan monastery that had fooled many for years until DNA testing proved it a fraud. Same with the alleged finger bone of a Yeti which was also recently discounted as from a human hand. So to minimize fakery and discount its impact on this subject, including some rather sophisticated examples such as I mention is IMHO simply a distorted unrealistic view.
muircertach: Show me the evidence those folks put forward with their “admissions.”
None. Right. (Morris’s suit, and the waterbag walk, and Wallace’s all-over-place-depending-on-day “testimony” are jokes. Jokes are not evidence.)
Fhqwhgads: There is no evidence of a P/G hoax. Period.
As in: zero.
All that can be taken as evidence one way or the other against the validity of the Patterson-Gimlin film can come from only one source: WHAT IS ON THE FILM. That’s it. I don’t care about people’s character. I don’t care about people trying to mimic what is clearly visible on the film (I can try that, and I can fail at it, too. Doesn’t make it evidence. Putting on a bigfoot costume is no more evidence than two kids wearing a zebra suit is evidence against the zebra).
Patterson never made a deathbed confession. Who cares if he did? (He didn’t.) He clearly lacked the chops. He’s clear. If anything shady happened, he was hoaxed, which cubes, squares the result and then multiplies by 10 the difficulty of the feat. In other words: it’s unreasonable to postulate that’s what happened. And no surprise that there’s no shred of evidence it did.
All the evidence that proponents have deduced that points to the reality of the animal comes, directly, from WHAT IS ON THE FILM. The tracks are indirect evidence – that just happened to follow the exact route of the film subject, were found at the exact same time, and are of a piece with many other trackways – including one exact match, years before the P/G film was shot – that have been found. All of this has been deduced by people with directly relevant scientific expertise, as the skeptical “evidence” demonstrably has not.
The question here is simple: what is the MOST LIKELY thing to think that the sasquatch evidence represents?
We are here talking about that most likely thing. There is no evidence – none – that contradicts that most likely thing, which is why it is. Conan Doyle had it right. Because – to anyone who has read up – it’s the only reasonably likely thing left. (Every kind of evidence we have for species we know about we have for the sasquatch.)
Is the greatest trick we have ever played on ourselves as a species a seven-foot ape?
Nope.
The evidence says so.
Oh. Back to the hair.
Whatever. Bigfoot hair? Hey, cool.
“Yet almost [no hair] from a creature that is supposed to be 7 feet tall and 700-900 pounds? I don’t buy it.
Um, what does bigfoot hair look like?
Um, what do people say when someone says HE HAS IT?
Did I explain it to you?
You’re welcome.
C’MON guys.
Read up.
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Both of Bindernagel’s books, and Meldrum’s, and J.Robert Alley’s “Raincoast Sasquatch,” and Meldrum’s ichnotaxonomy paper, and every report on both bfro.net and texasbigfoot.com, at a minimum, are Sasquatch 101. You should read some Krantz, too. And John Green’s database (although many reports from that are written up by Bindernagel).
Anyone who thinks this is too much, well, shouldn’t be opining here. I mean, they can; it’s just an uninformed opinion. At least I only offer opinions on things I know something about. Isn’t that reasonable? I think so.
———————
Relativity is crap. It’s obvious. So are quarks. That’s equally obvious.
No?
Prove it. Right here.
You won’t. Know what you’ll do? Refer me to everything else that’s been written.
Me too.
william:
“you seem to have an attitude that there are no sophisticated or minimal impact associated with fakery regarding this subject …”
There haven’t been.
The things you cite are cute but they were readily dismissed when somebody finally got somebody to pay attention. And those are the only examples you cited (and pretty much the only ones there are).
My point is – and shall remain – that to consider fakes a serious issue in this discussion is simply wrong. It’s the lack of scientific attention to the copious legitimate evidence that is the serious failing.
Once again: why are you guys arguing with me? Take it up with the scientists who agree with me.
@DWA
If the P-G film were at the center of a trial, are there items and testemonies that the prosecution could bring against it that would be allowed by the judge? You know there are. You may feel confident that you could persuade any reasonable person that those items and testemonies are flawed and worthless for impeaching the authenticity of the P-G film, but the evidence would be permitted and you would have to argue against it. You could make all the arguments you have just made, and maybe you would persuade the jury, and maybe not.
That’s all I mean by evidence. At times you are very aware of the distinction between evidence and proof, but you seem to have lost sight of it here. Evidence can be flimsy and still warrant an hypothesis. Proof has to be much stronger but can justify a mature theory. There are very few thoughts a human being has ever had that can be said to have “No evidence. Period. As in: Zero.”
If I seem to be belaboring the point, it’s because I noticed as a young adult how the administration at the time refused to investigate credible charges of wrongdoing against senior members of the administration, using the excuse that there was “no evidence”. Yes, there certainly was, evidence that was a good deal better than the evidence that a later administration would use to claim Sadam Hussein was building nuclear weapons. The evidence was sufficient to open an investigation, not sufficient to close an investigation. The administration did not want to open the investigation because they knew what they would find.
By the way, I notice you seem to have a particular passion for the reality of Bigfoot. Have you witnessed Bigfoot first-hand?
Having said all this, I won’t pursue it any further.
Fhqwhgads: That was a reasonable response.
Here’s what I’d ask:
Could anyone who knows the volume and consistency of the evidence for the sasquatch consider any evidence submitted against the film to warrant dismissing it without review; presuming it’s a guy in a suit; paying no attention to the evidence for it, and the scientific expertise behind that reasoning; laughing at the very notion that it could be real; and ridiculing anyone who claimed to have seen anything similar?
Anyone who knows what I, Meldrum, Bindernagel, and a small number of other people who are paying attention know, knows what a truly open-minded jury would rule on that.
Since I was 11 years old, it’s been obvious to me that the evidence is broad, deep and points to a critter, nothing more. It’s been equally obvious that scientists who seem to know what they’re talking about within their broad areas of specialty simply forsake their scientific objectivity, and say things they should know they shouldn’t, when this is the topic.
Unlike most who come to this from a passion for the paranormal – and let that passion influence what they think about this in a very unfortunate manner – I come to it with a lifelong interest in animals and the outdoors. Being more acquainted than most with both, I know when evidence supports a critter. This evidence does.
Since this would simply be a cool thing to know, and the evidence supports that, and it might be neat to know what’s causing this evidence to happen before I, you know, die, it just appalls me to see the attitude of the mainstream toward it.
At the frontiers of science there is never a majority. So I guess we’ll just have to wait for a few more of Max Planck’s funerals to take place to get to the bottom of this.
You’d think science would be open-minded and curious about things it seems simple enough to prove. This example is a very discouraging one in that regard.
And that’s my only dog in the hunt. Other than a couple pieces of evidence I’ve seen in the field that comport with others I’ve read about, and make me go, hmmmmmm, an open-minded person might want to know what caused this.
With a few exceptions: guess not.
I find the postion he (DWA) is taking on the matter of fakery almost over the top absurd. Sorry, but even if he doesn’t find fakery sophisticated enough to have a very negative impact on this subject, then he needs to get his head out of the sand and stop being such an ostrich! There are more phoney BF/Yeti clips than about any subject I can imagine on the internet, except for UFO’s. Some of them could be real but are so blurry nobody knows for sure, but even so a percentage of them are undoubtedly faked. Also, why would people go to such length to fake Yeti scalps and hands, if there was actual hard evidence of the same? Give me an example of any unknown subject that has been faked so much before proven real? Was the Komodo dragon faked before proven real? How about the Panda or Gorilla? The mere fact that aspects of BF/Yeti are so often the subject of fake films, tracks, hairs, body parts, and probably even audio recordings is troublesome to say the least and creates tremendous doubt regarding the validity of the existence of the subject – period. This is only common sense and dealing with the reality of things.
william: you still aren’t getting this.
Know what you can do with all sasquatch videos except one or two?
Throw them out.
You know why?
They don’t comport with what people report seeing. They look, in short, either like blobs, which people aren’t reporting, or people in suits…which, wait for it, people aren’t reporting.
But you’d have to be acquainted with the evidence to know that.
The “head in the sand” approach tends to characterize not seeing what you don’t want to.
And that’s what’s happening here.
People do frequently describe themselves when deploring what they don’t like in others, so I guess no surprise there.
Note, I should have used the word “unproven” subject instead of “unknown” subject in my post above. (should have proof read before posting).
My point – one more time:
Attention becoming a scientist – or any open-minded curious person – to the evidence for the sasquatch quickly dismisses the ‘evidence against’ as the significant factor the incurious perceive it to be.
Let’s move on. You could start arguing with Meldrum and Bindernagel. Why do I think I’m not going to see that?
Has Meldrum or Bindernagel ever commented publicly on their thoughts as to why there is so much phony BF/Yeti crap continually flooding the internet and media? My guess would be you have perhaps 10% of potentially creditable evidence to support BF/Yeti as a legitimate being and 90% phony crap. Also, I have read Meldrum’s Legend Meets Science and watched the DVD twice (I own both). I have at least 35 books on the subject including the one’s you have sited and the classic Apes Among Us by John Green. (Alley’s book on BF in Alaska is excellent as well). So I do not discount that there is a lot of viable eyewitness accounts but there is in fact, very little actual hard evidence otherwise apart from the PG Film which is the best of a lot of questionable stuff.
Meldrum and Bindernagel are like me. They spend hardly any time on the fake crap at all.
Why?
It’s fake. And irrelevant.