Hangin’ With Hank
Posted by: Craig Woolheater on February 17th, 2014
For those whose reading and comprehension levels are aren’t able to ascertain what I’m saying in the entire article, I’ll boil it down for you:
I’m not saying it’s real, I’m saying it’s almost assuredly fake. Even if the possibility of it being real is 0.000000000000000001, that’s still a possibility, but not a probability.
Saturday, I went to Paris, TX to see Hank and Rick Dyer who was set up in the parking lot of the local civic center during a gun and knife show.
I went to see it myself with my own two eyes.
As it is being exhibited currently as a sideshow attraction, in my opinion it’s no different than viewing the Minnesota Iceman when Frank Hansen was displaying it on the road, or the myriad of other sideshow attractions you might see at your local state fair.
I paid my $10 admission fee and went inside to see Hank.
Rick spent quite a bit of time telling the story of how he came to shoot Hank. Dyer comes across as a likeable fellow, friendly and charming.
He even showed a purported ultrasound scan of the head that looks compelling if it is indeed authentic.
I’m not a medical professional, so I’m unable to verify.
He plucked a clump of hair off of Hank to burn after he donned a pair of latex gloves. He made me put one on, then handed me the clump of hair as he proceeded to burn it. It didn’t smell or ball up as plastic would, but that doesn’t prove that’s it’s Bigfoot hair.
I asked to keep the sample, but Rick wasn’t gonna let that happen. He removed my glove by turning it inside out.
Here’s a shocker for you, Hank is not the alleged Bigfoot that attacked Morgan Matthews.
Rick says that this is the Bigfoot that attacked Matthews. It is alleged to be a still from the film Shooting Bigfoot and Rick claims he also shot and killed this one on September 6, 2012, as well as Hank.
Rick also claims that the subject in the tent camper video was a third Sasquatch, saying that that is why all three look different.
While at the exhibit on Saturday, I was interviewed by the Paris News and Texas Monthly.
I had friends that wanted to go see Hank in Paris on Sunday, but Rick let me know on Saturday night that they had left Paris and was now in the Dallas area.
He had plans to set up at a local Gander Mountain for display on Sunday.
However, there was another change of plans brewing.
In Paris Saturday, a woman came to see Hank and she told Rick that she was being harassed by at least one Bigfoot on her property.
Rick canceled the Sunday exhibit, and instead went to this woman’s property to assist her with her problem.
Dyer had mentioned the woman and her story on Saturday and that he wanted to help her out.
I asked him if he was doing “this” for science, or if he was now a Sasquatch exterminator.
He chuckled and said he didn’t care about science.
When I told Rick that I had friends that wanted to see Hank, he invited myself and my friends out to this woman’s rural property for a private “visitation”.
I met several of my friends on the way and we had lunch. One of these friends was Lyle Blackburn, who like me, wanted to see it for himself.
We met other friends closer to the location.
Unexpectedly, Rick let all of us, 10 in total, in to see Hank, as well as giving everyone in the party one of the ballcaps he was selling for $20 the day before.
He answered all questions and everybody had a great time.
About what appears to be teeth in the photos, they are not the teeth. The skeleton is alleged to be intact and will be added to the exhibit soon, supposedly.
The reason that Rick gives for Hank’s weird look, is that while taxidermied, no form was used for support. Rick says that he didn’t want anything fake used, so the shell is collapsing in on itself. He says that Hank’s volume was more than twice as thick as it appears now.
I don’t know if anyone left with a different opinion of Hank being real or not, but I would say that all of them left with a different opinion of Dyer as a person than what their pre-conceived notion of Dyer as a person was.
Speaking with Dyer today, he was on the way to San Antonio, but he had left two members of his crew behind with the woman.
My opinion of Hank, an informed opinion because I went and saw for myself, as opposed to basing it on hearsay, hasn’t really changed.
I think that it’s possible that Hank is a real live dead Bigfoot, I just don’t find it probable.
As far as those that are already criticizing me and this post, in the words of Rene Dahinden:
“If you don’t know the facts, your opinion is of no value .”
I have seen a Bigfoot and it didn’t look like Hank, but neither did Patty.
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.
For what it’s worth, I saw the Minnesota Iceman at a mall in Gadsden, Alabama in 1974 when I was 10 years old. Don’t know if it was the supposed “real” one or the fake one. I think there is considerable doubt now that that ever was a “real” one but I don’t know.
Interesting. Thanks for sharing.
“He chuckled and said he didn’t care about science.”
If he has a real bigfoot (which I sincerely doubt), he is unethical regardless of how charming he is. Psychopaths can be charming too.
Thanks. Beats me why Rick Dyer did not wait for these alleged scientific results. If those came out pre-tour, they would be thronging his bus ….
I think it’s awesome that you went to see it. 🙂 Do you think he will ever let it be examined by anyone who could do the kind of tests that would tell for sure if it’s real or fake?
There is someone else who has an answer about this, and that would be the alleged taxidermist. How would Dyer know if he can trust the him (if he exists at all)?
Lets talk the reality of this matter. If Dyer had an authentic Bigfoot corpse, he would not have had it prepared by a local taxidermist and taken it on a selective, shopping mall parking lot, side show tour in a Winnebago. He would have had a team of scientists autopsy the carcass and organs and all of it would have been saved and cataloged for research/display and then become big-time famous and an international house-hold name. He doesn’t, he didn’t, he won’t. End of story. The aforementioned “taxidermist” is most likely constructing a Bigfoot skeleton out of cow and horse bones with a modified gorilla skull purchased on-line as we speak.
Craig, he’s a con man. It’s part of his scam to be likable. It’s also a trait of sociopaths, by the way.
Well, he’s charging $10 to show people a “real” Bigfoot. If it is not a real Bigfoot, that’s fraud. Someone should get the Texas Attorney General or better a local D.A. who wants to make a name for themselves involved.
Craig, thanks for the first-hand report.
You portray Dyer as merely human and not the monster we (myself included) have inflated him to be. Good on you for that.
Perhaps he is just a guy who doesn’t fit in, happy to live out his days on the road as a huckster, collecting more and more corpses has his repertoire ages. $30 a pop (a ticket and a hat) pays for gas in the winnie and cheap beer pretty dang fast, and you can be pretty coy at tax time to boot (dang I gotta shoot me a bigfoot or three).
Having observed the gaff in person, can you tell us if the hands and feet were on display? It appears from your one photo that the hands are hidden.
Hands and feet are very difficult to fabricate convincingly, due to their complex structure and amount of fine detail.
While the human animal is first drawn to the eyes, the brain is actually very forgiving in accepting a poorly constructed face, however the brain is very strict about noticing when the hands are wrong.
Unlike the face, we lack a sympathetic connection to hands in emotional terms, but we are acutely aware of their form as they are our main tools and constantly in eyesight.
Psychologically we accept a fake face because we are social creatures, and equate the face as an identity, i.e. another person. Hands, we symbolically see as just tools or body parts and psychologically raise the red flag when they are not correctly formed. Hands to not symbolically equate to an identity or another person to us and the brain evaluates them more critically.
I’m guessing the hands and feet were conveniently covered or cut away from the pelt.
My last observation would be if Rick gets 100 suckers a day, Hank is going to be a buck naked throw rug in about a month if Dyer keeps singeing hair as proof bona fide for every yokel with a sawbuck to surrender. Good thing he’s got a sack of shaved hair from the other two he bagged.
So in the spirit of fairness, when are you going to get to Austin to report on the Minnesota Ice Man and score a Tshirt?
Inquiring minds want to know ; )
Plenty of good music and food in Austin- win win scenario… in the interest of science, of course.
Is anyone asking the real $64,000 question? Which is:
How long does the average person drag a corpse around, particularly when the notoriety, if not the money (and oh count on the money if this method is the alternative) scream LET EVERYONE KNOW ASAP?
This scam smells worse than that bigfoot would by now.
Another indicator of hoax; he’s continually moving. Parking lot to parking lot, always on the run. From who, I wonder?