August 27, 2008
In Greg Bishop’s obituary, “Erik Beckjord Has Left The Building,” he writes:
“Jim Moseley, in his book Shockingly Close To The Truth, says that Beckjord was at work on a book called Sex and the Supernatural Sasquatch. I’d sure like to see the manuscript for that.”
As many of you may know, Beckjord had an unhealthy and insane stalking obsession with me (and other people, too). This “book” of his was actually in direct response to the publicity received regarding an early 2001 lecture I gave. That talk would eventually be discussed in Chapter 13 of my 2003 book, Bigfoot! The True Story of Apes in America, which was entitled, not coincidentally after my lectures on the topic, as “Sex and the Single Sasquatch.”
Moseley, in his June 25, 2001, “Saucer Smear” newsletter wrote: “Now [Beckjord] writes us that he is working on a book called Sex and the Supernatural Sasquatch.”
Soon after I gave the spring 2001 talk in Ohio, later in London, and then after my book came out in 2003, Beckjord would call me in the middle of the night, telling me he was going to expose me with his book.
“Bring it on,” I told him. Later, every time he attacked my Bigfoot book, I reminded him, a few more copies sold. That was usually enough to quiet him for a week. I just wanted to be left alone by the guy, but he never did.
Beckjord was promoting his book as something that would be “coming out any day now,” to answer my discussion of the subject. The promised release date shifted forward into the future for seven years. Erik, of course, “knew the real answers” to the Bigfoot question, and he “would share them with everyone,” he said. Beckjord would drop “shocking” hints of what was in the book by writing on his beckjord.com site, things like:
“Five kidnappees (see my upcoming book – “Sex and the Supernatural Sasquatch”) have reported that Bigfoot creatures live in clans or families.”
Erik Beckjord never wrote one book that was published, even privately. Frankly, other than some notes on a yellow paper pad or in his computer, I figured there was no way he ever had a manuscript that made any sense, if one even existed.
Of course, I discussed kidnappings, family groups, and sexual activity in my book, and it drove Beckjord (and some mainstream Bigfooters too) more crazy than usual, because I was so bold as to address such taboo topics.
I’d seen this from Beckjord before.
When I was a publicity spokesperson for Sony/Screen Gems’ 2002 movie The Mothman Prophecies, and doing radio shows all over the country, you may recall that Beckjord started issuing press releases saying he was the real Mothman, having done “out-of-body-projections” in 1966-1967, in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. Beckjord was delusional, and yet the media listened to him, apparently for entertainment value.
Beckjord reacted the same way frequently when certain people got publicity. In 2000, after psychologist Matthew Johnson got worldwide attention for his July sighting of a Bigfoot in Oregon, Beckjord had to issue a press release. The Associated Press picked it up and ran with “Bigfoot: Is It From Outer Space?” Beckjord said that Bigfoot was an android from another planet, and he knew because he’d seen a beer-can-sized metal cylinder attached to the Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot’s arm!
Beckjord was always starving for attention, and what he did was often psychiatrically tied to copying what others were doing. For me, sometimes it was downright spooky, and some of the current blog talk (I’m not speaking about Greg Bishop) that Beckjord was a fun guy that is missed really ignores how creepy Beckjord was to many of us.
Erik Beckjord, 69, died from prostate cancer on June 22, 2008, near his home in Lafayette, California.
His niche remains open.
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.
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