Bigfoot Body Brouhaha

In the midst of claims, now an admitted hoax, new videos, withdrawn video, and more, what are we to make of the BigfootTrackers’ latest promise their Bigfoot body will be revealed September 1st? [Ooops, one of their group has said October 1st, but another person and their website still says September 1st.] Is this just one rather large “gottacha” game?

Thanks to notes shared with me kept by Craig Woolheater while I was in Alberta, there have been some major developments regarding the claims of BigfootTrackers having a body.

The group of two posted a video on Saturday, July 19, 2008, showing a “Dr. Paul Van Buren” arriving at an airport to examine the alleged Bigfoot corpse. They also showed, on one of their YouTube videos, a form under a tarp and claimed it is the body of their Bigfoot.

The claim was made that they will unveil their evidence on September 1, 2008, er, October 1st.

Then, online message forums began discussing the video and the doctor’s credentials. Saturday night, Woolheater received an email from “the doctor” stating that he was working with a group in Georgia that may have a body.

Woolheater then tracked down his myspace page, which is still up showing him to already be a member of the TBRC.

After watching the video, seeing his myspace page, Woolheater felt that he was an actor, likely a friend or relative, playing the part.

On YouTube, Matt Crowley outed him as Whitton’s brother, Martin Whitton, a Texas photographer. On his website, he clearly does resemble Van Buren:

Martin Whitton also has a myspace page, also listing him as 30 years old and in Austin also.

BigfootTrackers have been releasing, uploading, and pulling their YouTube videos, then following up with others. But even thought they have pulled their initial video, and followed it up with another video, another individual archived it to place it on YouTube (see below).

This video shows a screen shot of the Cryptomundo website and my posting in the video. They also seem to misunderstand the intent of my posting, and thus try to take my book and Meldrum’s book to task as some form of anger projection on their part.

As any police officer knows, asking for the body (the “evidence”) is no more or less what should be requested in this situation, especially in the midst of admitted hoaxing, asking for tee-shirt sales, and promises of things to come.

Now, the Bigfoot Trackers have posted a new video outing “Dr. Paul Van Buren” as Whitton’s brother, themselves, and saying that it was something they did to throw off their “internet stalkers.”

It is in this video that one of the Bigfoot Trackers points out my and Meldrum’s books as beneath them, repeating the kinds of claims heard from Eric Beckjord and others. They state they will be writing their own book.

I found the juvenile level of criticism of these men the funniest when they mentioned that others were merely “growing beards” instead of “hunting Bigfoot.”

It appears the testosteroid behavior of the BigfootTrackers way of speaking, responding to a few callers, internet harassments, and more, in a way hardly befitting a law enforcement officer is revealing. Of course, this case will be one studied for years, in terms of the faked landmines along the way, the public reaction, and the attempts to sell future “hunting trips.”

I, more than most, hope they have a verifiable unknown hairy nonhuman great primate carcass, but the way this is being handled, unfortunately, does give a sense of the entire “Johor Bigfoot” fiasco. As someone pointed out, perhaps this is just some elaborate try at the Bushnell “hoax” part of the prize.

Loren Coleman 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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