Myakka, Masks, and Apemania

It all began with a December 22, 2000, letter signed “God Bless. I prefer to remain anonymous,” mailed to the Sarasota (Florida) Sheriff’s Department. Two photographs were enclosed.

Did you ever think you would hear that the motion picture Planet of the Apes (the 1968 version) would be used by skeptics of the photos to explain them? Well, stay tuned.

In recent years, new discussions, a new moving gif (up top, above) and a new debate took place about whether or not these photos were of an unknown hominoid, hoaxes, too good to be hoaxes, a masked man, or an escaped known ape. The debate originally occurred at the Bigfoot Forums, but has died off; besides, here are all the photos borrowed from there, with the permission of Bill Appleton, in one place, for your perusal.

Cryptomundo was recently contacted in June 2008 to inform us that all the photos of the masks and makeup that were used first apparently at Bigfoot Forums and then borrowed by us, unfortunately, did not have tied to them their ultimate proper origin credits from Apemania.com, a division of Make-up & Monsters Studios in Chatsworth, California. At the time, Morgoth (Bill Appleton) gave us permission to reproduce here what he had posted, and wrote, on March 21, 2006:

Therefore, this updated posting is being brought forward in time to acknowledge and thank Apemania.com for these images, which they have now granted us full permission to use here.

Back to whatever is shown within the Myakka images: Critiques about there being no movement in the piece of vegetation on the mouth, the creature itself not moving, the mouth not closing, the body being too static and/or more have all fallen by the wayside.

But several questions seem to remain. Why the eyeshine? Is this a noctural creature? If a hoax, how was it pulled off? Are there Apemania.com masks that match? Was John Chambers involved? What? Wait a minute. Let’s get back to that last one later. John Chambers?

Logically, of course, the elderly woman taking the photo with an old-style instamatic was able to get a quick flash and scared this cryptid or whatever. If not, why the movement, the obvious fright expressions? Why is she hiding her identity? Why not? Would you come forward? The letter and photos were sent without fanfare to the sheriff’s department. Only by chance did they come to my attention. If a hoax, it was not handled very well to get immediate media attention.

Some critics have said that the object photographed in Florida was really a reddish Bigfoot Ripley’s Believe It or Not model in Wisconsin. But we now know that photo was flipped to “look” like the Myakka photo by the skeptics and in color, surrounding, and appearance, the Ripley’s object is not like the Myakka cryptid. It is hairy and bent over, but then lots of hirsute, sloping “Bigfoot” photos exist. I would say the “classic” posture for any Bigfoot-like statue created (such as the one in Wisconsin) is going to poorly imitate the Patterson-Gimlin footage. Besides, several items between the two don’t match, but here it is for your examination:

Others have said the Myakka thing is a person in a dark straight-legged costume from an Oriental source, but here too, definite reference points don’t align. Show me the suit? Overall appearance do not mean they definitely match.

Now, as noted by Bill Appleton, there is a new round of analyses being made to “match” the Myakka face to masks allegedly created by John Chambers. Yes, John Chambers. Remember him? Bobbie Short did a great job demonstrating Chambers was merely a red herring in attempts to overthrow the P-G footage. The masks, of course, were made for the Planet of the Apes film. You can look yourself. But in mild rebuttal, aren’t we just seeing that Chambers was modeling the masks’ faces on the contours and structure of orang and chimp faces, which naturally match the seemingly “ape-like” (mostly orangutan-like) face here in these Myakka photos?

I am not saying the Myakka photos show a Skunk Ape, a hoax, homemade mask, a Chambers creation, an Apemania.com mask, or anything known. All I am saying is that it is an unknown, a hominoid cryptid, and I have not seen anything skeptically presented to undermine the “unidentifed” nature that is shown in these photos with anything known that definitely mirror all that is seen here.

John Chambers signs an autograph for a costumed Planet of the Apes character. Courtesy of Apemania.com.

Academy Awarding winning make-up artist John Chambers died of diabetes at the age of 78, on August 25, 2001, at the Motion Picture and Television Fund retirement home in Woodland Hills, California. But his work on the movie Planet of the Apes remarkably lives on in the debunking attempts to explain everything from the Patterson-Gimlin footage to the Myakka photographs.

All photographs of masks above and of John Chambers copyrighted by Apemania.com.

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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