Pay The Bigfooters!

During my presentation on “cryptoconsulting” at the Texas Bigfoot Conference, I called on researchers, authors, and Bigfooters to stand together in looking at who is making money from the popular cultural subject of Sasquatch and other cryptids ~ and demanding your fair share.

While I agree that interviews that are breaking news, of eyewitnesses, should be not constructed with paid footage, we have to start examining how reality television programs and other creations are being made and used by others to make money.

Who makes money off Bigfoot? It sure wasn’t Bob Gimlin and Roger Patterson, despite rumors and half-baked theories saying otherwise.

Think about it. It’s been the beef jerky sellers, car companies, toy makers, multinational news organizations, reality television programs, and the media in general, most often with silliness created by hoaxers or fringe interviews, often tinged with ridicule, who are making big bucks. Forums, email back-biting, and other outlets act as if the problem exists with a marginal hundred dollars here or an appearance there that is suppose to have made alleged money for someone. While not true, it causes a distraction away from the real people making money from Bigfoot. A few outfitters, authors, researcher organizations, and consultants make peanuts compared to what the majority of non-Bigfoot people make off of us…yes, you and me. We are in this together, after all.

I issued a challenge to Bigfooters and Sasquatch researchers during my talk to quit guilt-tripping each other, fighting over the scraps thrown in our direction, quit eating our own, and look to standing shoulder to shoulder in demanding a business-like relationship with the media, reality television and others ~ with signed contracts, compensation, credit ~ for payment for our work. No one is funding this research but money is being made by the source corporations that keep using our raw materials.

Whereas producers, executive producers and production costs can easily be in the budget for almost two-thirds of the cost of the average $275,000 per hour total for a cryptozoology documentary, most “experts” and “research organizations” who make up the bulk of the footage get nothing and a thank you or something like $500 to $1000 in fees. And don’t forget, look at who is making money from the ads in between those “search parties” during these programs looking for hairy hominoids. Do you think any of these people care as much about Sasquatch as we do, or are they only interested in the popular appeal of the icon of the mystery of Bigfoot in the woods?

The unfortunate reality is that people want to appear on television so much, often for attention-seeking and ego-related reasons, the media and reality production companies take advantage of this, often going with free appearances by individuals who end up not representing Sasquatch research with the same respect you and I have for the topic.

As part of my presentation, I showed the following video that has things that need to be heard from a different topic area about this problem in our field. (Some dramatic language is used to make the points raised by Harlan Ellison in Dreams with Sharp Teeth, which I purchased, by the way, to use in my presentation.)

If we all were paid as much for what Bigfoot was worth in our society, we won’t have to rely on each other to assist with supporting organizations and collections like the ICM. But it is the ten and twenty dollar donations, here and there, from each other that keeps us in the game.

Join the past patrons in making a difference and supporting the International Cryptozoology Museum as it opens in downtown Portland, Maine.

Please click on the button below (not the one up top) to take you to PayPal to send in your museum donation.

If you wish to send in your donation via the mails, by way of an international money order or, for the USA, via a check (made out to “International Cryptozoology Museum”) or money order, please use this snail mail address:

Loren Coleman, Director
International Cryptozoology Museum
PO Box 360
Portland, ME 04112

Thank you, and come visit the museum at 661 Congress Street, Portland, Maine 04101, beginning November 1, 2009!!

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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