More Thoughts on Randy Lee Tenley
Posted by: Loren Coleman on September 10th, 2012
As the Director of the International Cryptozoology Museum, I thought folks might be interested in a formal position the museum is now taking for at least the next year. We will not be involved in next year’s summer Halloween celebrations at our local minor league baseball park, and shall be rejecting involvement in any of this year’s possible Halloween Bigfoot costume contests in the wake of the Randy Lee Tenley event.
As you all recall, Mr. Tenley decided to wear a Ghillie suit in August and go out on Highway 93, to create a Bigfoot hoax. He was killed when hit by two cars.
For the next year, the museum will not be associated with Bigfoot costume contests, giveaways, and other events that might end in a hoax. A fake YouTube film. Or a death.
It is just too soon.
More discussions need to occur about the responsibility of reality television shows in these events.
Thomas Byers took a tape of “Bigfoot” along Golden Valley Church Road in Rutherford County, NC on March 22, 2011.
It is obvious that such programming has promoted people crossing highways in Bigfoot costumes, and having someone else electronically record their antics for posting on YouTube, with the hope of the fake footage being used by major cable television production companies.
What are your thoughts as Halloween approaches?
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.
The NHTSA reports that in 2010 the number of pedestrian deaths in the United States rose to 4,280 and 70,000 people injured. I’m not sure, but I think the Tenley fatality is the only pedestrian fatality involving a Bigfoot impersonation on record in the United States.
Although pedestrian injuries and unfortunately fatalities show a slight increase during the Halloween period, I don’t think that Trick or Treating can be compared to very questionable behavior of Mr. Tenley. The point being that very few people if any will actually step into the path of an unwitting (not forewarned as in a hoax collaboration) on-coming vehicle, while dressed in a Bigfoot suit…homemade or ghillie. Notice that the video that accompainies your article is not taken from an moving vehicle. While I understand completely your stance on costume contests, it begs the age old question put in different terms…Bigfoot costumes don’t kill people, people might get killed doing stupid things while wearing one.
Cryptokellie writes, “Notice that the video that accompainies your article is not taken from an moving vehicle.”
Not sure how this relates to an official position of caution for a year. No one said that Bigfoot costumed hoaxers were filmed from vehicles or not. Although it does occur, from dash cams, of course, most pranks like this are recorded by a friend in a fixed position.
Furthermore, the position being taken has nothing to say about placing blame on anyone. It has everything to do with respecting and examining the situation of the Tenley event without haste.
squatchman- I dislike hoaxers as much as the next person but no one deserves to die over this! Try respecting the poor man`s child and family that are left after this as well as the two young kids that ran him over. Respect to them all in their grieving.
Please don’t misunderstand my comment as I fully comprehend and agree with the position being taken. As I mentioned in a response on the first Tenley article, the possibility of more people doing this and being injured is very, very real. The “Copycat” phenomenum occurs in every pop-culture event – which Bigfoot has now become. Frankly, I didn’t even consider the possible traffic accident (can we really say accident?) scenario, as I felt that the real danger in Bigfoot hoaxery would be a gunshot injury or fatality. I still do. Unfortunately, there are going to be persons who will try hoaxes merely because they feel that they can do it better.
It is a shame because I really think that the construction of an accurate Bigfoot costume, contest or otherwise, could broaden the interest and education on the subject and perhaps help to elevate Bigfoot and other cryptid studies from the fringe areas they now occupy. Lets hope that the unfornate poor judgement of Mr. Tenley is an isolated case although, I have my doubts…consider that somehow, every year, many people are struck and injured/killed by on-coming trains while inexplicably positioned on the railroad tracks.
Don’t think you people are getting it. It is a nonprofit corporate decision based on liability reasoning and considerations in a litigious society.
All I can say is this:
Anyone who thinks Bigfoot costumes are a significant cause for skepticism on this topic simply hasn’t reviewed the evidence.
OK, I can say one other thing: I simply cannot get why anyone would want to do this.
But maybe that just means that it really does take all kinds to make a world.
DWA: if you do not understand why someone would do this, you have not come to grips with what I call “THE BUBBA FACTOR”.
Maybe I’m just cold and callous this morning, but I’m mostly glad that no one else was injured in this dangerously irresponsible stunt. Forget the fact that this had to do with Bigfoot; this has NOTHING to do with cryptozoology. No, the important point here is that PRACTICAL JOKES SHOULD NOT INVOLVE MOVING AUTOMOBILES. Period. Trying to scare the crap out of a driver amounts to either TRYING to make them have a wreck or to being too **** stupid to realize the likely consequences of your actions.