Did you see the Minnesota iceman?

[the13bats]

This case was pretty cool, a hoax in the late 60s that was convoluted and embelished but im curious if anyone here happened to see the iceman at a fair in its day....

After its long hiding out the prop was sold a few years back to an oddities museum.

[Piney]

I saw it in one of those little open atrium malls when I was a little kid with my grandfather. I don't remember if it was Kansas or Oklahoma.

[Grim Reaper 6]

41 minutes ago, the13bats said:

This case was pretty cool, a hoax in the late 60s that was convoluted and embelished but im curious if anyone here happened to see the iceman at a fair in its day....

After its long hiding out the prop was sold a few years back to an oddities museum.

I never heard of it till now. I just looked it up. It appears to be like you said a Hoax.

Here is a great link with some good information about:   https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/the-strange-case-of-the-minnesota-iceman/

Thanks for posting this.

[MissJatti]

nope

[Gwynbleidd]

Wow, what a fascinating story this is.

2 hours ago, the13bats said:

After its long hiding out the prop was sold a few years back to an oddities museum.

I see it's now in Austin Texas.   I've never heard of this Batty, thanks for sharing it.   

[the13bats]

1 hour ago, Manwon Lender said:

I never heard of it till now. I just looked it up. It appears to be like you said a Hoax.

Here is a great link with some good information about:   https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/the-strange-case-of-the-minnesota-iceman/

Thanks for posting this.

I studied it a lot way before the net, it had multiple elements that pulled me in,

i am a big fan of old school side shows and then the mystery of what is it, is it real? if no, how what it made, etc,

like many things if you read 10 online articles each will have little differing details drives my ocd nuts,  then in the day i feel Sanderson and Heuvelmans jumped the gun a bit proclaiming it real yet examining it while frozen in ice,  never would such an examination float today for any scientific basis,

the two later parted ways with opinions on it and i believe it was a case they both later on knew it was a fake or the truth but didnt want to admit they were duped, it would be tough they were big names back then.

I used to consider that the original was real, sort of, i had seen the victims of artic expeditions who had been frozen for years and their faces looked strangely like the icemans, so i entertained perhaps at first it was a human body, but that didnt wash when i started to see better pics of the iceman, it was more ape ish looking.

i came to believe that during storage hansen wasnt likely to pay to keep the freezer running so it would thaw out then get refrozen, it would shift and move and hansen likely posed it, but hansen didnt need a prop this good, a stuffed fur suit would have worked, this was for that era museum quality work, if of course the ebay prop is really the one hansen used which is all we have to go by.

i very much enjoy that to this day there is the mystic is this the original or a copy, was there an orginal was it real?

great arguments are presented that this one sold on ebay around 2013 is the copy,

some say why would someone invest all the time and money to give it such detail and injuries only to freeze it in ice where details will be missed, well, i cant come up with a good answer, this was the late 60s the pics of the ebay prop are top shelf for that day, it looks a fair amount like the ape men in the 2001 space odyssey film, that was top of the arts then, not something a lowend carnie would have.

ive come to believe no way would hansen invested twice and have a copy made and it wouldnt have had that much detail and very unlikely the unknown alleged owner would have picked a low ender no body like hansen to display it, its odd too that no one has came forward and said they made it but johnny chambers comes to mind, could hansen afford him?

if it really was a gaff hansen wouldnt have cared about the attention of the local authorities,  and this was all during the huge attention on the pgf hansen also knew if this was any kind of unknown bigfoot type creature he would be set for life,

so what is the real full story? we will likely never know, hansen ain't talking, but i still have lots of questions, why would hansen make up the back stories that did change a lot but all had in common that it didnt belong to him, he was only the custodian, why would the owner care to have it displayed but in such a low ender way?

well, if you knew it was a real ____ then you just might denounce owning it and get shook up when authorities want to get involved, but would you care if it was a bigfoot or ape? no, i cant see at that time why he would care much, in fact if real its worth more than a sideshow attraction his reaction was almost like he knew he could get in hot water with it which to me suggests could it be human remains?

so my speculations change but i have a few very differing theories, one includes the prop sold on ebay was a modern copy, hence the great condition and detail, and the owners were certainly those who had the means to make it happen and knew the money it would make, who was the ebay seller? where did they find it? why was it gone for decades?

im over tired and babbled around i hope some food for thought made it out, i very much would love to hear opinions from others savvy on the case or who feel like reading an article or two,

for me its has some mystery, sure, it might be a simple prosaic explanation but its fun to think about

 

 

 

[the13bats]

47 minutes ago, Gwynbleidd said:

Wow, what a fascinating story this is.

I see it's now in Austin Texas.   I've never heard of this Batty, thanks for sharing it.   

right, and when first bought it was loaned to loren colemen who has a crypto museum, when he showed it, for a fee, the rule was no pictures, right, in this day and age the pics would have went virial ish and less would pay to see it, i like colemen as i liked pt barnum,

i cant recall or find who the seller was and where did they found it, the seller was savvy to its story.

latex if latex was used doesnt age well, 40 plus yo prop, the pics i have seen look very good to be that old, punched hairs, it wasnt cheap even back then.

[Grim Reaper 6]

9 minutes ago, the13bats said:

I studied it a lot way before the net, it had multiple elements that pulled me in,

i am a big fan of old school side shows and then the mystery of what is it, is it real? if no, how what it made, etc,

like many things if you read 10 online articles each will have little differing details drives my ocd nuts,  then in the day i feel Sanderson and Heuvelmans jumped the gun a bit proclaiming it real yet examining it while frozen in ice,  never would such an examination float today for any scientific basis,

the two later parted ways with opinions on it and i believe it was a case they both later on knew it was a fake or the truth but didnt want to admit they were duped, it would be tough they were big names back then.

I used to consider that the original was real, sort of, i had seen the victims of artic expeditions who had been frozen for years and their faces looked strangely like the icemans, so i entertained perhaps at first it was a human body, but that didnt wash when i started to see better pics of the iceman, it was more ape ish looking.

i came to believe that during storage hansen wasnt likely to pay to keep the freezer running so it would thaw out then get refrozen, it would shift and move and hansen likely posed it, but hansen didnt need a prop this good, a stuffed fur suit would have worked, this was for that era museum quality work, if of course the ebay prop is really the one hansen used which is all we have to go by.

i very much enjoy that to this day there is the mystic is this the original or a copy, was there an orginal was it real?

great arguments are presented that this one sold on ebay around 2013 is the copy,

some say why would someone invest all the time and money to give it such detail and injuries only to freeze it in ice where details will be missed, well, i cant come up with a good answer, this was the late 60s the pics of the ebay prop are top shelf for that day, it looks a fair amount like the ape men in the 2001 space odyssey film, that was top of the arts then, not something a lowend carnie would have.

ive come to believe no way would hansen invested twice and have a copy made and it wouldnt have had that much detail and very unlikely the unknown alleged owner would have picked a low ender no body like hansen to display it, its odd too that no one has came forward and said they made it but johnny chambers comes to mind, could hansen afford him?

if it really was a gaff hansen wouldnt have cared about the attention of the local authorities,  and this was all during the huge attention on the pgf hansen also knew if this was any kind of unknown bigfoot type creature he would be set for life,

so what is the real full story? we will likely never know, hansen ain't talking, but i still have lots of questions, why would hansen make up the back stories that did change a lot but all had in common that it didnt belong to him, he was only the custodian, why would the owner care to have it displayed but in such a low ender way?

well, if you knew it was a real ____ then you just might denounce owning it and get shook up when authorities want to get involved, but would you care if it was a bigfoot or ape? no, i cant see at that time why he would care much, in fact if real its worth more than a sideshow attraction his reaction was almost like he knew he could get in hot water with it which to me suggests could it be human remains?

so my speculations change but i have a few very differing theories, one includes the prop sold on ebay was a modern copy, hence the great condition and detail, and the owners were certainly those who had the means to make it happen and knew the money it would make, who was the ebay seller? where did they find it? why was it gone for decades?

im over tired and babbled around i hope some food for thought made it out, i very much would love to hear opinions from others savvy on the case or who feel like reading an article or two,

for me its has some mystery, sure, it might be a simple prosaic explanation but its fun to think about

 

 

 

It is really fun to think about, but if there were a real at one time why hide the fact and why hasn't it ever turn up. If it were real it would be a scientific breakthrough like nothing else in Anthropology. This is why I beleive there never was a real one in the first place. They would not have had any reason to hide it, and they could of made more money selling it than all nickels and dimes they made for displaying it. Unless the real one shows up and is proven to be something unique I will just have to think it was a hoax.

Sorry buddy, that's all I can come up with.

[the13bats]

I really should be crashed out, so if i babble,

when i called or suggested the original one was real, i wasnt meaning in a deep serious way, just in a what if that was a human, because if it was some unknown ape there would have been more, it is odd how squrrely hensen acted.

it would seem that stories about this case have morphed a bit since it was sold and put on see for a fee in texas.

some stuff i have read and i have no clue if it has any credibility or intregrity,

back in the day the story was a millionaire approached hansen to take it on tour and hansen told stories ranging from it was shot in viet nam ( rock ape was the later name ) to found in a block of floating ice, then clime in cats who say they saw it but they start on details or timelines that do not wash.

now a story pops up that hansen was deer hunting shot a deer tracked it to 3 creatures drinking its blood shot one then returned later and found it in snow frozen,

i read to the effect the currect owner tracked it to members or hansens family and hansen had been keeping the real one frozen all that time but he had been passed like 10 years, ( hansen had the fake made when the fbi took interest )

so not sure why ebay got involved if the currect owner tracked it down but we all know about stuff posted on the net, i sure got the feeling that it was being suggested the real one is being displayed in texas, but 10 years of thawing might have had an effect, real as in real fake gaff that is.

there were pics when it was on ebay, it was called a gaff hoax and stated the freezer was broken but who can blame the owner if hes trying to suggest its been a real body frozen 40 years that he now has, one only has to ignore the ebay listing and pictures,

https://bigfootevidence.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-minnesota-iceman-body-has-been-sold.html?m=1

https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4571

so the guy makes a transport deal with shipping wars and someway the creature is frozen in ice in a broken old freezer but thaws out on the trip,

well, all i can say is its all about showmanship

 

[stereologist]

I'll see if I can find the pod cast that covers this case.

 

https://www.skeptic.com/podcasts/monstertalk/10/12/01/transcript/

 

found it quicker than I thought I would

Quote

And in fact, Joe Nichol wrote a book entitled, “Secrets of the Sideshows.” And Nichol saw this exhibit, I believe, in Canada. And it had melted out somewhat. And Nichol provides a first person account of touching it.

It says, “It was lying in a freezer-like tank, but some of the ice had melted away, exposing part of the body. I reached in and felt it. Not surprisingly, it was rubbery.” Right.

 

Edited September 4, 2019 by stereologist

[Scholar4Truth]

I remember Unsolved Mysteries aired an episode on it. It was used in traveling sideshows as an exhibit. It was an interesting. It kinda looked like some sort of Neanderthal man. 

Edited September 4, 2019 by Scholar4Truth

[the13bats]

Let this go to show me when im hours past bedtime and way over tired, dont make rambling posts

im cursed with a detail oriented ocd brain, i like to solve things and the simple fact is as much as i preach blind faith doesnt prove anything im forced to subscribe to blind faith for now.

Joe Nickol, i like his work i do not always agree with him but do see his view, i have zero doubt if he says he saw the iceman he did, if he said it felt like rubber to him, it did, because it was, i do not know if he saw the alleged orginal IM or the alleged copy.

Here is at 2:30 the iceman unsolved mysteries

What stands out to me are the guys who claimed to see it being very sincere they thought it was a real creature, frozen in ice but giving off a smell, as we know a person can be very sincere and wrong, there is simply no way to examine anything frozen in ice correctly or reach any definitive conclusions,

the rotting smell could be on purpose, hansen could have tossed a bit of meat somewhere to spoil i know i would, but it could be a side effect, many times freezers smell, and i learned that when johnny chambers made the "Burbank bigfoot" a gaff he was hired to create they used real hair, hair can and does smell in conditions like this,

enter Sanderson and Heuvelmans both cryptozoologists both with agendas that the subject is better off to them being real,  they were giving a private showing and took pictures etc this is where some confusion started for me but im pleased its been cleared up, when it was featured on the cover of Argosy there was a blurry picture of its face in the ice and next to it an artists drawing, the drawing threw me off, it didnt match descriptions by people like Cullen, Sanderson and Heuvelmans, etc of heavy trauma to one or both eyes and exposed teeth, etc this was simply bad artistic license,

Then with all the attention in a vieil of mystery hansen retracts from displaying it when the authorities want to get a good gander, whether this was from concerns from lower authorities when hansen tried to transport it to canada and was refused or Sanderson stirring furor it was real or both is anyones guess, but after a hiatus hansen is back, new story, the subject i am now showing is a copy a model of the real orginal subject, 

this still bugs me a little, why go to that effort, if he knew it was a fake and authorities confirmed that it was it wouldnt hurt his sales as much as him advertising its a copy, perhaps he felt this would get things relaxed and no more transport woes or perhaps he liked to be low profile.

so now hansen says we have a manmade copy, but when Sanderson and Heuvelmans did their examinations of the alleged real orginal the pictures they took were compared and it was said that even some ice matched, in otherwords they wanted to suggest not only was this still the original but it wasnt even refrozen, yet others claimed to have seen both versions said the copy was different and they assumed hansen just putzed with the original fake and refroze it, so discrepancies there.

https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4571

in my way of thinking Sanderson and Heuvelmans claims the copy was the original kind of blows a hole in the idea it was ever a real creature, because hansen still would be transporting a dead whatever and at any moment it could be confiscated and examined by authorities,

interest wanes and after touring with it hansen retires,

then in 2013 it pops up for sale, it gets a bit murky but research cleared that, the texas buyer didnt buy it from hansens family but rather from an unnamed man who did and as per the ebay listing it was a gaff  a fake, now if some want to say its the hensen copy thats fine, the owner calls it the original and likely thats true as they are one and the same, or the possibility this is a modern copy of the old gaff.

it was loaned to colemen and when he displayed it it wasnt frozen but clearly a gaff, when the owner took it back to texas he did it up right and froze it, its still the gaff but who can blame him for keeping the mystery alive its real?

want another coffin nail? 

Rick West a big deal in sideshows was in an unrelated interview and said to the effect his bigfoot sideshow attraction was made by johnny chambers, this isnt in dispute chambers agreed he made it pix are online of its construction , west also gave kudos that hansens was better, actually frozen in ice and it fooled many people, he went on to say he knew hansen and could have bought the gaff right before hansen died.

so my blind faith is that hansen had one gaff and a lot of various back bs stories, my favorite is a girl killed it for attacking her in the woods, who knows why he had a gaff made with trauma

lets face it if there was a real one a dead unknown ape, it would be basically priceless in a way, worth far more than a copy it sure wouldnt be missing.

I do hope the one now in rexas is the old orginal gaff seen by 1000s, it has a cool oldschool sideshow history factor.

 

 

Edited September 4, 2019 by the13bats

[oldrover]

On 9/4/2019 at 7:55 AM, Piney said:

I saw it in one of those little open atrium malls when I was a little kid with my grandfather. I don't remember if it was Kansas or Oklahoma.

Piney, did you used to be on the old Cryptozoology.com site?

[oldrover]

I have the photos from Ebay when this was for sale a few years back, I doubt I'll be able to post them anytime soon though as my internet is on its knees.

Edited October 2, 2019 by oldrover

[Piney]

2 hours ago, oldrover said:

Piney, did you used to be on the old Cryptozoology.com site?

Yup! My handle was Piney there too. 

[oldrover]

21 minutes ago, Piney said:

Yup! My handle was Piney there too. 

I remember speaking to you about this years ago on there. 

[Piney]

2 minutes ago, oldrover said:

I remember speaking to you about this years ago on there. 

I think I started a thread there because there was no pics online at the time and I was looking for one.  

[Piney]

3 hours ago, oldrover said:

I have the photos from Ebay when this was for sale a few years back, I doubt I'll be able to post them anytime soon though as my internet is on its knees.

I think Bats has those photos too. Somebody here does. 

[Carnoferox]

What’s crazy is that Heuvelmans managed to get a paper published about it in the journal of the IRSNB. Of course that wouldn’t fly today, but at the height of the cryptozoology craze even recognized scientific institutions were falling for it.

http://biblio.naturalsciences.be/rbins-publications/bulletin-of-the-royal-belgian-institute-of-natural-sciences/bulletin-of-the-royal-belgian-institute-of-natural-sciences-1949-1970/45-1969/irscnb_p4087_rbins21181_45_bulletin-4.pdf

[Piney]

28 minutes ago, Carnoferox said:

What’s crazy is that Heuvelmans managed to get a paper published about it in the journal of the IRSNB. Of course that wouldn’t fly today, but at the height of the cryptozoology craze even recognized scientific institutions were falling for it.

My father, stepfather and all their Nam vet buddies insisted it was shot in the jungle and sent to Bragg, Dix or Hunter in a body bag. Grandpop argued with them and insisted it was shot in the North Woods.

It was a big topic in our house after we saw it. We all believed it was real. 

[Carnoferox]

1 hour ago, Piney said:

My father, stepfather and all their Nam vet buddies insisted it was shot in the jungle and sent to Bragg, Dix or Hunter in a body bag. Grandpop argued with them and insisted it was shot in the North Woods.

It was a big topic in our house after we saw it. We all believed it was real. 

There were a few other backstories that were circulating, including that it was found in a deep freeze facility in Hong Kong and that it was found in a floating ice block by fisherman IIRC.

[the13bats]

1 hour ago, Piney said:

My father, stepfather and all their Nam vet buddies insisted it was shot in the jungle and sent to Bragg, Dix or Hunter in a body bag. Grandpop argued with them and insisted it was shot in the North Woods.

It was a big topic in our house after we saw it. We all believed it was real. 

was that just their opinions or did they have any collaborating evidence?

I love this story it goes into eeal urban legend,

its just full of changing stories and gapping holes but since most of the players are dead the holes will likely never be filled,

Hansen had too many story versions, which is what a showman does, but a lot of people at the time bought the Nam "rock ape" versions, but besides stories nothing proves the rock ape isnt myth.

another version is a girl is molested in Minnesota woods by the creature gets her gun shoots it in the eye, kills it and some way it gets into handens hands,

hansens last version is great, hunting with buddies he goes off alone shoots a deer tracks it and 3 creatures are drinking its blood eating it wjem one goes to attack him he shoots kills it buries it doesnt tell his buddies goes back weeks later gets it, ( sounds a bit like justin smeja story ) hensen keeps it years in a freezer for fear he murdered a human, but decided to spotlight it in a side show, it gets even hazier but he first tours the real one then has the body made,

naiper of the Smithsonian claimed they tracked down the prop maker in cali, but all we have is napiers story they did,

i dont want to just retype my post #12,

after this thread went stagnant i did some more hunting, the ebay prop, does have some pictures online,  which i saved back when it was on ebay , i talked to a fellow who saw it at colemans no ice then in ice at bestis,

he said it looked very good, knowing latex as i do it wouldnt still look good, i have my speculation that its a modern made copy,

any way, i dont believe hensen ever had a real body but the holes and questions that say it could have been make this a super cool tale for me.

 

 

 

[Piney]

12 minutes ago, the13bats said:

was that just their opinions or did they have any collaborating evidence?

Apparently is was the running rumour among Jungle Fighters all over the country after it became national. I heard the same story later in Tennessee and Georgia in my days of running with Mary Green. 

[Carnoferox]

1 hour ago, the13bats said:

naiper of the Smithsonian claimed they tracked down the prop maker in cali, but all we have is napiers story they did,

It's not even certain it was Napier who contacted the anonymous prop maker. The June '69 issue of the Smithsonian Torch where the hoax notice was published just says that the Smithsonian was contacted.

[the13bats]

1 hour ago, Piney said:

Apparently is was the running rumour among Jungle Fighters all over the country after it became national. I heard the same story later in Tennessee and Georgia in my days of running with Mary Green. 

while there is more to support bigfoot than rock apes it would be so darn cool if we tossed logic in the dumpster and considered what if hansens creature was a rock ape,

if we believe Heuvelmans and sanderson, examination ( through ice ) report (  that eras meldrum and krantz the trauma on the creature is odd, an eye blown out, badly broken arm,  why would hansen pay extra for the props injuries, to fit his back story?

Rick west had his own bigfoot sideshow prop it was cast from a mold of actor Richard "jaws" Kiel, but it didnt look as good as hansens prop, which even makes patty look more fake.

what if hansens had a real creature, ape or human and hansen knew it, he would know that his meal ticket could be confiscated at any moment by authorities and if its concluded to be homo a human, then was it murdered?, he would have to have good not sideshowman answers,

but then if we listen to naiper the creature in the ice was an evolutionary misfit, it's hands, feet, etc didnt fit or correspond, it wasnt suited for land or tree living.

if one reads naipers finale report he seems fueled by agenda and sour grapes, ( dosent mean he's wrong ) he never saw it first hand,  he got a case of ass over hansens attitude towards him and ran with it.

naipers claims of tracking down who made the prop are just a story, any prop maker would have taken production photos for their portfolio, we should have a pic or 2 we dont, hansen had named the prop maker, naiper named them after the fact.

Heuvelmans and sanderson, there is zero scientific about making assumptions about an object in ice that is down in a glass covered ice box,  nope, that should not have floated then and wouldnt float today,