Ron Pine: C'mon. Sanderson has been trashed for everything from his eyesight to writing about UFOs. Never mind he did have experience with animals. Hansen changed his story more times than some people change their underwear. He did not turn the whatever-it-was over to the Smithsonian. He hid it or the mysterious owner took it away in a refrigerated van, thwarting all attempts to acquire it.

I'm not doubting the letter. I'm just pointing out that Hansen may have told the truth about something sometime but I don't know when or where. I think it's highly likely he lied about the dog tissue to get the FBI/Smithsonian/anyone to back off.

"If his iceman were real, why would he lie that it wasnt?"
Maybe he was afraid it would be confiscated? Or that he was in some kind of trouble, if the FBI had been called in. Cold feet perhaps.

There were laws about transporting corpses across state lines and smuggling is, of course, against International law.

Lu Ann Lewellen: Whether people have or have not criticized Sanderson for his eyesight or writing about UFOs is irrelevant to this discussion. I for one, have never criticized him for either. Yes, Sanderson did have experience with animals. I am well aware of this. I started reading his books about his experiences with animals, about 75 years ago, and I think that I've read just about everything he wrote about both real and imaginary animals after that. I also watched

 him on television. I read the only scientific paper that I know of that he ever wrote in his lifetime. I have studied various of the actual specimens that he collected in his youth. These were in the Natural History Museum (London) and the Field Museum (Chicago). I have had field experience with the same animals that he did in all of the parts of the world where he was in the field.

 

Yes, he'd had experienve with animals, but he made up stupid and ridiculous lies about his experiences with them, such as the quite ordinary mute lizard that he said made a sound as loud as (literally) a strong foghorn, a threatening bat the size of an eagle that was so feared by the local tribal people that all Sanderson had to do was mention the critter and those people would drop their belongings and flee in terror, and his supposed witnessing of a virtual parade of mice gamboling about and playing with each other, including, as I recall, having boxing matches.

 

I never said that Hansen turned the specimen over to the Smithsonian and I'm absolutely sure that he did not, and no one has ever claimed that he did. The Smithsonian never made any attempts to acquire it either and I don't know of anyone who ever said that they did. You make a point of arguing that Hansen was a really bigtime liar when he is quoted as saying that the Iceman was a fake but take his words for gospel when he says anything to the effect that it was for real and that there was a mysterious owner who hauled it off in a van and thereafter a substitute model was exhibited in its place. The idea that the Smithsonian and the FBI would buy that story and say "OK, we believe you, so we'll investigate no further" is totally ridiculous. Do you think that the FBI just takes the word of people that they're investigating if those people say that they're innocent of the crime they're being investigated for?

Ron, do you have letters from John Napier that we can see w/ re to the Iceman?

Daniel Perez: The owner of the documents (all written by Napier, but not all strictly letters in the literal sense) is not comfortable with my just posting the entire documents directly online in their entirety. This is apparently the result of unhappy experiences that he has had in the past when people have received the documents from him and then shared them all over the place without

his permission. The owner of the documents has already been identified here and I request that no one bug him for those documents. I am trusted and I have them in their entirety. They will probably be released for general usage in the not too distant future after the owner is through with them.

 

In the meantime, I am authorized to share here short verbatim quotations from them and paraphrases. I will start doing that after regular back-and-forths in this thread, that I will have to take part in, have pretty much ceased. However, I am currently busy getting ready for a trip and may be incognito during that trip, unless I have some downtime in motels on the way to and from my destinations.

Travis J Hill Cartoonist: As to why would Hansen lie by saying that the Iceman was a fake if, in fact, it was real, the sequence of events is important hare. The FBI had already conducted its investigation and had determined that the Iceman was bogus. Sanderson knew this or very soon would and Hansen knew that Sanderson knew this or soon would, and the FBI certainly knew what it had done, so what would be the point of Hansen continuing to lie to any of the investigating group, Sanderson, Napier, Ripley, Hoover and his FBI? He knew that the game was up. None of the investigators, especially the FBI, would have ever just taken Hansen's word that he had not been engaged in illegally smuggling the dead body of a human-like being into the US, etc., or having taken part in or been knowledgeable concerning what appeared to have been a homicide of sorts if the thing was for real.

Lu Ann Lewellen: No, Hansen would not have lied to get the FBI to back off. The FBI had already completed its investigation and the jig was up. See my comment directed to Travis just above.

This is all conjecture. What FBI investigation? Did they even examine

I think we might take a step back for a moment and ask a couple of fundamental questions. Firstly, what relevance does this have to "Bigfoot" when the subject item in the freezer case does not at all

the exhibit? Sanderson was trying to find a way to seize the thing, both were preparing to publish and Hansen was getting wind of it. If he had broken laws as he seemed to think he had of course he would be nervous. You really need to read Heuvelmans' book. He has the timeline.

match the reported image of Bigfoot in the vast majority of reports?

 

Secondly, if the falsity of this object was indeed known, what separates these two supposed scientists and authors from the label of Outright Conman for publishing on it anyway and wasting the time and energy (and money) of countless people?

Krantz thought if the story about the thing being shot in the Northwoods was true it would have been a juvenile sasquatch. Weak link, I know, but will it work?

The ice melted around Bozo decades ago. Nothing to see.

Lu Ann Lewellen: How is what I'm saying conjecture? The FBI investigation was being carried out at the time that I was reading the correspondence, including that from and to Hoover, head of the FBI. The same lettter from Sanderson to Napier, in which he reported the dog tissue, stated that the FBI investigation had determined that the Iceman was bogus. Hansen had come clean about the dog tissue and the Icemen in general because the FBI had established that the Iceman was a hoax.

I don't know if the FBI ever examined the Iceman or not. They wouldn't have had to, and Hansen could have claimed that whatever they examined was just the "model," but the photos taken by Sanderson and Heuvelmans could have shown details establishing that it was the same thing that they saw. As I've already stated above, the FBI could have established the bogosity of the Iceman, by demanding and getting records from Hansen--they may have gone through all of his files and found the dated correspondence between Hansen and the Iceman's manufacturers, the records of Hansen's having paid for it out of his own pocket and no financial record of his ever having being reimbursed by any mysterious (nonexistent) California actual "owner." As I recall, back then, one of the qualifications for being hired as an FBI agent was being a trained accountant. I'll admit that I don't know exactly how the FBI determined that the Iceman was a fake, but I'll bet that it went something like the way I just surmised that it did. Sanderson's letter said that the FBI had determined that the Iceman was a fake and Hansen himself is reported to have complained about the FBI getting after him.

 

Of course, you believe Hansen only when what he's reported to have said agrees with the conclusions that you've come to. If they are contrary to them, you dismiss them. Yeah, right, I should read Heuvelmans's account of what was going on in Washington, D.C. and in Minnesota, at a time when I assume that he was back in Europe. I don't recall seeing any correspondence between him and Hoover and Napier and Ripley and Sanderson, keeping him informed as to what was going on.

 

Has someone in this thread previously said anything about Hansen being "nervous?" What makes you say that Hansen seemed to think that he had broken laws? The Napier correspondence that I have now acquired and hope to find time to, in part, share with you-all, contains details supporting the FBI's determination of the nature of the Iceman, although the FBI is not mentioned by name--all correspondence from and to Hoover and all mention by any of the participants of the FBI and Hoover having been deep sixed at some point.

Why Hansen said what he said is conjecture. I'm doing it too.

Heuvelmans details some correspondence with Napier and he knew what Sanderson was up to. Hansen had not wanted publicity and here the

"How is what I'm saying conjecture?"

"But I'll bet that it went something like the way I just surmised it did."

 

I appreciate your insight, Ron, but there are holes in the story.

Smithsonian was setting up an autopsy team. The Iceman vanished. Next exhibit was a stated facsimile. I'll try to get more detail but, if I remember correctly, the FBI just went by Hansen's conflicting stories and never visited him.

Travis J Hill Cartoonist: The matter that I was saying was not conjecture was that the FBI did, in fact, somehow determine that the Iceman was a fake. Lu had said that that was mere conjecture. It was not, as you can see if you take the trouble to read enough of the above. Lu also seemed to think that the FBI would have had to have examined the Iceman to have determined that it was a fake. I explained how that would have been unnecessary. That was conjecture of a sort but I never represented it as being actually and precisely what happened, although I think it likely that something pretty much like that is what did happen.

Steven Streufert: I seem to recall having seen discussions here about supposedly existing creatures with attributes in many respects like those often attributed to the supposedly existing bigfoots, such as yetis. I've also, I believe, read stuff by Believers who think that the Iceman was a bigfoot or that it could be taken as evidence for there being bigfoots. Many of these people may not know that the Iceman was not very apelike or how big it was and, of course, some reports of bigfoots don't claim much in the way of apelike properties or giantism. And some of the groups, as I recall, maintan that bigfoots are basically very human-like.

 

As to the conman attributes of Sanderson and Heuvelmans, Sanderson was pretty much a full-time and professional conman, even without taking his involvement with the Iceman being taken into account. I think that he very well might have thought that the Iceman could be for real, although he weasily put in phrases here and there in his writings to show that maybe it wasn't. It was only late in the game that we can say for absolute sure that he knew for absolute sure that the thing was a fake, and that was after the FBI had determined it to be. After that, he never stated that he'd found out that the thing was not real, but folks might have asked how he had found that out, however he and all of the non-FBI US participants engaged in the investigation had surely been hushed up about the degree of FBI involvement. Of course, he could have made up some story that would explain how he knew. From all indications, Heuvelmans seems to have been absolutely fooled by the iceman, but who can say--I'm not a mind reader.

"This is why, around mid-April, the FBI informed the Smithsonian that it could not help because the case was beyond its jurisdiction. It couldn’t act until there was some proof that a crime had actually been committed. Mere suspicion was not enough to justify the FBI’s intervention."

Heuvelmans, Bernard. NEANDERTHAL: The Strange Saga of the Minnesota Iceman . Anomalist Books. Kindle Edition.

The FBI did not determine it was a fake; they determined they could not get involved. Nosy policemen visited but there was no evidence of a crime.

I'd think a hairy bipedal primitive "missing link" type relict would be very valuable to BF Believers.

Travis J Hill Cartoonist: What is the thought that you appreciate? Name one of the holes that you say that you see in my account and the evidence for its being a hole and I will deal with it.

I appreciate that you were there during the time of said events, that you read some correspondence, that you were colleagues with some of the people involved. That insight.

The holes I mentioned arent in what youre telling, but what is known. How were the zoologists fooled? What exactly made the FBI determine if was a fake? Why the lack of documentation and secrecy? Was there truly a 2nd "body/model"? What was Hansen's motivation in it all? Why invite experts to look at it if he wanted to fool people? Why all the shell game switcheroo (if true)? Who made it, if a hoax?

If I have time, I'll read more of the Saga this weekend. Even if Heuvelman's accounts arent much valued round here.

Travis J Hill Cartoonist: What you are calling holes are mostly just things that nobody knows and some are no doubt ones that no one will ever know. That sort of situation occurs in what can be known about any complicated series of events. They are not, however, holes in my account that contradict anything that I have said. What people were actually thinking and why they did certain things are among the most difficult if not impossible things to know.

Lu Ann Lewellen: Yeah, right, Heuvelmans was right there on the scene following all that was going on, reading all of the correspondence, including that of Hoover, and was in a position to know exactly what the extent of the FBI involvement was and to evaluate the truthiness of the FBI's message that it never really got involved--the same message that Napier put out.

Lu Ann Lewellen: What I said that Sanderson said was not a conjecture of mine. That's what Sanderson, in his letter, said that Hansen said. I never said that Napier never shared any correspondence with Heuvelmans. Did Napier send him, through the international mail, copies that he'd made, by some primitive 1970s copying method, the correspondence that I was reading in real time, or did Napier copy them by hand? So Heuvelmans knew what Sanderson claimed that he was doing. But did Hoover tell Heuvelmans about what the FBI was doing?

 

I'll admit right here that I never saw any indication that the Smithsonian was "setting up an autopsy team." If they were, they were keeping that from me. I am exceedingly skeptical of that claim. What is your evidence? And why an autopsy? An autopsy merely determines the cause and manner of death. It seems to me that that would be more in line with the FBI's interest in the case than the Smithsonian's. That would be a pretty easy autopsy. If the thing was real, then it would sure look like homicide by bullets was involved, unless mutilation of the corpse could be shown to be post mortem, to make its appearance more dramatic.

Read the book, or at least the excerpts.

"John Napier had immediately contacted Sidney Galler, the scientific secretary of the Smithsonian. Galler was very open-minded and understanding and was immediately aware of the importance of the specimen, which was such that it should be considered as part of the cultural heritage of humanity. That would justify the use by the American government of its right of preemption for the purchase or even confiscation of the specimen. That’s probably why Sid Geller first asked Napier if the FBI had been made aware of the affair. Having been assured that Sanderson had contacted the local federal police at Morristown (New Jersey) on January 18, he felt that the Smithsonian could legitimately request the assistance of the head of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover.

"At the Smithsonian, a whole team of specialists was assembled under the leadership of John Napier to perform an autopsy and a detailed examination of the hairy man. However, they first had to get their hands on it."

Heuvelmans, Bernard. NEANDERTHAL: The Strange Saga of the Minnesota Iceman. Anomalist Books. Kindle Edition.

 

Ron Pine: Heuvelmans was in Guatemala, not Europe, when the Smithsonian withdrew its interest.

Lu Ann Lewellen: I've said this before but here this is again with a little more verbiage. Just think for a moment about the absurdity of the party line, about the FBI's supposed noninvolvement, that both Napier and Heuvelmans put out. I think that Napier should have consulted with the FBI so as to get help with exactly what lie he should tell about the FBI's supposed lack of involvement.

 

The claim was that the FBI couldn't do anything on the basis of suspicion. PROOF that a crime had been committed must be presented to the FBI before they will ever enter the picture. The FBI will never INVETIGATE to see if a crime has been committed, in spite of the fact that FBI means Federal Bureau of INVESTIGATION. No, if you yourself prove that a crime has been committed, THEN the FBI might take some interest. Whatever suspicion that you might have, regardless of its basis, will have no interest for them.

 

It works like this: A person calls the FBI and reports that he/she suspects that a crime, perhaps a murder, of the sort that would fall under the FBI's jurisdiction, has been committed. So then the FBI says "Hey, sorry, we're not interested in your suspicions or your reasons for them, go out and prove yourself that a crime has been committed. If that's too much for you to do by yourself, then hire a private investigator to look into it for you. After all, we're not interested in investigation. After you've got the absolute proof of the murder, we'll go out and arrest the person or persons, if they haven't already fled the country in case they've found out about your investigation. That happens sometimes when amateur investigators get involved. Anyway, good luck!"

I am not interested in what you or I think about the FBI. I'm only presenting what Heuvelmans said about it. The FBI did not declare it a fake, per Heuvelmans, and that had nothing to do with them not seizing the specimen. They had no grounds for doing so.

"Alas! Alerted by Ivan’s imprudence, Hansen had already heard about the forthcoming publication of my report. He had also found out, because Ivan had read long excerpts of my note to him over the telephone, that I proved not only that the hairy creature was human, but that it had been shot and artificially frozen.

"Hansen did not take long to react. On February 20, he called Ivan to tell him that the 'owner,' enraged by the developments, had spent ten days with him and ended up taking the hairy corpse away in a refrigerated van.

 

"Before leaving, however, he had left behind a replica created earlier at great cost and difficulty 'just in case he had problems some day.' Hansen added: 'At the time, I thought this was going a little far, but I understand what he meant.' Hansen was soon to repeat all that to the media, which was now taking a keen interest."

Heuvelmans, Bernard. NEANDERTHAL: The Strange Saga of the Minnesota Iceman. Anomalist Books. Kindle Edition.