"Lead the way..." down some dark alleyways.

Travis J Hill Cartoonist: As to any comments I might have made about anyone being "dishonest, unqualified, or secretive (or a combo of more than one)," I can say the following: I don't know what you're thinking of if you think that I said anything about Sanderson in regard to the above characterisics, at least in regard to the Iceman business. I can and have said plenty of well-deserved negative things about him in other contexts. As for Hansen, no one in this discussion has denied that Hansen was a frequent liar, and there's plenty of documentation that he told a whole slew of differing accounts of the origin of the Iceman, and that would certainly make him a liar.

I knew Napier quite well, his office was just feet from mine and we had overlapping responsibilities, although he didn't live up to his portion of them. Before the issue of the Iceman ever came up, I would have told you that he was a pompous, incompetent, naive, attention-getter, with an overblown conviction of his own importance, and one utterly unsuited for the job he'd been hired for. If you want to argue that Hoover wasn't secretive and that he just went around revealing all that the FBI was up to, have at it. And the only people who never keep anything secret are or should be in mental institutions, it seems to me. Do you think that dishonest, unqualified, or secretive people are rare or something? And that they never find themselves grouped together in situations which they handle poorly? Just take a look at all of the things that have happened and are now happening in the government in this country.

Im not calling into question the assessments you've made (only that it IS subjective in some cases) about these people or that those types are rare, for the sake of this argument. I'm asking what, if any, account or correspondence is reliable, if that is your (or anyone's) assessment of them? Ultimately... why should ANY of it be trusted?

In previous discussions, you've called out Sanderson as a "liar/charlatan/bullshitter" (roaring lizards and boxing mice etc) that deflated your childhood view of him.

Travis J Hill Cartoonist: I never said that the FBI didn't examine the Iceman. If they had decided that they wanted to, they damn well would have. They wouldn't have had to thaw out the whole thing, either. And if Hansen told the FBI that what they were looking at was just a model that had been substituted for the "real" Iceman, all that the FBI would have had to do was to compare it with the details of the photos that Sanderson and Heuvelmans had taken--the arrangement of individual hairs, etc.

Of course, I did say that there were ways that the FBI could have determined that the Iceman was for real without examining it, and explained how this could be done. My doing this was in response to Lu when she said something like "And so I suppose that the FBi thawed out the Iceman and examined it, right?" (With the current length and complexity of this thread, I'm not going to try to chase down what she actually wrote.) She wasn't actually supposing that that happened, of course, but was being a bit sarcastic.

 

Read the book. The statement from the Smithsonian was a press release. Heuvelmans says some of the journalists went so far as to report an autopsy had been "performed to reveal that it was merely a rubber dummy" (it hadn't).

No, I don't have a copy of any of the articles that may have been written at the time. There's this thing called Google. Maybe it can help us out.
Both Sanderson and Heuvelmans corresponded with Napier after the memorandum.

"From New Jersey, Sanderson sent to Napier on June 19 a counter-memorandum in which he noted a number of points that had simply not been taken into account, facts that had never been verified or controlled, which were taken as solidly established but were merely based on presumptions. Almost at the same time, within a day, I sent from France my own countermemorandum to Napier. I listed all the facts that remained unexplained and were even unexplainable from the perspective of a hoax."

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

I don't have time right now to get and read that book. Besides, it's much more convenient for you to locate and post the sometimes relevant to this discussion parts of it than it would be for me to thumb through it looking for them.

Convenient for whom? As much as I enjoy searching for relevant parts this is not how I was planning to spend my day. The Kindle edition has a search feature so you would not have to read the whole book. You could just put "Napier" in the search box and see what comes up.

Ron Pine: You know Kindle books are delivered instantly to your computer, right? And the app to read them on PC is free. The book is even loanable. Maybe some nice person who has it on Kindle would loan it to you.

Thanks, Lu Ann Lewellen. I've gotten Kindle books before. I do prefer the old-fashioned kind, though. Right now I'm reading a book already that will take me some time to finish and I'm leaving soon on a 12-day trip and won't have time to read while I'm gone. Actually, I'd like to read the just-acquired 160 pages of Sanderson's Iceman file before I'll take on Heuvelmans's book. One reason for that is that you've already helpfully posted so many excerpts from the book, that I've seen quite a bit of what you think is relevant in it already. You know, of course, that I don't regard that book as Holy Writ, as some folks might seem to do. After all, I was able to get a far better idea of what was going on with Hansen, Napier, Hoover, Sanderson, and Ripley, than Heuvelmans could, when I was reading the last four people's correspondence, in D.C., and Heuvelmans was not and was in Guatemala or Europe.

Napier's office was just a few feet from mine and when he was sharing the letters with me we had some discssion of them, although I can't remember anything in particular that he said. I do know that he didn't take issue with anything in the letters from the other people, however. I also discussed the Iceman with Napier's wife, "Pru," when we were having lunch together. She was actually more of an all-round primatologist than her husband was and would have been a better fit for his job than he was. She referred to the Iceman affair as "The Iceman Cometh," after the title of the O'Neill play.

I didn't know Hoover, but his office was then in the Justice Department Building just across the street from our museum. I would guess that he just sent couriers over with his letters, rather than putting them in the mail. I never met Sanderson but Minnesota and New Jersey were closer to where I was than to where Heuvelmans was by that time. I never met Ripley, although I was involved with curation of some mammal specimens that he'd collected in Bhutan. (He was primarily an ornithologist.) His office was just across the National Mall from mine. I was on occasion present at meetings with him and the fairly large entire Natural History Museum staff. I never saw any cc's to Heuvelmans in any of the confidential correspondence that I was reading, nor any letter from him to anyone. And I believe that Hansen was interacting with and communicating with the aforementioned people in the US more than with Heuvelmans, if he was at all.

 

Lu Ann Lewellen: Actually, I in no way doubt that Napier would have dearly loved to still get a chance to examine the dubious item in question, after the press release was made available, even if he really was totally convinced that there was never any substitute model and that the original item examined by Heuvelmans and Sanderson was itself a model. After all the Sturm und Drang, he'd want to see for himself the actual damn thing that had caused the whole mess. (Heck, I'd really like to see that item in Austin myself, and I've had far, far less involvement in this business than Napier did.)

I'm very surprised/skeptical that Napier would tell of his desire, to see the thing, to any journalists, though, because it would imply to them and to their readers that Napier still might have had serious doubts about the authenticity of the Iceman. (That is clearly the impression that Heuvelmans was trying to give by telling us that story about the supposed journalists.) Giving that impression would have undercut what had been said in the official Smithsonian rews release, which was intended to get the message across that the Smithsonian had come to the conclusion that there was no reason to believe that there had ever been a flesh-and-blood Iceman and that it no longer had any interest in the Iceman and would have no more to do with it.

I think that Ripley, head of the Smithsonian, would have been really pissed if Napier had ever maintained to journalists that he still wanted to see that Iceman, in spite of what the press release had said, and I think that Napier, although not too bright in a number of respects, would have had enough sense to know that. Although I never saw anything in any of the correspondence to indicate this, and never heard any scuttlebutt along this line, I suspect that after the Smithsonian officially dropped out of its involvement, Ripley was royally pissed at Napier for getting the Smithsonian involved in the first place and giving the Smithsonian a big black eye. As for any head of any organization that is dependant on private donations and government appropriations, good PR was the greatest institutional priority. I wonder if the fact that Napier didn't last too long at the Smithsonian had something to do with the Iceman fiasco.

Lu Ann Lewellen: In view of all that has been said and not said in this thread, I am baffled by the relevance of what you just quoted Heuvelmans as having written. Assuming that you think that it is somehow relevant, please explain. As it happens, I actually agree with Heuvelmans for once, when he writes that he might be a complete idiot. It's one of the nuttiest things I've ever read.

 

Do you have any substantiation of what Heuvelmans said Napier told some journalists? Did those journalsts ever publish anything? As far as I know, Napier never admitted, in any of his subsequent writings, to his supposed great ongoing interest in the Iceman after a public announcement was made. So if Napier told Sanderson (as if he didn't know already) and Heuvelmans, in detail, what the reasons were for the Smithsonians' "dropping of the ball," did Heuvelmans ever say what those reasons were supposed to be?

 

Or at least the story of the revelation as to why the investigation of the Iceman was dropped was what Napier told Heuvelmans or what Heuvelmans says that he was told?

Ron Pine: I'd ask Heuvelmans for documentation if he weren't dead.

I have Regal's book on Kindle and can supply footnotes if anyone is interested in this:

I have Napier's book in paperback. I suppose I should dust it off and see what he said there.

Regal was a teacher of mine in NJ.

I own both Regal's and Napier's books and have read them, but Regal much more recently.

Lu Ann Lewellen: Napier wrote what he called "a rather pompous press release" (I can certainly believe that it was pompous, knowing Napier as I did) telling the world that the Smithsonian was starting to investigate the Iceman. In my view, this was very stupid, for a number of reasons. One was that it would put Hansen's back up and otherwise hinder the investigation. Another was opening up the posibility that the Smithsonian would end up looking foolish. One would think that Ripley or someone high up in some Public Affairs Department would have had to OK the news release--further dumbness. The news release was a time bomb.

Napier believed Yetis exist based on a photograph that turned out to be a rock. Nothing like examining something first hand.

Lu Ann Lewellen: Here's some analysis of Heuvelmans's acumen: Heuvelmans concluded that the Iceman was a Neanderthal. Sanderson quite rightly pointed out and explained why, in detail, that if the Iceman was for real, it was clearly anything but a Neanderthal. Its anatomy, especially of the head and face was nothing like that of a Neanderthal. Heuvelmans also named the thing "Homo pongoides," although Neanderthals already had a scientific name--Homo neanderthalensis. The "pongoides" part of Heuvelmans's name implied its having apelike characteristics, something that it did not particularly have, and certainly Nanderthals did not particularly have.

 

As I pointed out above, the incoherent quotation that you provided of Heuvelmans's idea of what it would take to constuct an Iceman model--a chimpanzee skin stretched over a human skeleton-- is absolutely and totally crazy. Such a conviction could easily explain why he'd conclude that the Iceman had to be for real. Heuvelmans devoted his career to advocating the existence of countless fabulous unknown-to-science creatures, and there's no reason to believe that he did not believe in the the existence of every single one. Because of this, he has been called by some the "father of crytozoology."

 

Now let's look at the track record of cryptozoology: Adding up all of the creatures stated to exist or probably to exist, in the "field" of cryptozoology, at a time when these supposed creatures had not been shown to exist--every single such supposed creature proposed to exist by Heuvelmans, Sanderson, every other subsequent cryptozoological author, in every book and every article in a cryptozological journal and in every blog, we find that not one of these creatures has ever been subsequently shown to exist. Track record zero. Clearly a pseudoscience if there ever was one.

 

Actual science makes actual contributions to actual knowledge. In an effort to make cryptozoology look reputable, the cryptozoologists have tried to stuff the actual field of discovery of new kinds of animals discovered by actual zoologists (like, for example, me) under the umbrella of cryptozoology. However, the heart and soul of cryptozoology is advocating the existence of undiscovered animals which never, and I mean never, turn up.

 

Now Heuvelmans's apparent belief in the existence of every single "cryptid" that he writes about, all of which were based on supposed "evidence" of the most dubious nature, seems to me to be borderline non-sanity. You have stated that you do not regard Heuvelmans as having been gullible. What term would you use for such a massive system of delusion?

 

Among his other deficiencies of judgment and knowledge, Napier apparently actually believed that Sanderson and Heuvelmans were accomplished, experienced, and reliable scientific authorities and he represented them as such to Galler and Ripley in order to sell them on the Iceman investigation. If such supposedly knowledgeable and reputable scientists believed that the Iceman was for real then there was good reason to believe that it was.

Ron Pine: You said, "As I pointed out above, the incoherent quotation that you provided of Heuvelmans's idea of what it would take to constuct an Iceman model--a chimpanzee skin stretched over a human skeleton-- is absolutely and totally crazy." That is what Sanderson said he would do; it was not "Heuvelmans' idea". Heuvelmans explained why that wouldn't work (no absolutely clear adult chimpanzee hides excepting albinos) and pointed out the "model" could not be both rubber and chimpanzee. The Smithsonian should have noticed that.

I can understand you not acquiring the book but I would appreciate it if you'd at least read what I've quoted and get it right. Failing that perhaps you could get what I've said right. I took "guillible person" to mean me, not Heuvelmans, and that's all I said about that. You still tend to make it personal and that is extremely tiresome.

Here's Heuvelmans' quote again, following the reprint of the press release in the book, with the entire paragraph included. Heuvelmans had some choice words to say about Sanderson too.

"I may be a complete idiot, but I don’t understand how one can come to the conclusion that a specimen is a fake by combining the fact that there exists a rubber model with the fact that it is only possible to make one by stretching the skin of a chimpanzee over a human skeleton. One should chose between these two contradictory possibilities: a blown-up dummy studded with monkey hair, or a modified ape. By avoiding the choice, the agents of the Smithsonian betrayed either their bad faith or their blindness. As I’m easy-going, I’ll grant them the choice between dishonesty and stupidity."

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

Sanderson's idea: "While expressing his firm conviction that the specimen that we examined was not the product of a falsification, Ivan claimed that he could nevertheless construct an exact replica. All that he required was the fresh corpse of a large pale-skinned chimpanzee. It was then possible to stretch that body so as to give it more human proportions. The skin of the head would then have to be fitted over a (microcephalic?) human skull. As to the skin of the hands and the feet, it could be stretched and deformed at will with the help of a glove-spreader, an instrument that would also be used to give the fingers and toes the required length.

"All this was perfectly possible, but Ivan seemed to have forgotten one point: as I pointed out earlier, there are no clear-skinned large chimpanzees! In order to accomplish the taxidermic prowess that Ivan proposed, it would have been absolutely necessary to find an albino adult chimpanzee—or even better, an adult albino gorilla whose skin would not need to be as distended—and then to dye its fur black.

"However, if one were to possess such a rare and valuable specimen, it would be worth exhibiting for its own sake. It would be quite stupid to use it as the basis of a suspiciously fake exhibit!"

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

Is this clear yet?

Lu Ann Lewellen: In context, I now get a better idea of what Heuvelmans was trying to say. I had not been informed that he was responding to something that Sanderson supposedly said. In a reply of yours above, in which you state that you had thought that I was calling you gullible, you wrote that you didn't think that Heuvelmans was gullible. I do not believe that at any point I have gotten "personal" with you in any of our exchanges. I have disagreed with you and questioned your reasoning, as you have done with me. I don't mind your doing that with me. I think that you and I are both fair game on that score. I regard "getting personal" as calling people names or making derogatory remarks about their character, intellect, or morals. Please provide me with an example of where I have done this with you.

Heuvelmans didn‘t believe in everything- he thought that the PGF was fake, for example... but yeah he was def. not a critical thinker when it comes to this or probably life in general... he was a romantic and enjoyed collecting monster stories... his collection is amazing but for a biologist probably completely worthless...

 

It’s stories, folklore, that‘s why he had files on Bigfoot and Yeti as well as on mermaids and unicorns...

Take nothing away from Sanderson (I.T.S.) or Heuvelmans as they lead the way to what we know as cryptozoology today.

I adore these guys and their work, Daniel... but I am a realist... it‘s fun, at least for me.. was there an authentic iceman? probably not... but it’s a great story and really has everything.. and the „drama“ actually continued with other cryptozoologists like Jordi Magraner who was convinced that he was searching for a real-life homo pongoides in the mountains of North Pakistan, until he was killed by the Taliban..