Daniel Perez: I think that the world would be a far better place without cryptozoology and all other pseudosciences. As noted above, not one of the myriad animals ever claimed to exist or said to probably exist, and unknown to science at the time, by any cryptozoologist, in any book, cryptozoolgical journal, newspaper, magazine or blog, or anywhere else, has ever turned up. A complete waste of time and a distraction from one's engaging in some worthwhile activity. Meanwhile, those of us who have actually gone about discovering new real animals, as actual scientists have been doing for hundreds of years, have continued to do so without the help of any cryptozoologists, thank you very much.

"We'll just have to trust your memory..."

Lu, you're not implying that Ron's EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY of those documents ISN'T REALLY EVIDENCE without those alleged papers in our hands now? And that we shouldnt TRUST HIS MEMORY of said events, are you?

Because I hear anecdotal evidence doesnt cut the mustard round here. We demand PROOF! And even if said letters could be produced, how do we know they arent FORGERIES? A mere HOAX?
  
"I know what I saw! I SEEN those letters with my own eyes and no one can tell me otherwise, ya hear???"

*sorry, couldnt help myself

The long saga of success stories of Cryptozoology...

Ron Pine: Heuvelmans was commenting on what the Smithsonian said in the press release; he was not replying to anyone. The paragraph immediately follows the press release in Heuvelmans' book. The call from the director of the wax museum and Sanderson's "recent suggestions" on how the model could have been made were what caused the Smithsonian to withdraw its interest. That's what it said in the press release, anyway. There may have been more to it than that, but that's what was said.

The FBI had no jurisdiction and Napier never examined the exhibit. Sanderson's enthusiasm led to Hansen withdrawing and "disappearing" the Iceman.
Hansen reemerged with

"SIBERSKOYA CREATURE (a Siberian creature)
A MANUFACTURED ILLUSION, AS INVESTIGATED BY THE F.B.I.

In spite of that advertising, which lent the exhibition a rather frivolous aura, Professor Murrill, of the Anthropology Department of the University of Minnesota, hastened to go and examine the controversial specimen. He was so impressed by what he saw—as both Ivan and I had been—that he offered Hansen a rather large sum of money, quickly declined, to acquire the specimen on behalf of the university. Not that he was 100% convinced of the authenticity of the item (he even found that the hair had a rather suspicious appearance), but he had been seriously shaken. In any case, he had done all he could to try to salvage what, in his mind, had a good chance of being an extremely important specimen. This fundamentally scientific attitude was in sharp contrast with the incredulity, lack of interest, wait-and-see attitude, or complete dismissal of so many others.

“It’s the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen!” admitted Professor Murrill to Dr. Napier. However, this new testimonial, far from tipping the latter’s doubts in favor of the authenticity of the specimen, tended even more to confirm his views that he was in the presence of a single 'fantastically successful' model"

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

I'm always interested in Minnesota Iceman trivia but I don't like character assassination. I don't really care if Sanderson and Heuvelmans wrote popular books on other cryptids or even that Sanderson slept with a cheetah. The truth of the Iceman story is probably rather mundane but there's something about it that remains fascinating. I don't agree with Heuvelmans that the Iceman was a Neandertal but he seems down to earth in the book and it's probably the better first hand account of what transpired, in my opinion.

Lu Ann Lewellen: I don't recall having said that I thought that Heuvelmans was replying to anyone when he was writing about the press release. Can you find where I either did that or you thought that I did? What is your source for saying that the FBI had no jurisdiction? Was it just Napier and/or Sanderson and/or Heuvelmans? Anyway, that was not true.

I knew "Professor Murrill," by the way. He was my professor in physical anthropology. A very weird duck. He acted even stranger than he actually was just to freak out his classes and make them think that he was nuts. He was very much into acting and a big devotee of soccer. I don't consider it to be character assassination when one is talking about dead people. You yourself said that Hansen told lies and that Sanderson was an exaggerator. When Sanderson told everyone that his wife was a princess from Madagascar, when she was just a black woman from Nebraska, and that his father was killed by a charging rhinoceros, when he wasn't, I would call that more than just exaggerating.

I never used the term "pathological liar" to describe Sanderson (which is not to say that I wouldn't), but Heuvelmans called him that. As I recall, much of the information that Heuvelmans got that he relied on about what happened after Heuvelmans left the US was from the man who Heuvelmans called a "pathological liar." Hmm. As it happens, I also don't care that Sanderson is reported to have slept with a Cheetah. I wonder if he ever told anyone that that Cheetah was a royal Cheetah from Madagascar.

You may say that the reason that the Smithsonian became convinced that the Iceman was for real was a phone call and Sanderson's saying how the Iceman "might have been created," (as Napier delicately put it), but I saw the correspondence affirming that the FBI had gotten on Hansen's case and ascertained that the Iceman was not real, and the information on how the Iceman had been constructed, including the dog tissue, was conveyed to Sanderson by Hanson. As I recall, neither you nor Heuvelmans were looking over my shoulder when I read that correspondence, some of which was from Hoover. Both you and Heuvelmans were out of the loop.

Ron Pine: You said "responding" above. I took it as "replying". I guess I didn't get it straightened out. You said: "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."

Glad to know everyone involved was a kook. J. Edgar Hoover dressed as "Mary".

Ron Pine: My source on practically everything I've said here is Heuvelmans' book from which I've copied and pasted to back up what I said he said.

Of course I wasn't looking over your shoulder; I was in Portland, Oregon, at the time. All I saw back then was the magazine. I was interested but much more interested in a sighting reported in The Vancouver Columbian that was within a few miles of our land in The Gorge.

I'm sure Heuvelmans wasn't aware of every scrap of private correspondence that was going around. I don't suppose you can post that correspondence for all of us to see. We'll just have to trust your memory.

Sanderson and Heuvelmans had a falling out, as we probably all know by now. It was "Ivan's imprudence" that alerted Hansen.

"After translating my article into English, I sent a copy, respectively on the 5th and 9th of February to two of the world’s most prominent specialists in primate anatomy, both old acquaintances, both British, and both working at that time, as luck would have it, in the United States. They were the two specialists mentioned above, Dr. William C. Osman-Hill, whom I had visited shortly before at the Yerkes Regional Primate Centre in Augusta, Georgia, and Dr. John R. Napier, who at that time led the Primate Biology Program at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C."

Because of these two the "Smithsonian Institution soon took a strong interest in our discovery".

"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. 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 little far, but I understand what he meant'.”

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

I've posted some of this before but maybe it got buried in a subthread. So, as far as I know, no one at the Smithsonian or from the FBI ever examined the whatever-it-was. Is that correct?

"To refute the charge of smuggling, it was enough for Hansen to insist on proof that the specimen had been imported in the United States, and not captured, purchased, or even fabricated within the country. Regarding the charge of homicide, he could insist on proof that it was a man and not an ape that had been killed, and even proof that the corpse was not just a fabrication.

"While such proofs were obvious to Ivan and I who had examined the specimen, they were not so for the police who, once the specimen had vanished, could think that our diagnostic was partly based on opinion rather than fact. Furthermore, the fear of ridicule held them back: What would the FBI look like if it ended up with nothing more than a rubber or plastic model? 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.

Lu Ann Lewellen: In answer to your question as to whether anyone at the Smithsonian ever examined the Icemn, I would say definitely no. As should have been made quite clear in what I wrote above, I don't know whether the FBI actually ever examined the Iceman or not. As I also made clear, I believe that they could have determined that it was a fake without ever having examined it. If I had been one of the FBI agents assigned the case, however, I would have definitely examined it, and one would think that the FBI agents surely would have as well.

Ron Pine: I don't doubt you saw the letters and I also don't doubt we can't see them.

 

I think it's safe to assume the FBI did not examine it and did not have jurisdiction. The idea was to acquire the specimen one way or another. I don't see how anyone could determine much from Hansen's stories. He was good at telling people what they wanted to hear and what he wanted them to believe. The one I believe is that he got it from a Chinese dealer and didn't know where it came from.

Travis J Hill Cartoonist: Everything that Sanderson and Heuvelmans ever said was anecdotal. There's no difference between someone's saying that he or she saw something that he or she concluded was a very strange-looking, hairy, manlike creature in a block of ice, but he or she did not acquire any physical evidence to show that it was made of flesh and blood as opposed to a human-made artifact, and someone saying that he or she had seen something out in the woods that he or she interpreted as a bigfoot, when it could have just been a man in a suit. Also, all of the "he said that he said" in the accounts of Heuvelmans are about as anecdotal as you can get. There are some surviving documents, written by Napier, that in no way contradict anything that I have said.

But you've said Hansen was a known liar. We've got a couple of purported gullible/exaggerating pseudo-scientists, some government spooks, and a potential PR nightmare for a museum that's trying to wash their hands and cover their ass. Man, it's a screenplay that writes itself. Wish I had the time to start it. How can you trust what anyone is saying in any of this correspondence?

Ron Pine: I'm interested in the Asian end of things. If there was a Nguoi Rung on display somewhere in North Vietnam maybe someone got a photo of it. If the helicopter pilot is still alive maybe he could confirm the story of one in a net. If Hansen's Air Force buddies were involved maybe one left a memo somewhere. All anecdotes but interesting if they could be obtained.

It's unfortunate S&H didn't smash the glass and take samples but that would have been rather unethical and illegal. They didn't do that.

This convo is amping me up to head to Austin and pull a Thomas Crowne!

Travis J Hill Cartoonist: Check to see if the back of the model's head is blown out and showing artificial brains. Maybe Steve Busti photographed all that before encasing the thing in ice.

 

"My first reaction, based on the creature's anatomy, was extreme dubiety; the characteristics of the Iceman seemed to me then-as now-to combine the worst features of apes and man and none of the best features which make these two groups extremely successful primates in their respective environments. As described, the Iceman's foot was specifically adapted neither for climbing, as in a chimpanzee for example, nor for a two-footed walking gait on the flat as in man." - John Napier

Jevning, William. The Minnesota Iceman (Kindle Locations 985-988). Kindle Edition.

Sounds like he was describing "Lucy" but she wasn't discovered until 1973.

Unfortunately there are only very bad images on the web on the "resurfaced" iceman... but it was featured in an episode of "Shipping Wars", S04E06, maybe there's some good footage of it in this show...? there are certain features that don't fit the "original" in my view... this one's the best I've found...the hair pattern in the face (the chin area), the coloration of the skin, the missing "blood"... it's different... but that's just my opinion based on the existing images...

 

Here's one photo of the original (?) that has not been published to my knowledge...

Christoph Kummer: The bottom one (right) is in Heuvelman's book in French.There were no captions on the photos so I inquired. It seems the photo(s) were in Heuvelmans' files and no one knew where they came from. That one does not match the one in Argosy and may have been one sent by Loren Coleman or Mark Hall. Maybe Loren can help us on that.

The top photo (far right) looks like it was taken around the time the model showed up on Ebay. Photos of Hansen's model were taken by Rick West and featured in his book. He took them at Hansen's home when Rick visited him there.before Hansen died.

This one (below) is in the book: "Pickled Punks & Girlie Shows: A Life Spent on the Midways of America"

Interesting... and do you know what Hansen said before death about it? maybe a „death-bed confession“?

He just talked about how he thought it would make a good exhibit. They talked about the business and West's model. I'll check the book later but I don't remember any startling revelations in it.