ABOUT

CONTENTS

EDITORIAL

ARCHIVE

LAGNIAPPE

MAST

SUBMISSIONS

 
THE GREAT YETI HUNT OF 1978
Sometimes, even good people fake it.

by Henry Singer

Early in April, scientists in a gene lab at Oxford University issued a curious statement. They said that despite their best efforts, they were unable to identify the DNA of a hair sample collected in the Bhutan Himalayas by an exploration team in search of the Yeti.

Proof of a negative doesn't necessarily offer evidence that the mystery hair is actually Yeti fur, but those who believe in the elusive snow beast are buoyed by the discovery. And maybe with good reason. The verdict is still far from in, but the find could, at last, offer the first uncontestable proof the Big Foot/Sasquatch/Yeti community has yearned for. In a field of science where photos can be doctored, bones planted and footprints faked, hard evidence is rare, and often, even good people are willing to fake it. In an effort to convince others what they already know in their hearts to be true, they will go to elaborate lengths. Believe me. I've been there.

It took no fewer than five months of constant badgering, but for my ninth birthday, my parents bought me the one gift that I'd wanted most for the better part of 1978. It was called the Mobile Crime Lab, or as I quickly began referring to it, the MCL. More than a toy, the MCL was a tool, and a tool I desperately needed.

In reality, the Mobile Crime Lab was really little more than a glorified plastic lunch box that held a variety of detective-related paraphernalia: fingerprint powder, official-looking envelopes for storing "evidence," a magnifying glass, "suspect" file cards, a flash light and a detailed pamphlet on solving crime.

Understand that my need for detective equipment became very real when, earlier that year, I developed a burgeoning interest in what I'd later learn was the science of cryptozoology-the study of yet unidentified new animal species.

See, during the summer of 1978, thanks in large part to the convincing narratives of Leonard Nimoy and a number of pillaged garbage bags the evening before trash was collected in my neighborhood, I had grown convinced that a Sasquatch- you may know him as Yeti - was lurking in the wooded area several hundred feet from my suburban tract home. The Mobile Crime Lab was precisely the tool I needed to prove to the naysayers and nonbelievers that a nine-foot Skunk Ape, possessing untold rage and a clear penchant for dismembering and eating unsuspecting third graders, was waiting just behind the tree line in Edgewater Park, NJ.

The flashlight and the fingerprint powder of the MCL were valuable to a certain extent, as were the evidence envelopes in the kit. The envelopes, in particular, lent an air of credibility and importance to my investigative work, but as it would turn out, the crime investigation manual would prove the kit's most valuable tool.

In the crime-solving book were explicit instructions on how use the MCL to cull evidence and build a case, as it were, against whoever in your household, for example, may have left the toilet seat up, or illegally grifted cookies, or callously removed their roller skates in the middle of the kitchen floor, creating unspeakable hazard. This was all very nice for lesser sleuths, concerned with the minutiae of victimless household crime, but my needs were clearly more pressing. I was on the trail of a prehistoric man beast, an evolutionary anomaly, huddled in the drainage pipes and behind the discarded tires near the home I shared with my family.

I studied the crime-solving book, and I found, to my immense satisfaction, a chapter on how to plaster cast a footprint. The information was designed to help young detectives, like myself, reproduce the tread from a pair of Zips or Nike Bruins, but I immediately recognized the technique's value in duplicating what I had seen on In Search Of... countless times. With this information in hand I could cast the massive, yet eerily familiar, foot of the Sasquatch.

I immediately took to the woods, scouting the myriad trails, cursing the minibikes and motorcycle's tracks that destroyed precious forensic evidence, and searching for the proof I would need, proof that Sasquatch was alive and well in the Philadelphia suburbs.

Weeks passed and still no footprints. I was undeterred. What with the minibikes, and the older kids and their beer drinking and their campfires, what choice could my Sasquatch have but to remain hidden in the brush and thatch?

I knew he was dangerous and I knew that at any second there was a good chance he'd emerge from the woods and snatch one of us, or worse me, unsuspectingly from the bicycles we rode around the periphery of his domain. But I also knew that the Sasquatch was a reclusive creature. How otherwise could such a beast remain hidden for so long so near civilization?

Mobile Crime Lab in hand, I continued the hunt, deep into the fall of 1978. I carefully collected suspicious fibers, soil that possibly contained the beast's scat, and a lot of leaves. I'm not sure why I collected the leaves actually. There were times, alone on the trails, when I was certain I had caught a glimpse of him. A shadow moving behind an oak, or a blurred, hairy brown arm retreating into the bushes. I began to think that perhaps it was I who was hunted.

Days turned into weeks and I think I began to develop an understanding of the beast that had once filled me with terror. It was the kind of understanding only a man who's spent hours alone with nature and her creatures could grasp. At nine, I suppose I was gifted.

My view of Big Foot was evolving. He wasn't a monster all, this Sasquatch of Edgewater Park. Rather, I began to see my neighbor as a retiring animal, pressured by suburban sprawl, forced to live in close confines with man, and as afraid of us as we were of him. He wasn't a brute to be feared, after all. He was a gentle creature that I needed to protect. Maybe he and I could become friends? We could talk and exchange ideas, he could teach me his language, and I, in turn, could give him Slurpees. Everyone likes Slurpees.

But before I could share frozen fruit-flavored snacks with Big Foot, I would need to prove that he was really out there. I devised an elaborate plan. I thought that maybe if people believed he was real, they'd see him for what he was - just a big, sort-of-nice ape man - then he'd feel better about showing his face to mankind. He would emerge from the woods to befriend us all. I would, of course, he heralded as a brave and wise explorer, cunning enough to lure Sasquatch from his lair, and daring enough to extend the hand of friendship. Perhaps, I'd be featured in World magazine. Look, I know this is pretty convoluted logic, but I was nine. And kind of weird.

But for all this to happen, I'd have to first present the world, or at the very least my parents and very gullible younger sister, with evidence that would undeniably prove that there was, at the end of our dead-end street, in the Philadelphia suburbs, a Sasquatch.

So I lied. I meticulously went about fabricating Yeti evidence. For this, I felt no guilt. This may come as something of a surprise to you, but truth is, I was never able to actually find a real Sasquatch footprint. This initial, glaring lack of empirical evidence to support my hypothesis was merely a technicality. In lieu of an actual print, I manipulated the information in the Mobile Crime Lab pamphlet to make a fake plaster cast of a footprint that I'd carved into the ground with a plastic McDonald's spoon.

Here's how I did it: I didn't have any actual plaster, so I combined flower and water in a coffee can, creating a milky, plaster-like substance. I took the box top from a plastic model I had started, but never finished, and cut off the front, leaving a hollow cardboard rectangle. With the aforementioned McDonald's spoon, I carefully dug into the earth a large, human-like foot. I placed the hollow rectangle over the "footprint" and carefully poured my flour-based, plaster-like mixture into the box, filling the footprint, and the area approaching the edges of the box.

Then I waited. Fifteen, 20, 30, 45 minutes. An hour. Two hours. It was getting dark.

"Heeeeen-ry." I heard the familiar sound of my mother's voice from the front door of our rancher. "Heeeeen-ry."

Drat. It was dinnertime, and I'd have to leave the cast to dry over night. There was no way I'd ever be allowed to hike back into the woods, all 200 yards, after dinner, with it being dark and all. Unfortunately, the next day was Monday, which meant that barring a faked cold, I'd have to go to school, and wouldn't be able to view the dried cast until after 3 p.m.

The world would have to wait another 24 hours for the news that would irrevocably change it, I thought. Soon, however, they'd know that walking among them was a strange and magnificent new species of primate, part man, part animal.

School was terrible. All I could think about was the cast, and the renown and fame sure to come my way later that afternoon. I was pretty sure that Channel 10 would be the first news van on the scene.

At 3:00 p.m., when the bell rang, I hastily gathered my things and made for the door. The mile-long walk took an eternity, but soon I was home, changed- and after a light repast, possibly a moonpie- I was heading for the woods to recover the cast and take my walk into history.

When I arrived on the scene, I was horrified. Something had… something had eaten the plaster/flour. It looked as though a feeding frenzy had taken place. The box shell was torn to shreds and only scant remnants of the plaster/flour remained.

It was painfully obvious: Fearing discovery, the Sasquatch had eaten the flour casting material in a brilliant counter scheme to remain hidden. After all, what else could have done this? I realized it then. All those weeks, as I trekked through the field, with the mobile lab, the Yeti had been watching me. He knew what I was up to. And I think he was scared.

I walked home as the sun was setting, resigned to the fact that I knew something the rest of the world did not, and may never, know. I alone was sitting on perhaps the greatest secret ever, but what could I do? I knew the Sasquatch was real, and that he wasn't a monster to be feared. He just wanted his privacy, and for his simple garbage-eating, bicycle-rider stalking life to remain as it always had.

Sure, I was a little let down, but it wasn't like my life had lost purpose entirely.

See, in the same Sasquatch-riddled woods, there was a drainage pound where I used to fish for sunnies and carp and I was pretty sure that one night, the previous summer, as I was collecting my tackle, and pouring my bucket of sunnies back into the pond, something moved beneath the surface, creating a large ripple.

It was something big. Something not unlike the beast that lives in Loch Ness.