Ray Wallace Hoaxes

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Squatchopedia wrote:
Ray Wallace (April 21, 1918 − November 26, 2002) was a known hoaxer of bigfoot photographs and videos.

Beginnings

In August 1958, the Wallace Construction Company — owned and operated by Ray Wallace — subcontracted to clear roads near the borders of Humboldt and Del Norte Counties, California. The company was creating a new road in Northern California, along the western wall of a valley that surrounds Bluff Creek, which was to be the location nine years later of the famous Patterson-Gimlin film.

A bulldozer operator named Jerry Crew claimed to have found a series of footprints that led to his tractor, circled it, and walked away from the machine. The 16-inch-long prints were of naked humanoid feet with a 46- to 60-inch stride, almost twice that of most people. Later print discoveries and other odd events led to the story being carried across the country via the wire services and "Bigfoot" was "born" and named.

Wallace Photographs

Ray Wallace claimed to have shot thousands of feet of bigfoot film footage. Figures have varied from 6,000 to 15,000 feet of 16mm film, which amounts to hours of footage, which includes bigfoot throwing stones, eating frogs, and so forth. Wallace maintains that his films, photos and tapes are authentic. None of the alleged films have surfaced since his death.

Photo of Wallace's wife in an ape suit

Fall Out

His death in November 2002 sparked a brief media storm. The Wallace family claimed that Ray Wallace had told that that he was responsible for hoaxing bigfoot footprints. Family members even produced a set of wooden "feet" to prove their story, not realizing that the feet weren't even the same shape and size as those cast by Jerry Crew in 1958.

Patterson Connection

Wallace told Strange Magazine writer Mark Chorvinsky, that he had told Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin exactly where to look for bigfoot during their Bluff Creek expedition in October 1967.

Michael Wallace said his father called the Patterson film "a fake" but claimed he'd had nothing to do with it. But he said his mother admitted she had been photographed in a bigfoot costume, and that his father "had several people he used in his movies." Many media organizations were confused by this statment and jumped to the conclusion that it was Ray Wallace's wife who had donned a suit for the Patterson-Gimlin film, thus assuming that Wallace's death had also debunked the Patterson-Gimlin film when it had done no such thing.