The Ultimate Georgia Bigfoot Hoax Timeline: Historical Background

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Loren Coleman, Cryptomundo wrote:
The Ultimate Georgia Bigfoot Hoax Timeline: Historical Background

Like a meandering stream through the swamplands of personalities and hoaxing, you will note a background theme in this chronology leading up to the events of 2008. You will even get a hint of the “amazing” horizon that was there, just ahead, beyond the frozen feet, frozen body, and dubious handprints.

I’m not certain “enjoy” is the correct word to use, but digest deeply these previous incidents, which are worth pondering, for you might be unaware of these precursors to the events of this summer.

1958 – August 27 – October 5 – “Bigfoot” name coined because of Bluff Creek, California, series of finds of probable authentic giant footprints by Jerry Crew at a Ray Wallace construction site. The local First Nations’ name “Oh-Mah” and the Canadian newspaper-created term for these creatures, “Sasquatch,” are almost immediately relegated to history by the media.

1958 – October 12 – Bigfoot sightings of a dubious nature by Wallace employees, Ray Kerr and Bob Breazle, occur near Bluff Creek, California.

1958 – November – Beginnings of finds of post-Jerry Crew Bluff Creek tracks appear to match Ray Wallace’s fake wooden feet revealed after Wallace dies in 2002.

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1959 – November – End of first modern flap of Bigfoot footprint finds at Bluff Creek. (Most prints tend to match the Wallace fakes noted in 2000-2001, which Wallace reported in some old letters were first carved for him by hoaxer Rant Mullens.)

1960 – Ivan Marx is a member of the Pacific Northwest Expedition, sponsored by Tom Slick. Interactions with John Green, Bob Titmus, Rene Dahinden, and Peter Byrne. Several personality and lifelong conflicts seeded.

1967 – October 20 – Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin come upon and then film a “Bigfoot” at Bluff Creek, California, while taking b-roll footage for a proposed documentary film about hunting Bigfoot.

1967 – Ricky Traylor Chuck Dyer is born.

1967 – December – Tom Biscardi’s official biography claims the airing on “The Tonight Show” of the Patterson-Gimlin film inspired him. “I was watching John Carson in 1967, and I saw the first 8mm footage that Roger Patterson took of the Bluff Creek incident. I said to myself, ‘How the hell can we send a man to the moon, but we can’t find this creature’.” (Most Americans, btw, refer to the host of the program as “Johnny Carson,” and Biscardi’s continued reference to “John Carson” reads strangely.)

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1968-1969 – Frank Hansen exhibits the “Minnesota Iceman,” allegedly a Bigfoot-type creature frozen in a block of ice.

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1969 – Ivan Marx moves from Burney, California, to Bossburg, Washington State.

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1969 – November 24 – A butcher names James Rhodes, near Bossburg, Washington’s dump, finds tracks of a “crippled” Bigfoot, not far from where Ivan Marx lives. Ivan Marx tells John Green who tells René Dahinden that he is hunting the “crippled” Bigfoot, and will capture it. Green, Dahinden, Bob Titmus and Peter Byrne descend on Bossburg. Many tracks are found. Other local Bigfooters, including Norm Davis and Jim Hopkins get caught up in the Bigfoot search at Bossburg.

Roger Patterson and Dennis Jensen show up to investigate, and Tom Page pumps money into the effort. Famed casts are taken that Grover Krantz, John Napier, and Jeff Meldrum use as primary evidence of Bigfoot. Local man Joe Metlow claims to have captured a Bigfoot and is holding it in a nearby mineshaft. He also says he has the foot of a Sasquatch in a freezer and is offered $50,000 for it, even though no one ever sees it.

1970 – According to the Redding Searchlight newspaper and other sources, Tom Biscardi’s mentor, Ivan Marx, from his base in Bossburg, Washington, says he will capture a Bigfoot in a year. (He never does.)

1970 – Matthew Gary Whitton is born.

1970-1971 – Ray Wallace attempts to sell his Bigfoot films.

1971 – Tom Biscardi creates Amazing Horizons, Inc. to distribute Ivan Marx’s films.

1971 – February – Ivan Marx is in Colville, Washington, hunting Bigfoot after tracks show up there. He says he is under contract and being paid by Peter Byrne’s National Wildlife Conservation Society. Marx tells the media he has 70 feet of film of a Bigfoot. Produces tracks and handprints.

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1971 – March – Marx asks to be released from his contract with the National Wildlife Conservation Society. Peter Byrne discovers the site where Marx filmed.

1971 – April – Ray Pickens, 39, a bricklayer from Colville (the town next to Bossburg, Washington), tells the San Francisco Examiner, that he put down the tracks found in Colville and it was a hoax. “I made Bigfoot, Middlefoot, and Littlefoot,” Pickens says.

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In this clip, Pickens tells why he left fake prints and demonstrates how he did it. Also, Marx’s fake footage is shared.

1972 – Spring – The activity in Bossburg and Colville is over and all the Bigfooters have gone home. Most non-academic hunters have doubts about the “evidence” produced from the events. Three academics (Krantz, Napier, Meldrum) do not.

John Green writes about this episode in Sasquatch: The Apes Among Us: “Whether there was a Sasquatch around Bossburg, I’m sure that I don’t know. It depends on whether Ivan [Marx] took over as producer before the curtain opened or half way through the third act. Whichever it was, he starred in the show from the first.”

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1972 – Ivan Marx produces two films (that are now universally said to be alleged fakes). Marx sells one of the films to the “You Asked for It” television program for $25,000. Biscardi is involved in the background dealings, allegedly.

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1973 – May – B/F Enterprises owner Tom Biscardi tells the Lancaster, California Ledger-Gazette that he “considers himself the greatest hunter of Bigfoot in the United States.” He has brought with him Ivan Marx to help him hunt Bigfoot. Biscardi says regarding the Antelope Valley Bigfoot events that “some are bound to be hoaxes [but] it appears that not all of the sightings have been hoaxes.” Biscardi informs the newspaper that he has a half-hour film on Sasquatch, and has been offered over $25,000 for it, but won’t sell it.

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1973 – December – Saga Magazine gives 25-year-old Tom Biscardi his first national attention for his Bigfoot claims that Bigfoot would be captured any day. Biscardi tells the Saga reporter that he, Biscardi has “sunk so much money” into the search and that “we’re going to find him.” The writer notes that he and Biscardi are relaxing, sipping wine, “back in his luxurious San Jose, Calif., apartment, waiting for the latest word on any sightings from Ivan Marx and the other six members of the Alaskan expedition.”

1981 – May 11 – According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Biscardi said he saw a Bigfoot on April 12, 1981, on Mount Lassen that “was a male, 7-foot-4, some 450 pounds.” Biscardi told the reporter he was going to capture a Bigfoot. (Apparently he never does.)

1982 – June 10 – Forest Services employee Paul Freeman says he sees an 8 ft tall Bigfoot, but he is soon driven from his watershed patroller job because he appears to have hoaxed evidence.

1982 – Grover Krantz shows Paul Freeman a copy of the handcast that Ivan Marx claims is from a Bigfoot hand. Later this year, Freeman finds and casts “knuckleprints” he says are from a Bigfoot. Freeman also finds prints with “dermal ridges” that local forest services officials feel are hoaxes. Also Freeman later produces films, which are universally viewed as fakes.

1983 – Tom Biscardi is the executive director and associate producer of In the Shadow of Bigfoot, a self-proclaimed documentary that contains old Ivan Marx footage of apparently the same pointy-headed, pointy-eared alleged Bigfoot seen in the earlier Marx films. It also contains the infamous “Bigfoot in a snowstorm” scene that had many film reviewers and John Green laughing off their seats. Critics are unexcited by this film and note it was full of factual errors. Biscardi’s company, Amazing Horizons, Inc, distributes In the Shadow of Bigfoot. ["Good for entertainment value only," wrote Mike Quast in his long entry on Ivan Marx, with notes on Biscardi, in his book Big Footage: A History of Claims for the Sasquatch on Film (2000).]

1983 – 1999 – Tom Biscardi reportedly and allegedly works as a Las Vegas promoter and showman. Rumors circulate of deals allegedly going badly and co-producers’ complaints.

1986 – Paul Freeman finds a handprint he claims is from a Bigfoot, near the Mill Creek watershed, near Blue Mountains, Washington-Oregon border.

1993 – May – Freeman says he finds an imprint of a buttocks from a Bigfoot, he alleges, along Dry Creek, in the Blue Mountain area.

1995 – Blue Mountains, Washington, Wes Sumerlin, local Bigfoot hunter and friend of Paul Freeman, finds a Bigfoot handprint, as had Freeman and Marx.

1998 – March – Ray Wallace offers a million dollars to the first person who could bring him a baby Bigfoot.

1999 – Ivan Marx, 78, dies.

2001 – April 18 – René Dahinden, 69, dies in British Columbia.

2001 – Court records show an auto finance company won a default judgment against Rick Dyer this year, for more than $15,000, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution (AJC).

2002 – February 14 – Grover Krantz, 70, dies at his Port Angeles, Washington home.

2002 – June – Rick Dyer quits the U. S. Army (AJC).

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2002 – Matthew Whitton is hired by the Clayton County, Georgia, Police Department.

2002 – November 26 – Ray Wallace, 84, dies at a Centralia, Washington, nursing home. His family tells the media, “Bigfoot has died.” They produce wooden carved feet that match a few of the prints found in the Bigfoot database from around Bluff Creek and the nearby area from 1958 through the 1960s.

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2003 – April 2 – Paul Freeman, 59, dies at Airway Heights, near Spokane, Washington.

2004 – January – Rick Dyer is discharged by the U. S. Army (AJC).

2004 – January 4 – Biscardi reappears and issues press releases stating he is trying to obtain over a million dollars from corporate sponsors to conduct a Bigfoot expedition. “The timing of this current expedition was prompted by the recent sighting and news reports of an ‘albino’ Bigfoot. Biscardi has seen and has a photo of a baby Bigfoot with white fur….The photo was taken by tracker, Peggy Marx,” noted their press release. Later Biscardi says his expedition is going to be a pay-as-you-go trek (like the BFRO ones taking place in 2003). Biscardi’s group names (e.g. “American Bigfoot Expedition”) then morphed into the GABFRO (Great American Bigfoot Research Organization).

2004 – A child-support complaint is filed by Rick Dyer’s ex-wife (AJC).

2004 – According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Rick Dyer begins working as a state corrections officer.

2005 – April 16 – Ferry operator Bobby Clarke allegedly videotaped a Nelson River, Manitoba Sasquatch and then sold the first rights to broadcast, for reportedly “six figures,” to Fox TV’s “A Current Affair”. It screens on May 4, 2005.

2005 – April 19 – Ivan Marx’s grandchildren, the Hickmans, and Tom Biscardi claim to have seen a Bigfoot near Burney, California. Unfortunately, Biscardi told the media, he “left his tranquilizer gun and his wire-mesh grenade launcher at home.”

2005 – April 27 – Jill Miller’s Bigfoot watching project is announced, having the innovation of Miller being live on-site for six weeks and having a real-time video feed from her campsite’s satellite uplink, 24 hours a day.

2005 – June 29 – A new Biscardi press release appears, saying that an “Imminent Capture Anticipated” (sic) of Bigfoot. The release gave helpful contact information that the “findings and materials forthcoming from this investigation will also be offered for commercial sale and distribution. Organizations interested in acquiring the rights for projects such as publishing, television, film, merchandising, lectures and exhibits” based on Biscardi’s expeditions “could contact his p.r. firm.” Appears to be a copycat of the BFRO expeditions.

2005 – July 2 – Jill Miller’s “Waiting for Bigfoot” project begins sending live feeds out from waitingforbigfoot.com. Miller’s videos are placed on the Internet for free viewing.

2005 – July – In another obvious copycat move, Biscardi says he is going to have a pay-for-view live feed from his “expedition” site, 24/7, for $19.95 per week, or a $59.95 “pass.” A site, findingbigfoot.com, is created for Biscardi’s “streaming video.” Biscardi “leads” an expedition to find Bigfoot at Happy Camp, in the Klamath River Valley, in northern California. The seemingly sure-fire plan was to shoot Bigfoot with a stun gun, keep him in a zoo for 90 days so a medical team could study him, and then release him back into the wild.

2005 – August 19 – Biscardi follows up on an earlier promise to capture a Bigfoot during an appearance on Coast to Coast AM, by announcing to George Noory on this Friday show that, according to Biscardi, his team (although Biscardi hadn’t seen it), had in captivity for over a week, a 17 year old, male, over 400 pounds, 8 foot tall Bigfoot. He gets people to pay money for the chance to view photos and live feeds of the images of the Bigfoot. Biscardi’s exact words were that “we have a Bigfoot” in captivity.

2005 – August 22 – George Noory plays back earlier statements of Biscardi’s showing that Noory had not “misheard” Biscardi when he claimed the Bigfoot was 800 pounds. Parts of Biscardi’s story begin to crumble.

2005 – August 23 – In what would be coined the “I-was-hoodwinked account” (by Roger Knights, a Bigfoot forum comment maker), Tom Biscardi appears on Coast-to-Coast AM, during the evening and says he was “hoodwinked.” He now says he was misled by an acquaintance of his colleague, Peggy Marx. The acquaintance, who lives in Stagecoach, Nevada, had told them of an injured Bigfoot that was being cared for by two veterinarians. As the details of her story began to unravel, Biscardi said he eventually concluded that her reports were false.

Biscardi’s story got more fantastic the longer he talked, saying an Indian shot an injured Nevada reservation Bigfoot with arrows, that after the male was captured, a female was also taken into captivity, and that one of the vets treating it or them, “kidnapped” it or them. Reportedly, this “kidnapped” Bigfoot is right now being kept in one of two warehouses in Clearlake, California, just down the road from a grocery store. Biscardi said it was a story from a woman in Stagecoach, Nevada. He never had a video, never saw the Bigfoot, and there probably never was a Bigfoot. He kept using the word “hoodwinked.”

At a couple points, Biscardi seemed like he was trying to blame Coast to Coast and its listeners as the source of the hoax, that a listener of the program was behind this hoodwinking. Noory launched into him about this, noting Biscardi can’t blame the listeners for what Biscardi said about having a Bigfoot. After all, Biscardi is the one who came on the program and said what he said. Noory mildly pushed back at Biscardi for attempting to shift the responsibility to others.

The callers confront Biscardi with his marketing, that if they’d signed up to his website on Friday, with the current reduced rates ($19.95/week or $59.00/pass), they would be able to see the images cheaper than the increased rate he was going to charge after the new footage of the captive Bigfoot was posted. Biscardi was virtually speechless towards the end of the program, after several callers in a row appropriately challenge Biscardi’s actions. The callers demand their money back, say Biscardi had duped them, and one frankly notes that “this is fraud, dude.” Another calls it all an “Abominable Snow Job.”

2006 – According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, some time this year, Rick Dyer loses his job as a state corrections officer.

2006 – June 13 – Tom Biscardi announces that he possesses what he says is a “Bigfoot hand.” Photos and additional information pertaining to the hand were later released. Although bearing a superficial resemblance to a primate hand, the supposed Sasquatch hand associated with Don Monroe and Tom Biscardi, ostensibly obtained from the Butte, Montana, police department in 2002, appears, via x-rays, to match the paw of an American black bear (Ursus americanus).

2006 – July – A customer won a default judgment against Rick Dyer in Clayton Magistrate Court after claiming Dyer sold him a “broken” 1984 Chevrolet Corvette for $3,800 (AJC).

2006 – July – According to the San Jose Mercury News, C. Thomas Biscardi, a Redwood City man who bills himself as a “World Renowned Bigfoot Researcher,” sued the Great American Bigfoot Research Organization, its president and vice president. The group was established reportedly in 2005, “to track, study and learn about the Bigfoot creatures that are believed to inhabit North America.”

Biscardi, who claims to have been in the Bigfoot business for 33 years, says he was supposed to be paid $250,000 to “lend his experience, knowledge and reputation,” to conduct “Bigfoot expeditions,” and to provide the group with use of his library — which consists of things such as plaster footprint casts, films, photos and sound recordings.

The group, the lawsuit claims, paid him only $65,000 and won’t give back his stuff. Dennis Kazubowski, the San Jose lawyer representing Biscardi, said he’d been negotiating with the attorney for the defendants, North Bay residents Carole Rubin and Robert Shorey, for the return of Biscardi’s library, but then “the attorney quit because he wasn’t getting paid.”

The two founders of the Great American Bigfoot Organization are listed as Tom Biscardi Peggy Marx. The “top notch management” of the organization is listed as Tim McMillen, Secretary; Robert Shorey, VP of Operations; Ruby Rubin, CFO; and Elbert Yee. Jim McMillen is also listed as one of the three trackers for the org, the other two being Lee and Jimmy Hickman, grandsons of Ivan Marx. Mr. McMillen is also listed as being on the board of directors, along with Dick Fletcher and Charles E. Pintard. The official supporter, and also the publicity agent, is Robert Barrows.

2006 – August – Ray Crowe writes that his Bigfoot-oriented The Track Record would be publishing again, as Tom Biscardi was going to pay for it. Ray Crowe says on August 17th: “Tom is now my best friend.”

2007 – July – Tom Biscardi quits paying for The Track Record to be published. The publication soon folds.

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2007 – Biscardi’s “Searching for Bigfoot, Inc.” hires people across the country and gets his photo taken with many of his employees and local media.

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2008 – January & March – Steve Kulls admits later that he is a Biscardi employee for these two months. (SK)

2008 – June 10 – Using a fictional date “reconstructed” by Steve Kulls (SK), a Bigfoot body is allegedly discovered by Matt Whitton and Ric or Rick Dyer in northern Georgia. Dyer later tells Steve Kulls on the Internet radio show that it took them a day and a half to carry it out with six men. According to their story, Whitton sat with the body overnight while Dyer went to get the help. Also according to their story, on their way out of the woods, they were followed by several other Bigfoot creatures, which they managed to film. Kulls will introduce the pair to Tom Biscardi, according to blogger D. B. Donlon (DBD) and others.

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2008 – June 16 – Someone registers the domain name “bigfoottracker.com” and Steve Kulls claims it is Matt Whitton and Rick Dyers who have created the site.

2008 – June mid-late – Videos begin to appear on YouTube under the name of RDYER678. In one or more of these videos, it is claimed that an associate of theirs killed the Bigfoot with a 30.06. This person is not named, but described as “a felon.” (DBD)

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2008 – July 3 – Matthew Whitton is wounded in the wrist while allegedly struggling with a robbery suspect in some woods behind a Kroger’s in Clayton County, Georgia, according to Clayton County Daily News and Atlanta television stations.

2008 – July 4-5 – Whitton is given heroic media coverage and placed on medical leave by the Clayton County Police Department.

2008 – July 9 – Whitton states on a YouTube video that they’ve recovered a Bigfoot “corpse.” Whitton is released from hospital after being shot. (SK)

2008 – July – mid month – Videos continue to be posted on YouTube. Many of these videos begin to have a derogatory slant in regard to other Bigfoot researchers. (DBD) Matt Moneymaker, Loren Coleman, and Jeff Meldrum are frequent targets.

2008 – July 23 – Two news stories appear in the Clayton County Daily News about the alleged body. Also on this day, Whitton and Dyer hold a press conference for local media, trying to drum up interest in their story. (DBD)

2008 – July 25 – Steve Kulls issues a “challenge” to Whitton and Dyer to come on his Internet radio show. (SK)

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Frank Hansen and the Minnesota Iceman appear to have been a less-than-subtle model for the Georgia Bigfoot hoax.

2008 – July 28 – Rick Dyer appears on Steve Kulls’ radio show. During the show, he gives a description of the body that includes a height of eight feet, eight inches, and the fact that, if you were to shave the creature and put a hat on it, you would not be able to distinguish it from a human being. During the show, Dyer says the pair would welcome only three Bigfoot researchers to their location — Steve Kulls, Tom Biscardi, and another individual (CH) who has little to do with this fiasco other than to have been trying to seriously investigate it.

Dyer says that the evidence they have will be revealed on September 1, 2008. Dyer asks Kulls to call him. Dyer asks who is Tom Biscardi. 
Kulls puts Biscardi in contact with Dyer and Whitton. (DBD, SK)

Tom Biscardi’s “Amazing Horizons” company repackaged and disseminated Ivan Marx’s “Bigfoot” (fake) footage for years. He is considered by many to have been allegedly linked to numerous hoaxes.

2008 – July 29 – Kulls calls and thanks Dyer for being on his radio show. Biscardi tells Kulls that Dyer stated they sold the “corpse” to the National Enquirer. (SK)

2008 – July 30 – Kulls finds out that Whitton and Dyer did not sell the “body” to National Enquirer, and an attorney mentioned on the radio show knows nothing of a Bigfoot body. Biscardi calls me and tells me Dyer and Whitton want him to deal with the body exclusively. Both Whitton and Dyer appear on Biscardi’s separate Internet radio show. (SK)


2008 – July 31 – Kulls calls Biscardi’s Searching for Bigfoot (SFB) VP Bob (“JavaBob”) Schmalzbach and he tells him that he thinks this is a con. He needs to talk to Biscardi. JavaBob tells Kulls to call him. (SK)

2008 -August 1 – Allegedly the date on which Biscardi flies to Georgia to obtain the tissue sample for DNA testing. (DBD)

Kulls says he calls Biscardi to tell him of some revealing information about Dyer and that Kulls believes indicates he is a “con.” Biscardi says, Kulls reports, that he’ll get to the bottom of it. Biscardi asks Kulls to write an interim contract for obtaining the body or something from Whitton and Dyer. (SK, DBD)

The words “for entertainment perposes (sic) only” are noticed for the first time on the site. At about this time, videos begin disappearing from the YouTube site. (DBD)

2008 – August 2 – Biscardi calls Kulls and says that he was “Right there when the DNA was cut from the body.” States to Kulls: “This thing has incredibly thick skin” (SK)

Biscardi reveals later that he did not extract the sample from the body on this date, as he at first implied. Instead, he says later that Whitton and Dyer meet him in an “Atlanta hotel lobby” and hand him the sample. (Media reports)

There is a video up on the YouTube site briefly that talks of Biscardi taking the DNA sample, but it is soon removed. (DBD)

2008 – August 4 – Kulls says the contract he authored for Biscardi states Kulls is the introductory party and thus his only involvement. The tissue sample for DNA testing is being hand delivered to Dr. Curt Nelson. (SK)

Steve Kulls announces on his radio show that there is a “gag order” on the news of the Bigfoot body, so that he cannot talk about it. (DBD)

2008 – August 9 – Biscardi told Kulls that the next day Biscardi would be taking measurements, and taking pictures. (SK) (These statements seem less that truthful, later.)



2008 – August 10 – Biscardi describes the body to Kulls, telling him about the eyes, the teeth, and genitalia. 
 (SK)

Biscardi calls many different people, around the country, for the first time, excitedly telling of having seen the body, and claiming this is a real “body.” Says the feet show it is a humanlike being, not an apelike creature. (LC)

Biscardi generates wild rumors that the filming of the autopsy of the “body” is being sold for 11 million dollars, that two Russians are flying in to conduct the autopsy, and that other side deals or contracts are in the works.

2008 -August 11 – Biscardi forwards Kulls an email from Dr. Curt Nelson stating the DNA amplification size was consistent with human/ape and was going to be sequenced. 
(SK)

Dyer (and Whitton?) post a YouTube video with a flash of a black and white image of the “body in the box,” picture of Biscardi near the freezer, and text noting they are working with Biscardi now. Dyer and Whitton claim to have passed DNA on to Biscardi.

The screen capture of this image is posted at Cryptomundo, as a “leaked photo” of the “body.” The YouTube video is withdrawn later when it is realized the image is recognized as the alleged body.

2008 – August 12 – Biscardi calls Loren Coleman, and emails color photograph of body in the box, for embargoed release on Friday, August 15. Then Biscardi sends the press release, which Cryptomundo posts as it was noted for broad release. Loren Coleman expresses “skeptical optimism” in hopes perhaps he can share a photograph and make it more available for analysis for more analysis. Others express optimism. (LC, DBD)

After receiving complaints from Biscardi that Coleman or others might be the source of leaks of the photo, Coleman calls Biscardi, to tell him that, indeed, it is Barrows and Biscardi who are the source of the leaks through their own website. Coleman informs Biscardi that he is in the process of writing a blog that will post the photo to the Cryptomundo website immediately, because Biscardi’s own organization has prematurely released it themselves. Coleman posts the “body in a box” and prepared enlargements and enhancements at 9:29 pm Eastern, and the hits increase into the millions shortly.

Within minutes, Cryptomundo readers (e.g. “Ryan Thrash”) sends evidence of the costume by Chuck Jarman, which is the source of the “body” in the box. That information is posted by 9:40 pm Eastern, but because the site is crashing so often, few see the revisions immediately.

Also Tuesday, William Parcher on the JREF forum (at first without identifying the maker of the costume), Matt Moneymaker on the BFRO forum, and various (anonymous) people at the BFF do post varied exposures of the costume as keys to the hoax pour in. Overnight, Loren Coleman appears on Coast to Coast AM to express caution about this developing story because of the history of Biscardi and the costume info.



2008 – August 13 – The national media ignores the costume developments, instead going ahead with the interest in the Friday news conference. Biscardi goes on the morning Fox News, showing the “body in a box” photo, and promising the host she can be the first one to go “touch the body” next week.

Kulls says he is given a picture of the alleged corpse for the first time. Biscardi asks Kulls why “would [he] drop 50 large if this wasn’t the real thing; I saw it.” 
 (SK)

2008 – August 14 – Kulls says he wasn’t shown comparisons of pictures to costume, until this date, two days after they appeared. Kulls says he relates this to Biscardi, who says he saw it and says that “it’s not a costume; it’s the real thing.” When Kulls hears the “corpse” is in transport, he buys his plane ticket. 
 (SK)

2008 – August 14 – William Wald Lett Jr. of Eaton, Indiana, says he met Matt Whitton and Rick Dyer in the Clayton County (GA) Justice Center parking lot. The two men signed a “transfer release agreement” to sell the frozen remains of Bigfoot. Lett said he handed over $50,000 in cash. Lett said he then followed the two men to a house on nearby Poston Road, where another person was “standing guard” over a freezer that held the alleged remains. Lett said the freezer containing a frozen, furry “carcass”, which weighed almost a ton, was loaded onto a trailer towed by his GMC Yukon Denali. Lett and Biscardi associates then drove it back to Indiana. (Court documents, AJC)

2008 – August 15 – “Bigfoot Friday” Biscardi, Whitton, and Dyer hold a press conference in Palo Alto, California. The DNA results that are “released” and “read” by Biscardi are inconclusive and confusing, while the two pictures released do not show anything compelling either. Biscardi is abrupt and confrontational with the media, at one point saying that he wanted to get, as much money as possible and saying Jeff Meldrum “wasn’t an anthropologist.” (LC, DBD)

Whitton talks more than Dyer, and says that Biscardi is now in possession of the body. Whitton describes how they came across “corpse” (which is different that two earlier stories). Whitton says he was never interested in Bigfoot, (which conflicts with early storytelling about how wanted to hunt Bigfoot as a kid). Biscardi states he touched it, smelled it, and felt it in the midst of other statements, which turn out to be mistruths. (CNN, BFRO, DBD, LC)

Kulls arrives at the Indianapolis airport at 4:10PM EST. Kulls is driven to location in Indiana, outside of Muncie in a rural community. There are no televisions, however he sees a few snippets of Whitton on a computer from his appearance at the press conference. (SK)

Whitton and Dyer appear on MSNBC at around 8:50 pm Eastern on “Countdown” and say about the same things they had said at the noon Pacific Time news conference. Dyer mentions that he wants to get as much money as possible from “the Bigfoot body.”

The general reaction of the media, the press, and the blogs, as the night wears on, is skeptical and they are insulted by Biscardi’s behavior at the press conference. Most members of the media thought they were going to be presented with proof of Bigfoot, not blurry photos, stories, and DNA results stating that human and opossum tissue had been proven found.


2008 – August 16 – In Indiana, through the use of heaters, the ice around the “body” melts to where Kulls takes a hair sample, burns it and it balls up like as an artificial fiber might. (Kulls, AJC)

Johnson, Biscardi’s son, and JavaBob begin to speed-thaw the ice using a salamander or turbo heater, and eventually pull a rubber foot out. Biscardi is called, told about the find, and Kulls describes him as unusually calm about it. (SK)

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Biscardi allegedly calls Kulls (two of the crew and investor are not present at the time) and he allegedly tells Kulls that he wants to fill the freezer up with water, freeze it, and release it back to Whitton & Dyer. Kulls recalls that Biscardi said that then Whitton and Dyer would make a statement that the public pressure was too much on them and they took their body back. Biscardi would then place a gag order on it, and never speak of it again. Kulls says he staunchly objects and would not participate in it. 

 (SK)

Next, Kulls says he talks with Whitton to return the money. Whitton states they don’t have it and they only want to deal with Biscardi. Biscardi calls Kulls back and claims that Whitton & Dyer will sign a promissory note and a confession the next morning before they leave for home. Kulls says he draws up the documents. (SK)

2008 – August 17 – Whitton and Dyer left before their scheduled meeting with Biscardi. Biscardi wants press there to expose it as a hoax, but no one in the press wants to let him on the air. Kulls remains in Indiana, and is asked to prepare a statement. (SK)

2008 – August 18 – Bob Schmalzbach revises the Biscardi-Kulls joint statement, and removes many of the separation items in the statement.

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Kulls’ Squatchdetective Radio promises an “important statement,” and keeps listeners waiting for him announce the hoax at 10:10 PM. He times it to be co-broadcast with the footage of the rubber feet and costume being thawed out of the ice being broadcast by a local Fox News television station. Kulls is evasive in his answers, and his connection to Biscardi. The phone-in listeners are not happy with Kulls, Biscardi, Whitton, and Dyer.

Kulls says he was doing the live-feed while in the presence of Biscardi’s son and others in Biscardi’s crew. He says, “If I agreed on the lying at that point it could have risked me physical harm.” (SK)

2008 – August 18 – Matt Whitton and Rick Dyer appear on WSB-TV and admit their roles in the hoax.

2008 – August 19 – Matt Whitton, 28, is fired after six years with the department because of his involvement in the hoax, police Chief Jeff Turner says. Dyer, 31, worked at three state prisons, according to Georgia Peace Officers Standards and Training Council records. However, he now drives a truck for Big Foot Towing Co. and sells used cars over the Internet.

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2008 – August 19 – Morning news on Fox and other media outlets broadcast the “costume” from the ice footage, and/or tell of the hoax.

2008 – August 20 – Whitton and Dyer state that Biscardi and Kulls coached them. Kulls issues a statement denying the coaching, and coming clean about the above July-August involvements. Kulls says he never met them and has not been to Georgia this year. (YouTube, SK)

2008 – August 21 – Kulls appears on Fox and Friends at 6:50 am Eastern and reveals what he calls “the deceptions of Tom Biscardi,” and how he believes Biscardi was “complicit in the hoax based upon the DNA email and statements made” to Kulls. (SK)

2008 – August 21 – William Wald Lett Jr. of Eaton, Indiana, files a formal legal complaint with Clayton County, Georgia, police. Lett said he brokered and videotaped the transaction on behalf of Tom Biscardi, who promised Lett that he’d repay the loan at 50 percent interest, $75,000 due within 90 days. Lett said he has tried without success to contact Whitton and Dyer to get his money back. (AJC)

The timeline was constructed from various files, including the timelines found in the media, blogs, and forums, including from the BFRO, BFF, D. B. Donlon, Steve Kulls, and Cryptomundo.