Hoaxes and the Hoaxing Hoaxers Who Hoax Them: Culpeper

It may be too early for me to write this since it refers to events that happened not very long ago. And it refers to a moment in time when I found out that someone I thought I knew, someone I trusted and liked, was purposely deceiving me. It’s the sort of revelation that is hard on you in any circumstances. In the world of bigfoot research, it’s got that extra twinge in it on account of ruining your credibility.

I’m not going to name the culprit. I can tell you that he admitted to much of his hoaxing (though not all of it). He said that he had done it to set me up, though those of us involved could not see how the facts fit that theory. It seems to us now that he was looking for some kind of easy excuse for his actions. We may never know the real reason he did it, but I would guess that he wanted notoriety in the world of bigfoot research, since it all seems to have really gotten started when the East Ohio Chatter clip hosted on Stan Courtney’s site was featured on Coast to Coast’s website. The short blurb they wrote up mentioned my name and another name, but did not mention his. I know that this bothered him because he told me that I had not given him proper credit even though I “never would have gotten that recording” without him. I’m not sure why he said that, but it makes you wonder -- does he mean that he hoaxed the sounds that I recorded?

Because there isn’t any other justification that I can think of. He didn’t select the location where we recorded -- that was Brian B., a researcher out of West Virginia, who told us to try a certain area with a feature that could well be an attractant for any sasquatch in the area at that time of the year. I think Brian’s guess was right on the money and if anyone should have gotten credit for finding the location, it was him.

But I don’t think it’s possible to truly divine the innermost thoughts and desires that create a hoaxer. I’ll always wonder when the hoaxing started, but I do know when I first became uneasy, and then exactly when I became suspicious that something was going on.

Let me pause a minute to address something I am sure will come up. When I kept a thread on the NABF about the Culpeper findings, there was a prominent webizen from Cryptozoology.com who figured out where the location was and made a few visits. He proclaimed that the whole thing was a hoax from the beginning. His reasons? He said there had not been snow on the ground when we found the three footprints -- here’s a picture of one:

Picture by author, all rights reserved (like you want them..)

And he said that he could find no evidence of our camp site. So it was all a hoax, he said. Well, as you can see in that picture up there, looks like there was plenty of snow on the ground THAT day. I have no motive to lie about it, the guy was just flat out wrong about that. And I don’t know how he missed the firepit with the two-foot charred log in it, but he did and took his inability to find it as ironclad evidence enough to proclaim loudly that it was all a hoax. It wasn’t all a hoax, that much I know, because I was there and directly witnessed some of the activity. Was some of it a hoax, even beyond what was later admitted to? I would have to say that certainly some of it was. Is that print up there a bigfoot footprint? I don’t know. I tried to get Dr. Jeff Meldrum to look at it and give me his opinion but he never got back to me on it. The print is so perfect it could well have been laid into the ground by hand, perhaps using a legitimate cast, but if so, the hoaxer picked a cast that is small enough to have been human. Is it a human’s foot then? Maybe. But it’s much larger than the foot of the guy who found it. The print has a wider heel than you’d expect from a human being too, and little if any arch is evident in the cast that was made of it. But it was found by a guy who later admitted to hoaxing another print. You are pretty well forced to throw it out.

So how did all this get started? I met the eventual hoaxer -- let’s give him a name, let’s just call him Bob -- I met Bob through a mutual friend, Mark Maisel. who had also attended the BFRO West Virginia expedition, though Bob had been there the second week, while Mark and I were there the first week. Bob became a member of a small bulletin board that some of us East Coast researchers had been using to set up investigatory expeditions, and while he was there, he mentioned his wife seeing something out in Culpeper. I thought it was interesting enough that I interviewed her. The sighting was at such a distance that you couldn’t be sure of it, but it was enough to get me involved, peripherally at first, as an advisor, in a project at that location.

There was a long time between that first possible sighting and any other activity out at that location, and during that time, Bob said he was going out to the location two or three times a week, walking through the area, leaving apples and other food items where they could be easily retrieved by something tall enough to reach up, but harder for smaller critters. Sometimes he would return and the food items would be gone, and sometimes he’d go and they’d all be there. It wasn’t much to go on. But on one of his survey’s through the area, as he paused to look at what seemed to him to be a footprint in some mud, he said something screamed at him, and it sounded so close he thought it might be just behind a bit of thick brush about twenty yards away. On hearing that story, I made an effort to get out to the location, to see the footprint and the area where he’d heard the scream. When I got there, I was disappointed to find, as he insisted, that someone had stepped into the footprint and destroyed it. I could see the clear outline of a hunting boot, but I really couldn’t tell what might have been under it, even though he had said the original print had measured 14” in length. Maybe there had been a print there, but if so, there was no way now to be sure.

Was that the start of the hoaxing? Maybe so, but his wife backed him up on what he said. She had been out at the location, although in a different area, and had heard the howl too. That was Christmas Eve 2006, more than eight months after her first sighting of a possible creature. During that time, Bob had purchased more than one deercam, some recording equipment, and had spent a lot of time out there looking and recording.

I visited on December 30, and I wrote this entry on the bulletin board that day:

Bob and I had a short excursion into the area where he has been having activity. We had a little bit of activity ourselves -- three very clear, traditional woodknocks, and an abundance of a low knocking that we've heard there before. The last time we heard it, it was quite close, and we thought was a response to one of my "wood whoops". We also saw quite a few twisted trees -- none as spectacular as Brian's twists, but the one Bob took pictures of before was a very interesting one. It looks as if the tree had been broken over while it was still green, then twisted around one full turn. I took a few pictures of it from some different angles so that together with Bob's pics, we can get a good idea of how that thing twisted.

Bob's apples were gone, as well as the twine they hung from. This time Bob left a bit of beef jerky. We'll see what Uncle Hairy thinks about that..

On our way out we both were surprised to see something very shiny just inside the tree line on the side of the road, not yet 100 yards from the parking area, and on the park side of the road. We both saw it very clearly -- it looked odd. Bob said it was about 8' off the ground and I would agree. We were so struck by it that we turned the car around and went back, expecting to see the reflection again, but we didn't. It glowed white. It wasn't two things, but it was pretty big, so if it was one eye, it was a big creature, not a raccoon.

There was activity out there. Unless Bob had an as yet undiscovered accomplice, it wasn’t hoaxed because that activity happened while Bob was in view.

EXTREMELY LATE EDIT: In fact, it's January 13, 2009, that's how late this edit is. Last month Billy Willard and a few other guys were out in the field with "Bob" when suspicious activity happened again. This time, Bob's father was there and it seems that he was implicated. Bob's dad is in his seventies and none of us would have imagined him to be involved. But he might have been, easily. I don't know what size foot he has, but it could well be his foot in the snow that produced that picture up there. So if you are a late reader of this series, keep this information in mind as you read on. There are places where Bob having an accomplice will possibly explain some things. But unless Bob's dad weighs 700 lbs., it won't explain everything.

Now you are caught up. Happy reading.

Next up, the story continues with part 2.