Biggest Story of 2008: The Georgia Bigfoot Body Hoax

The Original Impetus for the Hoax

The original motivation for the Georgia Body hoax was the attempt by sheriff deputy Matt Whitton, and used car salesman Rick Dyer, to offer expeditions like the BFRO. Bigfoot expeditions looked like a great business to them, because the BFRO's expedition often sell out months in advance. They saw an opportunity to attract the people who didn't sign up for the BFRO's trips in time.

This same motivation was shared by the infamous hoaxer Carmine (Tom) Biscardi. Years before this hoax Biscardi had started a company called "Great American Bigfoot Field Research Organization" (GABFRO) in a blatant attempt to confuse people who had heard about BFRO expeditions. Biscardi, a former Las Vegas promoter, eventually changed the name of his business entity to "Searching for Bigfoot, Inc."

Even with a relentless publicity campaign to advertise his expeditions, no one signed up. As his money started to run out he became increasingly desperate for media attention. He saw the potential in the Georgia body story for a lot of free publicity, and a marketing scam to sell phony photos through his web site, so he jumped in to advise and partner with the Georgia boys, using his Vegas-honed silver tongue and media deception skills to bring live television coverage to his bizarre, self-promoting press conference in Palo Alto.




The YouTube Videos by the Georgia Boys

In the process of trying to draw attention to their phony expedition business, the Georgia boys noticed that some incredulous critics suddenly became extremely polite, and even helpful, when the boys began claiming that they had in their possession the body of a dead bigfoot. That particular lie struck a curious chord in many people, as if the boys claimed to have had a vision of the Virgin Mary. But this was happening in modern times, with modern, intelligent people falling for it.

Everyone who had been monitoring the antics of the Georgia boys in the weeks prior could plainly see that they were a fountain of ridiculous lies, but when they told this particular lie, some people suddenly bowed down to them, and offered all sorts of rationalizations for why they should be taken seriously. The rationalizers were heard to say, "But what if they really DO have the body of a dead bigfoot ... ?"

There was some power in that particular lie. It touched a dormant nerve in many -- a nerve that makes them blind to what should be obvious. The Georgia boys saw this happening so they began promoting the dead body lie with full force, and even more ludicrous videos on YouTube.

The fact that Whitton was a sheriff deputy is ultimately what made the hoax go as far as it did. Most people, including those in the media, assumed that a sheriff deputy would not put his reputation and career on the line by promoting a hoax that was bound to unravel in disgrace. It didn't make sense, so the Georgia boys were given the benefit of the doubt by the world media.

When Biscardi stepped into the picture he convinced the two Georiga boys that there was a way for everyone involved (including Steve Kulls) to make a lot of money quickly. He convinced them that they had nothing to worry about, and they would all make out like bandits before the hoax finally unravelled.

The two Georgia boys did make a few thousand dollars from the hoax, but deputy Whitton lost his career in disgrace. His partner and motivator, Rick Dyer, lost nothing in the process because he had no career to lose in the first place. He was living hand-to-mouth as a self-employed used car dealer. Biscardi hoped to make a windfall before the hoax unravelled, but it appears now that he made very little from the hoax and is now destitute.



The BFRO Debunks the Hoax and Identifies the Costume Used

The BFRO had been tracking the antics of the Georgia boys several weeks prior to the press conference. We tried to warn everyone via our public discussion forum of the impending hoax a full week prior to the press conference, after it was learned that the Georgia boys joined forces with veteran hoaxer Biscardi.

Based on his past tactics we knew that Biscardi would shoot for maximum publicity, and would come up with a scheme to make a windfall of money from the intense curiousity on the Internet generated by the media publicity.

As the BFRO first announced, two days prior to the press conference, the "body" was a widely available Halloween costume stuffed into a large cooler, and filled with rotting animal entrails.


Confusion with Legitimate Bigfoot Researchers

At this stage everyone in the bigfoot research community would like nothing more than to wisk this hoax into the dust bin of history. Unfortunately we have to keep this page available and prominent a while. Because, unfortunately, many people who heard about the hoax were only listening with half an ear, or heard distorted details from other people.

The Impact on Legitimate Bigfoot Research

Consider a historical parallel -- the "Alien Autopsy Video" Hoax.

In the 1990's an unscrupulous television producer perpetrated a television hoax with a video of a phony autopsy of a phony alien body. The video was touted by a particular television network as a potentially authentic piece of video footage. The same video producer and television network later revealed their own hoax in a subsequent program. This televised hoax got high ratings, and they all cashed in, but it wasn't illegal.

Everyone talked about this hoax for a while. Many people were very willing to throw the baby out with the bath water. But the rational reality remained: The Alien Autopsy Video Hoax had no bearing whatsoever on the question of whether extraterrestrial life exists ... Though many people were heard to say, in the weeks and months following the hoax, "See, I told ya' that UFO stuff was all just a bunch of BS ... "

People don't generally say that nowadays. They only chuckle about that program, if they can remember it at all ...

This will be the historical fate of the Georgia Body Hoax and the unscrupulous Carmine Biscardi. In time people will merely look back and chuckle about it, if they remember it at all. They will continue to hear about sightings of sasquatches/bigfoots from various credible witnesses. Over the course of time, society will come to accept and embrace their existence, whether or not a corpse is ever collected.



The Impact on the BFRO's Noble Cause

During and after the Georgia Body Hoax many people worried what affect the hoax would have on the future of the BFRO and its mission. Some thought the BFRO would collapse because people would completely dismiss the subject, and therefore would no longer be interested in attending BFRO expeditions.

The people who were worried for us were operating on the false assumption that the BFRO was funded primarily by the registration fees from the expeditions.

The BFRO is a volunteeer organization and thus never relied much on the expedition fees to keep the effort going. Furthermore the BFRO existed for nearly ten years before its field efforts were open to public participation in exchange for a fee. The expeditions themselves were never intended as a profit-making operation, but rather a realization of the original goal of the group -- to conduct organized field research on bigfoots (hence the name "Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization").

Due to the expenses involved, the expeditions lost money for the first two years until they attracted support from multi-millionaire Wally Hersom, a long-time follower of the BFRO web site. He attended a few expeditions in 2006 and thereafter concluded that the BFRO was the best bet for proving the existence of these animals to the skeptical public. Rather than discouraging his support, the Georgia hoax cemented his commitment to this noble cause, as it demonstrated the worldwide desire to see authentic images of these animals.

Not unlike the Internet itself, the BFRO is here to stay. The web site will remain a popular information resource for years to come, and the public expeditions will carry on year after year.

The BFRO will eventually have a profound impact on science and humanity, as the growing collection of evidence will demonstrate that these animals indeed exist, and should be studied and valued for what they have to offer.

In the long run, bigfoots will help humans understand more about the human condition than all the other primates combined. They will teach humanity invaluable lessons about sustainable survival -- especially the critical need to regulate human population expansion based on projections of local resource availability.

2009 will be the dawn of a new era of sensible global economic regulation, now that the flaws of unregulated market forces are so undeniable. Along with the obvious need for some degree of global economic regulation, society will begin to address another obvious need -- the need for a sensible degree of regulation of human population expansion.

Bigfoots will serve as a powerful emblem for long-term species survival via population stability and slow growth.

The Earth is an island, in a sense. The fate of the human population on Easter Island in the South Pacific is a case-study for what could happen if the Earth's population is allowed to grow beyond what the Earth's resources can support. Various parts of Africa provide modern examples of catastrophies that can occur when a growing population exhausts its local resources, or the environment changes in a way that suddenly removes resources that are already stretched to support too many people.

The more powerful factor that will facilitate human population regulation, without violence or the threat of violence, will be the global penetration of the Internet and literacy.

The spread of Internet access will eventually enable a homogenization of cultural principles regarding population growth, especially the principle that humans should avoid producing loads of offspring. This cultural principle has already been circulating for a few decades among the literate, educated, secular societies in developed nations, which is why families in wealthy nations tend to be much smaller these days, compared to a few generations ago. But this cultural principle will only circulate in third-world regions (i.e. Central America, South America, Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia) when there is much better penetration of literacy and the Internet. The Internet will diminish the dominating influence of those particular religions and old traditions which tend to encourage very large families.

In the future it will not be unthinkable for all humans to peacefully give up their freedom to produce very large families (as the Chinese did three decades ago), in exchange for easier, happier, more secure lifestyles. At that stage, famines, epidemics and wars will be things of the past, everywhere, just as they have become remote phenomena and fading memories within the wealthiest nations.

There are many aspects to bigfoots that humans should emulate to some extent. There is nothing to suggest that famines, epidemics or wars occur among bigfoots, because they do not overpopulate. Even in those areas where their numbers could dramatically expand, given the quantity of food resources available to them, their numbers are still very low. They do not exist in large numbers anywhere, even by ape standards. They range widely, but not densely. They've never become a nuisance to humans, or human livestock. And unlike gorillas and chimps they do not live in large enough groups to make them easy to hunt by humans. Their impact on the land is so subtle that it takes a trained eye to even notice it. There are many other good reasons to study their behavior, and diet, and lifestyle.

Humans will benefit from these apes in ways that most people do not appreciate at present.