Fresh Loaf

Atlanta’s 11 Least Influential People is Creative Loafing’s annual tribute to the Joe and Josephine Averages of the world who try, but don’t necessarily succeed.

Winners 11 through six will be revealed, one-per-day, until Wednesday, November 12, when the 11 Least Influential issue hits newsstands.

GEORGIA BIGFOOT: "The irrationality of a thing is no argument against its existence, rather a condition of it." (Friedrich Nietzche, 1844-1900)

No. 8 — Georgia Bigfoot

Can’t convince anyone he exists.

Pity Georgia Bigfoot.

He wanders our state’s forests in a lonesome purgatory of disbelief.

He has no friends. He has no family. And unlike his prodigiously pawed peers of the Pacific Northwest, he has comparatively few professional Bigfoot-seekers stroking his ego by attempting to track him.

Last summer it looked briefly like his luck had changed. His existence, it seemed, was about to be acknowledged, posthumously.

In August, Clayton County cop Matthew Whitton and former Clayton County corrections officer Rick Dyer claimed to have located the remains of Georgia Bigfoot in North Georgia.

The media was momentarily riveted, and Dyer and Whitton were reportedly paid $50,000 for their find by Bigfoot hunters.

A little late for him to fully enjoy it, it seemed, but Georgia Bigfoot had finally arrived.

Or not.

Dyer’s and Whitton’s manimal carcass was actually a monster costume covered in entrails, then frozen in ice.

When the Sasquatch-sicle finally melted, Dyer and Whitton were outed as hoaxsters. Whitton was fired from the Clayton County police force and the duo were sued for the $50,000.

Forgotten in all the media coverage, however, was the true victim of the hoax: Georgia Bigfoot himself.

Sure, the fact that the corpse was a fake probably means he’s alive, healthy, and wandering the state’s forests right now.

But this solitary, woodland-dwelling creature has once again, through no fault of his own, found himself trapped in the existential no-man’s land between greedy hoaxsters and a skeptical public.

What’s the point of existing if no one believes you exist?

See all of Atlanta’s 11 Least Influential People of 2008.

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This Bigfoot thing just gets stranger. The sasquatch carcass was — surprise! — revealed to be a rubber gorilla costume, the company that paid the two Clayton County gentleman $50,000 for the costume plan to sue, and last night the hoaxsters’ website was redesigned and proclaimed they were the world’s greatest pranksters.

Supposedly, “more will be revealed” on Sept. 1. The site’s down now, but I was able to pull this thrilling and eloquent news update. (The “Tom” and “Steve” mentioned below are the California gentlemen who helped publicize the “find” and now plan to sue.)

August 20, 2008

,.,.,.lol ,we are not on the run,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,this hoax was blown, when people started to talk about the suit from horrordome.com,and a member of tom biscardis team wanted to bail,,,,,so tom and steve did all they could do,.,..,.,blame the rednecks from georgia.,,.,.,.,.,.we did pull off the best hoax every,, yes every,, dont take my word for it,,,ask the world.,.,.,.,., and fyi ,,the body was turned over to biscardi 8/14/2008,,we flew to s.f on 08/15/08,.,.,.and left s.f on 08/17/2008 as planned,,,,,,no running,no hiding as planned

It’s a damn shame the site’s down. There were all sorts of cool pages and content lifted off Wikipedia. My favorite was under “Theory” in which they explained why Bigfoot kinda sorta has to exist:

MOST OF US DON’T HAVE OUR BODIES COVERED IN HAIR BECAUSE WE LIVE IN HOUSES, BUT IF YOU TURNED HUMANS INTO THE WILD WITH NO CLOTHES THEY WOULD BECOME VERY HARRY AND ALSO THE SMALLER ONES WOULD NOT SURVIVE DUE TO THE COLD WEATHER,

After the jump, read a few of the more than 1,300 heartwarming comments left on the hoaxsters’ guestbook by their biggest fans.

(more…)

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Jesus Christ, Georgia, this kind of stuff has to end. People are starting to think we’re apeshit crazy.

The two Georgia men who made national headlines last week with the claim they bagged Bigfoot were revealed today as hoaxsters. A California researcher says the “corpse” encased in ice and presented at a press conference melted to reveal a rubber gorilla costume.

From the Associated Press:

First, the hair sample was burned and “melted into a ball uncharacteristic of hair,” Kulls said in the posting.

The thawing process was sped up and the exposed head was found to be “unusually hollow in one small section.” An hour of thawing later and the feet were exposed – and they were found to be made of rubber.

Matt Whitton, an officer who has been on medical leave from the Clayton County Police Department, and Rick Dyer, a former Georgia corrections officer, announced the find in early July on YouTube videos and a Web site.

“Everyone who has talked down to us is going to eat their words,” Whitton said at the time.

And this gem:

Phone calls to Whitton and Dyer went unreturned on Tuesday. But the voicemail recording for their Bigfoot Tip Line – which proclaims they search for leprechauns and the Loch Ness monster – has been updated and announcing they’re also in search of “big cats and dinosaurs. If you see any of those, give us a call.”

You got it, guys, I’ll keep my eyes peeled. Whitton was fired from his job as a Clayton County police officer today after his bosses learned the We-Got-Bigfoot claim was a sham.

(Photo courtesy of monorails.org, of all places)

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