Loren Coleman posted an item over at Cryptomundo today about an art exhibit at St. Edward’s Universtity, here in Austin, TX.

Jeff Wilson’s Cryptozoology photo exhibit, running through November 5 at the St. Edward’s University Fine Arts Gallery (map), is described as photography that “subtly insinuate(s) the existence of the mythological, mysterious and unexplained in everyday life .”

While, as Loren notes, the description of cryptozoology used in the full text of the promo material is flawed, I’ll reserve my judgement until after I’ve had a chance to look at the exhibit. I was also intrigued by the fact that the next exhibit, opening after Cryptozoology, is the Alchemy. (Granted this is art from David Mack’s Marvel icons book Kabuki, and not related in any way to historical alchemists or alchemy, but the Fortean in me couldn’t help but leap a little at the juxtaposition of the shows and their titles. Plus its the juncture of high art and comics! What’s not to get excited about there?)

For more information about both shows, and other events, visit the St. Edward’s University: Art Program website here.

The Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy has added archaeologist Kathy Moskowitz Strain to the list of speakers for their upcoming conference, October 18, in Jefferson Texas. Strain will be discussing her new book Giants, Cannibals & Monsters: Bigfoot in Native Culture.

We here at Anomaly have received a review copy of Giants, Cannibals & Monsters, and while we haven’t had the time to give it the proper, in-depth review it deserves, our initial impressions are positive. The book is gorgeously illustrated, and worth the price of purchase for the photographs alone. Nearly every page features amazing archival photography of the native peoples whose legends are discussed; including turn of the century candid shots of them going about their daily lives, participating in ceremonies and dances, and pausing to pose for gorgeous portraits.

The stories selected also seem to run the gamut, from clearly legendary tales with a tenuous connection to the subject of Bigfoot, to simple and straightforward accounts of hairy bipedal animals and their home ranges. Strain keeps the editorializing to a minimum, letting the stories stand on their own merits. While much has been made of the mythical aspects lent to hairy giants in some native tales, mainly by those attempting to discredit these stories as a legitimate source of pre-20th century bigfoot accounts, it’s worth remembering that coyote, spider, and raven all feature prominently in various Native stories, and all are also real creatures (as are the fox, tortoise, hare, and other creatures employed to great effect in the fables of Aesop and others).

Even if you do not believe in the physical reality of hairy bipeds roaming the forested hills and secreted valleys of the modern landscape, Strain’s book serves as a very nice catalogue of legends and I expect it to be invaluable to me in years to come as a reference for placing our modern bigfoot stories in a context of developing American mythos of the wild man legends and in comparing Native American stories to other wild man stories from around the globe.

Kathy Moskowitz Strain will be in Jefferson Texas the weekend of October 18 to discuss her work and book.

Those who follow such things are probably already aware that two Georgia based “Bigfoot Hunters” are claiming to have the body of one of the creatures in their possession. They have been building suspense via YouTube postings and their website, www.bigfoottracker.com, for the past couple of months, claiming that the big disclosure was right around the corner, as soon as a few legal issues were resolved. As this post is being written the duo, police officer Matthew Whitton and former corrections officer Rick Dyer, who bill themselves as the world’s greatest trackers, are in Palo Alto, California, with Tom Biscardi preparing for a press conference to disclose their discovery, and possibly DNA evidence, to the media.

While some are being cautiously optimistic, most Bigfoot researchers are remaining skeptical, for various reasons. For instance Craig Woolheater, of the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy, disclosed during a recent broadcast of the Squatchdetective internet radio program that the two principals attempted to become associated with his organization via a fictional third party, a “Dr. Paul Van Buren”, and claimed to be associated with the organization on their website when no such association existed. This has lead to some conjecture that the entire event is designed to poke fun of the Bigfoot community, a la the Penn and Teller hoax film. Dr. Jeff Meldrum has stated that their method of preserving the body, among other things, leads him to remain skeptical as well. A surgeon and a primate specialist who have examined the photos have told me that the supposed intestines lying on top of the “body” in the photo are too small to represent what they would expect to see even in the small intestines of a creature of this size. Others have noted the similarity of the creature’s face to a widely available Bigfoot costume. While the nares on the creature pictured are very similar to those seen in known primates, such as the gorilla, some eyewitnesses have stated that it does not resemble the creature they have seen. Finally there is the association with proven hoaxer Tom Biscardi, as well as inconsistencies in the story as presented via the Bigfoottracker.com website and YouTube videos and in the interview on the Squatchdetective program. For example, the duo have videos that show them involved in “Bigfoot research”, which led them to a hunter who shot this creature, but on the Squatchdetective program they claim to have not been involved in research prior to this discovery and to have stumbled across it while hiking. While they state on the program that the You Tube videos were intended to poke fun at Bigfoot researchers, they also say that the people featured in the videos are “real people” who contacted them via their tip-line. While this may simply be bad editing and/or lack of explanation on the part of the duo, it exemplifies their flippant treatment of the situation. They also claim that rigor mortis had set in when they found and transported the body out of the forest, however after about 72 hours rigor mortis releases, so the body should not have been rigid if the level of decomposition supposedly shown in the photos had time to occur. Their description of the creature as more human than ape-looking also contradicts the photo images, however they have insinuated in the Squatchdetective interview that the photo released may not be of the actual creature, reason for further skepticism from many.

While many in the Bigfoot community have taken an “I’m skeptical but I want them to prove me wrong” approach, hoping that will be enough to raise them above any fallout a hoax will have on the community, I will personally come out and say that I feel this is a hoax. There are too many elements that don’t fit, and the entire situation, from attempting to freeze the animal in a block of ice to the “sale of the body to an undisclosed millionaire” is way too reminiscent of the classic Minnesota Iceman situation.

But, I hope they prove me wrong.

CNN report on upcoming press conference

The Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy (TBRC) has released a list of scheduled speakers for their upcoming 2008 Texas Bigfoot Conference in Jefferson, TX.

This list includes famed hunter and conservationist Peter Byrne, who participated in a number of Himalayan expeditions funded by Texas millionaire Tom Slick to locate the Yeti before developing an interest in the North American Sasquatch; retired zoologist Dr. W. Henner Fahrenbach, custodian of what is arguably the world’s largest collection of suspected Sasquatch hair; author and filmmaker Dana Holyfield, whose documentary film The Legend of the Honey Island Swamp Monster examines hairy biped reports from the swamps and bayous of Louisiana; co-founder of the North American Bigfoot Search (NABS) and author of The Hoopa Project, David Paulides; and TBRC stalwarts, wildlife biologist Professor Alton Higgins and former USAF airborne translator Daryl Colyer.

For more information about the conference and speakers, including admission costs and venue address, please visit the TBRC site by clicking here.