5. The Minnesota Iceman
The curious tale of The Minnesota Iceman is still being hotly debated today (despite being an absolutely ridiculous farce). The story begins in 1967, when Terry Cullen, a zoology student from Minnesota, was visiting Milwaukee. Cullen saw a travelling exhibit of a purported Bigfoot frozen in a block of ice. The Iceman was exhibited in various locations (including shopping malls and carnivals) across America and Cullen sort of followed it around the country (apparently unaware that The Grateful Dead were probably touring at the same time and he could have had a far better time following them around). Cullen tried in vain to get his professors to examine the creature, but they assumed, quite rightly, that it was a sideshow attraction and little else. An exhibitor named Frank Hansen was in charge of the creature and he charged $0.25 for a glimpse at his Man Left Over From The Ice Age (as it was advertised). He also claimed that he was minding the creature for its true owner, an eccentric California millionaire. Although he agreed to have the creature examined, Hansen was distressed at the idea of the beast receiving too much publicity (which, as were sure youll agree, is very odd for a person whos livelihood depends on his ability to charge strangers for admission to view weird stuff). Over the years Hansens account of the creatures origins changed many times - at one point he had allegedly bought it in Hong Kong, at another, he had shot it himself in Japan and so on... Eventually, Cullen contacted a known animal expert, the explorer and author Ivan T. Sanderson. Sanderson and his friend Bernard Heuvelmans (cryptozoologys founding father) agreed to visit the creature and examine the body. The two experts were amazed by the creature and wholly convinced that the body was genuine (despite the fact that it was encased in ice and they couldnt properly see it as a result). Sanderson and Heuvelmans made such a noise about this so-called Missing Link that The Smithsonian Institute became interested in the exhibit and, at this point, Hansen hid the body away, declining any investigation and then claiming that his anonymous benefactor had demanded it be so. Believers (yes, they really exist) maintain that the original Iceman was lost around this time (1969) and that a fake Iceman was constructed to resemble the real one. Nobody truly knows for sure, but what is known for a fact is that the Iceman, be he the real one or a knock-off copy fashioned from latex, would reappear time and again in shopping malls and carnivals around the For years, Hansen maintained that the fake Iceman was a rubber copy of the original real Iceman. Eventually, it was discovered that Hansen had commissioned the creation of the Iceman in 1967, indicating that it had been a fraud all along. It has also been suggested by some investigators that he attempted to commission models of dead aliens, too. He would have gotten away with it too if it wasnt for those pesky zoologists. The Icemans journey ended, quite appropriately, on eBay. Where it was sold in 2013 to a Texan named Steve Busti. It is presently being displayed in Bustis Museum of the Weird, but it is thankfully being billed, by the more honest Busti, as a one of a kind hoax as opposed to some sort of evolutionary miracle.