The BFE Claims Its’ First Award

The press release speaks for itself.

For Immediate Release

April 10, 2010

Dateline: Lawton, OK.

The Bigfooters Against Lying, Deception, Hoaxing, Intimidation, Cults and Klans has issued the Second Annual Clean-Up Bigfooting Awards.   This year’s recipient of the Debunking – Notable Bigfoot Personality Award goes to The Bigfootery Enquirer for their expose of Don Keating’s claimed sighting.  The very skilful use of Keating’s own words as he described his claimed encounter, combined with using scientific, provable meteorological facts to show that he had lied not once, but twice,  earned this distinction.  To have Keating on the record claiming both a timeframe and the moon was full when they proved that it was a new moon that had already set was the best debunking published in the last year.  Capturing Keating’s words and the data for posterity via MS Moviemaker was also innovative in our eyes.

Other contenders for the award were Melissa Hovey and her work on the Michigan Recording Project and Steve Kulls for his Biscardi and the frozen bigfoot costume series.  In both cases these presentation were lessened by a coloring of vendetta, and in one case culpability was an issue.  They do, however, earn a honorable mention.

Award winning video follows:

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Risky Business – The Dangers of the Paranormal Pop Explosion

There can be little debate that there has been an explosion of  the paranormal in popular culture.  One need only turn on the TV to come to that conclusion, there is a show, and often times shows and marathons, dealing with a paranormal topic daily.  Have you noticed one of the prominent mascots for the Winter Olympics, yep, a Sasquatch.  With unprecedented popularity and interest comes money-making opportunities, and when money can be made risky business quickly follows. 

Let’s once again start with a definition, this one is from Wikipedia.  We recommend reading the wiki on paranormal sometime, it is a brief, good primer.

Paranormal is a general term that describes unusual experiences that lack a scientific explanation,  or phenomena alleged to be outside of science’s current ability to explain or measure.   Notably, paranormal phenomena also lack scientific evidence.

Yes, Wikipedia, and this author, further consider cryptids to be one of the genre of the paranormal.  About now the true believers are going, but The Bigfootery Enquirer people, what about the footprints, the dermals, the hair and the casts, that’s scientific evidence.  Close, but no cigar in our book.  But this post is not about the debate of does bigfoot fit into the realm of the paranormal, we have bigger feet to hold to the fire.  Besides, to your normal Joe or Jane, bigfoot is a paranormal, and thanks to the explosion, a popular paranormal topic.

Pop cultures growing fascination with the paranormal presents fourth level “Bigfoot Researchers”, and those aspiring to that esteemed title with two opportunities, profit and churn.  Churn is the concept of a small but seemingly endless crop of first level “Bigfoot Researchers”.  Think uninformed, gullible, wanting to be part of the crowd, salivating for a chance to investigate a hot bigfoot sighting report or go on a real bigfoot expedition or rub elbows with the bigfootery famous.  Essentially churn represents a new set of marks to fleece and a continual opportunity to reinvent oneself if the old self was sullied by some unfortunate incident like getting caught hoaxing or some other form of dishonesty.  In the paranormal pop culture explosion there truly is a new sucker born everyday.  To the fourth level “bigfoot researcher”, as to the other carnival barkers of the paranormal craze, churn is the lifeblood of money-making opportunities.

What are these money-making opportunities?  While short on innovation, but long on repetition, bigfootey and the paranormal business has spawned a number of ways for enterprising “Bigfoot Researchers” to turn a buck.  There are the traditional methods; t-shirts, books, tapes, newsletters and various derivations of these like ebooks and enewsletters.  Note to self, after seeing some of the content some fourth level “Bigfoot Researchers” charge for in the form of newsletters, this blog is far better – perhaps it is time to convert to that format and become a money grubbin bigfootery shyster.  Nope, we stay free, no ads, no congratulations scams you just won a Wal-mart gift cards, none of that stuff.

But what about the brave new world of profit generation in the paranormal and bigfoot world?   Conferences are popular, and profitable, as are expeditions/ghost hunts, training seminars, museums (heavy on the gift shop SWAG and books), homemade videos of all sorts and general SWAG.  What self-respecting fourth level bigfoot researcher would be caught out on expedition in a totally inappropriate pair of jeans that did not have a bigfoot belt buckle, authentic right down to the swaying boobies?

When Howard Stern is interested and excited about the chance to earn TV money, then you know that money must be good.  His take is the money is big and the time committment is small.  We’re not so sure about the time part, but the money has the possibility of being good.  There are a few series that cover bigfoot as part of their topics.  But after struggling through many years of making pitches papa’ grande is in the process of production with the BFRO.  We have some good information about that we may choose to share at a later date, that the expeditions were closed to the public and that a serial reality show is in the works is little secret to most of bigfootery, but we have more we may choose to share at a later date.  TV per diems are not particularly big money, a few hundred a day.  But if you are retired, or do it as part of a paid vacation, it is not a bad payday for doing something you like to do anyways.  But to make the big money you have to force your way in to a production title position, a much easier task to do when you are acting as a sole proprietor and have a number of serfs at your beckon and command.

And one may ask, what’s your beef BFE?  A keystone of the US economy is the entrepreneur, whats wrong with paranormal or bigfootery entrepreneurism?   When there is money, risky and shady business can happen.  And that is the danger of the paranormal pop explosion, money can corrupt people to do things and leave the majority who are legit painted with that same brush.   TV series and TV competition places pressures to have amazing events happen to keep and add viewers.  Churn and the sheer popularity of the paranormal provides a chance to cash in with crappy content and downright fraud at times.   Want a few examples?  Fortunately, the most blatant examples seem to be coming from the ghosties, although bigfootery has had a few instances.

These scams seem to run a consistent formula, you organize a conference, charge a pretty steep admission fee and package the hotel room with the event to get a maximum take.  In this case the person seems to have taken the money and ran.  In another case, this person seems to have first not paid his bills to the host hotel his first year, and then flat out taken the money and run the second.  As an interesting aside, the Bully is hinting at a TAPS appearance this year, we find that coincidental at least and indicative of the exhaustive vetting he does when it comes to his annual money-maker.  Fortunately, we are not aware of any bigfootery conferences that have had these types of issues, although Keating did have his hijinks with Hajicek last year, but that is a story that deserves a separate post that we will get to in the next few weeks.   Needless to say, these are the types of stories that give the paranormal a bad name.

Bigfoot body found, promoted, thawed and then the ring leader declares he was hoaxed (days after the frozen suit had been debunked).  We need to say no more, risky, bad bigfootery business.

 Bigfoot expeditions generate five-figure incomes a weekend, seemingly and remarkably produce some results, or at least results the paying customers are willing to buy darn near every time, rumors abound about some shadiness despite the best attempts to keep a firm lid on that type of talk.  Other fourth level “Bigfoot Researchers” are pissed they did not think of the idea first and now are on record as decrying paying expeditions.  Maybe that lovely churn will allow them to revisit the idea in a few years.

TV shows create an even greater possibility of risky paranormal business.  The money is bigger and the pressure to fascinate and keep an audience is huge, even in a paranormal pop culture famished for content.  The leading program out there viewership wise is Ghost Hunter and this can lead to situations and disclosures like this.  And the discussion can get heated, some good links in the first post leads to 53 pages of discussion, pop goes the paranormal.  Paranormal State has had a good share of analysis as to risky and shady stuff.  In bigfootery you have Monster Quest, mostly they have presented crappy evidence and eventually conclude it is crappy evidence.  The Ohio and Kentucky episodes come to mind.  There has been questions about the veracity of the presentation.  What will the BFRO show hold if it does actually make it to the air?  We are sure there will be many looking at it very closely.

And finally in the spirit of helping fourth level “Bigfoot Researchers” carnival barkers find a new angle for using TV and raising money we present the Reverend Bob Larson, demonologist.  Yes, we consider that topic to be in the realm of the paranormal.  Reverend Bob has done much to enrich himself with a few things that are downright non-christian like.  Bob is riding the paranormal pop explosion himself with a new TV show.  But the beauty of Bob, and how he can be a model for the carnival barkers is that he is not satisfied with the TV money.  Nope.  He is appealing to his flock for donations to help him meet the incredible public response for help that will come with his TV show.  So here is the script fourth levelers:

Because of my amazing new appearance, bigfoot sighting reports have poured in.  I need your help to give me the gas, food and lodging money so that I can react to these situations and help us all by proving once and for all bigfoot is real.  Strike that real part, most likely real due to my compelling evidence, I am not ready to give up the gravy train and solve this mystery just yet, momma wants a house without wheels.

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Our Review of Leigh Hart’s Mysterious Planet – Ohio Bigfoot Conference Episode

As the indubitable Bill Green would say, we rate this show A+++++++++.    There were many  moments of pure humor and many long laughs.

Let’s begin with two things.

First, the Bigfoot Bully Keating enabled Hart the access he needed to make a very funny show.  Those offended, and those that might consider going to or speaking at this event should remember that, because of the bully’s insatiable desire for media exposure, they were and could be exposed to a humorous documentarian.  We say, congrats Donald Keating, you gave those that approach this subject from a truly skeptical and funny angle with some laughs, yet again.

Second, to access the show you are going to need some basic computer skills.  We are not going to give a detailed tutorial, but we do think it is important that “Bigfoot Researchers” get a chance to view the show and see the risks Keating subjects upon people to feed his ego.  Licensing means the show is now only viewable to people in New Zealand, the work around for this is to access a proxy server for your computer located in New Zealand.  That’s the extent of the tip, enterprising “Bigfoot Researchers” will have to figure it out from there.  We would add, in the interest of making sure bigfootery does not totally screw up their access to the net, and especially this blog, once you are done viewing you need to reconfigure your communications so that you are not permanently using the proxy server.  Remember your IP and port settings, or simply run a system restore from a time earlier than the proxy server configuration. 

So what about the show?   A series of interviews with a Gordon Mullet starts and continues through the segment.  Gordon seems to be particularly interested in scat, presenting both theory (bigfoot has a huge rectum) and samples.  Later Gordon expounds upon the ability of bigfoot to change color to his surroundings and zooms in on a picture of one in a field of tall grass.  Mullet takes the blob squatch phenomena to new heights.

A second segment has Hart interviewing a rather verbose witness who walks him through his sighting at Salt Fork.  The use of a speed up/fast forward effect is pretty funny.

There are two segments on Hart’s actual presentation at the conference.  Again, who controlled that dias, don’t blame Hart, blame the sole proprietor of the event.  In the first segment Hart discusses a challenge to the scientific study of the creature, the perplexing discontinuity between shoe size measurement internationally.  He correctly opines that comparing track size measurement by shoe size can lead to errors.  His power point presentation includes some nice shoe graphics comparing size 10’s to illustrate this important challenge to bigfootery.  Bigfootery gold.  This part of the presentation leads to a few smiles in the audience shots, but more frowns, confused looks and hub bub from the serious “Bigfoot Researchers”. 

 In the second segment Hart sets up the audience by talking about how his team is taking track measurements and computer modeling size estimates scientifically based upon that evidence.  You can see the audience perk up and lose some of the disallusion with Hart until he shows the graphic result, a cartoon character that is 2.5′ tall with 1.5′ long  feet.  More hub bub and grousing erupts, but the audience still provides a polite round of applause as he wraps up.

Overall, the show was a farcical look at bigfoot and  mystery documentaries (ala Monster Quest), but especially the “Bigfoot Researcher”.  Hart enjoys the bigfoot buffet at the lodge with a rather odd fellow with background shots of some very overweight people with stacks of empty plates that would intimidate a plate spinning juggler.  Throughout the show, the audience and participant shots seem to be of the oddest looking people.  Seriously odd as in Wal-Mart late on a Saturday night type odd.  One lady speaks of how the UFO’s are watching over the bigfoot, in a spontaneous moment of comic genius Hart yanks the chain on a nearby lamp to wrap up the interview, walk away and leave the big haired lady looking confused.

It is clear that the bully must have worked Hart as he plays a very minor role and only appears at the end of the episode.  In a telling question Hart asks him if he would bet his life on bigfoot’s existance?  Keating replies “no”.  WTF?  The bully is on record, both voice and print on multiple occasions, claiming to have seen a bigfoot.   But his answer is “no”?  Can’t have it both ways, bully, and have us consider you legitimate.  Oddly, this does not seem to be an issue for most “Bigfoot Researchers”, many of whom deserve an appology for what Keating left happen.  In fact, The Bigfootery Enquirer, although amused, demands that Keating apologize to bigfootery in general for his enabling this step backward in research.  We will leave the comments section open on this post so he can make proper ablutions.

And that is our review of Hart’s first episode of Mysterious Planet.  One last thing, which may bring a smile to the serious “Bigfoot Researcher’s” face, at the conclusion of the show Hart attempts a Patty walk re-creation and is shot in the arse.  A metaphor for his hoaxing the hoaxer and the backlash he got from the article that revealed the hoax?

Chief Editor, Founder, CEO, President, International President, Director, International Director, Muckiteemuck and Chairman’s note:  I also took the time to watch the show.  I would add that Hart’s self deprecating humor was not lost on this viewer.  That guy must have a big’ol set of brass ones to get up in front of that crowd.  My favorite scene was during the bigfoot walkabout when the Stonehenge guy supposedly called,  a very creative comedic bit.   I doubt we will be seeing an apology from Keating.  That part is a tongue in cheek satire of how he deals with people he feels has offended him, according to the author.

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“Publicity, darling. Just publicity. Any kind is better than none at all.” – Rhonda Farr

 Caramel Biscotti must have spent part of his Christmas glancing over his shoulder as he listens to the pitter patter of little tennis shoe feet gaining on him and the title of bigfootery’s biggest media whore.  Media whores, to this author, are persons willing to sacrifice their own integrity and those of the greater bigfootery world in the interest of gaining some time in the media.  Based upon earlier events of the year, and something that we found in the in-box over the weekend, the Bigfoot Bully, Donald Keating, is working hard to become Caramel’s equal in terms of being a bigfootery media whore.

Sometime in the last few weeks The Bully appeared on an episode of TODAY in his quest for stardom.  It was a miserable failure for him and bigfootery.  The segment has been youtube’d and appears below.  It is a video of a TV screen, not amazing in quality, but enough to let you get the idea of the goat rope.

It seems Kathie Lee, proud parent who is not shy about media whoring her own kids and long suffering wife of Frank, and Hoda came to Ohio to do some footing and a hatchet job on bigfootery with a few choice insults for The Bully thrown in for good measure.   Those two women are private plane flyin, Walmart cammo buyin, campy actin, WHOOO, WHOO – sorry, started channeling Ric Flair, favorite son and wrasslin promo cutter extraordinaire.

Anyways, after some standard B-roll footage of Meldrum and his prints it was off to Ohio.  For the sake of brevity, here are our major observations:

– Keating was dressed in his faux suede jacket, polo shirt and tennis shoes.  From what we hear, as Keating’s version of field research is conducted within 100′ of a lighted picnic shelter, his field wardrobe is pretty typical.  Yep, long bushwhacking hikes in tennis shoes and suede are the gear every good field researcher needs.

– Kathie Lee and Hoda were campy, but I guess that is the message they wanted to deliver, bigfootery is really not worth taking seriously.

– Note to the Bully Keating, if you are the one instructing the gals in the finer aspects of bigfoot research, stopping them from standing on opposite sides of a tree and beating on it might have been a good idea.  If the end of Kathie Lee’s stick had broken, Hoda would have been eating wood, and then not eating for a few weeks.  That was plain dumbass move to allow them to do that, but I suspect some who watched were hoping for catastrophic wood failure after seeing enough to know where this segment was headed.

– Keating revisited the location  of his claimed sighting where he said he saw the bigfoot by the light of a full moon, this is the sighting The Bigfootery Enquirer revealed earlier this year as a lie/hoax as the moon was neither full or above the horizon at the time.  No mention of the moon or that it was at night during his appearance.  Want to learn more about this particular Bully lie, you can consult this post.  His second sighting, the now you see it now you don’t sighting , was not mentioned. But a new one from the park was, eye shine, how convenient and inconclusive. 

– Remarking to Keating about his “wasted life” was a thank goodness I was not drinking when I saw that moment.  The scene from the Godfather “act like a man” came to mind, Keating just wimped through it with a shrug.  Hey, The Bully could have remarked, I make more in one day during my annual conference than you made on those crappy cruise line commercial, Kathie.

– After watching, three staff members of The Bigfootery Enquirer all had a similar question about Kathie Lee, bald eagle jones?

To wrap up, The Bigfoot Bully, Don Keating, managed to definitely join the ranks of Caramel Biscotti as a bigfootery media whore.  Keating managed to allow them to make a fool of him and bigfootery in general, but he got what he wanted which was some publicity.  We suspect that between Moon TV and now NBC, any media outlet looking for someone who is gullible, has no honor,  is someone willing to be paraded out for embarrassment of themself and bigfootery in general,  and someone who will work cheap will have Keating in their Rolodex as the bigfootery village idiot on call.

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Sometimes Even a Blind Squirrel Finds a Nut

Intriguing title, yes?

This post is a team effort from The Bigfootery Enquirer  staff.  Our midwest stringer had alerted us to a brewing flap from the weekend as some hot and heavy action was going down north of the Ohio River.  It seems that a few prior speakers from the Ohio conference were in agreement, Don Keating had stiffed them and welched out of promises made but not delivered in terms of what could only be called minor compensations related to their appearance at his annual fund-raising event.   It seems that one of the Keating posse became aware of this comparing of scorecards, so to speak, and naturally ran to him with the info.  The reaction by the “Bigfoot Bulldog”, bad and angry, was evidently a fairly predictable thing from what we hear.

Now here is where the blind squirrel deal works back into the picture.  On a whim this author, the blind squirrel, decided to listen to The Sasquatch Experience show on archive during lunch today.  Honestly, we get our fair share of tips, leaks and rumor, but I simply found the latest archived show on bigfoot.  After some small talk, and then some information from the guest, the first caller out of the box was Keating.  Some, like me, would call what followed funny, others would call it a sad reflection upon the caller and bigfootery in general.  After a veiled compliment to the guest, Keating got down to the real purpose of his call, a rant.  One could almost picture that large forehead glowing red like Rudolf as he started his attack, or was it a damage control spin?  One person in the chat room remarked he must be drunk.  Keating began by saying there was a “rumor” circulating that he did not compensate speakers as promised, but then went on to confirm that he might not have delivered as promised because of being so busy and not having anything in writing.   So it was not a rumor. 

 And then he went to the my conference is free justification, as if that justifies not giving people what was promised.  Sure, tell that to the people who paid for reserve seating, the numerous people who donated and participated in his raffle and who were hit up at the door for the “suggested donation”.  This no admission fee conference is a strong four figure, some say five, one day income payday for the sole proprietor.    Come on, a little drop of that windfall for the speakers, one less mohito on vacation, dude.

And then we were all treated to what is reportedly a classic Keating’ism.  The childish I am going to pick up my toys and go home threat.  He is cancelling his internet “radio” show and may not hold his conference because he is so fed up with bigfootery.  This is evidently a near annual behavior to solicit donations, create angst among the loyal cronies and to get a few strokes to Keating’s ego.  To date it has always been a hollow threat for personal gratification.

He rounded out his call by exhibiting a jealous reaction to someone else getting a public compliment about how well they run a conference, complaining about bigfootery politics and hanging up once the guest, hosts and those in the chatroom stopped just letting him rant without a counter perspective.  It was the classic behavior of a fourth level “bigfoot researcher”, the carnival barker.  A psychologist would have had a hey day listening to this performance.

I do want to compliment Shawn, one of the co-hosts.  He noted that one of the outspoken critics of bigfoot politics, Keating, called the show to engage exactly in that same thing and it was disrespectful to his guest to do so.  Keating’s call had a palpable negative impact to what had started as a better than your average show, show.  But from what we are hearing, it revealed him.

Here’s the link to the show, hopefully they will keep it up, and The Bigfootery Enquirer challenges them to do just that.

The Sasquatch Experience

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Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop

First, apologies for the lack of content update but rivers and life outside the world of bigfootery called.  We have recently returned from a bigfootery related trip that was an eye opener for the staff here, you can look forward to a few articles on who we met, what we did and what  we learned.  Some of it was downright cloak and dagger.
 
But back to the topic above, waiting for the other shoe to drop.  Readers will likely remember the early summer flap with Leigh Hart and his attendance at a conference in Ohio.  He managed to play the organizer and those in attendance as suckers, his op-ed piece upon returning to NZ lit up bigfootery and some of the attendees pretty well.  Greater bigfootery was aghast at his impudence, scathing blogs were written, nasty emails to Hart and to his publishers were written and he eventually offered an apology of sorts.
 
And throughout this whole sad saga only The Bigfootery Enquirer had the critical thinking skills and chutzpah to ask the difficult questions of how and why this happened.  Our conclusion was that Keating, the sole proprietor of the lucrative event, allowed it to happen as part of his obsession for appearing in the media, even if he ends up being played the hick.  That obsession, combined with a total lack of due diligence,  let Hart slip in and act like a legit documentarian with a free run of the event, and even a short appearance on the dias.  It took us literally minutes to turn up Hart’s background, which was almost exclusively comedic, and some of it left us laughing heartily.  A comedic great white shark from down under was let loose in Ohio and the results will certainly be some blood in the water.
 
The first hints of what the Mysterious Planet episodes may look like are coming out via Moon TV’s YouTube channel.  We are pretty sure some of the snippets are from Ohio and we hope bigfootery is ready for the other shoe to drop.  Will we ever see the whole episode for Ohio?  Not sure, but hopeful as a good laugh is sometimes hard to find.  Also note just how polished the opening sequence is, it puts Monster Quest to shame.

For those that were embarrassed in the op-ed piece, and those that will be poked at in the TV episode, be sure to thank the media whore who profited from putting you out there to be ridiculed.   On second thought, media whore is a bit strong, he is more of a media slut.  On third thought, whores do it for money, yahh, Keating is a media whore.

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