Comments on: Is This The Minnesota Iceman?

By: alanrusso

alanrusso — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 15:27:28 +0000

I saw this thing when i was a teenager in the late 60′s or early 70′s. When I saw it I had no doubt that it was real. I saw it at the Canfield Fair. That is the name for the Mahoning County fair in Ohio. The thing that struck me was the hairs on its body and arms, in no way did they look faked or man made. No different than a human’s hairs, where the folicule entered the skin. I remember the ice being cloudy in some spots so I couldn’t get a good look at it’s face and I don’t recall any wounds on the thing. I think if the thing was faked whoever did it did a very good job. I knew that people faked things for side shows but this certainly looked real to me.

By: Turtledover

Turtledover — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 05:32:27 +0000

I saw the “shopping mall” display when it came through Erie, Pennsylvania in the late 1970′s. They put the refrigerator unit right in the middle of the concourse intersection of the “Millcreek Mall”. The admittance price was I believe $4, and the “collectible” flyer was $2. I talked my mother into buying the handout. I thought it was lost forever but I came across it, in poor shape, in a basement box when we cleaned out her house. I looked at the copy and photos and the Argosy article had been reproduced.

I will try to scan the item and pass it along to Loren. He may already have it in the museum.

At the age that I saw this display, it still excited me, sort of scared me, and I visualized the creature shot by accident during the Vietnam War. How it ever got frozen seemed more like a Captain America plot. Now that I am aware of the Vietnam Rock Apes, that seemed easy to piece together mentally. Who will ever know, really, the whole actual story?

By: Shelley

Shelley — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 17:49:21 +0000

What Ironwood saw was what I saw pictured in the men’s magazine. I always wondered if they put the hand over the face because looking directly into the eyes would have been a giveaway–if the eyes were fake, it wouldn’t matter how good the rest of it was. Since you could only see about 1/4 of the creature, that seemed suspicious, too.

And this was my first contact with the concept of Bigfoot, too.

By: William

William — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 16:21:37 +0000

I have always thought of the pros versus the cons on the Iceman saga. The pro’s would be that it would be difficult and extremely time consuming to fake something of this nature with the block of ice and all. However, the con part would also come into play as the ice would prevent anyone from making a hands on analysis of it as well (as in a scientist). Another pro is the wounds would not only be difficult to fake but they make sense that something would try to block being shot (I know I would) by sticking up their arm and hand in front of their face and the bullet going through the wrist and eye. This is very convince on the pro side as why go to all that painstaking trouble when you have something in a block of ice? This also would explain how it was obtained.

However, the fact a replica or fake was made is indeed on the con side. Furthermore, the fact it was shown as a sideshow exhibit also screams fake as if it was the real deal it would seem a fortune could have been made by letting the scientific world examine it.

So the bottom line is who really knows if it was real or an elaborate hoax?

By: Iceman

Iceman — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 02:58:05 +0000

This is the thing, that as a child, began my lifelong fascination with Bigfoot!

By: Ironwood

Ironwood — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 01:35:54 +0000

I saw the Iceman in the Hancock County, Indiana county fair during 1965 or ’66. I would have been 12 or 13 at the time. I remember the viewing booth (actually a refrigerated semi with steps and doors) was closed for a period of time. They claimed trouble with their refrigeration unit.

When it reopened, what I saw did not resemble the photos in this article. I could see part of the face, the hand partially covering it, one very broad shoulder, part of the stomach almost down to the pubic area, and one clear foot. The rest of the body was covered in foggy ice. There was a dark stain in the ice in the chest area. I remember the tank it was in was quite deep, or so it seemed to me. Larger, certainly, than would be used for a human being.

I remember two things specifically about this. I could smell decayed or rotting meat, something of a “chilly butcher shop” scent. It was quite noticeable. Secondly, the young girl I took in with me, my date at the time, took one look at it and fled to the far corner of the trailer, refusing to even take a second glance.

The scent could have been easily faked, but it did not smell like anything I was ever familiar with. I remember going in and expecting a rubber dummy or somesuch carny mischief. This was not what I expected. This seemed frighteningly real, but keep in mind I was still a kid.

Whether or not it was the True Iceman, I have no idea.

By: deadfoot

deadfoot — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 15:08:20 +0000

There’s supposed to be a baseball sized hole in the middle of the chest, so from my limited background it’s a fake. Maybe it’s the “original” fake that he used to fool the x-ray machines.

I’m curious about some of the people commenting that were lucky enough to see the original. All the info I’ve read and seen about it has its left arm raised, similar to the fake above, with a visible wound to the wrist where the final bullet passed through to the left eye and out the back of the head. The idea being he was already badly wounded, and tried to block the final shot to the head.

Off to look up what else Frank’s son has said about it.

By: eyeofstrm

eyeofstrm — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 02:53:28 +0000

Not the original. Just google Minnesota Iceman images and see for yourself.

By: Shelley

Shelley — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 00:46:54 +0000

I never saw a real version, but I read and re-read an article in one of the “men’s” magazines of the mid-fifties–True? Argosy? My father had a subscription to them, and although I was not supposed to read them, I did anyway. My memory of the Iceman haunted my nightmares for a while, and I remember that there was an arm up, but it seemed that there was more face showing than this. It was a b & w photo on grainy paper, so details of fur, etc, were not really noticeable. There is also a line drawing that has been published that shows the arm raised and the body contorted to fit a box not big enough to hold the corpse. This would have been before 1959, as my father died in 1957 and the subscription was not renewed.

By: Lu Ann Lewellen

Lu Ann Lewellen — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 00:09:00 +0000

The model was photographed by Rick West while it was in Frank Hansen’s possession in 2002. It was in a warehouse along with the display used in shopping malls.

Those look like the pages I scanned and posted on BFF2. Now what would they be doing on skeptics’ sites? XD

Hansen himself told Sanderson and Heuvelmans he’d had a model made so why would it be a surprise he had a model? Does it look like the photos in Argosy or even like the photos in Heuvelmans’ book? I don’t think so.

The book is worth a read. Hansen’s memory seemed to be about as good on key points as Al deAteley’s was when Greg long interviewed him.