The Fabrication Behind the Term ‘Bigfoot’

On the morning of August 27, 1958, Jerry Crew, a bulldozer operator working for a northern California logging company, stumbled upon a series of unusually large footprints in the dirt around his machine. Initially, he didn’t think much of it. Thirty other workers were on the job alongside him on Bluff Creek Road, a logging route cutting through untouched forests of Douglas fir in the Six Rivers National Forest. Black bears were common, and an occasional mountain lion had been spotted. They seemed like the most likely suspects.

However, when Crew climbed into his bulldozer and took a closer look, his skepticism faded. The tracks were massive—almost 16 inches long and 7 inches wide—and they were deeply embedded in the freshly graded dirt, suggesting that the creature responsible was far heavier than a lumberjack or even a bear.

Crew reported what he’d seen to his foreman, Wilbur 'Shorty' Wallace. Wallace speculated that the mysterious trackmaker might also be behind some strange occurrences elsewhere on Bluff Creek Road: a missing 50-gallon oil drum, a 700-pound spare tire tossed into a ravine. As more workers gathered, they began exchanging their own strange tales. They’d found human-like footprints at other work sites. Tools had vanished overnight, and 100-pound steel cables had been dragged uphill and left behind. They began calling the enigmatic culprit 'Big Foot.'

Crew’s account soon caught the eye of Humboldt Times columnist Andrew Genzoli, who, in an October 6th front-page article, condensed the nickname to the now-famous one-word moniker: Bigfoot. After the story was picked up by wire services and made its way into both The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times, 'Bigfoot' entered the public consciousness. (The term 'Sasquatch,' another name for the creature, is a misinterpretation of the Salish word 'Sesquac' or 'se’sxac,' meaning 'wild men.' It was coined in 1929 by a teacher in British Columbia.) Within weeks, Bigfoot even made an appearance on the NBC quiz show “Truth or Consequences,” hosted by Bob Barker, which offered a $1000 reward to anyone who could explain the origin of the mysterious Bluff Creek tracks.

During the fall of 1958, residents of Humboldt County found themselves debating a mysterious question. One logger theorized the tracks had been made by a 'big-footed Swede,' a nod to the Swedish ancestry of many local lumberjacks. Others connected the prints to 'Omah,' a gigantic forest creature from Hoopa Indian legend. Native American folklore, full of similar legends, only fanned the flames of Bigfoot speculation. The idea caught on and helped shape the Bigfoot image we recognize today.

Another prime suspect was Ray Wallace, brother of Shorty and co-owner of Wallace Construction. Known for his pranks and tall tales, Wallace was a well-known local character—some might say a conman. Robert Michael Pyle, a writer who knew Wallace in his later years, described him as a 'canny, smart man, but a bullshitter. He loved being the joker and fooling people,' in an interview for my book *The Secret History of Bigfoot*. When news of the Bluff Creek tracks broke, many locals immediately suspected Wallace.

Wallace vehemently denied being behind the tracks, even telling the *Humboldt Times* that he would sue anyone accusing him of such a thing. He claimed the footprints were simply bear prints. Bigfoot? Ridiculous! But a few years later, Wallace made an astonishing claim—he had captured a young Bigfoot and was feeding it Frosted Flakes. His plan was to sell the creature for $1,000,000, but when a lower offer came in, he failed to produce the creature. (Wallace was also rumored to be involved in the 1967 Patterson-Gimlin film [PDF], which allegedly shows a Bigfoot walking across Bluff Creek).

Eventually, the frenzy surrounding Bigfoot faded as its fame spread from Bluff Creek to the rest of the country. That is, until 2002, when Wallace, at 84 years old, passed away from heart failure, and his family revealed the truth—it had been Wallace all along.

'Ray L. Wallace was Bigfoot,' his son Michael told the *Seattle Times*. 'The reality is, Bigfoot just died.'

Wallace’s family proudly displayed 16-inch carved wooden feet, which they claimed he used to create the tracks Jerry Crew discovered on Bluff Creek Road. According to them, Wallace enjoyed wandering through the woods with these fake feet strapped to his work boots, all in the name of fun and mischief.

'He did it just for the joke, and then he was too afraid to admit it because he knew people would be furious with him,' said his nephew, Dale Lee Wallace.

John Auman, a former logger and employee of Wallace, offered a different perspective. 'If you left your rig parked overnight, you could count on it having no tires by morning,' Auman recalled, suggesting that Wallace planted the tracks around equipment to scare off thieves. 'That’s how all of this started.'

Bigfoot enthusiasts, however, have always been skeptical of the idea that Wallace was behind the tracks. 'Ray heard about [Crew’s tracks] and then went to make some of his own,' said Pyle, author of *Where Bigfoot Walks: Crossing the Dark Divide*. Pyle, once a fierce skeptic of Bigfoot, has become more open-minded over the years. 'Ray did manufacture some of the [Bluff Creek] evidence, but certainly not all of it. He played the fool, and I kind of respect him for it. The real issue arose after his death, when his son claimed, 'My dad invented the whole Bigfoot story.' That statement was picked up by the press, and reputable media outlets ran with it. The problem with hoaxes is people don’t question them the same way they question claims. This happens time and time again.'

Jeff Meldrum, a professor at Idaho State University specializing in foot morphology, argued that Wallace’s crudely crafted wooden feet didn’t match the plaster casts made from Crew’s tracks or any other prints from Bluff Creek. 'To suggest that all of these tracks can be explained by simple carved feet strapped to boots just doesn’t hold up,' Meldrum stated. While he acknowledged Wallace’s skill as a practical joker in his book *Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science*, he also called Wallace’s greatest hoax his most impressive: 'He posthumously convinced the entire media that he was solely responsible for Bigfoot.'

John O’Connor, a journalism professor at Boston College, resides with his family in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His latest book, *The Secret History of Bigfoot*, is now available.