Chewbacca’s drunk and deformed distant cousin
"Y'all can choose to believe or not," said Rick Dyer to a group of skeptics standing in a line that wrapped around the Alamo Drafthouse Park North. Dyer wants you to believe that he shot Bigfoot. And let's get this out of the way: No, he did not.
Make no mistake, Dyer thinks you are stupid, but that didn't stop hundreds from lining up to see the Bigfoot carcass he claims he shot three times in a wooded area near Highway 151 and Loop 1604. Our editor in chief, Callie Enlow, was not one of them.
The beast was first spotted by a group of conveniently unidentified homeless people who alerted 911 with their homeless people phone. Dwyer claims he lured the Bigfoot with pork ribs and deer urine before he shot it. The Express-News has a detailed account of the harrowing hunt that didn’t happen.
The Sasquatch was 70-years-old, according to "analysis" by "the government.” Somehow, the creature (one of many in the area, by the way), failed to choose a home in one of the numerous surrounding neighborhoods to live out its own personal Harry and the Hendersons during its long life in west San Antonio.
How did Bigfoot avoid terrorizing his neighbors? According to Dyer, the 8-foot beast named Hank, which is short for Not Real, “stayed in the woods” and stuck to “deer paths along the telephone poles” and “only crossed the roads at night.” That explains why the creature had never been spotted in an area that is teeming with encroaching development.
Hundreds lined up to inspect the Bigfoot carcass.
Plenty in the crowd were willing to believe Dyer’s story.
“This is monumental. This could be the missing link,” said a woman who was waiting to see the missing link with her own eyes.
“I googled, and they said the DNA was ‘not human,” said another man who brought his family to bear witness to history.
Dyer, who is hauling the specimen around for a 13-month Time to Believe tour, charged onlookers $10 to view the body or $20 to take in a documentary and participate in a Q&A session. The documentary screening sold out early in the evening, but those who purchased tickets were treated to a screening of Harry and the Hendersons instead. The majority of ticket holders walked out of the theater upon learning of the change in program.
Dyer blamed the mix-up on the Alamo Drafthouse. He claimed that theater chain chose the documentary that was to be screened and elected to show the family comedy instead. He told a group that showed up for the screening that he had no involvement in the film. The film was supposed to be Shooting Bigfoot, which Dyer, himself, appears in, according to IMDB. Posters of the film were hung up in the trailer where Bigfoot’s body was on display.
Ryan Johnston, creative director for the Alamo Drafthouse, had a different story.
“It was not our decision. We were told something happened, and [the movie] was messed up,” he said.
When asked if they had already had a copy of Harry and the Hendersons on hand, he said, “It was very last minute. We had to buy it.”
But most were there to see Bigfoot in the flesh. What they got was something that looked like Chewbacca’s drunk and deformed distant cousin, a cross between a bacteria-infested shag carpet and something that does not exist in nature. The creature was covered in tufts of brown, dirty, matted fur. Andrew Clacy, a representative of the Time to Believe tour, was quick to point out a sore on its arm and the repaired bullet hole on its nose to ensure Bigfoot’s veracity. The body appeared to be somewhat flattened. Clacy claimed that is because its organs were removed during an autopsy, the scars of which were visible on the creature’s torso. When asked how the body was preserved, Clacy said the carcass was taxidermied. Upon examination, the beast seemed to be preserved by the worst taxidermist in the world. A resin was added to its skin so that it wouldn’t fall off, Clacy claimed. That explained the shine that made Bigfoot look less like a real life dead animal and more like a rubber suit, which it actually was.
Dyer has used a rubber suit before, according to Snopes.com. He pulled a similar hoax in 2008 with an ape costume. Dyer maintains that 2008 Bigfoot was real.
“The government took the body,” he told the crowd. The government is evil, apparently.
So did Bigfoot live up to its name? That is yet to be determined. The hands and feet were covered due to a “business decision,” according to Dyer. When asked with whom, he was hesitant on the details, as he was with most of the questions he got during the evening. When prodded, Dyer said the Alamo Drafthouse in Houston. An inquiry has been made with the Drafthouse to determine if such an arrangement was made.
Dyer claims to have already sold the Bigfoot specimen. To whom, he won’t say. He claims to be bound to a non-disclosure agreement. NDA’s came up a lot. According to Dyer and Clacy, an NDA protects whatever organization did the DNA analysis, because they apparently “didn’t want to take the heat” for verifying a historic biological discovery, because that makes complete and total sense.
When asked whether or not she believed Dyer, Selena Peña, who grilled the self-proclaimed “master tracker” while in line, said, “No, because I don’t believe in Bigfoot.”
Her boyfriend Andrew was more of a believer, but remained skeptical of Dyers claims that he shot Bigfoot right here in San Antonio.
“I don’t know about Texas, but I believe that Bigfoot exists.”
That seemed to be the prevailing opinion of those who emerged from the trailer where Bigfoot’s body was on display. They had faith that the mythical creature was real, but what they saw wasn’t it. Someone should tell them the only real cryptozoological creatures are unicorns.
