Bigfoot, Yeti, and the Last Neanderthal, page 9
The implied possibility of homicide had clearly alarmed Hansen, as it had the mysterious ‘owner’ who had been ‘hopping mad’ that anyone had been allowed to inspect the corpse. Alerted to the possibility of an official murder inquiry, or at least a range of criminal charges surrounding the possession of a human corpse and taking it across state lines, Hansen and the Iceman disappeared for a while. Sanderson and particularly Heuvelmans were very worried that the corpse would be destroyed and their chance of a proper examination would be lost forever.
This is what they saw, again taken from Sanderson's own account:
The specimen is preserved in clear ice in an insulated coffin with quadruple glass top, and four strip lights shining inwards and downwards. The coffin measures internally seven feet three inches by three feet. The insulation is some form of foamite devised for arctic conditions. Externally it is made of veneered plywood of double thickness, and there is a chromium-plated guard rail around the top that visitors can lean on. It occupies the whole trailer but for a small sleeping bunk, cooking stove and toilet, forward. The whole coffin unit weighs just over 4,000 pounds and had to be inserted with a heavy ‘lift’. The right hand side of the truck opens longitudinally at waist level, the top going up and out as an awning; the bottom falling to the ground to carry a large ‘come-on’ sign.
It was explained to us by Mr Hansen that the block of ice containing the specimen was initially over nine feet long, five feet wide, and over four feet deep. They had a professional ice-carver shave off about two feet on top, going as deep as possible without breaking through onto the specimen. This results in a sort of ‘mountainous’ surface in low relief, the domes of ice going up and over the feet, knees, torso and head.
The ice above the body is crystal clear but for a large number of patches of what are obviously hair-fine tubules through which gases are forcing their way out of the corpse and causing ‘pencils’ of white opaque crystals. These are particularly noticeable exuding from the nostrils, the mouth, a break in the left forearm, the hole in the chest, and the groin. Further, the right-hand side of the body is almost entirely hidden under opaque but white crystalline ice.
So much for the circumstances of the corpse, written in the journalistic prose style of Ivan Sanderson. For the detailed description of the corpse itself, I am turning to the more prosaic assessment of Bernard Heuvelmans. Though very capable of dramatic description, remember that Heuvelmans was writing on this occasion for an audience of established scientists, among whose ranks he was so keen to be counted. This was his chance of acceptance, so suppressing the excitement he no doubt felt, he gives this deliberately sober account of the kind that would win him this acceptance, and much more. Perhaps even the Nobel Prize.
Under the heading ‘General Description’ he begins:
The specimen at first sight looks like a man – or if you prefer an adult human of the male sex – of rather normal height (6ft) (Sanderson put his height at between 5′ and 5′ 6″) and proportions, but excessively hairy. It is entirely covered with very dark brown hair, 3 to 4 inches long. Its skin appears wax-like, similar in colour to the cadavers of white men not tanned by the sun. One can easily see this on all the naked surfaces of the body – and also on the middle of the chest and on the knees – the hair roots being generally more than 1/16 inch apart.
The left arm is twisted behind the head with the palm of the hand upward. The arm makes a strange curve, as if it were that of a sawdust doll, but this curvature is due to an open fracture midway between the wrist and the elbow where one can distinguish the broken ulna in a gaping wound.
The right arm is twisted and held tightly against the flank, with the hand spread palm down over the right side of the abdomen. Between the ring finger and the medius, the penis is visible, lying obliquely on the groin. The testicles are vaguely distinguishable at the juncture of the thighs.
The head is tipped back so that the mouth and the bottom of the nose are the highest points. Despite this position, which in a modern Man would free the neck and possibly make the Adam's apple jut out, the junction of the neck and torso, hidden deep within the ice, is not visible. This leads me to suspect that this specimen has a very short neck, or, at least, normally carries its head low on the shoulders. (Unless it has been beheaded).
Besides the fracture of the forearm already mentioned, the specimen has several other visible wounds. The head is the most seriously damaged. According to Mr Hansen, who was able to see the dorsal side of the specimen before the block of ice was placed in its present container, the entire occipital part of the cranium was broken or knocked out, and some brain material was hanging out. In the depths of the ice, large smears of blood are visible in this region. The right orbit is empty and bloody. The left eyeball is out of its socket and rests on the cheekbone.
The splintering of the occiput (the back of the skull), and the fact that the eyes are out of their sockets, suggests that the specimen may have been struck by bullets from the front. It may be that a bullet struck the forearm as the creature attempted to protect himself. A second bullet then probably entered the right eye, destroying this, and by its impact forced the other eye out of its socket and blew out the rear of the skull, which would have led to its immediate death.
Heuvelmans goes on to explain his reasons for believing that the Iceman is a new hominid species.
Besides the excessive hairiness and the apparent shortness of the neck, a minute examination reveals many traits incompatible with the anatomical characteristics of a normal individual belonging to one of the five known races or sub-species of modern Man (Homo sapiens), according to the recent classification of Carleton S. Coon (1962). (Coon was the pre-eminent anthropologist of his day, although his system of racial classification has long been abandoned.)
The hands and feet appear to be of strikingly abnormal size and thickness. The fingers and toes seem as large and massive as those of an adult gorilla. It may be that the ice, acting as a lens, exaggerates their size slightly, but this cannot account for the peculiar proportions nor the actual measurements.
The foot has a non-opposable great toe, which is typically hominid. The toes are almost of the same thickness (1–1 1/4 inch across) and of the same length – the ‘big’ toe is hardly wider or longer than the others. The extremities of the toes seem to be almost all on the same line in the frontal plane; i.e., in respect to the anteroposterior axis of the foot, the line made by the front end of the toes seems perpendicular to this axis and not trailing off obliquely, as in the foot of modern Man. It is not impossible that once the foot is stretched out, digits II and III will extend beyond the great toe, as is seen in the Neanderthalers and in certain abnormal individuals of our own species. The foot gives the impression of being relatively shorter and more thickset than in modern Man, and is eight inches wide across its widest part. The sole of the foot is much more wrinkled and appears to be divided into more pads than in modern Man, thus resembling the great ape's feet.
The hand is wide and relatively short, as in certain modern Men, but much larger: it is 11 inches long and 7 1/2 inches wide. The thumb is extraordinarily long. Extended beside the index finger it would appear to reach at least as far as to the proximal apophysis of the intermediate phalanx (i.e. to the first joint of the middle finger) – not somewhere along the proximal phalanx as in modern Man. There are short, heavy nails of a yellowish colour on both fingers and toes.
The thorax appears moderately strong, but is more rounded than in modern Man. Moreover, it joins the abdomen in such a fashion as to form a barrel-shape, twenty-seven inches long. Whereas in modern Man the waist is clearly marked by a narrowing at the height of the navel, in the present specimen a narrowing of the body is only visible at the level of the pubis, at the junction of the muscles of the trunk and thighs, as is the case with anthropoid apes.
The nipples are pinkish and positioned as in modern Man. The navel cannot be seen because of the opacity of the ice and proximity of the thumb. The penis is very slender and about four inches long. The testicles seem to be rather small.
The arms are quite long (forty inches, hands included) and apparently reach to the knees when hanging. The legs appear also to be abnormally long, but this is purely illusory due to the fact that the equally hairy great primates we are accustomed to seeing – the anthropoid apes – have very much shorter legs. In fact, the legs of the present specimen are only 35 inches long from the hip-bone down, but this is within the normal limits of variation seen in modern Man.
Many details of the head are hidden in the depths of the ice. The mouth is almost flush with the surface of the ice, which is partially ‘frosted’ at that spot. This makes it extremely difficult to see all the details of the straight, widely cleft mouth whose lips – i.e. the everted mucous membrane of the mouth – are extremely fine, indeed almost non-existent. The mouth is slightly open, and one can see a yellowish tooth, which seems to be the right superior canine, but may be the right superior incisor. In any case it is not particularly strong, pointed or long: in brief it is more incisiform like the canine of modern Man.
Two wrinkles mark the skin on both sides of the mouth and perpendicularly to it. The chin appears rounded and receding. One cannot distinguish the ears. One can clearly see the widely flaring and circular nostrils. The nose appears to be short, even retroussé, but not flattened. It is impossible to say whether the brow ridges are prominent or not since the forehead is hardly visible in the depths of the ice.
The hairs are dark blackish-brown in colour. Their length and density have already been dealt with. Facial hairiness is very slight. But one can easily see hairs in the nares (the nostrils), some on the brows, and a few lashes along the eyelids.
Two further points attract the attention. The chest is particularly naked; not, certainly, to the extent seen in anthropoid apes, but nearly so – the hair, growing sideways from a median line on the sternum, leaves a highly visible skin area. The dorsum of the foot is as abundantly covered with hair as the legs are, which is not seen in anthropoid apes, who actually have almost naked feet.
Following this very detailed anatomical description, Heuvelmans next considers what the specimen might be. The first two of his five possibilities reveal that he is fully aware of the potential for a hoax. They are that it is ‘an artificial, entirely manufactured object’ or ‘a composite, produced by assembling members and organs taken from creatures of different species’. This is a well-known skill of Chinese fakers who, for centuries, have sewn together reptile and fish parts to create ‘mermaids’ for the curiosity trade.
Heuvelmans dismisses the first of these – that it is an artificial wax or plastic model – by its sheer detail: ‘down to the pores of the skin, and one had with infinite patience planted millions of hairs, one by one and at the appropriate angle, it is certainly more perfectly and cleverly done than any I would have thought possible.’ The second hypothesis is rejected, though with less conviction, by the absence of visible sutures and (like the first) by the argument that a deliberate hoaxer would have made the model resemble far more the traditional image of a prehistoric man than was the case with this specimen.
Heuvelmans goes on to consider the possibilities that present themselves, assuming the specimen to be genuine. It is a normal man, but from a known – or unknown – abundantly hirsute ethnic group, or an abnormal man suffering from hypertrichosis (a condition where the body is covered in hair) or some other defect. These further explanations are systematically set aside and Heuvelmans is left with only the fifth possibility still standing: that the specimen belongs to a new hominid species.
Having come to that conclusion, and absolutely convinced that they were not the victims of an elaborate hoax, Heuvelmans and Sanderson set about trying to ensure that the specimen would be preserved for detailed scientific examination. While Sanderson attempted to return to Winona with X-ray equipment to obtain a view of the skeleton, Heuvelmans set about pressuring his extensive network of high-level contacts to help him secure the body. The first of these was the anthropologist Carleton S. Coon whom both Sanderson and Heuvelmans visited at his home on Long Island, New York on 28 December 1968. After examining the photographs and scale drawings of the specimen, Coon declared himself satisfied that this was a hitherto unknown species of ultra-primitive hominid, and suggested further tests to confirm this view.
Heuvelmans and Sanderson also had to think about how and when to publish their findings, aware that Hansen was getting increasingly nervous about the consequences of exposure. Heuvelmans was quick to set the wheels in motion. By the end of January 1969 he had written a scientific report and secured its rapid acceptance for publication in the February issue of the Bulletin of the Royal Institute of Natural Sciences of Belgium. Now confident that his paper would soon appear, on 9 February 1969 he wrote to Dr John Napier, Director of the Primate Biology Program at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC. Unusually for the archive, which normally only contains replies to correspondence, there is a handwritten draft of this important letter.
Dear John,
I take it that you have heard from Ivan (Sanderson) about the most extraordinary discovery we made last December. Herewith enclosed you will find an English version of the preliminary notice I wrote about it for Bulletin de l'IRSN de Belgique, which will be published in a couple of weeks.1
You can imagine what the Institute's director and I had to go through, on both sides of the ocean, to be able to publish this notice that fast. But I think this was an essential thing to do.
You know how complicated the whole situation is, because of the reluctance of the owner of the specimen to have it examined properly.
At this point in the letter Heuvelmans reveals that Sanderson has been kept in the dark about the forthcoming notice in the Belgian science journal.
If I just let Ivan handle the whole business, as he demands it, this discovery will be first published in ‘Argosy’ (a pulp magazine to which Sanderson was a regular contributor) which has been associated with quite a lot of blatant hoaxes. Should this happen, nobody would take this case seriously, and I am afraid the specimen will go on decomposing (BH and ITS had smelt a faint odour of decaying flesh during their examination of the body) and will eventually be disposed of and for ever lost for Science.
It is for this reason that I have had a scientific notice published immediately, although it will take some time before this will reach the proper American institutions. Now I am trying to have the story publicized by ‘LIFE’ Magazine, before ‘Argosy’, to attract the attention of both scientists and authorities, and public opinion, so that the caretaker of the specimen would be forced to deliver it for a thorough scientific study. Unfortunately LIFE will not publish until a scientific examination has taken place, so we are faced with a vicious circle.
He then repeats his concerns about Sanderson's involvement.
I want to stress that Ivan and I disagree on how to handle the whole situation, as far as both publicizing the story concerning the specimen are concerned. Moreover, although Ivan has to realise that he has no scientific reputation and that he does not care, he does not realise that whenever he appears on the scene or whenever his name is mentioned, nobody takes the matter seriously anymore.
Heuvelmans ends his letter with an appeal to Napier.
We (BH and ITS) discussed the matter on the phone yesterday and decided that you were probably in the best position for having the right steps taken to secure the specimen, for instance with the help of Dillon Ripley (the head of the Smithsonian).
With kindest regards,
Very sincerely,
Bernard
Heuvelmans' letter galvanised Napier into action, as his reply of 14 February makes very clear.
Dear Bernard,
I very much appreciated your letter and the manuscript (an English version of the forthcoming publication). Let me say straight away, that I have already taken official action. Several days ago I contacted Sid Galler, the Secretary for Science, who is an understanding man; he is now in possession of all the facts and will approach Dillon Ripley. (I could approach Dillon Ripley direct but, administratively, it is wiser to go through Galler). The first question Galler put to me was:- ‘Has anybody informed the F.B.I.?’ I was able to give him a documented answer – that I.T.S. had reported the matter on Jan.18th. With this assurance, Galler felt Ripley could act – by calling Hoover (who else?) on the phone (J. Edgar Hoover, the legendary head of the FBI). So be reassured that the Iceman is – or will be shortly – recognised at Federal level.
Napier then confirms to Heuvelmans that the Smithsonian was prepared to carry out a thorough scientific examination of the Iceman if they could get the body to Washington. This proved to be much easier said than done.
In a statement responding to press enquiries, Napier confirms the Smithsonian's interest in examining the Iceman but concedes that: ‘There is very little we can do to get hold of the specimen, if the owner does not wish us to examine it. What remains, however, is to give this matter wide publicity in the press and other media in the hope that the owner will eventually respond to public pressure and make this creature – if it really exists – available for scientific study.’
The note of institutional caution is even more evident when Napier responded to the question of whether the Smithsonian considered the specimen was genuine.
