(Hoaxer) Joe Metlow

In January 1970, while Bigfooters were in Bossburg in the wake of Ivan Marx's Cripplefoot track find there, they were approached by Joe Metlow, a prospector. He told them that he had a Bigfoot immobilized in an abandoned mine shaft and that he had sold it. The Bigfooters said that they "would top your best offer," and a bidding war ensued. John Green, a Canadian Sasquatch researcher, and a journalist and editor in his day job, came and got involved in a way that offended Dahinden. Metlow declined to give anyone a peek for $1000. Bids topped out at $55,000, which called his bluff, and interest fizzled when he wouldn't bite.

Joe Metlow then claimed that he had a Sasquatch foot in his freezer, which started another bidding war. Again, he was evasive, changed his story, and ducked out of a trip to have potential buyers view it. At this point it was obvious to the Sasquatch squads that they'd been had.

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From Don Hunter; René Dahinden (1993) [1973]. Sasquach/Bigfoot: The Search for North America's Incredible Creature

Pages 153-159

One evening at the end of January, two men arrived at the Sasquatch Hunters' camp on the Marx property, Joe Metlow, a prospector and Bill Streeter, a state wildlife agent. Metlow's first question to the hunters was, what was their price on a Sasquatch? It was explained to him, in somewhat noble fashion by David Jensen, that money was hardly a consideration compared with the importance to science of establishing the creature's existence. And besides, he pointed out, getting hold of a Sasquatch was a much more involved problem than Metlow seemed to appreciate.

"But I've got one," Metlow said. "and it's sold"

Nobility and scientific priorities fled. "We'll top your best offer." Jensen countered. At this point, Fardell and St. Hilaire were somewhere in the wings. The first act was Jensen's alone.

Metlow's story was that on January 27, while out laying claim lines (at a location he wouldn't name for the moment), he had come up behind a cream-colored sasquatch at a distance of about eighty yards. He said he could only make out its back and that it appeared to be digging ferns out of knee-deep snow and eating the roots. Metlow noted that the surrounding area was well trampled, and he felt the creature was making its home close by. He had brought Streeter along to confirm the story. Streeter was able to confirm that that was the story that Metlow had told him; after that he faded-in a most judicious move-from the picture.

Throughout the discussion that followed, Metlow, displaying all the time an astonishing facility for avoiding specifics, somehow gave the impression to Jensen that not only did he know where the creature lived, but that he had immobilized it in an abandoned mine shaft. He said nothing more about how much he had been offered, or by whom. Jensen was sold. He stressed to Metlow that the only source of any money worth considering among the Sasquatch hunters was at Northwest Research Association (another name for Roger Patterson) in Yakima, and that he would contact his principals immediately. He did, amd Patterson directed him to keep the talk going, and to keep the Dahinden crowd out of it. Schism.

Metlow left, promising to keep in touch.

Roy Fardell and Roger St. Hilaire, the Dahinden camp, knew something was popping. They managed to scrape together the bones of the story and, following some intricate detective work, came up with Metlow. After that it wasn't too difficult to discover the approximate area where Metlow had been prospecting on the day in question. It was somewhere on Frisco Standard, a mountain a few miles to the north.

While these deductions were being pursued, Roger Patterson was in touch with his backer Tom Page, a wealthy Ohio businessman who paid the former rodeo rider an annual retainer to be kept informed of every break in the Sasquatch search. Page flew out immediately, and he and Patterson met and huddled with Metlow, following which the Patterson camp moved its operation to a motel in Colville, twenty-two miles away. The divorce was final.

Rene reflects on the split somewhat ruefully, and certainly naively: "I thought it had been all for one and one for all before this, but that's not how it worked out."

The Dahinden camp, its leader in Calgary, but in daily contact by telephone, stayed put in Ivan Marx's backyard. Dahinden's orders to the others were to stall, and bluff; to find out what Patterson and Page were offering, and top it. Rene talked to Metlow by phone but was quite unable to determine whether the man had what he said he had. By now Page was tossing around the figure of thirty-five thousand dollars for a Sasquatch, dead or alive. Metlow remained coy. Page had hired a helicopter from Spokane and had it on constant alert at Colville airport, ready for immediate take-off on Exercise Sasquatch-Retrieval.

The Dahinden company was ready to move whenever the Patterson lot stirred. And there were others. A young newspaperman, Denny Striker of the Colville Statesman Examiner, who had been keeping journalistic track of the hunters' presence since the first sighting of the crippled print, could almost taste a massive scoop. If anyone from either camp moved, somehow Striker was after him. He had a jeep sitting in the bush, gassed up and ready to run at the first sign of action. At one point he kept Patterson motel under observation for seventy-two hours straight, following a tip that a big move was imminent. And the ubiquitous Norm Davis was on the fringe of the action, tagging along with the Dahinden group. Sides were being taken by the usually non-partisan; the border patrol officers committed (unofficially) their help to the Dahinden side, their sense of fair play apparently offended by the selfish attitude suddenly displayed by the Patterson troupe. Ivan Marx stayed neutral, warning Dahinden's men: "If you tell me anything, and the other guys ask me, I'll tell them, so better not tell me anything." As friction grew between the two sides the townspeople grew disenchanted with their one-time favorites.

Skipped a paragraph here since it's not necessary to what the hoax was about.

Metlow was still being coy about his Sasquatch. Finally, Page offered him a thousand dollars to confirm the area where he supposedly had the creature. Although no money changed hands, Metlow conceded that it was on Frisco Standard, but he declined to accompany the hunters to the spot. By this time all concerned should probably should have concluded that there was nothing to the prospector's story; but they were in the advanced stages of Saasquatch fever, blind to all reason. In a "top secret" move Patterson and Page and group whipped off in their chopper, set down on the top of Frisco Standard, and took to snowshoes. The Dahinden squad was not outdone; a local sympathiser with their cause had provided a light plane, for the price of the cost of fuel. The moment that Patterson and Page left their machine, the "enemy" small plane came buzzing round the mountain, playfully waggling its wings at them as they flapped about in the deep powder snow.

Skipped the rest of the paragraph

Metlow was still accepting no offers, but still was making noises that kept the bidding healthy. Dahinden's men were phoning Rene at 2 a.m. with daily reports. The bids crept up: $35,000, $40,000, $50,000. "Top them," Dahinden ordered. At the same time he phoned John Green, asking him to get down to Bossburg to watch over their interests. Green went, but (according to Jensen), apparently overcome by the same motives that were fuelling the whole fiasco, spent most of his time galloping between the two camps, seeing where the best deal lay for himself. From this came the rift that more or less broke the one-time close Dahinden-Green Partnership.

Rene's final bid, made as he recalls, "from a hotel in Calgary where I was without a pot to piss in." was for $50.000. It was enough to call Metlow's bluff. The prospector walked away from the affair, still uncommitted as to the truthfulness or otherwise of his story.

Metlow wasn't finished with the hunters yet though. When the Frisco Standard smoke had cleared, Rene, by now back in Bossburg and in an apparent moment of truce with the Patterson team, paid a visit with Jensen to Metlow's home. Conversation was general and quite genial until Metlow casually mentioned that he had a Sasquatch foot in his freezer. The fur hit the fan again. Rene immediately offered five hundred dollars for one peek at the exhibit. Metlow raised him to five thousand dollars. The excitement brought Dickie Davis to the scene, antennae quivering. Before you could say, "Bigfoot" Davis had a contract sketched out. It would include John Green to write the book, Bob Titmus to skin and dissect the foot's owner-presumably stashed in a cave somewhere above the snowline-and anthropologist Grover Krantz to introduce it to science. Rene was out, so was Patterson.