http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=132900&page=63
The Article:
http://www.bigfootencounters.com/stories/byrne_on_titmus.htm
Calling into question Bob Titmus' credentials:
QUOTE( Peter Byrne recalling meeting Bob Titmus at Bluff Creek)
At the time that I and my staff met Titmus in Bluff Creek, intrigued with the secrecy of his project, and its potential, and what obviously must have been the extraordinary know-how and expertise that had enabled him to develop it, we took advantage of what little time we had him in hand, so to speak (he was in a hurry, he said and had little time to waste on the kind of research that in which we were engaged, being as it was so far behind the advances he had made in his pending great find) to ask him as many questions as we could about his knowledge of Pacific Northwest wildlife, local conditions, Bigfoot lore and history. We did this because he has been described to us an expert woodsman and a veteran in forest lore (and indeed, was being employed as such by Tom Slick) and we were very keen to gauge the extent of his knowledge and, if possible, of course, apply it to our own work. To this end we managed to detain him long enough to get him to reluctantly agree to a short walk with us down a dusty logging road near our camp, one on which, within ten minutes of walking, we found a set of Black Bear paw prints. The prints, about six inches in length, were old, faded and were typical bear, with the short forefoot print and the elongated “banana shaped” rear imprint. Titmus, however, looked at the prints for two or three minutes and then promptly declared them to have been made by a young Bigfoot.
QUOTE( Same article)
Again, not long after our forest meeting with him, some time in 1960, he claimed a find of Bigfoot hair and, without informing any of us at the project, sent a set of hairs to Tom, stating that they were such. However, a careful examination of the hair by Tom and his associates in San Antonio, including a visual comparison of it with the hair of other known wild species of the north American continent, proved it to be moose hair and it is was interesting to note (a discovery made by Gerry Crew, on a visit to Redding) that about the time Titmus made this BF hair “find”, he was working on a moose trophy in his taxidermy workshop, in Redding.
A hoaxer? or a bumbling fool?
QUOTE( Peter Byrne talking about Bob Titmus' Secret Project)
What Titmus said he had discovered, his secret project from which we were all excluded, was something extraordinary. It was, simply a place in the mountains where a Bigfoot-and maybe more than one-came to defecate on what appeared to be a regular schedule. In other words, a permanent Bigfoot toilet. As Tom talked, I could see disbelief on the faces of the others. Nevertheless, we listened politely as he went on. The plan, he told us, had been for Titmus to show him the place in question, after which an operation would be designed, one that would include a 24/7 watch on the area and possibly the use of planes and helicopters and additional support teams, including scientists, as needed. We would all be part of it and the object of the plan would be, at the very least, to document any BFs coming or going to the site, via still and motion-picture photography. There could be a possibility, Tom thought, of making face-to-face contact with one and even, farfetched though it might sound, the exciting prospect of communication.
The ending?
QUOTE( The ending of the story)
He said that Titmus was wide-eyed with what looked like fear and as the footsteps got closer and closer, he had to admit that he was not far off panic himself. Then, suddenly, out of the Manzanita brush to their left, a large brown object walked into view. It was not, however, as Tom expected, a Bigfoot, but a medium-sized, brown-colored pony on the back of which sat a medium- sized old man, a Native American, dressed in a leather jacket and a battered felt hat and with a thick black ponytail hanging down his back. The old man rode up to the little tree, got off his mount, removed two small baskets from the back of the pony, tied the pony to the tree and then turned around to stare directly at the two men lying prone at the edge of the clearing.
Tom, feeling a little foolish, immediately stood and walked up to the old man, who greeted him respectfully and shook his hand. When asked what he was doing there, the man told him that he was a Yurok Indian, from the Hoopa Indian Reservation, come to collect wild herbs-which was what his baskets were for-and that he had been coming to this same place for many years and, he added with a smile, pointing to the little tree, tying his pony right there, in the middle of the animal's dung pile.
To which, at this precise moment, Tom told us, the pony made a generous contribution.
Tom, feeling a little foolish, immediately stood and walked up to the old man, who greeted him respectfully and shook his hand. When asked what he was doing there, the man told him that he was a Yurok Indian, from the Hoopa Indian Reservation, come to collect wild herbs-which was what his baskets were for-and that he had been coming to this same place for many years and, he added with a smile, pointing to the little tree, tying his pony right there, in the middle of the animal's dung pile.
To which, at this precise moment, Tom told us, the pony made a generous contribution.
Talk about hilarious...
