Earlier this week, America’s most notorious humanoid was struck by two cars on a Montana highway and killed. Yes, Bigfoot met his ignominious end under and the wheels of a car. Of course, it turns out the massive creature was actually a middle-aged man, believed to be perpetrating a hoax.

Despite the romantic dreams of many cryptozoologists, Sasquatch is generally considered to be a fake or misidentification. In this case, the drivers came across a phony Bigfoot played by one Randy Lee Tenley, a 44-year-old prankster.

On the night of August 26, Tenley donned a camouflage ghille suit and started lurking just off U.S. Highway 93. Ghille suits, which are often bought at army surplus stores by avid paintballers, are shaggy full-body covers designed to look like foliage. Apparently, Tenley also thought it could make him look like Bigfoot….

According to Tenley’s friends, Sunday wasn’t the only time he had used the suit to pretend to be Bigfoot, but it was his first attempt to perpetrate the hoax along a major road. Highway patrol officers speculate that alcohol may have been involved in Tenley’s decision to prowl near fast-moving traffic.

Tenley’s death, while a personal tragedy, also raises some larger questions in the crytozoology community. For the first time, scientists have the body of a Sasquatch on hand. Unfortunately, it is not of an ape-like humanoid such as Gigantopithecus or
Paranthropus robustus. Randy Lee Tenley is most definitely — and most distressingly for those worried about intelligent life on earth — a Homo sapien.

Does this mean that all Bigfoot sightings should be treated as hoaxes? The famous Patterson-Gimlin film turned out to be nothing more than a man in an ape suit. A “juvenile Sasquatch” captured on an automatic camera in 2007 has been identified as a bear with mange. And now, any Bigfoot sighting in Montana for the past couple of years must be chalked up to the antics of Tenley.

Regarding the existence of Bigfoot, perhaps we should echo the sentiments of famed primatologist Dr. Jane Goodall who told NPR: “maybe they don’t exist, but I want them to.”

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