Is this Bigfoot? Hairy 6ft beast shot in the 1960s and kept in a Minnesota freezer to go on display

• Museum of the Weird in Austin will display the mysterious creature beginning July 3
• The ‘Minnesota Iceman’ was first displayed in late 60s
• Original exhibitor of the ‘Bigfoot-like’ beast said he shot it in Minnesota
  
• Smithsonian Institution investigators said the creature was ‘latex rubber and hair’—but they could have examined a replica

Decades after mysteriously disappearing, ‘The Iceman Cometh’ again. 

The infamous ‘Minnesota Iceman’ will be exhibited at Museum of the Weird in Austin, Texas, starting next week after touring at fairgrounds and malls across the country in the late 60s and early 70s. 

The museum’s owner, Steve Busti, said Wednesday that the frozen, ‘Neanderthal or Bigfoot-like monster’ will be on display beginning July 3. 

Resurfaced: After decades missing, the ‘Minnesota Iceman’ is going to be on display at Museum of the Weird in Austin, Texas

On display: Museum of the Weird owner, Steve Busti, pictured, bought the iceman from the family of its original exhibitor

 

The iceman, 6-feet-tall, was billed as ‘The Siberskoye Creature’ or ‘The Creature of Ice’ beginning in 1968. The hairy creature was displayed in a solid block of ice inside a refrigerated coffin. 

A man named Frank Hansen exhibited the iceman and claimed to have been behind its discovery, according to the book ‘Bigfoot Exposed: An Anthropologist Examines America’s Enduring Legend’.

Two cryptozoologists, Ivan Sanderson and Bernard Heuvelmans, examined the body during their search for evidence of Bigfoot the same year the iceman became a carnival exhibit. The pair believed the creature to be a real, unknown species, with Sanderson even remarking he could smell a decomposing corpse through cracks in the icy tomb.

Frozen: Encased in ice, the hairy beast was originally exhibited by Frank Hansen, who first said he discovered it in Siberia, but later said he shot it in Minnesota

The pair believed the creature to be an evolutionary missing link–Heuvelmans even dubbed him ‘Homo pongoides’.

After the two cryptozoologists examined the creature, Sanderson convinced someone at the Smithsonian Institution to launch an official investigation. Unfortunately, Hansen reportedly switched the ‘real’ body with a latex dummy before an investigation took place. 

At first, Hansen suggested he found the iceman in Siberia, but he confessed he shot the creature in Minnesota woods before putting it on ice. As a result of these new claims, the FBI almost became involved, thinking Hansen had been exhibiting a murder victim. 

Bigfoot: The Minnesota Iceman has been billed as similar to Bigfoot, supposedly seen in this famous frame from a 1967 film

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