Hoax or Illusion?
Leonard Pickel
Sometimes it is a fine line that we as Haunters cross when creating a background story for our Haunted Attractions. Many people believe what they see or read as the truth, no matter how farfetched it may be. When they are inside the attraction, you do everything you can to trigger their “suspension of disbelief,” to make the experience seem real in an attempt to give people the strongest scare possible. So when do you tell the patron that the story is not real? Do you ever? Where is the line between hoax and illusion?
Illusion
In 1862, one of the magic world’s most famous illusions was shown for the first time in England. The illusion sprang from the imagination of an ingenious British university professor, John Henry Pepper, who utilized the then new technology of plate glass to create the illusion known as “Pepper’s Ghost” (also known as Galatea and the Blue Room illusion). In its original incarnation, an actor stood on a darkened stage when suddenly a ghostly apparition appeared; the actor unsheathed a sword and engaged the ghost in a furious sword fight. At the climax, the ghost was mortally wounded and vanished before the eyes of the astonished audience.
This illusion uses a very large piece of plate glass suspended on the stage at an angle to the sightline of the audience. The ghost is actually an offstage actor hidden from the audience. When a light source shines on the actor, his reflection is seen in the glass, and when the light is removed the ghost disappears. Perhaps the best known use of this is a variation that creates the ghosts in the ballroom scene of Disney’s Haunted Mansion.
Realize that this was well over 200 years before CGI in movies and television made this kind of effect commonplace; in fact, the Pepper’s Ghost illusion was around long before the electric light bulb was invented. The level of sophistication of the viewer was such that even this simple magic illusion was viewed as a real ghost, and patrons were terrified; but it was an illusion.
Hoax
Back in the early sixties there was a “Strange and Unusual” sideshow attraction touring fairs and carnivals. A large, colorful banner on one side of the barker stage advertised a “Giant Australian killer red bat! Beware! Deadly! Able to kill horses and adult humans!” The painting depicted an enormous red bat flying over a city and crowds of people fleeing in terror! On the other side of the stage was another banner, advertising “See 284-pound Man Eating Chicken! A $1,000 reward if not alive!” The patron purchased a ticket and entered the tent, and sure enough, there it was just as advertised. To one side was a glass display case with a rather large baseball bat painted bright red that could have easily killed a human, and on the other side was a platform where stood a rather large, jolly man seated behind a table covered with a red and-white checkered tablecloth eating a bucket of chicken. To add insult to injury, the show attendant then explained that if you now wanted a good laugh, go back onto the midway, find a friend and tell him not to miss the man-eating chicken show. The ticket-seller would even let you back in free when you brought back your friend to see the show.
The Man Eating Chicken/Red Bat was a hoax. The advertisement was clearly misleading, and patrons were tricked into buying a ticket, only to go right out and play the same trick on their friends. While the hoax did cost the patron money, the joke was humorous enough that few complained; people were more laid back then! On the other hand, Pepper’s Ghost was a magical stage illusion; the audience paid to see a “show” and to be entertained. There was no rule that said John Pepper had to explain his “trick” to the audience, even though many people left the theater believing they had seen a ghost.
Now that we know the difference between a hoax and an illusion, I have a story to tell.
As many of you know, Philip Morris started his road to renown creating “Ghost Shows” across the country during the 1960’s, which were the waning years of that type of Haunted Attraction’s popularity. One of the most popular skits in the “Dr. Evil” shows was the sudden appearance of an escaped gorilla. The costume industry was in its infancy, and Morris was having trouble finding a decent gorilla costume for a price that he was willing to pay. “I stumbled onto a new synthetic fur material called Dynel in a fabric shop during one of my tours,” recalls Morris. “And I started making my own gorilla costumes with it!”
Girl to Gorilla
Pepper’s Ghost was used in a very popular carnival sideshow in the mid 1960’s known as the Girl to Gorilla. In this illusion, a lovely (more often than not scantly clad) lady slowly transformed, right before your very eyes, into a massive gorilla which leaped out of its cage into the audience, which would run screaming out of the tent. Seeing people running terrified out of an attraction then drew a crowd for the next show.
In this classic Pepper’s Ghost illusion, the girl stands at the end of a corridor in view of the audience through a cage door. Unseen to the audience is an actor in a gorilla suit in a mirror image corridor running off to one side of the one with the girl in it. A sheet of plate glass at a 45 degree angle is at the intersection of this “L” shaped space. When the light is shining on the girl, all the audience sees is the girl. Then the lights on the girl are dimmed at the same time that the lights on the gorilla are brightened; at the halfway point, the audience sees the girl with a translucent “ghost” of the gorilla superimposed over her image. As the light on the girl dims out and the light on the gorilla is at 100%, the glass acts as a mirror and the patrons see only the gorilla. Illusion complete, there is a total blackout long enough for the gorilla to move up in front of the glass right at the bars. The lights come on, the gorilla busts through the bars and the audience flees for its life. This too is an illusion; people paid to see a show, and they got one.
The Girl to Gorilla sideshows were very popular. “There were approximately fifty to a hundred magicians touring the country playing fairs with the Girl to Gorilla illusion,” recalls Morris, whose company Morris Costumes was the only costumer in the United States where you could buy a quality, professional gorilla suit for a reasonable price. “Fortunately,” explains Morris, “we found a niche market at the same time.”
Bigfoot
In the summer of 1967, Morris received a call from a man named Roger Patterson, who had seen an advertisement for the Morris gorilla suit in Amusement Business Magazine. Patterson asked some pointed questions about the costume that at the time sold for $435.
“I asked Patterson if he was a magician or if he had a Girl to Gorilla show,” recalls Morris, who assumed that was what Patterson needed the costume for. “He said no, he was a rodeo cowboy, and he just wanted the suit for a joke he was playing.” Patterson wanted to know if the suit looked real, and Philip told him it looked as real as a man in a monkey suit could look. “I told him it looked like a real Hollywood gorilla,” says Morris. “He said, ‘Tell you what, you send me the suit, and if I like it, I will send you a check.’” Morris replied with “I have a better idea. You send me the money, and I’ll send you the suit. If you don’t like it, send the suit back, and I will send your check back.”
Morris thought nothing more of the conversation until he received a postal money order for $435 plus shipping. About ten days or so after the suit was shipped out, Patterson called again and said he was happy with the suit, but was concerned about the long zipper in the back making the suit look fake. Morris was surprised about this concern, because in the Girl to Gorilla shows, the audience only sees the gorilla from the front, but he suggested that Patterson use a hair brush and softly brush the fur down over the zipper to cover it. Then Patterson wanted to know how to make the actor’s arms longer. Morris suggested attaching the provided gloves to shovel or broom handles slid up the sleeves. The next question was how to make the shoulders more massive. Morris replied to go to the local high school and get some old football pads and put them in the shoulders. The coaches would probably be happy to get rid of some old, cracked ones.
This handholding was unusual for Morris; as a magician for much of his life, these tricks were second nature, but Patterson was grateful for the customer service and ended the conversation. Then, Morris recalls, “I was watching television in my living room when lo and behold, there was my gorilla suit walking across the screen!” The announcer was explaining that the footage, now known as the Patterson film, was of a real Bigfoot sighting, filmed in the forests of Northern California. Morris then called his wife in from the kitchen. “Hurry! Our gorilla suit’s on TV!” The mask was different, but Amy Morris immediately recognized the costume, as she was the one who had sewn the suit together. “I kept thinking that Patterson would come forward,” chuckles Morris, “and let them know it was a joke, but when I found out he had sold the use of the film for $50,000 I knew that would never happen.”
This discovery put Morris in a position that he is quite familiar with. Morris is in the business of making special effects and props for stage shows and professional magicians, and in many cases legally sworn to secrecy on how an illusion is performed. Even now, over 30 years later, Morris is uneasy about revealing this Bigfoot sighting as a hoax, but Patterson has passed away, and a new tell-all book, The Making of Bigfoot by Greg Long, which details the truth, is now in print. So Morris’ liability is lessened.
The most humorous part of this for Morris is the numerous college professors and zoologists who have professed over the years that this was a genuine Bigfoot. One professor is quoted as saying, “Look how it walks. It does not roll on the balls of its feet.” To which Morris explains, “The reason for that are its feet are rubber, which I made. They’re so long; it’s like walking in clown’s shoes. You have to raise your feet very high and bring them down flat in order to walk.”
Patterson cleverly pulled off the illusion by shooting the film sequence of Bigfoot from a distance to keep the viewer from getting too good of a look at the creature. The constant shaking of the handheld camera creates the sense of a shocked witness suddenly seeing the Bigfoot and then desperately trying to keep the walking creature in view, but the camera-shake effectively prevents the audience from picking up tell-tale features of the costume. Bigfoot is also walking away from the camera and for much of the film is walking behind logs, tree trunks, and branches to further obscure the suit. Patterson also replaced the traditional gorilla face that came with the costume with a custom-made mask with facial features more typical of a Bigfoot.
Magicians measure the success of their magic by how well the audience is fooled. This illusion played out on a Northern California wilderness stage over thirty-five years ago, in front of millions of viewers who were willing to believe and who didn’t care how the “magic” worked. A soon-to-be-aired television special will include Philip Morris showing you the details of his suit and how Patterson created his million-dollar Bigfoot hoax using what is now the most-viewed gorilla costume in human history since King Kong.
The Making of Bigfoot (Prometheus Books 2004) by Greg Long is available in bookstores around the country and through online book sellers like www.northwestmysteries.com
Leonard Pickel is the Editor in Chief of Haunted Attraction, and can be reached by phone at 704-366-0975, or by email at editor@hauntedattraction.com.
