12. The Minnesota Iceman was a circus sideshow displayed in 1968 that had many experts scratching their heads
In 1968, the circus promoter Frank Hansen unveiled his new attraction to the world: an unidentified-ape preserved in a block of ice, found in deepest Siberia. Hansen exhibited his star-draw across the United States, and soon scientists were in a funk about what it could be. The cryptozoologists Bernard Heuvelmans and Ivan Sanderson were eventually allowed to examine it during the winter off-season, and concluded it to be genuine. They triumphantly announced a new species, Homo pongoides (‘ape-like man’), to the world. Hansen subsequently changed his story, and said that ‘Bozo’, as the specimen was known, had been shot in Minnesota.
Unfortunately, not all scientists were convinced. John Napier, a primatologist at the Smithsonian Institute, was invited to examine it, and convincingly argued it was a latex model encased in ice. So convincingly, in fact, that Hansen agreed, albeit with the excuse that the original had become damaged, and he had been forced to substitute a replica for public exhibitions. Subsequent investigations found that Hansen had commissioned a single model from a specialist company, which he defrosted and re-posed between seasons. The Iceman mysteriously disappeared (until it appeared on eBay in 2013), and Heuvelmans and Sanderson looked extremely foolish.