Bernard Heuvelmans, Pity, and the Dictators of Science

There is no cryptozoological figure more misinvoked, misquoted, and misunderstood than Bernard Heuvelmans, the father of cryptozoology. Depending on the source (i.e. believers or Skeptics), Bernard is portrayed as either a genius and prophet or incompetent fool; focus is always placed on the facticity of his claims and never their context or intent. Bernard exists as little more than a caricature of himself in the contemporary cryptozoological literature.

The lack of unbiased, objective discussion is maddening. I hope here, in this post, to push back against at least some of the misconceptions surrounding Bernard Heuvelmans and to recontextualize his intentions for cryptozoology. Bernard clearly positioned cryptozoology at the forefront of an ethical upheaval of the natural sciences, fueled by a particularly romantic perception of science as a clash between innovation and dogmatic stagnation.

This post is derived from notes compiled for a presentation at the 2026 Folk Zoology Conference, one which unfortunately fell through. I've chosen to share this work here to make it accessible to others and, hopefully, encourage further archival and collaboration (those interested can reach out to me at lprattcryptozoology@gmail.com). 

The majority of Bernard's writings are inaccessible to non-European researchers, trapped within obscure French wartime periodicals, out of print books, or the collections of documents housed at the Cantonal Museum of Zoology in Lausanne, Switzerland. In recent years, through scans, translations, biographies, and documentaries, many of Bernard's cryptozoological writing have become available to international audiences, but this is still not the case for his non-cryptozoological works, making up the first fifteen-or-so years of his career. Consulting these works is necessary to understand Bernard's intentions for cryptozoology, as they say much about his perceptions of science and humanity. 

In the absence of these works, this post relies almost solely on quotes directly from Bernard's cryptozoological works, provided in context with minimal alteration. Relevant passages from French works have been hand-translated to English. This work is currently incomplete and may be rendered incorrect with time, but even in this tentative state I believe it to be quite valuable. I hope that Bernard is able to speak for himself here, as all previous authors have failed to speak for him.

My overall goal is to encourage the accurate treatment of cryptozoological subjects by future scholars - if we are to study cryptozoology as a social, cultural, and historical practice, we must have a fair and objective understanding of its practitioners.

ONE IS BORN A ZOOLOGIST, ONE DOES NOT BECOME ONE
Heuvelmans, 2016, p.251

"One is born a zoologist, one does not become one"; "I think if I were born a zoologist, it is because even when probing deep in my memories, I can't discover a beginning for my passion for animals".

“There was nothing hereditary in my becoming a zoologist. On my father’s side I stem from lawyers and philologists; on my mother’s, from a constellation of actors, painters, and musicians; so I’m a happy marriage of arts and reason, of rigor and sensitivity, and up to a point, of deductive work and scientific detective inquiry” (Heuvelmans, 2016, p.251).

In his writings, Bernard regularly sought to contrast himself and his field (cryptozoology) from other scientists and sciences. The portrait of his childhood provided in The Strange Saga of the Minnesota Iceman (Heuvelmans, 2016) seeks to paint him as somebody with a deeper connection to the natural world and maybe reasoning than the average, dogmatic scientist, imbued with these traits at birth. Bernard's pre-cryptozoological writings (The Secret of Fates, 1951-52) and time spent in the Fortean and eccentric circles of post-WWII France imply a deeper reverence for fate and inherentness than what is available in his cryptozoological works. 

Of significant interest is Bernard's father's occupations as a philologist and lawyer, potentially responsible for Bernard's bibliographic skills and sense of justice. From the little available, Bernard's father seems to have regularly encouraged Bernard's hobbies, such as animal keeping, while his mother was more ambivalent... 

“Those rather classic episodes of the career of every budding zoologist” included “welcoming under the family roof all needy animals, be they rats or hedgehogs, garter snakes or swifts, or even stray dogs” (Heuvelmans, 2016, p.252).

...or even oppositional. Upon the passing of his older brother, Bernard was gifted a dog named Timoleon. One day, for reasons unknown, Bernard's mother took Timoleon to the pound and had him put down: 

“Even a few days before his death, [Bernard] still wept when he spoke of Timoleon; he never forgave his mother for the ignominy of this murderous act” (Alika Lindbergh (Heuvelmans' ex-wife and lifelong confidant/artist) in Barloy, 2007, p.12).

Bernard cared for many animals throughout his life, always inconsolable for months at a time upon their passing. He would regularly advocate for animal welfare and conservation, in writing, speeches, and through donations of money or research materials: “Without a doubt, [Bernard’s] unique attitude in the world of scientific researchers stemmed from a visceral pact that bound him to other beings” (Akila Lindbergh, in Barloy, 2007, p.12).7)

Most significant, though often overlooked, was Bernard's rejection of the collection of specimens for scientific research. A letter to Jean-Jacques Barloy, dated December 5th, 1975, reads: 

“You can count on my support in the fight against vivisection, which I consider to be a dishonorable and pointless practice. I have even come to oppose “specimen harvesting,” that is, the organized slaughter for scientific research. These days, one can very well photograph and measure, and attempt to breed species in captivity. (The numerous deaths that accompany these attempts will provide material for the study of internal anatomy, etc.) (Barloy, 2007, p.115).

Bernard felt most closely attached to primates: 

“My first concern after I got married and had a place of my own was to acquire a capuchin monkey, something that I had dreamed of since I was a child…That little monkey was the first of a series of simian children and friends that have brightened my life. I see in them a reminder of Paradise Lost, and they have taught me real wisdom” (Heuvelmans, 2016, p.252).

...and would regularly work with them, write about them, and advocate for them. In his cryptozoological works, primates became a language of sorts, regularly invoked as examples to vindicate his claims.  

(Upon seeing a neglected howler monkey at a Guatemalan zoo) “[I have been deeply moved by] a charming little creature, adorable…If you don’t take him into your wonderful monkey home [he] will soon die in his dark attic room”; Bernard then smuggled the howler monkey back to France in a cage under his coat (Barloy, 2007, p.109-111).

(Of the Yerkes Primate Research Center and its experiments on primates) “I have never been so ashamed to be a man…These are isolated, useless endeavors. Science for science’s sake, as pointless as literature for literature’s sake” (Barloy, 2007, p.96).

Bernard had a Catholic upbringing and attended a Jesuit secondary school, where he'd graduate with a degree in rhetoric (public speaking and performance). He'd reject Christianity and “all religions that privilege mankind at the expense of the rest of the living world” (Alika Lindbergh in Barloy, 2007, p.13), converting to Buddhism later on in life. 

Bernard felt that human were equal to all other animals: “The idea that Man occupies the highest level in nature...is an old western superstition and conceited as it is foolish” (Heuvelmans, 2016, p.38).

“The fact that certain men have been compared to - or equated with - beasts, with the aim of degrading or exploiting them, can and should provoke indignation. Yet, the fact that merely likening a human being to some animal is enough to disparage them is no less revolting and scandalous to the animals themselves. For what, after all, is inherently contemptible about the animal condition?” (Heuvelmans, 1980, p.25-26).

...and that humans were uniquely bound for destruction because they failed to recognize and respect this equality. I expect many of Bernard's pre-cryptozoology works to comment on this:

“[For Bernard] human aggression was hypertilic. It was like the antlers of the great Irish Elk - they grew to the point of extinction…because you could not live with antlers that big. Bernard [also] considered human intelligence hypertilic, meaning it had developed in a certain direction that would lead to our destruction and disappearance” (Alika Lindbergh in Deroy, 2018, 44:35). 

While in secondary school, Bernard levied his fascination with the natural world and love of literature as a form of rebellion against religion: 

“During my studies at a Jesuit school, I often put aside the study of Latin, Greek, and apologetics to enjoy the fruits of the Tree of Science”; “At the age of twelve I had already read Fabre and Buffon, Cuvier and Darwin”

Bernard would not just read about evolution and extinction, but would reject Christian theologians and role models for the zoologically inclined, and reject murderous dramas for justice-seeking detective stories:

“my tastes in literature made me prefer…Voltaire to Bossuet…and Sherlock Holmes to Ruy Blas or d’Artagnan…and to Saint Francis of Assisi, who humbly communed with the lowest animals, I greatly preferred Tarzan, who was one with the animals”

This reading fostered many beliefs which Bernard held until his passing and acted as the foundations for cryptozoology:

“I read stories about Red Indians [and] hunting stories (which prematurely made me hate all killers)”

“Three novels of my youth have played a significant role in the gestation of cryptozoology: Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under The Sea…, Les Dieux Rouges (The Red Gods)..., and, above all,...The Lost World” (Heuvelmans, 2016, p.253).

A GREAT REVENGE
Barloy, 2007, p.22-28 

Bernard's second blasphemous interest, his second love after zoology, was jazz music. Upon receiving his first trumpet at age 17, Bernard would play, sing, and write about jazz music for the first decade of his adult life (unfortunately, these writings are poorly indexed and little known), hailed as the only vocalist in Belgium who could sing blues "the traditional way". As a writer for various jazz magazines, he became closely acquainted with several prominent jazz musicians, from Louis Armstrong to Duke Ellington. Bernard only stopped writing about jazz to pursue cryptozoology full time. In his final book on the subject, From Bamboula to Be-Bop (Heuvelmans, 1951), Bernard would write about jazz in a fashion very similar to cryptozoology, bridging the gap:

“As a biologist by training, I treated jazz as a living being, hence the successive study of its gestation, childhood, maturity, and senescence…Reconstructed using a similar technique, with the help of both fossilized and living documents, this is a story that any paleontologist of jazz could reasonably reconstruct” (quoted in Barloy, 2007, p.43).

Bernard's close kinship with many African-American musicians led him to loudly detest the racism they faced, evidenced in several general-audience articles with titles such as The Lie Which (Still) Hurts Us: Racism. Bernard was particularly outraged by the death of his favorite singer, Bessie Smith - gravely injured in a car crash, the press attributed her death to several rejections from segregated hospitals (a claim later shown to be false). Bernard would describe jazz's popularity as “a great revenge of the former slaves” (Barloy, 2007, p.22-28, 37-38, 42-43), reveling in the idea of the underdog taking revenge. 

Bernard would regularly advocate for other minorities as well. Upon learning about the genocide of Indigenous Amazonians by logging companies during research for On the Track of Unknown Animals, Bernard began compiling testimonies, newspaper clippings, and other documents, sending them to officials at the UN, UNICEF, International League for Human Rights, and Survival International (Barloy, 2007, p.116-17).  

Bernard began his zoological studies at the Free University of Brussels (founded on the principle of “free inquiry”) in 1935, under the mentorship of Dr. Serge Frechkop. Frechkop was a proponent of initial bipedalism, the idea that humans represented the ancestral primate bodyplan (cf. Naish, 2008):

“Bernard was deeply influenced by Frechkop - his brilliant ideas, his nonconformity and his kindness. Throughout his life, he would pay much tribute to Frechkop and his work” (Barloy, 2007, p.31).

Bernard wrote two theses. The first focused on aardvark dentition and taxonomy, leading Bernard to regularly joke about "studying the teeth of a toothless creature". Bernard's second thesis defended the hypothesis of initial bipedalism, arguing that the human cranium is the most primitive among the great apes. Both theses relied on Goethe's Principle of Compensation (cf. Sassoon, 2024) to explain their respective anatomical peculiarities (Barloy, 2007, p.29-32). Bernard would revise his work on aardvarks for scientific publication in 1939, followed by a series of papers on sirenian dentition, cementing him as a respected afrothere specialist.

Invitations to participate in expeditions (e.g. Piccard's bathyscaphe dives) and write chapters on afrotheres for textbooks were all impeded by the outbreak of WWII. Bernard would enlist in the Belgian Army, only to be taken as a prisoner of war at the Battle of the Lys, under the command of King Leopold III. Bernard escaped the stalags after four failed attempts; “His hatred of the Nazis contributed to Heuvelmans’s ingrained “us versus them” attitude” (Regal, 2011, p.23). 

Living in occupied Belgium, Bernard made a living running a jazz club where he sang and performed stand-up comedy, while writing general audience science articles, erotic detective stories, and his first series of books (The Secret of Fates) on the side. Bernard became a target of the épuration légale in 1946 for publishing in Nazi-affiliated magazines and was stripped of his Belgian citizenship shortly thereafter (Barloy, 2007, p.29-34, 38-39):  

“I am quite ready to admit that I have in my life been very afraid, and I can even specify when:...as a soldier during World War II when my anti-aircraft gun was strafed by Stukas…I also know what it is to be awakened early in the morning during the German occupation by officers of the [Sicherheitsdienst]...who did not like what I wrote, and also paradoxically to be thrown into jail at the Liberation…who did not like the very same writings” (Heuvelmans, 2016, p.104-105).

Bernard would not return to traditional academic zoological writing after 1943. After the publication of his final book on jazz in 1951, Bernard dedicated his life solely to cryptozoology. 

HAVE PITY ON THEM ALL, FOR WE ARE THE REAL MONSTERS
(Heuvelmans, 1995, p.623)  

"In my personal perspective, the ultimate aim of [cryptozoology] is to be able to do without specimens; that is, to describe new animal forms as completely as possible without having to kill one of their representatives. There is nothing wrong with an animal staying a little longer - or even much longer - in its own cryptozoological community before vanishing. When we are familiar enough with the species, we will certainly have a better chance of collecting individuals that died from natural causes, and which will eventually yield the necessary anatomical data. Killing and captivity should be avoided, not only for obvious ethical reasons, but because corpses and stressed individuals, psychologically disturbed by an abnormal environment, are not absolutely indispensable for our scientific enlightenment. This new discipline of zoology I have gradually built up during the past five decennia has indeed a revolutionary nature, as it actually endeavors to replace concrete (autoptical) evidence with a sufficient amount of both testimonial and circumstantial evidence (just as in the medical sciences, researchers of high morals are currently perfecting alternatives for the degrading practice of animal experimentation). It should also be borne in mind that, from a strictly scientific viewpoint, the diligent and long-continued observation in the wild of chimpanzees by Jane Goodall and gorillas by George Schaller, and later Dian Fossey, has taught us immensely more about these fascinating cousins of ours than the former slaughter and capture of hundreds, even thousands of individuals. And what is true for man-apes is naturally true also for sharks, toads, dinosaurs, moas, and whales - and why not ape-men, sub-men, or just men? All of them can be studied peacefully, without being harmed: this is the great lesson we owe to ethology, another relatively new discipline of science, whose impact on our own social life becomes increasingly perceptible. By slowing down and hopefully putting an end to the wanton collecting of specimens, which is already threatening with extinction innumerable forms of life, cryptozoology could be instrumental in the adoption of new ethics in zoological research. Morals of this sort have now become imperative, owing to the dizzying destruction and disappearance of much of our planet's wildlife, a tragedy which could someday not only render zoologists - not to mention cryptozoologists - obsolete, but herald the twilight and doom of our own species. Of course, I should not, in a scientific journal, set forth the mere respect for life, which is part of my private Buddhist philosophy. But owing to what I just had to stress, I cannot let the opportunity pass without emphasizing that, in my opinion, the ISC "Policy Statement," I conceived somewhat after Pilate's fashion - we wash our hands of those innocents' blood - is contrary to the very spirit of cryptozoology as I originally conceived it” (Heuvelmans, 1989, p.109-110).

This, in my opinion, is the defining sentiment of Bernard's cryptozoology. This aspiration for a more ethical zoology extended beyond the treatment of the animals, by developing a form of proto-ethnozoology at a time where respect for indigenous knowledge was minimal and relevant fields were in their infancy (cf. Hunn, 2007): 

“it is not true cryptozoological research unless it is…assisted by local peoples” (Heuvelmans, 1984a, p.21).

“After a quarter century of cryptozoological research I can affirm with certainty that in every part of the world where an animal new to science has been discovered, its existence was always already known to the natives” (Heuvelmans, 2016, p.95).

Bernard regularly worried about the implications of discovery...

“Now that I have reached the end of this book I feel a vague sense of regret - regret that I have revealed the still-undisturbed retreat of so many unknown animals. When I think of what man has done with a rifle, I am horrified that I should offer him new targets.  The most dreadful of the monsters I have mentioned attacks man only in self-defence or to provide himself with food. Only man kills for pleasure. I hope that the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, which has already begun to do such good work, lays down an absolute prohibition to protect the creatures which are still unknown to science and are obviously interesting to all. No sooner is one of them discovered than the hunt for trophies begins. These maniacs must be stopped at once. History shows how alarmingly quickly man can exterminate a whole species. We have hardly known our noble cousin the gorilla for more than a century, yet, despite the tireless efforts of those institutions set up to protect him, he has been ignominiously slaughtered, and perhaps will soon vanish without our having learnt anything about his habits, so full of significance from our own point of view. Tomorrow we may know one of our other relatives: the abominable snowman, for instance, who is surely a shy and gentle great ape; or perhaps an even more human primate like the tiny agogwe or the elusive orang pendek. I hope with all my heart that when he is captured there will be no needless murder.  Have pity on them all, for it is we who are the real monsters” (Heuvelmans, 1995, p.622-623).

...to the point of hiding or concealing information on hidden animals, preceding modern discussions on the ethics of knowing:

“When he returned from Asia in 1994, he had gathered many striking accounts concerning the probable existence of an unknown giant primate. But he was so afraid of sensation-seeking killers rushing into the jungles to shoot one of these marvelous and harmless hairy giants that he kept much of the information to himself. The difficult choice he made, preferring to preserve the peace of an innocent animal over subjecting it to the scientific norms, perfectly defines the exceptional morality of Bernard Heuvelmans” (Alika Lindbergh in Barloy, 2007, p.13).

This obfuscation likely derived, in part, from Bernard's disciple, Jacqueline Roumeguère-Eberhardt, who redacted witness names and sighting locations and devised a classificatory system (X1-X5) for the wildmen she wrote about in her book Dossier X: Les Hominidés Non Identifiés Des Forêts d'Afrique (which Bernard edited and wrote the foreward for):

“One day, finally, the truth dawned on me. I understood that I was not being personally targeted by the smokescreen Jacqueline casted around her intentions and her methods. In fact, no one was being targeted - because everyone was. The truth lay elsewhere.

As I pressed Jacqueline with increasingly urgent questions regarding the reasons for her systematic disarray and deliberate concealments, she said to me: "You know, Bernard, I've lived the Maasai life for so many years that I've ended up not only acting and reacting like them, but also thinking like them. When they follow an animal's trail, they always take care to erase their own tracks behind them..."” (Roumeguère-Eberhardt, 1984, p.19).

The plights of wildmen, as primates bridging the gap between humans and the other great apes, were the greatest concern to Bernard's cryptozoology. Bernard ends his book The Man Beasts of Africa with the following:

“It is not without some apprehension that one might envision the discovery of some “man-beast” - an unclassifiable creature, neither man nor animal (as if the two terms were mutually exclusive). Recall Vercors’ “You Shall Know Them” to see that people have already pondered the dilemma posed by the capture of such a being. Should it be housed in a zoo, or at the Ritz? The question ought not to arise. I would be outraged - need I even say it? - if it were killed, whether by gunshot or a slow, lingering death, simply so its stuffed carcass, fitted with glass eyes, could end up in some museum display case. I would hardly approve of exporting it either, even for a triumphant world tour. I would wish to see it left in peace, in its native habitat, among its own kind; not to be torn from the green cathedrals of paradise; never to taste even the smallest apple from the Tree of Applied Science; and to never be subjected to enslavement, evangelization, nor indoctrination. I would like it to be treated neither as we have always treated our beasts, nor as we have always treated our men” (Heuvelmans, 1980, p.597-598).

For Bernard, cryptozoological advocacy required rebellion:

"A long-range goal of cryptozoology, in my opinion, is to obtain the strict protection of species menaced with extinction before they are even officially recognized. The spread of [cryptozoology's] methods of investigation is an urgent matter, and a major motive for its reproof of the “wait and see” attitude"; “this sterile suspension of activity - and its justified “prudence” - should be condemned” (Heuvelmans, 1982, p.8, 5).

THIS FREEMASONRY OF SCIENCE
(Heuvelmans, 2016, p.4)

Bernard felt that his hidden animals had been "ignored, and not without disdain, by conservative circles of science" (Heuvelmans, 2007, p.10):

“It had in fact been decreed on high and, moreover, in a totally arbitrary fashion, that only those species for which there existed a representative specimen, duly registered in some institution, or at the least an identifiable fragment of a specimen, could be admitted into zoological catalogues. Lacking this, they were banned from the Animal Kingdom, and zoologists were morally constrained to speak of them only with an exasperated shrug of the shoulders or a mocking smile. To propose devoting a profound study to sea-serpents, the Abominable Snowman, the Loch Ness monster, or to all such-like, amounted to straightforward provocation. Furthermore, no scientific publication would have accepted it for printing unless, of course, it ended with the conclusion that the being in question was the result of popular imagination, founded on some misapprehension, or the product of a hoax. As for myself, however, in spite of my status as a professional zoologist and my university degrees, I dreamed of delivering all of these condemned beasts from the ghetto in which they had so unjustly been confined, and to bring them to be received into the fold of zoology” (Heuvelmans, 1995, p.xxiv).

These "traditional, conservative" zoologists made up "the Scientific Establishment", "a shadowy organization always united to prevent at all cost any revelation likely to disturb the intellectual comfort of its members. For years this Freemasonry of Science has blocked my path…In the Middle Ages, we would have been burned at the stake; today it is enough to gag us” (Heuvelmans, 2016, p.4).

The establishment started with Georges Cuvier and Richard Owen, the "dictators of science" (Heuvelmans, 1984a, p.5). To Bernard, Cuvier was a man with a “habitual lack of honesty” (Heuvelmans, 2007, p.48), and Owen was “intolerant, prejudiced, and skeptical…a man who could deny evidence when it was before his eyes. Unfortunately, like Cuvier’s, his word was taken as gospel” (Heuvelmans, 1995, p.24).

Thanks to their work “We had entered the 19th Century, which has been dubbed "the stupid one," not without good reason. Henceforth, dogmatism, the power of authority - in fact, sheer authoritarianism (in a word, bigotry) - was to permeate science under the pretense of rationalism and an ill-digested version of positivism. The decision of what had to be accepted or rejected by science, which was then supposed to solve all man's problems - and thus accordingly was deified - seemed to be borrowed from some religious creed. Time had come for pontification, scientific taboos, and academic excommunications” (Heuvelmans, 1984a, p.4).

Bernard felt that, because of these dictators, science was losing its purpose (I expect more commentary of this sort in his other works):

"There is irony in the idea that emotionally based incredulity should play a role in scientific inquiry. To do so would have Science denying its own foundation. Isn't it, by definition, the exploration of the unknown? If it abandons that it has no reason to exist" (Heuvelmans, 2016, p.152). 

...and that it was essential for cryptozoology to fight back against this dogmatism, bringing to mind Kuhn's essential tension:

“The task of cryptozoology [also consists] of submitting current scientific theories (in some cases dogmas) of the zoological sciences to the touchstone of systematic doubt” (Heuvelmans, 1982, p.11-12). 

“The race of Cuviers and Owens is not extinct. So much the better. Heraclitus of Ephesus used to aver that Polemos, strife, was the father of everything, and that without opposition and competition nothing could grow and prosper. Modern biology maintains that life is a conflict between a conservative stabilising principle of heredity and a dynamic and creative force of evolution. Without the stabilising effect of heredity it would have fallen into chaos, offspring being unable to succeed their parents; and without the adaptability that evolution gives it, it would have been at the mercy of the smallest change of climate. So long as zoology is to be a living science it must have a conservative element of rigorous, positive and dogmatic minds and also a revolutionary element of adventurous, ardent and imaginative spirits. It needs both Cuvier and Lamarck, Owen and Darwin, Lehmann-Nitsche and Ameghino, Edwin Colbert and Willy Ley” (Heuvelmans, 1995, p.581).

Beyond revitalizing science, this back-and-forth brought justice to Bernard's predecessors, who he felt an obligation to: “as I read [A.C. Oudemans’] comments, his exact instructions for finding one’s way in his archives, and his suggestions for discovering reports he had not been able to run to earth, I felt that he wanted someone to carry on his task and that he was enjoying my pleasure and amazement” (Heuvelmans, 1968, p.334).

Especially significant were Pierre Denys de Montfort, and Constantine Samuel Rafinesque - Bernard was “haunted” by their deaths - alone, in poverty, exiled from academia - and expected to end up the same way (Barloy, 2007, p.104); “Such was the fate of a great French naturalist who dared to believe in facts that others would not accept” (Heuvelmans, 1968, p.57); “These two ill-fated geniuses deserve to be considered the first true forerunners of cryptozoology” (Heuvelmans, 1984a, p.11). 

Bernard seemingly assumed that there was no place for him in academia:

“When I started my cryptozoological research in the late 1940s and published my first book…the whole subject was sort of taboo. I took the matter very seriously, and I tried to write about it according to the rules of scientific documentation. At the same time, I also had to make a living, as I was never sponsored or supported financially by an institution; I didn’t want to be, because I wanted to be completely free to pursue this kind of marginal research. If I had been employed by, say, the French Center for Scientific Research, after a year or so they probably would have kicked me out. That is why I have always had to make my books very readable and fascinating for the largest possible audience, and it is only because some of them became best sellers…that I have been able to carry on my research” (Heuvelmans, quoted in Greenwell, 1984, p. 3).

This removal from academia, and therefore peer-review, meant that the quality of Bernard's work often suffered:

(In reference to On the Track of Unknown Animals) "An impressive bibliography of technical books and papers is provided for each chapter, but the passages quoted from these sources are not the passages the original authors would consider most significant...Quotations from reliable sources are used to support very doubtful theories" (Johnson, 1959, p.1245).

This remained true even upon the establishment of the International Society of Cryptozoology (ISC):

“[Bernard’s] argument for the recognition of cryptozoological data as a basis for a tentative classification of unknown animals is, however, seriously flawed by his confusion between taxa, parataxa, and species. He implies criticism of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature for failing to provide for the scientific description of animals the existence of which is conjectural, but this criticism is largely based on a number of misunderstandings…Heuvelmans' information appears to be derived only from secondary sources…and even that is misleadingly quoted out of context” (Heppell, 1983, p.147).

NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH
(Heuvelmans, 2016, p.4)

Despite their shortcomings, “Heuvelmans clearly expected his “disciples” to tow the party line and support his theories, and those who disagreed faced censure and excommunication” (Justin Mullis, pers. comm). Great emotional weight was put on allyship:

“Alika believes that Bernard's great sensitivity and keen sense of justice caused him to suffer greatly in secret from the attacks and betrayals he endured” (Barloy, 2007, p.123).

"When dealing with a problem of such great philosophical and scientific importance, it seems to me a trivial matter to hurt the feelings of a few people. After all, it’s up to everyone to take responsibility for what they say and do. What matters here is to bring out the truth, as much of the truth as possible, and nothing but the truth” (Heuvelmans, 2016, p.4).

"[Bernard] was exasperated by the oft-repeated misinformation which swallowed the subject of unknown animals. He avoided reading popular articles and documentary films on the subject, enraged by the sheer volume of nonsense" (Barloy, 2007, p.123). 

"It is sad, disappointing, irritating, and, frankly, even distressing to realize that, 10 years after the founding of the International Society of Cryptozoology, some of its most senior members have still not grasped the very meaning of the term "cryptozoology," or do not seem to have a clear idea of what this new discipline of zoology concerns" (Heuvelmans, 1991, p.104).

Bernard's attacks were personal and pedantic - he was dictatorial:

“By finding himself faced with difficulties and uncertainties, my old friend Bayanov is now paying for the mistakes of others - those who have repeatedly insisted on presenting their own, sometimes fanciful definitions of cryptozoology. They have done this because of mere contrariness or a compulsive disputing spirit, perhaps with the foolish notion of somehow being immortalized by their feats” (Heuvelmans, 1991, p.104).

(In reference to Roy Mackal's suggestion that the Loch Ness monster was something other than a long-necked seal): “Whether Mackal is aware of this situation or not, he seems to desire originality at any price” (Heuvelmans, 1977, p.116).

As with his rejection of Cuvier and Darwin (quoted later), Bernard seemed to quite frequently turn on the authors of his youth - for example, Jules Verne: 

“Do not re-read Jules Verne in later years if you have in the meantime acquired some solid background: you would be disappointed and perhaps, in some places, horrified. You might even experience some bitterness in noticing that this marvelous story teller led you astray in your youth. With his pedantic pseudoscience, he stunned you under an avalanche of technical terms and erudite words which actually hide the emptiness of his knowledge” (Heuvelmans, 2003, p.56).

Bernard's closest confidants and allies were, therefore, those contemporary authors who reassured his ideas most frequently. Key among them, for the purposes of this post at least, were Boris Porshnev and Ivan Sanderson:

BORIS PORSHNEV

Boris Porshnev was a Soviet historian who wrote many interdisciplinary works discussing the psychological, philosophical, and evolutionary standing of man. He took much interest in the study of what he called “The Snowman Problem”, naming this branch of science hominology.   

For Boris, the snowman proved his broader theory of human development, where humans are differentiated from other species through conscious social labor, Marx and Engels’ relations of production (cf. Roeder & Afinogenov, 2018). Snowmen represented a point of demarcation, nocturnal brutish scavengers human in body but not in mind (cf. Amorós & Carrión, 2026). Porshnev's cryptozoology therefore slotted neatly into his social and political beliefs. 

As a Marxist-Leninist, rather than a Stalinist, “Porshnev walked a precarious line between science and the state” (Regal, 2011, p.144) and therefore scorned the scientific establishment regularly, what he called "the struggle for troglodytes" - “The ostrich with its head in the sand becomes a potential expert! Of course, it’s difficult to be an expert when one has refused to look at the evidence and is not up to date on the subject. It’s much easier to dictate that everyone else behaves like an ostrich, to enforce a monopoly” (Porshnev, 2017, p.45-46).

IVAN SANDERSON

Ivan Sanderson started his career as a zoologist - participating in expeditions, discovering new species, and describing them in peer-reviewed journals. Ivan’s general audience recountings of these expeditions became very successful, leading him to pivot to more fantastic ventures. With a similar, incredibly successful career trajectory, Ivan was likely a significant role model for Bernard (Tyler Greenfield, pers. comm.).  

Ivan was a storyteller and sensationalist, enthusiastically cultivating (and exaggerating and fabricating) outlandish stories: “I’ve been living off Forteanism with a scientific twist for years…and a bloody good living it’s been” (Sanderson, quoted in Loxton, 2021).  

This led to much tension between Ivan and Bernard:

“I had not failed to notice that because of the rather undiscriminating interest he had shown over the past few years to everything that was fantastic and unexplained, the naturalist and author of many well-received works had gradually acquired a wretched scientific reputation. While acknowledging his originality, I had many times chided him in a friendly manner for the excessive enthusiasm with which he sometimes blindly welcomed marvelous events without verifying their authenticity…I found that very painful, for I appreciated the exceptional intelligence and skill of my old friend” (Heuvelmans, 2016, p.53).

Bernard's biggest point of disagreement with the pair was, of course, on how they intended to handle these snowmen:

“[Porshnev and Sanderson] both advocate, as the next step in our study to seek a new specimen, shooting one down. I strongly object to such an attitude. Porshnev justifies it by claiming that the creatures we are looking for are not really human, at least in the philosophical sense of the term. Whether that is so or not is quite irrelevant in my view” (Heuvelmans, 2016, p.263).

THERE ARE LOST WORLDS EVERYWHERE
(Heuvelmans, 1995, p.3)

Bernard's view of science and intentions for cryptozoology were very romantic. Many parallels can be drawn with the science fiction stories of his youth, especially The Lost World. As John Miller wrote: “Heuvelmans’ work is entangled with literary sources and influences from its inception…The beleaguered Heuvelmans’ determination to be taken seriously as a naturalist was always uncomfortably entwined with his interest in and contribution to a literature of the fantastic” (Miller, 2015, p.150-151). Bernard's rejection of some authors and embracing of others is quite curious, and may be explained in correspondences or his pre-cryptozoology works.

Cryptozoology's lost worlds offered "a space in which to reconstruct a pioneer sensibility ostensibly fading in the modern world” (Miller, 2015, p.261); Bernard resembled a 19th century naturalist more than any contemporary academic (Tyler Greenfield, pers. comm.): 

“At this hour, when nature is in peril, and when innumerable animal and vegetable species are disappearing, often without our knowledge - more than fifty each day, according to recent estimates - it is well to emphasize by means of striking examples that zoology is not a doctrine frozen in history but, on the contrary, is an adventure of the human spirit, alive and exalting” (Heuvelmans, 2007, p.10).  

Bernard seemingly modeled himself after Professor Challenger, Captain Nemo, and other such protagonists, a practice Justin Mullis recognizes as “proto-ostension” (pers. comm.).

Professor Challenger was written as a jack-of-all-trades scientist, ingenious and heroic in his problem-solving, and uninhibited by social pleasantries in pursuit of the truth. Challenger was an independent researcher, scornful against the Scientific Establishment for rejecting his heterodox insights - the parallels to Bernard should be quite apparent. Bernard's books, especially On the Track, are full of references to The Lost World - the first chapter argues that "there are lost worlds everywhere" (Heuvelmans, 1995, p.3). 

A PIECE OF VERY SIMPLE REASONING
(Heuvelmans, 1968, p.573)

Bernard also took significant inspiration from Doyle's other key character, Sherlock Holmes: “[Sherlock] Holmes solved cases by relating seemingly discrete facts to a more encompassing and meaningful configuration, whose integuments were derived from a combination of rigorous observation, precise logic, and lively imagination” (Saler, 2003, p.604); “Forteans, receptive to life’s clues, blessed with an imagination, could sum their observations, discover wonders ignored by science” (Blu Buhs, 2024, p.138-139). 

Imagination was the driving mechanism of Heuvelmansian cryptozoology:

“The apparently unknown animals with which cryptozoology is concerned…are by definition…incompletely known animals. As a result, we unconsciously tend to fill the blank spots and gaps in our knowledge of them by borrowing some missing traits, sometimes of a fantastic and even supernatural nature, from their mythical archetype” (Heuvelmans, 1990, p.7). 

Bernard's Holmes-ian imagination allowed him to piece together the identity of his hidden animals:

“What cryptozoology aims at is essentially the scientific description and naming of…”hidden animals” as recognizable species or subspecies, which could eventually receive legal protection if threatened with extinction…To achieve these purposes…the cryptozoologist has [to] sift [through the available data]...by reducing exaggerations, and by deleting fantastic traits borrowed from mythical models, [to], finally, produce a coherent, consistent synthesis of them” - an "identikit"

“This is where proper cryptozoological work ends, because, from that time forth, any layman well informed about the cryptozoologist’s conclusions…will have a clear idea of…[how to] establish a friendly - or at least pacific - relationship with it, and hence study it at leisure” (Heuvelmans, 1988, p.2-3) - Bernard's cryptozoology started and ended with this process of identification.

To Bernard, most mythical creatures could be hidden animals - any monster could be rationalized by piecing together disparate descriptions into a zoological form: “Mermaids, jinn, and the like are nothing else but the highly mythicized images of real animals (in the broadest sense)” (Heuvelmans, 1984b, p.110).

Justin Mullis describes this identikit methodology as “euhemeristic” (Mullis, 2024b, p.22), citing Emily Fergus' description of the term: “euhemerism combines elements of both the natural and the supernatural, specifically the way in which the theory appears rationally to deconstruct uncanny myths and root them in the quotidian, while at the same time losing little of the magic and narrative satisfaction originally associated with the myth” (Fergus, 2019, p.89).

By deconstructing folkloric creatures as zoological subjects, Bernard's identikit methodology resembled a form of speculative evolution over any form of rigorous zoology (cf. Conway et al., 2013). Even the mechanism for euhemerism was explained through an evolutionary hypothesis: 

“Mythopoeic thought appears to me, more and more, to be an evolutionary adaptation enabling the members of our species to cope with the traumas linked with new experiences, which cause all the more anguish as they have never been lived through before” (Heuvelmans, 1990, p.3).

Fittingly for the most egregious example of Bernard's creature-building, In the Wake of the Sea-Serpents (1968) opens and closes with Sherlock Holmes quotes: “It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth” (p.23); “It was a piece of very simple reasoning” (p.573). Like many of his cryptozoological books, In The Wake is structured like Bernard's perception of a detective novel:

“[Bernard] believed that a detective novel should be written in a clear and precise style and that its morality should be irreproachable: good must prevail. Its plot must be plausible and, finally, it must “keep the reader in suspense and surprise them with a final twist”” (Barloy, 2007, p.22) - what is a greater twist than claims of nine different kinds of sea-serpents roaming the oceans?...

HOMO PONGOIDES (SP. SEU SUBSP. NOV.)

...or a grand conspiracy to silence the discovery of the last living neanderthal? The greatest whodunnit of Bernard's career is certainly The Strange Saga of the Minnesota Iceman (Heuvelmans, 2016): 

“It is such a fantastic story that I have little hope of being taken at my word, except perhaps by those who know me well, either personally or through a careful reading of my books. They know how meticulous and conscientious I am in my zoological studies; they also understand I would not risk my scientific reputation with fantastic and thoughtless pronouncements. Fortunately, I have at hand more than just my own words to back up my story” (p.3).

Beyond its mystery framing, the Minnesota Iceman incident represents the most significant manifestation of Bernard's conservational stances and anti-authoritarianism in my opinion - Bernard essentially sabotaged his career behind his belief that the Iceman was a real specimen. The only work, to my knowledge, to pay attention to the emotional aspects of this case, despite their significance, is David Deroy's film Rebelle de la science (2018).

As Bernard recalls it:

"In December 1968, I was the guest, in New Jersey, of long-time friend and correspondent, American writer and journalist Ivan T. Sanderson. I had arrived in New York at the beginning of October for the launch of my book In the Wake of the Sea-Serpents..., and I was preparing an expedition to Central America to study the local fauna and some particularly rare mammals facing extinction.

On December 9th, Ivan received a call from a Mr. Terry Cullen...He had been extremely interested by the book and numerous articles written by my host on the problem of the Abominable Snowman...This is why he wanted to tell Sanderson about the exhibition the previous August, at the Wisconsin State Fair of a creature of that kind...Ivan asked me if I would join him in the Midwest to see the specimen and to provide some professional expertise...[We] left New Jersey on Saturday, December 14th" (Heuvelmans, 2016, p.5-7). 

Bernard was initially quite skeptical of the Iceman: 

“I found Ivan’s confidence and enthusiasm to set out on such an expedition on the basis of rather suspect information rather excessive” (Heuvelmans, 2016, p.6). 

He'd write in a letter to Alika:

“You must be wondering what on Earth I’m doing in Minnesota, 1,800 kilometers from New York…To get here I had to travel for three full days by car, about fifteen hours a day, with Ivan. We’re here, on principle, to verify - or rather examine - the existence of a hairy creature, encased in a block of ice…We’re supposed to see the man and his “thing” tomorrow. Needless to say, I’m not getting my hopes up about what we’re going to see, if we’re even allowed to see anything at all” 

...only to continue later: 

“I have just gone to examine the hairy man and I must say I am very impressed by what I saw…For me, it well could be a Neanderthal” (Heuvelmans to Alika Lindbergh, quoted in Barloy, 2007, p.98-99). 

“I found myself once more mulling over one of my favorite aphorisms from my master, Sherlock Holmes, which is also my favorite quote: “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth”” (Heuvelmans, 2016, p.28).

“Over the first few hours of my examination of the specimen, I had caught myself thinking:“Porshnev was right! Porshnev was right!” At first it was like a flash of inspiration, a blinding truth from within that one’s analytical mind couldn’t immediately accept…However,...I became increasingly certain and eventually absolutely sure: “Porshnev was right. Neanderthals have survived to this day. This is one of them”” (Heuvelmans, 2016, p.46).

The significance of this discovery was not lost on Bernard, confirming the legitimacy of cryptozoology as a whole:

"Cryptozoology was bearing its fruits, and what fruits! The specimen that everyone ardently wished for was finally at hand...Nobody could, or at least should, be able to deny its existence...The whole world would speak of our fantastic discovery! Many colleagues, zoologists and anthropologists, would express their enthusiasm" (Heuvelmans, 2016, p.46).

“[The Iceman is] perhaps the greatest anthropological discovery of all time, one which will completely revolutionize our way of thinking, a challenge to science, philosophy, and religion” (Bernard to Alika Lindbergh, 1/1/1969, in Barloy, 2007, p.102).

“If it’s not a Neanderthal, its relation with humans can only be of interest to a narrow circle of systematic zoologists, and not to humanity as a whole” (Porshnev, 2017, p.96). 

...and overturning even Darwin, in a tangent drawing influence not just from Bernard's personal philosophy but also likely his regular correspondence with Louis Leakey:

"The way paleoanthropologists imagine humans, pre-humans, and sub-humans of long ago is based on such a web of preconceived ideas, such a rickety scaffolding of self-supporting hypotheses, that there is a good chance they would be completely flabbergasted by the real appearance of their ancestors" (Heuvelmans, 2016, p.31).

"The Darwinian conception of human origins is based on three ideas as old as History itself:
(1) Living beings are a part of a natural gradation from the simplest to the most complex, in other words, a continuous chain of beings;
(2) Man occupies a priviledged place in nature, at the highest level;
(3) Of all animals, apes are most like Man and thus occupy in the hierarchy of beings the level immediately below ours;

Combining these three ideas, apparently so obvious that they are treated as postulates, lead to unavoidable conclusions. Since Man, held to be the "King of Creation" or the "Apex of Evolution" stands in the first rank in the Scala naturae at the apex, it must be the final link in the chain of organisms...The concept of a chain of living creatures is by now, as we know, an outmoded idea, long since abandoned...

The only one of the above trio of ideas that remains defensible is the close resemblance between Man and Apes...That two beings are related does not necessarily mean that they are father and son, or grandfather and grandson. They might be uncle and nephew, or great-uncle or great-nephew, or cousins. Furthermore one has to find out which is the father or grandfather, or the uncle or great-uncle of the other. It is obviously the older of the two, one might say. That is undoubtedly so in a direct line of descent. But it is quite possible to be older than one's uncle...

Since there is no simple linear link of animal species, but rather a bushy family tree, and since Man is neither an end point nor an apex, as its pride would suggest, and that he does not necessarily stand beyond other Hominoid species, why should one faithfully stick to the old Darwinian sequence? It is perfectly legitimate to wonder whether anthropoid apes might descend from man rather than the opposite" (Heuvelmans, 2016, p.37-39)

Bernard was reassured in his belief by his closest collaborators, not just on the identity of the Iceman, but on how the Establishment would react to it: 

Ivan Sanderson: “you may well be able to fool me, I fully admit. But I defy anybody to fool Bernard Heuvelmans in a case like this” (Sanderson, 1969b, p.28). 

Dr. Charleston Coon: “I agree with you on three points: it is an authentic specimen, there is no doubt about it; it is something unknown to us; and it is to be classified among hominids” (Heuvelmans, 2016, p.54); “All those ‘editors’ of anthropology are sons of clergymen, they would never dare to speak of such a discovery” (Barloy, 2007, p.102).

“I often thought of my late friend Professor J.L.B. Smith, who lived through a similar experience. When I visited him in Grahamstown, South Africa, he told me how after his publication of a description of the first coelacanth in 1939, some of his colleagues thought he was crazy, and a number of friends and acquaintances had started avoiding him and stopped greeting him on the street. And that, with a specimen in his laboratory that everyone could come and touch.  

I also thought of Miss Courtenay-Latimer, who made the discovery…When I saw her at the East London Museum of Natural History…she told me at the time, an eminent British paleontologist, W.E. Swinton, had called her to confirm that the fish had indeed been fished out of the mud. When she replied that this was certainly not the case, he had pressed her to say so to the press. Incapable of admitting the possible survival of the coelacanth, he wanted to convince the public that the fish had been preserved in the mud for over 60 million years…A fossil fish should remain fossilized!” (Heuvelmans, 2016, p.47).

Bernard therefore saw the Iceman as an opportunity for revenge against those who had doubted him and his colleagues:

"Ivan had been mocked by many establishment scientists because of his heretical views on zoological mysteries and in particular on the Abominable Snowman; his reputation as an excellent naturalist had gradually been eroded over the past few years to the point that, in the eyes of some, he was a mere scribbler for cheap magazines. Ivan, the pariah of science, was finally going to take his revenge on his critics" (Heuvelmans, 2016, p.46).

"These efforts brought a number of humiliations and disappointments, which I endured with secret pleasure at the thought of the imminent revenge that I would eventually enjoy" (Heuvelmans, 2016, p.142).

He was overjoyed with the enthusiasm he received from his colleagues upon publication: 

“After submitting my note [to peer-review], Professor [André] Capart wrote to me about the “great interest” my note had created. He…accepted it with enthusiasm and told me it was already in press, given the exceptional circumstances. The Institute set a remarkable record in the annals of scientific publications by publishing my note within less than a month! Who could possibly have expected such speed?“ (Heuvelmans, 2016, p.56).

“At the Smithsonian, a whole team of specialists was assembled under the leadership of John Napier to perform an autopsy and detailed examination of the hairy man. However, they first had to get their hands on it”; “Faced with the attitude of a carny who refused to grant researchers permission to access the “ape-man” in the news in the spring of 1969, the Smithsonian Institution officially asked  J. Edgar Hoover, the head of the FBI, for help in locating the missing specimen and, if necessary, to seize it”

...and devastated by their rejection shortly thereafter: 

“At the beginning of May, [the Smithsonian] received a phone call from the director of a wax museum in California. That gentleman told him that one of his employees…had collaborated in April 1967 in the fabrication of an ape-man in foam rubber for Frank D. Hansen”; “Incredible as it may seem, even John Napier was taken in by the obvious maneuver….As he had never examined the specimen, this was for him a possibility worth considering” (Heuvelmans, 2016, p.60-68).

John Napier: “Perhaps the real puzzle that arises from this theoretical reconstruction is how two experienced zoologists like Ivan T. Sanderson and Bernard Heuvelmans could have been misled. I have already indicated a possible explanation in terms of the psychological pressures that they experienced at the time. But is this enough?” (Napier, 1976, p.93). 

Bernard reacted with much venom: 

“As I’m easy going, I’ll grant [the Smithsonian] the choice between dishonesty and stupidity” (Heuvelmans, 2016, p.69).

“One has to say that Napier finds himself in an embarrassing predicament: he bears the main responsibility for discrediting so offhandedly the strongest evidence for the greatest anthropological discovery of all time. The history of science will never forgive him” (Heuvelmans, 2016, p.104).  

Refusing to believe that the Iceman had been fabricated, Bernard concocted a conspiratorial narrative - the Iceman had been smuggled into the U.S. by Frank Hansen, as part of the U.S. Army, from Vietnam, where it had been shot and killed. Placed in a coffin labeled "do not open", the Iceman was smuggled out in a fashion much similar to the heroin trade, leading Hansen to lie and obscure the origins of the Iceman with a faux encounter story:

“"Never trust an overall impression”, said Sherlock Holmes, judiciously. “Focus on the details”” (Heuvelmans, 2016, p.88).

“[The disappearance of the most-important-ever specimen of interest to anthropology] is a scandal, the Watergate of Science, and I am the one to proclaim it, as I am likely the only one able to do so…The hairy man had, by all evidence, been introduced into the United States by taking advantage of means normally used for the importation of large amounts of drugs…To acknowledge the authenticity of the former and its real origin implies recognition of the macabre network. That would have annoyed a lot of people. That’s it; it’s as simple as that” (Heuvelmans, 2016, p.127). 

"Let me add that if anyone planned to get rid of me, to punish me for my indiscretion, I would be rather pleased, for that would turn out to be a strong expression of support for my ideas. Getting rid of me violently would prove to the world that I was right...That being said, I have no intention to become a premature martyr of science; I still have too many zoological mysteries to solve. As I am not of a melodramatic temperament, I don't really believe that anyone will try to silence me permanently...because it's so much easier to drown out my words. It is not even necessary for this act to happen; most people are born deaf, mentally speaking...I call this unfortunate condition: incredulousness. I would even think of it as a disease: "incredulitis"" (Heuvelmans, 2016, p.136).

Bernard was once again reassured by colleagues, including King Leopold III himself:

Xavier Missone, King Leopold III: “we both agree with you: this is a made-up story meant to hide the true origin of our Neanderthal” (Heuvelmans, 2016, p.92).

Ivan and Bernard's various disagreements over the handling of the Iceman lead to the pair's falling out:

“I obtained a promise from the Institute that news of my discovery wouldn’t be released to the media before March 10th, at the earliest. This would also give Ivan the opportunity of being the first, as was fair, to publish an article on our extraordinary discovery in a popular magazine…Unfortunately, Sanderson, although science editor of Argosy, only had his article published in the May issue of that magazine, which would not come out until mid-April. Why this absurd delay that would deprive Sanderson of the glory of a scoop: the worldwide premier of a sensational discovery? Simply because he wanted to first publish, in the April issue of Argosy, another article which would later no longer be of any interest…My partner, Sanderson, who was an extremely proud man, took it as a personal affront, an injury to his reputation. This certainly didn’t improve our relationship, which was already somewhat strained from our divergent views on how to proceed in this affair. By my haste he accused me of having thwarted his efforts to procure the specimen. All I had done was adhere quite strictly to the plan that we had agreed upon; his notes were evidence of that. Ivan was so disappointed of having been, through his own fault, left behind and relegated to a secondary role in this affair that one might wonder well if, from that time on, he didn’t actually work to hinder our efforts” (Heuvelmans, 2016, p.56, 58).

Shortly thereafter, Ivan disassociated himself from Heuvelmans' interpretation of the Iceman:

“However, this suggestion was purely tentative in that, despite the existence of his specimen, we have no more idea of its anatomy, histology, or physiology than we do of the external morphology of the neanderthalers. I am therefore officially disassociating my name from [Homo pongoides]” (Sanderson, 1969a, p.268).

Bernard would go on to describe Ivan as "an author full of zest and humour, sometimes inspired with flashes of genius, but - alas! - also a braggart and congenital liar" (Heuvelmans, 2007, p.131).  

Bernard’s “struggle for troglodytes” quickly became a time of emotional turmoil: 

“On January 1st, 1969, I received a call from Europe telling me that my daughter Anita, twenty years of age and whom I had left in good health three months before, had been struck by a particularly noxious form of leukemia and was given only two or three weeks to live. One can imagine the impact of such news and how powerless and torn I felt at the very moment when I had made a major discovery that kept me on the other side of the Atlantic. It was apparently not enough that this incident affected my private life. Some even claimed, in order to discredit my conclusion as to the nature of the frozen man, that the unfortunate death of my daughter had affected my mind. A shining example of the serene, polite, and lofty climate surrounding scientific debate!” (Heuvelmans, 2016, p.140).

“it’s as though a part of Bernard was amputated with her death” (Barloy, 2007, p.102); Ivan and Boris would also pass before the publication of the French edition of The Strange Saga.  

The rejection of the Iceman by the scientific community saddened Bernard to no end: 

“For months, I oscillated between impotent fury and despair. If I did not succumb to the latter and take my life, it was not only because I am too much in love with life and nature, but also because such a gesture would have surely been interpreted as an admission of culpability. However, I was so disgusted by the general attitude of the scientific community that I seriously considered banishing myself from it, by giving up all my university diplomas as well as honorary distinctions, returning all those diplomas to those who granted them, and resigning from all scientific societies I belonged to. I even considered giving up entirely on scientific publication,“seeking on the Earth a remote corner where one has the freedom to be an honest man,” among the animals I love, particularly the monkeys, which have been clever enough to avoid being trapped by the lure of becoming human”  (Heuvelmans, 2016, p.147).

There was much pity for the Iceman itself:

“Jacqueline Mallay, a clairvoyant friend of Alika’s, suggests that the hairy man was first held captive and then savagely beaten and shot (which would explain the terrible broken arm and the gouged-out eye). This plausible idea deeply disturbed Bernard, who was filled with compassion and pity at the sight of the corpse. What had Homo sapiens, the ferocious “the race of slaughters”, done to the poor creature?” (Barloy, 2007, p.103).

In Bernard's mind, this Neanderthal was the last of a lineage displaced by Homo sapiens:  

“Pongoid paleoanthropes without any culture who survive today are most likely the descendants of Neanderthal populations whose skills have deteriorated…By choosing, for the sake of safety, to dissolve their groupings…Neanderthals gradually lost whatever social organization they might have had…They abandoned all social life, which requires a variety of communication skills and stimulates the growth of an ever more complex language; they also abandoned working together, which favors the improvement of tools” - in a word, they faced “de-hominization” (Heuvelmans, 2016, p.210-219). 

Bernard envisioned a process of “beastialization”, which demonstrated Frechkop's theory of initial bipedalism:

“The forehead recedes even more, the jaws grow bigger, and the enlarged chewing muscles lead to the growth of the cranial bony crests where they attach…the head sinks into the shoulders and the posture gradually leans forward, tending towards a horizontal, quadrupedal stance”; “de-hominzation…reflects a normal evolutionary tendency among Hominoids, a tendency from which only Man…has not succumbed to” (Heuvelmans, 2016, p.219-221). 

“In this work, which challenged such a solid anthropological belief as the extinction of Neanderthals, I would have preferred not to also bring in a rather heretical theory of human origins. But that can’t be avoided. It should have been expected from the pen of a disciple of Serge Frechkop…For over thirty years I have mulled over these ideas…and I find that every new discovery in paleontology has confirmed their soundness” (Heuvelmans, 2016, p.224).

Bernard ended The Strange Saga of the Minnesota Iceman with the following, in context his most heartbreaking call to action: 

“If I may express a wish, it is to see humans at last become civilized by protecting the pongoid Neanderthals they have persecuted for millenia. I hope that there will be created for that purpose, numerous protected reserves where our unfortunate brothers will be left to live in peace. They are perhaps the image of what we should never have stopped being. Man before the original sin, the sin of suicidal technical skill and boundless aggression. 

Abel is not dead. He recovered from his wounds. Today, we can choose not to finish him off, not to assassinate him once more. Will we not be touched by the eye, kind and fearful, with which he looks at us from a tomb we have already dug? That would allow us at last to escape from the guilt of Cain, the killer, to break away from the curse that haunts our species” (Heuvelmans, 2016, p.232).

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I was aided in this work by several exceptional colleagues who have provided not just helpful commentary, obscure literature, and aid in translating, but consistent encouragement and reassurance, which is very much appreciated. Thank you to Lex Weinberger, Justin Mullis, Tyler Greenfield, Sharon Hill, Floe Foxon, Blake Smith, and Paisano!