Editorial - Bigfoot Celebrity’s Bitter Feud Affects Dr. Johnson's Conference

What is the Bigfoot Community without its obligatory drama? This past weekend, controversial Bigfoot researcher, Dr. Matthew Johnson held his second annual conference "Bigfoot Interaction Research Conference" in Washington where the extreme of the paranormal side of Sasquatch came to speak. Bigfoot cowboy legend Bob Gimlin was the main draw, the last surviving witness to the famous 1967 Patterson film, along with the beautiful Connie Willis from Coast to Coast AM. Other speakers were invited, and some were dumped because of black mail. More after the link.

Two reality stars from Spike TV's Ten Million Dollar Bigfoot Dollar were invited to speak. Florida resident Stacy Brown Jr., part winner of the show's $100,000 grant, and the outspoken gay bigfooter, Rictor Riolo. From what we know, Rictor was the second choice as "honorary skeptic" when Steven Streufert from Willow Creek's Bigfoot Books declined to attend. Apparently the reality show competition continues between Stacy and Rictor, sadly; Stacy played dirty and was underhanded. The word is that when Stacy heard the news Rictor was invited to speak, he blackmailed Dr. Matthew Johnson telling him, "If Rictor shows up, I'm not going."

For some reason, Dr. Johnson felt Stacy's participation was vital, even though members of the Bigfoot world have looked down on Stacy's public Facebook and Twitter tirades. An example of his online behavior: "I hate most people. Honestly I would watch you all get killed and it wouldn't bother me at all.... I hope you all die soon. I don't mean that in a bad way. I just see y'all as the starving kid on the children's miracle network commercials. Death would bring you peace. I promise. You guys seem fucked in the head. Seriously I pray for the community every night. I ask the Lord to take away your suffering. I only see an end to that for y'all thru death." --Stacy Brown

Now granted, Rictor is no angel either. His YouTube show, After Hours with Rictor boasts to be the best Bigfoot webcast (perhaps the production value is, but it's all Rictor, all the time and he is the biggest self proclaimed Bigfoot attention whore out there). Rictor has expressed his negative opinion of Dr. Johnson's claims that Bigfoot magically healed his prostate (yes, Dr. Johnson actually said that) and has mocked Stacy Brown in his parody show, Off the Rictor.

Nevertheless, we found out that Dr. Johnson gave in to Stacy's threats and "cut Rictor loose. I contacted Rictor and learned he had taken time off from work and had prepared a speech for this event. Rictor's disinvite happened much to the dismay of some of Johnson's greatest and biggest supporters, like Carol Davison who actively patrols his Team Squatchin USA Facebook group. Carol had posted in March that she been looking forward to meeting Rictor and found him entertaining, despite their different positions on what Bigfoot is.

Regrettably, it appears Mr. Brown has no respect for anyone inside the Bigfoot community. He apparently has no clue how bad it looks to not maintain a commitment, never mind the childish blackmailing. Maybe he doesn’t care how this looks to others who put on annual Bigfoot conferences. Will he threaten the International Bigfoot conference he is scheduled to attend in October as well?

So the event went on as planned, minus two presenters that need to grow up. Let's make that, two presenters and a host, who need to grow up because blackmail should never be tolerated at any cost. Especially from someone who tells fans of the Bigfoot world to die. Another note, there seem to be a lack of professionalism with all of these gentlemen.

Rictor has been known to say, "You're only as good as your word" and Stacy's word appears to be just as elusive as Sasquatch. In fact, you might find the hairy beast before you find any integrity on Stacy Brown Jr.’s part.

DeeCee Salter
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