Ray did have quite a reputation as a practical joker. Speculation that he had a hand (or foot) in making the tracks surfaced early on, and was by no means ignored, but on investigation was dismissed as being impossible and silly. The problem was to figure out how anyone could have made the tracks, something that hasn't been done to this day. Ray himself issued outraged denials, insisting, as was only common sense, that monstrous footprints showing up on his worksite were disrupting the job and costing him money. Some time later he apparently developed a yen to share the attention Bigfoot had stirred up and began to spin his outrageous yarns. Later still, probably after he had moved back to his old home in Washington State, he began making and selling obviously fake casts. I used to see them at a lodge on Mount St. Helens which also sold my books. One thing that he never did, at least in public, was to claim that he had made the Bluff Creek tracks. Had he done so he would, of course, have been called on to prove he could do it. What about the wooden feet that the current generation of Wallaces have displayed? So far there is nothing to show when in the last 45 years they were made or by whom, and none of them match the shape of the original "Bigfoot." The best pair does match the 15-inch track found later in 1958 on a sandbar in the creek and cast by Bob Titmus. They are somewhat crudely carved, and presumably they were made in imitation of those casts. For them to be accepted as the originals with which the tracks were made someone would have to demonstrate how they could make imprints an inch deep in hard-packed sand and make deep, rounded toe impressions with their shallow, square-carved toes. Were those or any of the other fake feet the Wallaces have shown ever used to make tracks that anyone accepted as genuine? It is certainly possible. This could have been done in soft mud, dirt or sand. Trying to match deep tracks in firm materials by wearing big wooden feet, however, is like trying to do it wearing snowshoes. People who do know some of the problems involved and yet would like to believe that the tracks were faked have come up with some really far-out suggestions: the depth was achieved with false feet mounted on tractor tracks; heavy concrete feet were hauled up and down with logging cables to make tracks on the steep slopes; the long strides were made by hanging onto the back of a moving truck; Ray Wallace faked the tracks of a monster because he wanted to get out of his contract so he was trying to scare his men into abandoning the job. The media obviously believe that possession of big fake feet that can be worn is proof that the owner has used them to perpetrate a hoax, but most of the people I know who have made them, including myself, had the opposite idea. They were made to find out what could be done with them and what could not, and what fake footprints made with rigid, carved feet would look like. And did Ray really tell his family that he had faked all the tracks? I had a reason not to question their claim that he did. I was once present when another notorious yarn spinner told his children and grandchildren an equally outrageous tale. I am told, however, that later his son admitted that Ray had never actually said it, they just assumed it. As to his claim that he told Roger Patterson where to go get his movie, a description he included in a letter to another researcher made it clear that Ray did not even know where that place was or what it looked like.