“Fame is a bee. It has a song. It has a sting. Ah, too, it has a wing.”
— Emily Dickinson
The story itself is predicated on tragedy. The underlying implications of it speak to a curious facet of life in our media-driven society.
According to a story broadcast by National Public Radio, a Kalispell, Mont., man was killed recently while attempting to create a Bigfoot sighting. The individual was identified as Randy Lee Tenley, 44, of Kalispell. One of the more strange details is Tenley’s choice of costume: a military-style “ghillie” suit. These suits are a shaggy head-to-toe camouflage often worn by snipers. While we see where Tenley was going with the selection of this outfit, it appears to have failed on a couple of frontiers, facilitating his accidental death ranking first among the failures.
“He was trying to make people think he was Sasquatch so people would call in a Sasquatch sighting,” Montana State Trooper Jim Schneider told local media. “You can’t make it up. I haven’t seen or heard of anything like this before. Obviously, his suit made it difficult for people to see him.”
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Schneider said motives were ascertained during interviews with friends, and alcohol may have been a factor but investigators were awaiting tests.
Tenley was standing in the right-hand lane of U.S. Highway 93 south of Kalispell on Sunday night when he was hit by the first car, according to the Montana Highway Patrol. A second car hit the man as he lay in the roadway, authorities said.
“He probably would not have been very easy to see at all,” Schneider surmised.
Tenley was struck by vehicles driven by two girls, ages 15 and 17, who were unable to stop in time, authorities said.
Obviously, this morality tale holds a number of important lessons: Don’t get drunk and wander onto a busy highway at night; don’t do so wearing a dark camouflage suit … but the more important lesson regards the nature of fame and notoriety in the digital age.
One assumes that Tenley intended to foment some kind of online furor with passersby recounting the shadowy figure they saw lurking beside the highway. Of course, fools seeking fame is hardly new.
Oprah Winfrey once observed, “If you come to fame not understanding who you are, it will define who you are.”
Oprah’s sage words certainly apply here. Regardless of Tenley’s other achievements, abilities and attributes, his defining act was his final act.
There is another, now unknowable dimension to Tenley’s deadly ruse. Perhaps he did not seek fame. Perhaps he wanted to create the beastly apparition and then anonymously sit back and watch the gullible titter and squawk about their great sighting. After all, pulling a good prank — even if anonymously — can bring its own brand of satisfaction. As above, this is not now knowable. Whatever his motive, the die is cast.
Sadly, it wasn’t just a harmless prank that ended in one person’s tragedy. There were other victims, Tenley’s friends and family, but also the teenage drivers who unwittingly played their own roles in the grisly drama. They will doubtless be forever changed by the incident. Even though they bear no fault, save being at the wrong place at the wrong time, guilt and second-guessing invariably creep into the picture. Therein lies the greater tragedy of this silly, deadly joke.