From murky origins, the sideshow attraction was heralded as a potential scientific breakthrough, some sort of missing link. But the admitted hoax was eventually sold on eBay.
A historical newspaper clipping
Frank Hansen of Altura, Minnesota, stands over the traveling exhibit of his 'Iceman,' in a 1969 file photo from the Rochester Post Bulletin.Rochester Post Bulletin file
Jeremy Fugleberg
By Jeremy Fugleberg
October 16, 2025 at 1:05 PM
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ALTURA, Minn. — Kim Rupprecht vividly recalled the day she saw the mysterious Minnesota Iceman. It was 1969, and young Rupprecht was at the Minnesota whatsapp number database State Fair to show hogs and see the sights.
"The whole thing was in a glass-covered, bronze-covered metal casket," she recalled to the Rochester Post Bulletin in 2010. "Inside there was just enough 'thawed' to get hold of your imagination but it was mostly obscured by the 'ice.' You could see one eye hanging from its socket and the body was covered with dark hair."
Was it an evolutionary missing link? A surviving Neanderthal? Bigfoot? Or was it a well-crafted hoax? That was for Rupprecht and other visitors to see and decide for themselves, for the price of a coin or two.
a historical newspaper photo
This 1969 Post Bulletin file photo shows the Minnesota Iceman, the "Creature in Ice," as it was exhibited across the country.Post Bulletin file photo
Showman and impresario Frank Hansen oversaw the carnival sideshow attraction. Hansen hailed from Altura, a small town in southeastern Minnesota. So, early on, the "creature in ice" was known as the Altura Iceman and later the Minnesota Iceman.
The Iceman would prove to be more than a light-hearted sideshow
It would become the center of scientific controversy, then scorn, which would only fuel public fascination with the display.
For nearly two decades, from the late 1960s to the 1980s, Hansen and his mysterious Iceman went on regular tours around the region and country, popping up at fairs, car dealerships and shopping malls.
A scientist and journalist who viewed the Iceman up close in the late 1960s were convinced it wasn't a hoax but the real deal, leading to a flurry of national headlines and drawing the attention of the Smithsonian Institution and the FBI.