EDITOR & PUBLISHER: This afternoon at 3 pm, Eastern time, a police officer named Matt Whitton plans a news conference with California resident Tom Biscardi and former corrections officer Rick Dyer in Palo Alto to show photographs and the results of DNA testing. They say it all will prove the existence of the legendary man-ape found in north Georgia [pictured, above]. And for once this week, we mean the state, not the battleground over in Europe. Whitton tells the Clayton News Daily that people who call the creature a hoax are just jealous. According to the newspaper, “Whitton and Dyer say they found the seven-foot-seven, 550-pound corpse in north Georgia.” A widely distributed press photo shows the alleged Bigfoot in a freezer chest. As some have pointed out, it could just as easily be a rolled up rug. MORE
UPDATE: Bigfoot’s body has been found, according to two Georgia men who, with much media fanfare, showed
reporters two blurry photos said to depict the creature at a press conference held today at a hotel a few miles from Stanford University. A previously promised sample of Bigfoot DNA, along with other evidence, never materialized because, the presenters said, they wished to safeguard this “endangered species.”
The hotel’s proximity to the California university is about as close to academia as the supposed findings will get, according to experts contacted by Discovery News. They say photographs of the body, supposedly stored in a freezer, resemble a widely available Halloween costume. “What they are claiming to be Bigfoot [pictured right, with Six Million Dollar Man] in a photograph doesn’t look natural,” Jeffrey Meldrum, a professor of anatomy in the Department of Biological Sciences at Idaho State University, told Discovery News. “When the photo is juxtaposed next to an off-the-shelf costume, the resemblance is remarkable,” added Meldrum, who is the author of the book, “Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science.”
Suspicious from the Beginning
Meldrum, who does not discount the Bigfoot legend, was at first “hopeful” that the discovery was legitimate. Matthew Whitton, identified as a Georgia police officer in a Searching for Bigfoot, Inc., press release, and former correctional officer Rick Dyer, say that they found “the creature” in the woods of northern Georgia. “The exact location,” the press release continues, “is being kept secret to protect the creatures.”
“So here these men are in Georgia, which is home to the world-renowned Yerkes Primate Center, and what do they do? They turn to a charlatan instead,” Meldrum said. He identified the “charlatan” as Tom Biscardi, founder of the Great American Bigfoot Research Organization and one of the presenter’s at today’s press conference. In 2005, Biscardi claimed his group captured an 8-foot-tall Bigfoot. That claim was quickly disputed. More recently, Meldrum says Whitton and Dyer released a YouTube video said to show a scientist traveling to Georgia to examine the “body.” Both Meldrum and The Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization say that numerous viewers quickly figured out that the “scientist” was, in reality, Martin Whitton, the deputy’s brother. MORE
ASSOCIATED PRESS: “Everyone who has talked down to us is going to eat their words,” predicted Matt Whitton, an officer on medical leave from the Clayton County Police Department. Whitton and Rick Dyer, a former corrections officer, announced the discovery in early July on YouTube videos and their Web site. Although they did not consider themselves devoted Bigfoot trackers before then, they have since started offering weekend search expeditions in Georgia for $499.
The specimen they bagged, the men say, was one of several apelike creatures they spotted cavorting in the woods. As they faced a skeptical audience of several hundred journalists and Bigfoot fans that included one curiosity seeker in a Chewbacca suit, the pair were joined Friday by Tom Biscardi, head of a group called Searching for Bigfoot. Other Bigfoot hunters call Biscardi a huckster looking for media attention. Biscardi, Whitton and Dyer presented what they called evidence supporting the Bigfoot theory. It was an e-mail from a University of Minnesota scientist, but all it said was that of the three DNA samples sent to the scientist, one was human, one was likely a possum and the third could not be tested because of technical problems. MORE
GEORGIA MYSTERIES: But you should in no way judge the Georgia Bigfoot community by the actions of these two hoaxers. They are not the real deal, and the only thing they are really good at is lying. If they have a body, which they don’t, then let them produce it. I challenge them to call Dr. Meldrum, Esteban Sarmiento, Matthew Moneymaker, and a CNN or Fox News crew to do a REAL scientific examination of said body. In addition, I would like for them to produce the list of people who went on their supposed expedition back in June. I am sure that if they are the real deal, the patrons would not mind being associated with the “Best Bigfoot Trackers in the World.” Also, I would like for them to produce the receipts they got when they purchased the flatbed truck and freezer they claimed to have bought when they supposedly brought the body out of the woods. If they really did anything like this, then the receipts would be very handy, and I am sure that if they have lost them, the companies would be more than willing to verify the purchase. After all, these are the “Best Bigfoot Trackers in the World.” Of course, none of these things will ever happen. MORE