Two days ago, Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer, two American
hunters, claimed that they had discovered a specimen of Bigfoot in a remote
forest in northern Georgia.
Moreover, they also announced a press conference in Palo Alto, California
on Friday to share with the world “DNA evidence and photo evidence of the
creature.”
The news immediately made headlines all over the world with
millions of people anxious to see the legendary forest creature, which had been
a controversial subject for experts in the field, with some of them doubting
its existence. Bigfoot was more like a combination of folklore and hoaxes for
them. For others, Bigfoot was a very real man-like creature, with large eyes,
pronounced brow ridge a la law-set forehead.
At the news conference, attended by over 200 people, Matthew
Whitton, Rick Dyer and Bigfoot hunter Tom Biscardi, who, two days ago, assured
everyone that the story of the discovery couldn’t be more real, handed out two
new photos.
One of them is a grainy outline of a creature standing in
the forest and the other one is a close-up of an ape-like muzzle, with one lip
drawn back to reveal a row of teeth and a bloated tongue hung between them. The
hunters told once again how they happened to find not only a specimen of
Bigfoot, but more, how the other specimens were perturbed to see the body of
their brother dragged away and how they kept their Bigfoot in a secret freezer,
which they photographed and showed at the conference. They also said the body
would be analyzed by a prestigious molecular biologist to be named later.
They also revealed what they said was DNA evidence from an
expert from the University
of Minnesota, who found
three matches: indeterminate, human and possum. The latter was probably from a
possum snack, some of those present at the conference said smiling.
However convincing the hunters were, there were people
doubting their sayings. “It looks like a costume, a waterlogged costume that's
been stuffed into a freezer. It just doesn't have the hallmark of a real
corpse,” Jeff Meldrum, an associate professor of anatomy and anthropology at
Idaho State University, and one of the few PhDs conducting Bigfoot field work,
said.
If the evidence revealed was somehow believable, one thing
cast doubt on the discovery, which was questioned even from the very beginning
with many people saying it was just a way to draw attention and make money from
it. Asked how much the men hoped to make from the discovery, Biscardi said, “As
much as possible.”
In fact, the two hunters and Biscardi said that additional
information on Bigfoot could be found on an official Web site, which offers
Bigfoot mugs for $25, Bigfoot pewter belt buckles for $30, and a four-DVD set
of Bigfoot movies for $95.
Anatomy professor Jeffrey
Meldrum told the Discovery Channel that the creatures in the photos
presented by Whitton and Dyer did not look "natural" but instead
appeared to be a gorilla costume widely available for purchase.
Bigfoot has been a creature much like the Loch Ness Monster in
Scotland and the ape-like Yeti in the Himalayas. Sporadic claims of
their sightings have surfaced over the years, but their existence has
not been proven.
Alleged sightings of Bigfoot have made headlines for years,
including in 1958 when a forest worker claimed to have come across its
footprints in Northern California and in 1967 when another American
took fuzzy film footage of a large, hairy creature walking in a
Northern California forest.
In 2002, a Bigfoot hoax was uncovered after the death of Ray
Wallace in the United States. His son confessed that Wallace had donned
self-made wooden feet to tromp through mud in a Bigfoot "discovery"
that made the local newspaper. Wallace also faked photos and audiotapes
of what were supposed to be the creature with the help of friends, his
son said.
However, numerous people, including scientists, remain convinced that
an as-yet undiscovered primate lives in the forests of the United
States. Legends of indigenous peoples in the region also tell of such a
creature, which they named Sasquatch
