Unseen Bigfoot corpse more likely a big fat lie

Videos
Photos

(China Daily/Agencies)
Updated: 2008-08-17 08:40

PALO ALTO - Bigfoot or big fat lie?

A hairy corpse crammed in a Georgia freezer is Bigfoot, two men who have been tracking the legendary creature have claimed.

This image provided by Bigfoot Global LLC shows what is claimed by them to be the mouth area of a decreased bigfoot. [Agencies]

Matt Whitton and Rick Dyer said they stumbled across the corpse in the woods of north Georgia, United States, across the country from the remote regions of the northwest where people usually claim to see the man-ape.

On Friday, they indignantly stood by their story at a news conference in Palo Alto, California, during which they offered an e-mail from a scientist as evidence and also acknowledged they would not mind making a few dollars from the "find".

"Everyone who has talked down to us is going to eat their words," Whitton, an officer on medical leave from the Clayton County Police Department, said.

He and Dyer, a former corrections officer, announced the discovery early last month on YouTube videos and their website. 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 said, is one of several apelike creatures they spotted cavorting in the woods.

On Friday, the pair was joined by Tom Biscardi, head of a group called Searching for Bigfoot, as they faced a skeptical audience of several hundred journalists and Bigfoot fans - including one curiosity seeker dressed in a Chewbacca suit. Other Bigfoot hunters call Biscardi a huckster looking for media attention.

Biscardi fielded most of the questions. Among them: Why should anyone accept the men's tale when they weren't willing to display their frozen artifact or pinpoint where they allegedly found it? How come bushwhackers aren't constantly tripping over primate remains if there are as many as 7,000 Bigfoots roaming the United States, as Biscardi claimed?

"I understand where you are coming from, but how many real Bigfoot researchers are out there trekking 140,000 miles a year?" Biscardi said.

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 him, one was human, one was likely a possum and the third could not be tested because of technical problems.

At least one other Bigfoot researcher, Idaho State University anthropologist Jeffrey Meldrum, called the trio's claims "not compelling in the least".

He told Scientific American magazine that photographs posted on the website "just look like a costume with some fake guts thrown on top for effect".