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Firstly, the news from Erickson's Genome Project is not wholly new.
The 'Matilda' footage of a sleeping Bigfoot has been rolling around for nearly a year, and Melba Ketchum's DNA work has been bouncing around Bigfoot forums since last spring. They did offer up a bit more blobsquatch footage, including a wookie mask shot which shouldn't really add anything to the quest for truth.
But the level of interest in the Bigfoot Mystery is high now since ABC news got the 'scoop' from Melba in a personal interview, so I figure it's time for an informal primer on the facts for all the newbies out there.
1). What is Bigfoot/Sasquatch?
So far, we still have no idea. No body for the taxonomists, no bones for the anthros, just some questionable body parts like skull caps, a mummified hand, some hair, a number of plaster casts and a whole bunch of stories. Melba Ketchum's DNA results showed a combo of human and novel, non-human DNA, which tells us not much. There is a nice FAQ on the Erickson Project's site (found here: http://sasquatchgenomeproject.org/q/ ), but this will not convince the bulk of humanity that Sassy lives and breathes.
Most of the animal science researchers who think it exists suggest that Bigfoot is a live, flesh and blood animal with a lineage to an ancient ancestor called Gigantopithecus Blacki(or some other Giganto relative).
They surmise that the creatures lived on earth between 9 million and about 100,000 years ago and that some have survived. They have a couple of jawbones and some teeth to back this up.
The creatures exist all around the world, mostly in temperate climates (no Antarctic sightings yet), with varying degrees of size, mannerism and myth. I will focus on the ones that are seen, heard, smelled or suspected here in the United States and Canada for now.
General consensus, mostly from modern anecdotes, says that the North American Sasquatch runs about 6 to 12 (yes, 12) feet and weighs between 300 and a whopping 1200 lbs. That’s basically the size of a Volkswagen Beetle stood on end for comparison.
Those same proponents say that the Hairy Forest People live in heavily forested areas, (though some reports come from the southwestern U.S and from the swamps of Florida), and exist in small family groups, foraging berries and vegetal grasses, hunting animal proteins like rodents and deer and occasionally crossing a road or woodsy trail to scare the life out of motorists, hunters or hikers.
2). Why can't we get any photos or video of these things?
We did, Jack! Ask Bob Gimlin about it....he'll tell you that he and a fellow named Patterson filmed a very large, bipedal primate-looking creature as it trudged up a creek wash in Northern California in 1967. It's still the best quality footage known and has been studied endlessly. Another guy named Paul Freeman obtained some pretty good video of a couple of large, ape-like creatures creeping through some forest and scrub in Walla Walla in about 1993. The P/G film is great because it's been around for so long that it's hard to call it a fake, (C/G) film.
Other videos and photos done since the advent of computer graphics are forever suspicious because a 9 year old kid with an Imac could take a video of your Uncle Thorvald and make it look like he was being chased by a rhino wearing a tutu.
It's just too easy to mess with video tape and digital images.
As to proving Sasquatch exists the old fashioned way, by displaying a body for scientists to poke and prod, this may never happen. But if by dint of some small miracle enough evidence in the way of photographic footage offered in a superbly clear and concise way, propped up by accepted members of the Animal Science community (and backed by governmental decree to prosecute anyone who seeks to bag their own body) then it could happen that the majority of humans will fall into line. Until that happens, we will still have to deal with people like Melba Ketchum and this Rick Dyer guy, who is a terrible, repeat hoaxer.
According to a video posted by Dyer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BUNQ-xeBbM ), Dyer had invited BF researcher Derek Randles (BFRO) to a location in Nevada in December offering to show him a dead juvenile bigfoot, and (hold on to your hat) a LIVE bigfoot baby. Just last week or so the bulk of Dyer's crew bailed on him and it all turned out to be more claptrap. Consider yourself updated.
I will go to the Bigfoot Con on Friday 11-22 and listen to the speakers and take note, posting my thoughts on the whole deal when I get back home. With Doc Meldrum and Randles there, it should be interesting.
For more on the history and conventional wisdom of the Bigfoot/Sasquatch Saga, just click on any of the other neat pictures on my site.
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