To the untrained eye, it may look suspiciously like a cast-off from a fancy dress party. But to Bigfoot believers, this is the latest “evidence” that the mysterious ape-man said to dwell in the forests of North America is more than just a hairy myth.
Named Rickmat in honour of Rick Dyer and Matthew Whitton, Bigfoot hunters who claim to have bagged the 500lb ’corpse’ during an expedition in the US state of Georgia, it was being hailed today as potentially the “greatest discovery of the millennium” - by its finders, at least.
But that was not all they found in the woods.
Something about a bear and the Pope?
“They can claim to have DNA, but its not going to be possible for them to prove through DNA analysis that they have Bigfoot because there’s no specimen in a jar that says, ’This is Bigfoot’, to match it to."
Well, technically no, but you could easily rule out any number of possibilities.
For all of you non-North American readers, Bigfoot is the popular name given to the mythical creature known by the Native Americans as "Sackscratch".
UPDATE: You can see the raw press conference here. I'm listening to it now.
UPDATE II: Not looking good. From this Yahoo story on the DNA:
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.
I heard the possum thing on the news this morning. I'm guessing that either the guys here perpetrated the hoax, or someone set them up with a "body" consisting of some human and animal parts. (Later: He says that possum sample was taken from inside the intestine. So it's what he ate!)
Also this exchange:
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.
Nice misdirection. It's not only "researchers", it's everyone running around the woods. Oye. Now he's talking about plane crashes not being found.
Hmm. Whitton can't seem to remember the exact date they found it. Seems rather odd. I CERTAINLY WOULD REMEMBER IT. I'd also probably do something with it sooner than 2 months later. Also seems cagey on where it exactly was.
Drat! Video cut out with like 5 minutes to go.
Oh well. Seems like one of the better hoaxes, and they've certainly gotten the attention they were seeking. It'll be interesting to see what happens later, if it gets woven into the grand conspiracy theories like other debunked sightings or if it's just readily acknowledged as a hoax.