Has Bigfoot Been Found?

Has the legendary Bigfoot been found? Two men from Georgia, Mathew Whitten and Rich Dyer, claims that they have not only found him, according to the Inquisitr, but have the body. A photograph has been presented as proof and the finders also claim DNA evidence.

Both the photographic evidence and what is claimed to be DNA evidence will be presented at a press conference in Palo Alto California. The press release, issued by the group claiming to have found Bigfoot, that accompanies the photo describes the Bigfoot creature as follows:

"The creature is seven feet seven inches tall. It weighs over five hundred pounds. The creature looks like it is part human and part ape-like. It is male. It has reddish hair and blackish-grey eyes. It has two arms and two legs, and five fingers on each hand and five toes on each foot. The feet are flat and similar to human feet. Its footprint is 16 and three-quarters inches long and five and three-quarters inches wide at the heel. From the palm of the hand to the tip of the middle finger, its hands are eleven and three-quarters inches long and six and one-quarter inches wide. The creatures walk upright. (Several of them were sighted on the same day that the body was found.) The teeth are more human-like than ape-like."

Some critics smell a hoax in the making. If this is a hoax, it would not be the first one.

Bigfoot, also known as Sasquatch, is alleged to be a primate that inhabits remote woods, mainly in the Pacific Northwest. Proponents maintain that Bigfoot is a hitherto unknown primate, possibly related to Gigantopithecus, a species of ape that died out a hundred thousand years ago. Others suggest that Bigfoot may be a cousin of Homo Erectus, a species of human that is an ancestor of modern Homo Sapiens and lived two million years ago. However no Homo Erectus remains have ever been found in North America.

Bigfoot is mentioned in the lore of some Native American tribes. Sightings of Bigfoot have been claimed since the mid 19th Century. There have been some alleged photographs and even video, the most famous being a short video of what is alleged to be a Bigfoot taken by Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin in Bluff Creek, California in 1967. Some scientists have suggested that the film is a hoax, actually depicting a man in an ape suit, according to the Wikipedia entry on the subject.

Bigfoot is among the many creatures in folklore that are grouped together in an are of study called "crypto zoology", or the study of animals that lay outside the standard zoological catalogues. Other alleged creatures that are the subject of crypto zoology include the Tibetan Yeti or Abominable Snowman and the Loch Ness Monster. Most scientists consider the existence of such creatures to be fanciful and not worthy of serious study.

Has Bigfoot Been Found?, Duncan Reilly, The Inquisitr, August 12th, 2008
The Patterson-Gimlin Film, Wikipedia