By: Lynk Paul - Editor, Team Tracker
This controversial study has indeed caused quite a stir among Bigfoot enthusiasts and researchers over the past five years since it's inception.
I swear I didn't give anyone any samples from me nor did they use me as a control sample source
Some people in the Bigfoot community are per-maturely celebrating what they say is new scientific proof that Sasquatch exists. But based on what exactly? A five-year genetic study funded by Bigfoot-believing businessman Adrian Erickson? The Sasquatch Genome Project, lead by Melba Ketchum, claims to have sequenced three complete nuclear genomes of the legendary beast and found it is a new type of hominin hybrid that arose approximately 15,000 years ago.
Although this can be considered to be quite exciting news to the average person who do not fully understand the history and science behind this creature and this study, many samples were submitted for DNA testing in this project by researchers from all across the country and for the past 5 years, these alleged samples have undergone many tests by a few DNA labs. But for the samples that came back as known, dog, bear, coyote, skunk, deer, Moose, or even human; there WERE samples that came back as unknown and were classified as contaminated.
For carefully controlled samples that came back as unknown, not contaminated, what source did they use to compare and confirm that the sample did indeed come from a real Sasquatch in the first place???
“Our study has sequenced 20 whole mitochondrial genomes and utilized next generation sequencing to obtain 3 whole nuclear genomes from purported Sasquatch samples. The genome sequencing shows that Sasquatch mtDNA is identical to modern Homo sapiens, but Sasquatch nuDNA is a novel, unknown hominin related to Homo sapiens and other primate species,” the group said in a press release.
At a news conference held Tuesday in Dallas, Texas, the researchers shared “never before seen HD video” of a furry, “reddish-brown Sasquatch specimen” snoozing in the Kentucky woods. Not suprisingly, the video has gone viral.
“People have chosen not to believe it,” Erickson told CBS Dallas-Fort Worth. “They can’t find it in their minds to think these things exist.” Erickson spend $500,000 on the study.
According to lead researcher Melba Ketchum, a veterinarian and genetics scientist, her team sent various samples of hair, blood, saliva, and skin, to multiple labs around the U.S., including to New York University (NYU), UT Southwestern, and the North Louisisana Crime Lab to be tested.
“We want people to understand this is a serious study” Ketchum told CBS.
The trouble is, a representative from NYU told the New York Daily News that the university has never had dealings with Ketchum or accepted any data or samples from the Sasquatch Genome Project.
And the NYU statement isn’t the only challenge to Ketchum’s credibility. The Louisiana crime lab told the Daily News that while scientists there extracted some DNA from bones she sent them, she sent the sample for analysis elsewhere.
Another problem is that the Sasquatch Genome Project has yet to provide any credible substantiation of its claims, although Ketchum’s team said on their website that scientific journals have refused to publish their findings because “mainstream science just can’t seem to tolerate something controversial.”
But Todd R. Disotell, an NYU professor of anthropology, told UPI that Ketchum’s claims are “just a joke” and nothing more than “junk science.”
“This was not reported in any scientific way whatsoever,” Disotell said. “It’s complete junk science, and then she misinterprets it. She hasn’t published in peer-reviewed papers on this stuff. I don’t know how this got put together.”
