17 Aug 2008
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/clayton/stories/2008/08/15/no_bigfoot_evidence.html
‘Bigfoot’ press conference reveals possum DNA
Photos presented include other alleged family members
By BOB KEEFE
Cox News Service
PALO ALTO, Calif. — Bigfoot lived in North Georgia, and his cousins are still there. That’s what a pair of Clayton County outdoorsmen claim.
But if they have definitive evidence to prove it, it wasn’t presented at a press conference here Friday where they had said they would make believers out of everyone. Dozens of mostly skeptical reporters showed up, lured by a flurry of interest in the story since pictures of the supposed discovery hit the Internet late last month.
Enlarge this image  bigfootracker.com An image of the alleged Bigfoot corpse discovered by Georgia woodsmen.
Of three samples in a preliminary DNA test, one came back inconclusive, one contained traces of human DNA and one had traces of opossum DNA — probably from something the creature ate, they said.
They didn’t produce a body — that’s in a hidden location, they said, after being moved from a freezer that broke down a couple of times. They also wouldn’t say exactly where they found the creature, and where they claimed they saw a band of others watching them. And they won’t let anyone but their own hand-picked scientists examine the body.
Still “we’re now the best Bigfoot hunters in the world,” said Whitton, 31, of Ellenwood, who with Dyer, 28, wore ballcaps advertising their bigfootracker.com Web site.
The pair — Whitton is a Clayton County police officer who’s on disability after being wounded in a robbery investigation, and Dyer is a car salesman and tow truck operator — did produce two more still pictures Friday. A blurry one, they claimed, clearly shows one of the other bigfoot family members they saw. Another overlit, blurry photo shows what they claimed were the mouth and teeth of the dead Sasquach.
An autopsy on the animal is in the works, they said. Scientists are about to get involved, but one is on vacation until Monday and two others from Russia have yet to arrive, they said.
Tom Biscardi, a longtime Bigfoot enthusiast from Menlo Park, Calif., with whom the pair have teamed to promote their discovery, swears it isn’t a hoax.
“This is as real as you’re standing right where you are, sir,” Biscardi said.
Others said the story doesn’t have legs.
“This is becoming like an alien autopsy,” said Jeffrey Meldrum, a noted bigfoot researcher and a professor of anthropology at Idaho State University.
Whitton and Dyer haven’t done much to satisfy skeptics. They previously posted a video of the purported bigfoot on YouTube in which Whitton’s brother pretended to be a scientist, then announced it was all done in fun. And a recorded greeting on Whitton’s phone formerly claimed he and Dyer were leading expeditions to find not just bigfoot but also the Loch Ness monster and leprechauns.
Friday, Whitton said those were spoofs intended to throw off some of the “psychos” who had been bugging them since they appeared on a radio show touting their find. Dyer said they teamed up with Biscardi because “when you punch in Bigfoot (on the Internet), the first name that comes up is Tom Biscardi.”
Biscardi runs an Internet radio show and Web site devoted to bigfoot under the umbrella of a company called Searching for Bigfoot Inc. In 2005, Biscardi claimed he had come across a woman in Nevada who had captured two living bigfoot creatures. He charged about $15 for visitors to his Web site to see blurry streaming video claiming to show the captured creatures.
Friday, Biscardi said he subsequently determined the woman was “mentally ill.”
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