Bigfoot Duo’s New Discovery: A Lawsuit Against Them

Below is an reprint from a blog called the Inquisitor. The tone is pretty much the same with the rest of the media. Portraying these two georgian boys as fools or idiots, or just plain jerks for lying. I just want to make sure that everybody realizes there was a man who is behind this whole mess, that probably knew how things would pan out better than anybody. His name is Tom Biscardi, CEO of Searching for Bigfoot.

I think Matt Moneymaker of BFRO says it best in an interview with National Geographic, "Now he(Tom Biscardi) is really a famous con man," Moneymaker said. "He was a con man known in Bigfoot circles for years, and now it won't be long before everybody knows it."

BfRLC Salutes you Matt, for boldly speaking up and letting the rest of world what's what.

Anyway on with lawsuit info...


The Inquisitor
Odd : JR Raphael
The two goons who wasted the world’s time by claiming they’d found Bigfoot are now finding themselves on the receiving end of a lawsuit.

Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer went the full nine yards with a news conference, DNA tests (that showed nothing), and all sorts of empty promises last week. Of course, it was all a hoax — and, as many had initially suspected, the creature was no more than a frozen Halloween costume filled with some random roadkill.

Now, the company that helped publicize the whole debacle is demanding cash from the country bumpkins. Searching for Bigfoot paid the doofuses $50,000 for the rights to their story, and it’s not happy the whole thing’s been exposed as fraud.

The good ol’ boys from Georgia, for their part, now claim it was all just a big joke and that Searching for Bigfoot is to blame for “blowing it out of proportion.” They say they never did it to make money — even though they’re still holding onto that $50K that somehow made it into their hands. Oh yeah, and they’re also selling Bigfoot stuff on their own web site.

“It started off as some YouTube videos and a website,” one of them told Atlanta’s WSB-TV in his first interview this week. “We’re all about having fun.”

That same man — who was a police officer in Clayton County, Georgia — has been fired from the force as a result of the scam.

Smart fellers, those Georgians.


Original article here

Japan Yeti Hunters Hope 3rd Time's a Charm

By Gopal Sharma
Wed Aug 20, 2008 2:51pm IST

KATHMANDU (Reuters Life!) - It seems the search for mythical creatures goes on.

Less than a week after two men in the United States claimed they had found the remains of a half-man, half-ape Bigfoot, which actually turned out to be a rubber gorilla suit, a team of Japanese climbers began trekking on Wednesday to a mountain in Nepal hoping to find the Yeti, or abominable snowman.

Seven climbers, supported by sherpas and carrying cameras and telescopes, will spend 50 days on the lower reaches of the 7,661-metre (25,134-ft) Dhaulagiri IV to try and collect evidence of the beast's existence, team leader Yoshiteru Takahashi said.

Takahashi, who carried out similar missions in the same area in 1994 and 2003, told Reuters that one of his team members and three sherpas had seen "something like the Yeti" from a distance five years ago.

"We believe that was the Yeti," said Takahashi, a 65-year-old employee of a Tokyo furniture company. "So we are going to search for a third time. We need photographs and video tapes to prove it. It is very important."

Sherpas and climbers often narrate stories about a wild hairy creature roaming the Himalayas. Those tales have captured the imagination of foreign climbers of Mount Everest since the 1920s prompting many, including Everest hero Sir Edmund Hillary, to carry out hunts for the Yeti.

Some climbers even claim to have found Yeti footprints, but no one has yet actually seen it or produced irrefutable proof.

The Japanese will pitch three camps, manned by two researchers each, between 3,400 meters (11,154 feet) and 4,300 meters (14,100 feet) above base camp.

They will use binoculars during the day and also have long-lens cameras to take pictures at night.

"I want to shake hands if I meet him," said T. Onishi, another member of the team. "But it is very difficult. They are shy, so we want to just take pictures."

(Editing by Krittivas Mukherjee and Miral Fahmy)

© Thomson Reuters 2008 All rights reserved

Read Original Article Here

Darn Good Bigfoot Research

hey BfRL Clubber's theres some darn good research goin' on at http://sopebocks.blogspot.com/ they go into far greater detail into the georgian gorilla. Too much to repost here. From all of us at the Bigfoot Researcher's Lunch Club We salute you Charlie and keep up the good work!

'There's something out there,' Sasquatch expert tells Edmonton

Bill Mah , Canwest News Service
Published: Sunday, August 17, 2008
EDMONTON - When news broke Friday that two self-proclaimed sasquatch trackers in the state of Georgia claimed to have one of the fabled ape creatures in their freezer, Jeff Meldrum was quickly pulled into the story. After all, he's one of the few PhDs conducting field work on Bigfoot and reporters were quick to search him out for comment.

He was unimpressed about photos posted by the Georgians on the Internet.

And on Sunday, speaking in Edmonton Sunday at the Royal Alberta Museum on his research into Bigfoot that started when he discovered an unexplained set of tracks in the mountains of Washington state, he hadn't changed his mind.


Rick Dyer, 31, holds a picture he claims is the mouth of Bigfoot in Palo Alto, California, August 15, 2008. Bigfoot, also known as Sasquatch, is a mythical ape-like creature said to live in forests of the Pacific northwest region of the United States.
Reuters

"It was not compelling in the least," said Meldrum, an associate professor of anatomy and anthropology at Idaho State University and an affiliate curator at the Idaho Museum of Natural History.

"It didn't have the bulk or the mass. It seemed to be vacuous, the hair did not look natural and the face bears a striking resemblance to an off-the-shelf costume."

Still, he's quick to point out the real creature could very well be out there in the woods somewhere. There's just too much evidence to ignore.

Meldrum, author of Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science, said such likely hoaxes as the one in Georgia are damaging to the few scientists researching the field.

"People who are not well-informed on this subject matter then use this incident as a litmus test of the veracity of the entire subject."

His talk was part of the museum's lecture series entitled Here Be Dragons . . . and Other Creatures.

He said such evidence as many footprints and digitally enhanced versions of the grainy Patterson film shot in 1967 of a female Sasquatch show anatomical details that are difficult to fake.

"The amassed evidence of the footprints is strong evidence that there is a real animal that exhibits a consistent anatomy that is distinct from human anatomy and yet shows adaptations that are very elegantly suited to the habitat where they are reported to exist," Meldrum elaborated after his presentation.

Meldrum said he hasn't encountered face-to-face a sasquatch himself, but has seen fresh footprints on several occasions and had brushes where something has come into his camp and rifled through his backpacks, opening clasped flaps without tearing them. He's also had stones thrown at him in isolated woods.

"I'm not here to convince you that sasquatch exists," he told the audience.

"I was hoping to convey to you that there is a body of data that is extremely compelling," said Meldrum.

"I am convinced there is something out there. Something is leaving footprints. There's something out there that begs for our consideration."




© Edmonton Journal 2008

"Bigfoot" fails DNA test

Reuters
Fri Aug 15, 2008 6:48pm EDT

Results from tests on genetic material from alleged remains of one of the mythical half-ape and half-human creatures, made public at a news conference on Friday held after the claimed discovery swept the Internet, failed to prove its existence.

Its spread was fueled by a photograph of a hairy heap, bearing a close resemblance to a shaggy full-body gorilla costume, stuffed into a container resembling a refrigerator.

One of the two samples of DNA said to prove the existence of the Bigfoot came from a human and the other was 96 percent from an opossum, according to Curt Nelson, a scientist at the University of Minnesota who performed the DNA analysis.

Bigfoot creatures are said to live in the forests of the U.S. Pacific Northwest. An opossum is a marsupial about the size of a house cat.

Results of the DNA tests were revealed in an e-mail from Nelson and distributed at the Palo Alto, California, news conference held by Tom Biscardi, host of a weekly online radio show about the Bigfoot.

Also present were Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer, the two who say they discovered the Bigfoot corpse while hiking in the woods of northern Georgia. They also are co-owners of a company that offers Bigfoot merchandise.

Despite the dubious photo and the commercial interests of the alleged discoverers, the Bigfoot claim drew interest from Australia to Europe and even The New York Times.

Biscardi said the DNA samples may not have been taken correctly and may have been contaminated, and that he would proceed with an autopsy of the alleged Bigfoot remains, currently in a freezer at an undisclosed location.

(Reporting by Clare Baldwin in Palo Alto; writing by Jim Christie; editing by Mary Milliken and Peter Henderson)

CNN Coverage of Bf Press Conference

www.cnn.com is now playing the conference with the searchers from Georgia. The BfRLC will take in the press conference and have a posting sometime soon. This could be it folks....

We Got Their Attention. Now What?

Okay Folks. All you Bf hunters, enthusiasts and lunch clubbers, let's not let this new found attention go to waste. We really need to get the message across that Cryptozoology is research is founded on anthropology, biology, zoology. Refer to the Gigantopithicas theory posited by Grover Krantz of Washington State University. You could discuss how the research and debate is very active. Reference Loren Coleman's alternative theory proposing that Bigfoot lineage may have departed futher back than Giganto.

Discuss how the Giant Panda and the Low land Gorilla was only discovered within the last century 8000 of them just this last year. Real or Hoax, the Georgian Gorilla has afforded us, all of us a tremendous opportunity to share the our determined community tied together by a single curiosity in pursuit of an elusive creature mention in myth and famed by film.

You can stereotype conspiracy theorist, ghost chasers, and ufologist, but Bigfoot researchers are as diverse a group as this great country we all live in. I'm sure if we started to talk about politics or religeon we may discover how different we are, but we dont, we support each other, encourage each other and focus on what we have in common. So if the Media comes knocking on your door asking you about this corpse in Georgia, tell 'em about what Bigfoot research is all about. The pursuit of discovery.

Captured Bf Body Pics Analyzed

Here at BfRLC Labs we have taken the photo of the captured Georgia Gorilla, varied the midtones, shifted the contrast, and even reduce the noise to see if we could somehow gain more detail from the photo of the alleged Bigfoot corpse.

This is the most we could get out of the head and face. There does not seem to be much skull or teeth support under the skin. The face almost flattens sideways. However we were able to reveal the texture of the eyesockets and actually get more definition to the snout.

For reference you can see the two areas of interest where we decided to focus on, hoping to reveal any tell-tell clues.

Not as clean as we had hoped but a close up of the entrails does suggest they may have originated from a smaller animal. Even if we are seeing a partial intestine, the sudden tapering at any end can help estimate the length and size of an intestine. this one seems to taper too suddenly for a 500 pound animal.

Over all the jury at BfRLC is still out. We are anxious to hear what will be revealed Friday. As the first website to post the captured bigfoot last month we will contiue to keep you up to date with the latest and most up to date Bigfoot news anywhere.

BfRLC Scoops all Media

With all hoopla about the Georgia Gorilla, all of us here wanted to remind our constant readers that you heard it here first -- way back on July 27th. The post was entitled "Bigfoot Capture?" Ironically enough it had a picture of a guy in a gorilla suit. And as Co-Founder of the BfRLC, I just want to thank my great team for finding this story almost a month before the rest of the internet did. BfRLC team I salute you!

Official Georgia Gorilla Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 12, 2008
BIGFOOT BODY FOUND
DNA evidence and photo evidence to be presented at a
PRESS CONFERENCE
to be held on
Date: Friday, August 15, 2008
Time: From 12Noon-1:00pm
Place: Cabana Hotel-Palo Alto (A Crown Plaza Resort) 4290 El Camino Real, Palo Alto, California 94306

Searching for Bigfoot, Inc. Menlo Park, California
Tom Biscardi, CEO

BIGFOOT BODY FOUND - EVIDENCE AND DNA DETAILS TO BE PRESENTED AT A PRESS CONFERENCE ON FRIDAY, AUGUST 15th

FROM 12 N00N TO 1:00PM AT THE CABANA HOTEL-PALO ALTO IN PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA

A body that may very well be the body of the creature commonly known as “Bigfoot” has been found in the woods in northern Georgia.

DNA evidence and photo evidence of the creature will be presented in a press conference on Friday, August 15th from 12 Noon to 1:00pm at the Cabana Hotel-Palo Alto at 4290 El Camino Real in Palo Alto, California, 94306. The press conference will not be open to the public. It will only be open to credentialed members of the press.
Here are some of the vital statistics on the “Bigfoot” body:
*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 sixteen 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.
*DNA tests are currently being done and the current DNA and photo evidence will be presented at the press conference on Friday, August 15th.

The creature was found by Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer (residents of Georgia) in the woods in northern Georgia. (The exact location is being kept secret to protect the creatures.)
Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer will be flying in from Georgia to be at the press conference. Also present at the press conference will be Tom Biscardi, CEO of Searching for Bigfoot, Inc.
Whitton is a Clayton County, Georgia, police officer, who is currently on administrative leave after being wounded in the course of duty pursuing an alleged felon. Dyer is a former correctional officer. Whitton and Dyer are co-owners of bigfoottracker.com and Bigfoot Global LLC., a company that offers Bigfoot expeditions. Whitton and Dyer are working with Bigfoot hunter, Tom Biscardi, and Biscardi’s Searching for Bigfoot, Inc., to present and conduct the scientific study of the evidence and information on this body.
A few weeks ago, Whitton and Dyer announced the finding of the body on the “Squatch Detective” radio show, an internet based radio show hosted by Steve Kulls. While on that show, the commentator asked Rick Dyer “Would you allow one of our people to come down and verify the body?” Dyer replied, “The only person we would allow to come down and verify the body was ‘the real Bigfoot Hunter,’ Tom Biscardi.” The next day, the producer of the Squatch Detective show contacted Biscardi with pertinent information on how to contact Dyer and Whitton.
Extensive scientific studies will be done on the body by a team of scientists including a molecular biologist, an anthropologist, a paleontologist and other scientists over the next few months at an undisclosed location. The studies will be carefully documented and the findings will be released to the world, according to Biscardi.
Biscardi is known as “the real Bigfoot Hunter” because of his extensive investigations out in the field. He has been searching for Bigfoot since 1971 and over the past several years, he has been criss-crossing the United States and Canada tracking down the hottest leads on Bigfoot sightings.
Videography on the studies will be done under the supervision of Scott Davis, an independent producer and owner of TV Biz Productions in Phoenix, Arizona.
Currently, Tom Biscardi and his Searching for Bigfoot Team, in conjunction with Bigfoot Global LLC., are preparing to capture another of these creatures alive. That expedition will start very soon. The dates and the locations are being kept confidential.
The body that is currently being studied is being referred to as the “RICKMAT” creature, a name derived from the names of Rick Dyer and Matthew Whitton. [Cryptozoologist Loren Coleman recommends the term “Georgia Gorilla” be used to remove any taint of ego from the discovery, and so the general public, media, and science will have a comfortable moniker until a formal zoological name may be bestowed.]
Last year, a film that Biscardi produced about his investigations, called “Bigfoot Lives,” won first place in the Documentary category at the Pocono Mountains Film Festival. Biscardi also hosts a Bigfoot oriented internet radio show that can be heard on Wednesday nights from 7:00pm to 8:00pm PDT at www.bigfootliveradioshow.com. The show is heard in over thirty countries.
Searching for Bigfoot, Inc. has exclusive rights to all publishing rights, photo rights, television and film rights, production and distribution rights and other commercial opportunities related to the discovery and findings regarding this body and these creatures.
Interested parties may contact Searching for Bigfoot, Inc., in writing, at their mailing address, 1134 Crane St., Suite 216, Menlo Park, California 94025.

Update - Dead Bigfoot Pictures Now Online, Press Conference Scheduled

In the most exciting Bigfoot news to come along in a while, photos of the recently found dead Bigfoot creature have been posted online and a press conference to go over DNA and photo evidence are scheduled for this Friday, August 15th. Check out the link http://www.inquisitr.com/2357/has-bigfoot-been-found/ which shows the photos and the time and other pertinent info regarding the press conference. The photos have a rather tall, hairy creature in what looks to be some sort of freezer. Again, the BfRLC will monitor this event and report as we know more info. Keep on checking in...and make sure to follow our news ticker as it will have up to the minute news regarding this hot story.

Bf Corpse Discovered in Georgia

Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer, Georgia residents who lead Bigfoot-tracking expeditions, say they found the body of what appears to be a Bigfoot in the woods of northern Georgia and will join local Bigfoot researcher Tom Biscardi at a news conference, according to Robert Barrows, who is publicizing the event.
Among the creatures's other physical characteristics of the body -- according to the hunters website -- http://www.searchingforbigfoot.com/ -- were flat feet similar to human feet. Its footprint is 16 ¾ inches long and the length from palm to tip of the middle finger is 11 ½ inches long.
"I think you'll find that this is the real deal," Barrows said of the alleged discovery.
The Bigfoot Researchers Lunch Club will be keeping close tabs on this story as it develops. As of yet, no body has been produced, nor has the group let the public know where the body is being kept. This could very well be it! Stay tuned to the BfRLC for up to the minute information.

Bigfoot Researchers Unite for Rick Emerson Address today 8/8/8 at 2 pm

Greetings fellow Bf Researchers,

Please be aware that today, 888 at 2 pm, Rick Emerson will be adressing the masses. If possible, tune in to am970, online at www.970.am for this historic moment. Although the BFRLC does not generally promote non-Bf related items, we find Rick's address to be something that will benefit people everywhere. Thanks for tuning in!

Neandertal DNA Deciphered

By Tina Hesman SaeyWeb edition : Thursday, August 7th, 2008

Results show modern humans, Neandertals diverged 660,000 years ago

Now there’s even more scientific proof that you are not a Neandertal, no matter what anyone says.

An international consortium of researchers reports in the Aug. 8 Cell that for the first time the complete sequence of mitochondrial DNA from a Neandertal has been deciphered. Comparison of the Neandertal sequence with mitochondrial sequences from modern humans confirms that the two groups belong to different branches of humankind’s family tree, diverging 660,000 years ago.

That date is not statistically different from previous estimates of the split between humans and Neandertals, says Erik Trinkaus, a paleoanthropologist at Washington University in St. Louis. The sequence also doesn’t reveal what happened to drive Neandertals to extinction, but it does clear up some discrepancies in earlier studies.

“It’s a major tidying-up of a lot of loose ends,” Trinkaus says.

At 16,565 bases long, the new sequence is the largest stretch of Neandertal DNA ever examined. The DNA was isolated from a 38,000-year-old bone found in a cave in Croatia.

“It’s a nice accomplishment and the next important step toward completing the Neandertal genome,” says Stephan Schuster of Pennsylvania State University in University Park. Schuster is part of a group that is sequencing the genomes of the mammoth and other extinct animals, but was not involved in the current study. “It’s a nice landmark on the way to saying what makes modern humans so s

pecial.”

In order to know exactly how modern humans and Neandertals differ, scientists will need to examine DNA from the Neandertal’s entire genome. The sequence reported in the new study was generated as part of a project to decode Neandertal DNA, but it contains information only about DNA from mitochondria.

Mitochondria are organelles that generate energy for a cell. Inside each mitochondrion is a circular piece of DNA that contains genes encoding some of the key proteins responsible for power generation. Mitochondria are passed down from mothers to their children. Scientists use variations in mitochondrial DNA as a molecular clock to tell how fast species are evolving.

Scientists have previously examined a short piece of Neandertal mitochondrial DNA known as the hypervariable region, but this new complete sequence helps clear up some ambiguities from studies comparing Neandertals and humans, says John Hawks, a biological anthropologist from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Some modern humans have several changes in the hypervariable region that made it seem as if Neandertals are more closely related to modern humans than humans are to each other.

“Comparing the complete mitochondrial DNA genomes of a Neandertal and many recent humans presents a very different picture,” Hawks says. “Humans are all more similar to each other, than any human is to a Neandertal. And in fact the Neandertal sequence is three or more times as different, on average, from us as we are from each other. This change from the earlier picture is a purely statistical one, but it makes a clearer picture.”

Human and Neandertal mitochondrial DNAs differ at 206 positions out of the 16,565 examined, while modern humans differ at only about 100 positions when compared with each other.

The mitochondrial genome contains 13 genes, blueprints for stringing amino acids together to make proteins. The researchers examined the nature of changes within those genes to learn how proteins evolve. Generally, changes that alter the amino acid sequence of a protein are bad because they disrupt the way a protein works or interacts with other proteins, says Richard Green, a computational biologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. Neandertals have more amino-acid altering changes in their mitochondrial genes than do other primates, Green and his colleagues found.

“This really demands an explanation,” Green says. One scenario that could explain the finding is that Neandertals had very small effective populations long before they went extinct.

But humans also have changes in some of their mitochondrial genes. One gene, called COX2, had four changes specific to humans. Neandertals, chimpanzees and other primates don’t have those changes. “This tells us these changes happened very recently and perhaps conferred some selective advantage” for humans, Green says. The data reinforce the notion that humans are evolving faster than other primates and “it gets us closer to understanding what it means to be a fully modern human.”

Source: http://www.sciencenews.org

Bigfoot group has busy agenda

What is it with Big foot Groups and their four-letter acronyms and why are they so busy? That was my best Andy Rooney impression. But really theres the Bigfoot Research Organization (BFRO), Michigan Bigfoot Information Center (MBIC), Sasquatch Bigfoot Research Unit (SBRU), Alliance of Independent Bigfoot Researchers (AIBR), Ohio Bigfoot Research Team (OBRT), Texas Bigfoot Research Center (TBRC)...the list goes on and on. And now Elusive Primates of North America (EPNA).

We at the BfRLC have dared enough to add a fifth letter to our
acronym but that's the kind of mavericks we are -- and promise to
always be.

Meanwhile read how busy EPNA are in this article from The Sand Mountain Reporter



By Lionel GreenThe Reporter
Published August 5, 2008


An area Bigfoot research group is busy this summer with planned expeditions near Douglas and Guntersville.


“We just had a report in Cleveland; the police department was chasing a large hairy man off (Alabama) Highway 160,” said Hawk Spearman, a founder of the Alabama chapter of the Elusive Primates of North America. “I’m trying to get in touch with the police officers to get more details from them.”


EPNA meets again Aug. 16 from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Oneonta Public Library.


If you add to all the activity a widely circulated story of two men in Georgia who say they have a Bigfoot corpse in their possession, Spearman will have plenty to discuss at the meeting.


“The biggest thing we’re going to be talking about is the supposed Bigfoot find and how it’s going to impact the Bigfoot community,” said Spearman, who heads EPNA in Alabama with his wife, Karen.


The discovery allegedly involves a law enforcement officer and an associate claiming to have found the dead body of a Bigfoot while on an expedition in the mountains of north Georgia. The men are releasing very little information but say they are preserving the large body in a freezer and will reveal the corpse Sept. 1. They insist it’s not a hoax, but many are skeptical because of their lack of professionalism in videos on YouTube.


Spearman is hopeful but wary of the purported discovery.


“I’m in between,” he said. “I believe it’s possible it could happen. If this is a prank, it will be the biggest hoax ever, and the ones that actually believed, it’s going to make them look really, really bad.”


In the meantime, EPNA is planning three expeditions in the next couple of months, including two in Marshall County. The first is an overnight trip in Ashville at the end of this month followed by a search in Horton near Douglas off Alabama 75 in mid-September.


At the end of September or first of October, EPNA is looking at an overnight excursion in the forests surrounding Lake Guntersville.


Spearman said the expeditions are free, but participants will have to pay for their campsites on the overnight trips.


“Anybody’s welcome,” Spearman said. “They’ll need a flashlight and plaster of Paris just in case footprints are found. We believe if you find the evidence, it’s yours.” No firearms or alcohol is allowed on the expeditions. For more information about the Alabama chapter of EPNA, call 205-589-4622 or 205-359-0130 or visit www.epna.webs.com on the Internet.

Copyright © 2008 Sand Mountain Reporter