Dr. Bryan Sykes Responds to Moneymakers' Criticisms of Bigfoot DNA Study

Dr. Bryan Sykes

"I really don't know whether any of the samples arrived thanks to the BFRO or not." --Dr. Bryan Sykes

In a previous post we shared some reporting from Black Bag's Matthew Phelan regarding criticism by Matt Moneymaker. Matt Moneymaker was quoted as saying the Sykes bigfoot DNA study was meaningless scientifically.

Since our post, Matt Moneymaker Calls Sykes' Bigfoot DNA Study "Meaningless", Matthew Phelan was able to get a response to Matt Moneymakers comments from Dr. Bryan Sykes. 

Here is the correspondence between Black Bag and Sykes:

Black Bag: This is to Moneymaker, specifically, but Sykes may know something too: Moneymaker says that the "BFRO did not provide any of the North American samples, nor did we endorse those few samples from North America that were focused on in the associated TV program." UK Channel 4's Bigfoot Files, presumably. Is this, in fact, correct? Further, to Moneymaker, why did the BFRO not submit samples?

Sykes: I really don't know whether any of the samples arrived thanks to the BFRO or not. They were all submitted by individuals and not by organisations.

Black Bag: Moneymaker asserts that a substantial portion of the submitted samples were excluded "because there was a relatively small amount of material in the sample (i.e. only a few hairs in the sample ... like MOST authentic bigfoot hair samples)." Dr. Sykes, can you speak to the veracity of this and —- overall —- explain in more detail the rubric by which those 18 samples were excluded?

Sykes: Not so. Many samples consisted of only very few, sometimes a single, hair. I had a slight preference for samples with two or more hairs simply because if I had found any to be from an "anomalous primate" I would have had an independent lab test them before publishing the results. That turned out not be necessary. All told I was sent 95 hair samples of which I sent 37 (now 38) for analysis of which 30 (now 31) yielded DNA.

Check out what else Dr. Bryan Sykes has to say about funding bigfoot research and the three questions we should ask when pursuing Bigfoot in the Black Bag

Matt Moneymaker Calls Sykes' Bigfoot DNA Study "Meaningless"

Matt Moneymaker Called Sykes Bigfoot DNA Study, "Meaningless scientifically"

"because there was a relatively small amount of material in the sample (i.e. only a few hairs in the sample ... like MOST authentic bigfoot hair samples)." --Matt Money maker on why some submitted samples were not even anlyzed

Gawker.com was able to get an official response from Discovery News regarding the recent results of Dr. Bryan Sykes DNA study. Even better? They got a response from BFRO founder and Finding Bigfoot co-host Matt Moneymaker. In a few short words Matt Moneymaker claims the study "meaningless scientifically."

Read the full response why below:

The actual DNA analysis by Sykes' team was surely performed with the highest integrity and accuracy but the overall effort was already corrupted by that point. It was corrupted at the sample inclusion stage.

Note: The BFRO did not provide any of the North American samples, nor did we endorse those few samples from North America that were focused on in the associated TV program. None of the "bigfoot" samples that came from the US had a strong *credible* connection to a bigfoot sighting or some other credible corroborating evidence (i.e. footprints).

To be fair Dr. Bryan Sykes has not ruled out the possibility of a Yeti or Sasquatch being out there. He has said so in his response.

"While it is important to bear in mind that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence and this survey cannot refute the existence of anomalous primates, neither has it found any evidence in support. Rather than persisting in the view that they have been 'rejected by science', advocates in the cryptozoology community have more work to do in order to produce convincing evidence for anomalous primates and now have the means to do so."

Click the following link to read the entire Gawker article titled, "Bigfoot Field Research Organization Head Calls DNA Study 'Meaningless'"