Bigfoot and other Pongidae Skeletons

You can click the picture above to see larger version.

New Illustration for you Bigfoot Lunch Clubbers. As most primatoligist and anthropologist know, we humans share a classification called Homindae which includes Pongidae (the three/four other great apes; Gorillas, Orangutans, and Chimps/Bonabos).

Well, obviously BF would fit into that class as well. Above are the skeletons of the homidae/pongidae family, notice different porportions such as a a gorillas wider torso, orangutans longer slimmer build, and the chimps thicker, stockier leg bones. The BF skeleton is a blend of a Gigantopithecus reference and the Patterson film.

RELATED LINKS
Homidae Taxonomy at Wiki
Gigantopithecus at Wiki
Patterson/Gimlin at Wiki

Microsoft Hires Bigfoot and Yeti as Internet Security Consultants

“Internet Explorer 8 managed to recruit the world’s biggest experts in security and privacy: Yeti, Nessie, and Bigfoot. As part of the development team, they optimized the world’s most important browser with powerful security features that protect your privacy online,” Microsoft revealed.

The timing of these videos is odd, due to the fact Internet Explorer 8 was released in March 2009. Either way, enjoy your favorite cryptids on Microsofts payroll.

St Nick + Yeti = Santa

Okay, we have been accused of comparing Bigfoot to the European Wildman, The Jolly Green Giant, Enkidu from the Epic of Gilgamesh, even the werewolf. But Santa Clause? Come on BLC you go too far! Well, I can assure you, "Oh no we did-ent!"

The blame/honor/responsibility goes to Jeffrey Vallance of LA Weekly. In an article aptly titled "SANTA IS A WILDMAN!" he writes a riveting tale in the exploration of Santa's Origins. From the Bishop-become-Saint Nicholas to The Snämannen(snowman) a dark, Scandinavian ape-like creature covered in thick, dirty, stinky hair — more like the abominable snowman.

So you see we can hardly be blamed for making such an association when Mr. Vallance did it so eloquently himself.

Heres an excerpt about St. Nicholas:

ACCORDING TO ECCLESIASTICAL LEGENDS, St. Nicholas (A.D. 280-343) was born in Patara, Lycia (Turkey today). Nicholas became Bishop of Myra and was known for performing many miracles. One story tells how Nicholas preserved the chastity of three young girls. The saint discovered that a poverty-stricken man was about to sell his three virgin daughters into child prostitution. In the night, Nicholas threw three orbs of gold down the man's chimney, thus saving the girls from their unspeakable plight. From this source we now have Santa going down the chimney as well as the gleaming, orb-like Christmas-tree ornament.

In A.D. 540, an ornate basilica was constructed over St. Nicholas' humble tomb in Myra. In A.D. 800, the saint's legend was brought to Scandinavia by the Vikings, where it merged with much older pagan myths of trolls and elves.

And here is the Yeti-like Creature of Scandinavia:

A TYPE OF WILDMAN, THE SNÄMANNEN (snowman) purportedly inhabits northern Scandinavia in Lapland, including the Arctic regions of Norway, Sweden and Finland as well as Russian Lapland (the Kola Peninsula) and Siberia. The Lapp Snowman is not to be confused with the Christmas character Frosty the Snowman, a huge snowball with coal (soot) for eyes and mouth, a carrot for a nose, holding a broom like a chimney sweep. The Snämannen is described as a dark, ape-like creature covered in thick, dirty, stinky hair — more like the abominable snowman. His face is broad with prominent brow ridges, nose pressed flat, and a mouth that juts out from a huge jaw. His arms are larger than a man's, and his feet are enormous, with hairless soles. In mountainous regions, the Snämannen's coat turns silver or snow-white in winter. Snämannen's favorite food is cranberries.

Like the miraculous relationship between Peanut butter and Chocolate, those Scandinavians also saw the awesome value of combining two great things made even better by combining them:

When I first arrived in the Land of Hoarfrost, I was puzzled by the enigmatic heraldic symbol of Lapland, the wildman — a hairy, reddish, bestial character dressed in leaves, wielding a gnarled club. To me he looked like a typical prehistoric caveman or the Jolly Green Giant. I collected vague reports of an actual Swedish wildman (Snömannen), a yeti-like creature believed to inhabit the remote areas of the forest. One day when wandering through the wilds of Lapland, I beheld an astonishing thing: a colossal statue of the wildman painted bright red with a snowy white beard. From a distance it looked like Santa Claus. As I stood at the base, staring up at the Herculean statue, it hit me like a hunk of red-hot ejecta from Mount Hekla: Santa Claus, the wildman and Snömannen must spring from the same ancient source. I determined to find the connections between these enigmatic characters.

Still not conviced? Jeffrey Valance even produced a lovely Santa Family Tree. Click to enlarge.


I insist you read the original LA Weekly Article here
And you can read Mr. Vallance's other articles here

Mr. Jefferey Vallance Bigfoot Lunch Club Salutes you!

Abominible Snowman (Yeti) on MonsterQuest

The History Channel is doubling down on Bigfoot in the snow. For those not in the know MonsterQuest is a series on the History Channel Self described as:

MonsterQuest uses the latest high-tech equipment to take a scientific look at legendary creatures around the world, creatures eyewitnesses claim to see to this day. Each episode will examine all the evidence available, from pictures and video to hair and bones, as well as the eyewitness accounts themselves. Believers, skeptics and scientists will weigh in, but what will the evidence reveal?

This Sunday they will be broadcasting two episodes back to back. Below is an update from their Full Schedule

MonsterQuest : Abominable Snowman
Airs on Sunday October 25 09:00 PM
The Abominable Snowman is among the most frightening and notorious monsters in history. This ferocious nocturnal creature is said to attack people and slaughter their animals. Witnesses report sightings of a strange, hair-covered beast and claim to have heard blood-curdling screams. Evidence amassed over the last century may point to a startling conclusion: that something real and unknown stalks the desolate mountains of the Far East. Scientists and experts will examine the clues while the MonsterQuest team will undertake their most dangerous expedition to date with an epic ascent onto the snowy peaks where recent evidence of the beast was found.

MonsterQuest : Snowbeast Slaughter
Airs on Sunday October 25 11:00 PM
High in the rugged wilderness of Colorado's Rocky Mountains a large hairy creature is said to be preying on the elk and frightening residents. The stories date back centuries with the earliest settlers describing terrifying encounters with a large beast whose scream bellows across the hills. Even today ranchers and hikers report a monster they can't explain that may be attacking their horses. MonsterQuest will sift through the evidence and determine what may be killing the elk. The aerial search ascends to 11,000 ft in search of fresh evidence that could lead to the creature; as the ground team scales the side of Pikes Peak to hunt for the legendary Snowbeast.


View AKA Bigfoot World Map in a larger map

Those Who Live in Glass Houses

Any Bf Researcher worth their night vision goggles knows Bigfoot loves to throw stones.

MonsterQuest Sasquatch Attack I and Sasquatch II programs show the involvement of stone-throwing Bigfoot as major components of those documentary treatments.

Loren Coleman Posts on Cryptomundo

The best evidence for understanding BF behavior is through the study of the five great apes that we do have access to; Gorillas, Orangutans, Chimps, Bonobos and Humans.

Many of our old BF assumptions are based on our old primate assumptions. As the primate assumptions get upset we need to also reevaluate our BF assumptions. Who is our primate paradigm provocateur? Satino the Chimp.

Satino, a canny chimpanzee who calmly collected a stash of rocks and then hurled them at zoo visitors in fits of rage has confirmed that apes can plan ahead just like humans, a Swedish study said Monday. Santino's behavior fascinated researchers because it was so carefully prepared. According to a report in the journal Current Biology, the 31-year-old alpha male started building his weapons cache in the morning before the zoo opened, collecting rocks and knocking out disks from concrete boulders inside his enclosure. He waited until around midday before he unleashed a "hailstorm" of rocks against visitors, the study said.

Study: Belligerent chimp proves animals make plans

By MALIN RISING – Mar 9, 2009

STOCKHOLM (AP) — A canny chimpanzee who calmly collected a stash of rocks and then hurled them at zoo visitors in fits of rage has confirmed that apes can plan ahead just like humans, a Swedish study said Monday.

Santino the chimpanzee's anti-social behavior stunned both visitors and keepers at the Furuvik Zoo but fascinated researchers because it was so carefully prepared.

According to a report in the journal Current Biology, the 31-year-old alpha male started building his weapons cache in the morning before the zoo opened, collecting rocks and knocking out disks from concrete boulders inside his enclosure. He waited until around midday before he unleashed a "hailstorm" of rocks against visitors, the study said.

"These observations convincingly show that our fellow apes do consider the future in a very complex way," said the author of the report, Lund University Ph.D. student Mathias Osvath. "It implies that they have a highly developed consciousness, including lifelike mental simulations of potential events."

Osvath's findings were based on his own observations of Santino and interviews with three senior caretakers who had followed the chimpanzee's behavior for 10 years at the zoo in Furuvik, about 93 miles (150 kilometers) north of Stockholm.

Seemingly at ease with his position as leader of the group, Santino didn't attack the other chimpanzees, Osvath told The Associated Press. The attacks were only directed at humans viewing the apes across the moat surrounding the island compound where they were held.

However, he rarely hit visitors because of his poor aim, and no one was seriously injured in the cases when he did, Osvath said.

The observations confirmed the result of a staged laboratory experiment reported in 2006 by scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. In that case orangutans and bonobos were able to figure out which tool would work in an effort to retrieve grapes, and were able to remember to bring that tool along hours later.

"Every time you can combine experimental and observational data and you get a consistent result, that is very powerful," said an author of the 2006 study, Joseph Call. "This is an important observation."

He noted that individual differences are big among chimpanzees so the observation might not mean all chimpanzees are capable of the same planning.

"It could be that he is a genius, only more research will tell. On the other hand our research showed the same in orangutans and bonobos so he is not alone," Call said.

Osvath said the chimpanzee had also been observed tapping on concrete boulders in the park to identify weak parts and then knocking out a piece. If it was too big for throwing, he broke it into smaller pieces, before adding them to his arsenal.

"It is very special that he first realizes that he can make these and then plans on how to use them," Osvath said. "This is more complex than what has been showed before."

The fact that the ape stayed calm while preparing his weapons but used them when he was extremely agitated proves that the planning behavior was not based on an immediate emotional drive, Osvath said.

For a while, zoo keepers tried locking Santino up in the morning so he couldn't collect ammunition for his assaults, but he remained aggressive. They ultimately decided to castrate him in the autumn last year, but will have to wait until the summer to see if that helps. The chimpanzees are only kept outdoors between April and October and Santino's special behavior usually occurs in June and July.

"It is normal behavior for alpha males to want to influence their surroundings ... It is extremely frustrating for him that there are people out of his reach who are pointing at him and laughing," Osvath said. "It cannot be good to be so furious all the time."

In the U.S. state of Connecticut last month, a 200 pound (90 kilogram) pet chimpanzee once seen in TV commercials mauled a woman trying to help its owner lure it inside and cornered a police officer in his cruiser before he shot and killed it, authorities said

The owner has speculated that the chimp was trying to protect her and attacked the woman because she had changed her hairstyle, was driving a different car and was holding a stuffed toy in front of her face to get the chimp's attention.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Merry Xmas Epic!

Man! The book to the left is indeed my favorite present this year. Which brings me to one of the things I forgot to mention in the previous post. This past year we had the honor of having the Loren Coleman leave a comment on our site...

Mr.Coleman's comment is reprinted below.

Welcome to the wonderful, crazy world of blogging.

At Cryptomundo, we deal in an extremely high volume of new reports and postings, so to say you *scooped* us is fine with us. We need not mention the scores of stories we paid attention to while you highlighted Cameron Gainer's newest appearance.

But let me mention that, yes, Cryptomundo's first posting about Cameron Gainer's art was on September 14, 2006, with a followup on October 22, 2006, and an added update on October 20, 2007.

I guess I could post on Cryptomundo, in response to this posting that we scooped you on posts about Gainer's art by almost 17 months, but I won't. LOL.

Keep up the good work.

Well thank you again sir I hope we still do you proud. Please folks if you get a chance please donate to the International Cryptozoology Museum as we have asked you to do in the past.

Oh and if you do not know who Loren Coleman is you can visit is fabulous sight Cryptomundo or check out his Bio at Wikipedia

As always Mr.Coleman any progress made in crytozoology is only due to our ability to stand on the shoulders of your achievments. BfRLC salutes you!

Yeti on SETI Radio

Seti has a podcast titled Skeptical Sunday. The weekly hour-long radio program features top scientists talking about the latest in genetics, paleontology, technology, physics, and evolutionary biology - as well as cosmology and astronomy. Find out how to extract DNA from a banana, what size wrench you need to build a time machine, and whether dark energy can be bottled (yes).

If you're a doubting Thomas, you'll have plenty of company when we separate science from pseudoscience on "Skeptical Sunday" each month. Hear from people who investigate alien abduction, psychics, ghosts, or the Shroud of Turin, and find out how they sort out the facts from the phony. It's the world of skepticism. But don't take our word for it...

The topic of this last week's podcast was The Bigfoot press conference

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)

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