August 13, 2008

Big claim about bigfoot: bogus or bona fide?

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This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American

Here’s a story that’s leaving a pretty big footprint on the Web: Two people claim to have bagged bigfoot in northern Georgia (the U.S. state, not the at-war Central Asian country).

The pair that claims to have found the mythical ape-human say in a press release (with photos) that the male creature is seven feet, seven inches tall (2.3 meters), weighs more than 500 pounds (227 kilograms), and has reddish hair and black-grey eyes. As for those legendary feet? Flat, and sporting a 16 and three-quarters inch- (41 centimeter-) long footprint.

The bigfoot hunters and a company called Searching for Bigfoot Inc. have scheduled a press conference at 12 p.m. PST this Friday in Palo Alto, Calif. to present their evidence. To further mollify the credulous, DNA tests on the suspected Sasquatch are also underway.

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They apparently won’t cough up the body at this conference though, which is probably making Scientific American columnist Michael Shermer roll his eyes. His mantra is “show me the body.” We’ve also profiled prominent Bigfoot researcher Jeffrey Meldrum.

Maybe the bigfoot folks can have the “Montauk monster” and the chupacabra at their press conference too. We’ll believe them all when we see them.

Image Credit: iStockphoto

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