Sykes believed that science hadn’t really given a fair shake investigating claims of ‘anomalous primates’ and suspected that they might actually be remnant neanderthals. Certainly, they wouldn’t be the first species believed to be extinct only to pop up in the modern age. Cryptozoologists were more than happy to help as well, like Loren Coleman, director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine. “The proper scientific point of view is not to dismiss any hypothesis out of hand but simply to subject it to testing,” is the thought of Norman MacLeod of The Natural History Museum in London, author of an accompanying commentary on the research. And we agree.
But unfortunately…
Of the more than 30 hair samples gathered for testing, none were unidentified. They were found to be from bears, horses, porcupines, cows, and members of the canine family. “I cannot say that the sasquatch or related animal does not exist,” says Sartori, “But at the moment I have no evidence of the existence of these creatures.”
The most interesting thing to come from the study was that one of the bear samples matched DNA from a polar bear bone found in 2004 which was dated as being 10,000 years old. Although the result is still preliminary and requires further testing, it certainly stirred up interest and speculation that perhaps the ‘yeti’ sightings are not in fact a new species of hominid but instead a new or very, very old unknown species mix of a polar and brown bear.
While the study didn’t yield the results desired, at least for cryptozoologists, I would imagine that they were glad just to know for sure what they had. While it may not have shown proof for the existence of a Sasquatch as previously speculated, perhaps we’ve gotten the first lead in this mystery as to what the source of the hundreds of sightings over the years actually were. Would you be terribly disappointed to find out Bigfoot was a unknown species of bear instead of a primate? From a cryptozoological point of view, it seems like a win either way.
Sharks. Great…white…sharks. Ever since watching Steven Spielberg’s monumental flick “Jaws” as a kid, swimming in the ocean has taken on a decidedly tense flavor for me. Alpha predators swimming out of sight, MADE of teeth (or at least, that’s how I see it), hunting around for a ME buffet. Nope, don’t like it. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, how does one deal with this new information:
The tracking device on a tagged nine foot long great white shark washed up on shore in Australia. Data on the device showed that the shark had a rapid temperature rise and then a sudden 580 degrees plunge. The working theory by researchers is that the shark was eaten by a MUCH bigger animal, which accounted for the temperature rise as it entered its digestive system. Then it presumably went back down to the considerably lower and darker depths which it lives, waiting for the next time I dip a toe in the ocean.
WHAT THE HECK EATS A 9 FOOT GREAT WHITE SHARK???
Barring Godzilla (which sadly, the researchers have done) their belief is that it was eaten by a “colossal, cannibal great white shark”. Does anyone else think that we might be dealing with a cryptid situation here? Perhaps the titanic prehistoric shark, the Megalodon, isn’t as extinct as we thought? These things grew to be 50 feet long (possibly even bigger) and are considered to be one of the largest and most powerful predators in vertebrate history.
….
I’m not even going to take a bath for six months after this, much less get in any large bodies of water.
You can check out “The Hunt for the Super Predator”, an upcoming Smithsonian Institute documentary on June 25th if you want to get even more freaked out.
Screen shot of the moment the supposed Skunk Ape stands upright.
Could this be the best video yet of the elusive Skunk Ape, the south’s version of Bigfoot? Here’s the description accompanying the video, which was uploaded by YouTube user Josh Highcliff on October 28, 2013:
Here is exactly what I seen, I’m not sure what it is but can someone please tell me? Is there a person who can do video analyses or something? I got scared and ran away, i wish i stayed to keep taking the movie.
Date: october 24 – 2013
Where: about 9 miles west of Tunica, Mississippi on my hunting property
Time: about 6pm
I was out hunting hogs, just sitting in a part of the swamp i have heard em before…it is not too far from a road. I was wearing hunting camo and just sitting dead still waiting for it to get dark, cause thats when the hogs come out. I hear a noise behind the tree i was sitting on, i thought it was the hogs, when i got around i could not believe my own two eyes.
There was this huge black thing crouched by a dead cypress about 50 yards away, i thought it was a hog but saw these big shoulders and a head upright with hands. It looked like it was digging out the stump. My first instinct was to run, i did not even think of shooting…then i know no one will believe me…it was like everything slowed down…i was scared! I took out my iphone and started videotaping it..i guess i pushed the record button twice cause it stopped blinking red.. but i pushed it again. I hear a truck driving down the road and the thing stood up!! I was trying to be dead quiet…when it stood up i could not control myself and ran. That stump was huge and i’d guess the sucker was 7feet tall, i am a hunter and am pretty darn good at guessing size.
that’s no bear!
I don’t know what to think.. if someone can tell me what it is or if somone was trying to prank me i, I don’t want to go back on my land. this is the first movie i have ever put on youtube..the video looks better on my phone and computer
I always heard stories of skunk ape and honey island swamp monster from these parts but never thought about it being real ever.
has anyone seen anything like this in mississippi?
David “Crusty” Herron snapped this photo of what he dubbed “Lost Nessie” from a distance of about 600 feet from shore.
Last Friday, the scene from Magnetic Island off the northern coast of Australia must have looked like something straight out of The Lost World. Beachgoers were treated to the sight of what appeared to be a long-necked sea going creature straight out of our prehistoric past.
The strange looking object moving in the water was extraordinary enough to get the attention of numerous eyewitnesses, many wondering just what it could be.
Plesiosaur? Sea serpent? Or could it be something more mundane and explainable, like a piece of driftwood or a sunken boat? You decide.
From The Australian:
The strange sea sighting has created quite a buzz on the island, with locals desperate to know: just what is lurking in the water?
One of them is marriage celebrant David “Crusty” Herron, who photographed it from a beach about 200 metres away.
“It was bobbing up and down in the water and at first I thought, what’s that?” Mr Herron told AAP.
“Someone yelled out ‘it looks like a Loch Ness monster’.
“I’ve never seen anything like it – it could be anything. We are all wanting to know what it is.”
James Cook University biology professor Glen Chilton says while new and old creatures are constantly being discovered, even near the Great Barrier Reef, it’s unlikely to be a strange aquatic beast.
“It’s probably a piece of a tree or piece of a boat which has somehow broken away,” he told AAP.
Australian cryptozoologist and self-proclaimed “yowie man” Rex Gilroy is keeping an open mind. “It’s hard to say from the photo,” he said.
Mr Gilroy, who has authored books on mythical creatures, says he’s aware of about 800 sightings of reptilian creatures with long necks and football shaped heads.
Some of those were from the Magnetic Island and Townsville area, he said.
The most recent was in October last year when a fisherman saw a creature with a large grey coloured body protruding from waters off Magnetic Island, he said.
When asked if it could have been the remains of a dragon boat that supposedly sunk there in the recent past, the man who photographed the creature, David Herron, refuted it and compared the beast to a plesiosaur. Here’s “Crusty” being interviewed by News 7:
Dr. Melba Ketchum’s announcement of Zoobank accepting her proposed name for the Bigfoot species.
Dr. Melba Ketchum announced today that Zoobank has officially granted the creatures popularly known as “Bigfoot” the latin name: Homo sapiens cognatus.
Former heavyweight boxing champion-turned-Bigfoot hunter Nikolai Valuev joins host Mark Evans as they investigate the Almasty.
For those of you who have not had the chance to watch the first episode of the excellent show Bigfoot Files, you can watch it in its entirety here:
The show is well-worth watching, and is an example of the type of programming cryptozoology needs more of. Bigfoot Files takes a scientific approach to the search for answers to the mystery of Bigfoot, following genetics professor Bryan Sykes in his analysis of DNA extracted from hair samples provided to the Oxford-Lausanne Collateral Hominid Project (OLCHP).
The first episode had some pretty amazing (in my opinion) results on some supposed Yeti hairs. And while the description for Bigfoot Files: Episode 2 sounds less than enthusiastic…
…Professor Sykes reveals the results of his DNA tests on the hair samples he’s collected. Will the results confirm the Bigfootologists’ stories or will it be bad news?
…Episode 3, the finale of the three-part series, sounds much more promising. From the British Channel 4 description for Episode 3 of Bigfoot Files:
The ‘Almasty’ is Russia’s very own Bigfoot. It has been written about for over 300 years, and Russia’s Almasty hunters claim there have been over 10,000 encounters over the years.
The big theory in Russia is that it’s a surviving hominid, possibly even a Neanderthal.
Mark Evans travels to Russia and investigates one of the highest profile Bigfoot stories in the world: the tale of Zana, the so-called Wildwoman: a living Almasty said to have been found in the remote Caucasus in the 1870s.
She was alleged to have had four children by her captors over the years. Almasty hunters have tracked down her descendants and Bryan Sykes uses cutting edge tests to analyse their DNA and test the Neanderthal theory about Zana.
Mark also meets a giant among Almasty hunters, seven foot tall former heavyweight boxing champion of the world Nikolai Valuev, who is now Duma Deputy (the equivalent of an MP) for Kemerovo in Siberia.
Mark joins him as he checks out the latest hot Almasty sighting and meets the three kids who claim to have captured one on camera near a frozen lake.
Finally, in Moscow, Professor Sykes reveals the results of his DNA tests on Zana’s relatives. The results are unequivocal, extraordinary and totally unexpected (emphasis mine).
I for one, am waiting with baited breath on Professor Bryan Sykes’ announcement of what he has found in the DNA of the relatives of Zana. If we look at the description, it sounds like 1.) his results will leave no doubt as to their veracity; 2.) we know that it is not something mundane, e.g. they’re not just normal humans; and 3.) it’s not what we would expect. I would expect the results to come back either purely homo sapiens OR neandertal-human hybrid. But could it be something other?
Will Zana’s relatives be something more than either human or neandertal?
And while I think a human-bear hybrid would be totally unexpected… I don’t think that’s the case here. 😉 I guess we will just have to wait.
Abominable Snowmen book and my mummified “Yeti” finger.
I was tipped off to this news several months ago (and again a few days ago) that Oxford University geneticist Dr. Bryan Sykes would be announcing some “unexpected results” concerning his DNA study of supposed Yeti hair samples. Well, now those results are being officially announced to the world, and I would think it’s safe to say they are not what anybody had expected, but no less amazing in my opinion.
For centuries, tales of the Yeti, an elusive but terrifying creature said to roam the inhospitable Himalayan Mountains, have enthralled curious minds.
Now, research by a leading UK geneticist may have unlocked the truth about the Yeti, or Abominable Snowman, after hair samples from two mystery animals proved to be a genetic match to an ancient polar bear.
The findings, to be explained in “Bigfoot Files,” a documentary series on Britain’s Channel 4 TV network, are the work of Bryan Sykes, a professor of human genetics at Oxford University.
He put out a worldwide call last year for people to submit hair or other tissue from “cryptids,” or previously undescribed species, and collected more than 30 samples for analysis.
Sykes’ research focused on two samples in particular, both from the Himalayas but found about 800 miles apart, one in the Ladakh region and the other in Bhutan.
To his surprise, testing found a 100% match with a polar bear jawbone from Svalbard, the northernmost part of Norway, that dates back between 40,000 and 120,000 years, according to a news release from Channel 4.
First of all, the sheer fact that, yes, the Yeti is indeed a real living “prehistoric” animal and not just the stuff of legends anymore, is enough to get excited about. So yes, I am elated to hear this news coming from an extremely reputable source like Dr. Sykes and Oxford University. If anything, it shows that there’s sometimes much more than just a grain of truth to sightings and descriptions of legendary cryptids, that they are not just some imaginary creation made up by the locals.
Second, this confirms my own suspicions about the possible identity of the Yeti, in that it may be something altogether different from Sasquatch. For years I had erroneously made the same assumption that most people do, that is, lumping the Yeti in with Bigfoot and Almas, in that I had always believed they were all some sort of related bipedal primate. That is, until I began collecting Bigfoot prints for the Museum of the Weird.
When I first received a cast made from the original Tom Slick Yeti print retrieved on one of his Nepal expeditions, I was stunned. Now I don’t proclaim to be a scientist nor am I an expert in animal tracks, but even to my layman’s eyes these did not look anything like the Bigfoot casts I had already amassed! In fact, when I first saw the Tom Slick cast, my first thought was, “this is fake.” It just didn’t look like what I thought a Yeti print should look like (which in my mind, would be like a Bigfoot print). Once I realized that, yes, what I had was indeed a copy of the actual Tom Slick Yeti print and not a phony, my second thought was, “this could be a bear.” It was an an eye-opening revelation.
Here for your consideration is a side-by-side comparison of the Tom Slick Yeti print and a Bigfoot print (one of the “Grays Harbor” casts), both on display in the Museum of the Weird.
The Bigfoot print is nearly twice the length of the Yeti print, and the Yeti print has only four visible toes.
Look at the difference in size and shape, and let us know what your thoughts are.
This morning a group of Sasquatch researchers have announced their findings after a five year study into the phenomenon of Bigfoot.
New photos and videos filled with never before seen images were released Tuesday by a group known as the Sasquatch Genome Project. They were in Dallas Tuesday to unveil its findings.
Dr. Melba Ketchum, a genetics scientist led the project. “We want people to understand this is a serious study,” said Ketchum.
The five-year study costs more than $500,000. It was funded by businessman Adrian Erickson.
Erikson says he has had numerous encounters with Sasquatch creatures–and says he has the images and science to back their existence. But he says he also understands the stigma and disbelief that comes with BigFoot.
“People have chosen not to believe it. They can’t find it in their minds to think these things exist.”
So the group of researchers and scientists set out to track what they call the furry people.
The group says it followed a mother and daughter in Kentucky collecting thermal imagery, daytime and nighttime video, along with, photos of massive hand and footprints.
The group says there are thousands of these creatures in the United States including right here in North Texas.
But the strongest evidence the group says its has is DNA evidence. They say it is like nothing that has been seen before in mammals or humans.
As you can read in our previous post, Frank Hansen, the man who originally exhibited the Minnesota Iceman in the 1960s and 70s, revealed in a 1970 article in Saga Magazine that he himself was the one who shot the creature while hunting in the deep woods of Minnesota.
Keep that in mind as you read this next story (click on the link below), which details some interviews with Frank Hansen in his final years. If the following account is true, why would Hansen in his later years go back to his original story about the mysterious California millionaire who supposedly was the real owner of the “Creature in Ice?”
This is a must-read for anyone who wants to hear Frank’s final words on the Minnesota Iceman. It is truly fascinating, but ultimately raises more questions than it answers…
CORRECTION: In response to all the news reports that I had purchased the Minnesota Iceman from the family of Frank Hansen, that is absolutely not true. I purchased it from another man, who purchased it from Hansen’s family shortly after Frank passed away 10 years ago. I apologize to the Hansen family for any undue attention this brings their way.
