In answer to those who’ve asked, “Have you heard about the Bigfoot DNA story?”  Yes.  Yes. A thousand times, yes!  My take on it is there’s really nothing new to report other than it’s the first time Dr. Ketchum has publicly stated the findings of her teams study.

Her claim is basically this.  Bigfoot is a species of hominid that came about as a result of hybrid speciation.  What does that mean?  It means some unknown hominid (unknown to the current DNA database) and modern humans got it on about 15,000 years ago in Eastern Europe.  Her team not only reportedly sequenced the mitochondrial DNA of various samples.  They sequenced the nuclear DNA of three samples contributed by three different researchers.  The latter is what is most intriguing to those in the scientific community.  Nuclear DNA testing is far more complicated and harder to dispute.

She is calling her findings novel and unexpected.  The mainstream scientific community is calling her findings unconventional and unlikely.  Now, mind you all this talk stems from a press release by Dr. Ketchum about the findings.  None of it addresses the actual paper because the paper is as yet unpublished.  Dr. Ketchum has stated that it will be published in a matter of weeks.  Again, this is the first time she’s given even a vague timeline, so you have to think she’s gotten confirmation from the journal that it will be released and they’ve lifted any kind of embargo so she could finally address rumors.

Some points to ponder

• Dr. Ketchum has vehemently denied she ever used the term “angel DNA” to describe the unknown hominid found in the full sequencing of the Nuclear DNA.  Even if she did, I’m not particularly bothered by it because the scientific community uses theological terms to describe scientific findings and studies all the time.  Just ask physicists if they really believe they expect to find traces of God in the “God Particle.”
• Mainstream scientists aren’t hoping Dr. Ketchum is wrong.  They would love nothing more than for her to be right.  In fact, I’m betting many of them are secretly excited about the possibility of Bigfoot being real.  That they are expressing doubt and skepticism shouldn’t be viewed as them dismissing her findings.  They are all anxious to get their hands on the paper.
• Dr. Ketchum used a dozen or so independent labs to verify her findings.  The chances that they all got the same results are highly improbable unless they all got the only results that could be found.  In other words, they didn’t all find the same “novel” DNA unless there actually was “novel” DNA.  I think that Dr. Ketchum’s five year study used contaminated samples is unlikely. She’s described the precautions her team took to ensure that no contamination took place.  They took DNA samples from every member of the team and field researchers and tested for contamination.  However, only time will tell if indeed the samples were actually contaminated.
• Matt Moneymaker is clearly upset by the findings and has been speed-tweeting his dismay.  One must remember that Dr. Ketchum lured Moneymaker’s sugar daddy away from his organization in order to fund the DNA project.  Therefore, we have to take Moneymaker’s claims with a grain of salt.  I’m not saying he’s a dishonest guy.  I simply saying his judgment may be impaired.
• Hybrid speciation in the animal kingdom does take place in nature a lot.  Polar bears and grizzly bears have produced offspring in the wild.  It’s widely known that different species of primates have and do create offspring frequently.  Some claim that chimps and gorillas have crossbred in Africa which results in a creature called the Koolakamba. And those who think it’s too farfetched to believe modern humans bred with “sub-human” hominids are clearly not familiar with the concept of bestiality.  Humans are freaks!
• There apparently is substantial physical evidence that was used in this study.  More than a few sources are saying that included in Dr. Ketchum’s study is a sample taken from a 2.5 lbs piece of flesh collected in the Sierra Mountains in 2010.  Two and half pounds of flesh is a hell of a lot of flesh, and I’ve been told samples of it are included in Dr. Syke’s Oxford-Lausanne Collateral Hominid Project, as well.  In addition, samples from the flesh were submitted to labs outside of both of these studies.  And for what it’s worth, those independent labs have been baffled by their findings.  Beyond that I don’t know what their findings were.

In the end, none of this is more than speculation until Dr. Ketchum’s team’s study is released, and other scientists have had an opportunity to do their own tests to either verify or eviscerate her findings.  I will say this.  If Dr. Ketchum is proven to be wrong, either because she’s incompetent or deceitful, her career is over.