Sightings Section

[hiflier]

16 minutes ago, norseman said:

 

Has any official government body come out and added validation to this monumental discovery? No. Even people like Meldrum supported Sykes over Ketchum and distances themselves from the whole affair. That’s how BAD it is!

 

 

 

No, of course not, Did you expect one to validate it? And for the record? FOR THE RECORD! I do not trust Dr. Meldrum. What finally solidified my mistrust was his handling of the nesting site samples. Sat on them- Edna samples!- for a year and a half!! WHY? Because he couldn't come up with $5000 to run what could have been the most important set of samples we have ever gotten. In fact NO ONE thought it was important enough to run those samples without getting paid first!! I am sorry but that has NEVER sat well with me. Plus all of the other normal animals did show up including Human but the samples were too "degraded" according to Dr. Todd Disotell. Now I don't know about you or anyone else but I have watched a continuous patter of mishandling and accusations of contamination on EVERYTHING that has ever come in as far as the DNA side of things go. Something is rotten in Denmark when one thinks about the powerful capabilities that the DNA sampling field offers and what it is able to show. Something is seriously wrong on the Bigfoot front and I'm tired of being the only one who brings it up.

Edited June 5, 2019 by hiflier

[norseman]

1 minute ago, hiflier said:

 

No, of course not, Did you expect one to validate it? And for the record. And I mean FOR THE RECORD! I do not trust Dr. Meldrum. What sealed the deal for me was his handling of the nesting site samples. Sat on them- Edna samples!- for a year and a half!! WHY? Because he couldn't come up with $5000 to run what could have been the most important set of samples we have ever gotten. In fact NO ONE thought it was important enough to run those samples without getting paid first!! I am sorry but that has NEVER sat well with me. Plus all of the other normal animals did show up including Human but the samples were too "degraded" according to Dr. Todd Disotell. Now I don't know about you or anyone else but I have watched a continuous patter of mishandling and accusations of contamination on EVERYTHING that has ever come in as far as the DNA side of things go. Something is rotten in Denmark when one thinks about the powerful capabilities that the DNA sampling field offers and what it is able to show. Something is seriously wrong on the Bigfoot front and I'm tired of being the only one who brings it up.

 

Just because you believe that the government is covering something up? Don’t make Melba Ketchum right! She is a hatchet to the side of the Bigfoot communities head. How long did we wait for her stupid report with bated breath? Ridiculous...

 

As far as Meldrum? I don’t have 5000 dollars to spend on DNA samples either. I also do not have 8000 dollars to spend on a FLIR rifle scope. Which in my mind would get results much quicker....

[hiflier]

Yes, OK, you're right, I'm wrong or I'm right and you're wrong. One thing I do appreciate is that we agree that we disagree and keep working to solve the mystery. I think there re people trying to stop discovery and anyone raising their hand on all fronts. You probably don't. We both have our reasons but in the end it's just going to take smart perseverance to get to the bottom of things never mind what water has already gone under the bridge. I think that's something we can both agree on.

[norseman]

9 minutes ago, hiflier said:

Yes, OK, you're right, I'm wrong or I'm right and you're wrong. One thing I do appreciate is that we agree that we disagree and keep working to solve the mystery. I think there re people trying to stop discovery and anyone raising their hand on all fronts. You probably don't. We both have our reasons but in the end it's just going to take smart perseverance to get to the bottom of things never mind what water has already gone under the bridge. I think that's something we can both agree on.

 

I have lived through the Hound hunting bans in Washington state as well as Wolf reintroduction. Without a doubt politics is involved and biologists will push an agenda. Absolutely! No doubt in my mind. Something as volatile as Sasquatch? It wouldn’t surprise me at all. They are sneaky. And they will deny, deny, deny right to the face of a angry mob. 

 

 

[hiflier]

Bottom line, what would be the point for that kind of action. I mean the real nuts and bolts of keeping people at arms length? Just control? Just money? Both? I know you may not agree with me on this but I have to say it just to get it out of my own head so I'll apologize ahead of time. If "government" would hold the line on the information of "normal" animals as you say, even with regard to wolves, the to what extent would you think "they" would go to in order bury anything in the DNA record in various "studies". Specifically Ketchum. Even though she didn't do herself any favors how much media and scientific pushback would "they" generate in order to destroy the study and anyone involved with it.

 

I say this because Wall Hersom specifically funded the Sasquatch Genome Project as well as the Olympic Project during the nest  discovery and yet didn't fund the $5000 e-DNA study. That has been a sticking point with me in this entire picture. Half a million for the SGP and who knows how much to back the OP nest find and yet he seems to have fallen off the Earth with the e-DNA samples. You want the truth? I don't think he's fallen off the Earth and I don't think the full e-DNA story from the nesting site is in. I think they're still working on it and the "announcements" made by Meldrum and Disotell are a smoke screen.

 

I'm saying this because as much as I've bad-mouthed Meldrum and Disotell it's still difficult for me to think they have been "turned" and Wally Hersom has disappeared from the scene. Either something really big is up or we have lost all professional avenues for discovery. We have had at least three geneticists in the last seven years fail and go away. We have researchers who have gone to the mystical side of Bigfoot.  The big picture has a kind of pall over it in which things get stopped, people get slammed, studies dry up, science doesn't get involved, and word of any progress disappears altogether amid the ridicule, while "belief in myth, legend, and supernatural Bigfoot tries to take center stage. There is definitely some wrong with this picture. The current state of Sasquatch "affairs" is in deep trouble.

Edited June 5, 2019 by hiflier

[norseman]

4 minutes ago, hiflier said:

Bottom line, what would be the point for that kind of action. I mean the real nuts and bolts of keeping people at arms length? Just control? Just money? Both? I know you may not agree with me on this but I have to say it just to get it out of my own head so I'll apologize ahead of time. If "government" would hold the line on the information of "normal" animals as you say, even with regard to wolves, the to what extent would you think "they" would go to in order bury anything in the DNA record in various "studies". Specifically Ketchum. Even though she didn't do herself any favors how much media and scientific pushback would "they" generate in order to destroy the study and anyone involved with it.

 

I say this because Wall Hersom specifically funded the Sasquatch Genome Project as well as the Olympic Project during the nest  discovery and yet didn't fund the $5000 e-DNA study. That has been a sticking point with me in this entire picture. Half a million for the SGP and who knows how much to back the OP nest find and yet he seems to have fallen off the Earth with the e-DNA samples. You want the truth? I don't think he's fallen off the Earth and I don't think the full e-DNA story from the nesting site is in. I think they're still working on it and the "announcements" made by Meldrum and Disotell are a smoke screen.

 

I'm saying this because as much as I've bad-mouthed Meldrum and Disotell it's still difficult for me to think they have been "turned" and Wally Hersom has disappeared from the scene. Either something really big is up or we have lost all professional avenues for discovery. We have had at least three geneticists in the last seven years fail and go away. We have researchers who have gone to the mystical side of Bigfoot.  The big picture has a kind of pall over it in which things get stopped, people get slammed, studies dry up, science doesn't get involved, and word of any progress disappears altogether amid the ridicule, while "belief in myth, legend, and supernatural Bigfoot tries to take center stage. There is definitely some wrong with this picture. The current state of Sasquatch "affairs" is in deep trouble.

 

Until the next big thing. It’s been like this for years. It’s why I’m a pro kill advocate. If it’s out there? Then let’s get this done and over with. 

[hiflier]

The "next big thing" will fail too, and go down in flames amidst anger, ridicule, character assassination, contaminated samples, degraded sample ad nauseam. The "machine" will see to it until there isn't one creature left to even get a DNA sample from. There is a pattern to forced extinction if anyone cares to look into such things. Our history tells it best.

[9-dot]

I am hoping for better discussion than an essay by S. Hill, who mainly addressed pre-publication press release of information (yes the Ketchum study was published; it was peer reviewed; the peer reviews were leaked at the time but have since been made public) with much conjecture, ad hominem  attacks, and most significantly, not addressing much in the way of data or conclusions based on data.  The Hill essay perfectly exemplifies my aversion to the reliance of biased discussion void of fact.
What is her evidence that the three samples leading to Ketchum's conclusions (really the gist of the study) were not collected and examined with rigorous procedure?  Conjecture.  Most opponents (e.g. Disotell) point to the mitochondrial DNA testing as Homo sapiens as being due to contamination, but of course if Sasquatch exhibits H. sapiens mtDNA then that is a classic Catch-22 for which there will never be an argument (the same argument is raised in rape and murder legal cases involving people, but people are still convicted with DNA - and rightly so).  To my knowledge (someone please correct me if I am wrong) Disotell has never tested nDNA purported to be Sasquatch (or perhaps any other organism) - to my knowledge Sykes either.  Actually the Q30 analyses argue definitively for lack of contamination, as do the results of the testing of nDNA.
I think the DNA sequence from these three pertinent DNA samples should have been saved in kind of a "provisional Genbank" against which other existing samples and future samples could be compared.  At some point (after 10 successful comparisons, 100 successful comparisons, 1000 successful comparisons?) anthropologists and primate scientists would have to start taking notice, and some would get involved.

[norseman]

2 minutes ago, 9-dot said:

I am hoping for better discussion than an essay by S. Hill, who mainly addressed pre-publication press release of information (yes the Ketchum study was published; it was peer reviewed; the peer reviews were leaked at the time but have since been made public) with much conjecture, ad hominem  attacks, and most significantly, not addressing much in the way of data or conclusions based on data.  The Hill essay perfectly exemplifies my aversion to the reliance of biased discussion void of fact.
What is her evidence that the three samples leading to Ketchum's conclusions (really the gist of the study) were not collected and examined with rigorous procedure?  Conjecture.  Most opponents (e.g. Disotell) point to the mitochondrial DNA testing as Homo sapiens as being due to contamination, but of course if Sasquatch exhibits H. sapiens mtDNA then that is a classic Catch-22 for which there will never be an argument (the same argument is raised in rape and murder legal cases involving people, but people are still convicted with DNA - and rightly so).  To my knowledge (someone please correct me if I am wrong) Disotell has never tested nDNA purported to be Sasquatch (or perhaps any other organism) - to my knowledge Sykes either.  Actually the Q30 analyses argue definitively for lack of contamination, as do the results of the testing of nDNA.
I think the DNA sequence from these three pertinent DNA samples should have been saved in kind of a "provisional Genbank" against which other existing samples and future samples could be compared.  At some point (after 10 successful comparisons, 100 successful comparisons, 1000 successful comparisons?) anthropologists and primate scientists would have to start taking notice, and some would get involved.

 

Where was it published? Who peer reviewed it? All Ketchum patsies and her own website to boot.

 

Where is the species that supposedly bred with a European 13000 years ago in North America to produce Matilda the Chewbacca masked hybrid sample giver?

 

I was hoping that no one gave any credibility to this gooblegok nonsense either....but here we are. Utter pathetic nonsense.

 

Here is what our very own Bill Munns had to say about Matilda....

 

http://bigfootevidence.blogspot.com/2013/02/bill-munns-is-this-matilda.html

 

The source the "creature" images never referred to it as "Matilda", but the descriptions I have read about "Matilda" seem to fit what is seen here. To me, it is obvious tihs "creature" is simply a Chewbacca mask with the hair reworked to be a different color and texture. I welcome comments from anyone who thinks otherwise.

 

 

 

Using common sense? Does Chewbacca look half human to you?

[hiflier]

To a novice the Chewbacca fiasco would pretty convincing. TO A NOVICE. Ketchum admitted knowing little or nothing about the field of Bigfoot or the key players. IMHO she was more a victim of ignorance than a perpetrator of deception. In truth it's actually BETTER to have someone unfamiliar with the subject than someone who is a strong long time player in the game. Less chance for malfeasance although a better chance for being duped by the more experienced Sasquatch movers and shakers.

Edited June 5, 2019 by hiflier

[norseman]

14 minutes ago, hiflier said:

To a novice the Chewbacca fiasco would pretty convincing. TO A NOVICE. Ketchum admitted knowing little or nothing about the field of Bigfoot or the key players. IMHO she was more a victim of ignorance than a perpetrator of deception. In truth it's actually BETTER to have someone unfamiliar with the subject than someone who is a strong long time player in the game. Less chance for malfeasance although a better chance for being duped by the more experienced Sasquatch movers and shakers.

 

She played the Bigfoot community like a banjo.... Victim!? Ha!

[NathanFooter]

12 hours ago, hiflier said:

Bottom line, what would be the point for that kind of action. I mean the real nuts and bolts of keeping people at arms length? Just control? Just money? Both? I know you may not agree with me on this but I have to say it just to get it out of my own head so I'll apologize ahead of time. If "government" would hold the line on the information of "normal" animals as you say, even with regard to wolves, the to what extent would you think "they" would go to in order bury anything in the DNA record in various "studies". Specifically Ketchum. Even though she didn't do herself any favors how much media and scientific pushback would "they" generate in order to destroy the study and anyone involved with it.

 

I say this because Wall Hersom specifically funded the Sasquatch Genome Project as well as the Olympic Project during the nest  discovery and yet didn't fund the $5000 e-DNA study. That has been a sticking point with me in this entire picture. Half a million for the SGP and who knows how much to back the OP nest find and yet he seems to have fallen off the Earth with the e-DNA samples. You want the truth? I don't think he's fallen off the Earth and I don't think the full e-DNA story from the nesting site is in. I think they're still working on it and the "announcements" made by Meldrum and Disotell are a smoke screen.

 

I'm saying this because as much as I've bad-mouthed Meldrum and Disotell it's still difficult for me to think they have been "turned" and Wally Hersom has disappeared from the scene. Either something really big is up or we have lost all professional avenues for discovery. We have had at least three geneticists in the last seven years fail and go away. We have researchers who have gone to the mystical side of Bigfoot.  The big picture has a kind of pall over it in which things get stopped, people get slammed, studies dry up, science doesn't get involved, and word of any progress disappears altogether amid the ridicule, while "belief in myth, legend, and supernatural Bigfoot tries to take center stage. There is definitely some wrong with this picture. The current state of Sasquatch "affairs" is in deep trouble.

 

 I work with both the BFRO and the Olympic Project and bottom line is the investment Wally has made did not go very far and in some cases was misused ( he contributed to many projects and individuals ).   He has since stepped back from the subject ( at least on the investment level as there has been no fruit for the labor ) and is currently occupied with more important matters.  

 

 The nest site information is still under review,  new samples (not fresh just newly collected ) have been collected from the location and are currently being examined.  That is all I can say at this point.

 

 The bigfoot subject has always been wishy-washy,  it swallows loads of time and money and does not produce much.  These days money does not get dumped into research efforts and instead gets wrapped up in the frauds and poorly crafted plans that fall apart before they even take flight.   I would know, I have been caught in the middle of it myself. 

 

 What really needs to happen is for money to be put down on the people willing to be out there and have boots on the ground following proven methodology.   That has not happened yet ( the tom slick expeditions had no mold or defined field practices ).

[9-dot]

11 hours ago, norseman said:

 

Where was it published? Who peer reviewed it? All Ketchum patsies and her own website to boot.

 

Where is the species that supposedly bred with a European 13000 years ago in North America to produce Matilda the Chewbacca masked hybrid sample giver?

 

I was hoping that no one gave any credibility to this gooblegok nonsense either....but here we are. Utter pathetic nonsense.

 

Here is what our very own Bill Munns had to say about Matilda....

 

http://bigfootevidence.blogspot.com/2013/02/bill-munns-is-this-matilda.html

 

The source the "creature" images never referred to it as "Matilda", but the descriptions I have read about "Matilda" seem to fit what is seen here. To me, it is obvious tihs "creature" is simply a Chewbacca mask with the hair reworked to be a different color and texture. I welcome comments from anyone who thinks otherwise.

 

 

 

Using common sense? Does Chewbacca look half human to you?

There seems to be a fair bit of emotion in your response and questions?  I will try to answer, although I think your questions may be rhetorical rather than an attempt to gain additional understanding.  Normally I wouldn't respond to such, but I will try to here out of my respect for you as a thoughtful forum representative that has a knack for garnering pertinent information from a wide variety of sources.
The peer review process in professional journals has been consistent for a number of recent decades.  Each journal has a group of experts in the field that have volunteered, or have agreed to be involved after solicitation, to serve as reviewers.  They normally do this to help keep the journal viable and with a sense of loyalty to their respective specialty.  Normally a paper is submitted to 3 reviewers.  The reviewers name is normally not divulged to the authors (I experienced two instances where reviewers contacted me personally - without the journal adviser's knowledge - because I was in the clique, that is, I was part of the "in crowd" involved in that particular area of research.  Believe me, Ketchum was not part of the "in crowd"!  In fact, just the opposite; she was as out as an "out crowd" person could be).  So you and no one other than the journal editor knows who the reviewers were and whether or not they were "Ketchum patsies".  I supplied links to all the reviewers and their comments, so your question puzzles me, but to continue.  The article was sent to three reviewers at Nature.  Each responded with comments, criticisms, suggestions, and corrections.  The authors resubmitted the paper with the suggested corrections made.  The modified paper was sent to those same three reviewers, each of whom then responded again with different comments, criticisms, suggestions, and corrections.  Anyone who has read those reviews has likely become aware of the painfully pedantic process in this case.  The process likely took well over a year just for Nature just to reach a point where publication was not going to happen (even reviews that are returned as "Publish as is", sometimes take 6 months to a year.  That is because, reviews are usually low on a reviewer's priority list, what with the responsibilities of teaching classes, doing one's own research, writing papers, submitting papers to journals, dealing with the politics of department and university administration, etc.).  Publication in Nature was a lofty goal.  I think that choice was likely made because of Nature's prestige, wide circulation, broad subject range, and the fact that it is European (there is a feeling among scientists that Europeans are less close-minded than Americans, at least as it relates to cryptids).  The paper was then submitted in its updated form to the Journal of Advanced Zoological Exploration in Zoology (JAMEZ).  The paper was sent to reviewers for review, and in January 2013 it passed review for publication slated for January 11, 2013.  On January 10, 2013 JAMEZ notified Ketchum that the journal was rescinding its commitment to publish the paper.  To enter into a discussion of why that occurred would be to enter into a world of conjecture, but I have my own ideas.  So Ketchum purchased JAMEZ, renamed the journal Denovo, and published the paper.  It is available online in its entirety for review by Norse, by 9-dot, by the original Nature reviewers, by the JAMEZ reviewers - in fact it is available for review by 7.5 billion potential reviewers.  The words won't change, the methodology in the paper won't change, the ideas put forth won't change, without regard to who reviews it.  

So that is what I know of "who reviewed the paper" and "where was it published".

Regarding other questions comments, I think it is unfortunate that Ketchum included what I would call peripheral (and distracting) items.
The salient points of the paper, in my estimation, that should be targets for discussion, both positive and negative, should be: 1) 113 mtDNA samples with chains of command pointing to Sasquatch have sequences identifying as Homo sapiens and 2) three nDNA samples with chains of command pointing to Sasquatch have sequences identifying as a combination of Homo sapiens and unknown primate.

(The fact that the studied three nDNA samples each lacks two genes that are known to occur in all human DNA is a subpoint that is difficult to ignore).

[norseman]

16 minutes ago, 9-dot said:

There seems to be a fair bit of emotion in your response and questions?  I will try to answer, although I think your questions may be rhetorical rather than an attempt to gain additional understanding.  Normally I wouldn't respond to such, but I will try to here out of my respect for you as a thoughtful forum representative that has a knack for garnering pertinent information from a wide variety of sources.
The peer review process in professional journals has been consistent for a number of recent decades.  Each journal has a group of experts in the field that have volunteered, or have agreed to be involved after solicitation, to serve as reviewers.  They normally do this to help keep the journal viable and with a sense of loyalty to their respective specialty.  Normally a paper is submitted to 3 reviewers.  The reviewers name is normally not divulged to the authors (I experienced two instances where reviewers contacted me personally - without the journal adviser's knowledge - because I was in the clique, that is, I was part of the "in crowd" involved in that particular area of research.  Believe me, Ketchum was not part of the "in crowd"!  In fact, just the opposite; she was as out as an "out crowd" person could be).  So you and no one other than the journal editor knows who the reviewers were and whether or not they were "Ketchum patsies".  I supplied links to all the reviewers and their comments, so your question puzzles me, but to continue.  The article was sent to three reviewers at Nature.  Each responded with comments, criticisms, suggestions, and corrections.  The authors resubmitted the paper with the suggested corrections made.  The modified paper was sent to those same three reviewers, each of whom then responded again with different comments, criticisms, suggestions, and corrections.  Anyone who has read those reviews has likely become aware of the painfully pedantic process in this case.  The process likely took well over a year just for Nature just to reach a point where publication was not going to happen (even reviews that are returned as "Publish as is", sometimes take 6 months to a year.  That is because, reviews are usually low on a reviewer's priority list, what with the responsibilities of teaching classes, doing one's own research, writing papers, submitting papers to journals, dealing with the politics of department and university administration, etc.).  Publication in Nature was a lofty goal.  I think that choice was likely made because of Nature's prestige, wide circulation, broad subject range, and the fact that it is European (there is a feeling among scientists that Europeans are less close-minded than Americans, at least as it relates to cryptids).  The paper was then submitted in its updated form to the Journal of Advanced Zoological Exploration in Zoology (JAMEZ).  The paper was sent to reviewers for review, and in January 2013 it passed review for publication slated for January 11, 2013.  On January 10, 2013 JAMEZ notified Ketchum that the journal was rescinding its commitment to publish the paper.  To enter into a discussion of why that occurred would be to enter into a world of conjecture, but I have my own ideas.  So Ketchum purchased JAMEZ, renamed the journal Denovo, and published the paper.  It is available online in its entirety for review by Norse, by 9-dot, by the original Nature reviewers, by the JAMEZ reviewers - in fact it is available for review by 7.5 billion potential reviewers.  The words won't change, the methodology in the paper won't change, the ideas put forth won't change, without regard to who reviews it.  

So that is what I know of "who reviewed the paper" and "where was it published".

Regarding other questions comments, I think it is unfortunate that Ketchum included what I would call peripheral (and distracting) items.
The salient points of the paper, in my estimation, that should be targets for discussion, both positive and negative, should be: 1) 113 mtDNA samples with chains of command pointing to Sasquatch have sequences identifying as Homo sapiens and 2) three nDNA samples with chains of command pointing to Sasquatch have sequences identifying as a combination of Homo sapiens and unknown primate.

(The fact that the studied three nDNA samples each lacks two genes that are known to occur in all human DNA is a subpoint that is difficult to ignore).

 

Right.

 

She was rejected by the scientific community. So she published on her own website and charged 30 bucks a head for people to read it. She surrounded herself with patsies that all nodded their heads in agreement that the findings were really really an unknown primate. This is not science.... this is a Barnum Bailey freak show.

 

I understand that science bias can be harsh. But if she had a tooth that was morphological different from a Homo Sapien tooth or anything tangible to point to? I would take her way more seriously....

 

By peripherals? Do you mean the hoax known as Matilda? This is pretty central and damning in my book.

 

Ketchum gave a sample to the Houston chronicle for independent verification. What did they find? Manbearpig.

 

https://www.the-scientist.com/the-nutshell/bigfoot-samples-yield-opossum-dna-39073

 

Am I emotional about it? Absolutely. I take it personal when people attempt to hood wink this community. We have a hard enough time with the scofftics without people like Ketchum, Dyer or Standing or Biscardi mucking it up worse for us for 5 minutes of fame.

 

I think the rule of thumb should be to not trust people trying to sell you something. That’s what I think.

 

 

 

[hiflier]

WOW! Dyer, Standing, and Biscardi did five year double blind DNA studies too? I didn't know that.