So it really was a rubber suit after
all.
Last week's excitement over a supposed Bigfoot body, which
culminated Friday in a circus-like press conference in Palo Alto,
Calif., collapsed like a wet soufflé Sunday as an independent
investigator determined it was all fake.
SearchingforBigfoot.com owner Tom Biscardi had paid an
"undisclosed sum" — Internet rumors put it at $50,000 — to Georgia
residents Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer for their frozen "corpse"
and the privilege of trotting them, but not the body, out in front
of TV cameras.
At the same time, Biscardi sent self-described "Sasquatch
detective" Steve Kulls to a secret location — apparently Muncie,
Ind. — to check out the specimen.
Kulls, it's safe to say, was severely disappointed.
The upshot? Bigfoot, once found, is now again missing. So are
Whitton, Dyer and Biscardi's money.
• Click
here to watch Kulls examine the Bigfoot
'corpse.'
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• Click here to see more
photos of Bigfoot and the press conference.
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Center.
In a long statement on SearchingforBigfoot.com, Kulls reveals
what he found early Sunday morning Eastern time as the body thawed
out.
"I extracted some [hair] from the alleged corpse and examined it
and had some concerns," Kulls writes. "We burned said sample and
said hair sample melted into a ball uncharacteristic of hair."
Kulls called Biscardi in California, who told him to heat the
body to speed up thawing.
"Within one hour we were able to see the partially exposed
head," Kulls continues. "I was able to feel that it seemed mostly
firm, but unusually hollow in one small section. This was yet
another ominous sign."
Then came the clincher.
"Within the next hour of thaw, a break appeared up near the feet
area. ... I observed the foot which looked unnatural, reached in
and confirmed it was a rubber foot."
That jibes with what Jerry Parrino, owner of Internet
Halloween-costume retailer TheHorrorDome.com, told FOXNews.com last
week.
"It definitely looks like our [Sasquatch] costume," Parrino said
after viewing photos of the body.
The Biscardi team immediately went into crisis mode. Biscardi
called Whitton and Dyer at their California hotel.
They admitted it was a hoax and agreed to sign a promissory note
at a meeting set for 8 a.m. Pacific time at the hotel.
But when Biscardi got there, he "found that they had left."
"At this time action is being instigated against the
perpetrators of this fraud," Kulls writes on Biscardi's Web site.
"On behalf of myself I can say with certainty Matthew Whitton and
Ricky Dyer [are] not the best Bigfoot trackers in the world!"
Loren Coleman, who runs the influential Cryptomundo.com Web site
devoted to mysterious animals, isn't buying Biscardi's pleas of
ignorance.
"He's a huckster, a circus ringmaster," Coleman told
FoxNews.com. "It's all about money with him. It probably didn't
matter to him whether it was real or not."
So why would Dyer, described as a former security guard, and
Whitton, a police officer with the Clayton County, Ga., department,
make it all up?
"They probably started out small, as a way to promote their
Bigfoot tracking business, and got in way over their heads,"
Coleman figured. "These are not very intelligent individuals."
The involvement of Biscardi, who Coleman says was introduced to
the pair by Kulls, brought them attention they didn't need.
"In a way, both sides may have been trying to out-con each
other," said Coleman.
The Bigfoot Field Research Organization, another Bigfoot group
that refused to take seriously what Coleman dubbed the "Georgia
gorilla," wants everyone connected with the "body" — Biscardi,
Dyer, Kulls and Whitton — arrested.
"Warrants need to be issued immediately before Biscardi leaves
the country," the organization's Web
site states.
As for Whitton, he doesn't seem to have a job to come back to in
Georgia.
Asked for comment on Officer Whitton, Clayton County, Ga., Chief
of Police Jeffrey Turner, corrected FoxNews.com. "You mean
ex-officer Whitton."
"As soon as we saw it was a hoax," Chief Turner explained, "I
filed the paperwork to terminate his employment."
Turner said he hasn't heard from Whitton, and that he was
mystified at the former officer's involvement in such a blatant
scam.
"He was a real go-getter," Turner said, citing Whitton's
wounding in the line of duty earlier this summer while apprehending
a suspect who had allegedly shot a woman in the head. "For someone
to do a complete three-sixty like that, I can't explain it."
The woman who answered the phone at Biscardi's Searching for
Bigfoot office in Menlo Park, Calif., said he was out ill but would
return calls when he could.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,406101,00.html
