Chicanery in the Bigfoot world.

In bringing the public knowledge about the Sasquatch, it has been a stalwart mission to our readers to point out some of the bad things that go on that generally reflect to public safety and knowledge.

Many hoaxes go on, but I report those that have a continuous or financial impact among enthusiasts and followers of the Bigfoot / Sasquatch phenomena.

Tenet number 4 in our mission statement is that we “have a responsibility to educate.” When we educate to leave out or not to point out the bad, or the ugly that occasionally happens would be an error. Omitting that would be just as some of the things that the less credible or misinformation sites use to their advantage.

As I was collecting thoughts about this week’s blog, the story broke about some guy claiming to work with the government as a Cryptozoologist. First let’s start off by stating the misnomer that some get when the hear the term Cryptozoologist.

1. It is a term used for someone who studies animals yet to be discovered.
2. It is not a professional term. Much like the term “Philatelist.”

Now some lately have gotten angry over the use of the term Cryptozoologist, because it sounds like a profession rather than a term for the hobbyist.

A Cryptozoologist is someone simply who studies Cryptozoology, which according to the Oxford Dictionary is, “The search for and study of animals whose existence or survival is disputed or unsubstantiated.”

Similarly a Philatelist is someone who someone who studies Philately, which according to the Oxford Dictionary is, “The collection and study of postage stamps.”

Arkansas

Every once in a great while, making a fraudulent claim in the Bigfoot Community can have consequences. Especially when you impersonate a federal government employee.

Widely reported first coming to us in the Bigfoot Community and a great catch by Loren Coleman’s site, Cryptozoo News some cat by the name of Keith Barnes of Black Rock, Arkansas, was posing as working for the federal government as a cryptozoologist.

Keith Barnes

Given what I have shown above we know that is complete hogwash. But in his false claims prompted authorities to check his computer, they allegedly found child pornography.

Comments on an old article

Over a year ago, I posted about a paid Bigfoot expedition shut down by Federal authorities on Federal park land involving Bob Garrett.

                  

Bob & Brandon Garrett

For some reason almost 14 months later just last night I received threats from Garrett’s son, Brandon Garrett, (I will call him Junior) over the blog which exposed the elder Garrett’s gorilla audio and more to the point, the elder Garrett not returning funds as promised to at least three of the patrons, a sum of $1500. Not to mention the loss of costs they incurred to attend the shut down expeditions.

But that story was pretty much ancient history, but since Junior wants to go on a profanity, trollish and inaccurate tirade, let’s once again, bring it to the forefront.

So there we several questions he asked which I wish to address specifically and understand the questions are edited to remove both profanity and insults.

…do you even have enough decency to really do your home work?

                                                                       – Brandon Garrett

I will not address Junior directly but will direct my answers to the readers of this blog.

As a matter of fact yes I do. This did not start as an expose. More to the matter I was asked specifically by some friends of a couple of people that had lost money to investigate the possibility of getting their money back.

I spent at length speaking with the people who had lost their money to Garrett, received documentation and screen captures of their text exchanges with Garrett. I would consider that homework. And I always crosscheck my material as well.

I even attempted to speak with Garrett himself to resolve the situation. What I found was the elder Garrett refusing and making excuses NOT to give their money back. The story switched from one person involved in the venture when he spoke to the family to another when he spoke to me. He was 100% not at fault, yet the PayPal payment was made out to none other than “Robert Garrett.”

The buck stops there legally. The rest is minutia. Wherever the money went, if its there or not, what ever you claim; Garrett received money, admittedly and evidentiary, for a service he did not provide.

In February of 2016 she had paid for an expedition with the Texas Big Thicket Watch Guide Service, payable to one Robert Garrett, in the amount of $1000.00. Only to be told later that the expedition had been cancelled because they had been shut down by the federal government. When she spoke with Garrett she had asked about getting her money back, but Garrett said he was broke because he had to pay huge fines. If he gave her some time he would pay her back. He eventually stopped answering her calls. –Squatchdetective’s Blog 3/28/2017

Garrett was perhaps, in my opinion, the rudest and ill tempered person I have ever spoke with, simply trying to resolve the situation. Then as I peeled the onion back, another person who never got their money back came forward, and actually another and then the audio of a gorilla passed around, and confirmed by multiple sources, Garrett claiming it was a Sasquatch.

When you have witnesses that talk at length to you and give you everything you ask, and then ask for the other side of the story, and get a profanity laced tirade, with nothing to back up the story, who do you think is the truthful one here?

I think its really funny that you have comments blocked on this.

                                                          – Brandon Garrett

I think its really funny that Junior was mistaken. Actually I don’t have them blocked at all. Matter of fact there were numerous comments made, including a slightly dissenting opinion which a discussion was engaged. For some reasons, the comments were closed. I don’t specifically remember doing it, but it’s really moot anyhow, because it was OVER a year ago. Why all of a sudden now? Can’t help it if you are a “Johnny come lately.”

Any way comments are moderated to keep out profanity laced, trollish and threatening comments and done to promote civil conversation. Had the younger Garrett posted a comment in the section which resembled intelligent, questions and conversation, it would have been approved. In the manner he posed them on an instant message, umm no.

I will also make a quick note that  Junior was not responsible for any of the funds lost to people. I get it. He’s trying to defend his Dad, but there is a right was and a wrong way. The elder Garrett could have avoided everything just by returning the funds which the first family was even willing to get it back a little bit at a time.

But it just goes to prove, Junior’s questions are laced with inaccuracies, and was meant to get a rise out of me, as did the prank phone calls after the initial Garrett expose which I have never before this mentioned.

In truth, I am laughing. (Not with them either!)

Anyway, it’s all there in the original blog “Expedition None,” for one to catch up on if they so choose.

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This week on Squatchdetective Radio

Till Next Time,

Squatch-D

Sykes Study recent updates: What you haven’t heard.

Remember the Sykes study? You know the one that was being billed as going to be the one that defines Sasquatch, Yeti, Bigfoot?

Geneticist Bryan Sykes

The study that dashed our hopes claiming that the Yeti was actually the reemergence of a fossil polar bear?

Well silently and off the BIG radar, some things about the Sykes have been revealed and they are not minor.

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The Fossil Polar Bear

The crux of the study, at least in the Himalayas, was that the DNA collected on some of the samples belonged to a long thought extinct Polar Bear. A cryptozoological breakthrough if not necessarily the one anticipated. 

List of samples tested by Sykes and results. (Credit: Royal Society Publishing)

But as always; hold the phone.  It appears an error was made.

In a letter to the Royal Society Publishing Organization, Sykes admitted to a  mistake by stating their GenBank search was in error, but now alluding that their discvovery was to the modern polar bear.

 

“Sykes and Melton acknowledged that their GenBank search was in error and but suggested that the hairs were instead a match to a modern polar bear specimen "from the Diomede Islands in the Bering Sea reported in the same paper”. They maintained that they did not see any sign of damage in their sequences and commented that they had “no reason to doubt the accuracy of these two sequences any more than the other 28 presented in the paper.”

Published Dec. 17th, 2014 – http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/282/1800/20142434

 

 

However while retesting the samples for replication done by Eliécer E. Gutiérrez, a researcher at the Smithsonian Institution and Ronald H. Pine, affiliated at the University of Kansas stated that the samples were genetic variants of brown bear near impossible to derive the difference between them.

 

“By means of mitochondrial 12S rRNA sequencing of putative “yeti”, “bigfoot”, and other “anomalous primate” hair samples, a recent study concluded that two samples, presented as from the Himalayas, do not belong to an “anomalous primate”, but to an unknown, anomalous type of ursid. That is, that they match 12S rRNA sequences of a fossil Polar Bear (Ursus maritimus), but neither of modern Polar Bears, nor of Brown Bears (Ursus arctos), the closest relative of Polar Bears, and one that occurs today in the Himalayas… We have concluded that there is no reason to believe that the two samples came from anything other than Brown Bears.” 

Published March 16th, 2015 –

http://zookeys.pensoft.net/articles.php?id=4885%20

Himalayan Brown Bear (Source: Wikipedia)

 

Meaning there was really  no breakthrough in Yeti research.

 

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From Bad to Worse

Even more recent was an allegation made by colleagues of Dr. Sykes as reported in the U.K. Sunday Times by Science Editor Jonathan Leake.

“A GENETICIST at Oxford University whose new book claims to offer ‘the first scientific evidence on the survival’ of apemen such as the yeti and Bigfoot, has been attacked by colleagues who say the claims are nonsense and his research institute does not exist.”

March 29th, 2015 –

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/Science/article1537430.ece

 

 

According to an article on Retraction Watch entitled, “Bigfoot paper corrected because it doesn’t exist — the author’s institution, that is” quoted Leake stating Sykes admitted to his “white lie.”

"The paper gave Skyke’s affiliation as the Institute of Human Genetics at Wolfson College, Oxford. Sykes is a fellow of Wolfson but he admitted the institute was mythical. “The journal required some sort of additional address in the college and, hey presto, I became an institute!”

Source:

http://retractionwatch.com/2015/04/14/bigfoot-paper-corrected-because-it-doesnt-exist-the-authors-institution-that-is/

 

 

If this is true, with the above information what type of credibility does it lead to this study?

While people would consider Sykes “controversial,” every scientist out to put forth hypotheses into areas such as Cryptozoology, Ufology and Para-Anthropology, unless you’re towing the company (main-stream science) line, has been labeled as controversial. And in all science missteps are made such as the GenBank error.

However what I cannot condone, nor should anyone, is the acceptance of any untruth of any sort, any “white lie” or any misrepresentation to get published in a journal.

Has a familiar overtone doesn’t it?

Till next time,

Squatch-D

Mystery creature washes up on Santa Barbara Shore

The Huffington Post, reports a KEYT reporter John Palminteri stumbled upon a deceased, hairless creature on the shores of East Beach in Santa Barbara, California after their recent rash of storms.

 

Source: John Palminteri / KEYT

 

Read more about it here…

Till next time…

Squatch-D

“Chupacabra” caged and state biologist blows identification but readers do conclusively.

April Fools joke or not a story emerged from Ratcliff, Texas where some intrepid commenters have solved the mystery more accurately than the state biologist, Brent Ortego contacted to watch the film and throw an opinion.

As the story begins a local couple there caught something in their live capture trap, and what  they saw in the cage they weren’t expecting. 

 

The “creature” captured in the cage.  (Photo Credit: CrossRoadsToday.com)

 

Chupacabra Found Alive?

by Janelle Bludau Newscenter 25.

RATCLIFFE – Deep in the back woods of South Texas, you never know what might be lurking around the corner, or in your tree.

"He saw this strange animal up here eating corn," Jackie Stock said.

In Ratcliffe, a small town in DeWitt County, residents are certain they’ve found the mythical, despicable chupacabra, and this time, it’s alive.

Ratcliffe Resident Jackie Stock said her husband caught the creature Sunday night.

“He called me to come and look, and I said ‘Bubba that looks like a baby chupacabra,’” Stock said.

With its hairless back, large claws, countless teeth and ferocious growl, many would say this animal fits the bill.

“I hunted coons for 20 years with dogs and I ain’t ever seen anything that looks like that right there,” Ratcliffe resident Arlen Parma said.

Parma said one of the biggest signs it’s not a raccoon is its growl.

“A coon doesn’t make that noise, or a possum. What makes that noise? I guess a chupacabra does,” Parma said.

Most people in DeWitt County are convinced this is the elusive chupacabra, but what do wildlife experts have to say?

“The animal in the cage as best I can tell from the view is some sort of a small canine,” Brent Ortego, Wildlife Diversity Biologist with Texas Parks and Wildlife, said.

Ortego said a canine can include a coyote, dog, or even a fox. He said the animal most likely has mange which has caused it to lose its hair. But as for a chupacabra, he thinks otherwise.

“It’s never been proven to be a unique species. It was always something out there that allegedly was said to cause harm to people or livestock,” Ortego said.

Chupacabra or not, right now this little guy is staying at the Stock household, living off a diet of cat food and corn, at least until someone can find out what it really is.

“We were just trying to figure out what it is because we’ve never seen anything like it before,” Stock said.

Source: http://www.crossroadstoday.com/content/news/local/story/Chupacabra-Found-Alive/aXpygx4kqUqHOIanGIw_Lw.cspx

 

The Biologist Ortego claimed that , “The animal in the cage as best I can tell from the view is some sort of a small canine.”

A look at the front paws of the creature and the way it consumes food, easily tells it is not canine in nature.

The commenters on the news agency’s site immediately identified the hairless fellow, as a hairless raccoon. They even submitted a few links, where these pictures conclusively tells all.

 

Source: http://www.veronews.com/news/indian_river_county/spotlight/humane-society-rescues-rare-hairless-raccoon-from-busy-area/article_1ae776aa-1229-11e1-9cc5-0019bb30f31a.html?mode=image&photo=1

We have to remember folks, that science is not perfect, because it always has a human element to it.

 

Till Next Time,

Squatch-D

The George Edwards Loch Ness Photos Debunked as a hoax

There are times when I write something with a heavy heart, and this is one such occasion.

In February 2011, I was the team leader for the Nat Geo special, The Truth Behind the Loch Ness Monster.

Briefing the dive team, Feb. 2011 at Loch Ness.

Our boat, (The Nessie Hunter) skipper was George Edwards, a life long tour boat guide on the Loch, who claimed to have two sighting, at the time to seeing the famed Nessie.

George Edwards (Steve Kulls Photo)

In March 2012 George released what was purported to be the best picture of Nessie yet…

 

Here’s the close up…

Tonight while doing a radio show, someone asked if I had seen the photos of George Edwards. I did not, but then I was suddenly surprised as I remembered our weathered Scottish captain.

When I saw the pictures, my heart sank as I recognized it immediately.

I remember George on the top deck of the boat, taking pictures of our prop hump, used in sighting recreations for the program. The hump itself, was not made by the crew but had previously been used for another program.

             

Screen shots of the prop used in the Truth Behind the Loch Ness Monster

Yes they are certainly the same.  Sorry George, I now believe you are a hoaxer, and I say this with a heavy heart.

But it is what it is.

I was suspicious of George, as our 3 day boat expedition had come to end it was time for the polygraph tests, of some of the eyewitnesses and to be administered by the super examiner and Scotland Yard retiree,  David Byrd. (Who was phenomenal!)

David Byrd preparing the polygraph, prior to testing. Sandy, our sound man is in the hot seat. (Steve Kulls photo)

Both Mikko Takala and the nice lady from the Highlands had both passed the test with flying colors. Then it came time for George’s. He looked nervous as hell. He failed the test.

Due to George running a local tourist business, a decision was made by the production team to cut that from the final copy of the show, as did the hydrophone testing run by the Marine Biologists brought in.

Marine biologists, Ian Todd and Dr. Victoria Todd of Ocean Science Consulting, pictured here on the deck of the Nessie Hunter, preparing the hydrophone equipment. (Steve Kulls photo)

And as they did my debunking of the Robert Preston photo, which was vastly different from the scientist’s opinion that was aired in the program, but my theory had been tested and validated.

Of course I was able to recreate the pictures, with my theory and quite closely as well.

(Left) The Preston photo taken with an I-Phone. (Right) Steve Kulls recreation photo taken with an Android phone.

Preston being interviewed by the production company. (Steve Kulls photo)

Needless to say Preston wanted money for the use of his picture, and as a groundskeeper at the Aldourie Castle, he should have been quite aware of this sun reflection from the copper on the roof from the house across the Loch.

Although I say this with a heavy heart, I am so proud polygrapher David Byrd was right on the money.

Speaking of which, it seems that the two people involved in the show which turned out to be hoaxer, was their main motive; money.

Preston via, trying to sell his photograph to any who wanted to put it in a commercial application and now Edwards trying to boost his tour boat business.

Well yet another hoax busted and another hoaxer revealed. But its all part of the job.

Till Next Time,

Squatch-D