Dr. Melba Ketchum: Hang in there, "We have the proof" of Sasquatch
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| Dr. Melba Ketchum |
It's confirmed. Although it hasn't been presented yet, things are looking up for the Bigfoot DNA Project. Sasquatch is real. According to Dr. Melba Ketchum's posting on Facebook, they have the proof and they are working on a presentation that should convince even skeptics that Bigfoot is no myth. Here's what she wrote this morning:
Ok, for the sake of time ( and I hope all of you understand), I will answer everyone publicly here. I keep getting a lot of emails from everyone wanting to know the status of the project. Though I cannot give details or timing, I will assure everyone that all is well and we are continuing to move forward. Good science cannot be forced or quickly completed. If it is not extremely thorough, then it will all be for naught and any paper rejected outright. So, I ask you to be patient and understanding and realize that extreme scientific overkill is required in order to convince a world full of skeptical scientists. "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof". This is what we are doing. When we started this, I thought we would be finished in a few weeks, but instead as Sasquatch are known to do, they threw us curve balls even with their DNA which can be as elusive as they are. Thank goodness we are past that! As a result, we have assembled a renowned team, each of us with our own specialties to make this project "extraordinary". If everyone will hang in there, I promise it will be worth the wait. We have the proof, now just give us the opportunity to present it in a form that will even convince skeptics. Thanks so much for all of your emails and support. Best wishes to all.
Thanks to everyone for sending this in.
David Paulides talk about the project NABS started and touches on the Bigfoot DNA study.
Related:
I am really looking forward to the results of this.
ReplyDeleteps.. Love the blog. I check it every day all the way from Ireland!
FINALLY!
ReplyDeleteFinally what exactly? Melba's statement is very close if not exactly to the very same statement she made six months ago. Maybe, I'm the one with the problem... In that, I don't get where she says something different. Someone enlighten me please.
DeleteI agree--this blog rocks. I'm on edge. I remember during the refrigerator BF incident, sitting in front of the TV watching CNN in the middle of the day, nearly biting my teeth--they had a body to prove it, right? Well, that made me a bit jaded after that ridiculous and inept show, so now I'm trying to be cautiously optimistic. Our world could be changing and not necessarily for good. Imagine all the hunters rushing to bag a BF? Terrifying, huh?
ReplyDeleteGReat day for Bigfooting!!! Now.....Is it a speciation of Homo Sapien? Something else?? Its going to be a fun wait till this gets peer reviewed and released!!!
ReplyDeletei dont think they have anything.i think its all fake and thats why they keep delaying the revelations of what they have found.
ReplyDeleteI can't wait. I wonder How its going to be released. Special on Nat Geo? CNN? I know I will be taking that day off work. Bigfoot PArty! lol
ReplyDeletePaul
Being on the front pages National Geographic would be cool. But who will be on their front page? Dr. Melba Ketchum? Or Bigfoot?
ReplyDeleteAs my momma said "don't count your chickens before they hatch"! I for one will be keeping the celebrating in check until all is out in the open. I REALLY don't want to look like a gullible fool.
ReplyDeletePersonally I believe sasquatch will be on their cover. I think their in it for the species not for themselves. They will definately get their fair share of media covergae though....crazy coverage!
ReplyDeletePaul
If the team presents good evidence and a display of scientific rigor, they deserve all the fame and fortune that can be thrown at them. People who seek fame and fortune without putting in the work (i.e. by perpetrating Hoaxes) should be reviled, but I'd never begrudge Fame and Fortune to hard working researchers.
ReplyDeleteOh yeah, and I friggen LOVE this blog. One of the best Bigfoot blogs out there.
ReplyDeleteAll she said is we have proof. She did not say of what? That's just like all of us to read between the lines and add what we think it should be. Oh and yeah "give us more time" so we can put the final touches on this Blair Witch project for Bigfoot. It's the same bullshit as the movie"based on a true story" and how they kept putting out little bits of it and just a little longer. Believe it when I see it.
ReplyDelete"We have the proof, now just give us the opportunity to present it in a form that will even convince skeptics."
ReplyDeleteIn February Ketchum announced that her paper will be published in late summer.
In the summer she then announced that her paper will be published until the end of the year. Now, if I correctly read between the lines, the whole affair (mess??) takes much more time...I would not be surprised if we have to wait until fall 2012..IF her paper will be EVER published at all!!!
Love your blog and looking forward to reading what the results are about BF.
ReplyDeleteAll of the skepticism is warranted, however I hope that if this pans out, people who are being dismissive right now will eat a little crow. I have the feeling that if Mebla and team had released their findings early, to appease these sorts, instead of being rigorous, many of these same folks would have said "damn, why didn't they take the time to do it right!"
ReplyDeleteIt's a fact that many peer review journals won't accept research which has already been discussed publicly. There are reasons for this stuff.
I'm patiently waiting.It takes as long as it takes,so I just put that thought on the back burner.Hopefully it's worth the wait.
ReplyDeleteIn the mean time I'll continue to read this fine blog.I'm sure Shawn will have lots of interesting things to keep my brain fed until the results are made public.
He better!
ReplyDeletePaul
Way to be on top of things Shawn! Would be a total business killer if she was concocting all of this. Sounds promising, John
ReplyDeleteNo matter what kind of "proof" is presented by the way of DNA evidence, there will always be skeptics who will find a way to refute/dismiss the evidence. Therefore, there will be no proof that will convince all skeptics. The ONLY thing that will convince all the skeptics is a captured or killed bigfoot body submitted for scientific inquiry.
ReplyDeleteI love your blog! You present the evidence in a thoughtful unassuming way, and I know that if the proof finally comes, this is where I will check.
ReplyDeleteSkeptics will question if it was really a bigfoot "steak" and not a human sample that was ostensibly submitted for DNA analysis. Unless they have a dead bigfoot shooting victim on ice for scientists to examine, DNA evidence will not be proof positive to all.
ReplyDeleteI wonder... choices are made because the one making them thinks they are the best, duh. But, we have all experienced our own failures and the benefit of hindsight..(or wishing we listened to sage advice).
ReplyDeleteIn hindsight, perhaps it would have been better to take one certain sample...say the toenail, or tooth and work it out and make that public and put in the Genome bank..accessible to all genetisists...that would relieve this pressure and open a path for collaboration among many in the genome projects (this is how the Denislova fossils were handled)....
But, this group didn't..I assume b/c the genomes of Sas and humans are so close. Statistics then becomes the reigning proof wrt to DNA...and then you have a long drawn out study, with too many participants (even NDA's aren't iron-clad) too many opportunities for falling outs and so on.
It seems to be where this study is right now. I checked as many websites as I could to find out just where the chaos starts....Sometime in 2009 Biscardi posts on his website DNA Diagnostics (that was his toenail submission)...not much later Ketchum is on Blog radio discussing the study with her preliminary findings..and a request for more samples....so in 2009 this was under way with perhaps a half dozen samples...Paulides claims he was in there too...
Now it goes quiet for a while...then suddenly in the summer of 2011 a breaking story on a non-Bigfoot blog about the shooting of two indiviual BF's...a mom and child...and worse yet? The Olympia project seems to know all about it?... and the posts to that story were flying... I don't recognize all the names, but many came out and spoke up under their own names...impressive in the BF world...(I use a penname)
and now six or so months later the actual participants in the study are showing strain.... the EP project (which submitted their samples in early 2010) begins to unfold on the net...apparently released by them. That info included the method to collect tissue (glass shards on plate) and generally the habituation "site' (which had a long history with others, including I believe BFRO?)....and then Stubstad enters with his preliminary conclusions (but not raw data I believe?) and posting on the "breaking shooter story" blog, another BF website, and his own. Wow....
Seems to me the only people talking publicly about the study are the participants. Paulides perhaps the most vocal with promise and a Sasquatch Genome Project something or other website.
But, none has really shared what is considered "raw data" nor disclosed any Journal a paper may have been submitted to...
It doesn't look, to a casual observer anyway, that any real breaches of confidentiality have occurred. But, I do not know what the NDA's say...
One might conclude, that these "leaks" are beneficial to the "study." People have a way, when in close groups and isolated (as the NDA's and secrecy requires) to create their own reality (think Bay of Pigs) often missing key objections they will face by a less "in" crowd.
If they are listening, then the cranky posts and comments are valuable.
Not everyone will be so pleased for "proof" to accept less than humane and non-injurious methods to collect DNA.
Seriously, none of "our" (I mean amateur BF researchers...all of us!) kind are using current/modern and ethical Anthropology techniques...at best we are building a body of evidence to convince real scientists to come into the field to employ such techniques...and at worst we are endangering Bigfoots.
So, it looks to me Ketchum is saying....I had to go back over the data and iron out a mistake and now I am (or the assembled team) in position to actually write it up and submit.
So, if the submission is to a Journal of any worth...we are still a year out or so?
Time to get back to work...
!@#$#$%%^^!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteI certainly hope that by "renowned team" she means that she's caught the interest of some academic population geneticists. Veterinary diagnostics are a long way from the necessary population genomics. The only way this is publishable is with some substantial Illumina sequencing to look at genome-wide differentiation of the purported samples from normal human variation. Sanger sequencing of a handful of standard markers isn't going to cut it in this case. I noticed a comment hoping for the cover of National Geographic; that would be a bad sign, indicating that real journals wouldn't take it (see Archaeoraptor). I find this story interesting, but I'm nearly sure it's all nonsense. Even if they had some really interesting samples, I doubt anyone involved is qualified to interpret the data they've generated. I seem to recall some mention of one of the players in this case being a creationist. If that's so, how could he possibly think that genetic analyses can tell you anything about the relationship between organisms? Any interpretation of the results hinges entirely on population genetic models (which of course are evolutionary). The best case scenario for this (assuming that there really is some unknown bipedal primate living all over North America, including a lot of places where almost all other large mammals have been extirpated) then some preliminary sequence data generated by these people piqued the interest of some actual researchers who can help them do something publishable with it.
ReplyDeleteI think it comes to down to who is on the renowned team. I'd like to find out. Any ideas?
ReplyDeletesounds fishy. if you can get that big a piece of meat off the specimen then most of it had to have survived scavengers.what idiot would not have taken the WHOLE thing as evidence?? i think any moron would realise the money to be made with sasquatch evidence.
ReplyDeletejust sayin''
Hello, I've posted elsewhere anonymously and as AIF. It's unfortunate the moniker "Atheist in FundyLand" is still quite provocative in the US. I kind of meant it to be in order to give other people like me a bit of hope. I may very well be the only atheist in my small town. The same situation exists for a lot of atheists living in small towns and in the deep South.
ReplyDeleteYes, I'm an atheist where god(s) are concerned, but open-minded. I feel the god question is settled (at least until someone gives me some proof), but where sasquatch is concerned I am TAP: temporarily agnostic in practice. I don't believe in the big guy, but I'm willing to see how this DNA thing plays out (or doesn't).
I'm also an avid gamer. In the land of software--especially gaming software--there's a term: vaporware. It means the software developers are pimping something that isn't anywhere close to being done and may never be done. The longer it takes for the DNA study to be released, the more I'm going to start viewing it as vaporware.
However, there were two prime examples of vaporware in the PC gaming world--Duke Nukem Forever and Team Fortress 2--that were eventually released. Duke Nukem was a huge letdown, but the completely revamped Team Fortress 2 was awesome. I bought it in 2007 and still play it fairly frequently.
So, is the DNA study vaporware? If it takes a long time will the results be worth it?
I have to admit to being interested in this and if it turns out to be nothing but a hoax, I'm probably going to be both angry with myself for entertaining this notion for a second and pissed off at Melba Ketchum and all the "bigfoot" researchers.
-Atheist in FundyLand
-Temporarily Agnostic in Practice Bigfoot Unbeliever
Apehuman, if you read this, I agree with a lot of what you say, but I believe that the Meat & Potatos is coming sooner than later. She's doing this as fast as possible, because if the outcome says that "they're" some type of homo something, then by default "they" automatically become protected, wouldn't it?
ReplyDeleteWe will never know all of the pieces of the puzzle until they all come together. But I sure hope that Dr. Bindernagel, Peter Byrne and the like, are in on this.
Just remember, I was the one who said that "they" have a sort of a pug nose.
And. Those who wouldn't believe? LOL
A lot of people will be having crow for breakfast, lunch & dinner.
Because they are real. What I have is knowledge, not a belief!
I am beyond belief and disbelief.
Vic .O.
Apehuman, if you read this, I agree with a lot of what you say, but I believe that the Meat & Potatos is coming sooner than later. She's doing this as fast as possible, because if the outcome says that "they're" some type of homo something, then by default "they" automatically become protected, wouldn't it?
ReplyDeleteWe will never know all of the pieces of the puzzle until they all come together. But I sure hope that Dr. Bindernagel, Peter Byrne and the like, are in on this.
Just remember, I was the one who said that "they" have a sort of a pug nose.
And. Those who wouldn't believe? LOL
A lot of people will be having crow for breakfast, lunch & dinner.
Because they are real. What I have is knowledge, not a belief!
I am beyond belief and disbelief.
Vic .O.