Making the case for the existence of Bigfoot [Talking Points]

Thom Cantrall
Author of "Ghosts of Ruby Ridge"

“I have weighed and considered the evidence… I have now reached a point that it seems more incredible that all of this (the century long series of sightings and tracks, etc.) is a series of spurious hoaxing spanning decades if not centuries than it is to entertain the likelihood that a new species of high order primate may exist and may soon join the family of the ranks of primates…” - Dr. Jeff Meldrum, Professor of Paleontology, Idaho State University, Pocatello, Idaho

If you're one to debate skeptics over the existence of Bigfoot, Thom Cantrall, author of "Ghosts of Ruby Ridge" has some talking points for you. In an article titled "An Analysis of the Scientific Evidence of the Sasquatch People," Cantrall wrote a list of evidence and broke down some important facts. Here are some of the points he made:

• Patterson Gimlin Film: Early in the film at Frame 5, very clearly a bulge shows in the right quadriceps muscle on the upper right leg. This is NOT something that would/could be faked in a suit.
• Analysis of the herniated quadriceps muscle by Dr. Andrew Nelson and John Chambers leads them to conclude that “the creature in the film is NOT a fake or a hoax.”
• Peter Brooke, costume designer for the “Jim Henson Creature Shop:, John Chambers, Academy Award winner for “Planet of the Apes” whose efforts took 4 professional designers 3 months to create and 4 hours each day to apply to the actors involved, performed an analysis of the creature in the PGF.
• Footprints: Dr. Jeff Meldrum stated that is not necessary to have a physical body to prove that a species exists when the preponderance of evidence so indicates.
• Dr. Meldrum has in his possession the largest catalog of track casts from a large, bipedal primate collected from all across North America known to exist.  this library consists of of well over 200 casts. The most important feature found on the best of these castings are dermal ridges. These are the “fingerprints”, the lines on the skin that make each track individual and distinct.
• Dr. Jeff Meldrum stated that:  “My personal collection of over 200 footprint casts suggest that there is a large, bipedal primate in North America.”
• DNA Evidence: DNA is probably the least understood and most misrepresented facet of Sasquatch Research.
• DNA does not “PROVE” the existence of anything.  It is a statistical database that, when a specimen is compared to the base, can be matched and identified… provided there is a match within the database.
•  In 2009, Dr. Jeff Meldrum and Microbiologist Dr. Kurt Nelson of the University of Minnesota journeyed to a remote cabin in upper Ontario, Canada on Snelgrove Lake.  At that cabin they found a screw board that had been stepped on by something with an 18 inch foot, leaving a quantity of dried blood on the board.
• Dr. Nelson was able to isolate DNA that varied by only one marker from that of human DNA. That one marker was one of the five markers that differ from humans in chimpanzees, our formerly closest relative. It was determined that the DNA was 99.4% to 99.6% identical to human DNA.  Chimpanzee DNA is 98.3% the same as human.
•  Early in 2011 Dr. Melba Ketchum of DNA Diagnostics in Texas completed DNA analysis on over 100 specimens at some 11 different DNA laboratories across the nation and has completed a fully scientific report that is in the Peer Review process prior to being published in a major scientific journal.
• Dr. Ketchum did not believe in the existence of Sasquatch when her work on his DNA began.  She found that, as time passed,  her samples were showing more and more mDNA as being human, she decided they must, indeed, be a real species.

Cantrall's advice on presenting the evidence: "Emphasize you cannot PROVE anything… you can only offer evidence."

You can read the full analysis of evidences on Thom Cantrall's website at www.ghostsofrubyridge.com