Robert Lindsay: Skeptics Are Probably Wrong About Snelgrove Lake

In 2007, MonsterQuest ran an episode documenting scientists, Curt Nelson (biologist, University of Minnesota) and Jeff Meldrum (anthropologist, Idaho State University) who spent five days with their film crew at a cabin near Ontario's Snelgrove Lake.

One evening, during the filming of the episode, the show's cameramen and producers believed they were "attacked" when rocks and sticks were thrown at their cabin. The crew nearly wet their pants that night.

Dr. Meldrum also collected some possible Bigfoot tissue samples scraped off a wooden board with screws in it. According to the show's producer, test results for the blood, tissue and hair samples came back as neither bear nor human. "The hair did not match any known North American bear or animal and tests showed an uncanny similarity to human DNA with one exception: the irregular DNA matched that of a primate," a reporter for the New York Post wrote.

Many skeptics have argued that the area where the samples were recovered is not as isolated as MonsterQuest led us to believe. They claim villagers frequent the popular fishing destination and it probably explains why the DNA test results came back as "American Indian".

Robert Lindsay discussed this possibility on his blog post last night:

Snelgrove Lake appears very isolated. Skeptics say that there is an Indian village of 900 only 5-10 miles away from the lake where Bigfoot evidence, now the provenance of Dr. Melba Ketchum’s DNA study, may well have been found in an elaborate study that involved Jeff Meldrum, a TV show, and some rinky-dink geneticists.

The end result was supposedly “American Indian,” but all they looked at was MtDNA, and Bigfoot MtDNA is human. The sample came from a creature that stepped on a nailboard that Meldrum and others had set out to catch an intruder that had been smashing up the cabin. Something stepped on the nailboard, leaving blood and hair. How many humans have hairy feet?

The sample is said to have made its way to Ketchum’s study, and it is said to be included in the paper. I don’t know for sure, but I would guess that it’s positive for Bigfoot DNA.

Skeptics say it’s merely an Indian, and the lake is not nearly as isolated as we say it is, pointing to the nearby Indian village. Someone needs to tell Google about this Indian village because it doesn’t show up on any maps. In fact, no towns, and not even any roads, appear to be present for maybe 100 miles around the lake. Snelgrove Lake may well be as isolated as we say it is.

[via Robert Lindsay]