Robert Lindsay: Dr. Melba Ketchum wanted to sue Nature Magazine for defamation of character

Dr. Melba Ketchum's Bigfoot DNA paper has been published (under her own journal), yet, little is known about what actually happened between her and Nature Magazine (where the paper was first submitted to). According to sources, the paper was resubmitted multiple times, but was ultimately rejected by the journal. Blogger Robert Lindsay has gotten his hands on the peer review documents between Ketchum and Nature Magazine and has provided links to the two documents of the exchange. In his post, Lindsay reveals the stringent nature of the peer review process and how difficult it was for Ketchum to push her paper through:

Dr. Melba Ketchum wanted to sue Nature Magazine for defamation of character. It was never quite proven that Nature Magazine had rejected Ketchum’s paper or even that they had received it. However, I have it from an excellent source, a friend of mine, who worked with Ketchum that indeed it was at Nature for some time and they did in fact reject it. Therefore, Matt Moneymaker’s leak along those lines was correct.

There is even a letter from Nature detailing the changes that they wanted her to make in order to run the piece. My source believed that Nature was scared off by the unknown DNA finding in Ketchum’s paper. They were afraid that that sounded too crazy and they didn’t want to seem like kooks. My source told me that Melba had proof that Nature leaked parts of her paper out into the scientific community (another long standing rumor supposedly unproven) and Melba had no way to defend herself against the attacks coming in from the leaks without jeopardizing publication of the paper which she was not allowed to talk about.

The source felt that Melba is “a bit whacky, but her heart was in the right place, and her science was good.” Melba enlisted an attorney to sue Nature for defamation of character, but the attorney did not want to touch the case for fear of being labeled a kook. The source said that that list of labs that worked with Melba was impressive.

Ketchum Project suffered from estrogen poisoning. The source above also told me that there was constant drama inside the Ketchum Project, with continual catfights, breakups, huggy apologies and reunions, and cliques and alliances forming, collapsing and reforming. He attributed all of this mercurial cyclothymia to the fact that almost everyone on the project was a woman. “There were too many women on the project,” he told me. “They needed a man around to steer the ship.”

Peer review documents between Ketchum and Nature Magazine are now available for download! I have now obtained two peer review documents between Ketchum and Nature. The first is a response to peer review criticisms from Melba listing the criticisms and the changes that were made to deal with them. The second is a threatening letter from Melba accusing Nature of leaking secret peer review documents about her study and therefore harming her reputation. It’s pretty interesting and at times explosive stuff!

Ketchum’s Responses to Peer Referees Criticisms

Ketchum Cover Letter to Board of Nature Magazine

[via Robert Lindsay]