Bad News From The Erickson Project

Though this may not be an entirely bad news for followers of the Erickson Project documentary, it does put a damper on things -- at least for the time being. According to their website, sasquatchthequest.com, the will be released, but now isn't the right time. Founder of the Erickson Project, Adrian Erickson, is waiting for hoaxes and negative publicity to wind down and for reality TV to stop making a mockery of Bigfoot. In other words: the documentary is not going to happen unless Matt Moneymaker gets off Finding Bigfoot (which may not happen for a few more years depending on the show's popularity). Since the Ketchum media frenzy Monday, Adrian Erickson recently updated his webpage and posted this statement:

Sasquatch, also known as Bigfoot, has been recorded in annals from as early as 1000 A.D. by the Vikings in modern day Newfoundland, Canada, and their existence is supported by hundreds of published accounts over the past two centuries. Even with tens of thousands of reports, and an extensive collection of physical evidence, Scientists in general are skeptical to their existence. My first sighting occured in 1959, when I was seven years old and several encounters followed throughout the next few decades. However August 2001 was the pivotal point in my life when a Sasquatch crossed the road in front of me driving through the Canadian Rockies and I made the decision to find out all I could about.

In 2005, I started the Erickson Project. The objective was to conduct the first long term study that would once and for all, prove the existence of the Sasquatch. In order to do so I asked Dennis Pfohl and Leila Hadj-Chikh to join me, and we set out to try to awaken the scientific community, attempted to bring awareness to the general public, while silencing the armchair critics, and tried to vindicate the tens of thousands of witnesses who had been ridiculed for speaking out. With only a handful of short video clips ever previously recorded of a Sasquatch, the team focused on acquiring more and better video, especially close ups. After many months of frustrations, the knowledge gained by the team’s experiences, enabled it to finally achieve success in capturing several video clips of different Sasquatch, including the first 'facial' footage ever recorded. Expanding to more study sites in both the USA and Canada, the team eventually achieved greater success, and recording extensive video and audio evidence, as well as collecting a host of other physical evidence including footprints, hand prints, and hair. Initially we felt that with the mounting evidence we were collecting, the scientific community would soon embrace this evidence, and move towards recognition of the species. With the exception of a few scientists who visited the Erickson Project, this was not the case; as the evidence mounted, the bar was raised higher, and soon it appeared that only DNA would turn the tide. After many attempts, we perfected methods that enabled us to collect saliva, blood, and hairs from several Sasquatch. The mitochondrial DNA and nuclear DNA of these samples were analyzed by Dr. Melba Ketchum and her study was released on Oct 1st 2013. sasquatchgenomeproject.org The chronicles of the study have been documented on video and are part of the documentary Sasquatch the Quest which also includes a review of the multiple evidence collected, and various scientific points of view on the subject. The release of this project was put on hold when it became clear that hoaxes, negative publicity, controversy and farcical television reality shows about Bigfoot started to detract from our findings. I realized that no photo or video in this digital age would ever prove the existence of the creature; at the same time the unwillingness of the scientific community to study the evidence, would keep the discovery in a holding pattern. -Adrian Erickson