Bigfoot is real ... maybe.
After months of waiting for a peer-reviewed scientific journal to publish findings on the validity of alleged Bigfoot DNA evidence, the time has come for answers. But is there enough empirical evidence to finally confirm that the elusive, tall, hairy man-beast of North America really exists? Maybe, but questions have now been raised about the scientific journal publishing the findings.
In November, after a five-year study of purported Bigfoot (aka Sasquatch) DNA samples, Texas geneticist Melba Ketchum and a team of experts in genetics, forensics, imaging and pathology, were anxious for their findings to be published in a scientific journal. On Wednesday, their research appeared in the DeNovo Journal of Science, which seemed to confirm Ketchum's research about the reality of Bigfoot.
But according to GoDaddy.com, DeNovo was first registered as a domain on Feb. 4, 2013 --- anonymously and for only one year.
The current edition of DeNovo is listed as Volume 1, Issue 1, and its only content, thus far, is the Bigfoot research.
Also, on Ketchum's Sasquatch Genome Project website, she writes, "It has been a long and tedious battle to prove that Sasquatch exists. ... Trying to publish has taken almost two years. It seems mainstream science just can't seem to tolerate something controversial, especially from a group of primarily forensic scientists and not 'famous academians' aligned with large universities, even though most of our sequencing and analysis was performed at just such facilities."
Ketchum then explains how one journal agreed to publish her findings, but then was advised not to by its lawyers because such a controversial subject "would destroy the editors' reputations (as it has already done to mine). ... Rather than spend another five years just trying to find a journal to publish and hoping that decent, open minded reviewers would be chosen, we acquired the rights to this journal and renamed it so we would not lose the passing peer reviews that are expected by the public and the scientific community."
And therein lies the potential problem: Did Ketchum "buy" this journal, and begin its new existence under the name of DeNovo just over a week ago in order to get what appears to be a favorable peer review of her Bigfoot studies? That's the big question being raised by numerous people at this point.
According to a press release by Ketchum's Sasquatch Genome Project, the study, "which sequenced three whole Sasquatch nuclear genomes, shows that the legendary Sasquatch is extant in North America and is a human relative that arose approximately 13,000 years ago and is hypothesized to be a hybrid cross of modern Homo sapiens with a novel primate species."
A total of 111 specimens of alleged Sasquatch hair, blood, skin and other tissues formed the basis of the study. These samples came from many individuals and groups at sites covering 14 states and two Canadian provinces.
Watch this related Fox News Bigfoot report
On her Doubtful News website, skeptic and geologist Sharon Hill raises many questions about Ketchum's claims.
"I clicked on the DeNovo site and was appalled at how amateurish the site is. It's full of stock photographs, very poorly coded, there are errors all over it and it's very difficult to navigate," Hill told The Huffington Post.
"[Ketchum] documented that she acquired the rights to this journal. We don't know what journal that was. I still can't find it and that's a little fishy," said Hill. "And then she renamed it so they would not lose the peer reviews that they had. It looks suspicious. This is not how science works."
Also, on the DeNovo site, the journal itself is identified as both DeNovo and DeVono.
It would be a huge story if all the work done by Ketchum and her team ultimately leads to scientific confirmation of the reality of Sasquatch. But at this point, the new wrinkles about the DeNovo Science Journal have only added to the credibility issues by a foot or two -- a Bigfoot.
Check out these Bigfoot/Sasquatch images
