Dna Tests May Get At Root Of Bigfoot Legend

Researchers at Ohio State University hope to come within a hair of verifying the existence of Bigfoot.

Scientists are using a new DNA matching process to determine whether there may be more to the Sasquatch legend than some blurry film footage and a few giant footprints.

The new evidence consists of two tufts of hair, each consisting of about a dozen individual strands, recovered in the Blue Mountains of southeastern Washington state in August.

“This is the first time that I’m aware of that anybody will be able to do any DNA extractions (on Bigfoot),” said Frank Poirier, chairman of the Ohio State’s Department of Anthropology. “I don’t expect anything to happen because I’m pretty skeptical about this. But good science requires some wild-goose chases from time to time.”

The testing is being done for the Oregon Regional Primate Research Center.

“Oregon has a large number of (Bigfoot) samples, all of which they treat with great skepticism,” said Paul Fuerst, Ohio State University associate professor of molecular genetics. “These two batches sent to us had the best possibility of being real.”

The creatures reportedly were observed at a distance of about 100 feet in a dense, dark forest.

“It was a sighting by forest rangers,” Poirier said. “After the creatures left, they picked up hair from the locale, as well as footprints and knuckle prints.”

Wes Sumerlin, a Walla Walla man who was part of the group that found the hair samples last summer, said he hopes the DNA research proves the existence of Bigfoot.

“There’s no doubt in my mind I saw one,” he said Sunday.

Grover Krantz, a Washington State University anthropologist, studies Bigfoot in the Pacific Northwest.

“I’m quite convinced by the evidence that Bigfoot is real,” he said, citing the footprints, the 1967 film and the overwhelming number of sightings.

Hundreds of observers have described Bigfoot as being a furry, muscular primate standing 6 feet to 10 feet tall. There is the blurry 1967 film of a creature fitting that description and some footprint casts, but most scientists find this insufficient proof.

Fuerst and a graduate student, Jamie Austin, are using a DNA testing protocol being developed by the FBI for analysis of hair strands that lack the roots normally needed for identification.

Austin, a forensic scientist, is using the Bigfoot hair as well as human and chimpanzee hair to do an independent genetic evaluation of the protocol.

The technique should be able to determine whether the Bigfoot hair came from a human or another known primate, Austin said.

Tests so far suggest the hair did not come from a primate, Fuerst said. Final results are expected later this month.