DNA Test Results for “The Hand of Unknown Origin”
Posted by: Craig Woolheater on July 12th, 2006
Steve Kulls of SquatchDetective.com has shared some information with me regarding "The Hand of Unknown Origin."
Steve had a look at the hand in person when Biscardi was in New York in late May of this year.
In a previous post here on Cryptomundo, I detailed the press release from Tom Biscardi that stated that the hand was of unknown origin. From that press release comes the following paragraph:
World renown ‘Bigfoot’ researcher, Tom Biscardi , founder of Searching for Bigfoot Inc., a Bigfoot research and expedition organization headquartered in Menlo Park, California, went out to find evidence of the creature known as Bigfoot and came back with a big hand! Literally, this is a “hand of unknown origin,” as it was referred to by Dr. Todd L. Reese, D.C., a chiropractor who studied the anatomy of the hand. In a sworn affidavit, Dr. Reese stated that this severed hand is of unknown origin. “It is not human, not of any known species of primate, and not a bear!”
Steve Kulls shares with us the "sworn affidavit" of Dr. Todd L. Reese:
To Whom It May Concern:
My name is Dr. Todd L. Reese, D.C. and I am a chiropractor in the state of Idaho. I received my bachelor’s degree from Idaho State University in Microbiology and went to chiropractic school in California. During my education, we study anatomy and physiology in detail. One study published in the Journal of Alternative Therapies in September 1998 compared chiropractic education to medical school education. Chiropractors have more hours of classroom instruction than do primary care M.D’s and have much more emphasis on anatomy and physiology. My only purpose in stating this fact is to alert the reader that bone structure is very much a part of chiropractic education and that I feel adequate to comment on it.
Now that we have established a thorough background of my educational foundation I am going to explain how I came into contact with the hand of unknown origin. Mr. Donald L. Monroe has been a personal friend of my family for many decades. I am pleased to call him my friend and have always been pleasantly amazed at his understanding of the outdoors and wildlife.
He called me one day in July 2003 and asked me if I could x-ray a hand. I thought that he may have injured his hand and told him that I could. He then brought into my office, on July 24, a severed hand that had been carefully wrapped and placed in a cooler. Frost was visible on the posterior aspect of the hand and it was evident by the coloration that the hand had been skinned and was in a state of decay. My knowledge of the rate of decay of the stratum basale layer below the epidermis is lacking, so no estimated time of death could be calculated. The browning of the tissues, though, did concern me because I felt the rate of decay would soon render much of the specimen worthless. I have included digital pictures of the hand with this document.
I sterilized my x-ray cassettes and proceeded to take an x-ray of the hand and was careful not to contaminate the specimen. I never did touch the hand. The first observation I made was that each of the digits 2-5 had the distal phalanges removed or severed. The first digit appeared to be removed at the metacarpo-phalangeal joint. The metacarpals were all intact and three of the carpal bones are visible. In comparison to the human hand, the carpal bones were similar, but the trapezium and the trapezoid seem to be one bone in the unknown hand. The other two carpals seem to be the capitate and the hamate. The density of the metacarpal bones were quite different from the human hand. The bones were much denser with pearl shaped densities in the distal heads. The metacarpo-phalangeal joint spaces were much wider in the unknown hand when compared to a human hand. The proximal phalanges showed slightly irregular cortices (maybe slightly arthritic) near the interphalangeal joints. These joint spaces also proved irregular with v-shaped joint lines. This would prove to increase the surface area of the joint and could serve to increase strength at the joint. This is only speculation, though.
In comparing the two hands, one could safely say that the unknown hand is not human. There are far more differences than there are similarities. Further DNA testing and study of the hand by those more knowledgeable than I should yield answers to the origin of the hand.
In conclusion, I feel that this specimen needs to be examined by open-minded individuals who will give it the attention it deserves. I have compared the bone structure to bears, apes and other animals with my limited resources and cannot come up with any tangible answers. I do believe that it is not human, but it seems to be human-like.
Todd L. Reese, D.C.
May 31, 2006
Steve Kulls has also shared with us here at Cryptomundo the actual DNA test results from DNA Diagnostics Center. This is what Steve had to say about the report:
According to the official report both specimens yielded no usable DNA and yielded a result too degraded to sequence (or classify). Tom Biscardi claims that there was an original verbal report which deemed it unclassified, but the official report is the official report. No useable DNA found on the samples provided.
Following are scans of the official 2 page report:
Click image for full-size copy of the report
Click image for full-size copy of the report
This test report doesn’t even come close to the following claims that the press release claimed. That "The Hand of Unknow Origin" was "Not Human, Not any known primate and Not in even ‘in the system’.”
What do you, the Cryptomundo reader, think about these test results?
The complete report can be downloaded as a .pdf from Steve’s site here.
Following are some of Steve’s photos of "The Hand of Unknown Origin."
Co-founder of Cryptomundo in 2005.
I have appeared in or contributed to the following TV programs, documentaries and films:
OLN's Mysterious Encounters: "Caddo Critter", Southern Fried Bigfoot, Travel Channel's Weird Travels: "Bigfoot", History Channel's MonsterQuest: "Swamp Stalker", The Wild Man of the Navidad, Destination America's Monsters and Mysteries in America: Texas Terror - Lake Worth Monster, Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot: Return to Boggy Creek and Beast of the Bayou.
the fact that the skin was removed and the side view of the hand shown above scream bear.
i didn’t see a side view, probably by ol p t barnum-biscardi choice as it would give it away.
so you strip off the skin, cut off what would be claws and see the obvious paw like side view and i come to one conclusion. that its time for biscardi to move on to the next hoax. maybe a film of a UFO dropping a squatch off to scare a hiker. oh wait that’s too cartoonish for biscardi.
Surely -someone- can look at that x-ray and identify it. Much more detailed and conclusive than the fuzzy photos. Also, I agree with the above commenter regarding the skinning, but on a psychological basis.
Okay, you have a bigfoot. Or at least it’s hand. Who skins the hand? Who skins a bigfoot, period? Why would one partially destroy something you then proceed to preserve? The story falls apart on that detail, there’s no logical explanation for the skin being removed. Decayed, damaged, dried…but removed? That’s just nonsense. Only reason to remove is, as the previous poster said, to cover up that it’s a mutilated bear claw.
Well, first off I’am a long time reader and this is my first post.
I’ve kept track on this hand thing since the beginning. My first thought when seeing it was that it was a bear paw, and after seeing the pictures from above, I have concluded that it is a bear claw. I have been doing taxidermy work for sometime now and have seen the same skinless hand(s). I think they should check and see if there is a taxidermy shop in the area.
Methinks Biscardi should learn some basics before he goes overboard with spewing half understood terms.
Interesting point, Fireslayer. The whole skinning thing puzzles me too. It would seem tremendously counterproductive to provide a seriously damaged specimen and expect a good analysis result. Skinned, ends of digits missing, already in an obvious state of decay. Any one of these would make me wonder, but all of them seem to indicate deception on some level.
Looks like a Bear paw to me.
Mr. Biscardi, your 15 minutes are up.
Now please go away.
this whole thing stinks. At that amount of decay, can the dna people get an accurate reading? Biscardi, keep looking in the forest and stay out of the lime light.
It’s a bear foot.
I’ll send a graphic to Craig to show a comparison of a human and bear finger.
Interesting, the folks commenting about taxidermy. I don’t know much about mounting bears, but I’ve seen people mount deer, and when you are mounting deer, you save the skin and a skull cap with the antlers, but the rest is garbage because you end up stretching the skin over a fiberglass form. I would assume someone mouting a bear would want to preserve the skin, and the claws, but the rest of the bear paw would be “garbage”. (that is, garbage unless a con man wanted to pass it off as a “hand of unknown origin”)
Mr. B. Please go away now you are only hurting the field of crypto. I would say most Reporters and News outlets are laughing at you which is bad for the serious ones out their.
Ooops, that DNA report doesn’t even come close to backing up Biscardi’s claims. He’s been proven to be a bold-faced liar now.
Maybe this is from so unknown physco that has been doing this for years.
Mr. Biscardi,
To quote the esteemed and infinitely wise Bugs Bunny, all I can say is, “What a maroon!”
We have learned one valuable lesson… A bear’s paw is remarkably similar to our own in some ways.
When i made a possum study skin in school years ago, the only thing i saved was the skin and claws of the paws. The rest got tossed to perhaps baffle some poor soul.
Someone should check the trash of a taxidermist after he does a bear mount. That should settle it…
Looking online at bear claw skeletons, this hand of unknown origin is so obviously the hand of a bear with the claws removed.
I will keep an open mind. I do have to wonder why the DNA was only tested for human DNA.
I suggest it be re-submitted to a lab that handles animal DNA not human. I believe there is an accredited lab for animal DNA in Ca.
Perhaps that would once and for all put to rest this issue.
As for the xray and photos. The xray I have no conclusion. I will submit that many dead creatures will lose their hide before the total deteriation of the flesh. This includes humans.
It does not appear to be a bear paw. Perhaps some sort of primate.
It is very interesting. I can say that it is a hand of some primate. But the bones of the fingers are too long for them. It seems that this creature used hands in hunt, or work as a human. Only I can say that we dont know the world completely.
P.S: Sorry for my English.
It looks like a skinned bear’s paw. I think that the distal phalages having been removed is a dead giveaway: somebody cut off the claws.