Sykes vs. Ketchum

Posted by: Craig Woolheater on January 24th, 2014

And vice versa!

Posted on Melba Ketchum’s Facebook wall:

I sent an email to Bryan Sykes of Oxford Ancestors and this is the reply I got (feeling disappointed) … 🙁

Dear xxxx,

Thanks for your email. I am well aware of Dr Ketchum’s claims.
However, her work has not been published in a peer-reviewed
journal, her materials are not available nor has her data been
made public so that others can replicate what she claims to have
done. This is not science. My concern is that so many people seem
to think it is.

Regards

Bryan

Professor of Human Genetics
Wolfson College, Oxford,OX2 6UDBryan Sykes

In response to Sykes’ lack of knowledge about our project:

1. It was peer reviewed and passed. I told the story about that many times. Nature’s peer reviews were biased as they didn’t read the manuscript asking for things already in the paper and other huge flaws. It was passed by a newer journal in a blind peer reviews. When the journal backed out of publishing at the last minute thanks to the advise of their attorney, we acquired the journal and Wally paid to have the website re-done with a new name. None of us had ANYTHING to do with the peer reviews. They were allegedly from genomics people but they were blind so I do not know the identities of the reviewers. By the way they were written, I have no doubts this is true. These reviews are online here.

2. I asked several labs to re-test samples, nobody will do it (but they were already re-tested within the study by other labs. There two labs extracting, 10 labs testing and all labs got the same resutls. Sykes certainly didn’t ask to re-test anything I did. Not that I would trust him after the letter below. Plus all he would get is human since he has a mtDNA lab. He would have to test the nuDNA to get the novel sequence.

3. The data is public, including the sequences on chromosome 11 we used in the manuscript. Since Gen-Bank wouldn’t take them (we’re still trying to get the whole genomes in), the whole genomes are not available yet but all of the data we used in the paper is. In a scientific paper, you must make public what you use. We did that in all of the supplemental tables and files for download along with the paper. The millions of bases we aligned are right there for download. Anybody can see it. They are in two forms. 1. mutation tables for the mtDNA All of this can be downloaded open access at www.sasquatchgenomeproject.org. We even have added some supporting raw data straight from the machines on the website. It also is not required to publish. I have nothing to hide. The data is sound and repeatable. Some of the samples were not even in my hands since the raw samples were extracted and tested elsewhere. How can I not have real data when the same samples are extracted and tested elsewhere with the same results that the same samples gave in my hands and outsourced to other labs.? I did the science, but science just doesn’t want to accept it. That is their problem. We did the work, our team proved it and I feel there is obviously a concerted effort to suppress it and destroy the study through disinformation.Melba Ketchum

One more thing, it is not my claim, but that of a number of very good scientists from both academia and the private and government sectors. After the attacks started coming, I told my co-authors to let me take the heat and just refer back to me. They have families to feed and I didn’t want them losing their jobs. My career ended in forensics as soon as they got me on the stand and started spouting all of the lies from various hater blogs to discredit me so it was too late for me to salvage that part of my career and I didn’t want the same to happen to my co-authors.Melba Ketchum

And there is the unsolicited peer review from Dr. David Swenson and others that would not allow me to post them publicly for fear of the stigma attached to Bigfoot. Dr. Swenson is imminently qualified to assess the manuscript since he was the first person to assemble the staph aureus genome for Upjohn among other accolades. Dr. Swenson worked with our sequences and came to the same conclusion as follows:

Interested parties. I went over the manuscript by Melba Ketchum on Bigfoot genomics. My desktop had difficulty with a blast analysis of the consensus sequences. It helped me understand more about the project. This collaborative venture has done a huge project that taxes me to fully grasp. I see interesting homology with a standard human sequence with 99% match for mitochondria. From my abbreviated study, the nuclear genome seems to have human and nonhuman sequences. My opinion of the creature is that it is a hybrid of a human mother and an unknown hominid male, Just as reported. For all practical purposes, it should be treated as human and protected under law. Sasquatch is real, as proven by genetic analysis.

I NEVER would have done this again. I was very naive, I though that enough cutting edge science was the answer so we overkilled and overkilled the testing, to the tune of 500,000 dollars to make sure it passed peer review with the best science that money could buy thanks to Wally Hersom and Adrian Erickson. We used duplicate labs and blind studies. There is no credible critique of the science out there. Just a lot of complaints about the results and results that were generated by major universities. It cost me my ability to testify in court which I loved. No, never would have done it if I had to do it over.

I didn’t have a choice about the journal. I had sent it to many journals. PLOS One wouldn’t even send it out for review nor would Cell. They wouldn’t even give it a chance.

When this happens, you have to do whatever it takes to get the peer reviews. I had no choice.Melba Ketchum

Don’t care what Sykes or anyone else has to say. It is what it is. Not even trying to prove it anymore. People either believe the study or don’t. I will defend it to allegations like is made below though. BTW, Sykes wrote me one time and wanted to meet with me. I said sure and even offered to take him to where he could see a Sasquatch, but he backed out. He could have accessed all of my data and samples, but chose not to do so. The window for that opportunity is now closed.

Instead went to the Pacific NW to meet with that group. I would have much rather, as a scientist, had access to the overwhelming data set we have AND had the chance to see one.

I had not spoken of this before, wasn’t anyone’s business, but if he is going to cast the first stone after turning down the opportunity I gave him. I have no choice.Melba Ketchum

About Craig Woolheater
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.


9 Responses to “Sykes vs. Ketchum”

  1. shmargin responds:

    Ketchum can take me somewhere where I’m sure to see Bigfoot. I have an HD camera AND I know how the focus works on it!

  2. shill responds:

    She has the qualities of a “crank” – the official word for someone on the wrong track but doesn’t know it.

  3. Dudlow responds:

    Way to go, DR. Ketchum! Your science is outstanding. Too bad the scoftics haven’t the education (or brains?) to comprehend or understand how thoroughgoing your study procedures actually were and how significant your results continue to be. Fie on all those credentialed idiots who will not publically support what in private they cannot deny. Clearly what we have here is yet another version of The King’s New Clothes. Frankly, I had expected far more from Sykes who seems to have put his little tail between his legs and run for cover. Admirably, Dr. Ketchum, you did not run from the truth. Gold star on your chart.

  4. dconstrukt responds:

    shmargin – haha. YES! that would be awesome…. but then she’d have to call her friends, they’d have to leave work… and put on the wookie costumes again….

    takes a lotta coordination to make all that happen.

    seriously. just send all the stuff in a box or cooler or whatnot to sykes.

    say HERE.

    go test it.

    no need for the mumbo jumbo emails.

    you know where the dude is located.

    if you REALLY wanna know what that DNA is.

    GO THERE with the stuff and hand deliver it.

  5. chewbaccalacca responds:

    Shill – I’m not a biologist, but if the details she presents above are indeed accurate (in points 1, 2, and 3), then I’m inclined to view Sykes as the crank here more than Ketchum.

  6. DWA responds:

    Now why can’t I believe anything she says?

    Could it be because she tells me she’s been going to habituation sites and hanging out with the big guys, and yet letting all this rest on her spurious tests, allegations and demurrers?

    That it?

  7. alan borky responds:

    @chewbaccalacca

    Oh man it was worth wadin’ through the months o’ intellectual pingpong Melba an’ her detractors’ve been puttin’ us through jus’ t’encounter your name!

    Love it!

    Brilliant!

    ps

    Give Melba her due.

    Whatever anyone says her *hoax*’s world class compared t’the shot Sasquatch saga [can’t say the same thing ’bout *her* film *evidence*].

    The cosmic joke o’ course bein’ either one or both o’ ’em might even be true.

  8. Kopite responds:

    I don’t believe a word either of them say any more. I stopped taking Sykes’ words as gospel ever since he declared on t.v that “no serious scientist has looked into this field (bigfoot/yeti research) for 50 years”.

    That’s blatantly untrue and was a spit in the face to those serious scientists who have indeed been looking into it. There are lots of them.

  9. dconstrukt responds:

    sykes can test the data and tell us what it is.

    she has the data.

    no one believes her (for obvious reasons).

    if its all about finding out what it is… then send said data to him, let him analyze.

    what else is there left to talk about in this story?

Sorry. Comments have been closed.

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