July 12, 2006

DNA Test Results for “The Hand of Unknown Origin”

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."

Filed under Bigfoot, Bigfoot Report, Breaking News, Cryptozoology, Evidence, Forensic Science, Hoaxes, Public Forum, Sasquatch