Earthfiles Interviews Melba Ketchum

The “novel, contemporary species of hominin” is Sasquatch, otherwise known as Bigfoot, Yeti, Yowie and other names around this planet. These big creatures have variously been described by eyewitnesses for many years as at least 8 to 12 feet tall and have been reported throughout the United States and other parts of the world in both hemispheres. But to date, no indisputably real, living Sasquatch – or its skeleton – has ever been publicly displayed to the world.

However, Dr. Ketchum insists this published genetic genome work is “proof” that Sasquatch exists. Further, she says the three sequenced genomes show the source is a hybrid combination of a human female and an unknown male primate that first emerged some 13,000 to 15,000 years ago. Dr. Ketchum says that Sasquatch is a “type of person,” an illusive distant cousin of the human race that has been living almost invisibly “under the noses of humans” for centuries as it has stuck to the most remote parts of the world – perhaps even underground for shelter – trying to avoid human populations.

The problem is that GenBank in the United States, part of the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration, that was created “to provide and encourage access within the scientific community to the most up to date and comprehensive DNA sequence information” – would not accept Dr. Ketchum’s genome sequencing data. Further, no long-standing, credible science journal agreed to publish her work, so Dr. Ketchum was forced to produce the DeNovo Scientific Journal herself in order to reach the public.

Also, I contacted one of the eleven scientists referenced by name as contributing to the genome research. He confirmed that his lab did the DNA extraction for Dr. Ketchum, but he would not agree to an on-the-record interview because the controversy the DeNovo article has provoked about an alleged Sasquatch hybrid threatens the credibility and livelihood of his lab and other scientists. The Catch-22 is: his lab extracted the DNA. Other scientists did blind genome sequencing and their results match Dr. Ketchum’s. But as soon as those labs and scientists learned the DNA under study allegedly came from the unproved Sasquatch creature, then they backed off from vouching for their own work.

When I interviewed Dr. Melba Ketchum on February 14, 2013, the day after the release of her genome research at the DeNovo website, she was very frustrated. From her point of view, she worked hard for five years trying to produce credible scientific data. But then legitimate science journals simply refused to accept her work for publication, as the Gen Bank rejected her genome sequencing data.

I asked her how she came to devote the past five years of her life to the challenge of extracting alleged Sasquatch DNA and reaching her conclusion that Sasquatch exists and is a hybrid of a human female and unknown male primate.

She told me the first thing that happened was the TV show, Destination Truth, took her some samples that the TV producers thought were potentially Yeti (Himalayan version of Sasquatch and Bigfoot). At the same time, samples were delivered to her from North American Bigfoot Search, a California organization. NABS had eyewitnesses attached to their samples and Dr. Metchum became intrigued when she thought there were similarities between the North American Bigfoot and Himalayan Yeti samples.

Eventually when Dr. Ketchum summarized her genome sequencing data for publication in a scientific journal, she ran into refusals. Then on February 13, 2013, a brand new DeNovo Scientific Journal appeared on the web and I asked her if she had to produce that new journal herself in order to get her research into the public and media. She told me, “We have suffered a huge deal of scientific bias. We’ve had a lot of peer review done, which you’re not supposed to come out with. So I have to be careful. The truth will come out eventually and so it’s been a well-read paper. Right up to the last minute, I thought we had a journal’s acceptance, but that was yanked, too.”

Melba Ketchum, D.V.M., Owner, DNA Diagnostics; producer and lead author of 021313 DeNovo Scientific Journal, Nacogdoches, Texas: “We got a younger journal finally that was very interested and they targeted reviewers that were more knowledgeable in the new technology of next generation sequencing and we passed peer review with them.

And right before we were going to announce this, we had them call us and say, ‘Don’t send out your press release. We can’t do this. Our lawyer has told us that our careers will be over if we publish this paper.’ And apparently it shocked them all and we were able to acquire that journal.

IS THE DE NOVO JOURNAL OF SCIENCE PRODUCED BY YOU, DR. MELBA KETCHUM?

Not per se. We have editors coming on board and what have you that will take it. I only, you know, made the deal to acquire it, renaming it and sending out what they didn’t have the gumption to do.

SO DE NOVO IS BRAND NEW AS OF FEBRUARY 13TH ON THE WEB. THE CLASSIC JOURNALS FOR SCIENCE ARE NATURE AND SCIENCE AND JAMA
[ Journal of the American Medical Association] AND PLOS [ Public Library of Science] AND SO FORTH.

Yes.

DID YOU SEND YOUR ARTICLE OUT ABOUT THE GENOME TO ALL OF THEM?

Yes, I did. And the bottom line is that it’s novel and they don’t believe it. They don’t criticize the data. They just say they don’t believe it. There has to be another explanation. It has to be contamination. Not just one journal, but all of them and we have all the proof in the world that it’s (DNA samples) clean.

SO YOU HAD TRIED ALL OF THE TRADITIONAL JOURNALS , HAD BEEN REJECTED FOR WHATEVER THE REASONS POLITICAL OR OTHERWISE, AND THEN YOU WERE CLOSE TO HAVING A PUBLICATION. SO, OUT OF DESPERATION YOU YOURSELF PUT TOGETHER THIS DE NOVO VOLUME I, SO YOU COULD GET THIS THREE GENOME SEQUENCING INFORMATION OUT TO THE PUBLIC AND THE MEDIA.

Yes, and it’s so ridiculous that GenBank would not even take our sequences because when you do this (genetic research) you’re supposed to upload your genetic sequences to GenBank. And we tried and they wouldn’t take them because we did not have a name for it, a taxon. So I have their (GenBank) email and I tried repeatedly to contact them and call them and they would not talk to us and would not respond to our emails after that one turning us down.

YOU’RE SAYING THAT YOU RAN INTO THE CATCH-22 PROBLEM THAT IF YOU HAVE AN ANOMALOUS GENOME SEQUENCING THAT GEN BANK WOULD NOT ACCEPT YOUR DATA BECA– USE IT DID NOT FIT IN AN ALREADY PRE-ACCEPTABLE CATEGORY?

Yes, absolutely! I have their email that says exactly that. I’ve got a big target X on me!

I’M READING AGAIN FROM, ‘THE MITOCHONDRIAL DNA WAS FULLY MODERN HOMO SAPIENS INDICATING THAT THE SPECIES IS A HYBRID CROSS BETWEEN MODERN HOMO SAPIENS IN THE MATERNAL LINEAGE AND AN UNKNOWN HOMININ MALE PROGENITOR.’ CAN YOU TAKE THAT AND GO INTO YOUR RESEARCH AND HOW YOU FOUND THIS?

We had non-human hair and we have the comparison pictures in the paper giving human mitochondrial DNA. We’re forensic scientists. We washed this hair thoroughly before we extracted it. In the tissue samples, we went to the very center of the tissue where there could not have been any contamination. We did it under a (laboratory) hood. We did it completely covered. There could not have been any contamination there. There’s no way there is contamination, especially on that tissue sample. And when we did our sequencing with universal primers – meaning we tried to see if any other animal was there – all we got was human.