July 4, 2006

Update: The Hand of Unknown Origin

There are several different stories floating around regarding the source of Biscardi’s Bigfoot hand.

The first is the one told here on Cryptomundo. In this story, Tom Biscardi was given the hand by Don Monroe, who had been given the hand by the Butte or Billings, MT sheriff’s department, after it was found at a dump.

Another story was that Biscardi and company were out in the woods and were attacked by an aggressive Bigfoot and Biscardi himself chopped off the hand of the attacking Bigfoot in self-defense.

The last, we can only hope, story is that it was found in an Illinois woods where a mother and infant Bigfoot lived.

As I mentioned yesterday, I had contacted the lab, DNA Diagnostics Center, where Biscardi is claiming some DNA tests were conducted on The Hand of Unknown Origin. I received several emails from their Marketing Program Leader, Felicity Tao, regarding my requests for information regarding said test(s).

Following are the emails in their entirety:

Email #1: 

Dear Mr. Woolheater:

Our laboratory did provide DNA testing services to Tom Biscardi. However, the statement used in the press release you quoted is not in our report. We will stand by whatever results we issued in the report to the client. Due to the confidentiality policy between our client and our laboratory, we are not able to provide the original report without the consent of our client.

Hope this helps to answer some of your questions.

Thank you.

Felicity

Felicity Tao
Marketing Program Leader
Forensic Services
DNA Diagnostics Center

Email #2 

Dear Mr. Woolheater:

Our laboratory did provide a standard DNA test to Mr. Tom Biscardi. However, the statements Mr. Biscardi used in his press release dated June 9, 2006 on the website: searchingforbigfoot.com are not consistent with our report, and we found the statements grossly misinterpreted and very misleading.

Due to the confidential nature of DNA testing for identification, we won’t be able to publicize the original report without the consent of our client. Since Mr. Biscardi directly quoted us in the press release, we found we have no choice but clarify our findings.

We hope this helps to answer some of your questions.

Thanks.

Felicity

Email #3 

Mr. Woolheater:

In addition to the statement we sent you just now, we would also like to clarify that Mr. Tom Biscardi didn’t send us a hand to test with. We received some tissue samples from him, which we couldn’t verify if they came from a hand or not.

Thank you.

Felicity

So it looks like the following statements made by Biscardi on his website are "grossly misinterpreted and very misleading."

The following is a summary of the results of these initial DNA tests… The DNA tests confirm that the hand is…

• 1) Not Human
• 2) Not any known primate
• 3) Not in even “in the system”

Boy, who saw that one coming? I also wrote to Dr. W. Henner Fahrenbach regarding The Hand of Unknown Origin, as a commenter here at Cryptomundo said "…ran it by several Doctors in the Seattle area as well as Dr. W. H. Fahrenbach who conveniently kept screwing up samples for DNA testing so he could quote “need the whole hand itself to conduct proper DNA analysis.” Yeah right."

The following is Dr. Fahrenbach’s email reply, edited for content:

Dear Craig,

I have never had anything to do with this hand. Several years ago, I got this excited communication that a group had found a partly skeletonized hand and were all over the top excited. I told them to send me some hair from it and search systematically in increasing circles about the find. By the time I found it was bear hair, they had found the dead bear with its paw or arm shot off.

It sounds suspicious that the fingertips are gone. I would not bother with chiropractors and the like but, if in doubt, send it to the National Zoo for identification, probably registered would work.

My best, Henner

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