Ketchum Names Sasquatch
Posted by: Craig Woolheater on October 22nd, 2013
Below are statements taken from Dr. Melba Ketchum’s public Facebook page:
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.
Greetings,
I have said all along that Dr. Ketchum may or may not have the correct conclusions from her data. That will be up to science to determine and so far they have said no. They will need to examine Professor Sykes data in the same manner but I’m beginning to have my doubts if his efforts will be a game changer.
It will take only one institution to change but they will have to declare the species to exist based upon the scientific evidence. If one of them doesn’t then we will still need a body to move them. My best,
Sasquatchas Bigfootis Americanis.
“There was a new species of monkey accepted with only 1600 bases of mtDNA when we have 20 whole mtDNA genomes and 10 partial at about 16,500 bases each. …”
Bet we can point to the monkey. Can we point to a specimen of this?
When and if it becomes time to name sasquatch, this ought to be done by a committee consisting of sasquatch researchers and investigators who have examined this problem diligently over the years.
It is not the place of one person to take this upon themselves based upon their own unaccepted work. Anyone can go ahead and name their own concept, but they cannot enter this taxonimically without definitive proof. So far I have not seen any proof of sasquatch from any DNA evidence adduced by anyone.
In a quote from her Facebook page, she equates herself to Galileo…
Excuse me.
In a week or two we will have Dr. Sykes conclusions on bigfoot to compare with those of Dr. Ketchums. Apparently they have both examined the same material. We should really wait for his conclusions until anyone, super believer or total skeptic starts pulling out their shotguns.
DWA,
I understand your point, but I think it can be answered in several ways.
DNA cannot be fabricated, had to come from somewhere, and possesses all it takes for full identification. So finding a leg or a head would be of much less value if the DNA cannot be extracted. If we had the body of any cryptid, first thing any scientist would do it extract its DNA to see what it is. It is the same as if ID cards could not possibly be faked, and you found one, so – the person exists. Or if maps could not me faked, and you find one of an unknown kingdom. It is more than that, because it is actually a physical part of it, and the most defining part, which makes it what it is more than its entire outer appearance. It is actually more valuable than if we found the entire body but with degraded, impossible to analyze DNA. Ask a paleontologist would he prefer just the intact DNA of a T-rex or its, say, mummy with useless DNA.
Actually, you can not really point to that monkey or to many other recently discovered creatures. People saw, described and photographed (same as Bigfoot), and other people just believed it. In truth, probably more people saw what we call Bigfoot than that monkey.
In the end, you can not point to a Denisovan specimen. And no one saw it. Was it a tooth? No, it was DNA. Paabo pointed to DNA. Because it is waaay more valuable than any fossil.
DNA is a specimen, just at a microscopic level. “Specimen” and “species” come from latin “specere”, meaning to look, and science today looks at “species” through its DNA.
That’s what I think. But still, I know for some it would take a bite of a living Sasquatch to believe… So, a specimen would be fine 🙂
Jayross,
I didn’t read it that way. I read she equated you with the guys around him. Have you knowledgeably and honestly looked though her telescope? At least at her FB page?
I believe she did prove it, actually I came to that conclusion after she clearly discounted the contamination, which none of her debunkers ever reported, countered with further arguments or even mentioned. So I think she does haves every right to propose a name.
If the only thing from her posts that we can comment is her mentioning of Galileo and the name proposal, I think it is not useful to comment at all – because we cannot have an informed opinion on these two matters without the informed opinion on other posts. Well am I not right?
Cheers,
corrick–Astutely put! It is difficult to argue suppositions. Data, well, that is another story. But to argue suppositions before we have the data is a fool’s errand. I am with you!
Degnostic–Now that was an insightful post. And although I do not always agree with you, your arguments here are very logical and insightful. Very deep and very true! You asked, “Am I not right?” I would answer, yes, yes you are!
Jayross: I think she was making a point about the difficulty in acceptance of new ideas and data, not comparing herself to Galileo.
John Kirk: I sure hope they put Ivan Sanderson’s name in there somewhere. Like, sandersonius….
Degnostik:
You make very cogent points (and I particularly like the ID card and map analogies. You do analogies better than most).
It may come down to this, and I know this may just be me: Getting a DNA sequence from hair or jawbone or tooth – with nothing to truly show me what the live animal looks like – is going to be, for me, a very unsatisfactory bite of a living sasquatch. 😉 If it gets scientists full-time into the field to procure the additional information, however, I suppose it will be worth it. If it disintegrates into a shouting match over contamination, fraud, incredulity, etc., with the full-timers staying on the sidelines…then it won’t.
And I share your distaste for leg or jaw only, unless, as in the case of fossils, we know it’s unlikely in the extreme to ever see one alive, and this is what we have, which is why I am all for classifying fossils – and free speculation on what they might have been alive – based only on what we’ve found. (In astronomy: imagine if we had to get a piece of a star to confirm it a star.) Whatever gets the full-time quest into the field, and thence the lab – the true Finding Bigfoot – works for me.
And this probably answers my monkey point too. I can see a picture of the monkey, or at least of a close relative. Sasquatch? Well…Patty has to be enough. For now. 😉 And Patty has that wink of doubt: it’s unlikely as can be that it was faked….but was it….? (And even though not as undecipherable as skeptics like to think, I would want my clearest photo of my kids to be clearer than that.) As you say: a photo of an aye-aye, I-I accept – rather than accusing the Aye-Aye Hoaxer of further torture – because, well, science vouches for it, and I accept that. As Dr. Leila Hadj-Chikh puts it, most of what we know for sure is only what we believe we know for sure. I mean, I have never set the rocket-ship odometer to zero and tested the Astronomical Unit personally, have I…?
For me, the fact that nobody in 46 years has been able to come close to duplicating Patty with a suit is definitive enough. I’m not a scientist, nor do I play one on TV. As I have said here more than once, I consider science, with all its rules and attitudes, unquiquely UNsuited to to the task.
John Kirk:
“When and if it becomes time to name sasquatch, this ought to be done by a committee consisting of sasquatch researchers and investigators who have examined this problem diligently over the years.
It is not the place of one person to take this upon themselves based upon their own unaccepted work. …”
I have to say I agree with this. In most cases, species names are after – or bestowed by – those who have been, if not alone, acknowledged critical names in the confirmation of the species. I can’t see that the field’s key researchers – particularly those who worked with researchers now gone – should relinquish their places at this table to a come-lately whose work would never have been thought of without them.
I have often said that observations aren’t taxonomy. The observations here, however, don’t make me look kindly upon the name suggested by Ketchum.
Hi John,
I agree with some of your post but not all. Please note that it’s a fact that a couple of the labs who performed DNA Analysis for Dr. Ketchum did admit and report that their analysis did match her conclusions. However, that does not mean that her report and its conclusions are absolutely correct.
As for naming the species your idea surprised me a little since it was the late Dr. Grover Krantz who suggested Gigantopithicusblacki in his book, Bigfoot Prints. I think whatever name is given the species it will follow the traditions established by the classification system. Traditions can sometimes die really hard in science.
Take care John and break out the long johns and the snow suit as I will fondly think of you while I’m down south. My best,
All the above DNA analogies from mummies to T-rex are all very nice in discussion forums but they have no relative parallels to supposed Bigfoot DNA sequencing. The comparative examples all come from known quantities; bodies and skeletons and so forth. The Bigfoot samples are collected from what? Collected by who? Verifiably confirmed to be from an actual Bigfoot how?
Collecting data and making it say what you believe or want it to say is an old method well used by trial lawyers and scientific groups seeking grants. I am not disparaging anyone’s supposed body of evidence or body of work to achieve their goals in this matter. I am saying that a body or large enough piece of one, will decide this investigation. The truth of the matter is that when anyone, anywhere obtains the corporeal reality, living or dead, in 24 hours the entire literate world will be made aware of it. Then DNA testing and sequencing from the real article will be productive and not before. If these people and their groups actually had the evidence that they propose to have, they would release it to the entire world pronto and reap what would be substantial rewards both scientific and monetary…end of story.
cryptokellie: well, see, this is my problem too.
Scientists say a molecule is the smallest unit of a substance containing the properties of that substance. That said: a molecule of water won’t make me wet, nor quench my thirst. And if you freeze it, it won’t make my drink cold either.
BUT IT’S A MOLECULE OF WATER.
This is a molecule – a bunch of them, whatever – of WHAT?
I don’t want the type specimen to be a fence post from which someone got hair. I don’t want to be thinking that a near human bunch of molecules is out there somewhere. I want an animal; and I think we all do. Furthermore, unless we have one, we’re taking the scientists’ word for it. Don’t know about you; but I want to have more going on before I feel I can take their word for it.
I always laughed at the “extraordinary proof” canard; please, people, claims require proof and leave the ‘extraordinary’ out of it. But know what?
This is what it means.
Will a DNA sequence tell you what sasquatch is? Or make you conclude it’s real, any more than the evidence so far garnered has done?
Me neither.
cryptokellie,
DNA analogies from mummies to T-rex were part of discussion whether DNA is, in general, enough proof, even without a specimen. It would become relevant for Ketchum if one day we all somehow came to agree that her results are real and analyses perfect. You are right that at the moment, Ketchum’s work has more serious issues to deal with. For instance, to try and gather more support from guys like Swenson.
“Verifiably confirmed to be from an actual Bigfoot how?” – please, we’re talking possible new species here, so it’s actually a trick question, Catch 22 style, and would also apply to Denisovan and any new species, including dinosaurs. I we had such extensive worldwide folklore and many dozens of traditional names for Denisovans, situation would be the same.
If we one day come to agree… that real DNA from real non-human hair was really analyzed properly and shown an unknown species, we could as well call the creature DNAnimal or DNAsaurus or Ketchumfoot or whatever.
Talking about relative parallels to supposed Bigfoot DNA sequencing (translate: talking about Ketchum), questions “Bigfoot samples are collected from what? Collected by who?” have been answered in detail.
I mostly agree with the rest, unfortunately 🙂
Except for the “literate world” being aware of it in 24 h. Not sure.
Cheers.
Greetings,
The point brought up should be well taken by all. There’s no DNA in the database that is known to be from Sasquatch and this is a scientific fact. Now, Dr. Sykes has for analysis several samples that were collected just before or right after an encounter and it can it can be implied that they may be from an unknown species.
Dr. Sykes report is very likely to stop just short of claiming the evidence discovered is from a new unknown species. However, he can claim that the evidence is highly indicative of the existence of an unknown North American Hominid. He can close by calling on all of science to determine the existence and extent of this unknown species.
That would be my take on the next step. My best,
Degnostik;
If those “collection details” were actually answered in detail as you suggest…there would be no need for DNA sequencing to prove Bigfoot’s existence, it would already be established by the collected samples themselves. The fact that the samples cannot be indisputably connected to a Bigfoot specimen in proven reality lays bare the truth that these “samples” are a collection of undocumented materials that may or may not be Bigfoot related and the veracity of the material lies solely with the narratives of the collectors…very tenuous at best. Without the specimen, there is no DNA. It is the specimen that provides all the details of which DNA is one component. An example; if there was a Bigfoot “steak” with hair such as was claimed, the amount of information extracted from this piece would be immeasurable even without DNA sequencing, which is proving to be so difficult to obtain definitive results as to be negligible. The “steak” obtained from a real Bigfoot would be a treasure trove of data, DNA data aside. Your statement that “We’re talking possible new species here” doesn’t address the problem that the “collected samples” have…that they have no actual identity, only the presumed hope that they might have come from a Bigfoot – according to the collectors. Without being positive confirmation of being Bigfoot in origin, the samples are almost useless as any data they might yield would be referable to what, an unknown animal at the very best. The question would and still remain unresolved…until a body or a large enough piece of one turns up.
Larry,
With due respect to my late colleague Grover, I don’t care what Krantz named sasquatch. His opinion was his idea and there are plenty of us who disagree with Krantz and the Giganto hypothesis. That being said, he is entitled to his opinion and I’ll respect it, but if I was invited to the naming table and had a vote, Giganto is not one name I’d pick unless the evidence definitively bore that out.
Currently there is no Giganto DNA in existence so if we had just a tissue sample or blood of a sasquatch there would not be any way to compare it Giganto. However, it would be a different story if there was a corpse which would allow determination of whether the two are related particularly through the mandible and dentition.
If sasquatch is distinct from Giganto then I would have to say upfront I am not in favour of attaching anyone’s name to the taxonomical identification. I feel Jeff Meldrum is moving along the right lines by describing the creature without using someone’s name and looking at other descriptors although it’s not a name I would chose myself, but I respect Jeff and can see why he chose to use that appellation.
Before anyone jumps to conclusions in naming a sasquatch, I suggest that they adduce physical evidence of sasquatch first before trying to name a creature for which there is NO DNA to compare it to.
John Kirk: I too believe the Giganto hypothesis is wrong. It was a nice try for the time in which it arose, but I believe the chances of living Gigantos is remote in the extreme; so I believe we are dealing with a yet-unclassified organism. It seems probable to me that we are talking about organisms, plural.
I have immense respect for Jeff Meldrum. However, I do feel he’s gone down the wrong fork in the road with his virtual insistence on a North American “Ape”.
Because it is clear to me we are investigating what will eventually be classified as PEOPLE, and not apes.
We have had “people” in the Americas for tens of thousands of years, at a minimum; we have no evidence that would point to apes, and there’s no fossil record of “apes” in North America. Maybe Jeff’s just playing it coyly, but it’s strait-up truth that leads the way forward.
Degnostik:
““Verifiably confirmed to be from an actual Bigfoot how?” – please, we’re talking possible new species here, so it’s actually a trick question, Catch 22 style, and would also apply to Denisovan and any new species, including dinosaurs.”
Well, I’m not so sure about this. This is part of why science requires a specimen identifiable, with the DNA sequence being its signature and not its substitute. Science at its core appeals to what it means to live on the earth; and one of the things that’s most important to humans is the animals, not the DNA strings, with whom we share it.
You might be right that if scientists somehow got hold of remains identifiable as something new, but with no extractable DNA, there might be temporary frustration among geneticists. But that we had THIS ANIMAL, that we could SEE was something new, the search would be on in earnest, the animal for all intents and purposes proven by what anyone could SEE.
Denisovans and dinosaurs excite our imagination not because of molecular sights but because of things anyone can see. Well, OK, if I found them I might or might not know what they were. But a specialist holding them in his hand could see, this is something interesting, perhaps epochal, and we need to compare what we have with what we know and let the most intelligent conjecture we can apply take the lead from there.
For an animal living among us, though, this isn’t where we stop. We know we don’t have to so for sure we don’t want to. Why substitute conjecture about a faraway planet’s atmosphere and its potential for life when we could fly there and find out? Well, the answer is part of why the standard of proof in astronomy is so different than for biology: usually, we won’t get there in the lifetime of anyone living. Intelligent conjecture is almost all we have; as Dr. Hadj-Chikh might put it, what we know for sure is almost entirely what we believe we know for sure.
But for an animal living among us, we want the animal, beyond conjecture, one we can see and photograph and watch and wonder about in a way DNA strings just don’t allow. While it might be cool as it can be to wonder how a tyrannosaur spent its day, it can get far cooler with sasquatch; but only if we have the animal. Then we know beyond doubt.
With the monkey example, we accept the word of the people who confirmed the monkey. If there are no pictures yet there should be soon; all of us have seen and heard monkeys; and if it’s a macaque or a guenon or a mangabey or a spider or woolly or capuchin, we already have an idea what it looks like. But the closest we have come with sasquatch and yeti – other than the accounts of those who claim to have seen them – to the experience of the living animal is a silent movie of less than a minute, not blurry beyond comprehension but not the look we all want to have, not even the brief but real look Patterson and Gimlin got.
That science wants that animal is part of the “extraordinary proof” thing that I chuckled at before DNA became all the rage; but now it applies. Where indeed did that string come from? Is this Georgia Boys on the molecular level? How can we be sure? Photographs and video generally take us as far down that road as most of us need to be. But P/G is forever tainted with doubt; and many of us – recognizing that observations aren’t taxonomy – still don’t see Homo sapiens in Patty. The doubt is still there, big time, with us. And there’s an easy explanation that just-the-DNA doesn’t help us clarify: contaminated samples. Patty almost cannot be fake. But that ‘almost’ is a gulf.
“Talking about relative parallels to supposed Bigfoot DNA sequencing (translate: talking about Ketchum), questions “Bigfoot samples are collected from what? Collected by who?” have been answered in detail.”
And none of the answers are: from that big guy, right there.
And to many of us…we’d rather take Patty. Maybe we aren’t scientists. But even the scientists want the experience of the living animal before they renounce the denial in which they’ve been languishing far too long.
History will record that this is not a job for scientists. Ultimately, we will need ambassadors, not scientists.
cryptokellie,
I’m not sure anymore where exactly we don’t agree. English is a foreign language to me, maybe that’s part of the problem. Please forgive.
“Collection details”, don’t let me “suggest” it – are all public now. A piece of flesh (not a steak) really is a treasure throve of data, as is hair. More traditional analyses (not DNA) are also available. But today, hair and flesh are a treasure throve mainly because of the available DNA testing tech. Not sure why and where you don’t agree here.
Please don’t get me wrong, but I really think that with “samples indisputably connected to a Bigfoot specimen” you’re in the Catch 22: you need a proof that unknown DNA came from an identifiable Bigfoot in order for it to be the proof that there is a Bigfoot. Or when you say unknown DNA is only good if it comes from a specimen so we already know what it is. Since we have become able to analyze DNA, it’s more often quite the opposite. Convergent evolution and ostensible features led taxonomy to many mistakes, now sorted out thanks to DNA. And look what Sykes did with his polar bear. OK, he had DNA to compare it to. But where did that come from? An ancient bone. What makes this bone better than pristine hair of blood or flesh? Just don’t say it’s: we don’t have a specimen or a big enough piece. Where’s the threshold when a sample is “big enough”? Science is not about that. Which is in my view irrelevant, since today the smallest part carries most information. With all the instruments and techniques, a single hair is huge.
New species, especially subspecies, have and will be identified by DNA testing, not by looking at the specimen or through a microscope. Identifying by DNA testing of a sample is all there is to it. If there is an available specimen, it would still go like this: take a sample and let it go. Everything else is for laymen and our awe.
Or am I not getting something?
Don’t want to repeat other stuff from my previous posts. We disagree on the specimen issue. That’s perfectly ok, off course. Actually, this is why I’m here.
DWA,
same as with cryptokellie: I like your thinking, but I still don’t agree science today requires a specimen identifiable to know it exists. If a DNA is found on a crime scene, they know this person exists, and then look for it in databases. If it’s not there, they still know it exists, and keep looking. Maybe this issue ought to be clearly resolved by more serious authorities than us here, but I really think in practice it has already been resolved. It’s just that treatment of extinct species is “unfair” compared to living ones, and that of the rare but expected species “unfair” to potential controversial finds.
If we’re going to go on with this, let’s move over to the “The Sasquatch Genome Project: Supplemental Raw Data” article 🙂
“More traditional analyses (not DNA) are also available” – I specifically meant available in Ketchum’s paper.
cryptokellie,
I think I get it:
(quoting myself now)
“…you’re in the Catch 22: you need a proof that unknown DNA came from an identifiable Bigfoot in order for it to be the proof that there is a Bigfoot.”
You’re actually not saying that, but much more simple: that the unknown DNA can not be proof of anything, because it can be a mixture, contamination, deliberate or not – not a real actual DNA of a certain individual creature or species that off course can’t be faked.
Right?
If right – I go on linking to Ketchum’s arguments against contamination, use of independent labs, blind analyses, strict protocols, repeated results, histopathologic and electron microscopic examination of samples included in the study…
…and probably nothing changes in our debate 🙂
Cheers,
Degnostik:
“I still don’t agree science today requires a specimen identifiable to know it exists.”
True, if scientists pretty much all agree on the provenenace of what was submitted for testing and have consensus on the results.
But neither Ketchum nor Sykes will make sasquatch or yeti real to me.
This said: the evidence has persuaded me to the extent that I’m not looking particularly for scientific or personal proof. I have what I need. More is gravy.
DWA: Pretty much my position in a nutshell. But I believe the Scientific Method may actually be a hindrance in this field of study.
Goodfoot:
The scientific method could have resolved this in 1968…or earlier. It may be the closest we get to the perfection of God.
Now, the problem:
Scientists are the ones we trust with doing it. That’s the problem.
DWA: I see what you did there. I agree with you that our scientists generally let us down, because they are wrapped up in dogma.
Degnostik;
Yes that is a pertinent point. I don’t see how a collection of miscellaneous “samples” with somewhat dubious pedigrees, can ever nail down the existence of Bigfoot despite utilizing the most rigorous procedures. The very most one can hope for with this type of evidence is identity unknown. Now if the rube who supposedly shot and killed a Bigfoot had merely cut off a hand (why not the head?) finger or even a single tooth, the question would be forever settled even before DNA sequencing could be gathered and published. I really believe that is what this matter will require. With no Bigfoot data base for comparative study, what really is the best they can hope for? Also, aligning themselves with the team Wookie version of Bigfoot doesn’t lend further credence to this effort.
Gotta agree with Cryptokellie.
If you are a geneticist and capable of (and interested in) wading through all of this, eliminating all the possibilities of contamination (including the contamination Ketchum herself has spread all through this process with her grandstanding), and certifying to your ownself that the process is clean, and that PATTY IS HOMO SAPIENS (fail!)
…um, good for you.
When you look more like a gorilla than a human, says here, well cognatus-ize all you want. But don’t put it behind Homo sapiens – with no specimen to examine, and I mean an animal we can look at – and expect me to fall in line with that.
The way science does this, and always has, and always should, is:
HERE IS AN ANIMAL.
[DNA analysis]
AND HERE IS ITS SIGNATURE.
You won’t sit my signature down at a restaurant, will you?
That’s how the society recognizes an animal.
By seeing it.
If it turns out they’re human or very nearly so, that would be a crime of mutilation, the way I see it.
DWA: Not necessarily by seeing a living or recently-deceased specimen; plenty of animals have been classified using fossils, even incomplete ones. Right?
Goodfoot: well, yeah. And we know they’re stars and not LEDs in the sky and we know what they’re made of and how hot they are and how big and how far away…even though, by the standards of zoology, none of that is proven.
(Anyone got a piece of a star?)
We “know” all that because we came up with proxies to measure it because nobody alive is visiting a star, or an Earth-like planet, or 99% of everything we accept in astronomy.
Same with fossils. Nobody had any idea about DNA when the first fossils were found, and usable DNA isn’t even in most fossils. So the assumption was, and remains: we will never see one of these alive, so let’s figure out now, to the best of our ability, what it was.
I’m totally good with using recognizable pieces to classify a living species. Better than waiting until we find a recognizable piece of the last one to do it.
DWA: Yeah, what I dread is folks out hunting my cousins in the wilderness. Or anywhere. I am APPALLED at the very notion of “taking a specimen”. Honestly, I’d rather not know, if that’s the price.
They say you and I are “made of stars”; I have no reason to doubt that’s substantially true. I just balk at the perpetual notion that we’ve got to here, and now we must know everything; that notion has been disproved at every scientific turn, yet we keep finding out that’s not so….
Actually, the knowledge that we’ll never be there is what keeps me going and keeps me happy. It’s the JOURNEY, not the destination, that matters.
Goodfoot:
“Actually, the knowledge that we’ll never be there is what keeps me going and keeps me happy. It’s the JOURNEY, not the destination, that matters.”
Amen. It only starts when we “find” bigfoot. We’ll never see the end of it.
Somewhere down the road a specimen will be examined. (We know most of what we know about our own works through examined specimens.) What we’ll find out then is how much we don’t know. Bet on that.
Shame for a lot of people that they come to this as an argument they’re trying to win, rather than as a journey we’re all on together. What a waste of time. If only one could tell them that and get them to understand it.