February 18, 2007

Latest Update: The Foot of Bigfoot?

Is this story turning into another Sasquatch Conspiracy? When the foot was initially found, it was thought to be human. Then the sheriff announced that the Virginia state medical examiners’ office had determined that the foot was not human but that it belonged to “an apelike species.”

Then the speculation began that it could be the Foot of Bigfoot.

Now the state medical examiners’ office is stating:

The medical examiner’s office is continuing its investigation, spokesman Arkuie Williams said Friday, adding the office has not determined the foot belongs to an apelike species.

“I don’t know where that came from,” he said, promising the office will make public its final determination. Even so, the sheriff has said he plans to send the foot to another expert to examine.Arkuie Williams
spokesman

What are we to make of this “official” backtracking?

Bigfoot rumors afoot in Va.
Perhaps it’s just a bear’s foot, but discovery stirs talk of legendary beast

BY KIRAN KRISHNAMURTHY
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Sunday, February 18, 2007

FREDERICKSBURG — Bigfoot is out there, they are sure.

So when a discarded foot found in a Spotsylvania County landfill turned out to be more apelike than human, some Bigfoot hunters seized on the possibility the appendage belongs to the elusive creature they claim wanders North America’s woods.

Why the leap to what some people are calling the Spotsylvania Sasquatch?

“Legends persist because they fascinate, because they provide a solution in a wondrous world,” said Elissa R. Henken, an English professor at the University of Georgia who specializes in folklore and legend. “We are aware of a world that has much more in it than any one of us experiences.”

Russell Tuttle, a University of Chicago anthropologist who specializes in primate locomotion, thinks the appendage is the skinned hind foot of a bear. He said the quest for Bigfoot is “an escape from the realities of life, like focusing on soap operas and the personal life of often-pathetic celebrities.”

He added: “I pray this does not start an armed search for Bigfoot in the area. One is more likely to shoot a person in disguise, a person hunting, oneself, someone’s farm animal.”

But Bigfoot hunters consider themselves realists. William Dranginis of Manassas, who heads the Virginia Bigfoot Research Organization, admits that his heart fluttered at the possibility the foot belonged to a Bigfoot. But he also thinks it’s a bear’s foot.

Matt Moneymaker, president of the California-based Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, said one of his group’s 200 members is a world-class hunter who has skinned more than 200 black bears.

“That hunter, in British Columbia, is certain that this is the skinned left hind foot of an Ursus americana,” or North American black bear, said Moneymaker, whose quest for Bigfoot has been documented by National Geographic.

Jeffrey Meldrum, an Idaho State University anthropologist who is a proponent of Bigfoot’s existence, said bear remains are commonly mistaken for humans. Like others who have seen photos of the foot, he said it appears the ends of the toes, including the claws, were probably removed and remain with the pelt.

The state medical examiner’s office in Richmond determined that the 8-inch-long foot belonged to an “apelike species” based on X-rays, according to Spotsylvania Sheriff Howard Smith.

Authorities initially thought the foot was human and possibly evidence of a homicide. Sheriff’s deputies and others combed half of a 127-ton load of fresh garbage for other body parts after landfill workers found the foot Feb. 10 in the treaded tracks of a bulldozer.

The medical examiner’s office is continuing its investigation, spokesman Arkuie Williams said Friday, adding the office has not determined the foot belongs to an apelike species.

“I don’t know where that came from,” he said, promising the office will make public its final determination. Even so, the sheriff has said he plans to send the foot to another expert to examine.

Idaho State’s Meldrum said officials should have publicly cleared up the matter by now. “The handling of the situation, as it’s been portrayed in the press, has been extremely clumsy,” he said.

He also said delay in reaching a conclusion only fuels speculation and contributes to people dismissing evidence in other cases, such as footprints or sightings.

“It just adds to the stigma that Bigfoot researchers are grasping at straws,” he said.

Although he now believes the find is a bear’s foot, Dranginis, who claims he spotted a Bigfoot in Culpeper County in 1995, has a ready answer when asked why someone who possessed a prized Bigfoot would discard part of it in a landfill.

“Maybe somebody was scared they shot a human,” he said.

Although doubts have been raised about the famous 1967 Patterson-Gimlin film footage of a purported Bigfoot — relatives of Ray Wallace, who died in 2002, said he created 16-inch footprints and knew who was in the Bigfoot suit — proponents say such debunking is not conclusive.

For all the snickers they may endure, Bigfoot hunters do have a reputable backer: Renowned primatologist Jane Goodall has said she is certain that Bigfoot creatures are real. She praised the scientific approach of Meldrum’s 2006 book “Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science.”

“I’m sure that they exist. . . . I’ve talked to so many Native Americans who’ve all described the same sounds, two who’ve seen them,” Goodall told National Public Radio in 2002. “I’m a romantic, so I always wanted them to exist.”Kiran Krishnamurthy
The Richmond Times-Dispatch

Filed under Artifacts, Bigfoot, Bigfoot Report, Breaking News, Conspiracies, Cryptozoology, Evidence, Forensic Science, Sasquatch