Bigfoot Found!!!

This is just TOO awesome!

ATLANTA - A hairy corpse crammed in a Georgia freezer is Bigfoot, say two men who have been tracking the legendary creature, when they aren't busy looking for leprechauns and the Loch Ness monster.

Matt Whitton and Rick Dyer say they stumbled across the corpse in the woods of north Georgia, across the country from the remote regions of the Northwest where people usually claim to see the man-ape.

Still, the Georgia men say DNA will prove once and for all that the frozen creature is Sasquatch. They plan to present DNA test results and photographs during a news conference Friday in Palo Alto, Calif.

Skeptics say it's just another Bigfoot hoax.

"What I've seen so far is not compelling in the least, and I think the pictures cast grave doubts on their claim," Jeffery Meldrum, a Bigfoot researcher and Idaho State University professor, told the Scientific American. "It just looks like a costume with some fake guts thrown on top for effect."

Meldrum said the DNA test likely won't prove anything and, at best, might yield a gene sequence that doesn't match any other known primates.

Whitton, an officer on medical leave from the Clayton County Police Department, and Dyer, a former corrections officer, announced the discovery in early July on YouTube videos and their Web site http://www.bigfoottracker.com. The site on Friday would not load.

The picture they sent out in a press release and on their Web site shows what appears to be a hairy corpse crammed into a chest freezer. The accompanying announcement describes the creature as a 7-foot-7 male, weighing 550 pounds with 16-inch human-like feet and reddish hair.

Efforts to reach Whitton and Dyer early Friday on their Bigfoot Tipline were unsuccessful. The voice mail recording says they have expanded their search to look for leprechauns and the Loch Ness monster. They also offer weekend expeditions to search for Bigfoot in the north Georgia mountains for $499.

In August, Tom Biscardi, head of a group called Searching for Bigfoot, joined the men.

Other Bigfoot hunters call Biscardi a huckster, a Las Vegas promoter and a scam artist looking for media attention he's gained since he began his search for Bigfoot three to four years ago. He released a photograph and announced the news conference earlier this week, drawing national attention.

Whitton and Dyer promise to tell the story of how they found the corpse at the news conference. They have offered three different tales so far:

• In early videos, the animal was shot by a former felon, and the men followed it into the woods.
  
• In a second version, they found a "family of Bigfoot" in North Georgia mountains.
  
• In the third, the two were hiking and stumbled upon the corpse with open wounds.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Reserve spokesman Tom Mackenzie said officers also are not taking the claim seriously and will not investigate Bigfoot because it is not a federal priority.

"It's not on endangered species on any list that we've got," Mackenzie said.

An anonymous letter to the agency in July said the creature is "the remains of a small gorilla or chimpanzee that may have undergone some taxidermy treatment."

Whitton, who also goes by the name Gary Parker, has been on medical leave from the Clayton County Police Department since July 3 after he was shot in the wrist. Police spokeswoman Sonja Sanchez said the department has been fielding many media inquiries because of Whitton's claims, but she doesn't know much else.

"Right now that is just what they are — claims," Sanchez said Friday.

I think even better than the story are some of the reader feedback on Newsvine! Leave it to a story like this to bring out some of the nutballs...

Some of my favorites:

Now I see how the democrats continue to have a party, people actually enjoy and play along with "scam" artists. Vegas and wax museums. Here we are now entertain us. So while people are dying in serious matters you act like you care in the name of evolution and an apes inherited genetic, and this is the freedom in which you actually think America stands for.
Once again proof that people care moe about the sanctity of animals and mythological stories rather than the actual truth. No wonder so many do not beleive Jesus is God The Father, they beleive all the fiction and ignore the consequence of the obvious.

and runner up for "Most charitable Christian attitude" goes to:

1st of all who are we to say Bigfoot doesnt exsist. We have no clue how many animals GOD created. I think time will tell but if those boys are playing a joke I think there should be charges on them but lets say for 1 second that BIg foot is real and i saw him in the woods, dead I would probably figure out some way to make sure I had a claim on him so I could reep the benefits and the $$$$$ of being the 1st to have found 1, then I would be on every TV show there is WITH the body.... Thats what bothers me most they should reveal the body. If it was alive being a fomer Marine I wouldnt be too scared and would try to make contact with it and get some good footage then I would buy all the land around there and sell tickets to the area for sightings... THIS IS AMERICA I WOULD MAKE THE BUCKS BABY!!!!!

My personal fave was this one though:

I'd measure his schlong; to put to rest once and for all the myth about males with 'big feet.'

What really shocked me were how many people were taking it seriously. What saddened me were how many more were already counting the bucks they could make if it were them.

I guess I'm just wired differently than most.