Posted on 06/07/2019 1:38:54 PM PDT by Red Badger
In 2019, the FBI released its four-decade-old file on a Bigfoot inquiry.
Legends of large, ape-like beasts can be found all over the world. Since the 1950s, the United States’ version of this has been “Bigfoot.” And since 1976, the FBI has had a file on him.
That year, Director Peter Byrne of the Bigfoot Information Center and Exhibition in The Dalles, Oregon, sent the FBI “about 15 hairs attached to a tiny piece of skin.” Byrne wrote that his organization couldn’t identify what kind of animal it came from, and was hoping the FBI might analyze it. He also wanted to know if the FBI had analyzed suspected Bigfoot hair before; and if so, what the bureau’s conclusion was.
Hair samples sent into the FBI for testing, believed to be from Bigfoot.
Federal Bureau of Investigation
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At the time, “Byrne was one of the more prominent Bigfoot researchers,” says Benjamin Radford, deputy editor of Skeptical Inquirer magazine. “In 2019, a lot of people think of Bigfoot as being sort of silly and a joke, or whatever else. But in the 1970s, Bigfoot was really, really popular. That was when The Six Million Dollar Man had a cameo by Bigfoot.”
This was also after Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin released their famous video footage in 1967 supposedly showing Bigfoot in Northern California. It’s worth noting that the original “evidence” that launched the Bigfoot craze—a trail of oversized footprints discovered in the same region in 1958—was revealed to be a prank by logger Ray L. Wallace in 2002. Many people believe the “Bigfoot” creature in the Patterson-Gimlin film was a costumed prankster as well. Byrne has always believed the footage is real. ADVERTISEMENT
Jay Cochran, Jr., assistant director of the FBI’s scientific and technical services division, wrote back to Byrne that he couldn’t find any evidence of the FBI analyzing suspected Bigfoot hair, and that the FBI usually only examined physical evidence related to criminal investigations. Still, it sometimes made exceptions “in the interest of research and scientific inquiry,” and Cochran said he’d make such an exception for Byrne.
Unsurprisingly, Cochran found that the hair didn’t belong to Bigfoot. In early 1977, he sent the hair back to Byrne along with his scientific conclusion: “the hairs are of deer family origin.” Four decades later, the bureau declassified its “Bigfoot file” about this analysis.
he FBI’s official Bigfoot testing results.
Federal Bureau of Investigation
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To be clear, this is not evidence that the FBI endorsed the existence of Bigfoot, any more than the U.S. military’s decades-long investigation of unexplained aerial phenomena, popularly known as UFOs, is an endorsement of the existence of aliens.
“All it means is the FBI did a favor to a Bigfoot researcher,” Radford says. “There’s nothing wrong with that, but it shouldn’t be mistaken for de facto government endorsement of the reality of Bigfoot.”
Even so, Bigfoot believers may be tempted to spin it that way. “They love the idea that there’s a smoking gun in the FBI files—‘See, look, Bigfoot must be real, otherwise the FBI wouldn’t have taken it seriously,’” he continues. “Well, the FBI didn’t send out a team of investigators to look for Bigfoot, they agreed to run an analysis of 15 hairs."
To add more layers to what is already an unusual case, 93-year-old Byrne doesn’t seem to remember receiving the FBI’s response that the “Bigfoot hair” was actually deer hair.
Because Byrne had been out of the country for several months, Cochran sent the letter to the executive vice president of the Academy of Applied Science, which was associated with Byrne’s Bigfoot organization. The executive wrote that he would give Byrne copies of the correspondence when he returned. Yet when the FBI released its Bigfoot file—which was exclusively about Byrne’s inquiry—on June 5, 2019, Byrne reacted as though he were hearing that it was deer hair for the first time.
“Obviously I can’t speak for Peter Byrne,” Radford says. But “if you’re going to make a big enough deal about this unknown specimen to give it to the FBI, then you’re not going to want to publicize the fact that it turned out to be deer.” Citation Information Article Title
Bigfoot Was Investigated by the FBI. Here's What They Found Author
Becky Little Website Name
HISTORY URL
https://www.history.com/news/bigfoot-fbi-file-investigation-discovery Access Date
June 7, 2019 Publisher
A&E Television Networks Last Updated
June 7, 2019 Original Published Date
June 6, 2019
By Becky Little
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The FBI could not indict him as a sitting bigfoot, but neither still was there sufficient evidence to exonerate him of obstructing investigations into collusion between he and the loch ness.
Hairy Man Bad.
Hmmmm.
Even more of a mystery than bigfoot would be what is a modern font doing on a “1977” FBI document?
Someone told me that ‘big-foot’ was a hybrid between a human female and a male of an unknown homonid species in the distant past.
Goony Goo Goo!
Wookiee ,not a big foot ,LOL
Bigfoot is the world champion at hide and seek.
s
Schiff?
***But in the 1970s, Bigfoot was really, really popular.***
Actually much earlier. I read Ivan T. Sanderson’s books back in the early 1960s. I believe it was this one.
Abominable Snowmen: Legend Come to Life: The Story Of Sub-Humans On Five Continents From The Early Ice Age Until Today, Adventures Unlimited Press, 2006, paperback, ISBN 1-931882-58-4.
Later, under the Clinton administration, Bigfoot became Attorney General.
This has got to be the funniest thread of the day. Thanks folks.
15-30 million Hunter days in the field annually for 75 years and no corpus delicti? Fairly certain no Bigfoot out there.
“The FBI doing what they do best - wasting taxpayer dollars.”
Is spending days texting girlfriends A waste of time?
Like most of goverment, it is just a make-work agency.
How were voters supposed to tell the dif'? :^)
Thanks Red Badger.
The Beach Boys & Annette Funicello : The Monkey's Uncle
This also looks like a good one for the weekly digest ping, it's finally summer, we need a shot of whimsy.
I gave up on The “History” Channel a long time ago.
Well, think about it...
Maybe bigfoot was the stench Struck/Stroke smelled at that Virginia Walmart...
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