From todays Daily Oklahoman, from Oklahoma City- Front page even!
Could Bigfoot mystery be solved today?
By Ron Jackson
For generations of Oklahomans, the mythical creature Bigfoot is, well, no myth.
Stories of mammoth, hairy hominids roaming the land have been told throughout Oklahoma's history, emerging from the Kiamichi Mountains to the creek beds of Atoka County and beyond.
So does Bigfoot truly lurk in the shadows or just simply in our imaginations?
Two Georgia men claim they have solved the mystery once and for all, and promise to reveal DNA and photo evidence of a Bigfoot corpse today at a news conference in Palo Alto, Calif.
‘Shock the world'
Matthew Whitton and big-game hunter Rick Dyer say they have found the corpse of a 7-foot-7, 500-pound Bigfoot, as well as its clan, at an undisclosed location in the north Georgia mountains.
Whitton and Dyer, cofounders of the site, bigfoot tracker.com, and Bigfoot Global, LLC, plan to "shock the world” with the help of fellow Bigfoot hunter Tom Biscardi, a former Las Vegas promoter.
"Right now, I'm leaning toward this being a hoax,” said D.W. Lee, a Stilwell resident who founded the Mid-America Bigfoot Research Center in 1998. "They say they're gonna produce photo and DNA evidence. Well, a photo can easily be doctored, and who knows what will happen with the DNA. I still think something is gonna happen to the body before the press conference.
"If they truly have a body, then show it and do an autopsy right there in front of everyone for the world to see.”
Lee's organization fields reports of alleged sightings nationwide on a weekly basis and has logged 150 reports in Oklahoma within the past two years. Lee claims to have last spotted a Bigfoot standing in a local field only three weeks ago.
"We're tracking a white one right now that's been seen on four different occasions,” said Lee, 43.
"I'd estimate him to be right at 7 1/2- to 8-foot tall. He's a big one, and from what we can tell, he covers a wide range of area ... Oklahoma actually has a sizable population.”
Lee said he once saw a clan of 12 creatures running across a field north of Claremore on all four limbs. Once they reached the tree line, Lee said, "they all stood up and walked into the woods.”
"I'm gonna be very disappointed in these men for bringing this to the public's attention if this is a hoax,” Lee said. "It's gonna make the Bigfoot community look real bad.”
‘Cautiously optimistic'
Le Flore County has long been considered a hotbed for lore and research related to Bigfoot, aka Sasquatch.
In September, the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization plans to conduct a four-day expedition in the Kiamichi Mountains that rise above Le Flore County.
On Oct. 3-4, the Mid-America Bigfoot Research Center will host a Sasquatch Conference in conjunction with Honobia's annual Bigfoot Festival.
"I'm cautiously optimistic,” said Farlan Huff, the Honobia Bigfoot Conference director.
Huff, an Oklahoma native who now lives in Illinois, has no doubt Bigfoot is real.
"If they do have a body, it's going to be worth a lot of money,” Huff said. "If it's all a hoax, their reputations will be forever ruined.”