By Andy Wright

When one attends a press conference whose purpose is to prove the existence of Bigfoot, they do so with a grain of salt. I should have brought the entire container of Morton's with me to Palo Alto today, as the evidence presented by a man named Tom Biscardi and two men from Georgia, Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer, who claim to have discovered the beast's corpse, can only be described as fakety-fake-fake.

At one point Biscardi sneered at an audience comprised of Bigfoot believers commingled with staffers from CNN and NBC that he would show us all a picture that would prove the corpse was not "a mask sewn on a bearhide." Biscardi's description actually lent an unwarranted level of believability to the picture. It looked more like a rug with teeth.

The much touted photographic evidence after the jump, with choice quotes!

1. If the best that Biscardi et al can manage is a blurry picture of a stationary corpse, they should seriously consider hiring outside help. 2. This looks like a chimp.

Here is an image of a living Bigfoot walking through the forest. Or, like, a human dude. Or a tree stump. You be the judge.

Whitton and Dyer both told a very improbable and vague story about how they had stumbled across the Bigfoot's body, much like one would trip over an ill-placed ottoman, while wandering through the forests of northern Georgia with their video cameras. This happened in "the beginning of June" and they can't quite remember the date. They then hauled the animal, which they say weighs 500 lbs, to their truck and took it away for safe keeping. In a freezer.

Matthew Whitton

Rick Dyer

The only man they would allow to first view the corpse was the obliging Tom Biscardi, who helms something called Searching for Bigfoot, Inc. and who kicked off the press conference with a weird speech about how he knew Whitton and Dyer were trustworthy because upon his arrival in Georgia, they had set him up with a very comfortable hotel and made sure he had something to eat. Beware the Bigfoot hunter whose heart is won with a continental breakfast.

Tom Biscardi

Things quickly descended into folly when the audience grew tired of Biscardi and friends dodging very reasonable questions like, "Why don't you show us the video footage if you have it?" At one point an exasperated reporter asked if the whole thing was a publicity stunt staged in the hopes of making money, and Biscardi responded by saying, "Why would these men fly all the way from Georgia?" One wag in the audience returned, "A vacation to California is pretty nice."

At one point a man dressed as Bigfoot by way of Chewbacca asked if his family would get the corpse back after the scientific testing was finished.

When the whole thing was over, a crush of reporters mobbed Biscardi for photos and a photocopy of an email from a man named Curt Nelson that was supposed to contain information about the Bigfoot's DNA. Read the email,"...the DNA sequence interpreted by the sequencing computer algorithm indicates at least a 96% match to Didelphis virginiana- a possum." The other 4 percent, of course, is Bigfoot, according to Biscardi. He just had a possum for lunch.

The media frenzy.

Notes: Further quotes from Matthew Whitton.

Upon being asked if he and his brother were the luckiest people in the world:

"Pretty much."

On why he changed a phone message in which he said he was looking for Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster and leprechauns:

"I changed it when the psychos started calling."

Whitton on the Bigfoot community:

"It seems to me that in the Bigfoot world there are a lot of people who may be delusional. Or jealous."

Biscardi on Whitton:

"I consider this man a hero. He was shot in the hand."

(Whitton is indeed a Clayton County police officer currently on administrative leave due to an injury sustained while pursuing an alleged felon, and his hand was, indeed, bandaged.)

Tags:

Bigfoot, Matthew Whitton, Rick Dyer, Tom Biscardi