Bigfoot has been exposed in freshly declassified FBI documents

Turns out, Bigfoot really was an X-file. The FBI actually did follow-up on sightings of a tall, furry biped. And they’ve just declassified their investigations.

Normally, the FBI doesn’t release the files relating to its investigations into someone until after that subject is dead. Are they trying to tell us something?

A 22-page document dating from 1976 to 1977 addressing the issue of Bigfoot has been released to the FBI’s Vault, a digital repository of declassified files on famous — and dead — celebrities and public figures.

Sasquatch, Yowie, Yayali …

Whatever the name, the FBI have bundled them together under the one official Bigfoot file.

Whatever, or whoever, it was appears not to have been resolved.

At least, not for the time-frame released.

But the report recognises that people have been catching glimpses of the hairy human-ape out of the corner of their eye now for centuries — particularly in North America and the Pacific Northwest.

EXPLORE MORE:

Human evolution could soon be turned on its head

Is ‘Dogman’ forcing Bigfoot out of his traditional territory?

If TV wants to rewrite history, where’s the harm in that?

Is there evidence of civilisation before humans?

A still from the Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot film, purporting to show the mysterious beast fleeing from attention.

EVIDENCE APPEAL

Enthusiastic hunters and true believers have for decades been insisting the FBI open formal investigations into its existence.

Among the papers in the recently declassified file are demands from 1976 that the investigative bureau examine an unidentified hair sample.

“We do not often come across hair which we are able to identify and the hair that we have now, about 15 hairs attached to a tiny piece of skin, is the first that we have obtained in six years which we feel may be of importance,” the Bigfoot Information Centre and Exhibition in Oregon submitted in 1975.

The FBI didn’t respond.

So, a year later, another letter was fired off:

An appeal to the FBI to take the hair sample seriously and study its origins. Picture: FBI

“Will you kindly, to set the record straight, once and for all, inform us if the FBI has examined hair which might be that of a Bigfoot; when this took place; if it did take place; what the results of the analysis were,” Peter Byrne, director of the Bigfoot Information Center, wrote. “Please understand that our research here is serious. That this is a serious question that needs answering …”

This time the FBI’s Scientific and Technical Services Division responded that it: “primarily conducts exams for law enforcement agencies in connection with criminal investigations” and there were no records of any such test.

Jay Cochran Jr., assistant director of the FBI’s Scientific and Technical Services division, added: “Occasionally, on a case-by-case basis, in the interest of research and scientific inquiry, we make exceptions to this general policy. With this understanding, we will examine the hairs and tissue mentioned in your letter.”

Hunter Rick Dyer says this was a Bigfoot he shot in San Antonio in September 2012.

CHANGE OF HEART

An explosion in public interest driven by national media reports may have forced the FBI’s hand.

“This does not represent a change in Bureau policy,” an internal memo reads. “In addition to its primary mission of examining physical evidence in criminal matters for Federal, state and municipal law enforcement, the STS Division’s Laboratory Branch has a history of making its unique services and expertise available to the Smithsonian Institution, other museums, universities and government agencies in archaeological matters and in the interest of research and legitimate scientific inquiry”.

The tests were done. Three months later, the results came in.

A photocopy image of the sample, top, and the FBI lab's letter defining its findings. Pictures: FBI

“The hairs which you recently delivered to the FBI Laboratory on behalf of the Bigfoot Information Cedntre and Exhibition have been examined by transmitted and incident light microscopy. The examination included a study of morphological characteristics such as root structure, medullary structure and cuticle thickness in addition to scale casts. Also the hairs were compared directly with hairs of known origin under a comparison microscope.

“It was concluded as a result of these examinations that the hairs are of deer family origin.”