A new university-backed project aims to investigate cryptic species, including Bigfoot and yeti, whose existence is unproven, through genetic testing.

Oxford University researchers and the Lausanne Museum of Zoology are asking anyone with a collection of cryptozoological material to submit descriptions of it. The researchers will then ask for hair and other samples for genetic identification.

“I’m challenging and inviting the cryptozoologists to come up with the evidence instead of complaining that science is rejecting what they have to say,” said geneticist Bryan Sykes of the University of Oxford.

While Sykes doesn’t expect to find solid evidence of a yeti or Bigfoot monster, he says he is keeping an open mind and hopes to identify perhaps 20 of the suspect samples. Along the way, he’d be happy if he found some unknown species.

“It would be wonderful if one or more turned out to be species we don’t know about, maybe primates, maybe even collateral hominids,” Sykes told LiveScience. Such hominids would include Neanderthals or Denosivans, a mysterious hominin species that lived in Siberia 40,000 years ago.

“That would be the optimal outcome,” Sykes said.

The project is called the Oxford-Lausanne Collateral Hominid Project. It is being led by Sykes and Michel Sartori of the zoology museum.

This latest trail cam photo of a purported Bigfoot taken by a person who chose not to reveal himself and was handed over to a blogger named Melissa Hovey.

Melissa “struggled” with releasing the photo to the Bigfoot community as she made a promise to the person that he can trust her.

Is this photo real? You be the judge…

More info HERE

Scientists at Edinburgh Zoo have solved the mystery of a yeti finger taken from Nepal more than 50 years ago.

The mummified remains have been held in the Royal College of Surgeons museum in London since the 1950s.

After being lost for some years, it was just recently rediscovered during cataloguing.

A DNA sample analysed by the zoo’s genetic expert Dr Rob Ogden finally revealed the finger’s true origins.

Following DNA tests it has found to be human bone.

The yeti, also known as the Abominable Snowman, is a legendary giant ape-like creature said to inhabit the Himalayan region of Nepal and Tibet.

Despite the lack of evidence of its existence, the yeti myth retains a strong appeal in both Nepal and the west, where it became popular in the 19th century.

The finger, which was said to be from a yeti, was taken from a Nepalese monastery by an American explorer in the 1950s.

He replaced it with a human finger he had been given by a British scientist.

It was then smuggled out of India with the help of Hollywood actor James Stewart, who hid the artefact in his wife’s lingerie case.

It was later sent to the Royal College of Surgeons museum where it remained ever since. The College gave permission for the DNA test to take place.

Dr Rob Ogden, of the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, said: “We had to stitch it together. We had several fragments that we put into one big sequence and then we matched that against the database and we found human DNA.

“So it wasn’t too surprising but it was obviously slightly disappointing that you hadn’t discovered something brand new.

“Human was what we were expecting and human is what we got.”

Primatologist Ian Redmond said: “From what we know of accounts of Yetis, I would have expected a more robust and longer finger and possibly with some hair on the back.

“If one had just found it without the story attached to it, I think you would think it was a human finger.

Here is a 1959 letter from the US embassy in Kathmandu to the State Department, outlining the regulations to be adhered to for mountain climbing expeditions in search of the Yeti.

The document was recently found in the files of the National Archives.

It seems that while the Nepal government was concerned for the safety of the legendary monster, they also wanted to control the flow of any news and images (and actual specimens) confirming the creature’s existence:

Click for larger image