The FBI’s scientific division analyzed hairs and tissue allegedly belonging to none other than Bigfoot in 1977, newly released documents reveal. But the agency says they belonged to a deer and not the mythical creature.
The bureau on Wednesday released 22 pages of documents relating to the search for Bigfoot, mostly consisting of letters sent to and from Peter Byrne, the director of the Bigfoot Information Center (BIC) and Exhibition.
Byrne had requested the assistance of the FBI in conducting a “comparative analysis” on the hairs and tissue which he believed could have been from the mysterious Bigfoot, which some still believe inhabits the mountains and forests of North America.
“We do not often come across hair which we are unable 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,” Byrne wrote in a letter to Jay Cochran Jr., the assistant director of the FBI’s scientific and technical services division.
The FBI agreed to look into it, “in the interest of research and scientific inquiry” – but unfortunately for Byrne, his hopes of finding Bigfoot were dashed when Cochran replied that the hairs were “of deer family origin.”
In another letter explaining the work of the BIC, Byrne implored the FBI to “please understand that our research here is serious” and assured them that their assistance would not mean the bureau was “associated” with the project.
The news was met with humor on Twitter, where some noted that the FBI usually only release an individual’s public file if that person has died.
In 2017, a Canadian man filed a lawsuit with the British Columbia Supreme Court in an effort to force the government to fund research into the mythical beast, saying he had “so much evidence” of its existence.
The FBI revelation comes just weeks after the Indian Army claimed on Twitter to have spotted ‘Yeti’ tracks on a mission through the Himalayas.