This is a 1977 still photo made from a 16mm film made by Ivan Marx reportedly showing the legendary Big Foot cavorting in the hills of northern California. (AP Photo/File) This image provided Monday, Oct. 29, 2007 by hunter Rick Jacobs shows an image taken by a camera with an automatic trigger set up in Pennsylvania's Allegheny National Forest on Sept. 16, 2007. The only thing certain about the critter photographed by a hunter's camera is that some people have gotten the notion it could be a Sasquatch, or bigfoot. Others say it's just a bear with a bad skin infection. AP Photo/Rick Jacobs Daryl Colyer, lead field researcher for the Texas Bigfoot Research Center, delivers the kickoff presentation Saturday, Oct. 15, 2005, at the Texas Bigfoot Conference in Jefferson, Texas. Hundreds gathered Saturday at the fifth annual Texas Bigfoot Conference to look at casts of footprints and hear about the latest sightings and other evidence they say proves Bigfoot exists. AP Photo/D.J. Peters
Update Friday, 8/15, 8:05 p.m. ET: Bigfoot Turns Out to Be an Opossum (the story below remains as originally written).
Two Georgia men claim to have found in the northern woods of that state something that has been often reported but never proven to exist: a Bigfoot.
They say they have a body, photos of the body, and DNA evidence — some or all of which will be revealed this Friday, Aug. 15, at a press conference in Palo Alto, Calif.
If the group does have a Bigfoot carcass (and if they actually show the body, instead merely displaying photographs of a supposed body), then perhaps scientists will take note. Still, it's not clear how, exactly, the group will prove that what they have is a Bigfoot. Because there is no comparison specimen, there is no DNA analysis that can definitively identify Bigfoot tissue.
Readers may recall the much-hyped press conference held on May 30, where a man claimed he would provide "definitive proof" of alien visitation. His "proof" turned out to be a short fuzzy video clip of what he said was an alien head outside his window trying to ogle his teen daughters. Needless to say, top scientists were not awestruck by his evidence.
History repeats?
This is not the first time a Bigfoot body has been claimed to have been found. A man named Tom Biscardi, founder of something called the Great American Bigfoot Research Organization, once claimed he had captured a Bigfoot. On Aug. 19, 2005, Biscardi appeared on the radio show "Coast to Coast with George Noory." Biscardi claimed his group had captured a Bigfoot a week earlier, a male beast that weighed over 400 pounds and stood 8-feet tall. He said he would be presenting photos of it several days later. It turned out to be a hoax.
Interestingly, Biscardi is also involved in the new Bigfoot body discovery.
Speaking on behalf of the Georgia men this week, Biscardi said, "Extensive scientific studies will be done on the body by a team of scientists including a molecular biologist, an anthropologist, a paleontologist and other scientists over the next few months at an undisclosed location" under armed guard.
If it all sounds very cloak-and-dagger, it is. Unnamed experts? Undisclosed location? Sounds more like "The X-Files" than real science.
Marketing scheme?
In 2005, Biscardi promoted a pay-per-view cable TV show in which he offered viewers the chance to see a Bigfoot captured on live television for only $59.95. That never happened, but Biscardi did recently direct and produce a film called "Bigfoot Lives."
Surely the publicity from this press conference might boost his film's sales...
Bigfoot researcher Loren Coleman, while stopping short of authenticating the claims, wrote on the Web site Cryptomundo.com, "I feel, in all honesty, this, indeed, may be the real deal, and I say this carefully after reviewing information that has been shared privately with me."
So has a Bigfoot finally been found, after all these years? Or is this just the latest hoax to embarrass Bigfoot believers and bring further ridicule to a field sorely in need of science?
Apparently we will see.
Benjamin Radford is managing editor of the Skeptical Inquirer science magazine. He has investigated Bigfoot, lake monsters, and other mysterious creatures for over a decade. His latest book is "Lake Monster Mysteries: Investigating the World's Most Elusive Creatures." This and other books can be found on his website.
During a press conference in Palo Alto, California, hunters of the mythical creature ''Bigfoot'' claimed to have found a corpse of the creature. Matt Whitton and Rick Dyer say that they were hunting for the creature in the forests of Northeastern Georgia in the United States when they came across the corpse of one of the alleged animals.

After finding the body, Whitton and Dyer allegedly took it home, where it is currently being stored in a freezer. Despite the possibility of the historic find, they will not say where they found the body.

"We have no intentions of revealing the location. We want to protect this creature," stated Whitton during the press conference. He also mentioned that an autopsy is going to be conducted on the body.

The two men had earlier claimed that DNA evidence, photos and video would be presented during the conference, but only one photo was shown. Whitton states that all evidence will be provided once the autopsy, scheduled for next week, is completed.

The single photo shown at the conference portrays a blurred black figure in the distance. Whitton claims the creature was walking "parallel" to them as they hauled out the corpse. Another photo on Whitton's website ''www.searchingforbigfoot.com'' shows what is allegedly the corpse, decapitated and stuffed into a freezer.

Tom Biscardi, founder of the ''Great American Bigfoot Research Organization'', joined Whitton and Dyer at the press conference. Biscardi has previously been caught in a hoax. In 2005, his organization claimed to have caught a live male Bigfoot.

Science website ''LiveScience'', run by Imaginova, openly speculates that this is a hoax because of the involvement of Biscardi. It theorizes that this may be a marketing scheme to promote an upcoming film by Biscardi, entitled ''Bigfoot Lives''.

At least one other person states that the group's pronouncement is a hoax. Jerry Parrino, owner of ''TheHorrorDome.com'', a website that sells Halloween costumes, was quoted as saying to ''Fox News'' that the photo appeared to resemble a costume that is being sold on his site.

"It definitely looks like our costume. This body has little to do with Bigfoot and everything to do with a Sasquatch costume that someone developed," stated Parrino.

Despite the claim, the Fish and Wildlife Reserve refuses to investigate the alleged discovery because it does not appear on an endangered species list in either the state of Georgia or the U.S..