4. Somatic Samples
Hair and blood samples have been recovered from alleged Bigfoot encounters. As with all the other evidence, the results are remarkable for their inconclusiveness. When a definite conclusion has been reached, the samples have inevitably turned out to be from prosaic sources — "Bigfoot hair" turns out to be elk, bear, or cow hair, for example, or suspected "Bigfoot blood" is revealed to be transmission fluid. Even advances in genetic technology have proven fruitless. Contrary to popular belief, DNA cannot be derived from hair samples alone; the root (or some blood) must be available.
On his book Big Footprints, Grover Krantz (1992) discusses evidence for Bigfoot other than footprints, including hair, feces, skin scrapings, and blood: "The usual fate of these items is that they either receive no scientific study, or else the documentation of that study is either lost or unobtainable. In most cases where competent analyses have been made, the material turned out to be bogus or else no determination could be made" (125). He continues, "A large amount of what looks like hair has been recovered from several places in the Blue Mountains since 1987. Samples of this were examined by many supposed experts ranging from the FBI to Barbers. Most of these called it human, the Redkin Company found significant differences from human hair, but the Japan Hair Medical Science Lab declared it a synthetic fiber.
A scientists at [Washington State] University first called it synthetic, then looked more closely and decide it was real hair of an unknown type…. Final confirmation came when E.B. Winn, a pharmaceutical businessman from Switzerland, had a sample tested in Europe. The fiber was positively identified as artificial and it's exact composition was determined: it is a product known as Dynel, which is often used as imitation hair." In his analysis, Winn (1991) noted that another alleged Bigfoot sign found at the site, tree splintering, had also been faked.
