Preface to Papers

Although my education and professional experience are in the fields of physical, inorganic, and analytical chemistry, I have been interested in natural history since childhood and have followed the bigfoot phenomenon for many years. I hold two patents involving construction and utilization of databases and have used other databases extensively in diverse areas of analytical chemistry. I consider this adequate preparation for the work described below, but I am no expert in this field.  Admittedly I had to learn critical details of the specific databases and search algorithms involved in species identification from DNA sequences.   

In February, 2013, like many others, I was fascinated by the article by Dr. Melba Ketchum et al. reporting the sequencing of DNA purportedly from a number of sasquatch or bigfoot.  Curious about these sequences, I set out to learn more about their homology to humans and other primates.  The search strategy and match details were not reported in the Ketchum paper, so I decided to take a fresh look at it all. I had hoped to be able to support her claims. 

My initial impression after some preliminary searches was that the three published nuDNA sequences showed significant homology to humans, but not to any other non-primate species.  I had not yet learned all the features of GenBank, the NCBI (National Center for Biotechnology Information, a division of the National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health) databases and the BLAST^TM search program and its output.  I was mistaken in the case of two of the sample sequences (S26 and S140) as subsequent investigation was to show.   

 

After discovering several key points about the contents of the databases and the search output and performing many additional searches, my conclusions were that S26 is from a bear, most likely a black bear (the same conclusion was reached by three other researcher groups which sequenced the same split sample), and S140 is from a dog.  No primates matched these sequences as well, nor did any other known species.  I wrote my first paper on these results and submitted it to Dr. Ketchum for publication in her new DeNovo journal.  After some months without a response I withdrew the manuscript.  She said she had a hard time finding reviewers.  The paper below supersedes this earlier version.  I added new results and improved the presentation.

In October 2013, I submitted the paper below to an online open access journal.  Were my paper to be published, readers would have had free access to it without paying subscription fees to the journal.  I would have paid an $800 fee for this.  It is not unusual for major journals (e.g. Nature) to offer authors an open access option, and this in no way affects the review process.  Potential authors are not “paying to publish.”  They are paying for the free online access of nonsubscribing readers, who would otherwise pay between $25 and $40 to download the single article. At the request of the editors, I recommended as referees the four best experts I knew of in the relevant fields:  two renowned geneticist/anthropologists, one expert in wildlife DNA analysis and forensics, and one expert in the BLAST^TM search program.

In time I received the written reviews of only two referees (both unknown to me- the journal makes the final selections which may not even be from among my recommendations):

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Referee #1 comments:

“There is no scientific evidence that any other hominids currently live. The only reference is to a paper in a journal that has only one edition. If there was any evidence then a publication such as Nature is the more likely journal in which this would be published. Although the authors state that this paper is not about the existence of these mythical species, it never the less gives credence to this view.

“There is no justification made for using whole genomic data rather than loci known to exhibit sufficient inter species variation and limited intraspecific variation.  The vast majority of any genome is highly uninformative in this regard.

 “The data from the black bear and human is best considered as bear DNA from the hair and contamination of human DNA onto the sample.

“The authors have a potentially interesting method and could be published and disseminated if they had used more reliable data and where there is a real need to distinguish cryptic species such as in reptiles and amphibian.”

Referee # 2 comments:

“The paper describes a methodology for identifying species from nuDNA sequence and introduces the concept of moments to identify the best matching group among candidate groups with similar statistics in the hit list. A series of principles is presented which can help in the correct interpretation of conclusions. The methodology followed is well described and relatively easy to be implemented by interested parties. The content of the paper is readily understandable and can attract the attention of non-experts. It is presented in a clear and smooth way and it extends previous studies in the field.”

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The editors required that I revise the paper to satisfy the criticisms of Referee # 1, which I essentially refused to do.  Reptiles and amphibians?  Really?  My arguments against extensive revision did not prevail with the editors, and the paper was rejected.

I decided not to fight this journal or attempt to publish my work elsewhere.  Until someone produces more convincing (to the scientific community) evidence of the existence of sasquatch (like a whole body or skeleton), reinterpretations like mine of false claims like Dr. Ketchum’s (i.e. her data does not support her conclusions) will probably not be considered publishable in the established scientific literature.

I discussed the publication of my paper in another (not DeNovo) journal with Dr. Ketchum.  She had no specific criticisms of the paper, only the general comment that her study contained much more data than mine did and the bulk of it all pointed to a new hominin.  On that basis she asked me not to publish my paper.

In a final attempt to reconcile our vastly different conclusions, I employed a different search strategy which one of her consultants had previously used: breaking the sequences into 60 base pair segments and searching these separately against the database.  Though this technique is not recommended by experts at NCBI, who said it “makes no sense,” my results led to the same conclusions as my complete sequence searches.  This technique loses information, namely how the 60 bp segments are connected, and therefore it is not as definitive as mine.  I sent my results by this technique to Dr. Ketchum, and asked for comments from her associates, but I received no reply. My results of this study are available on request.  At her request, I agreed not to share hers.

I make my work available below for Bigfooters and Squatchers to consider as a response to the Ketchum paper and to that alone.  My apologies to those with no appetite for the mathematics; they can skip the COMPUTER METHODS Section and still understand the results and conclusions.  Questions and comments are welcome. 

I remain hopeful that someday this community will discover undeniable proof of the existence of these creatures.  They can never be proven not to exist.  Good luck in your searches (in the field and on the computer)!!

Haskell Hart, PhD

May 13, 2014