Here in the UK a new series premiered tonight on the History Channel called MonsterQuest.
In the first episode, called ‘Sasquatch Attack’ a remote Canadian fishermans cabin located in Snelgrove Lake, Northern Ontaio, is the scene of multiple bigfoot encounters over the years and two years ago it culminated in an attack on the Cabin itself. Footage filmed by the insurance company in 2002 shows a scene of devastation. Everything was on the floor. All the shelves in the building were ripped down.
Snelgrove Lake is situated in the last untouched wilderness arears of Northern Ontaria and is only accessible by Plane and boat. Initially the owner suspected kids but soon realised that there was no way they could get there. The nearest town being 200 miles away. The devastation was thus put down to bears.
Dr Lynn Rogers a wildlife Biologist and black bear expert disputes this. He comments in the documentary that apart from other clues in the footage there was no evidence of claw and bite marks. A bear would be attracted by the insulation in the fridge as it gives off the same scent as that of an ants Nest.
Thinking it was a bear the owner created a bear deterrant which consisted of a bed of screws pointing up and was placed by the front door. A few days later when he came back to check, some unfortunate animal had stepped on the screws as there was heavy blood present.
Two scientists, Jeff Muldrum and Curt Nelson would investigate Snelgrove Lake . They would spend five days in the cabin collecting as much evidence as possible. They were shown the bed of screws, which after 2 years seemed to have no traces of blood left. However on closer inspection dried blood, organic matter and even hair samples were found. These were sent off for DNA analysis.
On one of the nights, Dr. Nelson decided to travel to a remote outpost camp to be alone. He targeted a camping spot on the far side of the lake and spent the night there. He indulged in a bit of Wood knocking and rock banging (classic primate behaviour) in the hope of a response but no activity was reported that night
It was the events on their final night would make headlines around the world. The scientisits themselves become the targets for the beasts rage.
At about 2am a stone was thrown at the Cabin. A stone was thrown back by the crew and then within a few moments a second stone was launched at them. The stones were clearly thrown with great speed and accuracy. Dr Nelson makes the point that all the members of the crew were accounted for so it was no one fooling around, and as for the notion that it could be a bear, Dr Muldrum points out, it takes a hand to throw a stone.
“I was really scared, and I felt the adrenaline,” said Hajibeck, the producer/director in a recent newspaper interview. “When we threw that rock into the woods and then it got sent back, my heart raced.”
The last segment of the program were the hair and DNA results. The hair was analysed by Dr. Lynn Rogers and he concluded that it did not match any known North American animal but was very similiar to human hair but for 2 differences. Firstly, Human hair has a distinctive central bedula whereas this hair did not and secondly, the sample hair had a naturally worn tip. As if it had never been cut. “It was if it had come from a wild human” comments Dr. Rogers.
The DNA anaysis carried out by Microbiologist DR. Curt Nelson yielded strong DNA results after the DNA was amplified. He concludes that the DNA was primate, but not quite human and not quite non human primate. One of the DNA sequence base pairs had a deviation.
Great apes share nearly identical DNA with man except for a 35 pair deviation, the Snelgrove sample has only one deviation. As Dr. Nelson points out this sample has a one in 5000 chance of being of human origin. More analysis needs to be done he says.
