In 2013, a research group led by veterinarian Melba Ketchum published a genomic claim based on biological material submitted from across North America. The paper interpreted selected results as evidence for an unknown human-related hominin. That conclusion remains highly disputed, but the project left an unusually rich documentary trail connecting witnesses, sample collectors, laboratories and later reanalysis.
What the project claimed
The paper reported human mitochondrial DNA in many submitted samples and interpreted nuclear DNA from three selected specimens as a mixture of human and unknown primate sequence. The authors proposed that Sasquatch represented a human-related hybrid lineage. The Observatory records that as the study’s conclusion, not as an established identification of a species.
The three key samples
Sample 26 was tissue with hair associated with the disputed October 2010 shooting account of Justin Smeja in northern California. Sample 31 was described as blood collected from a food-trap plate at an Erickson Project research site. Sample 140 was described as dried blood recovered from the inside of a damaged downspout.
The importance of these samples makes provenance central. Laboratory analysis can identify what is in a specimen, but it cannot by itself establish that a specimen came from the creature described in an encounter.
Witnesses, researchers and collectors
Justin Smeja is directly relevant because material attributed to his reported 2010 shooting became associated with Sample 26. His account is preserved as testimony; the claimed shooting and biological origin of the sample remain disputed.
Derek Randles, later associated with the Olympic Project and investigation of the Sierra incident, also reports an independent 1985 Olympic Mountains encounter. His witness record is kept separate from his later research role.
Scott Carpenter’s self-authored field archive describes claimed encounters, video and extensive hair-sample collection, but those events remain separated from public witness qualification until individual chronologies are resolved. Melba Ketchum, David Paulides, Adrian Erickson and Dennis Pfohl are preserved here for their project roles without automatically treating them as eyewitnesses.
Later DNA reanalysis
Physical chemist Haskell Hart later analyzed released sequence data and reported results inconsistent with the original novel-hominin interpretation: Sample 26 as black bear, Sample 31 as human, and Sample 140 as dog or another member of Canis. That work directly challenges the three whole-genome samples that formed the strongest part of the published claim.
No broadly accepted independent genomic replication has established the novel hominin proposed by the 2013 paper. That does not determine the origin of every specimen ever submitted to the project; it does mean the published genome claim remains unresolved and contested rather than confirmed.
Why the project still matters
The Genome Project is unusually useful as a provenance case study. It connects firsthand claims, field collection, biological samples, laboratory analysis and later scientific criticism in a single traceable record. It shows why evidence cannot be evaluated apart from the chain that connects a specimen to the event that supposedly produced it.
The most useful questions are therefore narrower than whether the project “proved Bigfoot”: Which samples have documented origins? Which witnesses can be independently sourced? Which laboratory results can be reproduced? Which later analyses agree or conflict with the original interpretation?