In August 1976, Peter Byrne of the Oregon-based Bigfoot Information Center wrote a letter asking the FBI to “set the record straight, once and for all” on whether the FBI had tested hair samples “which might be that of a Bigfoot.” The answer, it turns out, was no. But Byrne had a mysterious sample, including skin and about 15 hairs, that he wanted tested.
Incredibly, the FBI agreed to do the testing, according to 22 pages of correspondence and news clippings released last week by the agency.
That following February, FBI Assistant Director Jay Cochran wrote back with news about the tests for Howard Curtis of the Academy of Applied Science, who was working with Byrne’s organization. The sample was not the exotic find they were looking for.
“The hairs which you recently delivered to the FBI laboratory on behalf of The Bigfoot Information Center and Exhibition have been examined by transmitted and incident light microscopy,” Cochran wrote. “The examination included a study of morphological characteristics such as root structure, medullary structure and cuticle thickness in addition to scale casts. Also, the hairs were compared directly with hairs of known origin under a comparison microscope. It was concluded as a result of these examinations that the hairs are of deer family origin.”
It may seem odd that the FBI would conduct such a frivolous test in the first place. But as Cochran noted in a departmental memo about the Bigfoot enthusiast’s request, “In addition to its primary mission of examining physical evidence in criminal matters,” the FBI laboratory “has a history of making its unique services and expertise available to the Smithsonian Institution, other museums, universities and government agencies in archaeological matters and in the interest of research and legitimate scientific inquiry.”
So in the interest of science, the FBI did the test, and it didn’t find Bigfoot. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t out there somewhere.
