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Washington's Sasquatch Defies Discovery

It's been a bummer of a week for Sasquatch or Bigfoot fans. Leave it to a bunch of dry academic killjoys to squatch, as it were, offerings of physical evidence that Sasquatch exists. An Oxford University professor studied 57 samples of hair or skin, purportedly from mysterious creatures in the Cascades or as far as the Himalayas, and they all fizzled out.

Of the eight samples submitted from Washington State Sasquatch fans - would they be called Squatchies? - three were from cows, three were from wolves, one from a white-tailed deer and one from a black bear,

Two similar samples from Oregon were from a bear and a wolf. But the folklore  - or, as some cynics put it - fake lore - lives on.

Sasquatch is an established fact in Washington State, never mind the scientific myth busting. In Skamania County, for example, it's illegal to kill a Sasquatch. The offense carries a 1-thousand dollar fine and up to five years in jail. It's probably the only county in the nation where Sasquatch is a protected species.

And the Washington State Department of Parks and Recreation uses a Sasquatch family to promote its Discover Pass.

And even the Oxford University professor emphasizes that his findings do NOT disprove the existence of giant, hairy creatures in Washington's backcountry. He said "strange discoveries may yet await the world of cryptozoology".