I'm going to try to give a little personal information on her and then try to give what I can find as a timeline of her business venture into sasquatch DNA. Even that won't be a simple thing. But I'll try.
Not much appears known of her younger years except she grew up in Texas City, Texas. She then attended Texas A & M University achieving a doctorate in Veterinary medicine. Activites listed : Alpha Lambda Delta, Alpha Zeta, Saddle and Sirloin Club.
She then became General Practioner at Shelterwood Animal Hospital from September 1978 to April 1985. In April of 1985 she founded DNA Diagnostics and became President of it. Publicity for the company stated : "leader to all types of DNA testing including: human and animal forensics, human and animal paternity and parentage testing, disease diagnostics, trait tests, animal and human identity testing, species identification and sex determination". She continues as President of DNA Diagnostics. She was listed as CEO of Genomic Productions from 2013 to 2015.
Her story meets sasquatch when in 2008, the people behind the televison show Destination Truth and/or Discovery Channel choose her lab to analyze the alleged yeti hair from Bhutan. She made two appearances on the show (2009 - Season 3 episode 9; 2010 season 3 episode 12) as a forensic analyst. This seems to have established her as a "go to" person for collected alleged sasquatch DNA samples.Through the next few years she and her lab received both samples (mostly hair, but also blood, saliva and tissue) and funding from various sources.
She and her lab became affiliated with a few corporations of dubious reputation or with whom she ended in lawsuits and legal trouble. Ketchum claimed she knew little about the people involved in "bigfootery", admitting that some turned out to be "unethical". While claiming to not know reputations, she still wanted them removed from the DNA study to protect the integrity of the project.
Ketchum was also said to be associated with some of the following individuals and projects during the years of Bigfoot DNA collection and analysis: The Olympic Project; Tom Biscardi and Searching for Bigfoot, Inc.; "Bigfoot in a freezer", Georgia, 2008; Wally Hersom, alleged to have funded some of her work; David Paulides and North American Bigfoot Survey; Igor Burtsev and other Russian scientists; Robin Lynne Peffer, the "Blueberry Bagel" lady; and Adrian Erickson.
In August 2010, Ketchum announced she was working on a scientific paper on the subject of sasquatch DNA. Her name was on a copyright filing September 2010 describing a media project related to "a new tribe of living humans." The theme of a book or video was to be "Sasquatch as a modern human with some genetic mutations accounting for their physical appearance." Her study would show the project as a "complete Sasquatch mitochondrial genome sequence and nuclear DNA variations." Later she would dismiss this as it never seemed to develop.
Ketchum's DNA project became further mired as rumors, speculations, opinions, leaked and "legit" press releases filled the internet in news sources, facebook and blogs. In 2009 Ketchum and her people started their own facebook page with the public access to it disappeared in June 2012, leaving only the private "friend" page in existence concerning the DNA project. [She currently has a facebook page under Melba Ketchum where if you wish, you can send her a friend request.].
Towards the end of 2011, Ketchum issued an update on Facebook declaring that the results of the DNA testing were complete and that the paper was being submitted for publication. While waiting for this report to come out, she became a no show at two conferences at which she was a scheduled speaker on sasquatch DNA. One was the Honobia, Oklahoma conference in October 2011 and the Richland, Washington conference in May of 2012. For the later, she presented a "DNA 101" via a Skype session. Those who were in attendance, appeared to be disappointed. Some complained that this was her way of controlling what, if any, questions would be addressed at the conference. Ketchum alleged she chose not to attend these conferences in person due to threats of bodily harm made against her if she appeared.
Throughout 2012 rumors continued to rise about the coming publication of the DNA paper. Ketchum asked her followers to remain patient, that it was only a matter of time and that this type of presentation paper was not a quick process. She also said she was crating a website for non-scientists so that they would be able to access the paper and understand what it meant. Frustration continued to grow in the Bigfoot Community as the delays seemed to grow.
In April of 2012, Ketchum announced that she herself had seen the sasquatch and described them as "peaceful and gentle." She shared a photo she claimed she had taken with her cellphone of a structure built by them. She talked of having visited a Habituation Site with a family of 5 "playful" sasquatch but did not reveal the location. [Perhaps one of the Erickson Project's sites? or perhaps Peffer's site in Michigan.]
In October of 2012 the lab building in Timpson, Texas was closed and up for lease. The business apparently was moved to a different address. November found Igor Burtsev issued an "urgent" announcement on his Facebook page : "The DNA analysis of the Bigfoot/Sasquatch specimen conducted by Dr. Melba Ketchum the head of DNA Diagnostics, Timpson, Tx, USA had been over." He added that the team of American scientists led by Ketchum analyzed 109 alleged samples from sasquatch.
Ketchum responded : "It is unfortunate that the partial summary of our data was released in this manner, however, I will be making a formal response in the next few days. Even though Igor Burtsev released this, it was not Dr. Burtsev's fault." She cited possible language misunderstandings and his eagerness over the project as reasons for the premature announcement. In another press conference Ketchum spoke of a video showing footage of a sasquatch provided by the Erickson Project that would accompany the DNA paper. Adrian Erickson mentioned on his website both the video and the many samples of DNA that they provided Ketchum with.
A blogger used the term "Angel DNA" which only served to further ridicule the study of "unknown novel" DNA. Although various places then also used the term of "Angel DNA", Ketchum at the time denied ever using such a label. David Paulides chose to speak up once again for Ketchum citing that delays were caused with the release of the study as top scientists worked independently to verify the results three and even four times. His claim on the DNA : "It falls in the realm of human."
Things had just begun to die down when Igor Burtsev spoke up again in December when he announced that the paper had been rejected by U.S. journals but was now being considered by a Russian journal. Ketchum's people denied that, saying that the paper was still under review in the U.S.
On February 13, 2013 the long awaited paper was introduced with a press release: "Novel North American Hominins, next generation sequencing of three whole genomes and associated studies". It was said to have analyzed DNA from 111 high-quality samples gathered from across the continent. Co-authors listed : Ketchum, P.W. Wojtkiewicz, A.B. Watts, D.W. Spencer, A.K. Holzenburg, D.G. Toler, T.M. Prychitko, F. Zhang, S. Bollinger, R. Shoulders, R. Smith.
The paper was published through DeNovo, an on-line outlet, that Ketchum ended up purchasing when other sources opted not to print the paper due to some of the bad press attached to it. It is said that some sources managed to obtain free copies of the paper, while others could only access a copy with a $30 purchase price.
Some geneticists who have viewed the paper claimed it made little sense. They did say that the DNA sequences did contain matches to human chromosome 11, a lot of undetermined DNA, and some that seemed in part to match other animals. Therefore the entire sequence does not resemble any known animal and contradict evolutionary biology. The use of NGS (Next generation sequencing) technology had problems that could lead to poor date quality. Therefore it is unknown if the results were properly evaluated prior to concluding that the genome data could be used and if the interpretation is reasonable. There were also feelings of contamination of the samples at several points.
Also released at the same time as the paper was Erickson's video of a sleeping sasquatch.
Tomorrow : Videos and photographs of Matilda.
Nancy
"I'll spark the thought; what you do with it is up to you."
UPDATE : http://luckypuppy.net/novel-north-american-hominins/
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