A Man Says He Found Bigfoot’s Dead Body in New York—and Has the DNA to Prove It

3 min readHere’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:• As long as there have been legends of a Bigfoot, there have been hoaxes reporting that the elusive human relative has finally been found.• A Bigfoot hunter says he found a dead specimen in 2024 in the Adirondack Mountains in New York State, and even confirmed it with DNA evidence after sending a sample to Cornell University.• Now, the university says they never worked on the tests, but the Bigfoot hunter remains adamant—even threatening to sue the university for $10 million.Cryptozoolgy—the study of legendary or folkloric creatures whose existence is highly debated—has a certain appeal to it. After all, scientists discover tens of thousands of species each year, and sometimes those species have ties to legend and folklore. The okapi, for example, was once thought to be a local legend of an “African unicorn,” but in 1901, scientists discovered that this mythological creature was actually real (though more closely related to a giraffe than any sort of equine species).Almost every human culture speaks of similar mythical creatures, whether the Loch Ness Monster, the Abominable Snowman, or the Chupacabra. Of course, the U.S. has its own fair share of legendary beings, such as the Jersey devil or the Mothman, but none are as well-known as Bigfoot. The legends of Bigfoot—or Sasquatch as derived from the native Halkomelem language—stretch back to the millennia-old pictographs drawn by the Yokuts, an indigenous tribe from present-day California. The myth entered the mainstream after the release of the famous Patterson–Gimlin film featuring the fuzzy, out-of-focus behemoth we know and love today.The grainy, shaky film inspired countless Bigfoot-hunters and cryptid scholars since it surfaced in 1967. Almost 60 years later, we have more drama surrounding the hunt for North America’s most famous hairy humanoid. Charles Stuart, who goes by “Snake the Bigfoot Hunter,” purports that he found a Sasquatch corpse in the Adirondack Mountains in 2024, and he’s since verified its DNA with Cornell University. But despite Stuart’s assertions that we finally have answers, his discovery only inspired more questions.Adding to the fantastical nature of the tale, Stuart theorizes that the eight-foot-tall creature died from injuries inflicted by an even larger Bigfoot. He’s posted pictures of the woolly guy’s furry remains, along with what he claims is a Cornell University lab report showing the specimen was more closely related to archaic human species than to Homo sapiens.“We had blood, hair, and fecal matter, and we just submitted all and got that done through a friend of mine who worked at the Cornell Veterinarian Bio DNA Lab,” Stuart told NewsNation. “The results came back…58.5 percent Neanderthal and Denisovan.”That’s some pretty “woah, if true” stuff, but nearly everyone except Stuart has serious doubts. As long as there have been myths surrounding Bigfoot, there have been false claims and hoaxes claiming that humanity’s long-lost cousin has finally been found. Tom Biscardi, a bigfoot researcher, claimed to have captured a Bigfoot in 2005, which turned out to be a hoax, and in 2008, another hoax claiming to have found a Bigfoot encased in ice was actually just a rubber suit. In 2012, a man dressed as Bigfoot was struck and struck and killed by a car while attempting to drum up reported sightings in the area.Members of the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, a group of bigfoot hunters that Popular Mechanics previously joined in an on-the-ground expedition back in 2019, remain immensely skeptical of Stuart’s claims.“No, he doesn’t actually have bigfoot remains,” Matthew Moneymarker, a member of the group, said back in 2025, as reported by The New York Post. “It’s just a cheesy fake dead bigfoot, perhaps a little bit better than Tom Biscardi’s famous fake dead bigfoot.”Cornell University has also denied any involvement in testing this purported Bigfoot sample, to which Stuart responded by calling out the institution: “Cornell is flat out lying—I will not be silenced.” Stuart is planning to sue the university for $10 million.The “want to believe” remains strong.Darren lives in Portland, has a cat, and writes/edits about sci-fi and how our world works. You can find his previous stuff at Gizmodo and Paste if you look hard enough.