William Dranginis is skeptical—make that highly skeptical—about the claim by two men that they discovered a dead Bigfoot in the Georgia woods. Matthew Whitton, a police officer, and Rick Dyer, a former correctional officer, have stored the supposed Bigfoot in a cooler and released some inconclusive photos. They plan to unveil the body tomorrow at a press conference in Palo Alto, California.

The duo has enlisted Tom Biscardi, a noted Bigfoot researcher since the 1970s, as their defacto spokesperson. But Dranginis, the president of the Virginia Bigfoot Research Organization, points out that Biscardi has been involved in a hoax before. In 2005, he claimed he had captured a Bigfoot weighing over 400 pounds and standing 8 feet tall. Turned out to be a publicity stunt.

Which is what we’re betting this is. Dranginis directed us to a YouTube video that shows Whitton and Dyer welcoming a Dr. Paul Van Buren into their home to study the corpse. Watch the video here. (No shortage of plugs for their website, bigfoottracker.com, which advertises their “one of a kind BIGFOOT EXPEDITIONS!!!!!!!!”)

Some sharp folks quickly deduced that Van Buren was actually Whitton’s brother.

After watching the clip, we have a message for Whitton: Grade school jokes about nuts aren’t helping your credibility.

"They must be living in a different dimension,” says Dranginis, because he can’t see what good can come of this. Whitton, a police officer, has put his job in jeopardy if this turns out to be a prank.

Tomorrow will tell.

“Either they have a body or they’re going to look like the biggest fools in the world,” says Dranginis.

—Eric Wills