The legend dates back to a small California news item in 1958, which lured readers into the idea of a North American counterpart to the Himalayan Abominable Snowman.
In the search for Bigfoot, or indeed any cryptid, the ultimate goal of cryptozoologists has always been physical evidence, and the Holy Grail of such evidence is DNA. Cryptozoologists need this, as blurry photos and witness accounts are not traditionally held up high in the realms of mainstream science as particularly of worth. Over the decades there have been many instances of people claiming to have found just this, yet it has always been an elusive specter. One of the more notable claims of finding supposed Bigfoot DNA and “proof” of their existence was released in 2012 by a genetics lab, and would take the nation and world by storm.