Source Comes Forward

Steven Streufert has released a statement from the source of the conversation in my previous article "Did Bigfoot Once Have Wings?"

It can be found here:

Here is the statement in full: 

A statement from Rhettman Mullis re. the revelations re. Ketchum today: 

I sent Melba a sample through Tim Olson. I was first told it was viable. 

Then I began conversations with Sykes and Nekaris to do this DNA project in January of 2012. By March it was going public early. At the same time I invited Melba to work with Sykes as the projects need to have replication anyway 

That summer before (2011) I had invited Melba and Sally to become a part of Bigfootology and they both, understandably declined for the moment. 

Melba did not really answer me about working with Sykes...ignored me about it if I recall correctly. 

It was soon after that I had this conversation with Melba on March 12th, 2012, and frankly after the conversation I was wondering if I had done the right thing. 

It was a little while later that the project with Sykes became a go and Melba continued to ignore me about it. It was also at that time when our sample was no longer viable, and then later we were told that we never submitted a sample. 

My conversation with Melba was a friendly conversation that had a great deal to do with theology as in addition to being a behavior scientist, I am an ordained pastor and I found her conclusions highly questionable and from a psychologist point of view I found her persona highly concerning. 

Afterwards, frankly, I was okay with her not wanting to work with us because I did not want to deal with that since I work with clients like that weekly and I like working with healthy-persona people outside of work. 

But I am about the science first, and I thought it would be a good collaboration between her and Sykes if the science and methodology is sound. 

I am not qualified to determine the authenticity of genetic science and that is why I turned her paper over to Sykes and Nekaris and both did not respond favorably to the science in the paper. Genetics is not my area of expertise. 

So the conversation evolved and that is what is public now. I am under no NDA or sample contract. 

This was my attempt to push science forward and bring key-players together, which is what I do, I am a bridge-person, always bringing peace and people together, and some have seen me do this firsthand. 

Even publicly, on Coast to Coast AM when I gave my updates I continued to publicly encourage Melba to do the right thing... 

I have never attacked her privately or publicly. I just want her to maintain scientific integrity. I have always told people that I do not care who gets credit for the discovery, just that it is done properly. So no one can question the integrity of the finding and that is what has happened in Melba's project. Everything is now questionable. 

Statement regarding the release of the relevant parts of the conversation: 

For over two years I have encouraged Melba to maintain the integrity of her project and hoped for the best for her and her potentially-historic project. I withdrew that support last summer when multiple situations came forth and I began to see questionable actions and practices by Melba in her project. I maintained my silence and publicly continued to encourage her to do the right thing, but the situation has continued to decline. I am okay to stand on the sidelines for the purpose of keeping the peace and letting someone make their own bed of self-sabotage. In this case, however, it has become a larger problem when innocent people get attacked because they are being honest and I continue to say nothing while holding the evidence of her own words. Because I hold the evidence of her own words and I stand by and not let the truth be known then I become duplicitous in that attacking of honest people and that goes against the grain of who I am as a scientist and as a pastor. By releasing this I am not attacking Melba as that is never my intent, I am merely letting her own words show her for what she really thinks and what she is really doing in order to protect the many others who have been ruthlessly attacked and accused of being liars when it is not the case. 

Rhettman A. Mullis, Jr., MS, MHP