In an announcement that shocked no one, Steve Kulls (the 'Independent Researcher' on whose radio show Matthew Whitton and Steve Dyer first proclaimed that they had found a Bigfoot carcass) announced that the body was a fake.

Kulls, who appears to be working closely with Tom Biscardi's group, Searching For Bigfoot, announced on Tuesday that the body, which had been encased in a block of ice, was discovered to be a gorilla suit. 

In the wake of the media circus, both Whitton and Dyer seem to have disappeared, along with an undisclosed sum of money given to them by Searching For Bigfoot in exchange for the gorilla suit.

The consequences for this hoax may prove more serious for Whitton and Dyer than they anticipated.   Whitton, a police officer on leave from duty after being shot, is facing termination from his department over the hoax.  Additionally, if the Searching For Bigfoot team pursue legal action, the duo could be facing charges of felony theft through deception.

But you have to wonder, how culpable in this are Biscardi and the Searching for Bigfoot Team?  The group has certainly profited from the publicity.  Not only has the Searching For Bigfoot website and Biscardi's forthcoming documentary received an inordinate amount of publicity from Bigfoot-Gate, but the chain of events is similar to the last time Biscardi made national news. 

In 2005, Biscardi captured our attention when he claimed to have captured a Bigfoot, and would sell the rights to view it on pay-per-view only later to say that he had been duped by an unnamed woman. 

After this second instance of media attention, one has to wonder if Biscardi is the real fraud, or if he's just that gullible.  Maybe next time someone tells him that they've got a Bigfoot to sell him, he'll check it out before calling the press conference.