MikeEsordi
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I found Bigfoot above the San Diego River headwaters
My name is Michael Esordi and as a long time and legitimate member of the cryptozoology community I would like to address a few points in this article by James Snyder. Mr. Snyder contacted me some time after his 2002 discovery of the footprint in Ramona, CA. When I met with Mr. Snyder he showed me some photographs and his cast, but when I enquired about the possibility of seeing the site to obtain better evidence he refused. However, I respected Mr. Snyder’s wishes and decided to see what we could determine based on the evidence collected. I posted the amateur photos Mr. Snyder took to the website to allow researchers across the nation to examine them and comment. As a result I did have a number of well-known and highly respected researchers comment. However, given the quality of the images it was difficult for any real determination to be made at that time regarding the footprint. On the occasions I met with Mr. Snyder he conveyed two things to me. One was that he wanted to determine what had made the footprint and the other was to see what kind of monetary compensation could be made from his find. After some discussion, I obtained Mr. Snyder’s permission to make a cast from his original and to offer it for sale on the website. I personally covered all costs of production and manufacture on the item and did place it into commerce on my website. However, there was minimal interest in the item and no profits were ever made on it. Given this fact, I discontinued sale of the item after a relatively short period of time. Around the time of my relocation to the East coast I attempted to contact Mr. Snyder on a number of occasions as I wanted to follow up with him on to my decision to pull the cast and to discuss feedback from the researchers who were interested in the footprint. Unfortunately, Mr. Snyder chose to not respond back to me and I was left assuming his interest in the matter had waned. I feel Mr. Snyder’s article is skating a dangerous line with some of the litigious verbiage he uses to describe our interaction. I’m certain if he realized he was committing what is considered libel that he might have chosen to more closely examine his recollections of our meetings and would have described things quite differently. Again, I would like to set the record straight and say I never made a profit on the cast I produced and I did attempt to contact Mr. Snyder on numerous occasions with no response back from him. In all of my interactions with Mr. Snyder I only conducted myself with the utmost professionalism and with a high level of integrity as I have a reputation in the research community I have spent many years building. Unfortunately, in his article, I feel Mr. Snyder has portrayed legitimate and highly qualified researchers in the field of cryptozoology in an unfavorable and unfair light.— January 14, 2010 2:58 p.m.