Putting the Bigfoot Hoax to Bed.

Matt Whitton, an officer who has been on medical leave from the Clayton County Police Department, and Rick Dyer, a former Georgia corrections officer, announced the find in early July on YouTube videos and a Web site. "Everyone who has talked down to us is going to eat their words," Whitton said at the time.

Biscardi sent self-described "Sasquatch detective" Steve Kulls to a secret location -- apparently Muncie, [Indiana] -- to check out the specimen.

Kulls, it's safe to say, was severely disappointed.

In a long statement on SearchingforBigfoot.com, Kulls reveals what he found early Sunday morning Eastern time as the body thawed out.

"I extracted some [hair] from the alleged corpse and examined it and had some concerns," Kulls writes. "We burned said sample and said hair sample melted into a ball uncharacteristic of hair."

Kulls called Biscardi in California, who told him to heat the body to speed up thawing.

"Within one hour we were able to see the partially exposed head," Kulls continues. "I was able to feel that it seemed mostly firm, but unusually hollow in one small section. This was yet another ominous sign."

Then came the clincher.

"Within the next hour of thaw, a break appeared up near the feet area. ... I observed the foot which looked unnatural, reached in and confirmed it was a rubber foot."

That jibes with what Jerry Parrino, owner of Internet Halloween-costume retailer TheHorrorDome.com, told FOXNews.com last week.

"It definitely looks like our [Sasquatch] costume," Parrino said after viewing photos of the body.

Kulls wrote that he immediately informed Searching for Bigfoot CEO Tom Biscardi about the discovery. Upon confrontation, Whitton and Dyer reportedly admitted to the hoax.

Now the two Georgia men admit that the hairy, icy blob was an Internet-purchased Sasquatch costume stuffed with possum roadkill and slaughterhouse leftovers.

Whitton and Dyer say that when they came up with the hoax, they had no idea it would become a media circus.

"It got legs and ran. It's crazy now," Dyer told WSB.

The Biscardi team immediately went into crisis mode. Biscardi called Whitton and Dyer at their California hotel.

They admitted it was a hoax and agreed to sign a promissory note at a meeting set for 8 a.m. Pacific time at the hotel.

But when Biscardi got there, he "found that they had left."

After admitting their deception in a telephone conversation with Mr Biscardi and promising to pay his money back, the two hoaxers swiftly checked out of their California hotel before the Bigfoot hunter could get there, making themselves as scarce as their mythical prey.

The alleged corpse of Bigfoot has been ruled a hoax and now the perpetrators appear to just as elusive as the mythical creature.

Mr Whitton and Mr Dyer, a former prison officer in Georgia, appear to have gone to ground since the hoax was declared.

Still unclear is how much money Whitton and Dyer got out of the hoax.

Steve Kulls, who maintains the SquatchDetective Web site and hosts a similarly named Internet radio program, first interviewed Dyer on July 28 for the radio program. On August 12, Kulls said, Dyer and Whitton "requested an undisclosed sum of money as an advance, expected from the marketing and promotion."

Two days later, after signing a receipt and counting the money, Dyer and Whitton showed the Searching for Bigfoot team the freezer containing what they claimed was the carcass: "Something appearing large, hairy and frozen in ice," Kulls wrote on the Web site.

It was, as many had suspected, an ape-like costume stuffed with entrails.

[Whitton and Dyer] sold the rights to the corpse to Rick Biscardi, a Californian Bigfoot hunter, for a reported $50,000, and Mr Biscardi then presented the pair to the world at a press conference in Palo Alto last Friday, although he was forced to defend the lack of physical evidence on show.

The other unhappy party is Biscardi, who accuses Dyer and Whitton of running off with the $50,000 advance he gave them a week ago. According to an employee of his Searching for Bigfoot company, Biscardi plans to sue.

However, many elements of Kulls's account sharply contradict earlier statements made by Biscardi, who stood alongside Whitton and Dyer at the press conference in Palo Alto, California, last Friday.

At the conference, Biscardi said he had flown to Georgia and had actually seen, touched, and prodded the body and was satisfied it "was not a mask sewn on a bear hide."

Furthermore, Biscardi said Friday that Whitton and Dyer had already given him the Bigfoot body and that it was being kept at an undisclosed location.

But according to Kulls, the body was not delivered to Searching for Bigfoot Inc. or examined in detail until after the press conference.

Biscardi did not return calls for comment.

Loren Coleman, who runs the influential Cryptomundo.com Web site devoted to mysterious animals, isn't buying Biscardi's pleas of ignorance.

"He's a huckster, a circus ringmaster," Coleman told FoxNews.com. "It's all about money with him. It probably didn't matter to him whether it was real or not."

The [Searching for Bigfoot] site was founded by Tom Biscardi, who authenticated and promoted the alleged Georgia Sasquatch. Biscardi, who did not return calls requesting comment, has his own credibility issues, according to a police officer in a nearby jurisdiction.

“He was involved in a similar hoax a few years back,” said Agent Dan Ryan with the Palo Alto (Calif.) Police Department.

In an interview with WSB-TV Wednesday night, Whitton and Dyer’s attorney, Steve Lister, blamed Biscardi for blowing his clients’ joke out of proportion.

The involvement of Biscardi, who Coleman says was introduced to the pair by Kulls, brought them attention they didn't need.

"In a way, both sides may have been trying to out-con each other," said Coleman.

[Whitton and Dyer] also briefly posted a YouTube video arguing that Biscardi knew all along that the Bigfoot body was bogus. It was taken down, but Cryptomundo.com managed to save it for posterity.

"We have proof," Dyer told Massee. "Not proof of Bigfoot --- we have proof of everything, and that's what's gonna come out in the next couple of days."

The two men who claimed to have found the carcass of Bigfoot have surfaced to say: Hey, it was just a joke.

Not everyone is laughing.

In an exclusive interview with CNN affiliate WSB, the two hoaxers -- car salesman Rick Dyer and now-fired police officer Matt Whitton -- said the whole situation began as a joke and then got out of hand.

"It's just a big hoax, a big joke," Dyer said.

"It's Bigfoot," Dyer explained. "Bigfoot doesn't exist."

Whitton chimed in: "All this was a big joke. It got into something way bigger than it was supposed to be."

Back home in Georgia after their brief moment in the big time, Dyer and Whitton told two Atlanta TV stations Wednesday that the entire affair was a "joke" that got out of hand.

"I just wanted to put out some good news," Dyer told Joanna Massee of WGCL-TV. "People are upset with the war and stuff — what's so bad about Bigfoot? Nobody got hurt."

Bigfoottracker.com has had a lot of doors open for them in the past couple of weeks, We are currently filming "Bigfoot Doesn't Live." The DVD should be out T.B.A. in stores and on line here at our site.

We soon will be offering bigfoottracker trips, all across the world and will be making personal appearances. All dates and times will be in coming events.

The hoaxers' own BigfootTracker website does not explain the motives behind it - except to offer visitors $499 Bigfoot hunting expeditions. Callers to a voicemail "tipline" advertised on the site are advised that the pair are also now searching for leprechauns, dinosaurs, the Loch Ness Monster and, of course, Elvis.

... according to their site, the pair are not averse to making money off their amusement. For $500, you can join them for a Bigfoot expedition. They also sell Sasquatch-related T-shirts and caps.

Repeated attempts to reach both men were unsuccessful, and Lister did not return calls seeking comment

So why would Dyer, described as a former security guard, and Whitton, a police officer with the Clayton County, Ga., department, make it all up?

"They probably started out small, as a way to promote their Bigfoot tracking business, and got in way over their heads," Coleman figured. "These are not very intelligent individuals."

The Bigfoot Field Research Organization, another Bigfoot group that refused to take seriously what Coleman dubbed the "Georgia gorilla," wants everyone connected with the "body" -- Biscardi, Dyer, Kulls and Whitton -- arrested.

"Warrants need to be issued immediately before Biscardi leaves the country," the organization's Web site states.

They claim their hoax was not for profit, but Atlanta residents Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer received $50,000 from a California Bigfoot tracker who now plans to sue to get the money back.

In a Web posting ... Kulls wrote that "action is being instigated against the perpetrators."

The two hoaxers have hired attorney Steve Lister to represent them.

"There have been some threats made to them for both civil and criminal prosecution," Lister said.

The attorney says the Bigfoot incident "got out of hand."

“There will be legal action” said Catherine Ortez, who works for Searching for Bigfoot, Inc. in in Menlo Park, Calif. The organization paid for rights to the men’s story and their find. “If this was a joke, it was very methodical and thought-out,” she said.

Hoax a Crime?

"It's probably a crime, what they're doing," said Matthew Moneymaker, president of the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (BFRO), an international network of Bigfoot investigators.

BFRO is pushing for Biscardi, Whitton, and Dyer to be prosecuted for fraud.

"Warrants need to be issued immediately before Biscardi leaves the country," according to a statement on the BFRO Web site.

Shortly after the Bigfoot press conference last week, a message appeared on the Searching for Bigfoot Web site offering viewers a chance to see more photographs of the body for U.S. $2.

"Millions of people around the world wanted to see the photos, and Biscardi may have raked in a tidy sum," the BFRO site states.

Agent Dan Ryan of the Palo Alto police department remembers Biscardi as being part of another Bigfoot hoax a few years ago.

He told National Geographic News that the recent scam might be considered a crime—if it is discovered the group profited from it.

"If it's over the Internet, anyone could [prosecute] it, whether Georgia or here or wherever," Ryan said.

A POLICE officer faces the sack after he and another man claimed to have the body of Bigfoot in a freezer.

The body turned out to be a gorilla suit, an "independent" Bigfoot researcher said.

Mr Whitton, a police officer who has been on leave to recover from a shooting, may now lose his job over the hoax.

Clayton County Police Chief Jeff Turner said he had not spoken to Mr Whitton but was preparing to fire him, the Associated Press reported.

"Once he perpetrated a fraud, that goes into his credibility and integrity,'' Mr Turner said.

"He has violated the duty of a police officer.''

Clayton County Police Chief Jeff Turner said he has not spoken to Whitton but processed paperwork to fire him.

"It started off as some YouTube videos and a Web site. We're all about having fun."

"Fun" isn't exactly how Clayton County Police Chief Jeff Turner sees it. He has kicked Whitton off the police force.

"He lied on national TV," Turner says of Whitton, "so a defense attorney now could say, 'How do we know you're not lying now?' "

As for Whitton, he doesn't seem to have a job to come back to in Georgia.

Asked for comment on Officer Whitton, Clayton County, Ga., Chief of Police Jeffrey Turner, corrected FoxNews.com. "You mean ex-officer Whitton."

"As soon as we saw it was a hoax," Chief Turner explained, "I filed the paperwork to terminate his employment."

Turner said he hasn't heard from Whitton, and that he was mystified at the former officer's involvement in such a blatant scam.

"He was a real go-getter," Turner said, citing Whitton's wounding in the line of duty earlier this summer while apprehending a suspect who had allegedly shot a woman in the head. "For someone to do a complete three-sixty like that, I can't explain it."

The joke fell flat with Jeffrey Turner, who as Chief of Police in Clayton County, Georgia, put Mr Whitton on medical leave when he was shot in the wrist as he tried to foil a robbery earlier this summer.

"As soon as we saw it was a hoax, I filed the paperwork to terminate his employment," said Chief Turner.

“He’s disgraced himself, he’s an embarrassment to the Clayton County Police Department, his credibility and integrity as an officer is gone, and I have no use for him,” he declared.

“This turn of events from hero to someone who defrauds a nation is just baffling. I don’t know how he got from one point to the other... For someone to do a complete three-sixty like that, I can't explain it."

The police chief said that he wanted to send Mr Whitton his termination paperwork and get back his uniforms - but had not yet managed to track him down.

Two people definitely aren't smiling. One is Clayton County Police Chief Jeffrey Turner, who fired Whitton from his job as a police officer Tuesday after the hoax came to light.

"A defense attorney could put him on the stand and say, 'You lied about this — how do we know you're not lying now?'" Turner told FoxNews.com. "A police officer needs credibility and honor."

Whitton will be allowed to contest his termination, and he insists he's still an honest man.

Rick Dyer and Matt Whitton, a former police officer who was fired once the hoax was exposed, said the Bigfoot scam was a joke and they never intended their story to become as sensational as it did, WSBTV, Atlanta, reported Thursday.

However, Whitton said he disagrees with Clayton County Police Department Chief Jeff Turner's decision to fire him on the grounds that the hoax affects his credibility.

"I don't believe it does affect my credibility at all because this is Bigfoot," said Whitton. "It would be one thing if I came out and said that I had something else that is tangible or real, but right now, as far as I'm concerned, there is no real Bigfoot."