Bigfoot Hoax Was 'A Big Joke' That Got Out of Hand

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The photo of the beast in the freezer that made major headlines a little over a week ago, was truly a Bigfoot costume filled with road kill reports UPI.

Matt Whitton was one of the pranksters and has been fired from the Clayton County Police, since the "big joke" has been exposed and he tells CNN affiliate WSB in an exclusive interview, "All this was a big joke. It got into something way bigger than it was supposed to be."

Dyer says, "It's just a big hoax, a big joke. It's Bigfoot. Bigfoot doesn't exist."

The two men went as far as to give a very public news conference where they stood by their story last week, produced photos that they showed on their website called Searching For Bigfoot, which now has a video proclaiming it was all a hoax as well.

Whitton and Dyer say the Bigfoot costume was purchased on the Internet and filled with "possum roadkill and slaughterhouse leftovers" and they had no idea what started as a simple hoax would turn into a media circus.

Dyer tells WSB, "It got legs and ran. It's crazy now," and Whitton agrees by stating, "It started off as some YouTube videos and a Web site. We're all about having fun."

Whitton's former boss Chief Jeff Turner from the Clayton County Police Department, did not find the joke as amusing as the two pranksters did, so he fired him and now says, "He lied on national TV, so a defense attorney now could say, 'How do we know you're not lying now?' "

Whitton disagrees with the Chief's decision to fire him on the grounds of credibility.

The two men have hired an attorney to represent them in case any legal liability is leveled at them. The attorney's name is Steve Lister, who says there have been threats made against the Whitton and Dyer about civil or criminal prosecution.

Dyer has gone as far as to insist that everyone should have known it was a hoax and he says, "Well, we told 10 different stories. Everyone knew we were lying."