they said . Not quite . 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 . Co-hoaxer Whitton agrees : `` It started off as some YouTube videos and a Web site . We 're all about having fun . '' `` Fun '' is n'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 ? ' '' Whitton and Dyer had announced that they had found the body of a 7-foot-7-inch , 500-pound half-ape , half-human creature while hiking in the north Georgia mountains in June . They also said they had spotted about three similar living creatures . Still
ATLANTA , Georgia -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- The two men who claimed to have found the carcass of Bigfoot have surfaced to say : Hey , it was just a joke . Matt Whitton has been fired from his job as a police officer because of his role in the hoax . 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 does n't exist . '' Whitton chimed in : `` All this was a big joke . It got into something way bigger than it was supposed to be . '' Watch the two men explain their `` joke '' '' At a news conference in California last week , the two men had stood by their claims that they had discovered Bigfoot 's corpse and had it on ice . Scientific analysis would prove it ,