The Hand of Unknown Origin
Posted by: Craig Woolheater on July 3rd, 2006
There has been much speculation here on Cryptomundo, and elsewhere, that "The Hand of Unknown Origin" that Tom Biscardi has been promoting as a Bigfoot hand is the paw of a bear.
Below are some stills taken from a news story from last year regarding a hand that was found in Guilderland, NY, a town of a little over 32,000 near Albany. At first, it was thought to be a severed human hand. It had been stuffed into a clear surgical glove and made up to look like a human hand. It turned out to be a bear paw. It was found on Thursday evening, February 17, 2005.
Here is the link to the Capital News 9 website with the video of the find.
The above still is from their website, the one below is a capture from the video off the website. Interestingly, the finger tips were removed from this "hand" as well. Of course, as it is a bear paw, they would have to be removed to disguise the fact that there were claws, not nails.
Paul Gleasman couldn’t decide if the thing on his front lawn was a severed human hand, or a Halloween fake. Gleasman, worried that his young daughters might see the prank, used a shovel to toss the hand into trees behind his West Old State Road house.
But the hand haunted him — perhaps it was real. His wife urged him to talk to authorities Friday, the day after Gleasman had discovered the hand on their property. As he dropped off his youngest daughter at day care, he mentioned the hand to a parent who is a Guilderland police dispatcher and, in turn, called police, who recovered the apparent hand from the trees. All day police combed the neighborhood for clues, even interrogating Gleasman.
The find even fooled pathologists at the Albany Medical Center, who thought it was a human hand as well. Until they X-rayed it.
"It is not a human hand," said Guilderland Police Lt. Curtis Cox, who got the news at 11 p.m. Friday. "Preliminary X-rays pathology shows that it is an animal claw that was very realistically made up to look like a human hand."
It may have been a bear claw, Cox said.
Source: Times Union, Albany, NY
The article is not available other than in the archives for a fee
And this:
A massive investigation underway last night after homeowner Paul Gleasman found the bloody appendage in a rubber glove on his front lawn — police released the photos today — but the hand is so real and bloody we decided not to show them. Even the experienced coroner — who has over 30 years on the job thought it, was a real hand. But it was at 11 o’clock last night when lab tests showed otherwise. Police say it looks like a prank at this point — but it certainly was no joke for most of the night.
Source: FOX 23 News WXXA-TX Albany, NY
So it fooled the pathologists and an experienced coroner.
When did Biscardi’s hand first turn up? Biscardi claims on his website that it was turned in anonomously to a police station in Butte, Montana in 2002. Could they be one and the same?
One of the commenters here on Cryptomundo stated that Don Monroe had given it to Bigfoot researcher Dick Grover before turning it over to Tom Biscardi. He stated that Dr. W. Henner Fahrenbach had attempted to conduct DNA testing on the hand.
I have contacted Dr. Fahrenbach to get his input on this matter. I have also contacted the DNA Diagnostics Center in Fairfield, Ohio that Biscardi says in his "press release" conducted DNA testing. I am awaiting a response from them regarding this matter. I will post updates as they come in here on Cryptomundo.
The X-Ray on the left allegedly was taken of the alleged Bigfoot hand and the X-Ray on the right is alleged to be that of a human hand.
Click image for full-size version
Cave bear paw
Click image for full-size version
Co-founder of Cryptomundo in 2005.
I have appeared in or contributed to the following TV programs, documentaries and films:
OLN's Mysterious Encounters: "Caddo Critter", Southern Fried Bigfoot, Travel Channel's Weird Travels: "Bigfoot", History Channel's MonsterQuest: "Swamp Stalker", The Wild Man of the Navidad, Destination America's Monsters and Mysteries in America: Texas Terror - Lake Worth Monster, Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot: Return to Boggy Creek and Beast of the Bayou.
Whether it’s a bear paw or not (which I think it is) the removal of the fingertips and thumb make the whole thing really fishy. I’m guessing there was no actual DNA testing or the DNA was just so degraded that it came up as unusable, not as “something that wasn’t in the system.”
fredfacker-
That lab is a lab accredited by the FBI and others that undergoes regular evaluations to maintain their accredition. One would think they know what they’re doing with regard to degraded, decomposed samples.
But who knows, it will be interesting to hear what they say when they respond to Craig.
I’m not saying the lab doesn’t know what they’re doing. (Although I do live in Houston, so if you know the history here with HPD, you know that just because a lab is accredited it doesn’t mean they’re honest or scientific in their principles. Innocent people are still being released from prison thanks to the fact that our lab techs were “fixing” the results of DNA tests.) I’m saying you can spin the PR however you want.
So a lab worker hands someone an official report that says, “The specimen definitely isn’t human, but we were unable to to verify a DNA match due to the degraded condition of the specimen.” Then that person writes a press release that only quotes, “Unable to verfiy a DNA match.”
Then, of course, that quote gets spun, and the next quote gets spun, and all of the sudden you have all sorts of outrageous claims that the lab never made in the first place.
I have a feeling a lot of what is reported through Biscardi’s camp gets rather embellished.
shovethenos,
The thing to consider is that Biscardi is claiming that the DNA Diagnostics Center has done testing on the hand. He has claimed many things that have not panned out.
As soon as I hear from a representative of the lab, I will report back here on Cryptomundo.
fredfacker/Craig-
Points taken. It will be interesting to see what the lab says.
After seeing the X-ray of the hand and seeing a skeletal bear paw I am 99% convinced that Biscardi’s “Bigfoot Hand” is indeed the disembodied paw of a bear. I would like to see the skeletal structure of an ape hand though just to hammer in the final nail.
I thought from the beginning that something was weird about the missing “fingertips”. Now I believe after comparing the cave bear paw images and that of the “hand”, it is definitely a bear paw. As someone else stated, to cover up the claws.
Don Monroe wanted to show this in Bellingham last year. After Jason Valenti and Paul Smith checked out the pictures that Monroe showed them and the x-ray he showed them they compared it to a bear and decided that’s what it was.
They told Mr. Monroe thanks but no thanks.
I HATE FAKERS.