August 1, 2006

Biscardi in Paris

As the San Jose Mercury News reported on Friday, Biscardi was heading back to Texas. For what you ask? Here is what he told them.

As for Biscardi, he’s all atwitter over his latest Bigfoot encounter outside of Paris, Texas. A local television station went along and its report can be linked to on Biscardi’s Web site (www.searchingforbigfoot.com).

He’s going back Sunday with some "special operations guys" and he’s looking for a capture.

"Unbelievable," he said. "It might be this week."

Word has it that he has already abandoned Lamar Point and is heading to Atoka, OK. Apparently, he cracked a phone book and called a resident of Atoka, heck, it may have been one of the witnesses that was listed in the news reports from that area by name. He said that he was the famous Bigfoot expert with the Bigfoot hand, and he advised them to alert the community that he was coming. He supposedly left the Paris, TX area early Monday morning and was due in Atoka by Wednesday AM.

I guess that he left "Jurassic Park,’’ where he and his crew had just seen Bigfoot and headed for the next media appearance.

The Paris News weighs in on Biscardi’s last trip to Lamar Point.

Does Bigfoot live at Pat Mayse Lake?

By Sally Boswell
The Paris News

Published July 30, 2006 

Bigfoot is living along the shores of Pat Mayse Lake, according to C. Thomas Biscardi.

He should know. Hunting Bigfoot is what he does for a living.

But there are those who doubt him and his “research.”

For years, Lamar Point residents have reported sightings, encounters and what might be evidence of the legendary creature. Many reports are recorded on Web sites devoted to Bigfoot and the hunt for the elusive creature.

Biscardi’s Web site — searchingforbigfoot.com — is where the Redwood City, Calif., man claims the has seen Bigfoot on the shores of Pat Mayse Lake.

Earlier this month, the Associated Press reported on a lawsuit filed by the Bigfoot hunter in Northern California against Great American Bigfoot Research Organization, a company he founded. Biscardi told reporters he was in Texas, where he had recently found evidence of Bigfoot near Paris.

An account of a Bigfoot sighting on the shores of a lake is described in an Internet report by Bob Schmalbach, a writer and Biscardi associate. The Web site also includes the names of two Lamar County residents who have their own tales to tell.

“A friend of my wife had seen one out by the lake,” said Mike Sells, who lives south of the lake on FM 1500. “I said I’d just look and after awhile I found a track. That was my first encounter.”

“I was real skeptical at first,” Sells said. “Over time I did some research on Indians of this area and came across an article on an Indian legend of the Sanders Creek wild man.”

Sells, along with others who claim encounters, made castings of some of the prints and it was these artifacts that brought Biscardi to Lamar County.

“He was on an expedition in Honobia, Okla., earlier this year, and a local reporter up there knew one of the guys here and he put us in touch.” Sells said Biscardi and several of his associates made the trip to Paris to look at the casts.

According to the Web site account of the expedition to Pat Mayse, Biscardi and his crew again came to Paris on July 15. They made a foray into the woods around the lake that night and reported almost immediately finding footprints, and seeing movement in the trees with nightscopes and infrared cameras.

The next day, Schmalbach invited reporters to join the expedition.

Bob Hallmark, a television reporter from Tyler, accepted the invitation. Hallmark later told viewers that he had seen and videotaped prints, scratch marks in the dirt and signs that something had been breaking open and eating clams along the shore. He also reported seeing on an infrared scope a large heat signature “moving at a high rate of speed through the woods.”

Sells reports that the Biscardi team was indeed in Paris and that he visited the expedition site.

“We went out there, my wife and I, for just about a half hour or so. I saw part of the video they made. It was something; something standing upright.”

Schmalbach, who goes by the name JavaBob on his Web site, described the area of the sighting as “something out of ‘Jurassic Park.’”

The water, he wrote, was “very shallow and was thick with reeds, tree stumps and the biggest lily pads I have ever seen.” He also described finding footprints at the edges of “holes where something had dug up clams” with the shells discarded nearby. He marveled at the size of the shells, saying they were bigger than a man’s hand.

JavaBob also told his readers the team had seen a heat silhouette standing in the water several hundred yards out and called it the “largest creature we have ever seen.”

According to Darla Barr, Texas Parks and Wildlife game warden, the holes that Java Bob reported were hog wallows. She said feral hogs dig for and eat freshwater mussels that are common to the lake. Raccoons and other animals do too, she said.

“I never saw those folks out here,” she said, standing on the shoreline near the Lamar Point boat ramp, “but I did talk to the guy from Tyler. He described the area and how they got out here, so I know they were right around here.”

Walking across the dried lake bed through water lilies, Barr said the site is a daily- use area.

“There’s people out here all the time,” said the veteran game warden, who has been stationed in Lamar County for nine years. “Hunters — it’s hog season right now — boaters, fishermen. Where we’re standing is about a quarter of a mile to a half mile from the houses along the road.”

“The guy from Tyler TV asked me if had ever seen or heard of any evidence of a Bigfoot in this area,” she said, shaking her head. “I told him no.”

As Barr walked the shoreline, she pointed out prints from local residents of the area — deer, hog, bobcat, beaver and raccoon, as well as human, both shod and unshod.

“Someone pulled a boat up right here, and one person got out barefooted and walked around,” she said, pointing to prints in the gummy mud.

Further along the shore, the game warden stopped and noted one particular print.

The print was a little more than 12 inches long and showed five distinct toes. A left foot based on the position of the instep arch, the print was embedded in the dry soil about 10 feet from the water’s edge. A small water lily leaf lay crushed and curled in the center of the print.

Another print was found nearby, a few feet behind, fainter and less discernible. It, too, was a left foot of the same size and shape.

Just to the front and left of the first print, however, a small yellow survey-type flag on a wire fluttered. The flag was there when the print was discovered.

Was this one of the prints Biscardi and his party discovered?

Attempts to reach Biscardi have not been successful. Voice mail left at his office in Menlo Park, Calif., this week have not been returned.

Research into Biscardi reveals a history of activities in the field of Bigfoot research. Alex Breitler, a Northern California journalist, says that there are red flags about Biscardi that shouldn’t be ignored.

“I believe he’s a former Vegas show producer,” the former Redding, (Calif.), Record Searchlight reporter said. “In other words, he has a career in entertainment and lots of people seem to think his Bigfoot expeditions are just an extension of his show. On the other hand, I have talked with some people who think he’s genuine.”

Even among those who believe in Bigfoot, many question Biscardi’s sightings. Contributors to Bigfoot forums such as Cryptomundo and the American Bigfoot Society Clearinghouse question his claims.

“He probably thinks there’s money it it if he captures one,” said Sells, when asked if he believes Biscardi is on the up and up. “I think he’s pretty sincere in want-ing to capture one.”

“I haven’t had a face-to-face encounter, something to convince me that there is such a thing,” Sells said. “But some of the people that have seen them (Bigfoot), I can’t doubt their sincerity. They’ve seen something, enough to scare some of them, enough to amuse others. I can’t doubt their veracity.”

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