July 21, 2006
As I mentioned in my earlier post regarding Tom Biscardi’s lawsuit, there was breaking news that he was on to something in Paris, TX.
This was alluded to in the article by the San Jose Mercury News, which reported the following:
The Mercury News reached Biscardi by cell phone Monday. He was Bigfoot hunting just outside Paris, Texas. He didn’t much want to talk about his lawsuit, which he considers his "private business.’’
But he was in a high state of excitement. The crew had a Bigfoot sighting Sunday night. Biscardi said they had found a spot that looks like "Jurassic Park,’’ and saw — guess who? — yep, Bigfoot. Biscardi said he’s had five "close encounters’’ with a Bigfoot in his career, but nothing like this.
"I gotta tell you something,’’ he said, "this is the largest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.’’
Biscardi said television captured its image and he figures the find will hit the national news today or Thursday.
Posted on Biscardi’s website Wednesday was the following:
This is JavaBob. As you all know, we have been on expedition out to Wisconsin and surrounding areas. On our way back to California, we stopped in Paris Texas to pick up a couple of photographs to augment our footage from our last visit. While in Paris, we met with some of the people we met on our first visit. They told us there had been some recent activity in the area and took us out to see…
This was the beginning of the most amazing experience I have ever had! We went out to the lake in early evening and in about ten minutes, we began finding footprints… soon after dark, we began seeing creatures moving around us in the dark with the night scopes! We chased several of them trying to get close enough to take pictures with the infrared cameras, but they are way to fast for us!!!…. The entire crew was in total shock! We decided to cast some of the prints and go back to the motel and develop a plan! We made arrangements to stay longer and prepared more of our equipment. The next morning, we contacted the press. We told them we had had some activity out there and invited them to come and see what we found for themselves.
A reporter from ABC / CNN came out to meet us. His name is Bob Hallmark, as it turns out, Bob is an ex Navy Seal…. Actually from the original UDT. On our way out to show him the site from the night before, Mr. Hallmark asked me to explain to him why he should believe that “Bigfoot” really exists… I told him it is not up to me to convince anyone… We only invited him along to see what we see, when we see it. To experience what we experience as we experience it and he can make up his own mind. Little did I know, that we would see and experience such amazing things that evening!
We arrived just about dusk. On the way down to where we planned on parking the rigs, we stopped to photograph a sign on the edge of the park, warning about possible unexploded ordinance in the area. A young man, about 15 years old came riding his bike past us. He noticed the signs on the side of our rig and stopped to share his story with us. He told us that he has seen a large hairy animal crossing the road towards the lake on a regular basis. He told us the first time he saw it, he smelled it first… it crossed in front of him and he ran all the way home… now he no longer stays out there at night! We have the interview on film and you all can see it when we get back. We drove on down to the lake and began to unload our gear. Bob Hallmark from ABC / CNN unloaded his cameras and we started down towards the lake. It was almost dark and we looked out over a site that could have come directly from the movie “Jurassic Park”! We could see a lake that stretched out to the horizon. Close to shore it was very shallow and was thick with reeds, tree stumps, and the biggest lily pads I have ever seen. Some of the lilies where at least two feet in diameter and had flower stalks standing about 3 or 4 feet into the air. Leading up to the water line was loamy, light clay like mud bank about twenty yards wide. The aquatic plants still growing in it. We could find fresh water clamshells bigger than a mans hand lying around. I actually found a live clam near the surface and picked it up… it must have weighed 3-4 pounds! I never knew fresh water clams could reach this size! Within minutes, we began to find more fresh foot prints! We measured them and they were over 15 inches long and 7 inches wide at the widest point. The prints headed out towards the water line. They had a heel-to-heel stride of over 57 inches!
Bob Hallmark was very impressed and set up to photograph us taking casts of the prints. However, that is only the beginning! Soon we could find finger scratch marks in the mud. We could see where a creature was scrapping through he mud looking for clams! We found the holes where something had dug up clams and then the shells discarded near by! We found pairs of footprints next to the holes…. They were everywhere we looked! Tom took out the thermal imager and began scanning the area. Within minutes he found a heat silhouette standing in the water several hundred yards out! This was the largest creature we had ever seen. It was so large it nearly filled the screen on the thermal imager. So large and clear, that Bob Hallmark was able to see it on the screen from several yards away from Tom! We all took off running towards the best area to see the creature, but it ran away so fast, that we lost it within minutes.
Mr. Hallmark was shocked! He had come as a total skeptic, but now knew what we all knew… He was so blown away, that he put himself on film stating that he came as a skeptic, but since going out with Tom Biscardi and the Searching for Bigfoot team…. He is now a believer!!!
I am currently putting all the films and documentation together and I will do an update for the web within a couple of days… I will send a couple of photos of the prints so you can all see what we found.
This is the most amazing experience I have ever had… The three digit temperatures, the swarming biting bugs, the humidity, and the scrapes and bumps I received running through the dark are a very small price to pay for this nights work! I am so proud to be part of this!!!! See you all soon and I will share more details as soon as I can… JavaBob
Click on image for full-size version
Tom and Tom Jr. with a couple of prints.
Click on image for full-size version
A pair of prints near the water line
Click on image for full-size version
Part of whole series of prints heading toward the clam beds
While these footprints look interesting, I have seen many coming out of that area that look very similiar. I will share photos of those very soon…
Well, the television coverage was aired on Thursday on KLTV 7, the ABC affiliate out of Tyler-Longview-Jacksonville, TX.
Update: The video of Thursday night’s newscast is available from the station’s website at: KLTV 7
Here is what Bob Hallmark’s report had to say:
Those who live in the remote area are frightened at the sounds and sightings of a mysterious creature. I went along with a group called, "searching for bigfoot", who ultimately plan to prove the beast’s existence by "capturing it". The sole purpose of this 12 man research team is to prove the existence of something that, according to science, does not exist.
"When you get the sasquatch bug after seeing one of these creatures it stays with you for a long time, I’ve had 5 encounters over 33 years. I personally believe that this thing is derived from the yeti in the Hymalaya’s" said team leader Tom Biscardi.
As a reporter I’m not a believer in bigfoot, with technological advances i believe if it was out there we would have found it by now. 10 miles north of Paris Texas, is a swamp that looks like something prehistoric, and it’s here that locals say a hairy ape-like giant is roaming.
"I skate board here a couple of nights, and i saw something fly across the road by where the gates are and it just shoots into the woods" said 15 year old eyewitness Ryan Johnson.
Casts have been made of numerous footprints discovered by the swamp shore. Some "18" inches long. The night before, the team had encountered something standing in the swamp, startling some members who were skeptics to begin with.
"We started looking at it through the thermal imager and i-r scope , what i saw was something that appeared to stand up real fast then squat back down" said New York private investigator and skeptical team member, Stephen Kulls.
For 33 years, Biscardi has been searching for the elusive beast known by many names, sasquatch , bushman, bigfoot. He believes there may be as many as 35-hundred of these creatures roaming north America. This night, the team found more massive footprints, and what look like hundreds of dug out areas in the sand, and hundreds of broken mussel shells, or fresh water clam shells.
"They’re digging them up and they’re eating clams" Tom says.
Working on eyewitness accounts, the team set out to find what might be out there, using state of the art equipment such as thermal imaging cameras, motion and heat detectors, high powered listening devices.
"No matter what you get on film it’s always going to be disputed, the only way is through d-n-a or a body" says Kulls.
Suddenly a large heat signature appears in the swamp. The team is sure it’s what they’re looking for, not to photograph, but to capture!
Biscardi lead his team to a sighting, "there he is straight ahead, he’s moving right now he’s moving right now, straight to the trees, he’s moving into the trees, come here, into the trees right now".
In the dark of night, a big shadow moves through the woods, as quickly as it was there, it was gone. But what was it? and what was it doing here? Biscardi says, for the simplest of reasons.
"They have an abundance of vegetation and abundance of food, water" says Biscardi.
They tried enticing whatever was out there with a recording of an alleged bigfoot taken in the Sierra Nevada’s.
There was movement, but no animals. For me there was an uneasy sense of eyes being on us. Limbs crashing down in the distance. I was skeptical before tonight, but after seeing the footprints and the scratch marks and dig marks and seeing something that i think was very big and moving at a high rate of speed through the woods, I may have to rethink that. Biscardi also claims that a hand he has in his possesion is the actual severed hand of a bigfoot.
"What you’re seeing here is a hand turned over to us by a guy named Don Monroe, longtime bigfoot researcher, the Butte Montana police department tested it , found out it wasn’t human" he says.
"I feel that theres alot of evidence that points that something exists, alot more than evidence that suggests something doesn’t exist" Kulls says.
Could it be a hoax? Could someone be faking the prints? Biscardi says no!
"This is the most interesting thing that you’re going to find you’ve got dermal ridges in this thing on the soles of the feet, you can’t fake that" Tom says.
Dermal ridges are the creases that define the palm and bottom of the foot. If it’s a hoax, someone is going to a lot of trouble to fool researchers, and frighten the public. If it’s not a hoax, then something is out in these woods.
"Big foot is alive and well, and we’re going to find him" Biscardi says.
Biscardi’s team is funded by private donation. If you in their search organization, you can log on to their web site at www.searchingforbigfoot.com . We did talk with the Butte Montana police department today. They confirmed they had tested the "mysterious" hand and did find that it was "not" human. However their test was inconclusive as to "what" it was.
Bob Hallmark, Reporting
So we are back to claiming that "The Hand of Unknown Origin" is a Bigfoot hand again? I will have more info on the Paris, TX Bigfoot situation here on Cryptomundo. Stay tuned…there’s lots more in store…
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.
Filed under Artifacts, Bigfoot, Bigfoot Report, Breaking News, Cryptozoology, Evidence, Expedition Reports, Eyewitness Accounts, Public Forum, Sasquatch