June 11, 2007

Bigfoot Sighting in Wisconsin

Big Foot sighting raises hairs

LIMA TOWNSHIP-Along McCord Road, where a marsh and woods offer a wildlife sanctuary, a Delavan couple stepped into the realm of the unknown.

For Lenny and Stacie Faytus, who own and operate the Richmond House restaurant in rural Delavan, the encounter with a brown, hairy creature they describe as being 7-feet tall and weighing about 350 pounds was a life-changing experience.

But it took them two years to work up the courage to share their story with anyone other than family and close friends.

It was a story that Tom Biscardi, a California resident, couldn’t resist checking out for himself.

Biscardi, a nationally known Bigfoot hunter, arrived in early May with a film crew to investigate the sighting. The crew walked the Lima Marsh, a public preserve, along County KK because the land on McCord Road east of the marsh is privately owned.

“We spent the better part of the day searching the areas for signs of the creature but with little evidence found,” Biscardi said. “Often, people in cars would drive by and after seeing the signs on our rig, would shout out to us: ‘We know it’s there,’ or ‘We’ve seen it, too.'”

But none of the locals contacted by The Janesville Gazette said they have heard or seen anything out of the ordinary on their land or in the marsh.

One area man, however, said his former boss used to talk about hearing an unearthly howl and scream coming from the marsh at night.

“It made the hair on the back of his neck stand up,” said Daniel Weidner.

Seeing the creature stride across McCord Road had the same effect on the Faytuses.

“The hair on my neck and arms was standing up straight. As was the hair on my head,” Stacie said.

The couple was driving north on the rural road late one afternoon in March 2005 when about a quarter-mile ahead they saw what they first believed was a deer walking from the woods.

“It was a dull brown,” Lenny said. “I told my wife to look at the deer.”

Then it stood up, Lenny said.

His next thought was that it was a person cutting brush along the road.

But when the creature crossed the road in two easy steps, the couple knew it wasn’t a man or any animal they’d seen before.

They had no idea what it was.

“He never looked our way,” Lenny said. “I didn’t see a face. I just focused on his legs. They were longer compared to a human’s legs. He had a different walk, too.”

Although the couple reached the spot where the creature crossed within seconds, they couldn’t see him anywhere in the cultivated field, Lenny said.

The creature had stepped into a ditch overgrown with weeds and bramble about 4 feet below the road, Lenny said.

It was at this point that the hair on Lenny’s neck stood up. He was convinced the creature was hiding a short distance below the road among the bramble.

Stacie just wanted to leave, she said.

For years they mostly kept quiet about what they had seen that day.

That’s a normal reaction, said Matthew Moneymaker, president and founder of The Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization based in Laguna Beach, Calif.

“Americans are not intimated by threat of force, but the fear of ridicule will make them cower and run,” Moneymaker said.

When people in Europe encountered a Bigfoot, they can’t wait to share their stories, Moneymaker said.

Chances are many Wisconsin residents have seen a Bigfoot or heard one in the night, Moneymaker said, because it’s possible the state is home to up 200 of the creatures.

He is familiar with the back roads and rural areas of Wisconsin after leading a research expedition in Phillips last summer.

“We definitely had some action there,” Moneymaker said. “At one point, they (Bigfoot) approached our tent. We heard them. They were around. We caught a blip on some thermal footage behind a bush. The image was very tall.”

The goal, he said, is not to capture or shoot any Bigfoot.

“All we do is try to spot and film,” Moneymaker said.

Although Biscardi’s crew found no evidence among the bogs and tamaracks in Lima Marsh to substantiate the Bigfoot sighting, he plans to make a return visit.

As for the Faytuses, they have no doubt that what they saw wasn’t human.

“I think about it all of the time,” Lenny said. “We’re going to try and find out exactly what it was.”Carla McCann
The Janesville (WI) Gazette

Filed under Bigfoot, Bigfoot Report, Cryptozoology, Evidence, Expedition Reports, Eyewitness Accounts, Sasquatch