October 22, 2009

Biscardi’s “Toenail of Unknown Origin”

Yes, that’s right. He’s back. Tom Biscardi is out there, promoting “the toenail of unknown origin.” I kid you not.

Seligman, Arizona, the birthplace of historic Route 66, allegedly has been the site of Bigfoot sightings by Larry Jenkins, a Phoenix man recently.

One of Biscardi’s crew says he was called in after the most recent incident. There is apparently a claim of the finding of a “fingernail where the Sasquatch had stubbed his toe on a rock,” according to KTVK-TV in Arizona.

“Jenkins discovered mammoth 15-inch footprints leading up to his cabin and through his backyard wash. Even more mysterious was what Jenkins found next. Broken off in one of the tracks was a grimy, jagged toenail measuring more than two inches in width,” reported The Times.


Fair use for commentary: Biscardi’s Searching for Bigfoot shares the above photo of Larry Jenkins.

“Biscardi assembled a team of crack monster hunters, armed to the teeth with enough artillery to start a small war, and headed to the Arizona desert….Biscardi, a smooth-talking Las Vegas promoter who occasionally refers to himself in the third person, garners widespread media attention wherever he goes. He’s been featured on Inside Edition, Discovery Channel and CNN…Always donning a pair of brown leather cowboy boots, Biscardi is a handsome 61, with salt-and-pepper hair and a neatly trimmed mustache and goatee,” writes Shanna Hogan.

Then there was when Tom Biscardi’s assistants…

…carefully unrolled the bubble wrap from two huge plaster footprints, which measured over 20 inches in length, and handed them to Biscardi.

“You know what these things are worth?” Biscardi asked me.

“Thousands?” I guessed.

“One in this pristine condition is worth probably about $75,000,” he said as he showed it to the group. “One. We have 67 of them.”

Apparently, there’s a lot of money in Bigfoot hunting. That was just a small sample of Biscardi’s collection. He later told me he owns an entire fossilized dinosaur skeleton, worth over $3 million.

While all the evidence was impressive, I couldn’t help but regain a tad bit of my cynicism. After all, Biscardi has allegedly been involved in a few Bigfoot hoaxes over the years. Most recently, he reportedly paid $50,000 to two men who claimed to have found Bigfoot’s body, which turned out to be a frozen monkey costume. For the record, Biscardi claimed he was swindled.

“I saw the thing, I touched it…They showed me the body. They took me to the area where they found it – it took a day and a half to get there.” – Tom Biscardi, as quoted by the Australian media on August 14, 2008.

“Be still my heart, I felt bad for the poor thing. After being in the industry for the past 30 years, I wondered: Was it diseased? Did it die of old age?” – Tom Biscardi said of viewing the alleged corpse, as quoted by ABC News, August 15, 2008, when reporting on his claim he had gone to Georgia to see the body for himself.

“He’s not a true anthropologist.” – Tom Biscardi’s comment during the August 15, 2008 news conference, about Jeffrey Meldrum (Ph. D. anatomical sciences, with an emphasis in biological anthropology, from State University of New York at Stony Brook, 1989), who is a tenured Associate Professor of Anatomy and Anthropology of the Department of Anthropology at Idaho State University.

‘Nuff said.

Loren Coleman About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct). Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015. Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.

Filed under Bigfoot, Breaking News, Conspiracies, CryptoZoo News, Hoaxes