SHAWNEE-ON-DELAWARE — Is there a half-man, half-ape "Bigfoot" creature lurking the woods of Paris, Texas? Or near the Fort Apache Indian Reservation in Arizona? Or near Portsmouth, Ohio?
Tom Biscardi thinks there is. The documentary producer has spent 36 years of his life trying to prove its existence.
The weirdest part is he doesn't just think there's one Bigfoot — he thinks there are thousands roaming North America.
Some, he said, are even here in the Poconos.
"In Pennsylvania, there have been nine encounters in the last few months," he said before screening his film, "Bigfoot Lives" at the Pocono Mountains Film Festival at Shawnee Inn and Golf Resort on Saturday. "And even a few within a 15-mile radius of right here."
But before you fence in your yard and buy Bigfoot repellent, know that none of the encounters have been photographed or really proven. According to all practical knowledge, Bigfoot still is legend, not reality.
That's something Biscardi and his team — Searching for Bigfoot Inc. — are fighting against. While the film — which won Best Documentary at the festival — goes to great lengths to interview dozens of people who claim to have had encounters with something that at least seems to be a Bigfoot-type creature, none of them are clearly on film. Or at least on hoax-proof film.
In today's world, that's almost as damning as not having anything at all.
What Biscardi does have is an Idaho doctor who took X-rays of a skeleton hand found near him and couldn't come up with a determination of animal or human. He also had some hair samples from near the Fort Apache location that are marked as "non-human."
The samples were taken after a couple claimed to have seen a large, hairy creature walking upright peer into their window. When they called police, the female officer — filmed in the documentary — also saw the creature.
But there is little else to offer as even semi-credible proof. Some of the "evidence" — a clearly disturbed man elsewhere in Arizona who claims to have shot one of the creatures — may even work against the available evidence.
Biscardi, who answered questions after showing his movie, also brought in new footage he hadn't released yet of a simian-like creature walking in the same Paris, Texas, woods where his son claimed to have had an encounter with the beast.
Biscardi himself even claims to have had six encounters (note the use of the word "encounter" rather than "sighting"), and believes there to be more than 3,000 species of these animals roaming the North American woods.
Scott Marlow, a Florida zoologist who works with Biscardi, said he believes the creatures are very primate-like, descended from a different ancestor than the one that led to the formation of human beings.
"And we're not talking about one type of animal," he said. "We're talking about two to four different types of species. Something like descended from a swamp ape."
The next step for Biscardi is an actual capture at the Paris, Texas, location he had some of the most clear footage at.
He believes he has a chance at it.
"What we've got here is the real deal," he said. "In the next 30 to 60 days, we may have found a species no one has ever identified before."
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