Hunt for Bigfoot comes to Arizona

Tom Biscardi visited the reservation over the weekend for the second time this year to interview witnesses and organize a search.

In recent months, police officers have reported being chased by the creature, campers have said they spotted it and locals have said they caught it peeking in their windows.

"We're here for the white Bigfoot, the monkey-type creature with a tail, the one that was throwing rocks at people here," Biscardi said during a broadcast Saturday on the tribe's radio station. "I gotta tell you, people, it's here."

By day's end, at least a half-dozen tribal members had told of seeing a strange beast, hearing blood-curdling screams in the night or surviving other experiences. Several offered to join Biscardi's Searching for Bigfoot Inc. team on mini-expeditions.

While most backed out, 18-year-old Laramie Smith came forward to lead the team to a cave he found that he said could be the beast's lair.

The team of searchers geared up with infrared and thermal-imaging devices, a Taser, a tranquilizer gun and a net-shooting canon.

But when they went out, there was no cave and no Bigfoot home. One team member picked up a stick and began beating on a log while another whooped to lure the beast.

"If they did not respond to the whooping and tree knocking, and there's no signs, then there's nothing here," Biscardi said.

Biscardi believes there are at least 3,500 Bigfoots nationwide, a number he derived by counting up one year of reported encounters, then subtracting suspected hoaxes and mistakes.

He has been trying to capture a specimen for 33 years, and his team has visited nearly every state in that quest.

Academic researchers are generally skeptical on the subject of Bigfoot. An Associated Press article last week quoted faculty at Idaho State University complaining about a colleague who believes in Bigfoot. The faculty members say professor Jeffrey Meldrum is embarrassing them by promoting the Bigfoot myth.

Stan Lindstedt, a regents professor of biology at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, said it is unfathomable that a huge subhuman creature would remain concealed over wide sections of the country.

"I put that in the category of mythology that can certainly make our culture interesting, but has nothing to do with science," he said.

But Biscardi can't be dissuaded.

"The scientific world does not believe," he said. "But you know what? Who cares? We've had the experiences."