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Bigfoot in Catskill?

By Colin DeVries

Sasquatch. Mountain Yeti. Yeren. Yowie. No matter where you are in the world the legend of Bigfoot precedes you, capturing the hearts and imaginations of people everywhere.

Now, a recent sighting has focused the spotlight on Greene County to answer the question of whether we truly do co-exist with such a creature.

Patti Williams and her 7-year-old daughter, Alexis Hayes, both reported seeing the creature, or creatures, June 13 at their 78 Tool House Road residence.

“The first one was huge,” said Alexis, “and the second one was tiny.”

Williams confirmed observing what appeared to be a mother Bigfoot and her kin — the mother being close to seven feet tall with thick, dark brown fur and eyes with a red tinge.

“It made a high pitched noise and it hurt my eardrums real bad, then it made sort of like a growling noise,” said Williams.

After the observance Williams could finally make sense of some of the strange happenings around her property: food disappearing from the hog pen, strange noises through the dark forest behind her home, and a bag of popcorn disappearing to be replaced by a single smooth stone.

Only a few days after the initial sighting, Williams contacted world-renowned Bigfoot detective Tom “The Bigfoot Hunter” Biscardi.

“Once we heard about the sighting we contacted our associates on the East Coast to check it out,” said Biscardi, a Redwood City, Calif. native.

Those associates were Steve “The Squatch Detective” Kulls, of Glens Falls, and Becky Sawyer with Northeast Bigfoot Research, who promptly made the 70-plus mile trek to investigate the sighting.

Kulls and Sawyer first spoke with the eyewitnesses to confirm their stories were congruent and that this wasn’t some kind of ploy. Then an incredible defining moment confirmed the stories.

“We could hear footfalls in the woods using the parabolic ear,” said Kulls. “Then I took a walk behind the hog pen and could suddenly see a shadow. It moved from tree to tree until I lost it in the darkness.”

That was the confirmation Kulls needed to contact Biscardi and bring members of his organization, Searching For Bigfoot, Inc. (SFBI) to Catskill from Menlo Park, Calif., and that this was no joke — something was out there.

A six-member SFBI crew responded quickly to the call from Kulls and prepared to take the 3,000-mile journey to the quiet Catskill Mountain village.

With more than $200,000 worth of high-tech equipment the team, complete with a Navajo Indian tracker, spent hours into the early morning surveying the area and gathering as much information as they could.

Bob “JavaBob” Schmalzbach, vice president of the organization, assisted with surveying the property behind Williams’ home and was not surprised that these creatures may be inhabiting the region.

“Though this area is reasonably populated,” said Schmalzbach, “this property ends at a creek which is connected to another creek that is connected to Catskill Creek ... and one of the things these creatures do is follow creek beds at night through the darkness.”

The forest behind the Williams’ home has been littered with trip cameras, complete with a 24-hour video recording surveillance system, in the hopes to capture the slightest movements or images of Bigfoot itself.

They also have a cache of equipment standing by for when they do actually find Bigfoot, including a bevy of tasers, a tranquilizer rifle, and a specially designed netting apparatus.

“We hope to capture one of these creatures with the intention of studying it,” said Biscardi. “We’ll bring the creature to an undisclosed location, with professional zoologists and anthropologists standing by, and study it for 90 days ... everything will be documented and then a transmitter will be placed on the creature and it will be released back into it’s environment.”

Biscardi has scoured the nation — and the globe — in search of this creature and to ultimately prove that not only does Bigfoot exist, but there are numerous groups of these creatures.

“I believe there are seven to eight thousand of these creatures out there today,” said Biscardi.

He was first captivated by the images of the famous 1967 Roger Patterson video filmed near Bluff Creek, Calif.

“I said to myself, ‘How the hell can we send a man to the moon, but we can’t find this creature,’” Biscardi states on his Web site, www.searchingforbigfoot.com.

Since founding his first Bigfoot research company in 1971, Biscardi has yet to get close to capturing the creature but has had a handful of personal sightings.

A documentary film was produced last year about his lifelong quest to catch Bigfoot, featuring recent sightings in Arizona, Texas, Florida, Idaho, Minnesota, New York and more. The film, “Bigfoot Lives,” won best documentary at the 2007 Pocono Film Festival.

While not every reported sighting turns out to be a hit (SBFI receives more than 100 e-mails daily reporting sightings) serious investigations do continue to reveal new evidence and continues to add pieces to the puzzle that is Bigfoot.

“You have to turn over a lot of rocks before you find a ruby,” Schmalzbach said, “but there are rubies out there.”

If no capture is made in Catskill, the team will be traveling to North Carolina to investigate a skull that may be of Bigfoot origin.

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