Searching For Bigfoot: FLORIDA '06

Florida November, 2006

November ‘06 Cross Country Expedition

ARIZONA '06 , TEXAS '06 , ALABAMA '06 , WISCONSIN '06 , INDIANA '06 , NEW YORK '06 , MINNESOTA '06

We loaded up the gear and left Texas about noon on Tuesday 11/07/06. We were headed towards the Everglades in Florida. On the way, we stopped in Faulk Arkansas to see an old friend of Tom Biscardi’s, the “legend” himself, Smokey Crabtree. I had never met Smokey and was looking forward to the meeting. When we arrived at our meeting spot, a local chicken eatery, Smokey was already there and enjoying a nice meal of fried chicken. He stepped outside to welcome us in then went right back to his meal. We did most of the talking as Smokey enjoyed his fried chicken! I was surprised to meet a smallish, quite, and unassuming man. Boy… did I quickly find just how wrong first impressions could be! Once Smokey finished his meal, he jumped to his feet and got right in the face of our intern cameraman. Smokey snapped in a fierce and threatening manner; “Who gave you permission to film me?!” Our poor young novice cameraman was in shock! He stammered a few; “uh... uh... uh’s…” and began apologizing profusely! As was more in tune with Smokey’s fiery reputation, he quickly took control of the situation. After a lot of apologizing and careful back peddling, our cameraman Froy San Pedro, agreed to give the tape in his camera to Smokey and to never assume it would be OK to film anyone without prior consent again! I am very confident that this was a lesson Froy would never forget! As for Smokey, once his point was made, he settled into reminiscing old times with Tom Biscardi. He shared some stories in his “larger than life” way and totally captivated me and some of the rest of the younger members of our team. I was fortunate enough to get a full set of Smokey’s book trilogy autographed, along with a copy of his CD of some stories from his youth. I felt fortunate to have had the opportunity to meet and talk with this early pioneer of the ongoing “Bigfoot” saga! Unfortunately, we were on a schedule and could only spend a short time with Smokey before getting back on the road. At least I was able to create a memory that I can keep for many years… Thank you my new friend and may God continue to bless you!

               Here is the legend himself, Smokey, with his long time friend, Tom Biscardi

Well, back into the truck we climbed and back on the road again. We drove throughout that afternoon and finally took a short break in Madison Mississippi, near Jackson. There we stopped at a local restaurant and made a few quick phone calls. We contacted more old friends, a local well known researcher, M.K. Davis and his friend who was visiting from Montana, Don Monroe. The two men agreed to take a few minutes out of their busy schedules and come on down to say hello and share some coffee with us. This was a welcome break from our tedious drive and we took full advantage of it. We sat and visited for at least an hour before getting back on the road and heading for the Everglades. We arrived in Everglade City, Florida about 8 pm on Thursday the 9th. It was a warm and humid 80 degrees and we were all very tired from our long drive. We called Captain Judy Caseley, a local wildlife photographer and wildlife guide. We agreed to meet her in the morning and discuss her newly released photograph of what many believe to be the famous Florida Skunk Ape! Skunk Ape is another name for our elusive friend, “Bigfoot”. We checked into a local motel and got our first good sleep in four days.

In the morning, we met our hostess, Judy Caseley for breakfast. Judy, as it turned out is a lovely young woman who had moved to Florida many years earlier to enjoy her passion of photographing wild life. She earned the major portion of her living by teaching school. She is a dynamic person and was soon an active member of her community. She is very involved with setting up educational programs for the local children, promoting the local artist community, and protecting the natural habitat of the area. She even owns and operates her own boat, giving guided photographic wild life tours in the Everglades.

Judy shared her story with us. It seems that about five years ago, during a visit from her sister, Judy brought her out into the Everglades to see a favorite place that she would go to see natural wildlife in the area. Earlier in the season, Judy had seen a cougar in this area and was hoping to bring her sister into an area where she might be able to share that experience. Instead, they were both treated to an even rarer experience. They both saw what the locals refer to as the “Skunk Ape”! Judy’s sister was horrified, but Judy, a professional photographer was able to maintain her composure long enough to shoot a short series of photos that have now brought her into the middle of controversy she never expected to experience. Judy knew her pictures might bring a little controversy into her life as soon as she developed them and was able to see just how dramatic and clear they were. She made the decision not to publish them, but put them away into her private collection and went on with her life.

About five years later, the local community was putting on an art show at local museum. They asked Judy to display some of her work. While looking through her vast collection, they stumbled over one of her older photos of the creature. The locals immediately recognized it as their own “Skunk Ape” and after much coaxing, convinced Judy to show the picture. Judy was hesitant at first, because she didn’t want to draw more attention to her find, thinking it might make people think the locals are crazy down here. Judy went ahead and put one of her series of pictures on display at the local museum. A local paper came by and saw the photo. Soon this dramatic picture was all over the web! Not something that Judy either expected or wanted, but there it was! Soon Judy was being judged by all the so called “Bigfoot Researchers” who spend their time critiquing anything that goes across the web or papers, but don’t bother to investigate themselves. She was being called a fraud and her picture was being manipulated and actually changed by these same so called “Bigfoot Researchers”!?? Tom Biscardi and his team of investigators saw the same pictures in the papers and on the web, but unlike everyone else; we held our judgments until we could physically meet with Judy and actually come to the area and see for ourselves! What we found was a very credible person with honorable intent, sharing an actual photo with the world. No signs of trickery, false intentions, or alternative motives!

Judiy and Tom.. This sign in a nearby trail says it all!.. One of the many beautiful birds that are so plentiful throughout this area.

The area was truly like a jungle with thick mangrove swamps, isolated densely treed areas, and lots of floating mats of vegetation. Walking out there is like walking on a sponge. Like the name says… there is an abundance of wild life. There are bears, cougars, snakes, and even large Alligators to be found everywhere.

Here’s one of the many alligators we saw. This one is sunning himself along with his Mrs.

''Some locals drove by and showed us some “road kill” they had collected near where we were investigating… This was a 13 foot, feral python that had escaped out into the everglades!''

As you can see by our pictures, this is the real deal. It was hot and humid, even this late in the year. There were many crawling and winged insects to bother us along with other wild and dangerous reptiles and animals to contend with. Not a place that a man would want to dress up in a hot and heavy suite and hike several miles into the inaccessible swamps and jungle just in case a photographer might happen by to take a picture! Once we were there, we could see how absurd that whole concept would be. We set about to find the exact spot where Judy had taken her photos. It took several hours to match up the photos with the background, even though Judy was able to take us within a couple of hundred yards of the spot from her memory. It had been almost five years and a couple of hurricanes later. Much had changed, but we did manage to find the area.

Here is the crew going out to investigate the general area of the photos

We have shared some of the 'unreleased' photos with some of our colleagues who specialize in photographic evidence. All of these specialists have told us that the original photos are unaltered. However, they did point out differences from the photo appearing on the web and the original that Judy had taken? This suggests that who ever posted these on the web may have made some alterations. Keep in mind that Judy did not publish these pictures. The photos were picked up by “bloggers” from a local newspaper article and circulated from there. We are investigating this anomaly further and will report on our findings if and when we get some verifiable data to share with you.

After identifying the area, we were contacted by the local NBC news affiliate. They wanted to know if we would mind if they came back out with us that evening to watch how we conducted our investigation. Of course, we were happy to have them along. We drove back out into the area about 10:30 that evening and set up our equipment. We set up our trip cameras, our bionic listening devices, the infer-red photo equipment, the heat sensing monitors, and the thermal imaging equipment. We scanned the area for any signs of activity and listened for any unusual sounds. After a while, we began sending out pre-recorded sounds of call from the creature and attempted some “tree knocking”. “Tree knocking” is form of communications that we believe these creatures use to keep in contact with each other over larger distances. We did not get any auditable replies, but we did pick up something large on the heat monitors and eventually on the thermal imager. We could not positively identify what the object or animal was, but it clearly got the attention of the NBC photographer! Jamie, their reporter, was impressed enough, that she hid herself behind our equipment trailer and waited for the entire crew to return before she began any interviews! It was my opinion that she was pretty frightened by our findings. We were not able to find anything that we could positively say was a creature out there this night, but we know there was something out there that was large and was warm blooded!

While we were in Florida, we had the opportunity to talk too many of the locals about their “Skunk Ape” and we heard of many credible stories and encounters. We even heard from the local Sherriff Deputies about reports of sightings and encounters that they had heard about on several occasions. This entire experience was extremely informative and will keep us busy for many weeks following up on the information we gathered. To sum it up, we found Judy Caseley to be an extremely credible person who simply took a series of pictures and shared them with the public. The pictures she took were not altered by her in any way, and she is just as amazed by their content as are the rest of us. We thank her for her honesty and for being willing to share her find with us. As more people like Judy stand up to the truth, we will move ever closer to solving this mystery! Until that day, this team will keep on “Searching for Bigfoot”!

Written and posted by JavaBob

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Florida November, 2006

November ‘06 Cross Country Expedition

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