The BFRO would like nothing more than to wisk the Georgia Bigfoot Body
Hoax (a.k.a. the Biscardi-Kulls Hoax) into the dust bin of history. Unfortunately
we have to keep this page available and prominent a while. Because, unfortunately,
many people who heard about the hoax were only listening with half an
ear, or heard distorted details from other people.
In several instances people mistakenly assumed the BFRO was "the
group that said they had a dead bigfoot" ... rather than the
ones who debunked it.
In one example, a misinformed person assumed that the man who held the
press conference (the self-described "real bigfoot hunter")
must be "that professor from Idaho".
No, wrong guy, and wrong organization. It's a shame that we
have to straighten that out with people, because it means we
will be straightenning it out for a long time into the future.
The self-described "real bigfoot hunter" is actually
the notorious charlatan and scam-artist Carmine (Tom) Biscardi,
a former Las Vegas promoter.
Crafty conman Carmine Biscardi on Fox news, wearing his best guido
track suit, giving a detailed description of the body he claimed
to have examined in Georgia.
Carmine is a conman who pretends to be a bigfoot researcher.
His particular species of conman is called a "confidence
man". He's the kind of conman who would say to a room full
of reporters .. "C'mon ... Do you really think these guys
would come all the way from Georgia if this was just a big hoax??"
As the BFRO tried to warn everyone via its discussion board, a
full week prior to the press conference, the "Georgia Bigfoot
Body" story was a hoax/scam, started by two fellows in Georgia.
And as we pointed out two days prior to the press conference, the
"body" was a widely available Halloween
costume stuffed into a large cooler, with some animal
entrails laid on top.
Over the weekend following the press conference, Biscardi called
upon his long-time associate Steve Kulls to "uncover the truth"
about the body. Surprisingly, most media organizations fell for
this second act of the scam. Only a handful of large media organizations
followed the caper closely enough to fully understand what was really
going on.
Biscardi didn't start this hoax, but instead latched onto to it
once it was presented to him by his dubious associate Steve Kulls.
Biscardi's plot was to hype the "discovery" as legitimate,
then collect money in various ways as the world grew eager to get
a look at the specimen ... then later claim he was "hoodwinked"
about the body so as redirect blame away from himself.
This was the second time Biscardi orchestrated this type of hoax.
This first time was on a nationally syndicated radio talk show.
Lots of people make ludicrous claims like Whitton and Dyer did,
and like Biscardi has done in the past more than once. The element
that made this hoax attractive for Biscardi was that Whitton was
a sheriff deputy. Biscardi knew the law enforcement aspect would
help the story appear more believable to the media, for a little
while at least. That was all Biscardi needed.
After Biscardi was publicly busted and humiliated in 2005 for a
different version of a bigfoot body hoax, he claimed he was "hoodwinked"
by some bad people who had deceived him (all the while he was raking
in money from a phony pay-per-view "surveillance" project).
Roll forward to 2008. Biscardi now claims he was "hoodwinked"
... again ... This time by some ludicrous liars from Georgia. He
claims he is "planning to take legal action against them" ... in
an attempt to distract legal action against himself, by prosecutors,
for fraud.
At the height of the Internet storm of curiosity last week, Biscardi
was charging $2 (on SearchingForBigfoot.com) to see the photos of
the fake body. Millions of people around the world wanted to see
the photos, and Biscardi may have raked in a tidy sum.
After the fake was confirmed to the mass media, some newspapers
reported that Biscardi was swindled out of $50,000 by the Georgia
Boys. That is incorrect. Biscardi persuaded a man in Indiana to
front $50,000 to the Georgia Boys in exhange for the "body".
Biscardi promised to pay the man back in 90 days. But once it became
clear that the body was fake, Biscardi urged the man to sue the
Georgia guys in order to get his money back.
The police department in Palo Alto, California, will move forward
with an investigation and arrest if they receive complaints from
anyone who was ripped off by Biscardi. Palo Alto police have thankfully
recognized a few very important things: 1) Their department (among
others), and Santa Clara County, have jurisdiction to investigate
the matter as a wire fraud crime, because the press conference was
held in Palo Alto. 2) Biscardi has done this same scam before. 3)
If Biscardi profited at all from this scam, then it is indeed a
wire fraud crime that can be prosecuted. 4) It is quite obvious
to everyone that Biscardi was not only complicit in this hoax/scam,
but was also the mastermind behind it after the point he got involved.
This last factor is self-evident by Biscardi's current and past
actions and statements (most of which can be found via the links
below).
Only a police investigation will reveal whether Biscardi profitted
from this scam. If the scam merely helped to partially erase some
of Biscardi's debts, that would still qualify as profiting from
the scam.
The official investigation will not proceed until the Palo Alto
Police Department is contacted by at least some of the people who
were ripped off by Biscardi. If you have information in that regard,
please contact the Palo Alto police at 650-329-2413.
Do not submit bogus information to the police. That is a crime in
itself.
It is very important for anyone who was scammed by Biscardi to come
forward, even if you were scammed for only a small amount of money.
Biscardi's M.O. for fraud is to rip off a lot of people for a small
amount of money so that none of the victims will be motivated to
come forward and go through the process of being a witness. It's
just not worth it for parents and other hard working people, but
that's who would be victimized by this seemingly petty type of wire
fraud crime.
If you were ever scammed by Biscardi, because you believed
his lies, you need to come forward on principle and at least make
a phone call about it. The reason Biscardi was able to perpetrate
this hoax/scam is because he was not prosecuted for the last bigf
hoax/scam he pulled in 2005 on George Noory's radio program.
Some victims may have complained directly to "SearchForBigfoot,
Inc." after the hoax was revealed and got their $2 back that
way. But others might not have saught a refund at all, because they
actually did receive the two photos as promised. Maybe it didn't
matter if the photos later turned out to be fake ... Or maybe it's
just too much of a hassle to do anything about it.
All those reactions were cleverly anticipated by Biscardi.
Fraud in the Inducement
Whoever bought the photos did so because of statements Biscardi
made about the photos during the press conference. Those statements
and their presentation would qualify as "fraud in the inducement"
in the context of other facts.
Biscardi held up a photo, at the podium. It was only a half-page
color print ... not a large blowup, as you would expect ... to cameras
and an audience standing many feet away across the large conference
room. He showed two photos this size. One depicting a mouth and
tongue. The other depicting a fuzzy brown biped among trees and
shadows.
He held up the photo of the brown biped (called the "tootsie
roll" photo by some reporters) and pointed to it saying, "Look,
you can see the ears and the mouth ... [etc.]"
Biscardi expected that millions of hyped up people at home would
hop onto their computers and go straight to his web site and pay
$2 to see a larger version of the photo ... so they could see all
the amazing detail he described. The press conference itself would
convince many that it must be the real deal -- the real bigfoot!
There were no facial features visible on the tootsie roll blobsquatch,
but that would not have been obvious on live television, especially
when most of the TV cameras were not even trying to zoom
in for close-ups of the photos that Biscardi was holding.
Some people may have fallen for this and bought copies the photos
from his web site. The $2 offer didn't last long on his site. It
was removed a few minutes after the BFRO discussion board showed
posts saying the $2 offer provides the final element of fraud if
the body turns out to be fake.
Hopefully people didn't give their credit card information to Biscardi's
site, and hopefully some victim will feel cheated enough to complain
to the Palo Alto Police Department.
How will this scam affect the misunderstood field
of bigfoot research?
Consider a historical parallel -- the "Alien Autopsy Video"
Hoax.
In the 1990's an unscrupulous television producer perpetrated a
television hoax with a video of a phony autopsy of a phony alien
body. The video was touted by a particular television network as
a potentially authentic piece of video footage. The same video producer
and television network later revealed their own hoax in a subsequent
program. This televised hoax got high ratings, and they all cashed
in, but it wasn't illegal.
Everyone talked about this hoax for a while. Many people were very
willing to throw the baby out with the bath water. But the rational
reality remained: The Alien Autopsy Video Hoax had no bearing whatsoever
on the question of whether extraterrestrial life exists ... Though
many people were heard to say, in the weeks and months following
the hoax, "See, I told ya' that UFO stuff was all just a bunch
of BS ... "
People don't generally say that nowadays. They only chuckle about
that program, if they can remember it at all ...
This will be the historical fate of the Georgia Bigfoot Body Hoax
and unscrupulous Carmine Biscardi (aka SearchingForBigfoot, Inc.)
In time people will merely look back and chuckle about it, if they
remember it at all. They will continue to hear about sightings of
sasquatches/bigfoots from friends, family members, and various credible
sources, regardless whether a corpse is ever collected and identified.
There is a reason why so many credible people claim to see these
animals, and it is not because those people are hoping to profit
from their claims.
Lots more about Carmine (Tom) Biscardi's previous scams:
Which have been very nicely assembled and transcribed by our good
friend Autumn
Williams at OregonBigfoot.com
Previous Updates - Retained for Posterity
On Friday, August 15, 2008, Biscardi's
gang held a hyped press conference in Palo Alto, after assuring
the press they would "shock the world" with their evidence. They
told an implausible story about how they found the body, but then
did not show the body at all, but instead showed more fake
photos (and not even large blow-ups of the fake photos), and some
DNA results which proved that they do not have a bigfoot
corpse ...
See the comments of the BFRO after
the Palo Alto press conference.
These Georgia buffoons do not run bigfoot expeditions and never have.
That's just another one of their lies. They are simply two clowns in Georgia
who put some bogus videos on YouTube that got some attention. They initially
offered bigfoot expeditions because they were aware of the popularity
of BFRO expeditions.
When they first got some press attention in Georgia, the press attention
attracted the notorious Carmine Thomas Biscardi. Among other sleazy ventures,
Biscardi has been pushing hoaxed bigfoot evidence for several years now.
He seems to pop up wherever the bigfoot subject is getting local press
attention -- a sort of Reverend Al Sharpton of the bigfoot world. But
unlike Sharpton, who has become a respectable defender of minority rights,
Biscardi's ploys have won him the well-deserved reputation among the bigfoot
research community as a charlatan, a parasite, a hoaxer, and a scam artist.
Biscardi perpetrated a similar "bigfoot body" hoax on a nationally
syndicated radio show in 2005. He confessed to the hoax on the air when
pressed by the irate talk show host, George Noory.
Biscardi recently announced a press conference for Friday in San Francisco
or Palo Alto. The purpose of this grand ruse is to attract lots of attention
to himself. His M.O. is to hold the attention of the mass media while
he arranges various deals for documentaries, books, etc.
On the surface the scam does not appear to make any sense ... because Biscardi
and these two Georgia clowns will eventually be shown to be liars and frauds.
That has never stopped Biscardi before. He doesn't care if he's exposed
later, if he can make a quick buck while he's in the spotlight at the moment.
That's the game all three these guys (Biscardi, Dyer and Whitton) are playing
right now.
Legitimate bigfoot researchers have mixed emotions about this whole
affair. On the one hand, it's sickening to watch this ridiculous hoax
receive as much attention as it has gotten. On the other hand, this is
Biscardi's final hurrah. Eventually the media will figure out that it's a hoax, and
the public will never take him seriously ever again after that, and he
will finally go away.
The press conference transpired in Palo Alto.
As expected, they didn't show the "body," and
as expected they said, again, the world will have to "wait and see" ... All the while Biscardi can
do some deals to put some money in his pocket, from publishers, producers, etc., (and share it with the Georgia boys)
before it is obvious to everyone that it was just another Biscardi hoax.
The only scientist involved with them (Curt Nelson) simply received a "DNA sample" in the mail. Three results so far from that sample: 1) unknown, 2) human, and 3) possum. Nelson will do more tests, but he has said his tests don't mean anything.
Biscardi claims that other scientists will be doing more studies on the body, which will make a nice excuse to string the media along for a few more weeks.
The media will see that no "scientists" from any respectable institution will be allowed to examine the body ... They might be given more dubious "DNA samples" and fake photos, but the body itself will never be revealed, because it is just a costume.
The most important part of the press conference, from our perspective, was the growing pile of contradictions in their story. Whitton actually said they had no interest in bigfoots, and were not looking for one, before they "stumbled upon" the body. That's in very sharp contrast to what he claimed on his YouTube videos, where he said he has dreamed about being a bigfoot researcher since he was kid. These two clowns were trying to promote a bigfoot expedition business several weeks before they started spouting claims about having a body.
Whitton also said, during the press conference, that he "didn't notice any wounds on the carcass" and didn't know how it died -- another statement that is in direct contradiction to what he claimed in their early YouTube videos ... videos which were thankfully preserved by friends of the BFRO before Whitton and Dyer tried to remove them from YouTube.
To see these videos, which clearly demonstrate how willing these boys are to spin very big yarns, look for the YouTube links in the first post of the thread on the blue form linked above -- the forum with more details on the background of this hoax.
Biscardi is a professional liar from Las Vegas, and he found himself a corrupt cop who was willing to lie along with him in order to pull off a big media hoax/scam. The three of them are confident that they cannot be prosecuted for this hoax, but they may be in for a surprise.
Witness all the lies of deputy Whitton in his own videos, linked above.
