Ohio Man Hopes to Claim $1 Million Prize for Finding Bigfoot
Ohio man Xavier King hopes to claim the $1 million prize offered by investigative group Searching for Bigfoot for proof of the cryptid creature's existence. King says he was driving to his home in Youngstown, OH, when he spotted the creature twice; and stopped the second time to take a picture.
“I had seen something, I don’t know what it was, I had seen something, that’s all I know,” said King. “I got out and took a picture.”
King showed his friend and Bigfoot believer Angela Britt the picture, and she contacted Searching for Bigfoot. T.J. Biscardi, director of operations for the Bigfoot group replied asking to see the photos.
“He said, ‘Send me the pictures, I’m going to send them to my lab and send you back the results,’ and he did, with the diagram, with the head, the legs, the arms, and everything,” said Britt.
Xavier King with friend Angela Britt. (Image credit: WKBN)
Biscardi believes that Bigfoot are migratory creatures that mostly feed and travel at night, and that they move north this time of year.
“Ohio is a major migrational path going north. You have to understand, they follow rivers and clusters of forests and these creatures,” said Biscardi. “I’ve been tracking them from Paris, Texas since last December and now I’ve been tracking them up north here.”
Biscardi and his group travel the U.S. for nine months out of the year in search of Sasquatch, and he hopes to have a chance to tranquilize a specimen in Ohio.
“So we’re jumping up in front of him, hopefully. With the team ready, we’ll get to capture one of these creatures and bring it back and prove to the world that they exist.”
Critics of Biscardi claim his interest in Bigfoot comes not from curiosity, but from an interest in conning true believers. Biscardi has been involved in at least two hoaxes, although he claims in both cases he was himself hoaxed.
In 2005 he claimed to be on the cusp of having web-cam footage of a Bigfoot near Happy Camp, California. The web-cam was pay-per-view, and he was subsequently banned from the popular paranormal radio show Coast-to-Coast AM for his refusal to refund subscribers after failing to deliver on his promise.
Later, in 2008, he was once again embroiled in controversy when he failed to deliver the body of a Bigfoot that he claimed to have verified along with two Georgia men, one of whom was a sheriff's deputy.
In both incidents he claimed to have no prior knowledge of their falsehood, instead placing the blame on his confederates. Many Bigfoot researchers are dubious of his innocence, and hours of investigation have gone into showing he was likely complicit. The Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (BFRO) has compiled a comprehensive timeline from the 2008 hoax in order to help set the record straight from that event.
The competition began April 2nd and will run through Christmas of 2017. Photos entered into the competition, including King's, will not be made available to the public until after it is complete. Anyone hoping to claim the $1 million bounty can enter on their website here, or call the Bigfoot Hotline at 816-442-3394.