Am I surprised to hear there is news of Bigfoot reports coming out of Illinois? Of course not. Illinois was my stomping grounds from 1947-1975, and the area has a long history of encounters. What is surprising is who has shown up to use a relatively recent sighting to get more media attention. Tom Biscardi is back.

The notorious 1970s Bigfoot trickster and Ivan Marx associate, who attempted to pull off the “send in your money and see the Bigfoot I’ve captured” trickery on Coast to Coast AM with George Noory, may be in a neighborhood near you. Beware.

Rapidly having departed Happy Valley, California, and disassociated from past associates in Las Vegas, Tom Biscardi has taken his show on the road. Now comes spotty news releases that there has been a “Bigfoot encounter in Illinois” where Biscardi supposedly is hot on the trail to investigate.

Don’t be bothered by the details that the “encounter” took place not exactly recently, or that Biscardi has traveled all the way from California with “equipment” to track the creature. No, Biscardi is there and truth and justice may be the result of this investigation, we are told. Will we soon be hearing again about his website, for pay-per-views?

Intriguingly, media accounts actually said this Illinois Bigfoot encounter took place anywhere from “last fall,” according to the Bloomington Pantagragh to “a year ago,” as noted by a news report on WHOI, in Illinois.

This is all beginning to sound so familiar. Biscardi is quoted as saying that the area near Funks Grove, Illinois can “support two of the creatures” he says “would weigh around 350 pounds each.”

Yes, a serious sighting may have happened in Illinois, but unfortunately, an innocent eyewitness has been swept up in Biscardi’s messing around in the Midwest. As the Peoria Journal-Star notes:

The Bigfoot search team was drawn to the area this week by a phone call last summer from Bloomington resident Chris Vielhak. Vielhak said he saw a large black creature he thought at first was a bear run behind his 1990 Mustang as he drove slowly down State Route 66. After he felt a slap to the side of his car, Vielhak said he was startled and sped away to discover five large claw marks on the trunk. Vielhak called Biscardi after doing some research on the Internet.

“It kept bugging me and fascinated me about what hit my car, and it ticked me off because paint jobs cost money,” Vielhak, 31, told another reporter.

Former International Society of Cryptozoology board member and zoologist at Illinois State University Angelo Capparella said the eyewitness heard strange noises and claimed they were able to get the creature to interact with them in some way. Capparella found this unusual behavior for what is assumed to be shy Bigfoot, and he told the media this raised some questoins about the sighting.

The bottomline seems to be that this is merely developing into another publicity opportunity for Biscardi. If you aren’t convinced that Biscardi is trying to remake himself into some version of a melodramatic tragic American Bigfoot Hunter Superhero, just listen to the words he’s feeding to the media.

Here’s Biscardi talking to ABC News in Illinois: “I’ve been ridiculed, but the proof is in the pudding, Jack, and that’s the reason why myself and my team are out here now investigating across this great United States of America.”

Or read what Biscardi had to say to the Peoria Journal-Star: “Nobody in the field is doing this like us. They’re not in the firing trenches, not braving the temperatures.”

You be the judge.