Searching For Bigfoot: Oklahoma And The Big Bird

Oklahoma and the “Big Bird”

While we were in Arizona, we got a call from Tony Pace in Oklahoma. Tony told us that for the past several months, he would drive his truck out to a certain spot near a lake and make calls. Almost every time he did this, some large up right creature would come out of the forest and chase him away! He told us that he had contacted several other “Bigfoot research teams” but no one would ever take him seriously. The Searching for Bigfoot team had heard this same concern from many other people in the past and knew if we wanted to find out the truth, we would have to make the trip from Arizona to Oklahoma. This team tries to leave no stone unturned. We returned Tony’s call and found him to be a credible man. The story he told us fit all of the criteria for an actual sighting, so we packed up and headed west towards the small town of Nowata Oklahoma to meet with Tony. Tony is a large man and a former Marine. We knew it would take something large and unusual to run this man off. Tony stands about 6’5” and weights about 300 pounds!

Here is Tony and his mother near their Nowata home.

After arriving in Nowata, the first thing we noticed was how much it resembled the area we had seen in Paris Texas. The bottom lands were swampy and full of muddy river areas thick with vegetation, fish, clams, turtles and other food items. We were extremely hopeful that this was going to be a productive visit!

An example of some of the swampy areas found near Nowata

We met with Tony after lunch and made arrangements to meet in the early evening to go out to the spot where he had been having his encounters. We wanted to go while there was still sufficient light to inspect the area and set up our cameras and surveillance equipment before dark. Tony had told us that almost every night; he would go to this area and do some calls. Within just a few minutes, something would charge back towards him, stamping through the bushes and making blood curdling screams! He would run back to his truck and leave the area, but couldn’t stay away. He would come back night after night with similar results. He needed to know what it was that was chasing him away… Now, we needed to know what was chasing this mountain of a man.

The area he was visiting was about four miles out of the new town of Nowata. It seems that years prior, the old town of Nowata sat in the way of a new dam. When the old town was flooded, the new town was born. The area we were now surveiling was near an old bridge leading to the now flooded old town. Tony would drive his truck to the bridge and turn it around so he could make a fast retreat. He would get out of the truck and do his calling on the far side of the bridge. What ever it was that would chase him, didn’t seem to want to cross the bridge and Tony was able to run back across to his truck and leave in relative safety.

The view from the old bridge…The side with the denser trees is where Tony told us the creature came from

When we first arrived, we found an old timer doing some “Oklahoma fishing” with his rifle from the bridge.

“OKLAHOMA STYLE FISHING”

The man stood patiently on the bridge until he spotted a large carp or alligator gar swimming past. Then he would “catch” it! While we were setting up, we saw this man get several large carp. We have no way of knowing what effect the sound of rifle fire would have on the area for the coming evening, so we went ahead and set up.

The team, along with Tony’s mother, preparing for the evening’s work

We began by doing a search of the area for unusual signs or prints, but found it to be very clean. We set up our trip cameras and some trip wires to alert us of any movement in the area. We set up bionic listening devices and prepared the thermal imaging equipment. We just needed to wait for dark to begin our calling.

As darkness slipped in, the creek took on a different look as we prepared for whatever was to come. In just a few minutes, darkness and shadow was all we would be able to see.

After dark, Tony began his calling. We waited intently for the action to begin. All of the ingredients were present. Our expectations were high as we listened and watched. Soon after Tony’s first calls we could here movement in the bushes on the far side of the bridge. We scanned the areas near where the noises where coming from. We did pick up heat signatures but they came from high in the trees! This is not something we are used to finding. We crossed over to the “hot” side of the bridge and heard some grunts and growls. They were unusual sounds, but not what we were used to. This was becoming very interesting to us, but it was nothing like what we would have expected. We decided to try some tree knocking. It didn’t take long for us to hear some replies, but they were coming from area on the “safe” side of the bridge… another anomaly? We kept up our surveillance for several hours, but with no positive results. We knew we had heard something out there, but we could not determine what it was. We made the decision to come back in the early morning and check our cameras and examine the area again for prints. What we found was a total shock to all of us. The cameras did not pick up anything in the woods around us, but we did find prints in the mud near the creek, in the general area of the sound we had heard. The prints were not of our creature, but instead, they were of a three toed animal that was heavy and large. They appeared to be from a very large bird of some type. Could all of the brush crashing and screams and grunts in the night be from a bird? We don’t know. The area is perfect habitat for our friend “Bigfoot”, but we found no signs of him this evening. We made casts of our bird prints and packed up the truck for the long drive home to California where we could meet back up with Tom Biscardi and more of the team members. Before leaving, we met with Tony and explained our findings. We told him that on this particular night, we found no signs of our creature, but that is not to say he is not here. The gun fire from earlier that evening may have sent him into hiding or perhaps just having so many people in the area ran him off. We don’t know. All we know is that there is good habitat available and we believed him. We gave Tony some tips on what to look for and how he might be able to get a picture of the creature. He assured us that he would be back out Searching for Bigfoot, again in the warm evenings in Nowata Oklahoma. We took our prints and photos of the “big bird” back with us and will share them with someone who follows those kinds of things. As for us, only one mystery at a time. We are focused on Searching for Bigfoot!!

This bill is about the same length as the mysterious print