Big Food and be on with Cliff and Bobo. These guys are your favorites.
So like Shay, subscribe and rad it timest me today listening, watching,
always keep it squatching and now your hosts Cliff Barkman and James Bobo Fay,
Good morning, Bobo. How are you doing today? Awesome? Awesome?
It's usually okay? What what makes today awesome? Is it just a
good mood or is there something going on? Or what's going on? We
had a raging storm? Oh I know you do love storms and a curse.
You're rotting? Are you are? Are you in the humble right now?
Are you down in La now? I'm still in the humble? Oh,
very good, very good. I'm glad you're up there because as storms
are a little bit more intense up there. You're right on the beach,
of course, so you get to see all this, all the weather come
in and the waves and whatnot. Is it snowing by any chance? It
might have before sunrise, but there's so much hail I couldn't tell. Okay,
very good, very good. Yeah, we got about three or four
inches on the ground right now where I am. Luckily I don't have to
go into work. Today because I hate driving in snow. Man. It's
one thing sitting inside the house looking at it, you know, it's beautiful,
but driving in that stuff just makes me want to pull my eyes out.
Man, dude, I'm not gonna do it at all. When I
had those spikes, snow tires, studded snow tires, it was an all
wheel drive, four wheel drive on full time, it was. It wasn't
so bad. Yeah, well, pretty rare that it snows down where you
are right, Oh yeah, like every five ten years. Okay, yeah,
we usually get it three or four times a year or something. But
um, cool, Hey, I got got something kind of interesting happening I
want to share with you again a couple of weeks. I'm not truy,
I'm supposed to talk about it, but sometimes I don't care. I think
it's gonna be okay. Um, North American big Foot Center, the big
Foot Museum that I'm lucky enough to work at it own, has been invited
by the Portland Trailblazers can participate in a big Foot Night at the Moda Center.
So we're getting a booth, like a ten by ten booth, and
we're getting some free tickets and uh, making some display stuff to come do
a little miniature Bigfoot display at the Moda Center for a Trailblazer game. And
I believe, I believe, um kind of. This is kind of a
scary thing for me because I got to piece it all together, but I
believe they asked me to put together a thirty to sixty second advertisement commercial thing
to show on the jumbo tron to everybody. Yeah awesome, is your brother
coming up? I don't know, I don't have That would be fun if
he could, I don't know. I didn't even ask him. I should
ask him though, he Um, he probably has a little loose income.
You can drop up on a plane. That'd be a lot of fun.
But yeah, so, I mean there's a lot of stress right now.
And what's the date for that? March fourteenth? March fourteenth, absolutely too
much time now, Yeah, March fourteenth. I think we're playing the Knicks.
Is that a basketball team? Yeah? There you go. Yeah,
so I think that's what we're playing. Because you know, I missed your
sport guy. Yeah, yeah, nothing. I love more than sports.
But you don't got to be a sports guy to love the watching the Blazers
because you guys got Lillard. Well, you know what, I will say
that I have been to several Portland Trailblazer games. Basketball is not a stranger
to me. I'm not familiar with it. I don't follow sports, but
I do enjoy watching games, and basketball is one of those sports that I
really enjoy watching, so as well as football, Bobo. And I have
to say that I enjoy watching football now because of you. Right on,
yeah, finding Bigfoot. You know you you would refuse to work on Sundays
because it's Holy Days. And I don't mean you know, church, I
mean football, and you would refuse to work on your Holy days. And
we would go to the bars or whatever and watch games, and I would
ask you questions and you would teach me like holy spokes or strategy in that
game. He big guys running into each other. Yeah, more or less,
good time. It is, well, nonetheless nonethless. So that's an
exciting thing. On March fourteenth, I'll be at the Moda Center with a
Bigfoot pop up museum, you know, spreading the true faith basically to the
unwashed masses who may or may not realize sasquatches are real. Dude. I
gotta because I might be coming up that way around that time, I'm going
to try to make that Well, how many takes do they give you?
I don't know. I haven't found that out yet. She's looking into that.
I spoke to her yesterday afternoon, but it's not a good time.
I gotta give him the video by like March third, and today's for our
listeners. Today it's the twenty second of February that we're recording this, So
I got to give him the video by March third. But on March twenty
or February twenty eighth, I have to post a video for our museum members
that I still have to piece together. So I've got a lot of video
production ahead of me in the next week or something like that. And then
there's other I've got a production meeting today for that TV show that I'm working
on, and then podcast scheduled. Man, I'm a busy, busy cliff
right now. I think I'm well, I'm going out to Portland, Washington
area, like Tacomas. Yet it looks like it's a long story. I'll
leave that part out, but it should be right around that time, within
a week of that that time, when the game is but a buddy a
buddy of mine who's pretty big up in his company. He oversees they have
like seventy buildings different facilities around you know, Washington and a couple of neighboring
states. So he's he's we're going down to for a display by this company.
They represent Flear and other companies for a commercial security purposes, and they
have a bunch of like high end thermal imagers, like those cameras like the
double like where there's a thermal loser next to a camera they overlay the image.
Yeah, so we're going on. He's going to get some of the
those for us and put him on his security purposes at the facilities. He's
going to get a couple of units and then we'll use it for that,
but then we'll be able to take him out for squashing whenever we want.
Oh that's cool. Yeah. Well, hey, if you're cruising through,
I may ask you to remove that trailer at some point the next couple of
months because Melissa's getting her business off the ground and we may need the space
for storage in there. So heads up on that, fair enough. I's
gonna get it when it's not raining. That's fine, that's fine. That's
want to put that bug in your ear, to let that bug germ and
eat and see what you can do with it. So there's that. And
of course I say that on the air because I've actually taken emails about your
trailer. People seem to be interested in your trailer, if that helps you
at all. So again, you're missing the boat man Bobo's big Foot Airbnb
at some campground that could be happening. You can make dozens of dollars.
All right, Well, you know what, we don't want to keep our
guests waiting too much longer because we have a fantastic guest today. I don't
I've met Aaron many times. I call him a friend. I don't know
him real well. We haven't hung out too much. I'd like to hang
out with them more. He's one of these one of these friends that I
see at the conferences that I speak at occasionally and ships passing in the night
sort of thing. Um. And I know you've met him a handful of
times, even way back in the beginning of finding Bigfoot. He was on
a press tour with us. But yeah, this guy, I mean,
I've known Aaron. His name's Aaron Sagers, of course, and I've known
Aaron for years, but it wasn't until I was actually reading his biography on
his website, Aaron Sagers dot Com that I realize, Holy crap, this
guy's got is this guy's everywhere I know the name, Yeah, exactly,
most people I think in the paranormal world would because he's a well, I
mean, he's a journalist. He's a he's an expert in all things nerdy.
He's a TV presenter. He hosts his own podcast called Talking Strange.
UM a fantastic podcast. And I can say that because I was on it.
That's a difference between that decent podcast and a fantastic podcast is one that
I've been on. Um, of course I'm kidding, of course. Um.
He's He's currently the host of Netflix series twenty eight Days Haunted. He's
regularly on Paranormal Caught on Camera, which is on Discovery Plus and the Travel
Travel Channel. They're going into their sixth season. He's been on a slew
of other television shows. He's written for all sorts of different media outlets.
He's a television personality. He's man if I if we were just to talk
about Aaron's achievements and things that he's done that. We would spend the entire
hour doing that. So screw that. Let's bring Aaron Sagers and Aaron thank
you very much for spending some time with Cliff and the Bobs. Hey,
Cliff, Bobo, thanks for having me you guys. Oh, it is
our pleasure, our pleasure, and I'd really do mean that. If we
were just to go through your resume, it would take the entire hour and
then we'd have everything that we would do be in our members section. But
yeah, you just heart everywhere. How long have you been in this game?
Well, I guess I would probably tag the beginning of my journalism career.
I don't know, probably like I did it in college and whatnot.
But it really seemed like I was cooking with gas around two thousand and three,
two thousand and four, and then by the time I got into maybe
even like two thousand and two. By the time I got into like oh,
five oh six, I had kind of established enough capital. I was
working as an editor for some magazines and newspapers and whatnot that I was able
to start talking about all this strange stuff, you know, whether you whether
we call it paranormal or unexplained or high strangeness or whatever. So that's kind
of when I first started talking about it in the mainstream media, and thankfully
was able to continue to do so, and then the job kept expanding from
there. So do you see yourself mostly as a journalist with like TV gig
things on the side of media, other media formats on the side, or
what, or do you even see yourself as having a main gig. Dude,
I don't even know anymore. I don't well, honestly, I don't.
I don't even really know what journalism is specifically these days. I mean,
I think there are still good journalists out there, but the nature of
media has changed so drastically in five years and ten years, much less the
you know, fifteen years now that I've been doing this sort longer than fifteen.
So I say, I still say journalists as far as I enjoy researching,
I enjoy conducting interviews and getting the story behind the story. But I'm
kind of an all around media creator with TV and you know, the podcasting
stuff over there and being a storyteller over here. But it all comes from
that journalistic core. So it sounds like you are truly a storyteller, whether
you're telling stories in print or on screen or on radio or whatever the media,
you're truly a storyteller chasing those tidbits. Yeah, I try to be,
and I really I really love hearing from people and hearing from the stories.
I mean, I did get my start as a journalist doing your more
traditional stuff, you know, news coverage. I did a little bit of
blood and guts kind of stuff early on, and then evolved out of that.
I started doing some travel things and then really settled into the entertainment world,
and then from there kind of moved into the TV producing and hosting stuff.
But I yeah, I love getting stories out of people, and I
love researching these tidbits and finding out like how deep those roots go, and
and I guess sort of becoming this expert in bursts about these topics. And
it doesn't mean an expert on the level of someone that's done academic study for
decades, but you know that it's almost like you wear this hat for a
little bit of a time and you dive deep into a topic and you're like,
okay, I have absorbed this information to borrow like a quote from the
matrix. It's like I know kung fu. Now, It's like you just
dive in and then you absorb it and then move forward with it. It's
it's exciting in that way to research, talk to people, and then tell
those stories. I absolutely love that. Was your first love media and the
pop culture side of things or was it the strange paranormal sort of thing.
What was your like looking back to when you're a little boy or would what
do you think what the seed was that led you here? I also I
often talk to my parents and I'm like, so little little er Aaron,
was he like this or what was it like? Oh? Yeah, you
were into all this stuff and that was it is like as a kid,
I was reading science fiction and comic books and watching horror movies and also digging
in deep to these stories of the unexplained, of paranormal watching reruns of In
Search of with Letter Ny Moy or Unsolved Mysteries with Robert Stack, and then
the time life Mysteries of the Unknown series of books. I love those so
like it kind of all formed at the same time. I had so much
love for the weird stuff as much as I did for Star Wars and superhero
comic books. It just kind of all emerged at the same time, and
it continued to do. It continues to be a part of me because when
the paranormal TV stuff started happening for me, yeah, I'm like, okay,
this is cool, but I was still I'm sure you guys can probably
attest to this, but reality TV doesn't necessarily pay a whole lot. So
I was still doing the gig of a journalist while also the early TV stuff.
And then some of those shows and those genres went away for a little
bit of a time, and I'm like, all right, cool. Then
I was kind of working in the world of sci fi of the network Siffy
and creating nerdy TV shows and nerdy videos with them, and still working as
a journalist, and then it seemed like the paranormal and unexplained stuff kind of
came back and sucked me back in. It's like the Godfather, Like,
you know, I keep trying to get out, they keep pulling me back
in. Well, you know, I do often refer to these jobs whatever
as gigs in the same partly because of my musician background or whatever. Like
you go to a job and you do that job, and you go away
and you're maybe you get called back for another job or whatever. But TV
and um and these sort of appearances are very similar in that sort of way.
UM. And I'm probably a lot of people, I imagine who are
listening to us who have nine to five sort of five day a week jobs,
UM don't understand that it's or may not understand it as well as those
who have been in the trenches for a while, I should say, because
you know the TV. The TV gigs don't pay really really well, but
they're a job and they keep you going for a moment, but you got
to find something else soon, um, or you're gonna run out of money.
It's a bottom line. So I think that I can at least sympathize
with you or understand where you're coming from with that. And I want to
explain that to some of our audience there, just in case they don't understand,
because you know, they're having a regular job is great because you get
a paycheck that's predictable. But these are gigs, you know, like I'm
doing. The proof is out there. I think it's History Channel or any
or something. I'm not even I think it's any You know that that's one
job and it helps me get through the month, but at the end of
the day, there's other things that are going on, and you know,
you've got to make a living. And I would say I would add to
that like something that I think, having moved to the newspaper and magazine world
in both and witnessing good and bad times, when I when I first started
in newspapers, I loved the the vibe of a newsroom. I still kind
of have a romanticized memory of it. And then I saw, of course
the cratering of that industry and having to adapt and figure out how to do
the news and how to create media in a changing landscape. But what that
taught me was never to entirely put your eggs in one basket. So then
when I started doing the TV stuff, I certainly, when you when you
do projects, you hope for the best. But I knew enough by that
point to not hold my breath that this is going to be some bonkers game
changing experience in my life. Is going to be the glamor and glitz of
television and you know, Hollywood, the show biz. And I was not
seduced by that. And unfortunately, I think some people that enter into some
of the TV stuff. In fact, I know of someone very recently that
they did a couple episodes of a TV show and they quit their day job,
and they're like, this is it. This is I'm a TV guy
now, this is all I do. And I'm like, that was probably
not the smartest move. So that gig mentality, yes, I think was
kind of I kind of embedded that early on, just from working in newspapers
and watching a changing media landscape. You know, when I'm working at the
museum and somebody comes in and they'd say, oh my god, you're here.
I knew you owned it, but I didn't. They're shocked that I
have a job. So no, of course I have a job. Well,
I thought the TV thing was just like, well no, man,
I mean that's not just not the way it works. You know, your
bosses don't want to pay you a bunch of money to keep you bathing in
champagne the rest of your life or something like that. So yeah, if
we did, if we did the shows like twenty years or even ten years
earlier, we would have been probably set. But by the time we got
there, they'd already dropped way. Oh and it's even changed since we went
off the air. You know, they're with streaming and everything. The money
just is not there. And I've I've had to talk to a couple of
people who are pitching shows or whatever, and and I'm saying, well,
hey, man, like we were the last generation that possibly that that really
makes money, or we made some money. We made it's pretty okay money
at the end there, but like nowadays, it's not much, man,
It's just not much money in the TV thing because everything went streaming. Even
just the budget that I imagine for you guys to travel, just just to
travel alone. I look at that and I'm like, there's not a lot
of shows that can pull that off these days and get those kinds of budgets.
I mean, and those big companies that are gobbling up everything else,
it's not like they're adding more money to the pot to make all these projects
happen. They're trimming. They're trimming, trimming and trimmy. So it's like,
hey, this is a great idea. Let's make this show. We're
gonna bounce you around. You're gonna go check out phenomena here and then here
and then here. It's like, oh, well, upon looking at the
budget, maybe just a couple of spots right in that one location instead of
traveling all over the place. Right, somebody asked me, I was I
was talking to this person who was pitching some show and they were picking my
brain about it, and they and I said, well, the money is
just not there anymore. And this person was shocked, right, And I
go, well, when she well, where is it? And I say,
well, I think the same amount of money is there. But as
you mentioned earlier, I think aaron is that there are so maybe this is
before we started recording. There are so many outlets and so many TV shows
and so many networks and streaming this and podcasts. I think it's the same
amount of money, but it's so thinly distributed at this point, you know
that there's not a lot of money in anyone location as a deal. Yeah,
And I'm I'm looking at all of this and it's I would say that
I have a pretty good track record of being able to predict landscape, you
know, not necessarily an infallible track or pretty pretty good, like I can
kind of see where things are going. And this is such a strange time
because on one hand, it looks like we're basically going back to the old
cable model in some ways, because it's just like these bundlings of services and
channels and whatnot, except they're on streaming. But in other ways, I'm
not entirely certain. I don't, And it's and it's trickier gauging the metric
of success, right because there is such competition for people's eyeballs and and ear
holes and attention that what counts as a successful thing anymore, that that's harder
to gauge. And even when something is a success, it might just be
canceled because it's like, well, yeah, no, this was a this
was a good show on the network, but so yeah, it's too expensive
to make or whatever, so we just have to move on or change and
change of the guard, you know. Yeah. I keep wondering, like
how many more topics are they gonna delve into? Like how many more are
I mean, I guess there's infinite as far as creativity goes. But I
just don't see the industry as being that creative anymore. I see them regurgitating
the same old nonsense, and it looks like regurgitation to me, you know.
But I'm not a TV guy either though, so I don't know well,
and I don't even know that I would say I'm I'm a nerd.
I'm I'm a journalist, and I love this. I like, I legitimately
love the topics that I talk about, and I am always fascinated by the
business side of it just because I like. I like knowing how the sausage
is made, not just with TV but anything. I like getting kind of
in there right and figuring stuff out. But it's amusing that for something that's
supposed to be creative, people say, yeah, we want the new thing,
the next new thing, except when you try to bring them the next
new thing, it's like, well, maybe maybe more like that other thing.
Yeah, you guys are saying there are regurds to the Cliff. I
would say they are all regerds to think, so I make it all way
through the lower bowel system and come out as actual crap. Yeah. Probably
probably stay tuned for more Bigfoot and Beyond with Cliff and Bobo will be right
back after these messages. It seems to me that the industry is more run
by fear than creativity because they don't want to try anything new. They don't
want they don't want any groundbreaking stuff because they're afraid to spend that money on
something that may not work. But if they know that they get mediocre numbers
on stuff that has worked before, they're going to spend money on that,
and we get the same old nonsense and there's nothing to move down the court,
which is unfortunate because in this day and age, and Lauren Coleman is
a person who I thinks first started writing about this, I want to give
credit where credit is due. Lauren has noted for years that at this moment,
reality TV is basically the monetary driving force behind cryptid and sasquatch research,
which is a total shame because I don't I don't believe the shows because TV
does, TV has no obligation whatsoever to be real. The word reality and
that reality TV thing is just they the people in the biz don't even call
it reality TV because they know it's not real. They call it unscripted,
which means that they don't have to hire writers because they're in the union and
it costs a lot less. Basically, reality TV was born from the writer's
strike when the nineties or whenever that was, I don't know when they were.
I don't know. I'm an old man. My sense of time is
elastic. But um yeah, reality TV is not reality TV. It is
unscripted TV where they don't have to tell Bobo to memorize lines. Can you
imagine if they did that, Bob's what a nightmare that would be? Like
we had to memorize lines we don't have with the Bobo Monster movie with small
town monsters. Oh yeah, we can record a Seth breed love. Do
you know Seth Seth stuff there? Aaron I do. And it's funny because,
yeah, I'm familiar with him, I'm impressed. I'm I'm really impressed
by his output. And it was only recently, though, that we started
chatting virtually, And one of the first things I said to him is,
I'm like, how do we not already know each other? You know,
It's it's like you end up knowing everyone in the community or you know,
in this this strange little world, and then occasionally someone will pop up and
I'm like, no, I know your work, I appreciate your work,
and yet somehow we haven't known each other. We haven't actually started chatting until
now, so we've only recently kind of connected and started speaking. But man,
yeah, he's he's got a really impressive track record, and he's also
someone that I look at and I'm like, Oh, this dude's kind of
figured it out because he's figured out how to create and execute things with his
vision and make money doing it and not be beholden to the strict kind of
network kind of guidance. You know, he's kind of managed to figure out
the way around that. Yeah, network guidance tends to screw up a lot
of projects in my opinion. Yeah, yeah, they're not. I mean
that's just me as a big Footer because you know, I was on your
podcast we talked about this, like truth is extraordinarily important in bigfooting. Like
if you lie about anything like well bigfoot stuff, then then you're done.
But even if you're known to not be telling the truth in your regular life,
like it kind of affects your reputation and bigfoot. You know, truth
is always the tantabout importance. It's it's number one, and TV that oftentimes
encourages you do the opposite, which is unfortunate. So in your opinion,
Eron, is there an obligation or where is the obligation when you're dealing into
real subjects and I'm not talking about things that are just nonsense and everybody kind
of knows it but like I'm talking about sasquatches and things that are actually real,
where is the obligation to tell the truth? Is that in the network?
Is that in the production team, or is that in the on screen
talent? For Life A Better Turn? Where does it lie? I think
that's a great question. I don't know that I have a great answer for
it, because, yes, of course, ideally you would like it to
be driven from the top down from the network, but that's not necessarily the
case because what do they want to do. They want to make TV that
people watch, that advertisers buy into, and they have a return on their
investment from so they're thinking profit and hopefully the producers will want to tell truth
and be accurate, but they're also having to listen to the network who's providing
the money to make the show. And then you get down to the talent.
And depending on the talent, there's someone that is really green or without
a lot of influence. They are not necessarily going to be the person that
can speak the entire truth. They're going to also have the guide from the
producers who are paying their bills and the networks who are paying the bills,
and if they kind of branch off of that mission too much or move off
of the talking points, then it's easy enough to replace them and bring in
someone who will unless that person acquires enough influence that they can sort of then
say like, Okay, this is the truth and you can't edit me because
I also have enough power or ability that you know, you got to deal
with what I say. And then there's this other side of things where I
recognize that you need to be truthful, but we also have to let the
audience know like this is ultimately edited and is an entertainment product. That doesn't
mean you should just lie and get away with that line. But I do
encourage a kind of a media literacy see with the viewers that you have to
say like, yeah, you know, we we try our best to present
the truth and not say something that is untrue. But I am not in
the editing bay cutting together the final episode, you know. So what I
try to do is, let's say, with paranormal caught on camera, I
try to not validate and not debunk things that I am seeing. I try
to pull from a reference of history in theories and things I have read that
I can speak to. And then when I see stuff that I know is
totally bonkers and easily invalidated. I will say this is my thought, or
I'm not going to comment on this because I have nothing to really add to
what you're what story you're trying to tell here, I will say, to
the credit of paranormal caught on camera, I've haven't seen any disastrous editing on
me, So if I say something stupid, it's all me, and I
haven't been pushed too much to try to say something that is a blatant uh,
you know, falsehood or whatever. They might say like, well,
what do you what do you think about this? And I will say I
don't think much about that at all, or I don't I don't necessarily agree
with that, and they're like, Okay, if you don't want to comment
on this one, that's okay, which I like. For at least one
one off gigs, that's all you can really ask for, you know,
unless unless you are a cast member on a series. That's all you can
ask for is a producers who understand that you're not willing to do that,
you know, to falsuppy stuff, as some people on camera are. Frankly,
I've been lucky enough to work with the productions that don't push me that
direction because the knew they wouldn't get it anyway. Yeah, but certainly you've
seen yourself edited in ways that later on had to piss you off. Well,
I will say this that I'm so distrustful of the media that I don't
watch the programs I'm in. You know, I watched I watched Finding Bigfoot
to make sure that exact same thing didn't happen. Um. And in fact,
that was one of the things one of the deals that we made with
the production company and the network and the rocky days, the early days of
Finding big Foot, UM, was when we were concerned about the final edits
and deceptive editing and that sort of stuff that the network, Um, Animal
Planet fantastic, love them and and Ping Pong came around too. There.
They were fantastic and great to us. Um. They gave us the edit
before it aired, just to make sure that everything was cool at that point,
And that's kind of unheard of. Yeah. I got screwed by that
that Sasquatch documentary on Hulu, that three part series Sasquatch was with the murders
on the pot farms, and they swore like, oh yeah, we're we
got all the integrity and blah blah blah. And so they were saying,
like, well, uh, have ever heard these stories about guys getting killed?
I said, yeah, I've looked into several of them. Every one
of them has been a cover up for a murderer or it just was.
The whole thing was bus And they said, well, what stories did you
hear like that? And I told him some stories. I said, I
don't believe this, and I said, don't don't put this into that.
I'm saying this, but I was told this. It turned out to be
false and it was this, and they they put it into a like that
was what I was saying. They cut up the parts where I said it
was false. I remember, Bobo. I. So I saw that early.
I got like some media previews of it, and I actually I enjoyed
the overall show, and I saw you in it. I'm like, oh,
okay, this is interesting. And then I had I saw after it
after it aired that you were unhappy with it, and it bummed me out.
It bummed me out because I thought I had a good hold on the
people that we're doing it and it's and I've been there, man, where
it's like it's like you say this one thing couch within a longer factual statement
of like yeah, yeah, you know, I've heard about this x y
Z thing, but now I don't believe that, but they take out the
i've heard of x y Z thing. You know. Yeah. I guess
that's a good lesson for people who are on camera is say things in short,
short sentences that they can't edit very effectively. Yeah. I try to
work in I try to work in so many allegedly's and supposedly or according to
theory or in the middle of a sentence to make it harder to add it.
I used to do that too. Yeah, sou Paranormal Caught on camera
that that's an everything sort of show. I don't want get to twenty eighties
Haunted in a minute, but Paranormal count on camera. There's there's no topic
that I think is probably off limits to that. It's one of those clip
shows where they show a clip and then they have some nerd like meats or
you or what we're talking about. It essentially of the stuff that you've seen
on the show, What are some of your favorite topics to cover? Yeah,
So, I mean it's now in its sixth season, and I've been
with them since the second season. It's so yeah, we cover a lot
of ground, and yet like twenty six episodes a season and then maybe six
or seven clips per episodes, so there's a lot out there. And I
mean, for me personally, I like the weirder the better, the stuff
that I see coming out of far corners of this great big globe and kind
of lean into some sort of folklore or legend. And I like those because,
first off, it expands the conversation about these legends beyond just a very
kind of Euro American centric perspective, which is what has dominated television this genre.
So I like seeing more people that don't look like me telling their stories
and talking about these legends specifically, so weird stuff like you know, weird
stuff coming out of Russia and Australia and stuff like that. The within like
sort of the the Sasquatch realm. I don't claim to be a researcher on
the level of you guys, but I like to think that I'm a pretty
good judge of character. And I like gauging sort of the psychology of witnesses
as much as I can from looking at a clip, and there was this
one and maybe you'll be able to pierce this bubble. But there was this
one that was shot around Christmas time whereas a family gathered together and just you
know, they're filming this Christmas dinner and their dog starts freaking out and they
look outside and they walk outside and they see some figure, you know,
bipedal figure walking along the tree line, and they're like, what the hell
is that? And then the dog, a little dog like a Jack Russell
Terry, freaks out and starts running towards it, and then a beat later
gets very freaked out and then runs all the way back. And it's I
liked that one because it felt like it was not I don't know, it
felt like people were behaving in a believable way, and even the dog was
acting in a kind of a believable way. That was one I liked.
I can see why people liked it, but I wasn't impressed with it.
Tell me why, And I'm not challenging, I'm I'm curious. I want
to get in your head. I just just thinking, like those who wouldn't
be talking like that if I thought the reactions were somewhat you know, like
bad acting yeah maybe. But the one thing I will I will say as
far as people's reactions is people react in funny ways when they're encountering tragedy,
in encountering strange, um, just just bizarre but explainable experiences. Some you
know, people laugh, people act normal. It's almost like sometimes it sets
in later. Um, but I don't know. I've seen people behave in
the midst of like horrible situations acting fairly almost lighthearted about it. So I
try to apply that to these encounters that sometimes maybe people would be like,
Okay, this is odd. What is that? What is that? Huh?
I don't know. I don't know. I have seen people behave that
way. Yeah, you know, I when I have to do these shows,
I enjoy the stuff that you're mentioning too, because when it comes down
to the bigfoot Thingum, other people consider me an expert on sasquatches. I
don't necessarily do that myself. Um, maybe an expert on the topic or
the subject or something, But I don't know. Big Foots are pretty mysterious
to me still. You know, in a lot of ways, I know
a couple of things, or as I think I know a couple of things
so I like the stuff that I have no experience in because the pressure's off,
you know, like it. Show me, show some UFO stuff,
and I'll say, oh, that's cool, because that brings me back to
when I was eight years old watching In Search of or whatever. Whereas if
you show me a sasquatch thing, I'm not only expected to already know the
clip and to have done the research, but I'm also expected to be right
even if I if there's no way to know anything. I don't like the
pressure of that sometimes, you know what I mean, Yeah, yeah,
totally. And then if you can draw from I think even though I'm terrible
about remembering things like birthdays and whatnot, I'm pretty good about remembering little trivia
or story. Yeah, like you know that you know there was this episode
of In Search of or in this region of this country. You know,
people, the indigenous people tell stories of this kind of thing or so I
like pulling from that so I can say, I'm not saying this is one
percent true or not. I'm not saying take this to the bank as proof
positive of phenomena, paranormal phenomena or unexplain or whatever. Instead, you know,
let's put it into perspective. There's other people that's talked about this in
this region that makes it interesting to me. And I always think about the
motivations of people, like because if you're appearing on these shows as cast,
you're still probably not making a lot of mineam as we said before, and
as you do more, you get renewed, it gets a little bit better.
But if you're appearing on like a clip show or someone's licensing your YouTube
video or whatever, you're not getting rich and famous off of it. You're
not even getting in fifteen minutes of thing. So the motivation of someone to
try to do that, I don't know that it's always like they're they're thinking
they're going to get anything, any grand spotlight out of that. Yeah,
what do you think is behind the motivation of hoax ors? Do you think
it's just like like a Ray Wallace where the guy was a joker and he
liked doing pranks, or you think there's because or is it somebody trying to
make money on it like some people do, or is it just mental illness?
Is trying to show the show that you can be wrong about? I
mean, who knows. What are your thoughts on hoaxing? Yeah, I
think that it's a combination of things. I think there are the people that
are just pranksters. I think there are the people that think this they'll be
able to show a Fiji mermaid and squeeze a couple of bucks out of folks
and maybe that'll be enough for them, and it's never really enough for them,
because they always want more and they want to keep doing it, which
is what gets a lot of people caught actually, because you know, they
keep trying to go bigger and then eventually their house of cards falls down around
them. But I also think there is an element. Sometimes people do want
attention for this thing. They want to be someone that has captured something magnificent.
It's not always to begin famous, but they want some sort of attention
off of it. And then I think there's the other element, and this
maybe is not necessarily hoaxters. This is people that just so desperately want to
believe that what they have captured on film or whatever is real that you can't
convince them otherwise, and it validates something some deep need for them, and
so they can't listen to any other reason. And then those are not intentional
hoaxters, though, yeah, it seems that a lot of people gain their
identity from doing this sort of thing, and I think having an identity in
general, it's probably a bad idea. That's just my own personal view.
I don't even identify myself as a sasquash researcher. I just that's just what
I do, you know. But I don't. I don't have a real
strong identity connected to that personally. That's just me though, because I figured
whenever I define myself, that means I'm not all these other things. And
I think that's very limiting, you know. But there is certain there's certainly
that thing out there where maybe somebody got a piece of footage or they see
a shape that a blob squatch sort of thing, and like, well,
that's my claim to fame. That's what I did. That that's the deal
there, that that makes me who I am. And I kind of feel
for those people, you know, I think that, I mean, I
think that's a good point. Yeah, it's And I consider myself very fortunate
to have done a lot of cool things with my job, and I come
from very humble beginnings and not not just the paranormal stuff, but just done
a lot of cool nerdy stuff. I'm very grateful for these experiences and that
this has been my career, you know, outside of doing even the TV
stuff, it is still my career to talk to people to go on these
kind of fun trips and adventures and whatnot. So I can definitely empathize with
folks that they crave something of that for themselves and and maybe yeah, that
experience of them seeing that blob squash or whatever. Yeah, it becomes a
part of their identity because it's it's it's like there's something missing for them in
their life. Yeah. But but to quote the great Muppet Doctor Too Doctor
Teeth, there ain't nothing to it but to do it. Like everybody can
do this, you know what I mean. You don't have to have an
accomplishment. You can actually just do this for fun and enjoy it as such
like fishing or something like that. You know. M I always encourage people
to get go out to the woods. It doesn't take people coming to the
museum. Can you take me out big footing? Absolutely not. I don't
know you. I'm not going to take you up big footing. But at
the same time, what's stopping you from doing it? Now? You drive
on a road, You get out, you walk a road, you listen.
There's nothing there, there's nothing there that you can't do. Don't need
me for that. So hopefully people will take their own life into their own
hands, you know, so to speak. And yeah, being told that,
like, yeah, you have the tools to be able to do this.
You can go out there and and engage with this stuff right now,
you And and if you want to learn about these things, you know,
yes you have to be again, have some literacy to it to know what
a good sources or not. But you have we all carry around these supercomputers
in our pockets. You can start researching this stuff and reading about this stuff
and get into it on your own. And I think that sometimes opens the
door for people being manipulated because they want to be guided by someone of import
and then they will listen to the wrong someone and then be manipulated or misled.
Yeah, without the literacy in the subject. I think Carl Sagan address
this in one of his interviews without literacy in his case, with a science,
but a literacy and well rank frankly, if you're not without literacy and
science that applies to this subject too, or the history of the subject and
whose shoulders were standing on a whatnot? You are opening yourself up to Charlatan's
and hucksters to take advantage of you and take you for a ride and for
whatever end game they have in mind. Not you. Yeah, I mean
there's a reason, like folks, you know, like a P. T.
Barnum thrived. You know it's it's because you know, I mean,
he wasn't actually the one that said a sucker is born every minute, but
it's been attributed to him and the sentiment is true. Well, you know,
one of the things I'm not at all interested in, um because it
scares the hell out of me, is like hauntings and demons stuff and all
that jazz and um you're you're, you're part, you're one of your feet
is in that world as well. Because I've never seen your show twenty eight
Days Haunted on Netflix. But um, it sounds like it's a it's a
it's a ghost show. Am I wrong? What's up with that show?
No? You're you're are right. It is. It's Netflix's first paranormal investigative
show. And the stick, the engine of this is that it's three separate
teams of ghost hunters at three separate locations, embedded in those places for twenty
eight days, and I serve as sort of the the driver of the car.
I operate as a host and walk the viewer through what we're seeing and
offering takeaways and whatnot. And something that I really try to avoid is I
hate being called a paranormal expert because I'm not. I'm a guy that's done
a lot of work talking and writing and pontificating about it, but I'm not
an expert on this unexplained thing. It's all fury based and hell, I
don't know what the hell of ghost even is, you know, I like,
it's all we're all just kind of literally in figuratively poking around on the
dark about that. But yeah, so but I talk about, like,
well, what we're seeing here is this team is doing this, and it's
interesting that they would comment on this because that aligns with the actual history of
the location, which they should not know. That sort of thing. And
the show did did very well on Netflix, and I'm quite pleased about that.
And I guess kind of like you, like, I don't. I'm
proud of it, but I also don't want that to be the defining identity
of me. Of like you know, the ghost host. Even though it's
cool and I hope the show continues and everything, I'm super proud of it,
but I also want to be cautious that, you know, you don't
walk away and everybody's like, oh man, like what a that? That's
all that guy really is? You know where I'm going with that? Well,
yeah, yeah I can't. If I've posted on Facebook, I went
for a walk, and so how can we're not big footing? So well?
Because I'm not just this flat character made up for you in your own
purposes. I'm actually a multidimensional human so to speak. You know, there's
a lot of things I do in my life that have nothing to do with
big Foot, and I love that stuff because it gives me balance. I
totally understand. Yeah, I'm not. I'm not. We're all subjected to
this idea of clap, monkey clap, you know, at the right time
if you're in the media at all, because the public, some of them
don't realize that you're actually a human that does whatever, that does everything else
else that humans do instead of some superficial thing for their entertainment. Yeah,
and there's just simply the fact kind of going back to what we were saying
before about editing and everything that as much as you carefully try to construct a
statement about a theory, it can sometimes be added to to look like you
are speaking in terms of very definitive laws, almost about strange phenomena, which
I am very much not doing, or I try to avoid doing it.
So and then meanwhile, people will come up to me and be like,
yeah, but you said this thing was a fact, Like wow, that's
not exactly what I said, but but it is fun. It is cool,
and I mean, like, on like the topic of I do think
there's strange stuff out there. I think there's just bizarre stuff out there that
goes beyond our current understanding of this world and universe, and science is always
advancing and evolving, and will I think eventually explain some of this stuff.
On the Ghostie topic, Stay tuned for more Bigfoot and Beyond with Cliff and
Bobo. We'll be right back after these messages. Wait, what about Bobo
bo Bobo? What do you think about the GHOSTI side of things. I
think we've lost Bobo Bo Boa maybe might be out pin or something who knows.
Welcome to Bigfoot and Beyond with Cliff and occasionally, Bobo, I was
a gout. It starts snowing here, dude, look about like the surf
one to like, hey, Bobo, we have we have a guest on
Bobo can join us. I love this about your podcast that I'm I'm opening
up here, Bobo. I'm pontific Katy. I'm I'm giving you the deep
dive into my soul and my philosophies. And you're out there looking at the
snow and the surf. Look a squirrel, a dog with a fuffy tail,
snow here in like ten or twelve years. Okay, fair, that's
that's totally a reasonable reason just neglect your cast. Pro Bo. Sorry,
so I started, I was answered, I uh, it was need.
What was what was I talking about again? Nothing, don't worry about it,
Bob's nothing of consequence, dans. Yeah, I thought I had.
I was convinced how a demon encounter one night? Then I uh, A
couple of sciences have you read about, uh, lucid dreaming and night terrors
and all that, And I'm like, oh, I guess that's what I
had. You dip into that category. But but like you, you allow
for the possibility of ghosts and demons. Oh yeah, I've seen a couple
of guys I don't care about them. Yeah, yeah. I think that's
one of the things about about this show that UM, because I'm very much
Bubbo is very much more interested in the paranormal than I am in general.
Although I've had paranormal things happen, I don't know. There's no other word
that can describe it. You know, I've had some ghost things happen.
I don't and ghosts seems like a suitable word to slap on that experience,
UM that I that I had, or those experiences that I've had. I've
seen a couple of UFOs in my time. I just don't profess to be
um, you know, very knowledgeable in that stuff, and some of the
stuff I just want to be left to let, like ghosts. Screw that,
man, I don't want I don't want the deal because once you what
I find is that, at least with the bigfoot thing, I started becoming
interested in sasquatches, and then I found, just like everything else in life,
once you start paying attention to it, you see you start seeing it
everywhere, or not everywhere, but much more the bigfoot things come, you
know, like a news article crosses your desk, you know, you run
into a witness in the store. That kind of stuff. So bigfoot stuff
starts popping up everywhere once you start paying attention to it. That's the nature
of reality is from my experience, is that once you pay attention to something,
more of that thing comes. You know, reality is very malleable in
that way. And the last thing I need is more ghosts and demons in
my life. I need more bigfoot. Everyone does, well. I don't
know that I have had a really significant experience like I and I want it
like that's that's the thing. I've experienced the other weird stuff, and sure
I'm open for more of it to keep happening. I don't feel like I
have my solid bigfoot story and I'm I'm definitely all on board with it.
I most certainly think these things are out there where I'm now. I'm in
New York City, but I grew up in Florida, and then I've traveled
around a lot, and I was a boy scout, I camped a lot,
and I've camped a lot as an adult. And you know, I
had those moments like when I was a kid, I at the moment when
I was camping hearing something very large outside and it probably was just a bear,
but in my brain, like I woke up and I heard something moving
around, and my brain that was used to hearing bears and whatnot out there,
it was like, this is something different. But I didn't see anything.
I didn't see anything. I just heard something trumping trapesing around. And
then there was this other experience in Pennsylvania where just didn't really I don't know,
like I hate to say, like glowing eyes or whatever, but saw
like basically in the woods and everything quieted reel down or quieted down quite a
bit. And then just basically saw this set of eyes in the woods.
And I don't know that that was probably not Bigfoot, but I feel like
I need my Bigfoot story. Ain't nothing to it, but to do it.
As doctor Teeth says, man just start going out New York City.
You're kind of, you know, poop out of luck there though, because
there's not a lot going on there. I mean, the Catskills has a
little bit if you know where to go, but not much. Um,
but Jersey Jersey's really good. Actually that that's a hop skip of jump for
you. Yeah, And actually where I was in Pa was just over um
the Jersey border, and and certainly like even down in Florida growing up,
like before it was sort of more popular or in vogue. Like, um,
my dad is originally from Florida as well, and it come from come
from some uh a redneck side of the family, some swamp folk almost in
Florida. Man. Yeah, yeah, yeah, airboating type of people.
And I do recall hearing as a kid like stories of skunk ape and things
being out there. Um, so at least that story was kind of those
tales were ingrained in me at an early age from that side of the family.
Well part of Florida, did you grow up in? I was largely
in Orlando, Central Florida, But keep in mind that so when I was
growing up, it was it was more you know, just uh that the
mouse house, you know as theme park world and whatnot. And it's a
little bit more. Um, it's got a little bit better since then.
But but my father and his family have grew up when it was a lot
of just um, you know, orange groves and a lot more wilderness and
um, when it was a little bit more wild and you know, we
definitely covered a lot of the state, um boat down in the Everglades area.
Often the wooded area is kind of on the hum the west coast of
Florida and things like that. So um, yeah, it was I was
fascinated by those stories as a kid. I guess that never really went away.
Yeah. I think Florida is one of the few places in the US
that human can actually do any damage to the sasquatch population by paving essentially,
by paving and producing, you know, developing the land essentially. That I
think that Florida is one of these places that they might be we might be
isolating genetic populations and the burns pythons eating a bunch of their food source too.
Yeah, sasquatches would eat the pythons, that's true. Yeah, Yeah,
just my thought. No, I you're most certainly right. I mean
that's I fear just how much the state is going to be paved over and
how much biodiversity that is down there. I mean, sort of like Australia,
light and just constant development is wiping all of this biodiversity out, and
that would include skuncape sasquatch down there. Well, we'll see what happens.
We'll see what happens down there in Florida. So yeah, yeah, like
we'll check back in like a year or so or twenty. Meanwhile, they're
finding alligators up here in New York City and the ponds. Oh yeah,
I heard something about that. I heard about that must have been freezing for
that poor thing. Yeah. Yeah, and it's not the first time there's
actually it does pop up occasionally, but there was I think in the nineteen
thirties, maybe even nineteen twenties, there was an actual legitimate origin to the
alligators in the sewer urban legend, and it was I think up in Harlem.
The this alligator kind of popped out of a sewer drain and then a
bunch of kids like tried to wrangle it or whatever it was. It was
not really a it was cold. This thing was definitely underfed. It was
not acclimated to that this kind of weather. But there wasn't But that was
the origin to the gators in the sewer. But yeah, it's it's um
something that happens periodically, and I think more than ever makes it to the
news. Yeah, because people want these exotic pets and then they outgrow the
little tanks they have them in and they put them in the sewer system or
the ponds or whatever. And something like that happened in the Bay Area when
I was living down there. It was Oakland or Berkeley or somewhere like that,
that one of these things got loose in one of them. There was
one in Portland if I remember right. No, no, no, that
was down that was down in San Francisco. It was in San Francisco that
one of these things was living for maybe a year or a few months before
they actually captured it. Again, these poor animals that are subjected to environments
that they are not suited for, like the supers of New York for example.
Yeah, but and you're right, like it's and that that extends,
you know, wild cats too, Like it's easy enough if you really start
looking to find someone that's a little bit shady, that's willing to acquire one
of these animals, and then, yeah, what are you gonna You're gonna
keep it in a New York apartment until it gets too big and then just
release it somewhere. But it's it's a shame. But I'm I'm not a
cynical person, but I am sometimes raising my hands up in sometimes discussing certainly
perplexed by humans in our behavior. Yeah, I'm not a big fan myself.
But but you know that some of my best friends are humans, honestly,
but not all of my best friends are humans. I want to make
that perfectly clear. I get you know. I gathered about you, Cliff,
that you are not that you are very affable and likable with a dark
side. Yea, I would not have pegged you as a as a people
person. Well you know that. That's well, if you've spoken to me,
You've had You've had a few conversations with me, and I get along
great with most with with the most people, I get along great, and
I enjoy conversations. But um, at the same time, you know,
I need a lot of a lone time and if Cliff doesn't get it gets
a little weird. So and I didn't even know you were a Star Wars
nerd. Oh Yeah, yeah, I'm a total nerd, dude, I've
I've got a Dungeons and Dragons campaign. I'm a huge nerd and very in
every way. Every way. Um, Bigfoot is just one aspect. Um.
Well, that is me being humble. Well, I I I will
say that I to this interview I'm supposed to supposed to see the new dungeon
in the Dragons movie. I just didn interview with Chris Pine about it because
he's in that new the live action movie that's coming out. So I'm I'm
less of a D and D nerd, but I love it like I do
love it. But I'm definitely a total Star Wars nerd. I love Star
Trek as well, but Star Wars is it was sort of the thing that
I glombed onto super early on. Oh yeah, actually that I literally have
that as a question on my page. I've took a bunch of notes,
and I'm very proud to say, by the way, I crossed off three
things on a full page of notes, you know, so I overprepared,
which is nice. Then one of the questions was here, here's a question
Star Wars or Star Trek. That was literally one of the questions I have
written down for you. I think you like both, but it's sort of
like Elvis versus the Beatles, or yeah, Elvis versus Beetles. It's you
ultimately have to not have to, but ultimately I think your passions skew more
towards one or the other. And for me, yeah, it was I
think sort of the magic and the fantasy of Star Wars just connected with me
early on Trek. I love because it is in its best form, can
be a commentary on what humanity can strive for and fail sometimes a lot of
times, but what we can strive for. But I like the magic and
the fantasy of Star Wars and also Elvis. Yeah, well, I think
that's a good segue to why don't we end this part of the conversation.
We can continue this in the member section and get into some of the nerdy
nitty gritty as far as various media goes, because I think the Star Wars
or Star Trek is a good jumping off point for that, and also perhaps
some personal experiences because you you mentioned that you don't have the big Foot feather
in your cap yet, but I'm sure you have some others, and I
think our listen would love to hear about some of that stuff. So if
you can stick around for a member section, we'd really appreciate it. But
before we go, what would you like our listeners to know about, like
any appearances or gigs or anything that you want them to perhaps tune into or
show up for, or anything like that. Yeah, first off, thanks
thanks for having me. I'm glad we had this conversation and happy to stick
around for the members chat as well in the meantime. Yeah, look,
you can always check out twenty eight Days Hunted on Netflix. Please do that.
That support is appreciated. In Paranormal Cad on Camera on Travel Channel and
Discovery Plus, it's always on. They're always marathon in it meet personally like
I do this Talking Strange podcast and live stream show that's part of the Denny
Geek Network, and that is something that I really love doing because I get
to interview people, and I get to interview people about weird stuff, even
though though they may not be known for their weird stuff, like Reese Darby
from Fly to the Concords and Jumanji and Our Flag and Stath talking about UFOs
and cryptids and talking to this actor David dust Malschian or Dana Gould the comedian
and finding these entry points to talk about strangeness. So check that out Talking
Strange podcast in live stream show. And that also helps keep keep the lights
on for me, So I would appreciate that, and then otherwise hit me
up on social media say hi, just at Aaron Sager's across the board social
media. Yes, I do do it. It's it's it's horrible and all
consuming, but it's it's part of the beast, something I have to do.
All right. Well, thank you very much Aaron for coming on the
show. Really really appreciate it. People out there in a big fan of
beyond Land, thank you for listening, really appreciate it. We're going to
continue this conversation over in the members section, so join us over there if
you can, and if you're not a member yet, consider it. You
get about an under forty minutes forty five minutes of content every single week,
sometimes even more than that for the low low price of just five bucks a
month, and that's that's a year without the tip. Nowadays you can afford
that, and our buzz last all week long. So anyway, maybe you
want to be a member, and you can join our membership in the wee
click the thing in the show notes below that'll bring you right there. I'm
pretty confident of that, so thank you very much, Aaron and Bobo.
Why don't you take us out all right? Thanks thanks to Aaron Sayer for
joining us this week, and thanks for listening and keep those reviews and five
star ratings coming our way. I always appreciate that. So until next week,
y'all keep us squatchy. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Bigfoot
and Beyond. If you liked what you heard, please rate and review us
on iTunes, subscribe to Bigfoot and Beyond wherever you get your podcasts, and
follow us on Facebook and Instagram at Bigfoot and Beyond podcast. You can find
us on Twitter at Bigfoot Beyond That's an End in the Middle, and tweet
us your thoughts and questions with the hashtag Bigfoot, End Beyond.