Big food and be on with Cliff and Bubo. These guys are your favorites,
so like say subscribe and raid it. I'm star and righteous on yesterday
listening watching Limb always keep its watching and now your hosts Cliff Berrickman and James
Bubo Fay. Hello, Bobo, how you doing today? Good Cliff,
it's a really good day, actually, really good day. We have a
great guest lined up today, Kelly Birdall from Montana. We'll be talking to
him in just a few minutes. Yeah. He's a good friend of ours
for a long long time actually too, so yeah, we're gonna get get
into that interview in just a few minutes, really really soon here, because
we just talked a couple of days ago, I don't have much much of
an update for you except for museum stuff. Repping Meldrem at the museum this
week. But he's not the only one. The lovely and talented Matt Prue
will be out with his lovely and talented wife Emily and going to have Michael
Freeman and Ken Gerhart staying at the house on Thursday night before we go to
squatch Fest this weekend. A lot of stuff going on, dude, I'm
bombed. I can't make it up there. For especially with Proop in there.
I was like, gods, like, we could do this live,
like, you know, all three of us in the same movie. Great,
but it's not working out. Well, you know, maybe there's a
chance later on in the year where I was talking to Matt about maybe bringing
him out later in the year or something for an event, because people were
asking if Matt's can be speaking at the museum anytime soon, so well,
there's a good reason to bring him out. I've also been going to get
a lot of feedback on some comments I made a few weeks ago about the
Ape Canyon stuff. A lot of people are asking there. I've been fielding
emails about what kind of event it's going to be, and it's going to
be a small event, just so people know, like we'll have Mark Marcell
at the museum, and although the demand seems to be there that maybe we'll
just do two nights in a row with Mark, which is great because that
means Mark's sleeping at the house and we're hanging out having a campfire. And
there are a few people on the planet that I love more than Mark Marcell.
Oh God, Yeah, he's the best. He's the best. So
finish one of the displays that's going to go hopefully later in the week as
well. Oh oh, check this out. I have some connections and this
is pretty mature, but there's an ever so slight chance that I have a
line on the original mining claim for Ape Canyon, the vander Whitemine, like
the actual original. Yeah, I know, I'm not crazy. We'll see.
I mean, that's such a long shot, but there's actually a little
glint of hope in there that that could end up with the museum. So
anyway, yeah, cool stuff's happening. But that's insane. It is insane.
It is insane. If that happens, don't you worry. I'll be
telling the world about it. But right now, it's just a it's a
big, big maybe in a big big question mark. So that's like kind
of the Magna Carta in your museum or something. Let alone the other thing
I told you about a couple of weeks ago that has some comeing to fruition
yet, like the NYBC might be home to some really interesting uh you know,
artifacts, like legit historical artifacts, downright religious artifacts honestly, So yeah,
you told me those things. If that works out, that's going to
be incredible. Yeah, cathedrals in Europe may have like the big toe of
Saint So and so man, but we're gonna have some amazing things in the
NABC for people to come check out. And you know, pray too.
Yeah. Yeah, So a lot of stuff's happening at the NABC, of
course, and you know a lot of stuffs happening with the podcast as well.
And one of the things that we're doing every single week I think everybody
knows is we have a member section. So after we talked to Kelly,
we're gonna be doing a whole new member episode there and we're going to try
to answer some questions we didn't get to last time in our Q and A.
So if you want to become a member, go to the website to
hit membership. The website, of course is Bigfoot to be on podcast dot
com hit membership stuff, and you know, for five bucks you get another
hour of content every single week, every single week. In case you don't
have enough Cliff and Bobo in your life, here's your opportunity. And of
course Matt PreO it's often on the call with us as well, So with
that though, Let's hop into the Kelly bird All interview. I've been looking
forward to this for a little while because Kelly's a good friend and I'm looking
forward to a great conversation. Well, folks, clipping Boba here for we
got a special guest today. Well, I guess we're special, but we
got an old buddy guy we've known since we got into the game. You
know, as far as meeting people, is a long time well respected researcher,
Kelly Burdall from Montana. Welcome aboard, Kelly. Welcome Kelly, Thanks
Cliff, Thanks Bobo. I was going to say, Bobs, Barrickman and
bird All back together again. It sounds like an awesome expedition team. I
think a law firm. Yeah, the three Bees and calls the Killer bees
Man. So like I was thinking of just the other day, man,
we've known you a long time, A long time, Yeah, for sure.
You know, I think my very first expedition was way back in ninety
nine with John Friedis, and that's when I met bobes for the first time.
Bobo was out there. John did a mission night Scream. It was
a thing through the BFRO back in the day, and it was my very
first thing. I just honestly just discovered internet and search engines at our school
because we got computers and internet at our school, and anyway, locked onto
the BFRO and got on a mailing list and John got me. I got
in touch with John and we had Mission Night Scream and and so you know,
we're pushing close to thirty years. I'd say, yes, No,
I mean I think I met you. I think I personally met you at
the the conference up in Bellingham. But what year was at two and five?
Two thousand and five? Yeah, yeah, so it's nineteen years for
us, and even on Bobo even longer. That's insane. Man. You're
a music teacher, right, Kelly, Yeah, yeah, I do.
I'm a high school band director out here in Bozeman, Montana. I think
you're a math major. Over thirty years, so yeah, you know those
early Mission Night Scream things. I mean, it seems like that has kind
of been lost to history, but that was a big thing for quite a
while. I mean, it was an important event. Is one of the
old semi organized expeditions out there at the time. And I think that Mission
Night Scream in one way or another eventually kind of planted the seeds for the
BFRO expeditions that are still ongoing today. But Mission Night Scream was something special
because it was BFRO related, but it wasn't BFRO wasn't really sponsored by the
BFRO or John Fredis just kind of take that and run with it before he
was Yeah, he was Fradus was into that thing. So, yeah,
tell us about those because that's something a little aspect of Bigfoot history that I'm
gambling that I'm betting here that most, if not you know, ninety nine
percent of our listeners probably know nothing about. Yeah. Well, I think
John, being a former police officer, had he had a really great idea,
and I think that, like you said, it's a precursor to even
that call blasting idea that really went viral basically for technique purposes. And so
his idea was, hey, man, let's get a bunch of people up
in some vehicles. Let's go way up in these mountain roads and spread out
at almost quarter to a half mile intervals with John and a giant damn speaker
he had in the back of the truck, and he would broadcast some alleged
bigfoot calls and the Ohio Howell as an example, across the you know,
the mountain canyons, and we'd be spread out probably over the span of four
miles and with each person with some kind of recording device. And then the
idea was if we did hear a reply, then we would break into an
active response team people, maybe a perimeter team, followed by or prefaced by
maybe a quick response team that gets tries to get in the location in an
effort to get some footage. And I think that was the initial idea behind
those boats. It was a basic idea, but it was a great idea
and it worked. I mean he had he didn't have success for a couple
of years he started, didn't have any success with them. He got in
the right spots and he really started started working. Well, this stuff was
mostly centered around northern California because he lived up there in the Crescent City,
right. Yeah, he started off going down well, he first started going
down southern Humble in the uh Robert Letterman's arranger down there in Redwood State Park.
So what kind of results were obtained on these expeditions. Well, I
remember on that first one, you know, at the time, we were
still using that high pitched call that people had attributed to a big foot,
but was later identified as a barred owl, and we we we had barred
owl responses, and so at the time, you know, most of us
had assumed that was a sasquatch, and so so it was really exciting at
that time. But later, you know, we realized this is probably just
that big screaming owl. But there were, you know, the various things
happened. We had something close it was crashing through the brush one of one
of the nights out there. And as Bobo said, you know, John
had some good responses because he did two or three of those mission night screams.
I think I only went on the first one, maybe the second one,
but it spearheaded me in that same direction, and I would borrow John's
equipment and go up to northern California and kind of do that kind of thing
myself. Where were you living at the time. I was living all the
way down in Bakersfield, California, Central California, and so it was a
trap. Man. I did not realize the length of the state, you
know, so I would have to drive twelve to fourteen hours to get to
that northern California area. Were you aware that there were Sasquatches in the Sierras
at that time. You know, I was still brand new at that back
in the mid to late nineties, and so I didn't necessarily at the time.
It wasn't until I really started going into research into the topic, realizing,
you know, and the hairy Man pictographs are there, the Sierra's are
right there. I've got Sequoia, you know, a couple hours away.
I was just missing a gold mine. Actually, I had no idea.
Yeah, I didn't. I didn't quite realize that either, because when I
started getting into it and back in you know, ninety to ninety three four
or somewhere in there. Yeah, Krantz was the only go to really,
I mean for me, because I like the science side of things, and
Krantz focused on the Pacific Northwest because that's where he lived. But he did
comment it seems to be a lot of good habitat in the Sierras, just
not a lot of stuff in there coming out of there to his ears at
least, you know, I had no idea about all the stuff that was
being done there at the time until I started teaming up with Kathy Musquitz.
At the time, it ounced Kathy's train. She kind of showed me what
was going on out there in the Sierras, and that became my go to
when I was living in Long Beach, California, you know, the southern
Sierras and whatnot right outside of Bakersfield, the Current River and all that jazz.
Yeah, exactly, Now, what put Bigfoot on your radar or what
put freightus in those guys on your radar? Really? After that? I
mean you said the Internet, You said the Internet, but like, but
when you sat down at the computer to look at the Internet for the first
time, you had to type in the word Bigfoot, Like there, what
was the seed of that? The seed for me was probably overall looking for
something more than just our everyday lives. That's that's around us there. For
some reason, I've had this driving passion for more than what we all know.
And I remember I there was a an old book my dad had in
a bookshelf, a little paperback, but it's got a picture of the Patterson
picture frame of the Patterson subject on the cover, and you know, but
it was for me, it was just anything outside the note the known quote
unquote known world that most of us are trapped in. And sometimes I feel
like it was the matrix right, there's there's got to be more out there,
and so yeah, so I've always been fascinated with things outside, you
know, just the physical world that's right in front of us. And and
so then it did lead me when it be a day after work one time
at the school I was teaching at, like I said, we had just
got an Internet, and I just said Bigfoot. I just did a search
for Bigfoot, and then I saw a title that said Bigfoot Sounds, and
I was like, what the hell? And so I clicked on and that's
when I heard the Ohio howell through the BFRO site first, and I was
absolutely blown away. I had never even thought that, well, of course
they would make sounds, and so was the That was the number one kickoff
for me. I investigated a little further, got on the mailing list of
the BFRO because I was like, this is so interesting. And shortly thereafter
is when Fredis sent out the note, Hey, we're doing this expedition in
northern California looking for people to come along. It's called Mission Night Scream,
you know, and the rest is history. On the Night Scream when that
you were on, was that the one in Bluff Creek. It was.
We did start in the Patrick Creek drainage up there on the one ninety nine,
I believe, and then in fact we started the Patrick Creek Lodge for
a big steak dinner and just kind of get to know each other and I
think there were maybe about fourteen of us all together, and then it did
lead down. We did that the first night, and then we did come
down and we did Bluff Creek also, and then like Bobo said, we
had moved over to I can't think of some of the names further to the
east and maybe the southeast from the Bluff Creek area, hay Fork and those
kind of things. Oh wow, he covered a lot of ground. Yeah,
that's the one thing that might be different is that it was about covering
as much territory as possible, trying to get a vocal reply. What do
you remember about those events, Bobo Kelly's good looks. Yeah. Just after
that, I did a trip with John alone and we went to Patrick Creek
and he said, he goes, yeah, I've got reports out of here.
But and he lived in Christian City. So that's del Noark County and
Patrick Strickson County and so I went out there with him, and that's where
I learned squatches because John was a terrible sleep app in you guy just snorting,
you know, like sounded like growling and all kinds of just crazy sounds
come out, and he was loud snore. And when we when he turned
in zip up his tent, he starts snoring. And I know it,
within like ten fifteen, twenty minutes, there would be I'd hear something coming
up, and then we had these two things walking around the camp on two
legs, and I was trying to wake John up, and then I'd try
to wake him up and they'd stop moving for like ten minutes and he wouldn't
wake up anyways. And so ye, that's why that's when I and I
ended up. The next time. I thought that I recorded him snoring.
That's why I used the snoring recording in my tent. I actually had a
couple of approaches doing that. So that was one thing I learned early on
on those things. Stay tuned for more Bigfoot and Beyond with Cliff and Bogo
will be right back after these messages. So so Kelly, at the time,
you probably picked up a lot of techniques and probably contacts and whatever from
these expeditions, because those are really the value of going on public expeditions is
learning new techniques and meeting new people. What did you do with that information?
Like, how did that help you in your own research? Sure?
Well that I tell you what that mission night scream. You know, again,
not ever having been involved with fellow researchers or any other people that are
interested in the topic, seriously interested. I wasn't sure what I was getting
into, Like, am I going to get put into this pile of crazy
people? You know? I really knew. I didn't know what to expect.
And when I met John, I met Bobo, and I Autumn Williams
was on there. Manny from Bedford, Oregon loved Manny. So I met
all these amazing people and it was and it was so exciting. And the
idea of there's tangible there's tangible results out here that that can substantiate, you
know, what we're trying to find and put all those things together. That
was the impetus that put the permanent or put the hooks in me. I
shouldn't say permanent, put the hooks in me to really be serious about this,
and like wow, like my mind is blown. But it wasn't until
the next one when I stayed friends with John and I asked if I could
borrow his blast, his broadcasting equipment, And that's when I took a small
group. I took three of my students, my high school students, my
sister and here fiance at the time, and borrow John stuff. We drove
all the way in northern California and we went up Bluff Creek, and that's
when we had a major, what I'll call a major incident at fish Lake.
Both you guys are familiar with fish Lake, I'm sure, and that
was the absolute permanent hooks. I'm in this top to bottom to the end,
because it was it was unreal that what had happened there, well tell
us about it. So we had driven up to the gate to go down
to fish Lake. In fact, it was either John or maybe through Bobo.
Through John. From Bobo, somebody had talked about what about fish Lake.
We've heard some stuff going on over at fish Lake, and so was
this was I believe either over spring break or it really doesn't matter. But
the point is that the gate at the top of the access to fish Lake
was locked. It was early enough in the season. They don't have people
coming down there, so the gate was locked. So we set up the
broadcast equipment. This is this is mid afternoon. We blew some calls across
the canyons, you know, set it out there as loud as we could,
just with the intent to try to attract anything. Put the stuff back
in the truck, locked it up, put on our packs, and we
hiked down the road, just walked the road down to the like, which
was about three mile walk. There was one other car there, those folks
had we met them on the way out. They got in the car,
they drove away. So we are alone in this this drainage up here,
and so we get down. We get to the campground. Literally, it's
the campground at the lake. You know, it's a it's a campground area.
And it wasn't week They're about five six pm. It was about nine
nine thirty and we're putting cooking a little bit of dinner and setting up the
tents, and all of a sudden, about fifty yards away from us,
we hear this whistle, like two short whistles, and then it was answered
by the most god awful scream I could ever imagine, the type of scream
that feels like it's peeling the skin off your face. It defies the scription.
Of course, this is before we had you know, automatic sound activated
recorders. I mean, we had a freaking cassette recorder where I have to
hit record with your thumb in order to you know, to actually record anything.
And so we missed that recording. But it was the most frightening thing
for all of us there. Of course, you know, I'm way into
this, but that's scared the crap out of me, and the other five
people were like ready to die in their shoes. So finally we settled.
Now, you know, we flipped on a couple of flashlights. We looked
over there. We didn't see any eye shine. We didn't see we didn't
see anything that could indicate what that could be, you know, And in
my mind it's like, well, I know that mountain lion screams can be
terrifying, and that would be a fine explanation if you didn't whistle the first
time, you know. All right, So one example, well, let's
fast forward three hours later. It's about midnight, midnight thirty, and we
are settling in for the night. A couple of us are standing over the
campfire, and the young kids are in the tent and they're they're nervous,
but they're going to they're ready to go to sleep. Whatever it was circled
around behind the camp to the exact opposite side. So again I said,
the first one was about fifty yards away. This was about twelve yards on
the opposite side, through a big wall of brush, but clearly in the
campground. The same sequence, we get the two whistles, and then even
closer and more insane scream right in our faces. You know, we hit
the record on everything, bust out the two million candlepower spotlight. All you
can see in the video is just the foliage reflecting the giant light. You
know. It's thick brush on that wall right there. And so we're just
like freaked out, you know. And and so then we're looking around.
I see something move. I look over, and this little fox comes out
and kind of trots away, and we were like, oh, okay,
that's what it is. The fox has a has a really big defense mechanism
to find off larger predators. And it was everything we needed just to rationalize
our fear at that time. Because it was so close. We didn't have
any weapons. We just we're just you know, ignorant kind of eye eve
new researchers. But that was enough for us to settle down. And then
again about five hours later, it was about five I remember five twenty three
am. I hear the whistle again, and for some reason, I'd just
woken up and I hear the whistle again. It screams in the middle of
our camp again. But I'm so tired and distraught and mentally just like fried,
like what the hell is going on? And some kids are yelling like,
mister birdle, that's just a fox, right, And I couldn't hear
what he was saying. I was yelling. I'm like, speak up,
I can't hear you. You know, we're all just derailed here, and
so whatever, me raising my voice actually sent it off pretty quickly, and
we heard it scream one more time from the forest as it kind of took
the paths around fish Lake, and that was the last we heard of it.
So and it really wasn't until later the afternoon of that same the day
the next day that we sat and really thought about it, and I said,
you guys, this fox thing is not sitting well with me and everybody
agreed, and we're like, that was not a fox. That was so
immensely powerful that sound, and we kind of said, it sounds like a
mad woman, like a crazed woman of the of the woods, which doesn't
make any sense, but you know, it was with depth. And so
that was the defining moment for me for sure, that holy grat there's something
really big happening out here to this day of the thing that scares me those
about sasquatch, like as far as getting hurt by one is having a heart
attack when they do that scream from point blank, like in the dark,
like hidden just out of view, and just the blast is so just so
overwhelming and tremendously tremendously big and loud and hits you just like you feel it
through your whole body. It's like, man, you could really have a
heart attack in one of those things. Right well, after these events,
the early days of your field experience, you became a bfro o AT investigator
around that time, I'm guessing, and you're still living in California. So
do you remember any particular citing reports or events that you were involved in that
you think would be fun to listen to? Honestly, because I left shortly
thereafter to go to Montana. To come to Montana. It wasn't until Montana
that, you know, it's a little bit more of a You got a
lot of people in California that are into Bigfoot, looking into it, researching
whatnot. And I felt like out in Montana it was quite substantially less folks
out here, you know, and yet many stories going around. So it
wasn't really until out here that I started talking to folks and hearing the different
stories and getting connected with BFRO reports and that type of thing. So I
would I would say one of the most kind of surprising ones that I had
out here was I think Matt called me personally or emailed me person and said,
hey, we've got this. We've got this thing that happened in North
Dakota. We had a flap in North Dakota and we're looking for an investigator
to go and like, my grandparents live out of there. My parents are
from North Dakota. And I was like, yeah, man, I could
check it out. You know, it's an eight hour drive, but it's
big for I'll do it. But at the same time, I'm thinking,
have you guys seen North Dakota. What the hell are you talking about?
You know, it is like the worst drive from like Mandan to Fargo.
It's terrible. But this, this particular incident happened up at Newtown, North
Dakota, and it was which is it's about fifty miles north of Dickinson,
right off the Dickinson's right on the nine ninety four, and in fact it's
right near that huge oil boom a few years ago. But this is way
back and I don't know, I'd say like oh four or so. And
what had happened was there. It was a flap of probably four different sightings,
and it was so interest because it was in the winter, and there
was a guy that worked in the tribal office. It was on a reservation,
and he had taken photographs of a line of tracks along the highway,
and so we had a photograph of a line of tracks. So as I
went up there, we arranged to meet with the folks at the tribal office.
And hearing that somebody was coming to talk about or ask questions about Bigfoot,
and people just started showing up. It was really interesting and so as
we put it together what happened the first incident was north of Lake Sakakawea as
while they call it out there, and there was a mother and two or
three young kids. The kids were outside playing right next to a cornfield or
some field, and a bigfoot had stepped out and walked along the edge,
and of course just in doing so terrified the kids and they the mom heard
them screaming. The mom saw it as it went into the field and kind
of dispeared and all that, and everybody came running inside. We tried to
talk to the mom and have, you know, just to interview her,
and she absolutely refused. She says, I want my kids to forget this
ever happened. And I'm thinking, you know, I've been a teacher for
a long time, that's not good child psychology. That maybe to repress this
experience, right, and so anyway, so we had no luck there,
but through the course of the investigation, what we realized is that somehow it
came from up there in the northern part, came down, then it walked
across the frozen lake Soakakawia, which is almost a mile across frozen ice wide
open. Of course, probably did it at night, right, But I
just thought that was so interesting that it just came across the entire lake and
based on where the next incident was, and it was another gal who was
working in her kitchen, working in her house, and I don't know if
she heard something outside, and maybe she's standing at the sink and washing dishes,
but she looks up at the window and it's staring at her through the
window, which for any normal person's going to scare the living crap out of
you. So she was just absolutely freaked. I think we talked to her
for a little bit, and it shortly after she screamed or whatever, it
took off, and then it went through another person's property and there was a
brief sighting there, and then the final sighting was these three guys were in
a pickup truck and they're driving south on the main highway that heads to Dickinson
and there it is walk They crest a hill on their truck and in broad
daylight, there's the subject walking down the side of the road away from them,
so they see it's back. It turns and looks at them and then
just jumps, jumped, just goes off the edge of the road down into
a little ravine and kind of disappeared down there through the light timber and brush
that they have there because the location is right adjacent to the the Teddy Roosevelt
National Park, which is the bad Lands of North Dakota, and a lot
of those little ravines are filled with timber and brush. It's really interesting terrain
and wind blown and whitewashed, and yet there's there are all these pockets of
timber and whatnot, and so and so we did talk to two of the
guys, the two younger guys in the pickup truck, and they both verified
that. We talked to the guy who took the photographs. I asked if
I could have a copy of the photograph of the line of tracks, you
know, and he said no, no, I'm hoping to sell these,
and I said, good luck. And but what was probably most telling is,
you know how the beliefs can be so strong amongst Native American folks,
and the shortly, like within a couple of weeks after that sighting in the
pickup truck, the older gentleman who was driving passed away unexpectedly, and so
that was a real tough thing for folks to even want to talk about it,
because their belief was that if you see one of these things it's coming
to tell you that something bad is happening. And then the man died two
weeks later, and so it was a very tender, and I say tender
like sore, raw experience for folks to share those stories of what happened.
But I was so surprised, you know, to see that happen in North
Dakota again rolling hills or flat fields with very little cover. But I think
the timber, any kind of cover and brush and that type of thing does
follow the Missouri River all the way back into Montana, and I think,
I think it can hold some cover. But to me, it was still
surprising. Second most surprising thing was then talking to all the folks again.
Like I said, we're sitting in this conference room in the tribal office,
and these folks coming in and coming in, and somebody else has a story,
and then they would tell somebody and they would show up and they were
just a dozen stories. Is I know both of you guys are really familiar
with on the reservations. You just get so many stories and it's so just
common knowledge, you know, about all of these these incidents or reports that
these folks have, And I was just kind of blown away at how many
folks had had stories out there. Stay tuned for more Bigfoot and beyond with
Cliff and Bogo. We'll be right back after these messages. That leads me
to another one here in Montana. Obviously, in Montana, we have a
number of reservations here, and you know, and sometimes it's tough to get
in touch with some tribal folks that we're willing to even reply to you and
talk to you about anything. But somehow, I, one of my best
friends, ended up marrying a gal who is part of the Flathead Coote and
I tribe up by pouls in Montana, up there at Flathead Lake, and
got me in touch with a gal who she worked with who has a friend
named Alan, and Alan and I are still friends to this day. And
Alan had gave me a lot of tips about the area up there, and
again on their reservation. It's very very common knowledge that you know that they're
up there, And in fact, Alan was working on a logging crew and
as they were coming down at the end of the day, they're driving down
a gravel road and he happens to look up at the side of the road
and there's one on this open hillside, there's a bigfoot running across, and
he said it unleashed a scream at him and then sprinted up and disappeared into
the timber. And so he's been he's been actively investigating too, and had
had some really cool experiences out there, he shared with me. And so
I've been able to out there a couple of times as well, you know,
and talk to different folks, but mostly hang out with him and talk
about just some of those experiences, you know, the typical well we went
through and when we came back down the road there was a log laying over
the top of it, or we've got these reply wood knocks, or we've
heard some distant vocalizations. And there's an area on the south end of that
reservation called the Jocko. They call it coincidentally enough, right, they call
it the Jocko and that's their wilderness area that frankly, no white man can
go. And I really wanted to investigate that area. And they'll say,
well, you can go up to the edge and this is as far as
you go. You guys can't go in here. And they were very gracious
to me, you know, in allowing me to just check out the area
and everything, but that's the one thing. You can't go into that area,
and that does border what's called the Rattlesnake Wilderness, which is straight north
of Missoula and out of Missoula, and that Rattlesnake area has come a number
of reports too, So you know, it's a thick timbered mountainous area,
and and it's at the southern end of the Mission Mountains, which are really
magnificent, super steep, beautiful mountains. And you know, without a doubt
there's there's an active population up there too. In your general area in Montana,
I don't think there's a lot of investigators out there doing much. I
mean there's some. I know that there's a handful of them, but it's
not like you know, say Washington, where you throw a rock and you're
gonna bring down a couple of bigfoot researchers. You know, out of Montana,
there's just fewer bigfooters doing things. But you're one of them, and
a lot of stories, I imagine, do come your way. And you're
located in Bozeman. Are you finding that the reports come out of the same
areas again and again or do you or they're a little bit more random.
I think what you'll find in Montana is there are pockets of mountainous area.
For instance, if you imagine the town Great Falls, it's kind of like
the center of the state. A little bit to the west inside and anything
east of Great Falls you have a sudden mountain range that pops up, surrounded
by hundreds of square miles of ranches of just flat or rolling hills. And
then a little bit further there'll be another mountain range that pops up as you
of course, as you go further to the northwest, it's heavy timber mountains
going right into the panhandle of Idaho and eastern Washington. And so even here
in Bozeman we have kind of the same thing. We're in a valley and
directly to our northeast is a mountain range that probably runs twenty thirty miles,
and directly south of us is another range, and it's more of a a
thicker, wider chunk of mountainous area that will go south all the way down
into Yellowstone. And so I think what we find is you'll get the reports
from those pockets of areas, and so I obviously they tend to correlate with
those little pockets of mountains. As you get into the further northwest, I
mean there's some serious remote wild areas. The Bob Marshall Wilderness, for instance,
is an immense amount of a million acres essentially square acres that that it's
roadless, it's wilderness, you know, and people just don't go out there
unless you're on foot, and it's so immense that they're just there's just not
a tangible correlation between the population and then going out there because there's so few
folks that that really get into the thick of it there. So I think
it also correlates with the sighting reports will correlate with where people are going.
You know. For instance, there's an area south of Great Falls, between
Helena and Great Falls, little drainage area called the Deerborn River, and there's
been a number of reports that have come out of the Deerborn and so it's
just you know, it's where people are going to recreate and catching the edge
of some of these wilderness areas. And as I was saying about Bozeman,
you know, when you guys were out here with the Finding Bigfoot show,
we talked to a friend of mine named Redge and so directly west of Bozeman
is another mountain range that kind of runs north south, you know, and
then it'll stop and and and there's been a number of reports between here and
Butte, you know. And you've got that the high nineties, the major
major thoroughfare through the state, and those there are reports that come from that
area. And there's a big recreation area even in an off road ATV area
just north of that that freeway that a lot of people will drive through there,
and yet you still have you have reports from that area too, So
so I guess it's it's random in the sense that the state is so damn
big, but they do tend to follow areas of forests and mountains or even
river bottoms. And the case in point is as the Missouri River makes its
way meanders from the Great Falls areas straight to the east, there have been
a number of reports on the river bottoms between Great Falls and say Sydney,
Montana, which seems surprising because that's straight open, similar to North Dakota terrain.
But there have been a number of reports, and those of course coincide
with Native American reservations. So Kelly, I mean like being a you know,
a Copper Forest ranger park ranger. Like everyone knows that that's a great
way to get reports or here stuff. But you being a high school teacher,
like a relatively large high school, you know for Montana, you must
get reports that way through the kids since you're known there's a bigfoot guy,
and like you get a little reports like former students and like parents of students
that sort of thing. Is that a great spot for you, there's away
from you to generate reports. Absolutely, Yeah, it's a great way to
generate that. I'll tell kids about some of my history and share some stories
with them, you know. And it's interesting too, is more and more
kids come through. I feel like there's a higher and higher level of skepticism,
which kind of surprises me a little bit. But it's my job to
educate, so that's what I'm going to do. But yeah, it's a
huge network. You know. It'll be talking about something and after class,
maybe a kid comes up, or even in the middle of class because kids
like to raise their hand and get some attention, and the kid will say,
spurt all my uncle so blah blah blah. You know, gives me
a story or totally random opportunities fall into my lap, which could be a
coworker of mine who said, yeah, whatever, bigfoot, Yeah whatever,
you know. And then he's out elk hunting one time, not too far
from here actually, and he said, yeah, out really early, was
still dark. I was torn trying to get to my spot. So it's
about five in the morning, and I hear the loudest, deepest call I've
ever heard come out of these mountains, and I said, could it have
been cattle? Sometimes they run cattle through there. He's like, I wondered
that too. He's like, no way, that was not cattle, no
matter what. And then in the same area, like a couple months later,
he's hunting Summit generally the same area. Thought he saw something brown through
the forest and he's ready. He's like, oh, it's an elk.
I'm going to go down there. But as he's watching it, he sees
legs, like bipedal legs, take two steps and kind of disappear in the
brush, and he's like, what the hell you know? So and so
it's just happened to be a guy I happen to work with at that time.
And then I have a custodian come to me and tell me Hey,
I know you do Bigfoot. My buddy went up with his wife. They're
backpackers, they're way up in the back forty and they were harassed all night
long. Just growled at green dad, branches, broke, dirt thrown,
I mean, everything was crazy. And he said his wife they've been doing
this their whole life. His wife will no longer go in the mountains with
him, period. Paragraph And I'm like, tell me where it is I
need to go, you know, And the guy says he thinks it's too
dangerous. He doesn't want to tell anybody. And I'm like, dude,
so you know, so I just I sit there helpless sometimes, you know.
Or here's another one. As I mentioned Reg before, he's the guy
who had the sighting that ran across the interstate up on top of the Butte
Hill that Cliff was reenacting some years ago. And Reg just came into my
office one day to look for a bass player. He needed a bass player
for the band. He runs and then he looks at the wall behind me.
He says, so you're into bigfoot, huh. I was like,
yeah, that's cool, and I do that and he says, well,
I saw one, and I said, what he says, well, I
saw one it ran across and you know, and that's how Reg and I
met, basically, and that story just fell into and it's pretty legit because
he was never looking for publicity, you know, and he just told it
as it were. And another kid who's whose trains horses and rides horses in
this arena, and the gal that owns the horse ranch or the arena told
her that she had a sighting. But I had to go to extreme lengths
just to find out, find out, find the gal, you know,
it's to make contact with the gal. And she told me, in fact,
that was one that Bobo had to try to reenact on a major road
just south or just north of Bozeman. And when you guys were out here
too, and she wasn't looking for publicity, it just stumbled across into my
lap. And so I do find a lot of those things happening, and
it's really fun. And I'm sure as you guys find too. You know,
you've got a little bit notoriety with your faces and your shows and whatnot,
but as people hear your story, if you're out to dinner with a
group or and somebody says, call I hear you do some bakefoot stuff,
then it lends itself to another, Yeah, my sister in law or blah
blah blah, and those stories just start popping in. But for sure,
you know, the high school is a pie slice of all of society,
right and and with that you get all different types of networking capabilities. Stay
tuned for more Bigfoot and beyond with Cliff and Bogo will be right back after
these messages, Kelly, I was wondering, what patterns have you noticed even
though over the twenty years now research or in your your zone in Montana,
what do you what do you seem like we're settings like elevation wise, like
certain times of the year. And then what food sources have you seen like
or hear about them repeatedly? Going to man, you've got things from the
spring as the thaw happens, you know, and that's you're not going to
get nearly as much evidence as it were in the winter, I feel because
you have so fewer people generally speaking, that are actually in the mountainous areas.
Because frankly, the Forest Service there's two steps here. The Forest Service.
They first of all, they shut off all the little back roads that
you could go just about anywhere. And that's one thing I've always noticed about
Bluff Creek is, Man, you've got a paved road that will drive like
eighty miles anywhere in the mountains, and then there's offshoots there. I mean,
your access is almost unlimited in Montana, at least in our area.
But I think generally speaking, the fish, Wildlife and parks have basically said
in the Forest Service, actually the for Service has said that we're going to
close us off because we want to keep it more pristine, and so they
closed off so many of those little offshoot roads into that here too. Bluff
Creek's been way shut down like that whole like yeah, like all the forces
out here have then shut down, like they use there's always an like they
always have some kind of and other budgets are less and road maintains is expensive.
But they decommissioned to eighty percent of the roads out out here. I
did not know that. Yeah, so you know, so then you you
couple that with in Irony there to me is okay, we're going to try
to maintain this as a as a wilderness area, but we're going to concentrate
all the human visitation into just these areas and just beat the tar out of
it, right. But secondly, in the winter, then they close off
the main tributaries off the main road entirely because you know, people are going
to try to get up there, and they're going to spend millions of dollars
trying to rescue all these idiot people who don't understand snow driving or what have
you. And so and so the access in the winter, basic is what
I'm saying is you have so fewer people going into the back country in the
winter, relatively speaking, compared to the summer months. And so I think
it's hard to gauge a good weather or a season pattern for that type of
thing. I know there was a really I had a report of a long
line of tracks in the snow. This is years ago on the western side
of it's called Baldy Mountain, just to the west of excuse me, just
to the east of Helena's Canyon Ferry Reservoir. It's one of the biggest freshwater
reservoirs in the state. And and uh, you know, just a long
long line of tracks in the snow. You know, as you guys well
know get you get both and then and then the spring thaw was where they
revealed that footprint which brought the Finding b foot team out here, that footprint
that was submitted to Bfroro by those folks in the mud which is just in
the drainage south of Bozeman right here. So I don't think I give you
a really good ants are in terms of seasonal patterns. No, you didn't.
And I just honestly, I just I think it's it's that and the
extent of the maybe we have seventeen million acres of forest in Montana or in
Montana, and it's kind of like, man, how do you even determine
that? You know? And and then in all fairness, I've been just
kind of unplugged a little bit, having young kids and and so just trying
to start getting back in the game and really getting after this again. I
will say to answer your second question, the food, the food options are
immense. You know, You've got you've got all kinds of freshwater fish in
all the waterways in Montana, including shellfish. We got you know, all
kinds of you call them crayfish or crawdads, but they're they're rampant through the
streams. And you've got any amount of small mammals from we got the woodchucks
to rabbits, to squirrels, to raccoons, porcupines if they want to go
that route, you know, and then a massive amount of deer and especially
elk. The elk population is really high right now in Montana, and in
fact, the fishing game are looking at public comment and how to manage these
massive alkords and so, you know, and not to mention berries, why
do we have such a huge population of bears, because there's also an immense
amount of natural wild berries throughout throughout all of our deforested areas in Montana.
Well, Kelly, it's been great reconnecting with you. I mean, you're
an old friend that we never never have a chance to get together. That's
one of the greatest regrets about finding Bia going off the air is that I
don't get a chance to see my friends that I would see every once in
a while because I'm not traveling extensively like I used to see, or like
I like I used to do. And I don't think i've even seen you
since we filmed in Bozeman. I know, we reach out every once in
a while and say hi and the stuff, but it was great to reconnect
with you once again. So we got to make sure that we do this
little bit more often. Yeah, definitely, I feel the same way.
And you know, there's the people like minds and like purpose are just you
know, they are special people in our lives. And I definitely appreciate the
time I've had with both you guys and learned from your expertise, and you
know, and hopefully we all learn from each other. And I just love
hanging out with you guys too, And so anytime you're in the area,
you let me know, and I'd love to love to see in person.
Yeah, Kelly, thanks so much, and good luck all your adventures you
got going on, and say how to the kids for us, I certainly
will. Guys, thanks so much for the time. I appreciate it,
all right, bar all right, folks, hit like hit share, give
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