Speaker 1: Yeah, spanning the entire globe, involving hundreds of different cultures,
Speaker 1: explaining the same phenomenon by different name.
Speaker 2: The nature of the footprints, namely their remarkable consistency, their
Speaker 2: biomechanical appropriateness. You know, those.
Speaker 3: Aspects that that are are extremely compelling.
Speaker 4: Mm hmmm.
Speaker 5: Hey guys, welcome to the big Foot Influencers. My name
Speaker 5: is Tim Howaran and.
Speaker 4: I'm Dana Halleran, and we're so excited today that have
Speaker 4: a very very special guest we do.
Speaker 5: We have an awesome guest coming on and we'll tell
Speaker 5: you who it is in a second, but we leave
Speaker 5: you hanging for a minute, not that long.
Speaker 3: But so what's going on within I was just.
Speaker 4: Like reading an article today. It was actually in Popular Mechanics,
Speaker 4: and it's about a giant rat that was supposed to
Speaker 4: be extinct. You know, hence going into the whole idea
Speaker 4: that there are a lot of things that either we
Speaker 4: think or extinct or don't exist, but we're discovering all
Speaker 4: the time. And so researchers had long feat fear that
Speaker 4: this Vanguonu giant rat is native to the forest of
Speaker 4: the Solomon Islands, had gone extinct. You know, they had
Speaker 4: a lot of people that lived there who had you know,
Speaker 4: eyewitness accounts, you know, kept on telling everybody this thing
Speaker 4: is still around. It's about twice the size of a
Speaker 4: normal rat, so it's not like a tiny creature. And
Speaker 4: finally in twenty seventeen, some loggers had found a dead
Speaker 4: one and so they set up like one hundred trail
Speaker 4: camps all throughout the island and we're able to capture
Speaker 4: four images of this creature and so it's not extinct.
Speaker 4: It does exist, and it's a pretty big animal for
Speaker 4: them thinking it was extinct. So just goes to show
Speaker 4: you could be the same thing with a lot of
Speaker 4: other animals that we have here on earth.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so that actually, I mean our guests will probably
Speaker 5: have had kind of been sight in on that.
Speaker 3: He's so well rehearse even though this is a big
Speaker 3: foot show.
Speaker 5: But you know, yeah, but other things all related.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And so this just so you know, if you
Speaker 4: want to look into it. It's a popular mechanics article
Speaker 4: from December first. But I thought it was really interesting.
Speaker 3: That is fascinating. So let's talk about our guests.
Speaker 4: Yeah, let's talk about.
Speaker 3: So we have.
Speaker 5: Ken Gerhard joining us today and I was so fortunate
Speaker 5: to meet Ken last summer. Right we were I was
Speaker 5: in I was at a conference at the Cryptid and
Speaker 5: Paranormal Festival in Perthay and Boy in New Jersey, and
Speaker 5: I was there and I knew Ken was speaking, and
Speaker 5: I was catching up with our friend Estabon Sarmiento. So
Speaker 5: we we got to break bread beforehand, and we hung
Speaker 5: out for dinner, and I.
Speaker 3: Just got no Ken.
Speaker 5: He's just such a genuine, intelligent, well rounded I just
Speaker 5: I just love him.
Speaker 3: He's just a great guy.
Speaker 4: And that's why I'm so excited to meet him too,
Speaker 4: because you know, after having this time with Ken, Tim
Speaker 4: was just going on and on and on about him,
Speaker 4: and you know, we see him all over the documentaries
Speaker 4: and he's got you know, a bunch of awesome books out,
Speaker 4: but you know, I don't think he gets interviewed very often,
Speaker 4: and so we we feel a great honor and privileged
Speaker 4: to have him here on the show too.
Speaker 5: It is definitely and he's going to be at in January,
Speaker 5: so we're going to be at squatch Fest. So for
Speaker 5: the audio that's coming up in January, I think we're
Speaker 5: going to have some folks from squatch Fest the organizers
Speaker 5: on the podcast to talk about it. I think they've
Speaker 5: done it for thirteen or fourteen or fifteen years, and
Speaker 5: it's in Washington State. There's gonna be an amazing lineup.
Speaker 5: And Ken Gerhart's gonna be there too, I know so,
Speaker 5: and we're gonna be there. We're gonna We're not gonna
Speaker 5: be speaking, but we're gonna do some things to help
Speaker 5: the event.
Speaker 3: I think a little bit, are we, Yeah, a couple
Speaker 3: of things.
Speaker 4: Tim always gets me into things that I know nothing about.
Speaker 4: So I'll arrive someone and be like, oh, guess what, Tina, Yeah,
Speaker 4: we have to do a speaking event.
Speaker 3: Anyway, let's bring Kennon.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's Ben. Wait long enough, let's bring him in.
Speaker 4: All right, there he is.
Speaker 2: Hey, Ken, Hey guys, it's great.
Speaker 4: To be awesome to have you on the show.
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you so much.
Speaker 4: I appreciate it, so excited.
Speaker 2: Appreciate your kind words, and it's an honor and a
Speaker 2: pleasure to be here with you.
Speaker 4: Awesome.
Speaker 3: So what do you think about the giant rat thing?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's pretty cool. Several people. Typically when something like
Speaker 2: that breaks in the news, people will send me the
Speaker 2: clips and links and so forth. Yeah, you know this
Speaker 2: is a perfect example of the Lazarus taxing. There's something
Speaker 2: that happens in zoology where an animal is thought to
Speaker 2: be extinct Lazarus, like Lazarus from the Bible, and taxing
Speaker 2: taxonomy is classify. Yeah, it comes back, you know, the
Speaker 2: yellow wallaby, the Chacohan pekeery in South America. So yeah,
Speaker 2: these are things you know that science sometimes writes, writes
Speaker 2: things off a little bit too soon. And it's always
Speaker 2: a great pleasure as a obviously as a cryptosoldist, but
Speaker 2: also just a naturalist and a fan of of the
Speaker 2: animal kingdom in general. I think it's always cool and
Speaker 2: when a species is kind of rediscovered, so so yeah,
Speaker 2: obviously that this adds a little bit of ammunition to
Speaker 2: the argument that there are things out there that that
Speaker 2: science is not aware of. And of course on the
Speaker 2: remarkable end of the spectrum would be something like Bigfoot
Speaker 2: or the sasqua but it's not impossible.
Speaker 4: Yeah. And also being that the Sasquatch is, you know,
Speaker 4: a highly intelligent creature and much more capable of being
Speaker 4: aware of activities probably done by us, they're much better
Speaker 4: at being elusive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's that's certainly one way to characterize it.
Speaker 2: You know, one of the theories that I kind of
Speaker 2: put out there is what I refer to as avoidance behaviors.
Speaker 2: So intelligence in the animal kingdom can be measured in
Speaker 2: a lot of different ways in terms of how animals
Speaker 2: are able to overcome challenges and so forth. In terms
Speaker 2: of bigfooter sasquatch, if it exists, I'm assume, I'm assuming
Speaker 2: that it's an incredibly rare animal, so it's you know,
Speaker 2: something that there. If there were more of them, you know,
Speaker 2: we'd probably know they exist by now, so they must
Speaker 2: be very rare. But I think moreover there, probably they've
Speaker 2: have behavioral adaptations specifically to avoid being found by us.
Speaker 2: So they would be intelligent enough to go to your
Speaker 2: point data to recognize that humans, Homo sapiens, are the
Speaker 2: greatest threat for their extinction, and perhaps if we've lived
Speaker 2: alongside them for thousands of years, they saw what happened
Speaker 2: to some of the other hominins that Homo sapiens eradicated
Speaker 2: or replaced, out competed, and so forth. So, you know,
Speaker 2: would makes sense that these avoids behaviors would include, you know,
Speaker 2: living in areas that humans don't go moving around quite
Speaker 2: a bit and moving out of the area when we're around.
Speaker 2: You know, I think generally these are reticent animals that
Speaker 2: don't want any contact with us. And you know, I
Speaker 2: think that that can be you know, but there's evidence
Speaker 2: of that in the patters in Gimlin film and numerous
Speaker 2: encounters where people and you see these things and they're
Speaker 2: hiding behind trees. You know, they tend to move away
Speaker 2: from us quickly when they're when they're seen.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and Ken, you have you have you found? And
Speaker 5: I know the answer is yes, but I just want
Speaker 5: you to explain it other animals that are known to
Speaker 5: us that do the same thing well as or as
Speaker 5: the avoidance piece.
Speaker 2: You know, a lot of animals, particularly the animals that
Speaker 2: have that are hunters and predators. Things like cats are
Speaker 2: very elusive obviously there. Yeah, any cat species is built
Speaker 2: to not be seen. I mean, they're ambush predators, so
Speaker 2: they don't want to be seen by anything. They're hunting.
Speaker 2: But they're typically not seen by humans, even in areas
Speaker 2: where we know they're healthy populations. For example of pumas,
Speaker 2: you know, we see their tracks, we see other evidence
Speaker 2: that they're there. There's scap piles and so forth. But
Speaker 2: what we don't see is the actual animal very often. Now,
Speaker 2: of course, if you spend enough time in the outdoors,
Speaker 2: you might catch a feeding glimpse of a bobcat or
Speaker 2: a puma at some point. So typically it is animals
Speaker 2: that are higher up on the on the intelligent scale.
Speaker 2: But you know, you see examples every day. I go
Speaker 2: hiking every morning, and there's tons of deer around where
Speaker 2: I live, and you know, sometimes that dear will be
Speaker 2: right out in front of me on the trail and
Speaker 2: it just takes a few steps into the brush and
Speaker 2: I can't see it anymore. Even if the brush isn't
Speaker 2: real heavy, it just has a way of kind of
Speaker 2: camouflaging itself. So so I think there are a lot
Speaker 2: of examples in the animal kingdom of species that recognize
Speaker 2: humans are dangerous or sense that humans are dangerous and
Speaker 2: move away from us quickly and are just good at
Speaker 2: not being found.
Speaker 4: That's a great point. I was actually reading another article
Speaker 4: today about how Homo sapiens, you know, like what happened
Speaker 4: to all the other Homo genesis in the in the
Speaker 4: world that existed. You know, Neanderthals were thought to exist
Speaker 4: about thirty to forty thousand years ago and what was
Speaker 4: their demise? And scientists are thinking that it was the
Speaker 4: Homo sapiens that into bread into bread and kill them off,
Speaker 4: or we're just lot more intelligent were able to survive longer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's a fair assumption. To some extent,
Speaker 2: we assimilated them, but we also eradicated them, probably in
Speaker 2: direct conflicts. Same can be said of the denisivans in Asia,
Speaker 2: Homo floresiensis, you know, Homo noletti and Africa was around
Speaker 2: only fifty thousand years ago. But all these species presumably
Speaker 2: are no longer around now. I don't want to sound
Speaker 2: like a hypocrite because I think bigfoot sasquatch is the exception.
Speaker 2: I think there is one species of relic, Homminin that
Speaker 2: did survive, and very small numbers probably, And again much
Speaker 2: of that may be due to these avoidance behaviors that
Speaker 2: they basically just figured out at some point that they
Speaker 2: needed to stay away from humans and retreat farther into
Speaker 2: the deep wilderness.
Speaker 4: And what do you think about the possibility ken that
Speaker 4: it could also be their size and strength that made
Speaker 4: them a lot more resistant to you know, human you know,
Speaker 4: danger from humans, being like if this thing is, you know,
Speaker 4: really seven feet eight feet tall. I mean, you know,
Speaker 4: there's only so much we can do.
Speaker 5: It's something that really can't be hunted and chased down
Speaker 5: because they can fight back too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a fair point from an ecological standpoint. I
Speaker 2: frequently make the argument that bigfoot is very similar to
Speaker 2: to the bears that we have here in North America
Speaker 2: black bears versus AMERICANUS brown bears of course, versus arc
Speaker 2: dose MIDDENDORFII. Not so much polar bears. But they feel
Speaker 2: a similar ecological niche in that they are probably, based
Speaker 2: on the evidence, generalist omnivores opportunistic dominnivar. So they eat
Speaker 2: a lot of things, a lot of different types of things,
Speaker 2: and they would have to if they're big and endothermic,
Speaker 2: and they live in they seem to live in a
Speaker 2: lot of the habitats. Yeah, I'm sure you guys have
Speaker 2: heard about that study that was done a few years ago,
Speaker 2: and also the overlays and correlations between populations of bears
Speaker 2: and assumed populations or alleged populations of bigfoot that those
Speaker 2: overlap very well, and that would make sense in terms
Speaker 2: of animals that fill a similar ecological niche. You know,
Speaker 2: keystone species, they're apex predators when it comes to the
Speaker 2: pretty much anything on the food chains. So yeah, they're big,
Speaker 2: they're powerful. Jeff Mildrim of course, also always likes to
Speaker 2: talk about how, you know, we're built for brains and
Speaker 2: Bigfoot is built for brawn. That's obvious to some extent
Speaker 2: because of the sheer size and stuff. But I think,
Speaker 2: you know, short of like tool use and fire use,
Speaker 2: we don't have any evidence of anything along those lines culture,
Speaker 2: language or anything like that. But again, you know, they
Speaker 2: may have a level of intelligence in terms of recognizing,
Speaker 2: you know, what is dangerous to them, and there probably
Speaker 2: aren't many things out there the threat them are that
Speaker 2: are dangerous to them because of their massive size and
Speaker 2: mobility and so forth.
Speaker 5: But we certainly are Well, you just mentioned language can
Speaker 5: and so do you think I mean, there's been some
Speaker 5: recordings obviously, maybe one of the most famous is what
Speaker 5: the Cira sounds?
Speaker 3: Do you think?
Speaker 5: Do you think there's some type of language from everything
Speaker 5: that you know, everything that you've researched and looked.
Speaker 2: Into, I haven't seen any evidence of that, And of
Speaker 2: course i've heard our Scott Nelson do a presentation on
Speaker 2: you know, on the Sierra sounds, and you know, he's
Speaker 2: he obviously is a linguist, and a lot of people
Speaker 2: have put a lot of weight into his conclusions. It's interesting.
Speaker 2: I don't know how much of that, if any, has
Speaker 2: been peer reviewed, and I think that's where you would
Speaker 2: really have to go to, you know, build an argument
Speaker 2: for that. But certainly, as primates, they are you know,
Speaker 2: good at communicating, and there is ample evidence that they
Speaker 2: use a variety of different types of vocations whistles, howls, screams, moans,
Speaker 2: teeth clacking, wood knocking, and all these different things. So
Speaker 2: they probably have ways to communicate with each other. And
Speaker 2: a lot of animals, do you know, primates, monkeys and
Speaker 2: things use a lot of facial expressions but also a
Speaker 2: variety of different types of sounds with each other to
Speaker 2: communicate to each other. Other animals species have ways of
Speaker 2: communicating with each other that are more subtle, you know,
Speaker 2: particularly things like danger and follow me and that kind
Speaker 2: of stuff. So yeah, that would make sense. But you know,
Speaker 2: in terms of language, I mean, again, certainly there's no
Speaker 2: evidence that they have any civilization or culture or anything
Speaker 2: like that. So I think in terms of what we
Speaker 2: consider to be language in our species, which is a
Speaker 2: pretty advanced and complex and we actually have probably thousands
Speaker 2: of languages on our planet, right, So, but languages are,
Speaker 2: you know, have a pretty it's a pretty in depth
Speaker 2: concept in terms of the number of different types of
Speaker 2: expressions and ideas that can be conveyed. And I don't
Speaker 2: see any reason based on their physical descriptions, which we've
Speaker 2: already talked about, that they would have that capability. And
Speaker 2: also you know the fact that most people have described
Speaker 2: their heads as looking like what kind of receding right,
Speaker 2: kind of that conical head with the receiving foe and
Speaker 2: the heavy brow ridge that's that's frequently described, So that
Speaker 2: would indicate that they do have a somewhat of a
Speaker 2: smaller brain or more of a primitive you know, maybe
Speaker 2: more in lines of a great ape or something like
Speaker 2: Homo erectus or an australiapithesceene, not the fifteen hundred cubic
Speaker 2: centimeters that we have on average, but you know, maybe
Speaker 2: something half that. So it just doesn't make sense to
Speaker 2: me that they would have a true language, right, And.
Speaker 3: I think we get hung up in my ignorance too
Speaker 3: with it is.
Speaker 5: They all aimals communicate, so they know how to communicate
Speaker 5: with each other.
Speaker 2: Whales, so yeah, birds obviously great communicators.
Speaker 4: So mm hmmm, yep, Yeah, they definitely know if they
Speaker 4: even Yeah, when we're eating chicken and she wants.
Speaker 2: Them, she.
Speaker 4: Has a yeah, it's.
Speaker 3: Well and in ken'scott it. You know.
Speaker 5: Obviously, in addition to traveling the world doing you know,
Speaker 5: studying different types of potential cryptids and things like that,
Speaker 5: he also works at the San Antonio Zoo, so he
Speaker 5: gets I mean that he's with animals all the time.
Speaker 5: So do you want to share just a little.
Speaker 3: Bit about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm actually a docent or a volunteer educator at
Speaker 2: the San Antonioso. Have been there eight years and it's
Speaker 2: been an amazing experience. You know, at first, I'm not
Speaker 2: sure they knew what to do with me, but in
Speaker 2: recent years they've really kind of welcomed me into the
Speaker 2: what I do. And you know, I as a voluntary educator,
Speaker 2: I do, you know, tours for class classes kids, and
Speaker 2: I interpret exhibits at the zoo for people that are visiting.
Speaker 2: But in recent years they've actually had me doing lectures
Speaker 2: and presentations on cryptozoology and things like Bigfoot at the
Speaker 2: zoo for some of the guests, which is actually a
Speaker 2: pretty big deal because we're a scientifically accredited organization. We
Speaker 2: carry three major accreditations, including the AZA, and so we
Speaker 2: are a full on scientific organization and so the fact
Speaker 2: that they've kind of let me in and let me
Speaker 2: talk about some of these topics is pretty exciting because
Speaker 2: you know, we're in the big fulfilled we're always bemoaning
Speaker 2: the fact that science doesn't take an interest in what
Speaker 2: we're doing or talking about. Now, I'd also add in
Speaker 2: that the San Antonio Zoo is the only zoo that's
Speaker 2: ever mounted an expedition for something like Bigfoot to my knowledge,
Speaker 2: and this was back in nineteen fifty seven when they
Speaker 2: searched for the Yetti. They actually the San Antonios sponsored
Speaker 2: one of the Tom Slick Yetti expeditions back ineteen fifty
Speaker 2: seven in the Himalaya. So we have a history at
Speaker 2: our zoo of actually you know, or a connection to cryptozoology,
Speaker 2: I should say, which is pretty cool.
Speaker 4: So, Ken, I have oquaick question for you, because I'm
Speaker 4: sure that most of your time, uh like on these
Speaker 4: type of programs or whether you're in a documentary. You know,
Speaker 4: probably a lot of the time you're talking about Bigfoot,
Speaker 4: what is what is like the So what are some
Speaker 4: of your other cryptos that you are very interested in?
Speaker 2: Well, I kind of started my feet my journey in
Speaker 2: the field of cryptozoology seriously with reports of what are
Speaker 2: called thunderbirds or big birds, which are giant wings you know,
Speaker 2: birds or some people described and was looking like giant
Speaker 2: flying reptiles, like pterodactyl type things, but not certainly not.
Speaker 2: Reports are not as prevalent as Bigfoot by a long shot,
Speaker 2: but there are, you know. I've interviewed dozens, if not hundreds,
Speaker 2: of seeing an incredible eyewitnesses who swear they've seen winged
Speaker 2: animals with fifteen twenty foot wingspans, and of course science
Speaker 2: doesn't acknowledge it. Anything like that exists. That was a
Speaker 2: subject of my first book, which was called Big Bird,
Speaker 2: Modern Sightings and Flying Monsters. I've been on a number
Speaker 2: of television shows about the so called Chupacaba, you know,
Speaker 2: about both here in Texas and in Mexico, and of
Speaker 2: course most people will think of Puerto Rico and other
Speaker 2: Latin American countries. I've written a book about the Mofman,
Speaker 2: which I guess would kind of go in the wing
Speaker 2: cryptid category. And just recently I returned from Lockness. So
Speaker 2: I've done research at Lockness for the Lockness Monster and
Speaker 2: other lake monsters across North America, Canada and so forth,
Speaker 2: big mystery, big cats, black panthers. So yeah, I'm blessed
Speaker 2: to be considered one of the generalists in the field
Speaker 2: of cryptozoology. Or you know, I do research a lot
Speaker 2: of gift subjects, not just Bigfoot or sausquatch.
Speaker 4: So so I don't really have much knowledge at all
Speaker 4: about the thunderbird. Can you, like, do you guys have
Speaker 4: evidence or like I mean, I'm looking behind you and
Speaker 4: you've got tons of big Foot footprints behind you, and
Speaker 4: we've got you know, we've got some video footage, whether
Speaker 4: people believe them to be true or not. What do
Speaker 4: you do you have anything like that on any of
Speaker 4: the other cryptids.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately not. Let's use thunderbirds as an example. Unlike Bigfoot,
Speaker 2: where like you said, we have physical trace evidence and
Speaker 2: the Patterson Gimmen film and hares and audio sample audio recordings, thunderbirds,
Speaker 2: all the evidence is anecdotal. There's no one has found
Speaker 2: to my knowledge a giant feather nest, egg, eggshell, giant
Speaker 2: pile of bird poop on their car, or anything like that.
Speaker 2: So it's it's all anecdotal. But you do have similar
Speaker 2: to bigfoot or sasquatch. You do have many different Native
Speaker 2: American traditions all across the continent that described giant birds
Speaker 2: that are much larger than eagles or anything known to
Speaker 2: the Lakota. It's the walkingon to the Pawnee, the Huhuck,
Speaker 2: the Cherokee have the planoa. You know, there's just a
Speaker 2: bunch of different names for them, but they're all essentially
Speaker 2: described thunder beams or thunderbirds giant birds. In modern times,
Speaker 2: there have been many sightings. There's one controversial film from
Speaker 2: Illinois from nineteen seventy seven that hasn't really convinced a
Speaker 2: lot of people, but it's interesting. But other than that,
Speaker 2: it's just a lot of people that I've run into
Speaker 2: that swear to me that they've seen something. And the
Speaker 2: average wingspan describes about fourteen feet. Now, it's an estimate,
Speaker 2: and obviously people have a tough time estimating size on
Speaker 2: things that are flying through the air or you know,
Speaker 2: different heights, and but the average wing span estimated is
Speaker 2: about fourteen feet. Some people say that it's much larger.
Speaker 2: Feathers usually solid dark color like black, gray or brown,
Speaker 2: hooked beak like an acepterorid, a raptor. So pretty consistent
Speaker 2: eyewitness descriptions like Bigfoot, many Native American traditions like Bigfoot,
Speaker 2: but very very little evidence or no evidence really outside
Speaker 2: of these stories and reports. So in that sense, it's
Speaker 2: much harder to make an argument for some thunderbirds. The
Speaker 2: evidence for lake monsters is very good. You have some
Speaker 2: compelling photos you have and films, you have some very
Speaker 2: consistent eyewitness descriptions. All of the lakes where these things
Speaker 2: are described and reported seem to be very similar types
Speaker 2: of lakes, very deep, cold, the Northern hemisphere kind of
Speaker 2: glacial lake like lock Ness, Champlain, Okanagan and so forth,
Speaker 2: inhabited by similar species of fish. There's sonar evidence of
Speaker 2: large contacts of large unknown objects in these lakes, hydrophone
Speaker 2: recordings of vocalizations. So yeah, so the evidence for the
Speaker 2: lake monsters like NeSSI is pretty strong. I think it's
Speaker 2: up there with Bigfoot or sasquatch, some of these other
Speaker 2: cryptids like thunderbirds, you know, not so much.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm.
Speaker 4: So here's a question about Lockness. So these monsters that
Speaker 4: are being found in these cold water deep lakes are
Speaker 4: they also because I think I don't think Lockness is
Speaker 4: connected to the ocean, is it? Or was it once
Speaker 4: it is? So there's something got stuck in there, h
Speaker 4: decided to live there and wasn't able to get out
Speaker 4: maybe or.
Speaker 2: Well, there's a term we use, anadromus, which basically means
Speaker 2: a species that travels from the ocean to fresh water
Speaker 2: on a periodic basis. Examples of this would be salmon, eels, sturgeon,
Speaker 2: sometimes sharks, So there are species that live in the
Speaker 2: ocean primarily and move into fresh water. And now Lochness
Speaker 2: is connected to the North Atlantic on both ends by
Speaker 2: a series of rivers, lakes, canals. Some of them are
Speaker 2: kind of shallow and well observed, so that you know
Speaker 2: that would be it would be tricky for them to
Speaker 2: get in and out. Lake Champlain where we have champ Champi,
Speaker 2: is connected to the Atlantic Ocean also by way of
Speaker 2: the Saint Lawrence River and then even Lake Okanagan and
Speaker 2: Canada where we hear the Ogo Pogo is connected via
Speaker 2: tributaries to the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean. So
Speaker 2: it's not impossible that these lake monsters are really sea
Speaker 2: monsters and that they only travel into lakes from time
Speaker 2: to time, which is why they're not seen all the time.
Speaker 2: And in fact, there is a long tradition you know,
Speaker 2: cryptozoology actually before it would because cryptozology was known as
Speaker 2: romantic zoology back in the nineteenth century, and the big
Speaker 2: topic back then was not bigfoot, it was sea serpents.
Speaker 2: And there are many reports, you know from the in
Speaker 2: the eighteen hundreds that the HMS data lists, the HMS Valhalla.
Speaker 2: You know, many people out at sea, usually in sailing ships,
Speaker 2: would see these things that look just like a lockness
Speaker 2: monster out at sea.
Speaker 4: So what's interesting is I think we have one close
Speaker 4: to us in the Chesapeake Bay called Chessie.
Speaker 2: Chess Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: So we're like we are. We live on the Den
Speaker 4: Marba Peninsula, so the west of us is the Chesapeake Bay.
Speaker 4: But I mean, who knows.
Speaker 2: That's so cool. And I just did a clip on
Speaker 2: CHESSI for a show I'm on called The Proof Is
Speaker 2: out There, which film in the new season, And there
Speaker 2: was someone that actually filmed something off the coast of
Speaker 2: North Caro Line, but which is not too far off,
Speaker 2: you know, south of there. Yeah, Chessie. There is actually
Speaker 2: some footage shot in nineteen eighty two. It's known as
Speaker 2: the Fru footage fr W, and it shows seemingly shows
Speaker 2: this animal that's you know, kind of undulating up and
Speaker 2: down on the water that's kind of unknown. That video
Speaker 2: was so compelling that it actually almost prompted the state
Speaker 2: of Maryland to declare Chessie a protected species. And in fact,
Speaker 2: the footage was shown to seven scientists at the Smithsonian Institute,
Speaker 2: including a guy named George zud who was a world
Speaker 2: famous herpetologist, and they agreed that it was an animal
Speaker 2: that they weren't familiar with. So that's that's some of
Speaker 2: the most compelling footage of an aquatic cryptid is of
Speaker 2: Chessie in the Bob Fru footage nineteen eighty two.
Speaker 5: Wow, we're going to write in my backyard, my whole
Speaker 5: life and that. Yeah, and you mentioned the Columbia River
Speaker 5: and we were watching something recently about before you know
Speaker 5: that they damned their dams all over the Columbia River.
Speaker 5: Now and then they find, yeah, they find sturgeon that
Speaker 5: probably got trapped and they get humongous, and people may
Speaker 5: mistake them for big sea serpents because they get big,
Speaker 5: but they're stunk because they can't get out anywhere, So
Speaker 5: right right.
Speaker 2: That that probably does happen. And yeah, well that's an
Speaker 2: example of an Anadramus species is the Pacific sturgeon Asa
Speaker 2: pencer montanus. But you know, there are some ten and
Speaker 2: eleven foot specimens that have been found in that Columbia
Speaker 2: River and some of the lakes in British Columbia and
Speaker 2: Idaho and so forth. So yeah, I could certainly explain
Speaker 2: some of the lake monster setings from that part of
Speaker 2: the country.
Speaker 3: Very cool.
Speaker 5: So, so you have so we're gonna get in Bigfoot
Speaker 5: here in a few minutes, I think, and we can
Speaker 5: already have. Yeah, but I want to talk about so
Speaker 5: ken has you've written how many books? Now?
Speaker 2: Six?
Speaker 3: Wow?
Speaker 5: So can you just for the audience, can you do
Speaker 5: it like a brief? You know, I know you run
Speaker 5: down I think you mentioned some of them already of
Speaker 5: what those books are, and maybe we can talk about
Speaker 5: where people can get the books if they won't get them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you, guys, I appreciate that. Yeah, my first book,
Speaker 2: Big Bird Modern Sightings of Flying Monsters. It's about the thunderbirds.
Speaker 2: I co authored a book called Monsters of Texas with
Speaker 2: my good friend and colleague, Nick Redfern. I live in Texas,
Speaker 2: so it was simple for us to kind of cover
Speaker 2: all the cryptids and monsters here Encounters with Flying Humanoids,
Speaker 2: which is about Mothman, and unfortunately that book is out
Speaker 2: of print, but I'm trying to revise that one at
Speaker 2: the moment. The Essential Guide to Bigfoot, The Essential Guide
Speaker 2: to the Lockness Monster and other Aquatic Cryptids, and a
Speaker 2: Menagerie of Mysterious Beasts, which covers a wide range of cryptids.
Speaker 2: And all of those books are available on Amazon. If
Speaker 2: people just go to Amazon and type in Ken Gerhard,
Speaker 2: I'm sure it'll take you to my author page and
Speaker 2: you can get copies there. Yeah. And I think we
Speaker 2: also people want to signed or personalized copies, they can
Speaker 2: contact me through social media and I'm happy to to
Speaker 2: send those directly as well. If people like the autograph.
Speaker 4: Or whatever, that's cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the nice touch. I always like doing that.
Speaker 4: Yah. And I think but one thing that I can
Speaker 4: say about your books is that it's I mean, I
Speaker 4: don't want to say, easy read, like it's like third
Speaker 4: grader kind of stuff. But it's just like you just
Speaker 4: have a great way of explaining things, and that I
Speaker 4: think the average person can really enjoy and even like
Speaker 4: especially The Essential Guide to Bigfoot. I think that's a
Speaker 4: great book first book for somebody or even somebody who
Speaker 4: is really into Bigfoot. There's going to be stuff in
Speaker 4: there that they just never knew, So I think it's
Speaker 4: it could be good for a newbie or a person
Speaker 4: who is already into the subject for sure.
Speaker 2: Well, well, I appreciate that. I do consider it to
Speaker 2: be mainly a primer or an introduction to the topic,
Speaker 2: because you know, with the successive shows like Monster Quest
Speaker 2: and Finding Bigfoot and Expedition Bigfoot and all these different shows,
Speaker 2: there's a whole new generation of people that have become
Speaker 2: interested in the subject of Bigfoot, but unfortunately they don't
Speaker 2: have access to a lot of the resource materials that
Speaker 2: were kind of really important to my generation of bigfoot research,
Speaker 2: or the books by John Green and Grover Krantz and
Speaker 2: Peter Burne, and you know, all these guys are made
Speaker 2: to hinton the horsemen so as we call them, so
Speaker 2: so yeah, and you know, there's a lot of unfortunately,
Speaker 2: because we're living the world of clickbait and you know,
Speaker 2: people trying to direct traffic to different sites and articles.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of really bad information out there in
Speaker 2: terms of people making things up or you know, misinterpreting,
Speaker 2: or you know whatever. And I think if people are
Speaker 2: serious about the subject, I think we owe it the
Speaker 2: respect to get the facts right, the details right, and
Speaker 2: for people to have in order for people to form
Speaker 2: their own opinion about bigfoot or sasquatch, it's important to
Speaker 2: have reliable information that's been vetted. And you know, I
Speaker 2: often tell people there are a lot of things that
Speaker 2: we don't agree on in the big foot field, but
Speaker 2: you know, there are a lot of things that we do,
Speaker 2: and there are studies, analytical studies have been done on
Speaker 2: reports and footprint evidence and different things that have led
Speaker 2: us to some pretty decent conclusions that I think, at
Speaker 2: least for now, you know that that are the most
Speaker 2: sensible and pragmatic things. So I'm certainly not an advocate
Speaker 2: of the you know, paranormal aspect of bigfoot. I haven't
Speaker 2: seen or experienced any evidence of that, and I've been
Speaker 2: searching for forty five years all over the continent, and
Speaker 2: so I guess I'm classified as well. I started when
Speaker 2: I was like nine or ten years old, and I
Speaker 2: wasn't a normal kid. I mean, I've got a picture
Speaker 2: of myself in the Amazon at age nine with a
Speaker 2: primitive Yagua tribe. And you know, I was at locked
Speaker 2: Ness when I was fifteen years old doing field research.
Speaker 2: So this really has been like a lifelong pursuit of mine.
Speaker 2: I certainly never expected to make a career out of it.
Speaker 2: It's just been very blessed. But I've had a lot
Speaker 2: of fun.
Speaker 4: Can How did you end up in the Amazon at
Speaker 4: nine years old?
Speaker 2: Well, my mother was a travel agent and she was
Speaker 2: very adventurous, and so she arranged for she and myself
Speaker 2: and my sister to go to the Amazon, the proving Amazon,
Speaker 2: and basically we stated a remote jungle camp and for
Speaker 2: a week or two and met some of the local tribes,
Speaker 2: the Hivarro, the Yagua, saw a lot of amazing animals.
Speaker 2: I actually got scolded for picking up a wild tarantula,
Speaker 2: which you know what nine year old wouldn't do that, right?
Speaker 2: So yeah, so I've had a you know, the Galopagas Islands,
Speaker 2: I visited that same year. So yeah, I didn't have
Speaker 2: like a mini naturalist and want to be adventurer my
Speaker 2: whole life.
Speaker 4: Wow, I thought we had. Our youngest son is a
Speaker 4: big traveler too. I thought his passport was good. I mean,
Speaker 4: he's twenty, but I thought his passport looked good for
Speaker 4: a twenty year old. I'm sure Ken's was like, that's
Speaker 4: super super cool. Thank you, especially going to Scotland because
Speaker 4: you said you went to because that's where Lockness is, right, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: so you were there when you were fifteen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, my mom arranged for me and my dad to
Speaker 2: go to Lochness. And my dad's a big angler or fisherman,
Speaker 2: so he you know, he mainly was a want of fish.
Speaker 2: But I spent the whole time kind of hiking around.
Speaker 2: I had a little eight millimeter film camera. Certainly I
Speaker 2: was spent a lot of time sitting staring out at
Speaker 2: the lake hoping I would see something that I could
Speaker 2: film it. But I also interviewed local people, talked to
Speaker 2: a lot of the locals about, you know, what they
Speaker 2: thought it was and stuff. So that was kind of
Speaker 2: a seminal event in my young life when I was
Speaker 2: actually at a location where there was this great mystery
Speaker 2: and having an opportunity to do my own investigation.
Speaker 4: So how did you so had so you just recently
Speaker 4: got back from Lockness.
Speaker 2: Correct, was the.
Speaker 4: Last time you were there when you were fifteen?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, this was kind of like Itol. It was.
Speaker 2: It was I've been trying to get back there for years,
Speaker 2: but I finally had an opportunity and it was very surreal.
Speaker 2: The hotel that my father and I stayed at when
Speaker 2: I was fifteen is now the Lockness Exhibit Exit Exhibition Center.
Speaker 2: I got the title. It was a big lockedness Nessy
Speaker 2: museum there in the kind of drama drocket.
Speaker 4: How is that from Edinburgh?
Speaker 2: Oh you know it's about two and a half hours.
Speaker 4: Okay, yeah, because that's my friend Nikki is moving there,
Speaker 4: so maybe.
Speaker 2: That's all to go check it out, beautiful. Spent some
Speaker 2: time in Edinburgh. Edinburgh. It was during a big festival
Speaker 2: there that's very popular, so it was packed and there
Speaker 2: was a lot of people celebrating and playing music and
Speaker 2: so it's a it's a great culture. Scotland is and
Speaker 2: the closest town really or small city to Lockness is
Speaker 2: called Inverness, which is right on the north end and
Speaker 2: you know, it's grown a lot since since I was
Speaker 2: there when I was fifteen. I remember kind of a small, rustic,
Speaker 2: quaint town. But now they're like, you know, convenience stores.
Speaker 2: I remember walking into a convenience store there at Edinburnes
Speaker 2: and thinking, you know, this could be anywhere in the States.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just the convenience stars.
Speaker 4: I'm still you hear a little bit, and then when
Speaker 4: you hear somebody talk, you're like, what did you say.
Speaker 4: I know, for my time living in Europe and you know,
Speaker 4: having Scottish tourists come down to Italy where I lived.
Speaker 5: Yeah I could understand them.
Speaker 4: Did you have that same situation to some extent?
Speaker 2: And I was actually working with a film crew, so
Speaker 2: you know, not only Scotland, but you have different English
Speaker 2: People from different regions have different kind of accents. So
Speaker 2: you're talking to someone from Yorkshire. It's different from a
Speaker 2: Londoner from someone who's Welsh, you know, and so you
Speaker 2: just kind of you can usually understand. I can usually
Speaker 2: understand most of it, but yeah, there are.
Speaker 4: Times Scottish for me was just like well the just
Speaker 4: in general.
Speaker 2: The guy that was running the Lockness Expedition, Alan McKenna
Speaker 2: was a really cool guy. And uh he was a Scottish.
Speaker 2: I mean it was like a perfect Scottish rogue. And
Speaker 2: what I thought was really awesome is that he said
Speaker 2: I a lot whenever you said anything, I such aish phrase,
Speaker 2: I guess. But yeah, that was cool, and I got
Speaker 2: to admit the food it was it was great, but
Speaker 2: not very healthy, you know. I tried the black pudding
Speaker 2: and the pagas and the fish and sticks and pretty
Speaker 2: much everything there is deep fried and salty. So there
Speaker 2: was one time.
Speaker 4: A lot of salads are not known for their cuisine
Speaker 4: for sure.
Speaker 2: A lot of vegetables or salads around that I come across.
Speaker 2: But anyways, great beautiful country, beautiful people. It was a
Speaker 2: lot of fun.
Speaker 3: That's so. How did you how did you get hooked? Well?
Speaker 3: When did you know that this creature that.
Speaker 5: We know as bigfoot or sasquatch or all the other
Speaker 5: indigenous names. When did you what piece of evidence or
Speaker 5: what hooked you said, Wow, I think this thing is
Speaker 5: really out there.
Speaker 2: Well, about the time I turned nine years old, I
Speaker 2: had two passions as a young boy. One was animals
Speaker 2: and the outdoors. My father was a forestry professor, so
Speaker 2: I kind of grew up in the outdoors. Our first
Speaker 2: pet was a small alligator, and I had like lots
Speaker 2: of exotic animals I collected as a kid. So I
Speaker 2: loved animals in the outdoors. And then I also loved
Speaker 2: monster movies, you know. I grew up watching Godzilla movies
Speaker 2: and King Kong and Planet of the Apes and all
Speaker 2: that stuff. So when I was nine years old, I
Speaker 2: remember watching Saturday Morning Cartoons and they did a little
Speaker 2: news segment during the commercial on Bigfoot, and they showed
Speaker 2: a clip from the Patterson Gimlin film. There are pictures
Speaker 2: of guys holding casts like the ones behind me here,
Speaker 2: and I mean, it was just like it flipped a switch.
Speaker 2: You know. I just thought it was the coolest thing
Speaker 2: ever because it combined my two passions, which were animals,
Speaker 2: because this thing seemed to be some type of ape
Speaker 2: or unknown animal, but also it was a monster. A
Speaker 2: lot of people were portraying it as a monster, so
Speaker 2: that was kind of it for me. I've told Jeff
Speaker 2: Meldrum that the first time that I saw that film,
Speaker 2: when even though I was, granted I was only nine
Speaker 2: years old, the first time I saw the powis in
Speaker 2: Gimven film, and I grew up watching monster movies and costumes.
Speaker 2: I said, that's not a costume. You know, I can
Speaker 2: see like the muscles, the mass looks natural, the hair,
Speaker 2: you know, it's just it just it was a completely subjective,
Speaker 2: intuitive thought, it's not a costume. That's real. Yeah, And
Speaker 2: so that was probably a big deal for me back
Speaker 2: And also the film was actually shot a week after
Speaker 2: I was born. I was born in October thirteenth, nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty seven, so exactly a week after it was born.
Speaker 2: So that was kind of like kind of a symbolic
Speaker 2: to me. So I've never wavered from that position. By
Speaker 2: the way, I've seen the film, like everyone, hundreds of times,
Speaker 2: different enhancements, stabilizations, and I've never you know, I've never
Speaker 2: thought that that was a man in a costume. I
Speaker 2: still am convinced that it's a real animal. And that's
Speaker 2: probably one of the things, one of the reasons I'm
Speaker 2: still here doing this is that's you know, that's pretty convinced.
Speaker 5: What are the biggest skepticisms of the film that you've heard,
Speaker 5: and then what do you how do you you know,
Speaker 5: how do you explain what the people think they're seeing well.
Speaker 2: You know, and again the scientific position to take. Even
Speaker 2: as sure as I sound about the veracity of the film,
Speaker 2: I'm only going to say I'm ninety percent convinced it's real,
Speaker 2: because there is a chance. It's not impossible, it could
Speaker 2: be a hoax. Right. The best skeptical arguments I've heard
Speaker 2: against it are the fact that the lighting. Well, first
Speaker 2: of all, the story, which you know, I've heard Bob.
Speaker 2: I met Bob Gimlin for the first time in like
Speaker 2: two thousand and four, two thousand and five, and I've
Speaker 2: heard him tell the story like many people have many times,
Speaker 2: and he hasn't really he doesn't. I mean, it's a
Speaker 2: pretty solid, pretty consistent retelling of the events of that day.
Speaker 2: But there are some discrepancies in terms of what they
Speaker 2: said immediately after the filming, in terms of the amount
Speaker 2: of time it took them to get from the camp
Speaker 2: site into town and they had to get the film developed,
Speaker 2: and they stopped along the way and met with Al
Speaker 2: Hobson and different people, So some of the timelines are
Speaker 2: a little curious. There's an argument out there the skeptics
Speaker 2: are using in terms of the shadowing and lighting in
Speaker 2: the film, because you know, Patterson and Gimlan claimed they
Speaker 2: filmed that in the afternoon, you know, one point thirty
Speaker 2: three o'clock, somewhere in that timeframe. I think I've heard
Speaker 2: a couple of different versions, but the shadowing doesn't seem,
Speaker 2: according to the skeptics, to line up with that time
Speaker 2: frame or that time of day. You know, the fact
Speaker 2: that Patty as we call her, the subject in the film,
Speaker 2: has hair covered breasts. Obviously when she turns, we see
Speaker 2: those memory glands or breasts. Scientifically speaking, there are no
Speaker 2: great apes or hominins that have hairy breasts. They have
Speaker 2: to be accessible to the young, So that's an unexpected
Speaker 2: physical characteristic, although I think the way the breasts look
Speaker 2: and move I think is actually very convincing. And you know,
Speaker 2: the size, obviously, the size estimates have come down through
Speaker 2: the years. For a long time, seven foot three inches
Speaker 2: was the average or the most accepted possible height for
Speaker 2: the subject in the film. That's come down now through
Speaker 2: analysis by different people that maybe we're talking more of
Speaker 2: like six and a half feet, which is not outside
Speaker 2: the range of a human. You know, obviously seven foot
Speaker 2: three would have been harder to accept that there was
Speaker 2: a person in the suit if that was the height.
Speaker 2: So there are some you know, reasonable skeptical arguments. I'll
Speaker 2: tell you the best reasons. Well, one of the main
Speaker 2: reasons I don't think is it's fake is because of
Speaker 2: the trackway that was left behind, because there were you know,
Speaker 2: nine tracks, at least nine tracks that were observed documented
Speaker 2: there were backway that Bob Titma's cast. Patterson and Gimlin
Speaker 2: got a couple so you know, the just to fake
Speaker 2: the film would have been one thing, but the trackway,
Speaker 2: which is actually some pretty compelling footprint evidence on top
Speaker 2: of that, right, so it's like we have two lines
Speaker 2: of corresponding evidence, you know. And also just the location itself,
Speaker 2: because you know, there could have easily if it had
Speaker 2: been a guy in a suit, there are a lot
Speaker 2: of things that could have gone wrong, could have been
Speaker 2: seen by someone else or a hunter god for did
Speaker 2: you know, shoot at it. And also the fact that
Speaker 2: you know, Patterson and Gimlan really didn't make that much
Speaker 2: money off the film. I mean, Bob never really has
Speaker 2: He sold his rights for ten dollars to renate a
Speaker 2: hint in Patterson tried to make a little bit of
Speaker 2: money here and there, but you know, We all know
Speaker 2: that tragedy of Roger Patterson was that he was dying
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy two of leukemia and he really needed
Speaker 2: money for medical treatments. Wouldn't you have been I mean,
Speaker 2: this is just my opinion, but wouldn't you make a
Speaker 2: lot more money exposing it as a hoax than trying
Speaker 2: to stick to your guns? And you have this film
Speaker 2: of an unknown animal, which is controversial because once it
Speaker 2: becomes the greatest hopes of all time, then there's books
Speaker 2: and lectures and who knows, So I don't know. Great,
Speaker 2: it's a great argument either way. I'm convinced it's real.
Speaker 2: Even recent enhancements and stabilizations that have been done, we
Speaker 2: can see even better detail, like the toes curling up
Speaker 2: when it walks and things like that. It's sort of
Speaker 2: an unnatural walk for human but not impossible. Who knows,
Speaker 2: great mystery.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, and let's not forget you know, costume
Speaker 4: design capabilities in the late sixties.
Speaker 2: That's kind of what I'm when I meant by that's
Speaker 2: not a costume. But you're right, it was even worse
Speaker 2: back then. And you know what, there have been a
Speaker 2: couple of attempted recreations on TV shows right where they've
Speaker 2: tried to get national geographic did one with Bob Eronymous
Speaker 2: and Philip Morris. There was another show that came on
Speaker 2: Bigfoot in the nineteen nineties where they tried to do
Speaker 2: a sort of a quasi reenactment on a sandbar. And
Speaker 2: this is like in using nineteen nineties technology special effects
Speaker 2: experts to design the costume, and when they did the
Speaker 2: side by side comparison to me, the Patterson Gimma film
Speaker 2: still looked way better even though they.
Speaker 4: I haven't seen that.
Speaker 2: That's interesting, Yeah, I think it's in the early nineties,
Speaker 2: there was a show. It was just called Bigfoot, Get
Speaker 2: the name of the you know there some of our
Speaker 2: friends were at Rob Warhead, Todd Nice and some of
Speaker 2: those guys were in it. But yeah, they did a
Speaker 2: recreation with a special effects guy. I've I've had some
Speaker 2: spirited conversations. We were talking about skeptics. One of my
Speaker 2: friends is a guy named Ben Radford, the editor of
Speaker 2: Skeptical Inquirer magazine, and you know he's arguing, it has
Speaker 2: been arguing lately, what no one's really done a real recreation.
Speaker 2: You know, big Footers need to get out there, make
Speaker 2: a costume, go to the actual film site and prove
Speaker 2: to us that it can't be recreated. So they didn't
Speaker 2: actually go to the actual film site for that particular episode.
Speaker 2: So he kind of argues that, well, that's not a technically,
Speaker 2: that is not a recreation if they were at the
Speaker 2: right site. But they did choose an area that looked
Speaker 2: like the site of the film.
Speaker 4: So yeah, because even the site that we saw in
Speaker 4: nineteen sixty seven is not the same now.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 4: I mean, if you figure, you know, over fifty years,
Speaker 4: nature changes, Trees get bigger, rass grows, rocks get moved around.
Speaker 2: You know, so it has changed. I was at the
Speaker 2: film site two years ago, and yes, it doesn't look recognizable.
Speaker 2: But anyways, maybe that's a project I would I would
Speaker 2: like to see a recreation attempt, you know, but it's
Speaker 2: you know, logistically, it's going to be very difficult to
Speaker 2: do something like that. And sadly, most big footers, as
Speaker 2: you guys probably know since you talked to a lot
Speaker 2: of them, we don't have a lot of resources to
Speaker 2: do a lot of the things we want to do.
Speaker 4: So very few people are able.
Speaker 3: To like sustain a decent living.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, enough, and I think that was that he
Speaker 4: has enough.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well if you've got big foot in
Speaker 2: your life, you don't need too much more. But you know, research,
Speaker 2: research can be very expensive. I just when I got
Speaker 2: back from Lochness, I had a water sample that I
Speaker 2: took from a possible sighting location that happened seven hours earlier,
Speaker 2: and I had that e DNA tested out of my
Speaker 2: own pocket, and it wasn't really that expensive because it
Speaker 2: was a fisheries lab, so it was like they were
Speaker 2: just looking for different like aquatic species. But Cliff has
Speaker 2: you know, explained to me that in order to actually
Speaker 2: have an entirely new genus sequenced, you know, we're talking
Speaker 2: about six figures. So for a few thousand dollars, if
Speaker 2: you have the right primers and you had bigfoot DNA,
Speaker 2: you might be able to place it within the grade
Speaker 2: eight family. Right, So if you did ajit what they
Speaker 2: call a gem blast of that sequence, you would get human, human, Japanzee, gorilla,
Speaker 2: a ragutang human gym. That's what a bigfoot DNA would
Speaker 2: look like without the proper primer, since we don't have
Speaker 2: actual bigfoot DNA in the gen gen bank. But in
Speaker 2: terms of being able to determine that it is a
Speaker 2: sequence that is novel and not Homo sapiens and not
Speaker 2: gorilla and not chimp, but something whatever. You think bigfoot
Speaker 2: is some type of grade ap or hominin. Now we're
Speaker 2: talking talking about six figures, you know, to get a
Speaker 2: lab to do that kind of study. So you know,
Speaker 2: there there certainly are. There isn't anyone I know in
Speaker 2: the bigfoot field that's got one hundred thousand dollars laying
Speaker 2: around to take a shot on some bigfoot DNA and
Speaker 2: who knows.
Speaker 4: Maybe Yeah, think that. You know, we have two of
Speaker 4: our sons, one that just got his doctorate in biology
Speaker 4: and has you know obviously, and then we have my
Speaker 4: youngest also who's in school as a biologist. Yeah, it
Speaker 4: would be a lot for university to be able to
Speaker 4: get funding, even if it wanted to be studied in
Speaker 4: the university, to get funded. Who would fund that program?
Speaker 2: Well, I should mention I'm sorry to interrupt, but I
Speaker 2: should mention and give credit to a gentleman named Darby
Speaker 2: or Cut at North Carolina who's going to be speaking
Speaker 2: at the Ohio Big for conference here. He and I
Speaker 2: Court have corresponded in recent months over the issue of DNA,
Speaker 2: and I'm working with a guy named doctor Haskell Hart
Speaker 2: who's working on trying to collect Bigfoot DNA. So Darby
Speaker 2: is actually facilitating anyone in eight foot research or can
Speaker 2: send him what they think might be Bigfoot evidence, whether
Speaker 2: it's a hair or skin or bone whatever, And he's
Speaker 2: trying to facilitate the DNA testing. So but I don't
Speaker 2: know to what extent. Again, you know he's able to
Speaker 2: without even he's got to do it through the university
Speaker 2: and probably there's you know, some some funding that.
Speaker 4: Needs to he can't just sneak it back there. And just.
Speaker 3: I've talked to Darby a bunch of times.
Speaker 5: Actually, Darby's gonna Darby schedules so crazy, so he's he's
Speaker 5: going to jump on here soon, said Darby. If you're listening,
Speaker 5: we are letting Catter back just to give us an update,
Speaker 5: because he did a few episodes he did.
Speaker 3: I think he was on with Brad and and.
Speaker 2: And he.
Speaker 5: But now it's been a few months, so now we're
Speaker 5: going to get some we're going to get some updates,
Speaker 5: so Darby said, in the future we'll hog.
Speaker 3: It on with us.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Darby's at NC state, and he's got funding, not
Speaker 5: unlimited funding, but he's got funding to run a DNA
Speaker 5: project for anyone who wants to. He's got a process
Speaker 5: that they vet out, you know, what people are sending in.
Speaker 5: But you can send your potential DNA to an NC
Speaker 5: state and Darby's team and he'll take a look at it.
Speaker 2: And that's the first step. And then actually that's a
Speaker 2: nice segue to it. I'd like to talk about an
Speaker 2: example I had over the years, many people had sent
Speaker 2: me what they claimed could be bigfoot hairs. I had
Speaker 2: a drawer full of hair samples from Oklahoma, West Virginia, whatever,
Speaker 2: you know, pretty busy guy. I didn't really have a
Speaker 2: micro I still don't have a microscope or anyway to
Speaker 2: but eventually I collected all these hair samples up out
Speaker 2: of the drawer and I gave them to doctor Haskell
Speaker 2: Hart who lives just up the road from me in
Speaker 2: Canyon Lake, Texas. And Haskell, of course has a PhD
Speaker 2: from Harvard and chemistry and a pretty smart guy. He
Speaker 2: has a really nice microscope, and he's retired, so he
Speaker 2: had the time to go through look at the different
Speaker 2: and hair. You know, this is just a general statement
Speaker 2: for all bigfoot researchers out there or aspiring researchers. Hair
Speaker 2: doesn't go right to the DNA stage because a lot
Speaker 2: of people will send me a big foot hair and
Speaker 2: get the DNA tests. It's like, no, First what you
Speaker 2: do is you vet it at, putting it into a microscope,
Speaker 2: And every mammal species has distinct hair characteristics in terms
Speaker 2: of the medulla, the scalation patterns, banding and tapering patterns,
Speaker 2: colors and so forth, so you can actually look at
Speaker 2: and Haskell was able to write me a nice report
Speaker 2: and the hair samples turned out to be from a cat,
Speaker 2: a horse, a cow, you know, some other known animals.
Speaker 2: So he was able to identify virtually all of them
Speaker 2: except for one from Oklahoma that was interesting and he's like, heah,
Speaker 2: this almost looks like human hair. I'm going to hold
Speaker 2: on to it. And I think he's still kind of
Speaker 2: taking a peek at that one. But you know, just
Speaker 2: to you know, as an instructive thing to bigfoot researchers
Speaker 2: out there, if you do collect what you think is
Speaker 2: bigfoot hair, find someone with a microscope, do a little
Speaker 2: bit of research on what different types of animals had
Speaker 2: different types of hairs, and there's a very strong chance
Speaker 2: that you might be able to explain it and say, oh, gosh,
Speaker 2: you know, it's a horse hair or a goat or
Speaker 2: you know whatever, and that would save you from, you know,
Speaker 2: having to figure out how to get DNA testing and
Speaker 2: all that kind of stuff done.
Speaker 4: So you can get you can get DNA from a
Speaker 4: hair sample, not all hairs.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think there has to be it has
Speaker 2: to be fairly fresh hair, and it has to contain
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 4: So it's so sometimes when I'm like working in the
Speaker 4: mirror for a gray hair and I pull out my
Speaker 4: gray hair, there's like a little bit of tissue from
Speaker 4: my scalp. Is that where you need to get the
Speaker 4: DNA from?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's true. That you can't you know, can't
Speaker 2: get That's another thing I guess I'm glad you brought
Speaker 2: that up. You can't necessarily get DNA from every hair,
Speaker 2: so those hairs are graded or fleshy part's gone or whatever.
Speaker 2: So then it comes down to just comparative analysis, which
Speaker 2: is what we were doing.
Speaker 3: But that's still not a bad way at least.
Speaker 5: So if you can put it under microscope and rule
Speaker 5: outer other things at least it's compelling.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, we've been able to do that for quite
Speaker 4: a while with hairs, being able to distinguish what animal
Speaker 4: hair can come from. But but that's interesting that the
Speaker 4: one from Oklahoma, he was unable to clearly identify. But
Speaker 4: he said he thinks it looks human, looks human like.
Speaker 2: Maybe it is human, you know, But I guess we
Speaker 2: have gotten to that next level with that one. But yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm a I'm an advocate for researchers using
Speaker 2: real science and what you know Jeff Melbourne refers to
Speaker 2: as citizen science. It doesn't always have to involve a
Speaker 2: lab at the university. We can empower ourselves as researchers
Speaker 2: with a few simple tools like microscopes and different ways
Speaker 2: to analyze whatever audio waves or you know, you know,
Speaker 2: whatever whatever you're into. You know, empower yourself with the
Speaker 2: to kind of at least vet things out of the
Speaker 2: system so that you're not, you know, going trying to
Speaker 2: go all the way up the ladder with you know,
Speaker 2: something you're just not sure about.
Speaker 4: So right, right, great advice too. Yeah, So, Ken, why
Speaker 4: don't you share with everybody so I know that there's
Speaker 4: probably a lot of different ways that people can follow you,
Speaker 4: So why don't you tell us a lot of the
Speaker 4: ways that we can follow you.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you, guys. I appreciate that some very insightful
Speaker 2: questions and always fun to discuss this stuff. I My
Speaker 2: website is currently under construction. I'm gonna it's Ken Gerhard
Speaker 2: dot com, but hopefully I can get that uh the
Speaker 2: early part of the year. But in the meantime, people
Speaker 2: can reach me. I'm on Facebook, Instagram, X I have
Speaker 2: a YouTube channel if people want to check out some
Speaker 2: of the videos I've done. So yeah, I'm pretty pretty
Speaker 2: easy to get in touch with or follow on different
Speaker 2: social media platforms.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm just I have to just ask you this
Speaker 4: question because it's super cool, Like what is this your house?
Speaker 4: Because it's so cool. How far back it goes? Like
Speaker 4: do you live in like a like a trucking container.
Speaker 2: No, it may be.
Speaker 4: Into Yeah, it's super cool.
Speaker 2: I think it's the camera and the angle maybe okay
Speaker 2: running along this wall here, but it's really not that big.
Speaker 4: It's really cool and like, what the heck it's like
Speaker 4: go straight back.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and we'll make sure we add links to for
Speaker 5: the audience to Ken's the books on Amazon, how you
Speaker 5: can track them down, YouTube and all that other things,
Speaker 5: and uh yeah, do you have any other closing things
Speaker 5: you want to share with the audience as far as
Speaker 5: if they're they're you know, I want to get into
Speaker 5: the subject, or they have any questions you want to
Speaker 5: close out with.
Speaker 2: You know. Again, check out my book, The Essential Guide
Speaker 2: to Bigfoot. I think it's a good climber, but there
Speaker 2: are a lot of nuggets in there, even for experienced
Speaker 2: bigfoot researchers. I've had several of the economy and say
Speaker 2: I didn't know that about you know whatever. I finally
Speaker 2: uh dug deep on that one.
Speaker 4: And it's an easy read. It's not like heavy. You
Speaker 4: don't have to reread the thing a hundred times and
Speaker 4: be like.
Speaker 3: What the heck?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I appreciate that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I mean the Grovelcrantz's book and doctor Jeff's
Speaker 5: book are amazing. But it's like, especially for someone like
Speaker 5: me who's that smart, like you.
Speaker 4: Are smart, baby, Like what am I reading? It's true?
Speaker 4: Like you're like it's like you're reading like a college textbook.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's good, it's amazing. It's just it's just
Speaker 3: you've got a highlight walk up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I appreciate that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, detail flows and it's we loved book.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, Like you said, I'll be at squatch Fest.
Speaker 2: Squatch Fest in January in Washington State.
Speaker 4: And you're going to meet us in person. Are you
Speaker 4: so excited to meet us?
Speaker 2: Well, Sam, we had a good time, but I'm excited
Speaker 2: to meet you, Dana.
Speaker 4: Maybe I'm excited to meet it too, can It's going
Speaker 4: to be super cool.
Speaker 2: It's a great event, my.
Speaker 4: First time in the Northwest.
Speaker 2: I know, right in the shadow of a canyon right
Speaker 2: there near Mountain Are.
Speaker 4: Is our boy Mark Marcel going to.
Speaker 2: Be there speaking St Helens.
Speaker 5: St Helens, Mark Mark speaks, has spoken at that event.
Speaker 5: He's not on the on the on the the docket,
Speaker 5: but Mark show up.
Speaker 2: He'll probably be there. I think he was there. Jay
Speaker 2: Robert Alley, who's a friend of mine, He's going to
Speaker 2: be there. He's they're usually there every year, and Todd probably.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of big footers, you know, from that
Speaker 2: area that are very well known that show up to
Speaker 2: that event. Last last year I met oh gosh, I
Speaker 2: can't I can't remember his name, but you know, I'm
Speaker 2: a big nerd, big foot nerd when it comes to
Speaker 2: some of this stuff too. Oh friand Zoni hery friend
Speaker 2: Zone met him. Oh my god, he so really cool
Speaker 2: guy I've always wanted to be love.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we've had twice on our show.
Speaker 4: We just love Henry. He's the coolest dude ever.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: But Ken, it has been an honor and a privilege
Speaker 4: to have you here on our show. And we're super grateful,
Speaker 4: super excited of all the things that you had to share,
Speaker 4: and everybody, just make sure you go out there get
Speaker 4: the Essential Bigfoot uh you know, essential guide to Bigfoot.
Speaker 4: Go check out Ken on his social media. We're super
Speaker 4: excited about you revising your website. And also you said
Speaker 4: you were revising your book on the Thunderbird right on
Speaker 4: Mothman because there's a lot of big Mothman people out
Speaker 4: there too, but Man's popular. Again, Ken, thank you so
Speaker 4: much for being on our show.
Speaker 2: Thank you, guys, appreciate its for listening.
Speaker 4: Everyone, take care, take care, Ken, Thank you.
Speaker 3: I don't know if we have anything else to say. Really,
Speaker 3: that's awesome.
Speaker 4: Ken's just super cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm so.
Speaker 5: It's just yeah, it's just so grateful to meet him
Speaker 5: and then just turned into him being you know, you know,
Speaker 5: there's a lot of.
Speaker 4: Good people in the bigfoot world, in the crypto world,
Speaker 4: and he ken is definitely up there.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and he I will say, when he has a
Speaker 5: way to deliver when he does presentations, he makes it
Speaker 5: just like his book, right.
Speaker 3: I mean he'll say some things that I.
Speaker 5: Have no idea how in other word, but it flows
Speaker 5: he makes. He makes it where you can understand it
Speaker 5: and you can grasp onto it. So yeah, he's a
Speaker 5: great educator.
Speaker 4: And that's so important that it's being a good communicator
Speaker 4: in this because you're reaching out to more people and
Speaker 4: you're you know, educating them on the possibility of all
Speaker 4: these creatures that are wandering around out there that we
Speaker 4: don't really know that much about.
Speaker 5: So so anyway, we appreciate you, guys, we do. I
Speaker 5: hope you enjoyed this episode. We had what a great time.
Speaker 4: We did have a great time, and we're super appreciative
Speaker 4: to ken Ye and to you guys.
Speaker 5: And don't yeah, you know how to follow us, you know,
Speaker 5: catch up on us with all the social on all
Speaker 5: the social media platforms, the YouTube until radio. I am
Speaker 5: like to subscribe, send us some comments and let us
Speaker 5: know what you think.
Speaker 3: Just reach out. We appreciate you, guys, We do appreciate you.
Speaker 4: Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 3: Take care,