Speaker 1: By the time the nineteen seventies rolled around, the land
was loud again. Children ran across the pasture from early
morning until the sun slipped behind the ridge line. Dogs
barked at nothing in particular. Screen doors slammed and bounced
back open. The old farm felt alive in a way
it hadn't felt in years, full of movement and voices
and the kind of noise that comes from people who
believe they are safe. Will watched it all from the porch.
He was an old man by then, now not helpless,
just worn down the honest way, the way time and
mountain weather wear a man. His back bent more than
it used to. His steps were careful now and deliberate,
but his eyes were still sharp, and they drifted to
the same place they always had the woods. The land
had been in Will's family for more than a hundred years.
He knew every fence line, every low place where water
pooled after heavy rain, every section of pasture where the
grass grew darker because the soil had more than it should.
He also knew which parts of the property were better
respected from a distance. That knowledge didn't come from guesswork.
There were other living things on the land, not neighbors,
not livestock, another family altogether. The parents had a word
for them. They called them the bushmen. That name came later,
long after Will first understood that he wasn't alone. When
Will was a teenager, there was only one a presence
in the woods behind the farm, one figure, one watcher,
jet black from head to toe, so dark he didn't
stand out against the trees, but seemed to absorb the
light around him. Will called him Zeke. There was no introduction,
no exchange. Will simply needed something to call him in
his own mind. Naming him something makes it easier to
live alongside it. Will's father wasn't much of an outdoorsman.
He didn't hunt and didn't spend time in the woods.
His interests were elsewhere, oil business dealings that took him
away from the farm more often than not. Compared to
many families in the area, they were comfortably well off,
but Will never thought of himself as wealthy. He liked
dirt under his nails, He liked physical work. He liked
waking up sore and going to bed tired. Hunting interested him,
even though he wasn't especially good at it. Some seasons
he brought home dear other seasons he didn't. Living off
the land wasn't about winning. Every time Will was an
only son, his parents indulged him in ways they didn't
always understand. When he pushed to bring livestock on to
the property, chickens first, then goats, then cattle, they went
along with it. They didn't need to, but they loved
their boy, and the family was tight knit. Zeke appeared
during those years, not suddenly, not dramatically. Will noticed him
the way you notice weather moving in tree breaks that
didn't sound like wind, sounds that stopped when Will stopped,
a heavy presence and pressure between the shoulders that told
him he was being watched. At first, Will tested it.
He'd stop suddenly when walking the fence line, the woods
would go quiet. He'd turned back toward the house and
feel the tension ease. Over time, he learned where not
to go, where paths were tolerated, and which places were
best left alone. Then one evening, just before dusk, Will
saw him clearly. Zike stood just inside the trees, broad
and motionless, watching Will froze. Zik didn't move. They stayed
that way long enough for Will's legs to start shaking.
Then Zik turned and stepped back into the woods, and
that was it. Once you see something like that, really
see it, you don't spend the rest of your life
pretending it didn't happen. You adjust, you learn, you survive.
Will met Louise not long after. She was a woman
of humble means, practical, grounded, strong in a way that
didn't announce itself. Will nearly fought Cecil the Vagrant for
her honor once, long before the axe ever came into play.
Cecil had put his hands where they didn't belong, and
Will stepped in without hesitation. Louise noticed that they married
when Will was barely out of his teens. Louise moved
into the large farmhouse with Will and his parents. That
wasn't unusual at the time. It made sense. The land
was big and the family was close. Everyone had a roll.
Louise took to farm life easily. She learned the rhythm
of the place, morning chores, evening quiet, which animals spooked easily,
which parts of the property felt heavy even in daylight.
She noticed things before Will ever spoke of them, sounds
at night that didn't match the wind, dogs that refused
to cross certain spots the way. Will paused before entering
the woods. Even when he didn't say why, she didn't
press him. She learned, like Will, had to pay attention.
Cecil drifted into the nearby town like a bad habit,
a vagrant, a drunk, a thief, a man who treated
women like they didn't matter, and acted confused when people
got angry about it. He was accused of plenty, but
nothing ever stuck. There wasn't much law round and what
there was. Arrived late and left early one afternoon. Will
saw Cecil grab a woman in a way that crossed
a line. Will confronted him. The argument escalated quickly. Cecil
thrived on chaos, but Will surprised him and himself by
stopping it before it turned violent. He backed off and
walked away, not because he was afraid, but because he
believed trouble multiplied when you fed it. Less than an
hour later, near dusk, Cecil followed Will Hulm. Will heard
him first, heavy footsteps behind him, muttering, then shouting, then
the unmistakable sound of a metal cutting air. Cecil had
an axe.
Speaker 2: Will ran.
Speaker 1: Down the hill away from the house, away from help.
Cecil chased him into the woods, swinging wildly, missing Will
by inches. Screaming like a man who already decided nothing
mattered any more. Will crossed a line he never crossed.
He ran into the deep woods, the place he respected
enough to leave alone. Unbeknownst to either man, Zeke saw everything.
Two humans crashing into his woods at dusk, one acting
like a predator, was a problem. When Cecil swung again
and missed, Zeke decided a stump root ball still attached,
came through the air with a force that didn't belong
in a human world. Cecil never got up. There was
no struggle, no second chance. Zeke didn't posture, he didn't
threaten Will. He watched him, and Will, young, shaking alive,
did the only thing that made sense. He buried Cecil
under the root ball, deep enough that the woods swallowed
the truth he never told anyone. That night created something
that lasted, not friendship, not trust, an understanding. Years passed.
Will left food quietly. Zeke left deer legs, sometimes a
hole deer. Over time, they learned small signals, a raised hand,
a pause, a direction pointed and then avoided. Zeke protected
livestock when he could. Will repaired fences where he knew
they mattered. They didn't share a language they didn't need one.
Zeke wasn't alone forever. That was when Will started using
the word bushman. The land around the farm was thick
with low brush and tangled growth, and the way the
younger ones moved low, fast, weaving through foliage reminded Will
of something he'd read years earlier about a tribe in
South Africa, people who moved through bush country in ways
outsiders couldn't follow. Bushman. The name stuck once Zeke had
sons of his own. By the nineteen seventies, Zeke had
a family, sons, and a female who appeared only occasionally.
She was smaller than the male's, muscular but not bulky.
She kept her distance from Will, almost meek around him.
Zeke's face held an unsettling balance, an almost perfect blend
of man and ape that lingered in Will's mind long
after first sight. A heavy, protruding brow shadowed deep set
eyes that carried an intelligence impossible to his lips were
wider than a man's, thick and expressive, pulling back at
times to reveal large, blocky teeth that looked built for
crushing rather than chewing. Yet beneath the brute structure sat
a very human nose framed by coarse facial hair. A
full beard covered his jaw and cheeks, stopping short beneath
the nostrils, leaving no true mustache to soften his expression.
His skin was strikingly dark, deep rich, almost jet black,
darker than any of his offspring. The children bore similar features,
but their skin tones ranged wildly, from nearly pale to
shades far lighter than Zeke's own. The female stood apart.
Her hair carried a cinnamon hue, her complexion lighter, her
face marked with unmistakable human qualities, though covered in hair.
Her femininity was undeniable, curved, proportionate, with breasts and a grace.
The males lacked. Their bodies were built differently, the males
with long, bulging arms, massive chests, no visible necks, heads
that rested directly on their shoulders. Will wondered briefly and
uncomfortably if the female was more evolved, but such thoughts
drifted far beyond his understanding, and yet Will understood to
them he wasn't prey or threat. He was alien. The
oldest son was cinnamon haired, massive, over seven and a
half feet tall, but still a full foot shorter than Zeke.
But dangerous in ways the others weren't. Will called him Red.
Red blended into the woods like nothing Will had ever seen.
If the light hit just right, he could stand still
and vanish completely. Red was bloodthirsty. He killed chickens, goats, deer,
left to rot where they fell. It wasn't hunger. It
was pleasure, wasteful, hateful. Once Will came home after being
gone most of the day and found a goat slaughtered,
Its blood smeared across the barn. Windows inside, blood streaked
one wall. Louise had been inside. She was terrified. Red
was in his prime, then acting out, perhaps looking for
a mate, perhaps trying to intimidate the only human female
he knew. Will and Zeke argued through gesture and broken words,
and a fight followed between Red and Zeke. It wasn't quiet.
Red was cast out. As far as anyone knows, he
never returned. Will was relieved. The other son, the darker one,
was quieter, more like Zeke, a watcher. By the nineteen seventies,
Bigfoot was no longer unheard of movies television in search
of aired episodes about sasquatch, the public was becoming aware.
So when a little girl came running through the pasture
one early morning, screaming that something tall and dark had
chased her. The family was terrified. She never went outside
alone again. Doors locked earlier, windows checked twice, voices dropped
at night. They didn't know. The particular group on Will's
farm was harmless except for Red, and Red was gone.
Then the deer appeared, one on the porch, another beside
the house. Carefully placed. Will understood an apology. Will, in
his elderly state, went down the hill one morning carrying melons.
Zeke met him and carried Will back. No one's ever
gonna believe this, Will muttered. Louise believed she was Will's wife.
One snowy morning, she watched Zeke push the car free
out of a snowbank. She cried, then nearly laughed at dinner.
Louise died the following year. Zeke visited her grave. Will
lived five more years Before he passed. He told his
son everything. His son had grown up privileged, educated, uncomfortable
with dirt and work, but happy to enjoy the benefits
money inheritance status. His wife wanted out. One daughter had
been chased. That was enough. Once Will was gone, the
land was sold one hundred and ten years gone, the
woods remained. The new owner says, A tall, dark visitor
comes to the graves at dawn or dusk, and sometimes
a deer appears on the porch. Maybe one day he'll
walk down the hill just to pay attention, because the
bushman never left. Thanks for listening to Bigfoots Wilderness. I
hope you enjoyed tonight's story about the bushmen that never left,
one of those quiet, unsettling encounters that stays with you
long after the fire dies down. Stick around, because right
after this, we're going to play a short interview with
Kurt Bradford where he talks about his book, Sasquatch Way
Off the Beaten Path, a grounded, first hand look at
the phenomenon that cuts through the noise. The book is
available now on Amazon. Just look through the search bar
for the title Sasquatch Way Off the Beaten Path, or
through Kurt Bradford. I'll also leave a link in the description.
Have a great night, everyone. I have not gotten your
book yet, but I was looking at it on Amazon.
You know, it's really interesting. Finding you on Amazon is
so much easier than finding like a cable for an iPhone.
I typed in Kurt Bradford Sasquatch book Boom two books
came right up. That was funny. Yeah, so it's called
Sasquatch Way Off the Beaten Path, Is that right?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: It kind of you know, the title my kind of
dovetails with what you and I talked about it last
time you interviewed me. It's that, you know, it's not
really it's you know, the the the bigger mystery is
not you know, does it exist. The bigger you know question,
the bigger ministry is like, why hasn't it been you know,
brought out in the open to scientists and you know,
scientific perusal and everything. That's that's the real that's the
really big question that people are trying to get answers to.
Speaker 2: I think, and I think it's.
Speaker 3: A little uh, you kind of go af to go
off the beaten path a little bit, you know, in
terms of you know, what you.
Speaker 2: Think is real versus what is actually going on.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so let me ask you this because I'll get
got a couple of questions for you. And and I
know that when people read a book, you got to
kind of break down at least, So I'm writing a
book too. But it has nothing to do with Bigfoot.
It's about it's about my younger life and how my
how I lived you know, among different family members and
you know, grew up in in one neighborhood but lived
in another neighborhood and had friends and just kind of
a gen x type thing. But it's really uh, it's
really fun putting it together. And everybody asks me. Family
members asked me questions about my book, and it's very
helpful to me. I think to to uh to understand
more about your book by getting questions about your book.
And this this one, Uh, I've got a few questions here.
I just wanted to ask you. And one of the
questions was I thought was a good question I wrote
this down, was how has your approach to sasquatch research
changed since your earlier work, since your first book.
Speaker 3: Well, one of the one of the big things was
there was a change of venue. And I talk about
it early in the book, and that is I was
exploring a national forest, uh well, Lammette National Forest in
central Oregon. So that was where this this ancient forest
had Opal Creek center was It was one of the
biggest you know, stands of old growth that left in
the Central Cascades, Central Cascade Mountains of Oregon, and I
went out there and that's when you know, I had
you know, I heard things that I couldn't explain. I
was out in the middle of nowhere, you know, and
so I'm out there by myself, uga in.
Speaker 2: So that was that was an interesting area. I loved it.
Speaker 3: I could have spent the rest of my life exploring
that area and going camping.
Speaker 2: In these huge trees, you know, I mean, which is
that's my favorite type of habitats, the old growth forest.
Speaker 3: But what happened a couple of years ago is there
was there was some forest fires. One one of those
forest fires had started up and then it went down
and it was controlled, and then it came back again
and the Beechy Creek fire, there's a Beechy Creek that
runs through there. There's a Beechy Creek fire came in
and just gutted the entire old growth valley. I mean,
it's it was such I mean, just devastating loss. You
you're gonna have to wait four hundred years for the
forest to be or more, you know, before the forest
gets to the way it was.
Speaker 2: So that was that was really hard. Because that is
one of the most beautiful places on Earth.
Speaker 3: I was at an area called Sawmill Falls, and I
didn't really reveal that just for privacy, for you know,
whatever bigfoots were in there and myself and everything.
Speaker 2: But but now I can tell everyone.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was near that that those false Sawmill Falls
there and just a beautiful area and that's where things
would go on at night. But when that burned out,
I mean there's nothing left. I mean there's a few
big trees left, and you got other you know, but
until it burned out. So I said, Okay, I've got
to go someplace else here. So the question was where
I co And my buddy Tony Tamberella, who I wrote
about in the first book and in this one, he
was already very, very familiar with the Coast Range. He
spent probably forty years in the Coast Range exploring, and
one of the things he was looking for was this
lost Indian gold mine.
Speaker 2: So you know, he was very motive motivated to be
out there.
Speaker 3: But back in the mid nineties, when he saw a
set of tracks in the early morning, snow that he
was out there. You know, he and a buddy were
out there in the middle of nowhere. It really changed
his perspective, and I said, hey, Tony, I was like,
you know, we've.
Speaker 2: Been checking the lamb att for us.
Speaker 3: Now I think we're gonna need to start looking over
at the Coast Range, where a buddy of his on
numerous occasion had seen sasquatches in the Coast Range and
some of the things that I don't know if I
don't know if this story has ever been you know,
witnessed by someone, but there was there was an elk
that had been killed, that was up in this tree,
and it had been hoisted up there like eight feet
you know, off the round into the you know this
why this tree, and it's like holy moly, you know,
it's like a cougar cannot lift, you know, cannot carry
an adult elk up a tree that high and keep
it there. Smaller animals. Yeah. So anyway, I knew for
a long time that the Coast Range there's not a
lot of people who go there other than the forest.
The forest, you know, the folks who look, you know,
tould get the timber out of there. So the forest
industry is there, but in terms of just people to
explore that area, it doesn't not many people go back.
Speaker 1: There, I can imagine. So, so it's been quite a
few years now that you've been in the field. What
do you think that people misunderstand mostly about the subject.
Speaker 2: Well, I think one of the things is like, I
think people are like, why don't you just.
Speaker 3: You know, did you find some footprints in the snow?
Speaker 2: Follow the footprints, will take it to the bigfoot shoot
want to bring it back.
Speaker 3: While things are a little more complicated than that, you know,
one of the things you got to consider is in
the coast range where the Pacific Ocean moderates the temperature,
a lot of times at the lower elevations there as
snow snow at all during the year, it's all going
to be rain precipitation. So I think what a lot
of the Bigfoots do in part of the season, at
least Mike in the in the wintertime is they would
descend to like areas of elevation. But it's just not
as simple as like finding tracks and following them. There
was there was a famous set of tracks I don't
know if you're probably familiar with outside of Spokane, Washington
that went through the mountains there and they found these
tracks and this guy followed it for miles and finally
he got to this place where he just couldn't climb
anymore up on this mountain ridge. And it's like it's
not as easy as it sounds to try and just oh,
let's track one down right now.
Speaker 2: I mean it's it's a little more than that. It's
a little more involved than that.
Speaker 1: You know, wasn't that that, wasn't that the tracks that
he let He walked for so long that the weather
began to change, and actually he had to give up because,
like you said, it was he went into terrain that
was too too difficult for him to traverse. But the
weather also changed, so he had to just kind of stop.
I mean, he followed this thing like you said, for Miles.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, and and Mike too, Like you know, like
the Olympic project out there in the Olympic Natural Forest,
Olympic National Park where those where those folks found, you know,
over twenty sasquatch nests out there.
Speaker 2: You are you familiar with that as well?
Speaker 1: I have heard bits and pieces of that. It seems
like everybody's jumping in on that one, or had been
for a couple of years. And and I guess since
doctor Meldrum's death. I kind of stopped following that that
little story, but it can it continues. It's still ongoing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is. You know.
Speaker 3: The one point I wanted to make about that is like,
like they had, it was very difficult to get back
to where they found those nets. It's not something that
the average hiker is, no, you know, let's climb up
this rock face, let's go through this, you know this,
you know this, follow this trail.
Speaker 2: It was very difficult going to get back in there.
And it's like.
Speaker 3: That's that's like a good That's a perfect example of
way off the beaten path. I mean Olympic National Park,
the Olympic Peninsula, the Olympic National Forest, all all that
federal land plus private land. I mean it is it's
a huge area and not all of it's easy to
get to. So there, you know, they were on a
path that most people don't take, and then they went
way off that path where no one even goes. They
got off the path and went back in to a
remote area and found that. So sometimes I guess you know,
that's what I'm saying is a new book, you have
to go way off the beaten path. You're going to
find something. So not always, not always, but sometimes you know.
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely. So let me ask you this because you know,
I do a podcast that and I do basically individual
stories encounters. So do individual encounters matter less to you
now than say, in the long term patterns? Like do
you think that individual encounter are you know? I mean,
do you do you actually go off of individual encounters?
Speaker 2: Do you do?
Speaker 1: You do you take stories as you're as you're going
through your your journey?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I definitely. You know.
Speaker 3: The funny thing, Mike is that's a good question because initially,
you know, when I was a kid and start reading
about these encounters that people had had, you know, I read,
I read, you know, hundreds of hundreds of them, and
the people are all, you know, staying, you know, basically
the same thing.
Speaker 2: And so to me, it's like, you know, I mean,
the way the way science.
Speaker 3: Is and the way the public is is like, we're
not gonna believe you know, you guys just don't even
talk to me. You you find me some bones, your teeth, evidence,
and then come talk to me, you know. And it's like,
you know, science now, the scientists or in the public,
I mean, well especially the scientists. But they don't care
about video, they don't care about photographs, they don't care
about tracks, they don't care about individual encounters, they don't
care about the noises these things make, you know, So
it's like all this stuff.
Speaker 2: To try and you know, affect change in this whole.
You know, in this whole, you know this mortgage board.
Speaker 3: I mean, if you the only thing that matters, you know,
to science is like you bring a jaw bone or
teeth or a skull or you know, a body bones
from the body of this thing and then.
Speaker 2: We'll talk, you know. So it's very frustrating because I
mean I.
Speaker 3: Knew from an early age when I started reading these encounters, say, hey,
these people are seeing something real. The psychological component of
how they react to what they see is one of
shock a lot of times. So you know, all those
encounters are fascinating, but I've read so many of them,
I don't really care.
Speaker 2: You are right, I don't really care about them as much.
Speaker 3: When I went out into the coast range the last time,
I don't don't care about seeing one. I don't care
about tracks, and I did find tracks for the first
time in my life. But you know, if I don't
come back with bones or teeth, forget it. And so
to me, it's like, you know, it's it's a losing battle.
But okay, all right, if you want proof, let me
try and get some proof and then we'll talk.
Speaker 2: So it's not you.
Speaker 3: Know, all the other things that are now kind of discounted.
And you know too, the thing about the artificial intelligence you've.
Speaker 2: Probably seen online where.
Speaker 3: Like one YouTube where the number of these different you know,
sightings and pictures and whatnot and video clips or car
you know, are surfacing and it's like, you know, ten
times as much stuff was there when before the.
Speaker 2: AI, So now you can't even tell what's real or fake.
Speaker 3: You can have some of these, you know, trail cameras
they're actually recording a Bigfoot, but it's like now with
the AI, you can't tell the difference between a real
clip and something that's made up. So that's really muddying
the war, you know.
Speaker 1: I agree. Actually, the only thing I find artificial intelligence
good for is helping me create an image for a
story that I'm telling. I can't draw that well, I
can't paint. I don't have that capability. In the past,
I used to have to google to death just to
find an image to go with my story now and
can use AI to make an image for me. But
everything else about AI to me is wrong. Just like
you said, there's there, it's doctoring videos, it's it's creating videos.
People are quoting them as lost footage. It's completely a
hoax and it's being used in the wrong way. But
everybody's you know, they're they're trying to have fun with it,
and they're also trying to get clicks, and they're trying
to make money off it. And that's to me, I
think AI is going the wrong way. And I think
opening opening it up to the public might might have
been a semi bad idea so quickly, because people are
just finding a way to profit from it, and I
don't like that.
Speaker 3: And it makes it hard on people who want to
be legitimately you know, taking you know, taking legitimately as
talking you know, the truth as they've experienced it. I mean,
it just yeah, it just muddies the water. It's really
a shame. I mean, I think we're gonna have some
real challenges.
Speaker 2: With this AI stuff. I don't I think I think.
Speaker 3: There's already just uh in terms of fraud online and
you know, and it impinges on the big Foot story
too with like you said, people are out there just
trying to get advertising dollars by showing these different clips.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: The thing that makes me laugh a lot of times
is some of these clips are not just you know,
like a you know, like a thirty second clip. I
mean it's like a twenty minute clip on YouTube where
they're talking about stuff and the whole thing is fake,
you know, so you know, they blend the AI in
when they want to, they'll they'll give their commentary, and
it just it kind of undermines the people that are
you know, trying to be legitimated.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing. You're writing a book. You've written
a book, you've written, this is your second book. You're
telling us fresh new information and there's nothing doctored about it.
You know, there's no crazy uh hoaxed video or stuff
that you know people are trying to analyze to see
if it's real or fake. You're telling us, you know
what you've encountered. You're giving us your information. You've you've
put all it together in a book and a nice,
neat book, and you're telling us a story about what
you encountered and that's real. You know, all that other
stuff is not. And many people will fall for the
hoax stuff because they know that there is something out
there and they feel like this is an alibi, Like
look at that. You know, they don't maybe know it's
a hoaxed video at first, but they'll they'll try to
back it up and see that that's what I saw,
that's what that's what happened to me. And people will
take things out of perspective and and you know, they
get crazy about it, and we do have a kind
of a nutty community sometimes. I think there are people
that believe that Bigfoot is an alien and Bigfoot is
a this and a that, and you know, I don't
believe that to be true, and that people try to
do this correlation between lights in the sky and a
Bigfoot encounter. And I've written stories about that from what
witnesses have said to me, and they're put trying to
put it together. But sometimes it just goes off the
deep end. And that's why I can appreciate a book
because I can read a book and I know that
what I'm reading is from a reputable source. I always
try to pick my books. I pick my fictions, and
I pick my nonfictions. And I look at the people
like the John Greens and the William Jevnings and the
Kurt Bradford's and the people out there that actually write
from their research, and I like that because it backs
up what I believe. I had my own encounter years ago,
and it was scary, but I wasn't scared at the time,
just because I didn't really the whole impact didn't hit
me at one time. It was little bits and pieces
and it was a lot to It was a lot
to take in. But you know, it's not something I
shout from the rooftops. You know, I don't profess the
whole Bigfoot thing. I don't sit there and scream Bigfoot
is reel and get in people's faces. But I really
do believe it is real. And if you don't want
to believe, that's fine, But I, you know, have my
right to believe, and you have your right. And we're
all we're all trying to learn more about big football.
We there are people out there that think that, you know, uh,
the aliens are running the country. I mean, it's just
kind of crazy stuff happening right now. So it's nice
to get back and grounded and have a nice book
like yours. And you can find it on Amazon, right, Sasquatch,
Way Off the Beaten Path.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just the main the title of it is Sasquatching
and the subtitle is well Off the Beaten Death.
Speaker 2: Got it?
Speaker 1: Got it? There's a there's a couple more questions, and
I know you're you're I know you weren't feeling well,
So I'm really appreciative of your time. Has the definition
of evidence changed over time?
Speaker 2: I h yeah, you know, that's that's a great question. Yeah,
I think it has.
Speaker 3: Excuse me, you know, I think people like like Jeff
Meldrum were like, like, let's say you get it. Let's
say back in the day, you got a footprint. Okay,
so you're in northern California. You're in there at the
time that you know, Patterson and Gimblin were down there
in sixty seven, and they find these footprints. Okay, so
the footprints at first were like man. People were like, man,
that can so easily be faked. Look, I'm gonna strap
on some wood cutout feet, I'm gonna prants around in
the woods.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna show you.
Speaker 3: Guys how easy it is well, you know a lot
of people just kind of took the naysayers for like, yeah,
you know what, I guess you could put on you know,
feed and walk around. But then come around people like
Jeff Meldrum, and he'll look at a footprint, you know,
and he's like noticing like a hundred things I would
never even think of, Mike, you know, and so he
talks about, you know, he's finding you know, and this
chillicut had found those the dermal ridges on the bottom.
Speaker 2: Of the foot, the mid reflection in the middle of
the in the middle of the.
Speaker 3: Foot as well when it goes down, as opposed to
pivoting on that ball of our feet like we do,
it pivots more on a more centrally located part of
the bottom of its foot. So and then you'll talk
about other things, you know, like the toast playing, you know,
like the spreading of toes, the longer toes. They see
that even in the video with Patterson. So yeah, I
think that's a great question. And that's the only example
I can't really think of. But like, footprints used to
be ah whatever, and now you get a real scientist
who looked at it, who specialized in anthropology and biology
and anatomy. He looks at it and points out all
these thingess like, wow, you know, why are to other
scientists really not looking at this now? Because why is
it only Meldrum? Why is it only Krantz?
Speaker 2: You know? And so that's a great question, I think,
I think.
Speaker 3: And you know what too, Mike is like as they
analyze even the sixty seven footage, you know, the Patterson Gimlin,
they're finding new things and no one you know, that
they couldn't find before, you know, So I think I
think a few more scientists are getting on board, becoming
a little more man stream, but not much.
Speaker 1: Well, the technology has really helped a lot, right, I mean,
we can three D print a footprint now, you can.
You can you can go past just the dermal ridges.
You can, like you said, you can see the flex
in the footprint. You know, there's so much more that
can be analyzed from a footprint than what they could
do in nineteen sixty seven.
Speaker 2: Right, exactly exactly what's what's.
Speaker 1: Next for you after this book?
Speaker 3: I tell you, Mike, I don't know how many expeditions
that have left in me, you know, I know this
late spring, early summer I'm going out to the coast
raging in with Tony. But for me, you know, I mean,
I'm not bragging about this, but I'm I mean, I'm
the real deal, and the real deal sometimes is boring,
you know. It's like going out there and looking and
not finding stuff or and I'm not trying to convince,
you know, I'm not trying to convince people in the
book that the Bigfoot's real. I just want to convey
the story. But I think once Bigfoot is proven to
be real, I think people will look back on this
story and see, uh, you know that's pretty interesting. You
know what, Well, this is what we were people were
thinking ahead of this confirmation. And now yeah, so you know,
some think about.
Speaker 1: An offbeat question that I was talking with my son about.
And again my son is in his teens, right, so
he you know, I was just telling him about talking
to you and and I guess he just likes to
get under my skin, says, uh so what so, Yeah,
he believes in Bigfoot, right, but does he believe in
dog Man? Does he believe in the Locknus Monster?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: What what does he what else does he believe in?
Or does he only believe in bigfoot. I figured i'd
throw that question back at you.
Speaker 3: Oh what about what should you you know?
Speaker 2: With me?
Speaker 3: I mean, we're all jaundice, we're all we all come
from a different background.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: I'm a Christian, and I think that affects the way
I look at this. But also, I was a science major,
you know, I majored in biology on undergrad and you know,
I think, hmm, I think that you know, this, what's
going on in this country and what's going around the
world now, is.
Speaker 2: Like this spiritual warfare, you know.
Speaker 3: Okay, So I'm not I'm not trying to get into
the you know, into a religious discussion here, but I
think I think you have to be open minded to
at least looking at for example, how many people see something,
you know, I mean, like this chupakabra thing. I mean,
I don't know. This is a perfect example. I have
no idea what this chupacabra thing is. I don't know
much about it. I haven't researched it, but I think
it does at least warn't looking at it. Because so
many people are saying they're seeing these things and where
they're seeing it. You know, what's the density of sightings?
How reliable are these people? You know? So I would
say to like with the Bigfoot thing, I say in
the book, you know you basically you want to keep
an open mind about it. You want to you know,
I'm not here to you know, interrupt with someone's religious beliefs,
but I think you do need you do need science.
I think you do need the understanding that everything was
made by our creators. Have those So I would say,
keep an open mind, but also get it. Find out
as much as you can about it if you really
want to, spend time with it to try and verify
in your own mind.
Speaker 2: And you know, Mike, I've gone out there.
Speaker 3: I've been looking for this for the big phenomenon for
twenty five years, you know, and you know there's definitely
something to it. But that's why I kind of in
the book say, you know what, we're not just off
the beaten path, well way off the beaten path. Don't
be you know, don't be afraid to pursue more information
on things. Keep an open mind, but also know too
that you know you have to stay you have to
stay balanced in your thinking. You just because someone says something,
you know, it depends on a lot of different factors
whether you want to listen to that person, because every
person you talk to is taking you down a different path.
You know, you can't go I can't personally go out
there and have all these sightings out like, Okay, let's
talk to you know, Fred Willis, Okay, let's go out
to the side.
Speaker 2: He saw it there.
Speaker 3: No, I mean I've never seen one, but I mean
everything around it though, points to something being there. So
I would say keep an open mind, but also verify
as much as you can before you spend too much
time with something.
Speaker 1: And not only that, it's open to interpretation. Like you know,
when you read all these old newspaper clippings about a
hairy man, a wild man of the woods, right there
could very well be crazy people that were living in
the woods, half starved to death after or before a war.
And then and you know, you could have interpreted as
a man. Some people could interpret it as something more
than a man. You know, maybe the physical description didn't
really match a man, but they didn't know another word
for a man, so they called it man, you know,
the lockness monster. I was reading something the other day
and I'm not a big like I kind of stick
to the big Foot topic, because I really I don't
know what to think about dog Man, which I think
is you know, kind of its own thing. It's kind
of weird. But you know, the werewolf the dog Man,
I don't know. I don't have a real opinion on that.
But the Lockess monster, you know, since I was a kid,
I always followed it and I heard someone say the
other day, it's a giant eel, And you know what,
it makes sense, it really does.
Speaker 2: I can't think of a.
Speaker 1: Dinosaur living in the lock millions of years ago when
it was a frozen sheet of ice, Like, how could
a lizard, you know, a dinosaur live in that type
of environment. And it really does make sense that it
could just be a giant eel. It could be a
fifteen thirty foot giant eel. Sure it could be. It's
it's feasible and it does exist, and it's just like
there there are explanations for some things. But there are
hundreds of years of articles on Bigfoot that you and
I can find, and there's stuff that goes back thousands
of years with UH with American Indians. So so there
there's there's a lot, and you know, people will interpret it.
Oh it's a spirit. Oh, it's a person. Oh, it's
a tribe. Everybody has their own interpretation. But the fact
that you're spending time looking and you're doing it organically,
I think that to me is is something that most
people don't do.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I'm sorry, No, you're fine, go ahead, Yeah,
I mean you do.
Speaker 3: I mean there is there's there's a lot of things
like when you're out in the field, there's a lot
of things that you can't replicate from you know, being
at home and and you know, looking on your looking
up different stuff on the computer.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: So there's like one of the things too that Tony
and I have really.
Speaker 2: Been interested in was finding a cave. And he did
find this cave out.
Speaker 3: There, and it's it's very it's hard to get to.
My gosh, it's hard to get to. It's it's a
very steep area. But that the next expedition, that's the
place that I'm going to check out, Mike. And the
reason I say that is like with caves rather to
be lava tubes or mostly in the Northwest, the caves
are going to be related to volcanic rock and stuff.
But as you go back in there a lot of
animals a lot of times will pass away and their
bones are somewhat preserved, you know, in that environment.
Speaker 2: Like like a.
Speaker 3: Perfect example in south in southwestern Oregon right before you
get to Canada is the Oregon Caves National Monument and
that's where Dave Johnson had that that nearly seven foot
tall clinical psychologists from Alaska had that really big sighting,
you know, when he was in Oregon Caves.
Speaker 2: National Park where he went up above his family.
Speaker 3: They were on this trail and he saw a big,
a huge sasquatch look out from behind this tree and
look down the trail and his family, and he was
very emotionally moved because here he sees this thing you
know that he I mean obviously couldn't physically beat, you know,
and a really really scared him.
Speaker 2: But getting back to the cave thing.
Speaker 3: One of the things they found in Oregon Cave National
Money in the big cave, there was this skeleton and
they couldn't there was a predator, but they couldn't tell
where it was what it was. So they sent those
bones Mike back over to to d C and they
analyzed them as they came back. It was a jaguar,
you know, so I was like, huh, that's interesting. In
those bones, I think they estimated they had been there
a few thousand years. But you know, this was obviously
an animal that went into a cave. It passed away
and it's but in its bones remained a long time.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: Jeff Meldrum too, when he would when he would talk
about the caves in like in Southeast Asia, that's where
they found the gai canapith his teeth, you know, and
there was there was a pattern to it.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: He was telling me personally that, you know, there's a
pattern to this type of cave, with this type of
you know situation, you know, where the bones would be preserved,
the teeth will be preserved. So that's what I want
to do, is like, there's this one cave that Tony.
Speaker 2: Has already found that I want to explore.
Speaker 3: And you know, you never know the cave. There are
a lot of caves up there, but they're hard to find.
They are hard to find unless you talk to someone
who's uh, you know, no, it is really familiar with
a certain area that's cave dense, you know, cave rich,
rich with caves.
Speaker 2: You know. But but yeah.
Speaker 1: That's that's the kind of stuff that you know, that's
that's pretty in depth investigated. Grant there. I mean, that's
that's not for the week the week of heart to
get in there and try to you know, uh, I mean,
you've got to prepare for for research like that. That's
just not something you just don't. You go up in
your sneakers and.
Speaker 2: I may, I may, I may have to repel.
Speaker 3: I mean, I wish I didn't have to, but I
mean I did that in younger years, but it's been
a while.
Speaker 2: So sounds like fun.
Speaker 1: Sounds like fun. Well, Urt, I, I can't thank you
enough for your time, and I know your book's going
to do great, and I'll of course make sure that
I pick up a copy myself. I'm always up for
a good read and I love to read about not
just the research part, but the fact that you're out
there looking and exploring at the same time. So I
wish you the best of luck, and I hope there's
a third book in you, and I hope you keep
in touch.
Speaker 2: Oh, I'll definitely be in touch.
Speaker 3: I was telling someone, I don't know if I've got
a third book in me, but if I found bone evidence, yeah,
I'll find that.
Speaker 1: Would be awesome. That would be great.
Speaker 2: Ye.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you, Kurt. I really do appreciate your time.
Thank you, Mike Pull one second, okay, and that's going
to wrap it up for us tonight. Thank you all
for listening, and be sure to check out the link
to Kurt's book, Sasquatch Way Off the Beaten Path. As
for my own book, if you heard me talking with
Kurt about it a few minutes ago, it still is
very much a work in progress. I'll be sure to
keep everyone posted though as it comes together. Until next time, Oh,
here's my dog. Until next time, thanks again for spending
a little time in Bigfoot's wilderness. Have a great night.
May go see what that dog wants.