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Speaker 1: with the show. At Bigfoot Society, get the privilege of
Speaker 1: talking to Terrestrial today. She is an individual with a
Speaker 1: Sasquatch data project that first was introduced to her work
Speaker 1: through TikTok and it is very very interesting stuff, indeed
Speaker 1: that I don't really hear a lot of people talk
Speaker 1: about in the way that she is doing. So welcome
Speaker 1: to the show, Terrestrial. How's it going.
Speaker 2: Thank you, I'm really excited to be here. I'm doing good.
Speaker 2: Hew are you?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I'm doing great and just having a good Sunday afternoon,
Speaker 1: hanging out getting to talk about Bigfoot. So I can't
Speaker 1: complain about that. Let's start at the beginning. What was
Speaker 1: it that first got you into Bigfoot? To begin with? Terrestrial?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I have kind of a funny story of
Speaker 2: how this all unfolded. I was like five years old,
Speaker 2: and it was kind of weird because I was home
Speaker 2: from school that day, which never happens. My dad was
Speaker 2: also home from work because he was prepping for a
Speaker 2: colonoscopy the next day, so we were just like vegging
Speaker 2: out on the couch while he was doing that, and
Speaker 2: he's always been into like kind of like aliens and
Speaker 2: ghost stuff. So we were watching Discovery Channel and Doug
Speaker 2: Hicheck's Fastball to Legendnique Science came on the TV, and
Speaker 2: that's where I saw the Patterson give One film for
Speaker 2: the first time, and my brain just like exploded. I
Speaker 2: was like, this is the craziest thing I've ever seen,
Speaker 2: and kind of from there I was just hooked and
Speaker 2: I've been looking into it ever since.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. Yeah, Doug is such a cool guy to
Speaker 1: talk to, and he's really a pioneer in the field.
Speaker 1: I can't wait to see when his second documentary follow
Speaker 1: up to that comes out, maybe later this year or
Speaker 1: the year after. We'll see. I know they have a
Speaker 1: little bit of work left to do, but yeah, we'll
Speaker 1: all be waiting for that as well. So Terrestrial walk
Speaker 1: me through what the Sasquatch Data project is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so, I guess in its essence, I'm trying to
Speaker 2: put Bigfoot witness reports into a format that's optimized for
Speaker 2: data analysis. So I'm essentially creating a giant spreadsheet that's
Speaker 2: you can, you know, run whatever statistical analysis you want
Speaker 2: to if you want to, you know, use it for
Speaker 2: any kind of code you can. And it's also open
Speaker 2: source too, so anyone can go and download it off
Speaker 2: of my website at the time. Let's see, right now,
Speaker 2: I'm about fifteen hundred reports deep into the BFRO website,
Speaker 2: and I'm parsing all of those reports into about one
Speaker 2: hundred and thirty six columns I think right now is
Speaker 2: what I'm up to. And those columns are composed of
Speaker 2: different traits to sasquatches, whether it's physical, environmental, behavioral, that
Speaker 2: kind of thing. So in its essence, that's what it is.
Speaker 2: But I'm also really interested in the mathematical side of things,
Speaker 2: so like actually using the data set forward statistical analysis
Speaker 2: and seeing what we can learn about sasquatches.
Speaker 1: It's interesting. Do you have a background with data or math?
Speaker 1: Then I do.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So honestly, when when I was an undergraduate, I
Speaker 2: kind of did like a PhD. As an undergrad, I
Speaker 2: had a really great opportunity to work on NASA's down mission,
Speaker 2: and I was very angry into the team, and I
Speaker 2: got to like first author a paper, I got to
Speaker 2: co author a number of papers regarding my research on
Speaker 2: this dwarf planet and our solar system called Series so
Speaker 2: and a lot of my research was having to maintain
Speaker 2: and create like a very large data set and then
Speaker 2: running statistical analysis on that data. So I feel like
Speaker 2: I'm kind of pulling those skills that I got from
Speaker 2: my research and you know, applying it to the sasquatch field.
Speaker 1: That's fantastic. I would imagine that is probably not anything
Speaker 1: you're involved with currently, though.
Speaker 2: No, it's not.
Speaker 1: No, gotcha, Now, what are some things that you have
Speaker 1: come across when you start to jump into this data?
Speaker 1: Have there been any things that have jumped out that
Speaker 1: just have you know, gotten you really excited when you
Speaker 1: start looking through it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like every day I'm kind of thinking about,
Speaker 2: Oh I could go look into this, Oh I should
Speaker 2: go look into that. So I have a tendency to
Speaker 2: kind of bop around into you know what I'm looking at.
Speaker 2: You know. The question though that kind of got me
Speaker 2: to actually start working on my data set with the
Speaker 2: Sasquatch data project is you know, I heard someone say
Speaker 2: once that sasquatches are more active under full moods, and
Speaker 2: I was like, well, how do we know that, because
Speaker 2: there's not data to back that up. It's just something
Speaker 2: that was said. So that was actually my first kind
Speaker 2: of analysis that I did with the data set, and
Speaker 2: that was one of the most surprising so far, I think,
Speaker 2: where I did find that there is an increase in
Speaker 2: recorded sasquatch sightings under full moods, but also new moods.
Speaker 2: So when the moon is zero percent illuminated, and that
Speaker 2: difference in the reports during those times is statistically significant
Speaker 2: compared to those reports for the middle values of middle illumination.
Speaker 2: So that's really interesting because you go, well, why would
Speaker 2: that be the case, And to me, I think it
Speaker 2: points towards evidence of sasquatches partaking in this predator prey
Speaker 2: relationship that's very documented. Essentially, nocturnal predators engage in this
Speaker 2: under full moons. You know, prey have evolved to learn
Speaker 2: that nocturnal predators can see better, therefore they decrease their activities. So,
Speaker 2: you know, nocturnal predators will increase their activities because they're hunting,
Speaker 2: but also they know that prayer are going to be
Speaker 2: less active, so they're like staking out their territory and
Speaker 2: that kind of thing. And then under new moons, it's
Speaker 2: kind of the opposite where pray are more active because
Speaker 2: they know that predators can't see as well. Therefore predators
Speaker 2: are spending more time hunting, so their activities increase under
Speaker 2: these new and full moon conditions. And to see that
Speaker 2: in the data with sasquatches is just fascinating, honestly. Like
Speaker 2: I know, correlation does not necessarily mean causation, but it
Speaker 2: is really interesting to see the similar the similarities there.
Speaker 1: That is fascinating. Have you had any researchers reach out
Speaker 1: to you yet and been like, yeah, you're you're you're
Speaker 1: on the ball with this, or or maybe you're a
Speaker 1: little off with this.
Speaker 2: Oh no, you know, no one has really said anything
Speaker 2: about it yet, and I'm like hoping to get some feedback,
Speaker 2: like I've been thinking about that a lot. Actually, I'm
Speaker 2: like looking for feedback, like, you know what, to see
Speaker 2: what people think about it. But no, no, no one's
Speaker 2: really reached out to me yet.
Speaker 1: Well, one of the reasons I'm having you on is
Speaker 1: so hopefully you will get some feedback. Listeners might be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this isn't the normal bigfoot society show. Let's hear about
Speaker 1: someone who sees bigfoot. Well, guys, I think this is
Speaker 1: pretty important that we are aware of this research that
Speaker 1: Terrestrial is doing. So this is kind of like a
Speaker 1: one off show, So I think we all can can
Speaker 1: learn a great deal from what she is doing in
Speaker 1: her research. But have you been able to use the
Speaker 1: data that you've been looking through to kind of get
Speaker 1: a better picture of what sasquatch might normally look like?
Speaker 2: Yes, I have. So lately I've been looking at the
Speaker 2: heights of sasquatches. That's been something I'm interested in, particularly
Speaker 2: if there are differences in the reported heights between regions.
Speaker 2: So lately I've been comparing physical traits between the southern
Speaker 2: and the western regions of the United States, and so
Speaker 2: far I have found that there is not really a
Speaker 2: difference between the heights that are reported, at least between
Speaker 2: the South and the West. They came back not statistically
Speaker 2: significant and very close in value. I think, like the
Speaker 2: West was seven point two eight was the average height,
Speaker 2: and then the South was seven point four feet. But
Speaker 2: I'm just pulling those numbers out. It's somewhere around there.
Speaker 2: But what I did find that was interesting is that
Speaker 2: there are differences in the hair colors that are reported
Speaker 2: between the southern and Western United States. Something that I
Speaker 2: was interested in looking at particularly was I feel like
Speaker 2: I hear a lot that there are more reports of
Speaker 2: like red brown sasquatches in the South. So I looked
Speaker 2: into that, and it turns out there are, and it
Speaker 2: is a statistically significant difference between the Western United States.
Speaker 2: I actually found that there is a meaningful difference between
Speaker 2: the number of reports of red brown, white and gray
Speaker 2: sasquatches in the South versus the West. So that's really
Speaker 2: interesting because I think the thing is too, especially with
Speaker 2: the statistical significance testing, is it essentially tells us, you know,
Speaker 2: is this difference that we're seeing in the data meaningful
Speaker 2: or could it have happened due to just random chants,
Speaker 2: Like that's just how the data decided to fall. And
Speaker 2: when you do find statistical significance, it's essentially telling you, Okay,
Speaker 2: something is going on to cause this to happen. What
Speaker 2: that is is not clear right now, but you know,
Speaker 2: the chances of this just randomly occurring are very small, like,
Speaker 2: you know, less than five percent. So those those are
Speaker 2: two things that I've been looking at recently that I
Speaker 2: think are pretty interesting.
Speaker 1: Have you been able to find a baseline or maybe
Speaker 1: information about normal behavior of the sasquatch due to all
Speaker 1: these reports that you've been looking at.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's a really interesting question because I would
Speaker 2: say the majority of the reports that I go through
Speaker 2: are extremely short. So typically the witness, either the witnesses
Speaker 2: the sasquatch or the sasquatch sees the witness first and
Speaker 2: then they make eye contact or they just you know,
Speaker 2: become aware of each other, and then one of them
Speaker 2: leaves the encounter. Typically it's not like a prolonged encounter
Speaker 2: where the witness is actually watching them maybe like eat
Speaker 2: or drink or I don't know, just exist in the
Speaker 2: environment do whatever they do. So I haven't pulled stats
Speaker 2: on like who's leaving the encounter first, is it the
Speaker 2: witness or the sasquatch, But I am keeping up with
Speaker 2: it in the spreadsheets, so that would be it, you know,
Speaker 2: that would tell us something about their behaviors. I do
Speaker 2: know that intimidation encounters or like aggressive encounters are not
Speaker 2: that at least they're not very commonly reported. Currently in
Speaker 2: the data set, about five percent of reports involve like
Speaker 2: aggressive behaviors from sasquatches. So right now, it's you know,
Speaker 2: I can't make any certain you know, I can't like,
Speaker 2: for say, or for certain say that there's like a
Speaker 2: certain way they should behave because the encounters are typically
Speaker 2: very short, like less than a minute.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's interesting. In the community, there's seems to
Speaker 1: be these different things that are always passed around verbally
Speaker 1: as kind of like community knowledge, and it's very cool
Speaker 1: to see some of these things maybe be proven or
Speaker 1: disproven due to analysis of data. Have you found after
Speaker 1: looking through your data that a class A sightings happen
Speaker 1: more towards certain times of year.
Speaker 2: So this is the interesting thing. And I want to
Speaker 2: touch on what you just said a little bit because
Speaker 2: That's also part of the reason that I'm working on
Speaker 2: the Sasquatch Data project is because I feel like there
Speaker 2: is a lot of you know, there are a lot
Speaker 2: of ideas in the community, but there's not a lot
Speaker 2: of data to back up the ideas. So part of
Speaker 2: what I'm trying to do is actually take these ideas
Speaker 2: that are passed around and say, well, you know, based
Speaker 2: on at least this subset of reports, that doesn't seem
Speaker 2: to be true, or this does seem to be true.
Speaker 2: So yeah, that's definitely a big component of what I'm
Speaker 2: trying to do as well. I'm sorry, I got off
Speaker 2: on a different train of thought.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that happens to be a lot too. Have you
Speaker 1: found that Class A sightings happen more towards a certain
Speaker 1: time of year after analyzing the data from the sighting reports.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so, at least how they are reported, Class A
Speaker 2: sightings do tend to cluster among certain months. I can
Speaker 2: actually pull up at least my most recent data because
Speaker 2: I just looked at this, so it looks like, yeah,
Speaker 2: so for Class A sightings. Actually I didn't do it
Speaker 2: by class, so I can't quite tell you, but at
Speaker 2: least for sightings in general not designated by Class A
Speaker 2: or B. Right now, July has the most, followed by October,
Speaker 2: which is interesting. So they definitely and reports do cluster
Speaker 2: around the summer and fall months in general. Whether that's
Speaker 2: more so due to human activity or sasquatch activity, it's
Speaker 2: unclear at this point, but I do know that the
Speaker 2: majority of class acieties do happen during like the summer
Speaker 2: and the fall. And an idea that I've had that
Speaker 2: we can kind of, you know, that I've been thinking
Speaker 2: about at least for a while, is potentially looking at
Speaker 2: like the National Parks publish the amount of permits that
Speaker 2: they give out every year, particularly to or for like
Speaker 2: backpacking permits. So I'm like, well, if we could look
Speaker 2: at that and see when people are at least going
Speaker 2: backpacking or like into these more remote parts of the
Speaker 2: parks and stuff. I wonder if we could somehow use
Speaker 2: that data to determine if you know, more people are
Speaker 2: going out into these more remote parts of the continent
Speaker 2: during these months, and maybe that's why we're seeing this increase,
Speaker 2: or is it more of a sasquatch thing, like they're
Speaker 2: more active during these times of year. I haven't I
Speaker 2: haven't quite figured out how to make that jump.
Speaker 1: Yet big, so society will be right back after these messages.
Speaker 2: Yeah, at least for reports. There are more during the
Speaker 2: summer in the fall.
Speaker 1: That was really interesting because you know, if you go
Speaker 1: by what you hear, or at least what I hear
Speaker 1: from the community, it's like you gotta go out in October,
Speaker 1: like October is when crazy stuff happens, but it's like
Speaker 1: July wouldn't really wouldn't really think so? I mean, or
Speaker 1: maybe there's some listeners that are like, well, maybe you
Speaker 1: should really think so you're not talking to the right people.
Speaker 1: But now that's that's extremely interesting. Is there data that
Speaker 1: you wish you had from these encounter reports that you're reading.
Speaker 2: Yes, a lot of the time, like I, like I said,
Speaker 2: with my data set, I have over one hundred and
Speaker 2: thirty five different traits or different you know, variables that
Speaker 2: I'm looking at, and most of the time, most of
Speaker 2: the columns remain blink because either the witness didn't offer
Speaker 2: up the information which is you know, totally valid, like
Speaker 2: they've had an encounter that a lot of them don't
Speaker 2: know how to process it, so they don't even know
Speaker 2: like what the researcher would be interested in knowing, but
Speaker 2: then the follow up from the researcher, you know, I
Speaker 2: feel like there's missed opportunities there to extract more information,
Speaker 2: especially from these Class A close range sightings where the
Speaker 2: witness got a really good look at the sasquatch, particularly
Speaker 2: particularly like facial features like eye size, eye color, nose shape,
Speaker 2: different like cranial structure features, or in some cases, like
Speaker 2: the reports don't even include like a hair color from
Speaker 2: Class A sightings, which confuses me. So a lot of
Speaker 2: the time there is there are times when I'm like
Speaker 2: wishing I had more information, especially latitude longitude information for
Speaker 2: where the sighting happened. There's this thing you can do
Speaker 2: called maximum entropy, where essentially you can by using like
Speaker 2: latitude longitude locations of where an animal was that you
Speaker 2: can essentially stack that with different environmental layers I guess,
Speaker 2: and basically you run it through an algorithm and it'll
Speaker 2: tell you where you're likely to see that animal based
Speaker 2: on the features surrounding that location of where it was seen.
Speaker 2: So like, that's something that I'm really interested in doing too,
Speaker 2: but I don't have enough latitude longitude data to actually
Speaker 2: do that because you need quite a few points based
Speaker 2: on the region that you're looking at. So that way
Speaker 2: we could actually like predict where, you know, you might
Speaker 2: have an encounter with a sasquatch, where they might be
Speaker 2: based on other sightings. So yeah, I'm I'm always looking
Speaker 2: for more information. I love getting into the details of things.
Speaker 2: But I would say, like the physical traits and the
Speaker 2: latitude longitude data, I'm always looking.
Speaker 1: For that seems like a really big deal. So I
Speaker 1: want to make sure that I get that correct. So
Speaker 1: let's say someday you get enough of that data, you
Speaker 1: could have the computer program make a map where it's like,
Speaker 1: instead of us just going off of oh, well, this
Speaker 1: person tells me, yeah, you should check out this state
Speaker 1: park or National Force, you could have a map where
Speaker 1: it would like show you really good ideas of where
Speaker 1: to go and check out. Is that correct essentially?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So biologists use this to predict where other species
Speaker 2: might be, like what they're interested in a particular species.
Speaker 2: And the thing about it is, though, you have to
Speaker 2: be pretty because you know, the capacity of what computers
Speaker 2: can run is only so much, and also you don't
Speaker 2: want to make it too broad because then it will
Speaker 2: kind of overestimate an area. So the Yeah, the problem
Speaker 2: is getting enough reports from a pretty small area, even
Speaker 2: like statewide is a little too large, you can't do it.
Speaker 2: But you have to have a high enough density of
Speaker 2: sightings to be able to properly run the algorithm basically.
Speaker 2: So yeah, so it could be. It potentially could be
Speaker 2: a very powerful tool. It's just you know, having enough
Speaker 2: data to do it.
Speaker 1: Powerful in the right or wrong hands, for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Interesting, Approximately how close are you to being able to
Speaker 1: run a program like that?
Speaker 2: I started working on it actually last month. I had
Speaker 2: this idea of like, oh, we could probably do that, Like,
Speaker 2: you know, let me see if I have enough data
Speaker 2: points for a latitude longitude. I am pretty far away,
Speaker 2: at least from my reports that I'm getting off of
Speaker 2: the BFRO because I am going through reports by hand.
Speaker 2: It's taken me a while to get through everything, and
Speaker 2: I'm about fifteen hundred reports deep. I've got about five
Speaker 2: thousand more to go, and that's just one data set
Speaker 2: of reports. So it really just depends on the state
Speaker 2: and the area of how many data points would be enough. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it really just depends. I mean, the more data the better, right,
Speaker 2: So as much latitude and longitude data I can get.
Speaker 2: The better the but the better the program will essentially
Speaker 2: predict I definitely don't have enough right now.
Speaker 1: Man, if you can get access to the flats, that
Speaker 1: would be awesome. That is allegedly the name of the
Speaker 1: back door database for the BFRO, and I'm sure there's
Speaker 1: way more information on there. That's just me hypothesizer because
Speaker 1: I'm not in there. But so you have to manually
Speaker 1: go through all these reports to pretty much see if
Speaker 1: they have a latitude and longitude in them, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So there's a couple of things, and this is
Speaker 2: kind of what I've run into, you know, extracting any
Speaker 2: information from the reports. Is the witness there. There aren't
Speaker 2: always a latitude longitudes just blatantly on the report. Sometimes
Speaker 2: the researcher will give us it'll say like GPS coordinates
Speaker 2: or you know whatever, or the witness will actually provide
Speaker 2: a lot of tude longitude, but that's not very common.
Speaker 2: A lot of the times the witness will give an
Speaker 2: extremely detailed location, be you there, and then walk twenty
Speaker 2: more feet, and that's where this happens. So I'll go
Speaker 2: on Google Maps.
Speaker 1: Sorry, I get a lot of weird stuff happening in
Speaker 1: my phone calls. Do you mind repeating that just a
Speaker 1: little bit your your phone went out entirely?
Speaker 2: Oh sorry, Yeah. So with the reports on the BFUR website,
Speaker 2: they do not always give a latitude longitude. Sometimes they do.
Speaker 2: Sometimes either the witness or the researcher who follows up
Speaker 2: will give a latitude longitude. But most of the time
Speaker 2: it's the witness giving like a really detailed description of
Speaker 2: where their encounter happened. So they'll say, like, you know,
Speaker 2: turn onto this road, go to this mile marker, and
Speaker 2: then like drive twenty more feet and that's where the
Speaker 2: encounter happened. So I'll go on like Google Maps or something,
Speaker 2: and I will go down the street view and find
Speaker 2: the spot and then extract the latitude longitude that way.
Speaker 2: So like some people have suggested, like you know, webscraping
Speaker 2: or something to extract the latitude longitude. But honestly, most
Speaker 2: of the time I'm having to go and manually find it,
Speaker 2: like in Google Maps or Google Earth or whatever.
Speaker 1: Man, it feels like there should be some other I
Speaker 1: get it, though. I mean, like sometimes you just have
Speaker 1: to put in the work. But that's a lot of work.
Speaker 2: Wow, It is, but it's worth it. Like it's really fun.
Speaker 2: I like it. It's a challenge, but yeah, I'm like,
Speaker 2: if I could, just if I could have more more data, have.
Speaker 1: You found any you know, well, I would imagine you're
Speaker 1: looking at a lot of these places manually through Google Maps.
Speaker 1: Have you noticed any similarities of the places that are
Speaker 1: starting to come out or any commonalities?
Speaker 2: You know? This is something that is pretty interesting because
Speaker 2: I haven't really noticed any any kind of clustering or
Speaker 2: anything of like environmental traits. But to be fair, I
Speaker 2: haven't really looked into that too much. I've been more
Speaker 2: focused on like the physical traits of stasquatches. You know,
Speaker 2: the majority of reports do happen in more rural areas,
Speaker 2: and quite a few happen at private, you know, residences,
Speaker 2: people's houses. There's quite a few road crossings, and those
Speaker 2: typically happen on more rural roads, though you do have
Speaker 2: like the highway every once in a while. It's like,
Speaker 2: you know, you go on Google Earth and there's plenty
Speaker 2: of cars traveling on this highway. It's not like an
Speaker 2: obscure road or anything. But I haven't really looked into
Speaker 2: the more environmental aspect of or locational aspects of the
Speaker 2: reports too much.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. You know, Let's say someday you are able to
Speaker 1: get you know, we'll call it like this ultimate Bigfoot Algorithm,
Speaker 1: where you can run this program and you can see, like,
Speaker 1: go show me the areas and in Washington State where
Speaker 1: it's the best idea for me to look for bigfoot.
Speaker 1: What is your hope that that would be used for
Speaker 1: the good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a really great question because I've thought about this,
Speaker 2: and you know that the maccent modeling is not you know,
Speaker 2: one hundred percent going to be correct. It's essentially looking
Speaker 2: for features either in the topography or in the vegetation
Speaker 2: or proximity to major roadways and things like that. Like,
Speaker 2: it's looking for features that aren't going to be super
Speaker 2: apparent to humans. So it's not going to be like
Speaker 2: spot on every time for sure. It's more of a
Speaker 2: tool to at least get an idea of Okay, well,
Speaker 2: this area has a lot of the same features of
Speaker 2: where you know these sightings occurred. So I do want
Speaker 2: to make that like clear that it's not going to
Speaker 2: tell us exactly where they are. At least, you know,
Speaker 2: help us choose better spots to go research and I
Speaker 2: would hope that it's used for research. I would hope that,
Speaker 2: you know, it's purely used for research. And you know,
Speaker 2: I'm I hope for the best for the sasquatch species.
Speaker 2: I guess, like I definitely don't want to help people
Speaker 2: like hunt them or something. I'm definitely like wanting to
Speaker 2: conserve the species. So I do hope that it would
Speaker 2: be used for purely research. ADS.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I definitely agree with you. I mean, at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, if there is species of
Speaker 1: sasquatch or bigfoot in the United States, which I think
Speaker 1: we both believe that one of these days there's going
Speaker 1: to be a whole lot of information put out there
Speaker 1: and the right people, which should be all of us,
Speaker 1: need to stand up really quick and start probably a
Speaker 1: conservation effort. We've had that chat a few times on
Speaker 1: the show in the past, and it's an interesting one.
Speaker 1: How do you start a conservation effort before creatures actually
Speaker 1: even discovered. Yeah, it's an interesting conversation to have. Are
Speaker 1: there any other ideas that the community might throw around
Speaker 1: that you are trying to I wouldn't say challenge, but
Speaker 1: look into if they're actually valid with your data.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So, currently I've been looking into and I, at
Speaker 2: least on TikTok, I get a lot of pushback on
Speaker 2: this one, but I'm really interested in learning more about
Speaker 2: the actual heights of sasquatches because just based on the data,
Speaker 2: I'm not totally convinced, and a lot of like my
Speaker 2: own personal thoughts and beliefs are purely based off what
Speaker 2: I'm seeing in the data. You know, I'm not totally
Speaker 2: convinced that they are truly reaching these really extreme heights.
Speaker 2: So it's like ten plus feet even like the really
Speaker 2: you know high nine point eight feet and stuff like
Speaker 2: these really extreme heights, I'm not totally sure if that's,
Speaker 2: you know, if that's a product of the witnesses fear.
Speaker 2: There's this thing that happens when you're scared where you
Speaker 2: perceive the stimulus as much as larger, sometimes up to
Speaker 2: thirty percent larger than what it actually is. It's a
Speaker 2: pretty documented phenomenon. It has a lot of different names.
Speaker 2: I call it fear driven magnification. It's just one of them.
Speaker 2: But yeah, basically, when you're scared, you perceive the stimulus
Speaker 2: as either or anywhere between like seventeen to thirty percent
Speaker 2: larger than what it actually is. And so in my
Speaker 2: latest investigation that I've done, an analysis that I've done,
Speaker 2: I found that as witness fear levels increase, so does
Speaker 2: the average height of the reported sasquatch. And this increase
Speaker 2: is statistically significant between like the elevated and extreme witness
Speaker 2: fear groups versus the mild fear group, so often something
Speaker 2: I've been pretty interested in. I also found that while
Speaker 2: every wittness fear group has these reports of like ten
Speaker 2: plus foot tall sasquatches, seventy seven percent of those reports
Speaker 2: fall into these elevated and extreme fear groups. And you
Speaker 2: can kind of look at that two ways. You can
Speaker 2: either look at that as well it could be evidence
Speaker 2: of this, you know, fear driven magnification, or you can
Speaker 2: look at it as you know, people are going to
Speaker 2: be more scared of a ten foot tall sasquatch versus
Speaker 2: a seven foot tall sasquatch. But in my mind, we
Speaker 2: know this happens. This is like a thing, it's both
Speaker 2: mental and a physical thing that happens in your brain.
Speaker 2: You're amygdala basically lights up, and that's the structure in
Speaker 2: your brain that processes emotion, particularly fear, and then it
Speaker 2: does send feedback back to visual courtesies that you know,
Speaker 2: then influence further perceptual processing. So like, we're going to
Speaker 2: see this happen at some point in these witness reports,
Speaker 2: because in you know, most of these reports, the witnesses
Speaker 2: are really freaked out. I mean, they're having a potentially
Speaker 2: life altering encounter. They're very scared.
Speaker 1: Big for society will be right back after these messages.
Speaker 2: So I think that's something we really need to keep
Speaker 2: in mind when we're thinking about the size of sasquatches
Speaker 2: is keeping in mind these psychological things that do happen
Speaker 2: when you were scared. And that's been one of my
Speaker 2: recent things that I've been looking into and thinking about
Speaker 2: a lot.
Speaker 1: That's extremely interesting. I'm sure this conversation would be totally
Speaker 1: different if I had actually had a visual sighting prior
Speaker 1: to this interview, which I haven't. How do you figure
Speaker 1: out that a report falls under being really scared or
Speaker 1: not so scared or extremely scared?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: How do you make that back and forth in every report?
Speaker 2: I can't always determine the fear level isn't always explicitly stated,
Speaker 2: So in those cases I just put like a a
Speaker 2: like that's my placeholder not applicable. So I basically created
Speaker 2: five different fear groups. There is the no fear group,
Speaker 2: where the witness explicitly states they were not scared during
Speaker 2: the encounter at all. There's mild, where you know, the
Speaker 2: witness was basically like, I was a little freaked out,
Speaker 2: but really it wasn't, you know, anything crazy. Moderate the
Speaker 2: witness may or may not have some kind of physical
Speaker 2: reaction the hair stands up on their skin, or you know,
Speaker 2: they just basically say I was scared. That's what I designated. Moderate.
Speaker 2: As elevated is the witness expressing, you know, more elevated fear.
Speaker 2: Maybe they start sweating, they start to get goose bumps,
Speaker 2: they say they were very scared, like even just as
Speaker 2: simple as that. And then extreme is when the witness
Speaker 2: explicitly states like I'm never going into the woods again,
Speaker 2: I actually just read a report this morning, Or this
Speaker 2: woman will never drive after dark anymore because her you know,
Speaker 2: experience was so terrifying, or they say like I was
Speaker 2: scared to death. I was terrified. I've never been that
Speaker 2: scared before in my life. I would say the majority
Speaker 2: of reports are in that moderate and elevated fear group.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I basically just have come up with like
Speaker 2: a classification classifications for the different groups.
Speaker 1: It's extremely interesting how you had to do that, and
Speaker 1: it's it's pretty cool too. There's a left field question,
Speaker 1: just because I think this is kind of interesting how
Speaker 1: it comes up in some reports that I have that
Speaker 1: I've received over the years. Do you find that a
Speaker 1: lot of the reports that you're analyzing talk about orangutan
Speaker 1: features or anything like that.
Speaker 2: Yes, I don't know about a lot, but it has
Speaker 2: been brought up, like, it does stand out that people
Speaker 2: sometimes do describe especially the hair, especially the hair on
Speaker 2: the arms as orangutan like. I would say that I've
Speaker 2: read more reports where they describe the facial features as
Speaker 2: more gorilla like if they are going to attach it
Speaker 2: to one of the great ape species, if it's you know,
Speaker 2: if it doesn't resemble a human, I typically see gorilla
Speaker 2: more or the body stature more gorilla like. But on
Speaker 2: occasion I do get or I have read those reports
Speaker 2: where they say it was more like an orangutan, And
Speaker 2: it would be interesting to see if that's like a
Speaker 2: regional thing, if that seems to be clustered in particular
Speaker 2: regions or states exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that. I was just thinking that as well.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is an off to the side, but man,
Speaker 1: I just love going to the Omahazu I'm on in
Speaker 1: the Midwest and like there's a really great orangutan exhibit
Speaker 1: there and just watching them. They're so smart you watching them,
Speaker 1: and like imagine, man, can you imagine being the specific
Speaker 1: Northwest and you see something that kind of looks like
Speaker 1: that but it's a lot bigger. That would just be
Speaker 1: like mind blowing for sure. In your analyzing of all
Speaker 1: this data, does anything ever come up with like track size?
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, I've analyzed quite a few footprint reports. I
Speaker 2: think at this point I'm at a round one hundred
Speaker 2: and twin reports that I've analyzed that are footprint reports specifically. Now,
Speaker 2: I will say that most of the reports that have
Speaker 2: a footprint size like a length of ball with heel
Speaker 2: with a depth the witness, it's not clear if the
Speaker 2: witness actually measured the footprint with like a ruler or
Speaker 2: anything like that. Typically what I see is they have
Speaker 2: like either a picture of their boot next to the
Speaker 2: footprint or they get like a general size estimate. So
Speaker 2: you have to be really careful with how I present
Speaker 2: the footprint data because it's not always Usually it's like
Speaker 2: an estimate or like they're going purely based off of
Speaker 2: their shoe size, which is not always super accurate either,
Speaker 2: But I do. I have gone through about I think
Speaker 2: about one hundred and twenty footprint reports so far.
Speaker 1: That is really cool. You're doing everything by hand or
Speaker 1: you know, just by yourself. Have you ever considered using
Speaker 1: AI at all to analyze huge amounts of data or
Speaker 1: is there maybe a certain way you feel about using that.
Speaker 2: I use AI all the time, so yeah, when I'm
Speaker 2: going through reports. In the beginning, I was purely manually
Speaker 2: going through reports, like I was reading everything, extracting information,
Speaker 2: and it was taking me forever to get through reports.
Speaker 2: I use CHATGBT and Claude to help me get through reports. Basically,
Speaker 2: I feed at my column names, I feed at the report,
Speaker 2: and I have it, you know, extract information for me.
Speaker 2: But there's some problems with that. So if you ask
Speaker 2: these large language models a question twice, they don't always
Speaker 2: give you the same response and especially in the same format.
Speaker 2: So that creates an issue when you're trying to extract
Speaker 2: information for something like what I'm trying to do with
Speaker 2: the Sasquatch data project, where I'm trying to optimize it
Speaker 2: for coding, I'm trying to optimize it for data analysis,
Speaker 2: so it needs to be very structured and in a
Speaker 2: particular format. Well, AI doesn't always follow the format, and
Speaker 2: it also doesn't always extract the information correctly, especially in
Speaker 2: these reports where maybe multiple encounters were reported in like
Speaker 2: one report. It'll get confused. It'll start like basically putting
Speaker 2: the wrong information with the wrong report. So I do
Speaker 2: have it help me to get like the quick information out,
Speaker 2: but I do still have to manually like read everything, extract,
Speaker 2: fix issues and that kind of thing. So yeah, I
Speaker 2: do use AI a lot, but I definitely don't lean
Speaker 2: on it, and I don't I don't trust it to
Speaker 2: do all of my parcing of big reports for sure,
Speaker 2: but it is very helpful and it has sped up
Speaker 2: the process for me a lot. It also helps me,
Speaker 2: like with my code, because how I do my analysis
Speaker 2: is I write everything in Python, and that's how I'm
Speaker 2: doing like my statistical significance testing and my statistical analysis
Speaker 2: is all through Python. So it's definitely helpful with the
Speaker 2: coding part. But for parsing the reports, there's some issues
Speaker 2: with it, but it does speed up things quite a bit.
Speaker 1: Do you think that at any point you might start
Speaker 1: bringing in other data sources besides the BFRO or you
Speaker 1: probably will be focusing on just this for a Oh.
Speaker 2: I would love to, like my ultimate goal with this.
Speaker 2: I so with data analysis, you want to pull from
Speaker 2: as many sources as possible. You want to have like
Speaker 2: you know, you don't want to basically put all your
Speaker 2: eggs in one basket. So I would really love to
Speaker 2: start pulling from other data sets or other databases, especially
Speaker 2: ones where they do, like you know, it has to
Speaker 2: the reports have to go through some check like they've
Speaker 2: got to either to follow up reports with witnesses or
Speaker 2: something like that. But I would love to include other
Speaker 2: databases in the in the data set. It would it
Speaker 2: would really help strengthen these results too that I get
Speaker 2: with you know, the statistical analysis. But for now, you know,
Speaker 2: I guess for now, I'm just going to keep going
Speaker 2: with the BFRO. But I would love to start pulling
Speaker 2: in other other data other databases of witness.
Speaker 1: Reports, absolutely. I mean the main one that would come
Speaker 1: to my mind right now would be, you know, the
Speaker 1: big Foot Mapping project. There quite a few unique witness
Speaker 1: reports that come into that one that might be something
Speaker 1: to I don't know if you've ever looked into that
Speaker 1: one before.
Speaker 2: But oh yeah, yeah I have. And Yeah, like I said,
Speaker 2: I'm super open to pulling in other databases for sure,
Speaker 2: because essentially it just strengthens like the results that I'm
Speaker 2: getting through the analysis that I'm doing. When you have
Speaker 2: when you do pull like data from different sources and
Speaker 2: you know it's been checked and it's credible.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, maybe to switch gears for a little bit here
Speaker 1: at the end. Have you ever experienced anything that might
Speaker 1: be considered related to bigfoot out in the woods, or
Speaker 1: had any any weird encounters yourself, or has this made
Speaker 1: you want to go out and kind of look for
Speaker 1: things yourself.
Speaker 2: I've had two really weird things happen that I can't
Speaker 2: attribute to anything that I at least, you know, nothing,
Speaker 2: I just can't attribute it to anything else. I grew
Speaker 2: up on a farm in Northeast Georgia and a pretty
Speaker 2: rural part of Northeast Georgia. And the first one, the
Speaker 2: first weird thing I guess that happened was basically how
Speaker 2: the house is set up. It backs up to about
Speaker 2: fifteen acres of woods at least on our property, and
Speaker 2: then that property or our property backs up to another
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty acres of woods, and then there's
Speaker 2: like some farms scattered around. But my dad was like
Speaker 2: on the back porch and he comes in and he's like,
Speaker 2: there's some people walking in our woods back there, and
Speaker 2: we were my mom and I were really confused because,
Speaker 2: you know, rural Georgia people trespassing. It's not a good combo, like,
Speaker 2: most people aren't going to do that. So we go
Speaker 2: out on the back porch and you could distinctly hear
Speaker 2: two sets of bipedal footsteps. It definitely was not a
Speaker 2: quadrupedal animal. It was like bipedal steps and definitely two
Speaker 2: of them, and you could hear like a woman's voice.
Speaker 2: But the weirdest thing about it was that they were
Speaker 2: close enough to where we should have been able to
Speaker 2: understand what they were saying, but you couldn't understand them.
Speaker 2: And it also, at the same time sounded like it
Speaker 2: was on the edge of hearing. And I know it
Speaker 2: doesn't really make sense, but I've heard other people talk
Speaker 2: about this when they say that they've you know, heard
Speaker 2: sasquatches communicating like that's the only way to describe it.
Speaker 2: And I totally understand what that means, because that's exactly
Speaker 2: what I heard that day. Was like, it's like it's
Speaker 2: close enough to where you should be able to understand them,
Speaker 2: but it also sounds just bizarre and it's like on
Speaker 2: the edge of hearing. But I you know, I can't
Speaker 2: definitely say that those are sasquatches we were hearing, but
Speaker 2: it was just like really weird. The second thing was
Speaker 2: weirder my basically in that house, my bedroom was against
Speaker 2: the back wall of the house, so again right next
Speaker 2: to the woods, and I woke up one night and
Speaker 2: I was hearing this noise like right outside and the
Speaker 2: woodline of what sounded like a really demented turkey like gobbling,
Speaker 2: and then there was like this horse snort at the end.
Speaker 2: I know that sounds so weird, but that's what That's
Speaker 2: the best way I know how to describe it. And
Speaker 2: then you could very distinctly hear bipedal running back and
Speaker 2: forth in the woods, just running back and forth and
Speaker 2: doing this like weird turkey gobble thing with a horse snort,
Speaker 2: And at first I thought like, Okay, this is like
Speaker 2: the most messed up turkey I've ever heard, like something
Speaker 2: is wrong. But then I realized, like, turkeys don't snort,
Speaker 2: and also, there's no way that I would be able
Speaker 2: to hear it running in the woods because it wouldn't
Speaker 2: be large to us. We had horses on the farm
Speaker 2: and we would let them kind of like free room
Speaker 2: on the property, and I could barely hear them in
Speaker 2: the world's from my room, like you could barely hear
Speaker 2: their footsteps, and you know, they're like eight to twelve
Speaker 2: hundred pound horses. So I'm like listening to this thing.
Speaker 2: I'm sitting there, and at one point it did I'm like,
Speaker 2: did the horses get out? But then I was like, no,
Speaker 2: they don't. You know, that doesn't sound like a horse.
Speaker 2: But the other weird thing was we had dogs that
Speaker 2: lived outside and they were totally silent, and they usually
Speaker 2: barked at everything. Like it was just weird that they
Speaker 2: weren't barking or anything. So I'm listening to this for
Speaker 2: at least six or seven minutes of this weird turkey
Speaker 2: gobble horse snort, and then it just stops, and that
Speaker 2: was it. That was the whole thing. Nothing else ever
Speaker 2: happened it was just a really bizarre experience.
Speaker 1: That is very very strange. I agree, anything weird ever
Speaker 1: done to the horses themselves, No.
Speaker 2: We never, No, we've never they never had anything happen
Speaker 2: to them. I've heard reports of like sasquatches, like brain
Speaker 2: eating horse hair and stuff, but we never had anything
Speaker 2: like that happen at all. You know, sometimes they'd be
Speaker 2: more spooky, you know at times, and other times we
Speaker 2: always thought, okay, the bear's back or something. But nothing
Speaker 2: weird ever happened like that. It was more just like
Speaker 2: auditory stuff that was weird. And again I can't for
Speaker 2: sure say that they were sasquatches, but also like I
Speaker 2: don't know what the heck that would have been.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's very interesting. I've never heard anything like
Speaker 1: that myself. I do get a lot of reports where
Speaker 1: it's like weird combinations of animals doesn't really make sense,
Speaker 1: and it's just it's very very strange, is what it
Speaker 1: comes down to. But a terrestrial. It's been such a
Speaker 1: pleasure having you on the show today, and I feel
Speaker 1: like we've learned a lot through what you are doing
Speaker 1: with your work currently. Is there a way that my
Speaker 1: listeners can to help you maybe by sending data or
Speaker 1: anything like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you have any kind of reports, especially if
Speaker 2: you have like an exact glatitude or longitude associated with
Speaker 2: the report, you can send them my way on my website,
Speaker 2: Sasquatch Data Project dot com. I also have a resource
Speaker 2: on there that you know, either witnesses can use or
Speaker 2: researchers can use. It's basically like a worksheet with a
Speaker 2: bunch of different questions on it that you can fill
Speaker 2: out and send back to me and I can start
Speaker 2: compiling those reports into my data set. But yeah, you
Speaker 2: can contact me through email. It's just contact at Sasquatch
Speaker 2: Data Project dot com. Or you can message me on
Speaker 2: like Instagram or YouTube or TikTok any social media that
Speaker 2: I'm on. The handle is at Sasquatch Data. But yeah,
Speaker 2: those there a couple of ways to get in touch
Speaker 2: with me.
Speaker 1: Fantastic. Well, thank you for coming on the show today
Speaker 1: and best of luck with your future research.
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you so much for having me. This
Speaker 2: was so much fun.
Speaker 1: Just wanted to take a few minutes to say thank
Speaker 1: you to you all my listeners for listening to the podcast.
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Speaker 1: had a bigfoot encounter related to the following or know
Speaker 1: someone who has, please reach out to me at Bigfoot
Speaker 1: Society at gmail dot com or pass on my email.
Speaker 1: Here's the list. Number one encounters from Franklin County, Texas.
Speaker 1: Number two encounters from the entire state of Iowa. Number
Speaker 1: three encounters from Oakridge, Oregon or the surrounding area. Number
Speaker 1: four any individuals that know about bigfoot being flown off
Speaker 1: after the Mount Saint Helens eruption. Number five. Individuals that
Speaker 1: have had a bigfoot encounter well in the military. Number six.
Speaker 1: Those that have had a bigfoot encounter in the southern
Speaker 1: New Hampshire or north central Massachusetts area, including Franklin County, Massachusetts.
Speaker 1: Number seven. Individuals that have had a bigfoot encounter in
Speaker 1: a Bible camp or boy Scout camp setting. Number eight
Speaker 1: individuals that have had bigfoot try to enter their house
Speaker 1: forcibly while they were living inside. Number nine individuals that
Speaker 1: have actively have a bigfoot living on their property. And lastly,
Speaker 1: any sightings that are in the Watchitaw National Forest Area
Speaker 1: of Oklahoma or Arkansas. A special thank you to all
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Speaker 1: Summerfest this year July eleventh through the twelfth. It's going
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Speaker 1: and Oakridge or again, and listeners, if you're going to go,
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Speaker 1: of one if you use the code b f S
Speaker 1: like Bigfoot Society, but BFS and I'll get used some
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Speaker 1: for my listeners. So there you go. I look forward
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Speaker 1: to www. Dot Sasquatch Summerfest dot com and pick up
Speaker 1: your tickets today.