Speaker 1: This is that Bigfoot podcast where hoaxes di loud, myths
get crushed and the truth doesn't need permission. We don't
do blurry, we don't do polite. We cut through crap
and call it like it is. If you're here for
feel good folklore, keep scrolling. But if you're fed up
with the fake and hungry for real answers, let's go
that Bigfoot podcast. We're not just hunting sasquatch, We're breaking
the illusion wide.
Speaker 2: Open, Doctor Hogan Chirou, Welcome to that Bigfoot podcast, my friend.
What's going on?
Speaker 3: No much, just hanging out in Oregon, hoping that it
doesn't get too hot, being thankful that the forest fires
aren't getting too crazy out here yet. How are you doing.
Speaker 2: I'm hanging in like a hair and a biscuit man,
and it is definitely not hot here in North Carolina.
I've been freaking cold the last couple of days. I
think it dropped down in mid fifties last night overnight,
which is great. I run every day. I ran six
miles yesterday and I probably could have ran another twelve
miles because it was so freaking cool outside. It felt amazing.
But we've had the wettest summer I think we've ever
had in the history of the world that I can remember.
It's rained every freaking day for four months. It's impossible
to do anything outside, and we live outside and do
everything outside. It's been debacle, man, But the weather is
what it is. We can get into the conversation maybe
someday about climate change and global warming. Whatever makes this
the wettest summer ever and the coolest it's been in
a long time. I think it's going to be like
in the seventies over the next week or so. I'm
definitely looking forward to that. But I'm leaving town this
weekend as we record this. If you guys are listening
to this, on Friday, I am in Pennsylvania at the
Central PA Bigfoot Conference slash Festival. Gonna be hanging out
with a bunch of good friends of mine that are
coming over from the UK. I've got Daniel and his
father Craig coming over. The Barnetts will be in town.
Ryan RPGGO and Beskie will be there. There's a host
of other speakers. If you're in that area and you
just happen to be listening to us, grab your ticket
and stop by and see us. There's going to be
tons of people out there vending. I think the speaker
area is inside, so I think you actually have to
pay to access that part, but you can just go
shop the vendors and have a good time. I've never
been to that, but I'm looking forward to hanging out
with Gwen from Gotten Knockers, who is the organizer of that,
and Mike, her husband. Great people up there in Pennsylvania.
I'm definitely looking forward to that. But that's not why
we're here. It would normally be me and Wayne doing
the show, but Wayne is on hiatus, so here we are.
You and I. You've been on the show before. We've
had some conversations about Bigfoot over on Sasquatch, Ottessee. I
think you made an appearance over on this podcast as well.
For posterity sake and for those who have memories like mine.
I don't remember what the like I had for breakfast,
so they may not remember who you are. Why don't
you give us a little bit of the Dime Store tour,
the elevator pitch for doctor Hogan. Chiro Sure.
Speaker 3: So, I'm an Oregon boy, grew up in the woods
with a hunting and fishing guide as a father, former
marine who used to like to take us up, spin
us around ten times and then tell us, okay, tell
me how you get home from here. And I guess
that's kind of where my interest in the woods and
animals started. Went to college, went on and got my
PhD in evolutionary anthropology and studied everything from grizzly bears
and gray wolves here in the Pacific Northwest to chimpanzees
in East Africa. Spent some time with cheetahs in Southern
Africa and gibbons and Asia. So I've been in lots
of forests and lots of areas around the world. But
my specialty is really in the evolution of behavior in emmons,
our hominin ancestor, and our closest relatives. My PhD was
focusing on chimpanzee behavioral ecology, and I taught for a
while at a university that have consulted for years. Have
always had an interest in all things squatchy. That's why
I reached out to you originally. And I'm excited to
be here chatting with you today about some of this stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, I've been looking forward to this. I love
to have conversations with people smarter than I am. That's
how I learn things. And I also like to have
conversations with people that disagree with me. I think that's
where the growth happens. If we constantly have conversations with
everybody who's drinking the bigfoo kool aid, we never get anywhere.
So I love these kind of conversations. I'm sure we'll agree,
probably more than we disagree. But one of the things
that I was fascinated with that you brought up, I
think in one of our first conversations, and I want
to get into it here today to start with, is
a great place. In my opinion, it's a springboard for
a lot of the experiences people have with bigfoot sasquatch,
harry man, bushman, whatever you call them, wherever you have
and to be whatever the nomenclature for you in your
area is. We're talking about the same thing here, and
it's this super hero thing that accompanies these descriptions of
these encounters. It's one of the things that we talked
about before is these things seem to be the biggest,
the baddest, the fastest, the strongest, the loudest. They're the
everything ist that has anything to do with the animal kingdom,
and that doesn't make sense in any other capacity. I
think recently I was on another podcast as a guest,
and I was talking about this very thing and how
it baffles me, and I think I compared an elephant
and a cheetah. Right, cheetah is one of, if not
the fastest animal on Earth. Elephant's one of the biggest
animals that's ever been on the Earth currently on the Earth.
I think the largest elephant that I read something about
recently was back in the early nineties. It was a
big bull elephant. He weighed twenty six thousand pounds. Enormous creature, right.
But you take those two animals, and they're amazing in
and of themselves, But if you compare them side by side,
there's nothing there that really overlaps at all. Elephants are big,
they're heavy, they're strong, they're powerful, they're loud. Cheetahs are cleek,
they're built for speed, they're killing machines. And when you
get into the bigfoot sasquatch thing. I've had my own
encounters with these things, and I'm sure we're going to
talk about at some point. When you compare these two,
say a sasquatch encounter. Sasquatch are always the fastest, they
move the fastest, they're the biggest, they're the loudest. They're vocalizations.
You feel them before you hear them. People think they're
able to emit infrasound, very similar to animals like elephants
and big cats. But they're like the superhero of cryptids,
and that never has made sense to me. I tend
to stay in the lane of flesh and blood, the
scientific approach to this research, But I think what that
does the longer I stay in there, and I think
this happens with a lot of people in the subject,
instead of sticking with the science and just saying, Okay,
there's no way this creature could exist, so none of
that makes any sense. It's all bullshit. I don't believe that.
Because I've seen these creatures. I know they exist. So
I have to then evaluate is there something off in
the sauce with the person or persons who experienced that.
Maybe it was adrenaline, maybe it was fear, maybe it
was something else in the encounter. I've said it before.
I think maybe these things might have been six feet
tall and they grew three feet, or they became ten
feet tall because of the fear and adrenaline. They disappeared.
Maybe it didn't disappear, Maybe it just blended with its environments.
The list goes on and on. There's a litany of things.
Where are you on this given your background, given your knowledge,
training and experience, your degree in the subject, how do
you reconcile that in your brain as a scientist? Are
you one of these people that dismiss it whole cloth?
Or do you think there could be something more to
some of these signings.
Speaker 3: I have a saying that I've used for decades showing
my age. I never say never or always in biology.
As soon as you do, then someone goes and catches
a selacant off the custom Atagascar and your whole theory screwed.
So I always leave the possibility open. I am definitely
a hardcore skeptic based on my education, training and understanding
about ap coology, etc. Which we can get into more
detail when it comes to the superhero stuff. I brought
that up originally because as I was getting more and
more into more recent sasquatch stories and things, I was
noticing just that through line of people talking about, Oh,
it was so powerful it did things that humans could
never do. A five hundred pound rock came flying past
our truck and it was at least ten feet tall.
We went out to the tree and measured it was
at that tall. It ran faster than any animal possibly could.
I recently heard someone say there's nothing in North America
that could outrun a sasquatch. Considering pronghorn antelope can hit
about sixty miles an hour, that's an impressive claim. And
I am definitely if sasquatch exists, definitely a flesh and
blood guy. If it exists, in my opinion, it's an
ape of some sort. But we need to figure that out.
But when we look at I love your example of
elephants and cheetahs because what they do have in common
is their mammalian ancestry. They're both mammals, both give birth
to live young, both nurse them, both have some sort
of hair on their bodies. But you're right when you
just look at them, that's where a lot of the similarities.
And one of the other things with cheetahs is one
of the compromises that's happened in cheetah evolution to get
that fast is that they're incredibly fragile, so cheetahs don't
take any risks when it comes to hunting. When it
comes to defending food, if a larger predator comes along,
a cheetah will just take off because it can outrun
that predator, but it can't outfight it. Its bones are
more fragile, And really all predators are risk averse that way,
but cheatah's more so than most elephants. On the other hand,
I mean, there are certain groups that traditionally hunted elephants.
They would process elephants from the inside out because it
was easier to cut through their stomach and get the
guts out and start working from the inside that it
was cutting through their hide. That's how tough their heide is.
And while an elephant can outrun a human if it
wants to for a short distance, it's pretty much done
for the rest of the day. You said that you're
running five or six miles a day. An elephant's not
doing that with you. An elephant's walking that slowly because
their body requires so much food. They are these kind
of principles in evolution, things like niche separation, which is
what gets you from a mammalian ancestor to eventually cheetahs
and elephants, dolphins and otters and everything else. But there's
also life history theory is a pretty powerful tool in
biological studies. It really talks about finite resources. There are
finite resources, and whether those are food, water, or resources
for evolution, so ability to develop certain parts of your body.
What happens is this kind of trade off. There's almost
a cost benefit analysis that happens unconsciously organisms depending on
the niche that they've separated, and to use their resources
in different ways. Humans were a great example. We're sitting
here talking to each other from three thousand miles away
on computers that our big ass brains have developed. But
we all know that physically, I don't care if there's
one hundred of us, We're no match for a gorilla.
It's just not happening. Those are trade offs that have
happened over the course of human evolution. Developed that big brain,
we put less investment into our physical abilities. So when
I hear these stories of like you said, the superhero
of cryptids, right where all of those boxes are checked,
some of those folks will say, and they're as smart
as humans, or they're close to as smart as humans,
and they're stronger than a gorilla, and they're faster than
a cheetah, and they're that's in there, and that's biologically.
We have just never seen that happen with an organist ever.
Of the millions of species that have existed, we've never
seen one that checks all the boxes. So for me,
I think you're on the right track. I think that
what happens is people's perception when they're having these experiences,
it gets distorted without them realizing it. I think of
the old fishing stories. How big was sufficient you caught?
Oh yeah, that sucker was at least two feet long.
You caught an eat inch bass. That's a nice bass,
but it wasn't a record center. I have friends who
have been hunting for thirty years who come back talking
about biggest buck I've ever seen. Oh my god, I
thought it was an elk when it came through the woods.
I have been with them. Had it happen where guy's
talking about the biggest buck run into the same deer
nice four point. It's not the largest deer that's ever lived.
I'm not saying this to disparage anyone. I think that
it's a natural thing that happens in our brains, and actually,
I think it may be an adaptation. It may be
something that's evolved that protects us. If you see something
you can't explain and your brain tells you it is
big and it is dangerous, you're more likely to survive
that encounter than if your brain goes, hey, go boop
it on the nose. It's really cute, go cuddle with it.
You hear stories of the folks who get into the
historical stuff, and you talk about the old newspaper articles.
We read some of those same time period articles about
run ins with grizzly bears and grizzly bears in North
America were if you would just go by those articles,
they were ten feet tall. They were gigantic. There's no
grizzly bear in the world that's that big. Again, let's
not to say that those folks are lying. That those
folks are making something up intentionally, and it may not
be an adaptation, may just be a byproduct of our
creative brains.
Speaker 2: I think what happens with a lot of people in
this subject, and it certainly happened to me at least
on some level over the last year or so, is
most of us don't have the understanding of biology, evolution,
and all the things that you just talked about. What
happens is And this is what I've heard from so
many people over the years. The longer you stay in this,
the more wo or high strangeness you tend to go,
because the flesh and blood thing makes less and less
sense the more encounter stories that you hear. At some point,
it can't be the smartest, the biggest, the fastest, the
everything ist on earth, So you start looking at other things.
Could it be interdimensional? Could it be sent here by aliens?
Could it be something that's supernatural? And I think that's
the dangerous slippery slope for a lot of people in
this is they start to abandon science for other explanations
that will fill in the gaps in some of the
things that don't make sense. I think that's one of
the things we have to be very careful of. I too,
am guilty of it at times because I've seen things
in my own experiences that don't make sense to me,
which we'll talk a little bit about here. Shortly, you
mentioned something that I want to expand on a little bit,
which is the overlap or the alleged over lap in
sasquatch sidings and ecology versus bear ecology and what that
means for some of these sidings in your opinion, do
you think that there could be or is an overlap?
And this is something that's come up multiple times with
doctor Jeff Meldrum. He often compares if there's black bear
in the area, there could be sasquatch in the area
in his opinion, because that ecology and that biology and
what they would need to survive is very similar in
his opinion, what's say you on this alleged overlap or
this overlap of the alleged sasquatch encounters and the bear
ecology and where bears are currently residing. Let's just use
the lower forty eight.
Speaker 1: We've got to pay some bills, but don't go anywhere.
That Bigfoot podcast will be right back after this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's absolutely let's restrict it to that because once
we go north, that's ahold of the conversation. What's interesting to
me because most of the ecology that people describe for sasquatch,
when they're describing it these days, it's basically a bear ecology.
They describe as large carnivores. Bears are technically large carnivores.
So black bears are definitely straight omnivores and spend a
huge part of their time surviving off of berries, grubs,
or roots, all sorts of things. That's in late terms
how I like to describe omnivores. Just eat whatever they can, right,
They eat whatever will sustain them that they can digest.
I've had sightings myself where I've seen bear had. It
happened two years ago while I was deer hunting. I
saw this massive black animal for about seventy five yards away,
disappearing into the bush. From that distance, with the broken
foliage that I was looking through, I could have easily
but whoa, I was a huge sasquatch that ran into
the woods. Being the open minded biologist I am, I
was like, all right, walk your ass over there and
check out the tracks and see see if you can
find any sign. And so I did, and sure enough
found some really nice black bear tracks, scuffed up a
little bit and followed them for a little bit to
see if I could get another view. But it's also
bear season here, wallet's deer season. I don't have bears,
but it definitely was that size because it didn't stick
around when humans have rifles. That got me thinking. First off,
we can talk about the sighting stuff, but this kind
of overlap. And I know Jeff. I have great respect
for Jeff. I really like it. I think he's just
top notch when it comes to especially to anatomy, evolution
of anatomical structures, things like that. I think, respectfully, I
disagree with him on his assessment day where there are
black bears that are probably sasquatch, because once again, in biology,
we don't see where large organisms share ecological niches even
if one's active during the day and one's active during
the night. Black bears are active during both the day
and the night, primarily day, but they move around at
night too. Obviously all the reports from sas fast watches
out there they are primarily active at night, but they
operate during the day too. To me, that just doesn't
match biologically. Ecologically, it doesn't line up. You'd have to
have some sort of real niche separation between the two
for those two speaks to coexist, especially at their body size,
because they're going to wipe out resources if they're both
in the same areas doing that. But I do think
the bear phenomenon is something that we really should think
about when we're thinking about sightings and things like that,
especially when you hear these kind of fleeting sightings, because
my anecdotal story is a great example of that. When
someone says I saw some huge black animal move up,
let's not jump to something that we don't know for sure.
If it's out there, we'll talk about your stuff when
you want to, But my opinion is let's stay conservative.
We know black bears are out there, so that's probably
what it was. Again, I think ecologically it just doesn't
work for me. Jeff and I actually a couple of
years ago went around and around respectfully about it, where
I was like, so explain to me this, because we
don't see this. You don't see another large carnivore where
there are tigers, and tigers are hunting mostly at night,
and there's a daytime large carnivore that's operating filling that
same niche. So, yeah, that's where I stand on it.
Speaker 2: It makes sense. I've said, I think that some of
the anecdotal experiences people have our most likely misidentifications. I
certainly don't think that everybody who's ever purported to have
seen a sasquatch actually saw one. I think there are
misidentifications that happen. It's easy to do. It's easy to
get scared startled when you see a big, black, black
mass moving away, and most people don't do what you did,
which was go towards where you saw this thing and
find follow up traces of what it could have been.
Speaker 1: I e.
Speaker 2: Footprints that turned out to be a black bear. I
see a large black mass moving off into the tree line.
I go where said black mass enter the tree line,
and wow, there's black bear. Prance, you put all the
totality of the circumstances together, you saw black bear. Most
people don't do that. They just assumed that whatever that was,
whatever their brain immediately goes to whether it was a
bear or a sasquatch. For them, that's what it is,
and that's what the story is for the remainder of
their life. But that's the difference I think in you
and the rest of the world, or me and the
rest of the world, is most people aren't into those
kind of things, so they're not going to do that,
and it just continues to be perpetuated as a sighting
of bigfoot or it was just a black bear. I
would imagine that it's probably happened in the past that
somebody might have seen a sasquatch and thought it was
a black bear and just dismissed it as Oh, I
saw this big black bear when I was out there.
I've heard those stories that initially people thought that's what
they saw, and then they investigated and they found different results,
more human like foot plants that were larger, those kind
of things.
Speaker 3: My buddies and I used to talk when we were younger. Hey,
if you ever did run into a bigfoot, if they're
out there, what do you think you'd do. It's one
of those fun thought experiments to ask people to hear
where their mind is and what their personal perception is.
The reality is most of us are going to stay
far away from that, cause, again, your brain is screaming
at you. You don't know what that thing is, you
don't know how dangerous that thing is. Get the hell away.
I think part of what it may be my training
in being in the field with large animals, having been
charged by elephants more than seven times. It may also
just be a natural fascination by me. We're having that
discussion one time, that theoretical discussion they said, well, it's
not theoretical for me. And they said what, And I said,
I was hunting one time. I saw this thing that
I couldn't explain what it was. I would literally have
my scope up on it. I was looking at it.
I still couldn't explain what it was. It looked like
a hair covered head in the woods that was maybe
a little taller than I am. I don't know what
that is. I pulled my scope, I cranked it up
high power. It still couldn't get a good view of it.
So I finally went, you know what, forget it and
just walked straight towards it, because I'm like, if it
is a sasquatch and it decides to kill me, here's
a fun way to go. This is gonna be a
great story for my family. I had a hunting buddy,
maybe just like two hundred yards away, so he knew
right where I was. So I was like, I'm not
gonna be one of those who just disappears. I'm going
to be found. It was a stump squatch. I found
the exact stump. It was one of those where Okay,
I'd answered that question for myself, it may not be
fit me someday when I decide to do that, When
I hear a growl in the African forest and I
decide to go check it out and ends up being
a big ass lion or something. It's something that I
think you're right. I think most people they're not going
to be bothered with going over there. They're not going
to go to the frustration or exhaustion or pain of
fighting through the foliage I may have to, or getting
through the brush to get over there. Whatever the case is.
They're driving by, they got to get home, whatever the situation.
I think they don't take the time those two particular cases.
I had the time I could do it, so I
did it. I think that kind of goes to what
I hope us having these conversations will get folks to
do a little bit more. I love the kind of
citizen science approach that's happening, the kind of crowdsourcing that's
going on with ideas and stuff around the sasquatch phenomenon.
Part of the reason I'm interested in getting more involved
than this is because I really want folks to go Okay.
So it's one thing to be a bird watcher, it's
another thing to be an ornithologist or a bird scientist, right,
you like, you can go out and bird watch all
day long and you get some great information on western
meadow lark is in this area, or whatever the case is.
But to get deeper into understanding behavioral ecology, the evolution
of organisms, those sort of things, there's some methods that
can be employed that help people get that kind of
more objective and more scientific perspective on things.
Speaker 2: I know you had some questions about my experiences and
my transformation from being very skeptical most of the time.
I was fifty to fifty at best on whether these
things were real or not leading up to some of
the experiences I had in Radium back in twenty twenty
three and then last summer in the Pacific Northwest. Did
you have specific questions or things that you wanted to
get into in relation to those experiences.
Speaker 3: First stuff, I just want to start nuts and bolts,
like you had talked about. There's a documentary that's coming out.
I don't know if it's been released yet. I just
wanted to know that so I know where we're at
talking about these things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the documentary is not out yet. My understanding
is it should be out by the end of the year.
We're talking the next three to four months. I'm not
sure exactly when that's going to be, but yes, we
were filming that documentary. It started in the United Kingdom
and we ended the filming over in the Pacific Northwest,
specifically in Washington State. We were actually working out of
the Olympic Project Headquarters was our base of operations when
we were in that area filming. Once we'd moved out
of the Seattle area.
Speaker 3: Cool. Yeah, So I don't know what you can talk
about and what you can talk about at this point.
With all of that, I haven't had a chance to
hear what was the tipping point for you?
Speaker 2: It started on the first full day we were there
doing some scouting in an area that we wanted to
do night filming. We knew we were going to go
out at least one night, possibly too, but we didn't
want to go in blind. We wanted to go into
an area that we were somewhat familiar with the terrain
because we had twelve to fifteen people in to was
a huge group of people, including two camera men with
one hundred thousand dollars plus camera rigs that they were
dragging into the woods. We wanted to take them into
an area where we could do serious research and get
some hopefully good footage of what we were doing, but
for everybody to be safe, obviously, we didn't want to
damage these hundred thousand dollars plus cameras. So we were
doing the first day we went out, we'd separated because
we were behind scheduled. There were some things that happened
early on, and when you see the documentary it's called
My Bigfoot Life, you'll see what happened over in the
United Kingdom that set us back multiple days. So everything
was compacted as far as the schedule was concerned, so
we had to split up go our different ways. Of
the team went one way. I was part of the
team that was doing the scouting that day for the
night shoot, while some of the other team was doing
other things, filming some bee roll and other stuff. So
we get out into this area and we started hearing
whistling in the woods. I'm not a whistler, but it
was basically, if you just picture you're trying to get
your friend's attention, that little kind of whistle, Hey I'm
over here. We were hearing that in the woods. We
stopped we're following it. As it's following us, it's moving,
the sounds moving, and we get to an area where
there was a bridge over this little small creek area
upon this embankment was some really large trees in this area.
It's this old growth forest. It's in a protected area,
so nobody's been logging in there for hundreds of years,
so most of the trees are pretty big. I'm looking
in that area where we had heard this whistle, and
I see something peak around the side of a tree.
It's probably seventy five eighty yards away. It was a
really quick peak. I'm talking split second, less than a second.
Happened three times, but I saw a face. I saw
what looked like a dark face with eyes just peeking
around the tree. Saw that three times. I drew everybody's
attention to that area. Everybody started looking. We didn't hear
the whistling anymore, so we're now focused on trying to
see what was peeking around this tree. It was in
an area where we weren't comfortable trying to access. It
was very inhospitable terrain. It was not something that we
felt at that moment. As much as I wanted to
go investigate. It just didn't seem safe and a good
use of our time, so we moved on. We went on,
finished up our scouting of the area, found some areas
that we knew we wanted to go into. We had
found some I can't remember what type of nuts they were,
but we found some piles of nuts that looked like
something had sat there and had a snack or a meal.
Very interesting. We didn't find any of the nuts or
a tree that had the nuts anywhere in the area,
so they looked like they had been brought there. I
have to ask Chris. Chris knew exactly what kind of
nuts they were. He actually somehow managed to get them
through customs and back into the United Kingdom, and he
still had them because he was convinced that a sasquatch
had been eating them, so he took some of the
husks back with him as a souvenir. Hopefully he won't
get arrested in the UK for that. We went on
and found this area. We went out that night and
did our night shoot, and that's when we had two
more encounters with these things. It happened very similarly. We
were hearing this whistling noise that was drawing our attention
to this area in the woods. Bobo was there and
he had his thermal, and he and Daniel, this kid
who at the time was fourteen when this happened. They
were passing the thermal back and forth and they're seeing
some heat signatures. At first it was one, then it
was a larger heat signature. Bobo turns around and asks
the group me, Ryan, Chris, and there was a couple
of other people and of course the two cameramen. We're there.
He said, there's a huge heat signature and he points
to this area. We estimated it was probably thirty to
fifty yards into the woods. He's like, who's going to
go out there? Of course I'm going it's possibly a bigfoot.
I'm gonna go. So I went started walking towards that area.
Speaker 1: We've got to pay some bills, but don't go anywhere.
That Bigfoot podcast will be right back after this.
Speaker 2: I actually have the thermal footage. It's about ten or
twelve minutes of thermal. I think obviously it hasn't been
released hip because the documentary's not out. Once the documentary
comes out, I fully intend to release this thermal because
we called some very interesting images. I'll just leave it
at that. So I'm walking to this area where I
was hearing this whistling. Now the whistling stops, but I'm
letting them basically guide me. They're looking through the thermal
and they're saying, go this way, go that way. It's
right there, it's about so and so in front of you.
You should be in that area. And I started hearing
some weird sounds. I've described it as it almost sounded
like picking up two or three large river rocks and
like juggling them around in your hand. You know that
noise they make when they hit together, right, boy, that's
what it sounded like. It's weird to describe that. I
don't know what that could be or why I was
hearing this noise, but I was hearing this noise, and
I was hearing faint what sounded like something possibly walking.
I think I heard a snap of a twig, but
not a lot of noise. Right, So I'm walking towards
where the noise is and I get to an area
where this is thick. It's really thick. There's so much
dead fall. It's unbelievable. There was so much deadfall, in fact,
that the guys who were filming us. The two guys
on the camera crew couldn't make it in with the rigs.
Everything that we filmed from that point forward in the
woods had to be done on GoPros and a handheld
camera that Ryan RPGGO and Beskie bought back in like
nineteen ninety four. And the only reason he had it
with him is because it was handheld and it had
night vision.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: So, I'm walking in this area here in these little noises,
I'm hearing this weird clacking river rock sound, and I
get to an area where there's a little bit of
an opening in front of me. It looks like a
game trail, maybe three four feet wide, and I'm looking
up this area and I hear something walking, so I
fling on my flashlight because I was walking in the
dark up until this point. I threw my flashlight on
and this thing crosses across the trail in front of me,
probably twenty feet in front of me, this big, dark,
hairy figure. I could see from the top of the
head basically to I don't know, maybe midchest. It's got
its arms back like you're making a motion to go
a different direction, and its face is turned away from me.
I'm shining my flashlight on this thing's back, and I'm like,
holy shit, this thing just crossed the trail twenty feet
in front of me. So of course I said something like,
holy shit, this thing just crossed in front of me.
They hear me. Chris is starting to come into the
area at this point, he's screw it. Brian's been in
there long enough by himself. Chris, he's starting to come
up here now. Chris is I don't know, six' four two,
ten Former queen's, guard big, dude, right he's coming trapsing
up behind. ME i hear and we go back and
regroup With bobo and them and, said, look this is what.
Happened this is WHAT i. Saw we're gonna follow this
direction because it was headed from my left to right
across this. Trail so everybody goes into the. Woods and by,
EVERYBODY i mean it was, Me, RYAN, Rpg, daniel his, Dad,
craig And. Chris we go into the. Woods chris AND
i are, Together daniel And ryan And craig are in another.
Group we get to a certain point in the woods
Where i'm a little bit off to the. Left ryan
is over. Here Then chris AND i get to an
area where we stop and we're, listening And i've got
it on. Audio i've listened back to the. AUDIO i
wasn't miked for this, part BUT i had my audio
going in my pocket AND i had a little mic
that was clipped, on So i'm recording. THIS i haven't
listened to the audio to hear if this is on the,
audio but you can Hear chris AND i talking about this.
Sound it sounded like something jumped out of a tree
and landed on the. Ground it was like this. Thud
And chris is, LIKE i heard this. THUD i, SAID
i heard the same. Thing it sounded like something jumped
out of a. Tree it was really. Weird we're talking about.
That we're hearing some more. Cracking we're hearing something that
sounds like it's moving from left to right above. US
i get to an area where i'm by, myself walk
off From. Chris chris goes back and he's With daniel
And craig are all in one, area And ryan is
milling around behind us doing this. THING i Hear daniel
SAY i see eye. SHINE i see eye, shine and
he's pointing up this. Ridge SO i look where he's.
POINTING i move almost even with, them and THEN i
walk a few. Steps i'm probably eight or ten feet
in front of. Him at this POINT i SEE i
don't know how to describe it other than a big
set of glowing white eyes and they're swaying back and.
Forth it's almost like if you listen to enough anecdotal
experiences from people seeing, sasquatch it's almost like. THAT i
hate to use the, term but it's like an autistic
person sways back and, forth that kind of. Movement. Right,
So i'm watching, this and then there's another set that's
a little bit, smaller maybe a foot and a. Half
below this set is a smaller set of what looks
like glowing white. Eyes AND i say glowing because at
this point nobody had any lights. On there was no ambient.
Light it had been, raining it was. OVERCAST i don't
think there was any. MOONLIGHT i couldn't see my hand
in front of my face with her lights. Off we see,
This we're all, like what The and you can see
in the Video i'm in front of. Them you can't
really see my, face but it's Clear i'm trying to
figure out what we're looking at you can feel the
what the fuck is? That and they. Disappear it's like
they drop, down they just. Go both sets. Gone so
at that point we throw our flashlights. On and when
we threw our flashlights, on almost the exact same thing.
Happened that happens fifteen minutes. BEFORE i see this thing
ten feet now in front of, me cross across the
trail and goes. Up immediately as soon AS i saw,
IT i Hear Chris, Yale oh my, God oh my.
GOD i just saw it move across the. Trail daniel saw,
it AND i take off after. IT i started running
full boar up the side of this, ridge PROBABLY i don't,
know seven to ten percent, grade which doesn't sound like
a lot until you're fifty years old and you're in
a bunch of underbrush and.
Speaker 3: Deadfall, yeah forty five years, old vend to ten. Percent
it's gonna end up being a. Lot, yeah it was a.
Speaker 2: Lot So i'm balls to the wall chasing WHATEVER i
had just. Seen NOW i wasn't seeing it at this.
Point it was. Gone it had crossed the, trail AND
i obviously didn't have my flashlight on. It nobody had
a light on. It i'm chasing this, thing which was.
Dumb in, retrospect it was one of the dumbest Things
i've ever. Done, Hey i'm not gonna catch it BE
i could have been, killed. RIGHT i know that, now
but in the, MOMENT i didn't know what else to.
Do it was fight or, flight AND i was full,
On i'm gonna see this thing. Again i'm gonna get
as close AS i can to see this thing one
more time and hopefully get a look at its. Face
there was so much going, on so it's just total
pandemonium and. Chaos they start running up behind. Me i'm
chasing this. THING i get to the top of the.
Ridge ryan makes it up. There everybody eventually makes it up.
There they start, filming asking me WHAT i. Saw we
can start going through the whole. THING i get super.
EMOTIONAL i cried like a little bitch WHILE i was up.
There And i'll tell you it was. MORE i THINK
i had a lot to do with. IT i had
this adrenaline, dump SO i THINK i had a lot
to do with the. Adrenaline BUT i also felt really
shitty BECAUSE i doubted so many people who had explained
to me that they had almost the same thing happened to,
them AND i just rolled my. EYES i was, like
these things don't have glowing. Eyes you weren't ten feet
away from a big. Foot you're full of. Shit and
then it happened to, me SO i felt like a.
DICK i was very emotional BECAUSE i was, upset adrenaline,
pumping AND i had just seen SOMETHING i didn't think,
existed BUT i saw it with my own, EYES i
believe three times in two. Days that was pretty much the.
End after, that we made our way back down to
the rest of the group that couldn't make it up.
There so we're all standing around doing a. Debrief we
get to a point Where bobo, says in my, experience
sometimes when you get that close to these, things or
other people have had these experiences and they've gotten this
close to these, things sometimes if you'll move, on like
the whole group will move, on and somebody hangs, back
you'll have an experience like they'll come back. In AND
i was, like that sounds really. Cool i'd like to
have that. Experience i'll be the one to stay. Back
everybody else goes the two miles back to base camp or.
Whatever i'm gonna hang back. Here by myself sounded. Good
at the time we finished the, filming we did a
big long call and some other stuff that you guys
can see in the. Documentary it was really. Cool it
was a really cool moment to have everybody there and
just experience what we had. Experienced so everybody takes off
And i'm standing there And i'm. Fine i'm perfectly fine
BECAUSE i just chased this thing up the hill with
no fear at. ALL i felt zero fear at any
point during any of this UNTIL i was there by,
myself AND i had almost immediate this overwhelming feeling of.
Dread you need to be somewhere, else And i've only
felt that a couple of. Times BUT i knew well
enough that it was time for me to, go SO
i started making my way back. Down it was probably
ten minutes at most behind the rest of the, group
and WHEN i caught, Up buba was, like what the
hell are you doing down? HERE i thought you were
going to stay back AND i was, like your ass
can go up. There i'm. Not he was like WHAT
i told him about the. Feeling he was, like that's.
Weird i've never heard anybody talk about. THAT i was, like,
DUDE i don't know what it. IS i don't know
if it's the post adrenaline. DUMP i don't know if
it's just me psyching myself, out whatever the case may.
Be my gut was telling me to, go and that's
WHAT i. Did boba, Went he made his way back up.
There he stayed up there for a. While he had
no other experiences That i'm aware. Of he said he
didn't hear or see or feel anything while he was up.
There they kind of drew that to a close to.
Me there's no doubt in my mind WHAT i, saw
and it confuses me to this. Day i'm still trying
to process how all of that, Happened HOW i was
so close to something that. Big we all estimated once
we got our bearings based on the, foliage the trees
around our. Height i'm six,' two chris is a little
bit taller. Than me he's about. Six four this thing
had to be at least seven to seven and a half,
feet tall because that was ten. Feet away ten feet
is not a, great distance and it. Was big it
was much bigger, than me, much bigger, much taller, much
wider and certainly. WAY hairrier i don't know how to
explain the. GLOWING eyes i don't know how to explain
being that close to something that big that didn't make
any more noise than. It did we heard no vocalizations
of any kind outside of the whistles that. We heard
that didn't. Make sense didn't sound like, a bird didn't
sound like, a cat didn't sound like any other Animal
that i'd. Ever heard it sounded like a person whistling
to get. Our attention that's exactly what it. Sounded like
that's pretty much it man. The, EXPERIENCE again i don't
know what else it.
Speaker 3: COULD be i gotta say THAT when i, heard you
when you got BACK and i was listening to this
pod with You and wayne and you were talking, ABOUT
it i gotta say that it's probably the thing that
has shaken my skepticism more, than anything because YOU and i.
HAVE talked i, trust YOU and i trust, your PERCEPTION
and i know how skeptical you were in. The past so,
for me it's just like even sparked my interest even More, of,
okay now this is a real MYSTERY that i need
to help dive into in WHATEVER way. I can because
when you, Said listen i'm now in the. KNOWER camp i, WAS,
like whoa that's heavy, for ME and i know it is.
FOR you i know that's not a light statement that.
You make so thanks for sharing that, with, me BECAUSE like,
I said i was, just like wait, A second brian
knows what, he, SAW man i got to rethink some of.
THIS stuff i. Gotta say when it comes to the glowing,
EYES thing i, don't Know but i'm not a big
believer that bioluminescence would even be possible for. A, primate
honestly there's nothing like that. In primates to, get eyeshine
you got to go back fifty five million years in
primate evolution to. Get that and modern day we're. Talking
lemurs we're talking stuff that's separated from our lineage by
fifty to fifty five. Billion years that part is. REALLY
hard i love when, people, say all we see it
in other parts of the. Animal, world yeah we see
it with things. Like jellyfish we see it with shit
that's so far removed from human it's almost an alien species.
TO us i say that intentionally because that thing gets
people into that jump off of the woo thing and all,
of THAT which i don't buy. INTO either i think
that there's probably some. Other explanation either we're dealing with
some sort of ape that we've never seen before again
if we're talking a real species out in, the forest
or we're dealing with Something and i'll just leave it
at something for now that can make the appearance that
it has glowing eyes that can, do things because those,
are scary those. Are impactful there's something possibly going on.
Speaker 2: That WAY and i haven't seen all of, the Footage
and i'm saying that nobody was shining. A flashlight i've
said that since, day ONE because i don't think there
was anybody shining a flashlight at. That point could somebody
have had, One on could it have been the ambient
light from. A camera i. Don't know it's possible that
there was something outside of bioluminescence. Going on i'm open.
To that i'm not saying that by any means that's
the only explanation for what we saw when we saw
the eyes clearly glowing. Or reflecting but in, the moment
and even NOW as i, recall it THAT'S what i.
REMEMBER seeing i remember seeing what looked. Like bioluminescence could
it have been, something, different absolutely because it doesn't compute
to me either humans don't have. Eyes shine we don't
have it to pay them loose, of them so it
wouldn't make sense that something along the lines of an
ape would have. THAT ability i am certainly open to. Other,
THINGS again i haven't seen all the footage from all.
The cameras it's possible somebody could have had a light
on and maybe not have been shining. IT directly i
don't know a lot of.
Speaker 4: Possibilities there any other thing about the bioluminescence angle is
that luminescence isn't used so organisms can see better in.
Speaker 3: Their environment it's used. For display its use so other
organisms can see them of their. Own species so it's
weird that you would talk about something. That look if
this is a, biological species it is a. Visual specie
if it has big eyes that are, facing forward it's
relying heavily on. Its vision glowing eyes are not going
to increase its vision. At night glowing eyes are just
going to be little beacons to. It's surrounding so that's
the other part is it doesn't make sense logically that
an organism would evolve that unless it's being used as
some sort, Of display unless it's being used as something
like that and, the way even in your experience that
you just described that doesn't sound like. A display they're
not using it to scare you or to show you that.
They're there so that's what makes me. JUST wonder i
really think that's an interesting line of QUESTIONING that i
think there may be some hypotheses you could come, up
with look at it scientifically and get to, a deduction
but it's going to be hard to get the data on.
Speaker 2: That one it's so interesting to me, because again part
of my emotional response to the after, action report if,
you Will was i've heard that from so. Many people
it's not every, single encounter but there are quite a
few of anecdotal accounts that people give or have given
that say they saw, glowing eyes, different, colors green, yellowish,
white blue in some cases.
Speaker 3: Their longtime red was the color that people.
Speaker 2: Talked, about yeah is it something that people are projecting into?
That situation did we? Project it but then you get into.
Mass hallucination there's but five people in the moment watching and,
Seeing THIS and i have seen some of the footage
there was something glowing captured. On video it's, not clear it's,
not perfect but it's enough for me, To, go yes
that's exactly where it, was standing, AND yes i see
that in the video we recorded. It happening so there
is some extra, evidence there if, you will although it's
not conclusive by any stretch of. The imagination we're not
talking about the, money shot but there is some physical
representation of what we saw that made Me go i'm.
Not CRAZY when i, SAW it, I said i'm not
crazy because it's. Clearly there it's a, split second but.
Speaker 3: It's. There, YEAH absolutely i did want to, Say too
please don't beat yourself up for. Questioning people this is
SOMETHING that i think is important With the. Sasquatch world
YOU and i have talked, about ball people taking, it
personally people getting into these, different camps that sort. OF
stuff i think if this line of inquiry and this
research is going, to mature it has to get past
that a. Little bit people are always going to, get,
hurt feelings that sort. Of thing but also part of
the point of the scientific method is to take the
human reaction out. OF it i appreciate that, you're, LIKE
man i felt like an ask for, doing this for doubting,
These people but at the, same time your skepticism helps
to propel any kind of research into this forward and
you said it at the very beginning, of, This right
that's what needs to happen is we need to have, People,
going okay, that's great but could it have? Been this
could it have? Been that because We need the other
part is that emotional reaction. You, had honestly if you
look at journal entries things like that from soldiers who are.
In Battle and i'm not saying that anything you were
in comes even close to what our veterans and fallen soldiers,
went through but that kind of really intense emotional situation in,
your case something that you've been how long you've been
doing the bigfoot THING.
Speaker 2: Since i was?
Speaker 3: Twelve, ish yeah so, a lifelong almost forty year fascination
knacking you in the face almost from twenty feet away
and then ten. Feet away if you hadn't had an,
EMOTIONAL reaction i, Keep, like brian maybe you should, See, Someone,
hey tom is that with? A therapist because that's like
the most. Human reaction and the JOURNAL part i was
talking about is you look at journals, from soldiers a
lot of them who write honestly and who have been
able to talk honestly after their first encounter with. The
enemy soldiers.
Speaker 1: Are bawling we've got to pay, some bills but don't.
Go Anywhere That bigfoot podcast'll be right back. After this.
Speaker 3: There may not have even been, shots fucked it's just.
That Intensity and i'll Tell you i've observed more than
thirty what we call battles between chimpanzee communities during my
time in, the field where you have multiple males from
one community multiple males from another community coming together. And
fighting i've observed more than thirty. Of, those afterward our
closest living relatives have that same kind of, emotional overload
the adrenaline dump that you're. Talking about, they're screaming they're doing,
fear grimaces they're comforting. Each other chips don't really have
saline tears so much like, we do but they are
doing all the chimp equivalent. After THAT so i would
say this is a deeply rooted evolutionary behavior that you
experienced after that. Intense experience so you're just a good
primate for. Doing that yet a really. Intense experience it's
again that kind of byproduct of those chemicals and hormones
being released into. Your system but getting back to the
nuts and bolts. Of, It MAN now i want to
go to Visit the. Olympic project i've spent some time
In The Olympia national Forest And. NATIONAL park i love.
That AREA but i know what you're talking about how
intense the deadfall the forest can be to, get through
especially if you're not on, a, nice clean manicured hiking
trail that they've set, for, you which in your, guys
case you weren't In The. National park if you're In The,
national park don't go off trail you're not. Supposed to
but in your, guys, Case yeah i've been in. THAT
forest i understand what you're talking about that it. IS
intense i have tried to follow deer and lots of
other animals up slopes like you're. Talking, About yeah, i'm
sorry it's just a hopeless endeavor for a biped to
try and. Do that that's A human i'll say.
Speaker 2: That, one yeah it was definitely. Something man we went
back the next day to try to see if there
was a possibility of seeing something that might have, been evidence.
Speaker 1: I e.
Speaker 2: Hare footprints chris actually dropped one of. His GoPros he
had one on the front and one on. The back
the one on the back of his head that he
had on there came off during. The kerfuffle were actually looking.
For it it's still, out there ladies. And gentlemen we
don't have any idea what's. On it there may be
a picture of a sasquatch picking it up and. Sniffing
it we, Don't know probably never know because it's still
out in. The forest but we went back the, next,
day MAN and i can't believe that any of us
survived that without a broken leg or a, broken ankle
especially flat out running the way that. We were it,
was insane the dead fall and the trees and the
jagged sticks and rocks and things that we. Went over but.
We survived, And yeah i've said. This before it goes
back to your point earlier about being contested and being
challenged when it comes to. Your experiences i've always been open.
To that we run a Group on facebook that has
almost thirteen thousand members at, This Point bigfoot Encounters And
field Research, on Facebook and i've actually stopped admins in
the group from ejecting people and muting people that were
disagreeing with me about my evidence OR what i. Put forward, i'm,
like no you're not going to. Do that that's EXACTLY what.
I want i want people that, will say but what?
About this then it makes me think AND that i
can answer, the QUESTION or i, can, say yeah it's
possible there was ambient light instead of them being, glowing
eyes although it didn't appear that way at. The time is. That,
possible absolutely it's possible that it was, something ELSE because
i think if you get to the point where you're
constantly Drinking the bigfoot, kool aid everything else is just a.
Moot point at, this juncture there's no where to go
Other than i'm a. Diehard believer people still ask me to.
This day i've gotten, messages saying how could you have
an experience like that just last year and still be?
SO skeptical i say it all. The time i'm not
Skeptical about. BIGFOOT anymore I know bigfoot is Real because i've.
Seen them i'm skeptical, about people always, have been always
will be because people make. Shit up they want to
be a part of. The club they make, up lies they,
fake evidence they. Hoax videos That's what i'm, skeptical ABOUT
and i always. Will be but without those kind, of
CONVERSATIONS when i put out the footprint CAST that i
did a couple of years ago on. THE property i
knew what people were going, to say because they look.
Too good they are too good comparatively speaking to some
of the other Things that i've cast and some of
the Other things i've seen. PEOPLE cast i knew that
there was going to be, people, saying oh you just.
Hoax that what's the chances of the bigfoot podcaster who
just happens to have bigo on his property casting footprints
sixty yards from. HIS house i don't know what the.
Odds are i'm just telling you. What happened but if
you want to, examine them sure you can. Examine them
i've given Them, To cliff i've given Them. TO jeff
i actually took Them to jeff Up in gatlinburg just what,
last weekend because he had seen, the scans he'd. Seen
photos he'd just never held the. Actual CAST because I
sent cliff, A copy i Didn't send jeff. A copy
i have no problem, being CHALLENGED and i think that's
part of the problem with this Community that. I've seen
it's probably a conversation for, another Day but i've seen
that so much in some of the Groups on Facebook
where you can't even challenge. A person you can't even
ask a question about their photos or their videos or
their air quote evidence that, they're presenting because that's just
not what. They're ABOUT and i. Get it you can
run your group however. You want just Know That bigfoot
Encounters And field research group. My group you're going to
be challenged. HANDS down i don't care who. You are
that's how, we, learn man that's how, we grow and
that's what pushes the in, my opinion further down the
field is everybody being skeptical about everything but being able
to sit down and drink a beer and have a conversation.
Speaker 3: About, it ABSOLUTELY and i think in some ways it's
almost a natural progression of this kind of lines of
inquiry fascinations is when they mature into either belief systems or.
SCIENTIFIC inquiry i think that's the choice that people have.
To make do you want to be part of the
Church of bigfoot or do you want to be part
of the Study. OF bigfoot i won't even attach, science there,
because again observations are really valuable without applying any kind.
Of methodology my third, watching example we get lots of data.
That WAY but i hear so many people on podcasts,
at conferences PEOPLE that i talk to talking about wait
till science recognizes, these things and so many organizations out
there their mission is to get science to recognize. These
things for, THOSE folks i, Would, say okay the question
is it's not science changing to recognize. These things it's
using scientific methods to show that the data's overwhelming that says,
watch exists and it's not proving anything because science doesn't.
Prove things mathematics. Has proofs. That's geometry it's not getting to.
The truth that's getting to the facts and how people
want to go. About that if you want to prove
things to yourself and get to your, own truth that's
about philosophy. And religion that's a. Belief system that's. Totally
FINE but i think folks naturally fall into belief systems.
Quite honestly maybe this is my, bias speaking but it's
easier TO say i, believe this rather than methodically Collecting
data like. YOU said i. Love that, you, SAID hey
i haven't seen all the. Video yet maybe there was a.
Light somewhere controlling for all the variables, you can and
you just left the door open for let's control for
those variables before we make. Definitive statements that's part. OF
science i love the idea of sasquatch being out, There
again i'll, say, it man since you have had. Your
Experience now, i'm, like Okay now i'm really questioning STUFF
because i just FEEL like i understand where you're. Coming
From and i've been On with Cliff and bobo a
few Times and matt a, few TIMES and i love
those GUYS and i appreciate, their PERSPECTIVE but i don't
have the same kind. Of connection and they have been
in the game for so long and they have had.
Their EXPERIENCES when i, met them they, were, Like no
i'm telling you these things. Are Real and, I'm, like okay.
We'll see let's talk about what this deal. IS again
i appreciate you. SHARING that i really appreciate that you
shared about the emotional COMPONENT because i think that needs to, be.
NORMALIZED right i think people need. To, realize, look man
if you're out on a hike and a mountain lion is,
stalking you and you figure, it out and you see
that thing's tail as it, goes off and you feel
yourself not being able to catch, your breath and you
feel yourself getting a little. Weld up even if you have,
an outburst don't kick yourself and think that you're somehow
weak or. You're this that's just a human reaction and,
it's okay. QUITE honestly I hope i get to have one.
Speaker 2: OF those i hope. So TOO and i had to
admit to it because they. FILMED it i was crying in.
The documentaries it's going to be out there in perpetuity
for everybody to see from now On when My Big
foot life does. Come out it's a. Great documentary i've
seen a rough cut from several. MONTHS ago i think
it's an awesome documentary and we'll certainly talk more about
it on the show and let you guys know when it.
Comes out obviously we'll be promoting it so you guys can. Watch,
it man there's so much STUFF that i had in
the hopper that we didn't get. To today that just
means we'll have to have you back and you have
to do more of these these back in the hopper
and we'll pull them out on the. Next show if
there's something you guys want to hear us, talk about
you want to Get, Doctor hogan chiro's opinion on or
you just want to hear us chew the fat, over
it send me An email Brian at paranamberworldproductions. Dot com
you can head over to the website leave us a.
Voicemail there it comes directly. To me we get those every.
Single day so if there's something you want us to
talk about on a, future episode let. Us know hit
us up because we Will have hogan back on the
show sooner rather. Than, Later man i've had a good
time talking. To you i'm glad you, were On and
i'm looking forward to the next conversation so we can
dig into some of these other topics we didn't get.
Speaker 3: To, today, ABSOLUTELY man i appreciate you bringing. Me on
oh it's great to chat with you and just shoot
things back and forth to see how it. TURNS out
i never know where conversations are going, to lead and
that's part OF what i love. ABOUT it i look
forward to more.
Speaker 5: Of Them, lettle Rabble let a s