Speaker 1: You're listening to an airwave media podcast. Monster Talk is
Speaker 1: supported by listeners like you. Find out how you can
Speaker 1: contribute via Patreon or with reviews at monster talk dot org,
Speaker 1: forge slash support. Your contributions, large or small, make a
Speaker 1: huge difference. Thanks. I'm not an envious person. I generally
Speaker 1: can enjoy my life without needing to worry about if
Speaker 1: other people are doing better than me they are, or
Speaker 1: making better stuff than me they are, or dropping cleverer
Speaker 1: puns than me. Hmm. But I have to admit that
Speaker 1: I'm slightly envious of the audio craftsmanship and interview guests
Speaker 1: that are showing up in the new podcast Wild Thing. Slightly.
Speaker 1: I mean, if there were a way for me to
Speaker 1: find out all the secrets behind the success of this
Speaker 1: new series about the hunt for Bigfoot.
Speaker 2: It's actually quite unlike anything we've ever seen before.
Speaker 3: A giant Harry Preacher in mark Ape, Part Matt in Larkness,
Speaker 3: a twenty four mile long bottomless lake in the Highlands
Speaker 3: of Scotland, get the creature known as the Luckness Monster. Monstert.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Monster Talk, the science show about monsters. I'm
Speaker 1: Blake Smith. Karen wasn't able to be on this episode
Speaker 1: because of laryngidis, but hopefully she'll be back soon and
Speaker 1: end the podcasting saddle again. But despite her illness, she's
Speaker 1: working hard behind the scenes to help set up future
Speaker 1: interviews and generally keep this show going. So you could
Speaker 1: always send her a get well wish on Twitter at
Speaker 1: Karen stoles Now. I'm sure she'd appreciate it. The new
Speaker 1: podcast wild Thing is produced by Laura Krantz, a cousin
Speaker 1: of the late anthropologist Grover Krantz, who is probably the
Speaker 1: best known trained scientist looking for bigfoot in the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 1: An experienced audio producer with years at NPR under her belt,
Speaker 1: she's become a podcaster in her news show's full of
Speaker 1: interesting interviews and is a fun introduction into the world
Speaker 1: of bigfoot. She's still new to this stuff, and it's
Speaker 1: really interesting to hear her take on the world of
Speaker 1: bigfoot hunting and the characters therein. Links to her show
Speaker 1: and some of the books we mentioned will be in
Speaker 1: our show notes at MonsterTalk dot org. So let's get
Speaker 1: onto the monster all right. Tonight, Monster Talk welcomes Laura Krantz.
Speaker 1: She is a former editor and producer at MPR, including
Speaker 1: work on Morning Edition, and she's written for publications such
Speaker 1: as Newsweek, Popular Science, and Smithsonian. She's the host of
Speaker 1: a new and popular podcast about bigfoot and the bigfoot
Speaker 1: scene called wild Thing, which is produced by Fox Depus, Inc.
Speaker 1: Of Which she is a partner. And if you've been
Speaker 1: listening to much for very long, you'll also notice that
Speaker 1: her last name is Krantz, which may sound familiar. You
Speaker 1: can find wild Thing on iTunes or Apple's podcasting app,
Speaker 1: or your favorite podcast aggregator, and as always, a link
Speaker 1: will be in our show notes at MonsterTalk dot org.
Speaker 1: Welcome to a monster Talk.
Speaker 2: Laura, thank you. I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 1: Or should I say Laurie.
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: I know, what do you say to an eighty six
Speaker 2: year old man who keeps getting your name wrong?
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you kind of you just let it go. I mean,
Speaker 2: he was he was endearing, and he was nice and whatever.
Speaker 2: It's just one vowel.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, no, it's close. And I actually I was
Speaker 1: super excited. I was going to meet Bob in September.
Speaker 1: We're talking about Bob Gimlin here, and he was supposed
Speaker 1: to be at Cryptid Con which is a cryptid crypto
Speaker 1: zoology themed convention in Kentucky that I've been to for
Speaker 1: the first two years of it, and unfortunately he didn't
Speaker 1: make it. But he's eighty two. These things happen, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, he's getting on up there, but I would
Speaker 1: have loved to have met him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's a lovely man. And then he's just such
Speaker 2: a cowboy too, with the big bell buckle and all
Speaker 2: the you know, the little colloquialisms and the cowboy hat
Speaker 2: and the wranglers, and he's still out there doing stuff
Speaker 2: on the ranch and yeah, living a life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that sounds like my grandpa. He's one hundred and two,
Speaker 1: but I think he stopped working somewhere on ninety eight
Speaker 1: or ninety nine, you know, I mean, he just he
Speaker 1: wouldn't stop, right, just all yeah, So even now, I
Speaker 1: don't think he likes the fact that he can't get
Speaker 1: out there and take care of the cows and such.
Speaker 1: So you know that happens. Well, ye, all right, let's
Speaker 1: get started with the questions. So you're probably sick of
Speaker 1: answering this question, but it's and you actually do answer it.
Speaker 1: In the very first episode of Wild thing. But to
Speaker 1: give our listeners some context, how did you find yourself
Speaker 1: involved in the field of bigfoot studies?
Speaker 2: So back in two thousand and six, I was reading
Speaker 2: the Washington Post. This is while I was working for NPR,
Speaker 2: and I was flipping through and then the style section
Speaker 2: there was this big article about a guy named Grover Krantz,
Speaker 2: and you know, I just same last name started reading
Speaker 2: about him, and basically he just was this fascinating guy
Speaker 2: who was a very well respected anthropologist and had donated
Speaker 2: his body to the Tennessee Body Farm, which is where
Speaker 2: they do tissue decomp analysis, and then donated his bones
Speaker 2: to the Smithsonian along with the bones of his dogs.
Speaker 2: And then there was this sort of throwaway section towards
Speaker 2: the end of the article that was talking about how
Speaker 2: he would drive around the Pacific Northwest looking for sasquatch
Speaker 2: with a spotlight and a rifle. And at this point
Speaker 2: I'm like, Wow, this guy is really interesting and really weird.
Speaker 2: And also his family's from Salt Lake City, which is
Speaker 2: where my dad's family was from. So I wondered if
Speaker 2: we were related. I asked my dad, he wasn't sure.
Speaker 2: I asked my grandfather and he was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: that was my cousin. He used to show up at
Speaker 2: the family picnics with calipers and measure everybody's head, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: So this is a guy who's devoted to science, like
Speaker 2: from an early age, like just fascinated by human anatomy
Speaker 2: and anthropology and biology and just a real scientist to
Speaker 2: his core. And after sort of reading all these tidbits
Speaker 2: and then learning that he was a relative, I was
Speaker 2: just like, man, I feel like I need to explore
Speaker 2: this somehow, but I didn't really know what to do
Speaker 2: with it. So I sat on it for a while.
Speaker 2: And there were just all these signs from the universe
Speaker 2: over the course of the next decade where Grover's name
Speaker 2: would pop up in places or somehow someone who was
Speaker 2: in anthropology would be like, oh, are you related to
Speaker 2: Grover Krantz? And I thought that was just so obscure,
Speaker 2: but he really was well known in anthropology. And then
Speaker 2: when I was living in Denver, I found out that
Speaker 2: his fourth wife, a woman named Diane Horton, lived thirty
Speaker 2: miles from me, And at that point I was like, Okay,
Speaker 2: this is a sign. I have to do something with this.
Speaker 2: And having been in radio a podcast seemed like the
Speaker 2: best choice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so this will seem like a weird diversion to
Speaker 1: our listeners perhaps, But I'm curious, how did you get
Speaker 1: into audio engineering and editing? Was that out of a
Speaker 1: journalism school or how did that happen?
Speaker 2: No, that was That's a long convoluted tale as well.
Speaker 2: I was getting a master's degree in international relations while
Speaker 2: I was living in DC. And what I realized as
Speaker 2: I was getting my master's degree is that I really
Speaker 2: liked school and I liked learning, and I needed to
Speaker 2: find a job where I was going to be doing
Speaker 2: more of that. And that kind of narrowed it down
Speaker 2: to politics, which I'm glad I didn't do, and journalism.
Speaker 2: And so I applied for an internship at NPR. This
Speaker 2: would have been during my second year of graduate school
Speaker 2: and ended up getting it, which was pure luck because
Speaker 2: I had no journalism background. My undergraduate degree was in history.
Speaker 2: And did the internship and really like it, and then
Speaker 2: I just wouldn't leave. I just took every temp job
Speaker 2: that came available. You know, someone would be going on
Speaker 2: vacation for two weeks and they'd need someone to fill in,
Speaker 2: and I'd be like, I'll do it, and I just took,
Speaker 2: took any anything I could get, and eventually they had
Speaker 2: to hire me.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. I'm a longtime MPR supporter and listener, so
Speaker 1: oh great good. Yeah, so I as one of those
Speaker 1: people who contributes, I don't I don't feel guilty during
Speaker 1: the pledge drives. I just just they they've really transformed
Speaker 1: the podcasting world. I mean they from an amateur you know,
Speaker 1: like myself, that it's it's they've changed the landscape considerably
Speaker 1: by bringing in professional shows to the venue, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, to to the format. Yeah, so that's a
Speaker 1: little tough to compete with. But you know what I
Speaker 1: when when podcasting started, I thought about it as a
Speaker 1: micro casting, so you could pick a topic, just whatever
Speaker 1: the topic was, and probably find an audience. If you
Speaker 1: like to knit and with wool, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: you can find the people, you can find your audience, right.
Speaker 2: I think that still exists, I really do, because you know,
Speaker 2: NPR is good at doing sort of big, broad, well
Speaker 2: produced shows and some interview stuff, but really, if you
Speaker 2: want to get into the nitty gritty and like the
Speaker 2: small details of a particular topic, you're not going to
Speaker 2: find that at NPR. Or any of the other big companies.
Speaker 2: You're going to be better off looking for the guy
Speaker 2: that's super enthusiastic about Knitting with Wool and talking to
Speaker 2: him or her.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I hope there is a Knitting with Wool podcasts now.
Speaker 1: I'll have to go check later. So what software do
Speaker 1: you use to edit your show?
Speaker 2: I use Hindenburg. It's great, it's available online. NPR has
Speaker 2: a very specific software that they use. It was designed
Speaker 2: specifically for them because of all their sort of strange
Speaker 2: needs that they have with people working across multiple time
Speaker 2: zones and around the world and being able to share documents,
Speaker 2: and they had to be able to put their their
Speaker 2: written copy in with the with the actual the text
Speaker 2: in with the the audio, so you could kind of
Speaker 2: see the notes and all the rest of that. It's
Speaker 2: a very convoluted system. And when I left NPR, I
Speaker 2: didn't know any of the other audio programs that were
Speaker 2: out there, and Hindenburg is the one that has come
Speaker 2: closest in terms of having the same keyboard commands. Because
Speaker 2: I would get into final cut or some of you know,
Speaker 2: Adobe Audition, and I just would be tearing my hair
Speaker 2: out because I would hit like command D and needed
Speaker 2: to do something it would do something completely different, and
Speaker 2: it was just driving me bananas. So I ended up
Speaker 2: finding Hindenberg through the recommendation of a friend and have
Speaker 2: really liked it.
Speaker 1: I'm just dying to know why did they call it that?
Speaker 1: Was it because it crashes and burns or because it's
Speaker 1: great for the humanities?
Speaker 2: I just, you know, that is a great question. I
Speaker 2: actually don't know why they call it that. I did
Speaker 2: wonder about the name. Initially, I was like, this doesn't
Speaker 2: seem this seems like it might go up in flames.
Speaker 1: It was Hindenburger Titanic. I couldn't decide.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, or Lusitania one of the three nice?
Speaker 1: Oh and who does your music?
Speaker 2: I found or? I was a guy who was recommended
Speaker 2: to me. His name is romtine Ara Bluie. He is
Speaker 2: a producer and music person at NPR and he was
Speaker 2: recommended by a friend of mine because he did independent
Speaker 2: composition and mixing on the side, and so I reached
Speaker 2: out to him and he was interested in Bigfoot. He
Speaker 2: had been since he'd been a kid, and I was
Speaker 2: just crossing my fingers that he was going to be
Speaker 2: available to do this podcast because I really felt like
Speaker 2: whoever was involved in it needed to have something of
Speaker 2: an interest in the topic to really really like make
Speaker 2: it sing, so to speak.
Speaker 1: Well, So, so you were doing work with MPR how long?
Speaker 1: So I read in your bio that will I guess
Speaker 1: exis in the show notes for your own show. The
Speaker 1: description it says you spend a year working on preparing
Speaker 1: for this. So how did you make that leap? I
Speaker 1: mean is like, how did you decide to go into podcasting?
Speaker 1: Is this your full time job now?
Speaker 2: Currently? It is? I left NPR in two thousand and twelve,
Speaker 2: the very end of twenty twelve, and then I went
Speaker 2: to KPCC, which is the big NPR station affiliate in
Speaker 2: Los Angeles, working for Southern California Public Radio, and was
Speaker 2: there for a couple of years, and then by then
Speaker 2: I was just really burned out on daily news, so
Speaker 2: I applied for a fellowship in Environmental Journalism at University
Speaker 2: of Colorado Boulder, which is basically for mid career journalists
Speaker 2: to come and spend a year taking all the classes
Speaker 2: they possibly want on science, environment, journalism, whatever you're interested in,
Speaker 2: and they pay you to do it. It's the most
Speaker 2: magical experience you could possibly have, And you're right there
Speaker 2: in the rocky mountains in Boulder, Colorado, which is a
Speaker 2: lovely town.
Speaker 1: Boulder is beautiful. Oh my god, I love Boulder. I
Speaker 1: know my friend Phil Plate lives out there, the bad astronomer.
Speaker 2: So okay, nice. Yeah, So I got I was lucky
Speaker 2: enough to live there for a year, and then reality
Speaker 2: hit and I couldn't afford the rent staying in Boulder,
Speaker 2: so I ended up coming to Denver, and I was
Speaker 2: doing freelance writing at the time, because part of what
Speaker 2: I tried to do when I was at seat at
Speaker 2: the University of Colorado was try my hand at print
Speaker 2: as opposed to doing radio, just to see if I
Speaker 2: liked it. And there were parts that were great, and
Speaker 2: then there were parts that were a real drag, and
Speaker 2: I just kept thinking I want to get back into
Speaker 2: audio somehow. And then when I found out that this
Speaker 2: that Grover'sporth wife was living so nearby, I just thought,
Speaker 2: you know, I think there's something I can do here,
Speaker 2: and so I went to do an interview with her
Speaker 2: just to kind of suss out what kind of material
Speaker 2: i'd be working with people, see what people she could
Speaker 2: maybe put me in touch with. And I finished that
Speaker 2: interview and I thought, Man, this guy's a really We
Speaker 2: talked about Grover a lot, and he's just such an
Speaker 2: interesting guy. And then this whole community of people who
Speaker 2: are looking for Bigfoot, the sort of subculture of American society,
Speaker 2: is also really interesting. And that's the point at which
Speaker 2: I just sort of took the plunge. I was still
Speaker 2: doing some part time work with the university doing science
Speaker 2: communications and then some odd freelance editing jobs here and there,
Speaker 2: but this has really been my full time gig for
Speaker 2: the past year.
Speaker 1: So this will sound a bit more, but I don't
Speaker 1: mean for it too. But you've kind of already discussed it.
Speaker 1: Have you actually been to see Grover and his dogs?
Speaker 1: I have to say, oh, yeah, oh you have. Okay, Wow,
Speaker 1: I've seen photos and I was like, I was it
Speaker 1: almost feels like one of those I don't know, cryptozoology
Speaker 1: meccas to go see him, you know what, I me?
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally, yeah, yeah, so I would. I lived in
Speaker 2: DC from two thousand and one until twenty twelve, and
Speaker 2: Grover went up on display in two thousand and six
Speaker 2: or seven, I believe.
Speaker 1: Oh, to remind our listeners in case they've forgotten because
Speaker 1: we have mentioned it before. After he died and as
Speaker 1: she mentioned, he went to the body farm and then
Speaker 1: they've actually arranged his skeleton and his were they.
Speaker 2: Wolfhounds, Yeah, Irish wolfhounds.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a really beautiful display. I mean, gosh, it's
Speaker 1: weird how often I think about, like how people can
Speaker 1: sort of be remembered. And I've often thought about having
Speaker 1: my ashes poured in with concrete so that you could
Speaker 1: like make a little brick that had my name and
Speaker 1: information on it, and then like as my family died off,
Speaker 1: they could like build a wall for my family. I
Speaker 1: thought that'd be really cool. But Grover like it's him
Speaker 1: playing with his wolfhounds basically, and he loved his dogs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a really it's I don't I know. It's signed
Speaker 1: typically interesting because he wanted to like do something scientific
Speaker 1: with his body, but it's also it's it's really touching
Speaker 1: I think to see, you know, the way they've arranged it,
Speaker 1: so I'd really love to see in person.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's still up there. So the exhibit he was
Speaker 2: originally a part of with something called Written in Bone,
Speaker 2: which was about forensic anthropology, and that exhibit closed quite
Speaker 2: a few years ago now, maybe four or five. But
Speaker 2: they left Grover and Clyde still in their case, and
Speaker 2: he just moved him into a classroom that's on the
Speaker 2: first floor of the National Museum of Natural History, right
Speaker 2: out there on the National Mall in DC, and it
Speaker 2: you know, you can go in and you can still
Speaker 2: see him, and he's overseeing the science education classroom for kids.
Speaker 2: And you know, he said when he donated his body,
Speaker 2: I've been a teacher all my life. I'd like to
Speaker 2: keep teaching after I'm gone, And so I think he'd
Speaker 2: be pretty pleased with with where he is right now.
Speaker 1: That's fantastic. I sometimes feel like there's this a degree
Speaker 1: of sort of nod and wink coyness that becomes kind
Speaker 1: of deraguar for content producers when they try to navigate
Speaker 1: around the topic of Bigfoot without declaring themselves as either
Speaker 1: being a believer or a skeptic. I mean, we want
Speaker 1: to have shows that anyone can listen to, But how
Speaker 1: would you describe your approach to that issue?
Speaker 2: On wild Thing, My goal was to come into this
Speaker 2: with a pretty open mind. There were some places I
Speaker 2: just couldn't go, especially conversations about bigfoot you know, being
Speaker 2: able to move through dimensions or cloaking or telepathy, things
Speaker 2: like that, because that was just that was outside the
Speaker 2: realm of what Grover thought was possible. And it was
Speaker 2: also just you know, Bigfoot. Bigfoot itself is very hard
Speaker 2: to prove. Adding in that element would just make it
Speaker 2: nearly impossible, and I just didn't see how you could
Speaker 2: do it. So I really tried to approach this in
Speaker 2: the same way Grover did, in that Bigfoot, if it exists,
Speaker 2: is a flesh and blood creature, beholden to the same
Speaker 2: laws of nature that the rest of us are. And
Speaker 2: my biggest goal here was just I didn't want to
Speaker 2: make fun of people. I really wanted to go in
Speaker 2: and talk to them and hear what they had to say,
Speaker 2: and hear what their experiences were, and come at this
Speaker 2: from an objective observer standpoint and just see what kind
Speaker 2: of information is out there.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I'm very skeptical, but I've always been fasted about monsters,
Speaker 1: and Bigfoot's of favorite. It's not my very favorite monster,
Speaker 1: but it's certainly one of my favorites. And as a kid,
Speaker 1: just oh, I was so entranced with watching it on
Speaker 1: all the different documentaries and going out in the woods
Speaker 1: and looking for Bigfoot. It's just even though I've become,
Speaker 1: as I like to say, provisionally an unbeliever, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm certainly willing to change my opinion. I still love
Speaker 1: I still love Bigfoot. Yeah. So for your podcast, do
Speaker 1: you have a target audience? I mean, do you have
Speaker 1: an ideal listener? Who are you kind of looking for
Speaker 1: to be out there listening.
Speaker 2: Obviously I love it if the Bigfoot people were listening
Speaker 2: to this, but I think a lot of it is
Speaker 2: repetitive for them too. Like a lot of what I'm
Speaker 2: covering is pretty basic. You could say, it's this is
Speaker 2: this is big Foot one oh one, and a lot
Speaker 2: of them know all this stuff and it's nothing particularly
Speaker 2: new to them. But I'm hoping that they're still getting
Speaker 2: something kind of fun or interesting out of it. But
Speaker 2: really I'm targeting people who are just kind of interested
Speaker 2: in the idea. There are a lot of people out
Speaker 2: there who may not even realize they're interested in Bigfoot,
Speaker 2: and then you start talking about it a little bit
Speaker 2: and they have all these questions and they kind of
Speaker 2: want to know, what's this all about, where's the fascination
Speaker 2: come from? And those are the people I'm trying to reach.
Speaker 2: I'm also trying to reach people who maybe think that
Speaker 2: it's a complete and utter joke and have totally dismissed it,
Speaker 2: and you know, maybe get them to think, well, maybe
Speaker 2: if not now, then maybe once upon a time, just
Speaker 2: kind of bringing a little bit of that of that
Speaker 2: wonderment about the world back into back into their lives.
Speaker 1: As you look at the show, have you have you
Speaker 1: planned out a certain number of episodes? Are you're going
Speaker 1: to be doing seasons?
Speaker 2: This is a one season run at least as of
Speaker 2: right now, there are nine story episodes. Three of those
Speaker 2: have already aired, and so there's six more to go.
Speaker 2: And then there are four bonus episodes and one of
Speaker 2: those has already aired, that was the interview with Bob
Speaker 2: Gimlin last Friday. Cool, and then so I've got three more.
Speaker 2: So all total, there's still nine episodes to go. This
Speaker 2: will carry us through into December and then it'll be
Speaker 2: done right before Christmas. So hopefully people will go home
Speaker 2: and tell their families all about it, or over New
Speaker 2: Year's or whatever people happen to be celebrating, and yeah,
Speaker 2: that's my goal. Word of mouth, spread it out there.
Speaker 1: Well, you hitting a few thousand here, So that's.
Speaker 2: Cool, excellent, I'm glad to hear it. Tell all your friends.
Speaker 1: In previous Monster Talk episodes, we've talked with historian Brian
Speaker 1: Riegel who wrote a book called Searching for Sasquats, and
Speaker 1: he talked a lot about Grover in that book and
Speaker 1: about some of the amazing stories around the early search
Speaker 1: for the Yeddie and the Bigfoot. Will you be digging
Speaker 1: into those days of stuff like Tom Slick and all
Speaker 1: those interesting Men's Adventure magazine articles about Bigfoot.
Speaker 2: I'm not getting into those nearly as much. There will
Speaker 2: be a little bit about Tom Slick from the standpoint
Speaker 2: that I talked to Peter Burne, who is still alive,
Speaker 2: and Peter is Oh.
Speaker 1: My gosh, I'd love that I know him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's one of the original four horsemen of Sasquatchery,
Speaker 2: as they call them, and he's still alive and kicking
Speaker 2: out there in Oregon. And I spoke to him several times,
Speaker 2: and so Tom Slick came up during those conversations, but
Speaker 2: I didn't get too deep into those stories. There was
Speaker 2: a lot of ground I was trying to cover, you know.
Speaker 2: The next episode is really about people's eyewitness encounters and
Speaker 2: their own personal experiences with something out in the woods,
Speaker 2: which are pretty hair raising. I mean a lot of
Speaker 2: those stories you just hear them, you're just and they're
Speaker 2: just mind boggling. Their they you're you know, you just
Speaker 2: feel the hair on your arms stand up and on
Speaker 2: the back of your neck. And for me, they're the
Speaker 2: most compelling pieces of of evidence. Per se. I realized
Speaker 2: that eyewitnessing accounts don't necessarily stand up in court, but man,
Speaker 2: these people really did have some sort of crazy experience
Speaker 2: out there. Yeah, that's dismiss them.
Speaker 1: It is. And you know, when I go to things
Speaker 1: like Cryptic Kind and meet people who've had these experiences,
Speaker 1: it's certainly it's not one of those things. I don't
Speaker 1: feel comfortable saying, well, that didn't happen because it's big foot,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. They had some kind of experience,
Speaker 1: So I personally am more inclined to think, well, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't think there's sufficient evidence to say Bigfoot's real,
Speaker 1: but I don't discount that you had a weird experience.
Speaker 1: That's right. I wasn't there, right, you know, and exactly.
Speaker 2: And maybe it was Bigfoot. I mean, who the hell
Speaker 2: knows for sure, But.
Speaker 1: Golly, I mean, who would be more excited than somebody
Speaker 1: who spent their life thinking about it? I would love
Speaker 1: there exactly find a body. Golly, I'd be very excited.
Speaker 1: And as I like to point out, I'm one of
Speaker 1: those people who would speed up to hit Bigfoot if
Speaker 1: ran out in front of me.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, wow, you're in Grover's camp.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I'm definitely in the kill camp. When I
Speaker 1: went to Criptocon, people were handing out these magnetic h No,
Speaker 1: they're not really bumper stickers, but like these magnetic sort
Speaker 1: of adhesive things for I'm in the kill camp and
Speaker 1: the no kill camp. So my truck is proudly sporting
Speaker 1: a yeah shoot him right.
Speaker 2: Wow, opening yourself up to a world of trouble right there.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I've already I'm already in the trouble
Speaker 1: of being a you know, a skeptic who loves monsters.
Speaker 1: I've got all kinds of problems. I like to think
Speaker 1: of myself. We're the U. I frequently describe myself as
Speaker 1: being in the ghetto, inside a ghetto, and the ghetto
Speaker 1: for people who love monsters, and also in the ghetto
Speaker 1: of people who self described as skeptics. So I'm in
Speaker 1: a narrow, tiny little sirt bar. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Then diagram, yeah, my.
Speaker 1: Ven diagram puts me in a very strange little shape.
Speaker 1: Yeah it's sad, so but yeah.
Speaker 2: Then some of the other episodes get into some into
Speaker 2: some of the interesting science that's being applied to bigfoot studies,
Speaker 2: So like DNA analysis. We'll get into that in episode five.
Speaker 2: And then I go out on a I got to
Speaker 2: go out on a bigfoot expedition with a few people,
Speaker 2: which is pretty fun, and that'll be one episode. And
Speaker 2: then I also am looking at sort of the cultural appeal,
Speaker 2: because even for people who don't believe in bigfoot, there
Speaker 2: really is a fascination and companies have figured that out.
Speaker 2: Think about all the brands you know of that have
Speaker 2: Bigfoot in the name or the logo.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or are yetty? I mean golly yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly, So talk about a little talk about that
Speaker 2: a little bit too. So I you know, I could
Speaker 2: have probably gone on for years with this, but there
Speaker 2: are other projects that I'd like to work on too,
Speaker 2: and I didn't want to become just the bigfoot girl.
Speaker 1: Sure, sure, And cryptozoology as a field is pretty broad.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of monsters out there, and we've talked.
Speaker 1: We talk about all kinds of monsters, not descriptive zoology,
Speaker 1: so we get into things like the Frankenstein monster and
Speaker 1: hybridization and vampires and so on. But was this your
Speaker 1: first foray into the culture of cryptozoology.
Speaker 2: Yes, it was. I wasn't even a Bigfoot person at
Speaker 2: all before sort of starting to learn about Grover and
Speaker 2: all of this. I've really Bigfoot was just kind of
Speaker 2: tabloid fodder, kind of silly. Harry and the Henderson's might
Speaker 2: have been my largest exposure to Bigfoot.
Speaker 1: I just watched that on the big screen like two
Speaker 1: weeks ago. It came back as one of these like
Speaker 1: you know, retro theater things. I took my kids to
Speaker 1: go see it. It was fun, So it's cute.
Speaker 2: It really it kind of holds up. And actually I
Speaker 2: interviewed William Deer, who was the director and producer on
Speaker 2: that film as for one of the bonus episodes, so
Speaker 2: you'll get to hear from him a little bit later
Speaker 2: this year.
Speaker 1: Oh that's awesome. Yeah, has everybody been treating you nicely?
Speaker 2: Yes, most everybody has been really fantastic. I did get
Speaker 2: a little bit of angry email after the Evolution episode,
Speaker 2: some people saying I was a little too dismissive of creationism,
Speaker 2: and then, oh, I've gotten a few people who were
Speaker 2: upset that I dismissed footprints outright as evidence, and I
Speaker 2: probably should have been a little more judicious about how
Speaker 2: I said that, saying that they are not sufficient evidence
Speaker 2: on their own. Then there's definitely been a few people
Speaker 2: who have not wanted to talk to me more on
Speaker 2: the scientific the science side of things, Like I was
Speaker 2: trying to get interviews with a few people at the
Speaker 2: Smithsonian to talk about evolution and where Bigfoot might fit
Speaker 2: into the old phylogenetic tree, and they basically just were
Speaker 2: like nope. And I was like why not And they
Speaker 2: were just like nope. And I was like, is it
Speaker 2: because of Bigfoot? And they're like, we just don't want
Speaker 2: to talk about it.
Speaker 1: So all right. You know, we've talked about this on
Speaker 1: Monster Talk quite a few times. But there is this
Speaker 1: weird and I don't mean that weirdly like dismissed.
Speaker 2: A taboo tao.
Speaker 1: There's this strange thing that happens where there is a
Speaker 1: sub group within cryptisology that is deeply invested in cryptozoology
Speaker 1: as a mode of discounting natural selection and evolution and
Speaker 1: an old Earth and really oh oh yeah, yeah absolutely.
Speaker 1: Now it's typically not around Bigfoot. It's typically around things
Speaker 1: like Michillimbmbey, which is the idea that there's a right
Speaker 1: and that in the rope, and as a pterosaur being alive.
Speaker 1: And the idea I think is that if they could
Speaker 1: find a living example of these, it would in some
Speaker 1: way prove that the Earth is not as old as
Speaker 1: people say. Now, I don't know how that would comport
Speaker 1: with things like the ceilicanth and other creatures like the
Speaker 1: alligator that that that have evolved over time but have
Speaker 1: basically maintained the same morphology over time, and you can't
Speaker 1: really capture the molecular changes over time through the fossil
Speaker 1: record because some animals they heavily conserve their shape. But
Speaker 1: it's there. There's there are crypto as a wologists who
Speaker 1: were also younger creationists, and they're they're not insignificant, They're
Speaker 1: they're a big factor. I think so.
Speaker 2: But yeah, no, no, no real hate mail. A couple
Speaker 2: of like people who are think that I'm trying to
Speaker 2: be funny and I'm not, and a few other things
Speaker 2: like that. But most people have been really positive about it,
Speaker 2: and I've gotten some lovely letters and some really nice feedback.
Speaker 2: I met a my dad's cousin who he's never met
Speaker 2: but is someone who lives in Washington reached out and
Speaker 2: sent a note, and so you know, I'm meeting some
Speaker 2: new relatives that I didn't even know about. So all
Speaker 2: in all, it's been a really positive experience, and it's
Speaker 2: been awesome just hearing from people and hearing their stories
Speaker 2: and hearing how much they like this story. And I
Speaker 2: love it.
Speaker 1: No, I, in case it's not clear, I've really enjoyed it,
Speaker 1: and it's oh good. Obviously it's a very well produced show.
Speaker 1: It's as though you're an experienced audio producer. I don't
Speaker 1: know how you pulled that off yet something like that.
Speaker 1: So what if you found to be the most compelling
Speaker 1: evidence for Bigfoot so far in your work.
Speaker 2: Aside from the eyewitness accounts, which I just keep kind
Speaker 2: of turning over in my head. I think one of
Speaker 2: the most interesting things were these giant ground nests that
Speaker 2: were found out on the Olympic Peninsula by a guy
Speaker 2: who was doing a survey on a timber cut and
Speaker 2: he was out on family, private family timberland and was
Speaker 2: walking around in the middle of this thick, brambly forest
Speaker 2: and came across these huge nests. They were probably eight
Speaker 2: nine ten feet in diameter, and there were several of them,
Speaker 2: and they looked pretty fresh because the vawn of the
Speaker 2: flora that had been used to make them was they
Speaker 2: were branches that had been snapped off and they were
Speaker 2: still green, which means they were relatively new. And he's
Speaker 2: someone who'd been out in the forest for thirty some
Speaker 2: odd years and had never seen anything like it. So
Speaker 2: he reached out to the Department of Natural Resources out
Speaker 2: there in Washington, as well as the Olympic Project, which
Speaker 2: is the bigfoot research based out in that area, and
Speaker 2: they all came out and took a look at it,
Speaker 2: and everyone's standing around scratching their heads and no one
Speaker 2: has ever seen anything like this, and yeah, they brought
Speaker 2: in some bear biologists, and the bear biologists said, well,
Speaker 2: they're not bare beds. They're too elaborate for that. So
Speaker 2: I got to see these. They were had been around
Speaker 2: for a couple of years by that point, because in
Speaker 2: finding the nests and seeing how fresh they were. The
Speaker 2: decision was by the Timber company, Okay, we're not going
Speaker 2: to log this land. We'll give you guys, the Olympic
Speaker 2: Project five years to sort of figure out what's going
Speaker 2: on here.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, isn't that cool.
Speaker 1: It's amazing. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they were like, we'll have to log it eventually,
Speaker 2: but for now, we'll go do other plots and you
Speaker 2: can sit here and keep an eye on this. So
Speaker 2: they did. They watched it for two years, I think,
Speaker 2: waiting to see if any if the thing whatever had
Speaker 2: made it might come back.
Speaker 1: So they said, like trail cams that sort of thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think they set up trail cams. I think
Speaker 2: they just like, you know, camped out there. I think
Speaker 2: they just kept kind of coming back and checking everything
Speaker 2: out and nothing ever came back, or at least not
Speaker 2: that they saw. And so then after that they brought
Speaker 2: in a couple of experts, including a guy named doctor
Speaker 2: Jeff Meldrum who's an anthropologist out of Idaho.
Speaker 1: Yeah the listeners will know him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, great. So he teaches at Idaho State University,
Speaker 2: which incidentally is only about forty five miles down the
Speaker 2: road from where I grew up, so, you know, another
Speaker 2: little moment of oh, we're in my neck of the
Speaker 2: woods here, cool. And he took out samples for DNA analysis,
Speaker 2: and yeah, sent those to get them analyzed. But having
Speaker 2: seen those nests and seen how big they are and
Speaker 2: seeing how elaborate they were, I mean, they really think
Speaker 2: of a bird's nest and sort of how interwoven and
Speaker 2: shaped and formed they are, and that's basically what you're
Speaker 2: looking looking at on a massive scale, and it just
Speaker 2: kind of blew my mind. And there was definitely this
Speaker 2: moment where I was just like, well, well, shit, what
Speaker 2: are these?
Speaker 1: I typically put the swearing into the U into the
Speaker 1: Patreon feed and then the beep it out on the
Speaker 1: regular show, but that's no trouble.
Speaker 2: I mean that really was my response. As you probably
Speaker 2: heard in the first episode. It was just like, mine,
Speaker 2: what are these? These are really really weird. And there
Speaker 2: was that moment where it's like, well, maybe it is Bigfoot.
Speaker 1: Do you got to go see these yourself?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I did.
Speaker 1: And I didn't see any photos on the wild Thing website.
Speaker 1: Are there are there photos there.
Speaker 2: Or anywhere there are photos online? I was not allowed
Speaker 2: to take photos that was one of the conditions for
Speaker 2: me being allowed to go down there. But if you
Speaker 2: google Cliff Berrickman.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know Cliff yep.
Speaker 2: If you google him and you google Bigfoot nests, you
Speaker 2: will see some of the photos that are there. And
Speaker 2: in any case, those those were better because they were
Speaker 2: taken when the nests were fresher. By the time I
Speaker 2: got there, they were starting to degrade. So any photos
Speaker 2: I tech took would have looked like a pile of
Speaker 2: sticks pretty much, And they really were much more elaborate
Speaker 2: than that. They really it was not just a pile
Speaker 2: of debris.
Speaker 1: That is so wild. So they sent the samples I'm
Speaker 1: assuming to Todd dis Hotel.
Speaker 2: Yes, well done. You know your people.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, so well, Todd was our very first guest
Speaker 1: on Monster Talk. He's been on several times.
Speaker 2: Really yeah, yeah, yeah, he was great. He was a
Speaker 2: lot of fun to talk to, a sense of humor.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I really enjoyed talking with him.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so has I don't want to no spoilers
Speaker 1: for your show, But do we get the DNA results
Speaker 1: before the end of the season or during the show.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I'm not going to tell you what.
Speaker 1: I don't want to know. I don't want to ruin anything.
Speaker 2: So they are, I believe at the end of the
Speaker 2: third episode they were talking about sending them in for analysis,
Speaker 2: and so it will continue from there.
Speaker 1: Okay, cool, all right, So there's Cliffingers. All right, that's fantastic,
Speaker 1: all right. And so you've been out in the woods. Now,
Speaker 1: have you been on a bigfoot hunt?
Speaker 2: I haven't been on a hunt per se. I've been
Speaker 2: out on an expedition and it was a short one.
Speaker 2: It was like a long weekend out in the mount
Speaker 2: Hood National Forest with a few people associated with the
Speaker 2: Olympic Project and a couple of the other bigfoot research
Speaker 2: groups and just went out with about four of them
Speaker 2: and my producer Kelsey Ray, and we spent the weekend
Speaker 2: out there just sort of hearing about what they generally
Speaker 2: do when they go out on these kinds of excursions,
Speaker 2: what they're looking for. One of the guys told us
Speaker 2: his bigfoot encounter story, which was a little creepy sitting
Speaker 2: there at night in front of the campfire with all
Speaker 2: the forest sounds around you. And then we went out
Speaker 2: on a late night hike with night vision and thermal
Speaker 2: vision like flear Yeah exactly, Okay, and it was. It
Speaker 2: was pretty cool. It was a really fun experience.
Speaker 1: So this show is going to take you through the
Speaker 1: end of the year. What's next for you? What are
Speaker 1: you working on after this?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, see, everybody asks that question. I'm not quite ready
Speaker 2: to divulge that yet. Okay, mainly because I'm still trying
Speaker 2: to sort of hammer out if it's the right project
Speaker 2: for me.
Speaker 1: Gotcha, is there anything else you'd like to let listeners
Speaker 1: know about your show or anything else you'd like to
Speaker 1: plug or promote.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, this is a this is an audience
Speaker 2: it's used to talking about monsters, so I probably don't
Speaker 2: need to say this to them. But you know, the
Speaker 2: thing that I found I kind of went into this
Speaker 2: expecting the Bigfoot people to be tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorists,
Speaker 2: a little bit crazy, and have been extremely pleasantly surprised
Speaker 2: by just how down to earth everybody is. And I
Speaker 2: think that's one of the things that surprised me. And
Speaker 2: then you know, they're basically people who have an interest
Speaker 2: in something, who are very curious about something, and who
Speaker 2: want to know more. And honestly, they're going outside, they're
Speaker 2: hanging out with friends, they're doing. They're pursuing a hobby
Speaker 2: that they find fascinating, and I don't really see what's
Speaker 2: wrong with that. So I would say you're not allowed
Speaker 2: to make fun of bigfoot people anymore as sort of
Speaker 2: my general general feeling on that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I hope that that's been our I don't know
Speaker 1: what they're that that's the tone we eat those, Yeah, Ethos, sir,
Speaker 1: I wanted to say footprint. Yeah, that I hope that
Speaker 1: that's where we are as well. I mean, I I've
Speaker 1: been that guy out in the woods looking for Bigfoot,
Speaker 1: and you know, I still like to go out in
Speaker 1: the woods, and I still, even though I'm very skeptical,
Speaker 1: there's not a n I thinks me one, right exactly.
Speaker 1: I every time I'm driving through a pine forest, I
Speaker 1: keep hoping one will step out in front of me
Speaker 1: and I could just you know, speed up the run
Speaker 1: them over with your car exactly.
Speaker 2: So speaking of monsters.
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly, I'm terrible, but you know, I really would
Speaker 1: love it to be true. I would love Yeah, I know.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people do. I mean, there's
Speaker 2: just something about that that's extremely appealing.
Speaker 1: It is, So you did X well, you expressed some
Speaker 1: reticence around the paranormal bigfoot question because it's not very scientific.
Speaker 1: But you probably ran into some paranormal bigfoot people right
Speaker 1: when you're researching.
Speaker 2: A very few. It actually worked out into my favor
Speaker 2: that I had gone to Grover's wife for his widow first,
Speaker 2: because she then put me in touch with other people
Speaker 2: who had known and worked with Grover. And I think,
Speaker 2: you know, people would come up to Grover with all
Speaker 2: kinds of theories and he would listen to them because
Speaker 2: he never knew if someone was going to give him
Speaker 2: information that was actually helpful to the work he was
Speaker 2: trying to do. Yeah, but I think he also got
Speaker 2: a lot of people who were like, yeah, they came
Speaker 2: here on alien spaceships. I've seen the landing site, and
Speaker 2: you know, he was patient, but I think that stuff
Speaker 2: kind of just drove him crazy, and he steered clear
Speaker 2: of a lot of that. So most of his peers,
Speaker 2: most of the people he stayed in touch with, were
Speaker 2: of a similar mindset, and so he because I was
Speaker 2: introduced to these people through Diane, they were people who
Speaker 2: knew Grover, who were friends with Grover, and so I
Speaker 2: kind of got tracked into this more scientific side of things.
Speaker 2: So there were a few people I met who were
Speaker 2: a little bit more in the uh the the paranormal Bigfoot,
Speaker 2: supernatural Bigfoot, but I didn't end up having actually talking
Speaker 2: to a lot. I've gotten letters from a few and
Speaker 2: have not really responded because they don't seem like they're
Speaker 2: quite right.
Speaker 1: Maybe yeah, it's but it's a broadly uh it. How
Speaker 1: do I put this? I'm not I don't want to
Speaker 1: be mean to or dismissive of the people. I don't
Speaker 1: want to be dismissive the tea. Yeah, support, but it's
Speaker 1: a very non scientific approach. And despite the fact that
Speaker 1: there's been stories around like Bigfoot in UFOs well, to
Speaker 1: be blunt, a paranormal Bigfoot is a kind of special pleading.
Speaker 1: Why haven't we found a body? Because it's extra dimensional?
Speaker 1: You know? That's it basically becomes a special pleading, and
Speaker 1: it lets you get out of having to have evidence,
Speaker 1: or having to have DNA or having to have a
Speaker 1: body or any of that kind of stuff. And so
Speaker 1: it's very frustrating.
Speaker 2: If the laws of nature don't apply to Bigfoot, then
Speaker 2: they shouln't apply to anything else, and then we can
Speaker 2: just throw everything we've ever learned in physics class out
Speaker 2: the windows.
Speaker 1: Absolutely right, right. So yeah, although I do intend to
Speaker 1: do an episode in the near future about the UFO
Speaker 1: Bigfoot connection because it's out there. I mean, the stories
Speaker 1: are definitely out there. There's lots and lots of stories
Speaker 1: about Bigfoot being cited, especially around Pennsylvania. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: what's going on there, but yeah, so that was big
Speaker 1: in the seventies. But yeah, it's so the Patterson Gimlin film.
Speaker 1: You did talk about that a little bit. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: uh and obviously you talked about Gimlin. So how did
Speaker 1: you feel about the film? You probably watched the stabilized version, I.
Speaker 2: Assume, yeah, I mean I've watched all kinds of versions,
Speaker 2: the color corrected one, the slowdown one, you know, all
Speaker 2: of them. That's it's so, it's just it's really interesting
Speaker 2: to me from the standpoint that you know, you've had
Speaker 2: like three or four people come forward and say, well,
Speaker 2: I was the guy in the suit, but everybody's got
Speaker 2: kind of a contradicting viewpoint on how that story went.
Speaker 2: And as far as I know, no one has produced
Speaker 2: the suit, which to me would probably be worth a
Speaker 2: fortune at this point if you could.
Speaker 1: Actually I know.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, So there's just a lot of things with
Speaker 2: that film where if it's if it's hoaxed, it was
Speaker 2: covered up extremely well. And I also don't think Bob
Speaker 2: Gimlin's lying because you know, I talked to the man.
Speaker 2: You heard his story on this last this interview I
Speaker 2: did with him, and he's stuck to the same thing
Speaker 2: for a long time, and he's taken a lot of
Speaker 2: ridicule for it. And I guess there's a possibility that
Speaker 2: maybe he was a patsy and that Roger did orchestrate
Speaker 2: some sort of very elaborate hoax, and then I took
Speaker 2: that with him to his grave, and that Bob never knew.
Speaker 2: But I don't know. That's one of those weird pieces
Speaker 2: of information out there where I'm just not sure what
Speaker 2: to do with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's tricky. Patterson sounded like he was a pretty
Speaker 1: tricky guy. Yeah, up to it, including the fact that
Speaker 1: you know, he made Bob have to sue him to
Speaker 1: try to get his money. I mean, it's it. I
Speaker 1: don't doubt for a second I would have enjoyed talking
Speaker 1: to him, you know, Oh, I'm sure.
Speaker 2: I bet he was a phenomenal storyteller.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I just I always felt like, uh, it
Speaker 1: seems like if well, okay, there's too many coincidences for
Speaker 1: my taste the whole thing.
Speaker 2: I mean, right, this is your first time out looking
Speaker 2: for bigfoot and you have been happened to have a
Speaker 2: camera and you happen to find it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's a female with big pendulous breasts and
Speaker 1: they matched the only drawing, Like, you wrote a book
Speaker 1: a little bit before about bigfoot, and the drawing you
Speaker 1: did was of a big foot, big pendulous breasts, and
Speaker 1: that's what you see, and of course that matches the
Speaker 1: William Rose siding in Canada. It's there's a lot of
Speaker 1: weird coincidences.
Speaker 2: Wow, you went way to further down the rabbit hole
Speaker 2: than I did.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's it's uh, there's a lot going on
Speaker 1: there that makes me doubt. But what would be really
Speaker 1: more compelling would be if anybody else had found some
Speaker 1: compelling footage. And all the other subsequent bigfoot video has
Speaker 1: been pretty shoddy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it really has. Yeah, I haven't seen anything yet
Speaker 2: that it's that is uh that makes me sit up
Speaker 2: and take notice.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't want to leave listeners on that sad
Speaker 1: note though.
Speaker 2: No, that's not I was talking about something happy.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So so I'm out of my prepared questions, but
Speaker 1: I do want to talk about monsters a little bit more.
Speaker 1: We actually have this this finishing question we like to
Speaker 1: answer ask first time guests, and that is what is
Speaker 1: your favorite monster? And that could be anything that you
Speaker 1: declare as a monster that's your personal taste.
Speaker 2: So it can even be a real species. Absolutely all right,
Speaker 2: I am going to say the Komodo dragon really okay, yeah,
Speaker 2: why think? Well, first of all, it's enormous.
Speaker 1: They are really big.
Speaker 2: They are huge, and they when they bite you, they
Speaker 2: have like toxins and the glands around their jaw and
Speaker 2: they can like poison you and they can keep you
Speaker 2: from I think it's an anti coagulant, so like as
Speaker 2: you're as it's eating you and you're bleeding out, you
Speaker 2: can't even like.
Speaker 1: Clot Oh wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And they smell really bad.
Speaker 1: Oh really, that's yeah, I guess they should. I've been
Speaker 1: to plenty of reptile houses. None of the smell very pleasant.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and yeah, and I just and they're old, like
Speaker 2: they're an old old species. They've been around for a
Speaker 2: really long time. I'm trying to think. They think that there.
Speaker 2: They might have been around as long as almost four
Speaker 2: million years ago, which is pretty crazy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, basically maintained the same morphology.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're really huge and can be surprisingly fast. And
Speaker 1: I know there was a time of like maybe fifteen
Speaker 1: years ago people thought they had no toxins, like they
Speaker 1: thought it was just a heavy bacterial load. But I
Speaker 1: know that recent researchers pointed out that they no, no,
Speaker 1: they got a little bit of toxin them too. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so oh they have a lot of teeth.
Speaker 2: They have a lot of teeth that they eat, they
Speaker 2: eat carry on and they attack people. I don't know.
Speaker 2: That sounds pretty monstrous to me, really so cool, Like
Speaker 2: I don't want to like run one over with my car.
Speaker 1: Person Who would do that? Who would do that?
Speaker 2: Horrible person?
Speaker 1: Terrible, terrible person. So yeah, that's fantastic. Okay, okay, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: that's a good one. We had on a guy from
Speaker 1: Australia a few months ago and we were talking about
Speaker 1: crocodiles and alligators before the movie Rampaids came out, and
Speaker 1: he was talking about some of the many many species
Speaker 1: of I think they're called gowana there's sort of Big
Speaker 1: Lizards of Australia and it made me go back and
Speaker 1: watch a lot of lizard videos and they are really
Speaker 1: really interesting hunters. And you know, like a lot of
Speaker 1: lizards can't really run fast for a long time. R whoa,
Speaker 1: But they can run really fast for a short time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they can. If you ever watched videos of like
Speaker 2: crocodiles or alligators charting and.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah no, it's crazy. Yeah no, it's scary as hell.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. Well wow, that's fantastic. Well, Laura, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for taking time out of your schedule to
Speaker 1: talk to Monster Talking listeners.
Speaker 2: You are very welcome. This was a lot of fun.
Speaker 2: I really enjoyed it cool.
Speaker 1: If you need any any super nerdy cryptozoology info, just
Speaker 1: reached out to me. I'll be exait to provide it.
Speaker 1: I've been doing this for a long time, so.
Speaker 2: I totally will. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Monster You've been listening to Monster Talk, the science show
Speaker 1: about monsters. I'm Blake Smith. Today you heard an interview
Speaker 1: with Laura Krantz, host and producer of the new and
Speaker 1: popular show wild Thing. You can find wild Thing on
Speaker 1: iTunes or your favorite podcasting app and you can find
Speaker 1: links related to today's interview at monster talk dot org.
Speaker 1: Monster Talks an official podcast of Skeptic Magazine. The views
Speaker 1: expressed here are those of myself and my guests and
Speaker 1: don't necessarily reflect the opinions or views of Skeptic Magazine
Speaker 1: or the Skeptic Society. We hope you've enjoyed this episode
Speaker 1: of Monster Talk. Each episode we strive to bring you
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