Speaker 1: At a stop to exprest.
Speaker 2: Hey, everybody, we're live. I'm hoping everybody's here and we
made it to the chat. I'm gonna jump into the
YouTube and see who's here. I hope everybody's doing well.
I had a couple of technical difficulties. Sorry for being late.
I just I want to say hi, and I hope
everybody's doing good tonight. So let's get started. Who's uh?
Who's going to be the first audience member that wants
to ask something? Anybody want to say hi? Even? Let
me jump into the chat here and say hi, we're
live tonight. How do you every wantn't ask me anything?
And I'm all yours, I'm all ears cool. It's pretty
quiet in the chat crickets, Hey, Matt, how are you doing?
Thanks for joining. I'm excited to see you here. I
know we're just getting started. I'm a couple of minutes late,
so I probably lost some folks. They probably didn't think
I was coming on. So Matt, where are you calling
in from? Where are you watching from? I'm doing good.
I'm doing good. It's been a crazy weekend. I'm glad
just to sit down and relax and chat with everyone tonight.
Seems like it's going to start off pretty slow, so
it's not a bad thing. Let's see, we've got a
few more people watching print. Wow, Okanagan. All right, I
work with a bunch of Canadians, so that's pretty cool. Oh, Steve,
let's put that in the chat. Steve's starting off with
the the heavy, heavy material. All right, Steve, and then Carl,
I'll get to you. I see your questions. So Steve
wants to know what my take on the WU aspect is.
And I think I've said this before. I don't necessarily
want to dismiss the WU side of things, but my approach,
at least with the Bigfoot mapping project and the way
that I'm trying to analyze data, is as if Bigfoot
is a biological, flesh and blood creature. However, that said,
if there are reports or evidence that show up in
the database, I don't call those out. I don't filter
them out. I am following and I will follow where
the evidence and data leads. But so far, I mean, honestly,
at least in the database that I've got, I haven't
really seen too much. Will reported if you will, I
don't know how else to say it. I don't get
a lot of ORB reports. I don't get a lot
of teleporting or mind speak or any of that kind
of stuff. I really don't get that. So I think
so far I haven't been swayed to believe that Bigfoot
is supernatural. I'm not saying I won't be. I'm not
saying I'm closed to that. However, I think there's a
lot of evidence that points to Bigfoot being a flesh
and blood creature. So that's where I sit right now,
and that's how I appro things, and that's I think
pretty reasonable based on what I've gathered in evidence. Now,
I've heard one off reports about those things happening, But
are they very verifiable?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: Are they reported frequently, at least in what I'm capturing. No.
So I think that's hopefully not a controversial answer. I
hope I don't disappoint people, but that's where I sit
at the moment. And again, not to say that I
couldn't be swede or that I will dismiss or delete
or remove things. No, but I don't see those things
happening in the reports that I receive. So with that said,
I also think you get what you ask for. There's
a lot of people and researchers out there that really
focus on the WU and if that's all you focused on,
that's all you're going to see. So I try to
keep it open and really let the evidence and data
speak for itself. Steve Hope that answers your question. Shouldn't
fel free to ask more. Next I said, I get
to Carl, Carl, do you have a map all? I like,
what kind of cigar is that in your profile picture there?
I'm a little jealous. I wish I could be talking
to you over a nice cigar, maybe a little bit
of brandy. But do you have a map of Connecticut
sightings Connecticut bigfoot research? Carl? Yes, Carl, as a matter
of fact, I do, and there's actually a few ways
to get there. So what I'm going to do is
go ahead and get to two things. There's two ways
to see what I've got a map of. So the
first one is I'm going to share my screen. Let's
see share a screen and we're going to do the
entire screen over here. Where's the map? Screen two? Three,
screen three, We're going to share. So yes, Carol, let
me know if you can see this. But we've got
a map of all the Connecticut sightings that have been reported,
and you'll notice as I zoom in, what I've done
is symbolize those sightings as hotspots. So at first you're
going to see basically a hot spot displaying the map.
That'll show how closely sightings are grouped, and the closer
they are, the more they are, the hotter it looks, right,
But as you zoom in, you'll start to see them
appear in the map. Right. So, yeah, we've got quite
a bit of sightings in Connecticut.
Speaker 3: There.
Speaker 2: The green ones on the map are John Green sightings
and then the others. As you zoom in, you'll notice
that there are different colors, and if you want to
know what they are, I get this question a lot.
People don't often see the buttons I've got up top here,
but if you want to know what you're looking in
the map, I do include a legend here, right, So
while we're looking at this, I think it's a good
time to talk about that. If you're zoomed out and
you see these neon colored points in the map, you'll
have orange, green, blue. So orange bright orange occurred in
the last seven days. Let's see if there's one I
don't see one in the United States. Okay, green, last
forty eight hours it was reported. That doesn't mean it occurred.
And then blue was reported in the last ten days,
again does not mean it occurred. If you go down
the list in the legend, you've got the yellow dots
yellow points, which are worldwide sightings contributed by Carrie kil murray.
And then we've got some hot spot symbology. It just
explains the colors and what they mean in the different
hotspots that you see, and then as you zoom in,
the legend will expand to show you what else is
in the map. Right, So we've got USGS trail locations,
new sightings are red that were reported after the BMP
started twenty twenty. And then we've got a historical database
from Manjhani's historical Bigfoot sightings that include yellow bigfoot for siting,
a green speaker for an audible, a blue track for
a track sign, or an orange if the type of
report was not defined. And then as you zoom in,
there's a ton of other data that I've included all
over all over the map. So again, a very nice
tool to have is the legend. Right, A map's not
really good unless you know what you're looking at. And
then the second thing, like I said, there was two things.
Another way to see what I've got is way down
scroll through my Instagram. Shameless scrolling here. But I've done
the Bigfoot byways for almost every state, and I believe
I've made a map of Connecticut here we are, so yes.
I've also taken least cost pathways wildlife cord between high
conservation areas and pulled out those paths in almost every
state and intersected them with the Bigfoot sightings and reports
in that state, so we actually know maybe we can
link two sitings together by a least cost pathway or
a corridor that Bigfoot might have traveled. Right. So there's
a lot of different information that I've got on the
Instagram and in the interactive map, and I hope that
that really helps you. If there's something you have I
would like to see, by all means, now's your time,
please let me know. But I really hope that helps
There's a lot of good information on this map when
you click through. Let's see who else is here, Carl,
that was a great question I've answered, Steve Lee. Are
you interested in speaking at conferences? Very Actually, I think
I've reached a point. That's a great question, Lee and
good timing. Actually, I've talked with a few people here
and there that have asked me to speak. In fact,
one of the conferences I was supposed to speak at
was in Michigan, but it fell through for some reason.
I think I would be honored if people would ask
me or would like me to speak at a conference.
I would love to go and meet people in person
and really have those conversations and start to build relationships.
Because a lot of what I do is virtual, is
behind the keyboard. I put a lot out on Instagram,
and I have a lot of conversations over the Internet.
But I think when I do get to meet people
and do get to go out into the field with folks,
I have a great time. I've only made good friends.
Like one of my great friends who I never would
have made had I got had I not gotten into
Bigfoot research, is Alex Pettakov, great guy. Never would have
become friends with him had I not started the Bigfoot
mapping project. And we went out in the Chafalai base
and had a blast. Right. So the long winded answer
to say, yeah, I would love to talk at conferences
I would wonder maybe we can hear from the chat
what people would like to see. That's one thing. If
I did speak at conferences, I'd want to make it
very worth your while. I'd want to bring something that's new, fresh,
and bring good information. I wouldn't necessarily want to talk
in a general tone, although I'm happy to because I
think GIS and educating people about what GIS can do
is really important. But also I'd like to bring some
cool stuff to conferences and say, hey, this is a
you know, Hypothetically, if I were in Colorado doing a conference,
I would show up and say, hey, this is a
hot spot that I've analyzed. Here's a recent sighting, here's
the corridors. Let's you know, talk about this right, things
like that. I think it would be really interesting to
get up and meet and talk in front of people.
Let's see, Lee, how's that for a Do you have
a conference in mind? Lee? That would be awesome if
you did. I'm gonna go to YouTube here and make
sure I'm not missing any comments because it's not updating.
So I'm gonna stop stop sharing here for a second
because the chat's kind of quiet, and I feel like
there's more people in the room, probably, so I want
to make sure I'm not missing anything. You got a
little thing that says it can't post comments from some destinations,
So a little concerned about that. Let's look at the
live chat. Yeah, nope, I'm not missing anything. Who else
is in the chat? Anybody else have any questions? This
is your time. I'm I will sit here as long
as it takes. I've got a giant bottle of water
and I I'm working on an empty tank, So let's go.
I can't believe there's no more Bigfoot questions. How do
power power band? You're coming into a live chat. This
is my first one, as a matter of fact, So
shout out from Northwest Virginia. Nice, nice poncho.
Speaker 4: Hi.
Speaker 2: You know, while I'm waiting for more questions, I'll tell
a story about working in West Virginia. I don't know
if you guys know the Cana River or Charleston, West Virginia.
I did some seismic surveys there and that is where
I really first got the first big Bigfoot report told
to me verbally. So this is kind of West Virginia
is kind of where this all began for me. I
was doing gis in the field and I was out
at a land ownse in the middle of the middle
of nowhere outside of Charleston, beautiful country, and they were
talking to me about hunting, because, as you can tell
behind me, I like to hunt. And they they were
telling me about one time when they were hunting how
a big, brown and white bigfoot came through the woods
and passed them while they were hunting from their tree stand.
And that was really the first report that I got
that gave me the idea of you know, hey, this
is happening to people I make maps, what if I
captured this? And from there I went to Louisiana, which
I heard more stories, Oklahoma, Texas, Pennsylvania. You name it, Lee,
I see you've got another comment here, Lee, Barnaby Jones.
Barnaby Jones, I know that name. I feel like I
might have talked to Barnaby or at least run in
the same circles. It's a familiar name. Wisconsin Caps conference
discuss how you use your map and how you'd use
the information and plan you're outing. Absolutely, that would be
a lot of fun and I think, you know, showing
people some e scouting and building a plan for research
using GIS data of Bigfoot reports, historical bigfoot reports, the
information contained in the reports, interpolating between to report locations.
Using like I just showed earlier, the least cost pathway,
we can actually do some localized, really specific least cost
pathway analysis, so we could actually build even more specific
models at a higher resolution, and then get in and
look at the topography. We can look at light our data,
which is very very useful, especially when you're going into
a research area and hunting as well. So all of
the stuff that we have at our disposal, not only
when we're creating a map, it's more than a map.
It's information. So the keyword in GIS is information, so
it's geographic information systems. And what we can do is
really go into an area or pick an area based
on the intelligence. We have some predictions, we've made models,
we've looked at trends we're noticing, so we can see
all different kinds of things from the information we have
in our GIS. Monster on the Edge where I first
saw you in your awesome mapping skills. Thank you, Lee.
You can stay in the chat as long as you like.
Welcome this is keep feel free to keep commenting, thank you,
I appreciate it. Power Band Sasquatch says, I'm into Bigfoot
and UFO UAPs. Have you ever thought about making a
UFO UAP map? I think power Band, I am about
to blow your mind. Short answer, not exactly a UFO map,
but I did make a map called Drone Tracker, and
I'll share that here in my third monitor again, so
I'm actually going to show you how to get there.
I made a map called Drone Tracker dot app right,
and you go to the siting site and this is
again very similar Bigfoot map. It's crowdsource the drone sightings.
You remember when all the drone sightings were going on
in the East coast throughout the country. I actually made
a map that captured those in real time and we
were able to identify hot spots, just like we do
with Bigfoot. So not quite UFO u AP map, but
definitely very parallel to that. So power Band, yes, I've
thought about it, and I've done something. This was in
response to a current event at the time where I
felt that GIS could be useful to get to answers.
And I will tell you why I haven't made a
UFO UFO map yet, and that's because I oops, I
don't know what I'm presenting here. Stop presenting, Stop screen.
I really want to focus on Bigfoot. That's my passion,
and I think there are a lot of people that
are very involved in UFO u a P research and
I just don't want to spread myself too thin, and
I think there's plenty of resources there. Maybe if I
get to a point where I have more time and
the ability to dedicate to doing two maps well, I would.
I would do it. But doing two maps with that
much information and really doing them well would be pretty difficult.
And it's just me at the moment. I'm just a
one man show. So I'm going to go with the
old adage of do one thing and do it well.
And I'm very passionate about Bigfoot, so I really want
to focus my energy here at getting to answers and
providing the community with a good resource. And if I
if I diverged and went away from that, I think
I wouldn't be doing either community very a very good
service because I'd be so busy and maybe a little overwhelmed.
As it is, doing just the Bigfoot mapping project can
be a little overwhelming at times, a lot going on,
a lot to keep up with, especially since I have
a little one year old run around, so it's a lot.
That's a good question though, now thank you for that.
Let's see who else is in the chat we've got
out back Orchard. Any new reports in New England. Yes,
there's been a few new reports. If you hit the map,
you can see I'm looking at not quite in New England.
They go over to Ohio, but there's some. There's one
in New York, there's one in Pennsylvania. There were a
few in Maine recently, but they've since faded off into
just the regular database. They aren't highlighted in the map.
But there are new reports in New England. Yes, and
this year alone there have been tons. I think. Let's
see who put that question up? Any new reports in
New England outback Orchard. Another thing that you inspired me
to bring up is the sheer number of reports that
we've received since we started. We started in twenty twenty
and to twenty twenty, and since then we've received about
thirteen hundred bigfoot reports. So yes, there are This year
alone we've received a few hundreds. So yes, there are
definitely new reports in New England, in fact, all over
the country. Let's see, l M says LM nop. Never
got that joke though, right qrs tuv okay terrible dad
jokes and I'm live. I can't even edit this out O.
I came in late. Does your map include Canadian sightings? Yes,
ll let's go take a look. Not a lot, but
it does. It does include Canadian sightings. You'll notice when
you zoom in, I'm actually gonna bring up the old map,
the classic map, and I'm letna show you on the screen.
This is gonna be a little interactive. So yes, lle
to answer your question, you know, when you can see
the screen, guys sharing again, I'm going to go back
and forth between sharing. When you zoom out, you'll see
North America is covered and there are reports that are
captured in Canada. Right, so we go from all the
way over Newfoundland, New Fees over here, all the way
to BC up through the Yukon, the Northwest territories, all
the way over to Alaska. Yes, we do have a
lot of Canadian reports and we're working on more. They
are very interesting to read. So if you get the chance,
hit bigfootmap dot com here and you can either jump
into the new map or what I'm looking at here
that I'm just presenting now is the classic map, So
you can go over here and scroll around, and there's
tools to go through a legend. I'll highlight again like
I did earlier, so you know what you're looking at,
and there's all kinds of cool tools to go through
the map. Let's see. Elle. Thank you, that was a
great question. Have you had your own bigfoot encounter?
Speaker 3: Lee?
Speaker 2: You are? You are all right? Lee? You are quickly
becoming the favorite favorite guest of the show. Yes, Lee,
I have, so I've I've talked about it on other
podcasts Sasquatch Tracks and a few others actually over the
last few years, and I don't I don't bring it
up every podcast episode because you know, I am passionate
about Bigfoot, but I don't want to be a broken record.
But I am glad you asked, because there's probably people
here that don't haven't heard the story, or maybe you haven't.
So I'm from New York. I grew up there, and
this is relevant because that's where I heard my it
had my first unexplained experience. Did I do I think
it was Bigfoot? I really don't know. But I was
very young. I was fourteen, so the this is twenty
five years ago almost, and we were hiking up in
Mount Beacon and on the backside of the reservoir at
the top of the mountain there there are there's some streams,
and there's groves and a few ridges. And on the
backside of one of the ridges there we were rounding
a corner. And as we rounded a corner, my friend
and I we this giant tree. I mean, i'll use
a term here DBH, so diameter at breastite is how
you measure trees. And this tree was probably this big
around right, so fairly large, like a normal person couldn't
shake it. And this tree started shaking all the way
to the canopy, and we heard what sounded like a
gorilla right And I don't know what it was because
I didn't stick around long enough. My friend and I
literally bolted down the entire mountain. So that was the
first unexplained thing that I kind of, you know, forgot about,
and just you know, as you do, you get busy.
But fast forward to twenty twenty one and I was
here where I live now, in Houston, Texas, and hunting
actually I had already started the big for mapping project,
and I was bow hunting and my dear lease out
near Sealy, Texas, and I was done for the evening.
So I got out of my stand. I was walking out,
and it was past shooting time and I only had
my bow. So I was walking out. I went through
the Barberier fence and I was walking along the river
bottom on the side of the fence where the pasture
ended right, So the Barberer fence is on my left
and the river bottom is also on my left, and
that's where I, you know, hunt, and there's hogs and
deer and everything there. As I'm walking out, I looked
off to my eleven o'clock and there's like a sage
brush or type, you know, sage type brush, and there
was a dark like blob behind it, like shadow. And
I really thought when I saw it at first that
it was a really big like wild boar, because they're
everywhere there. They're all over the place here in Texas,
especially out in that part of Texas where I hunt
Katie Prairie, and so I just stood there. I stopped
and I was like, you know what, I'm gonna let
him go. On his way. He doesn't really, I don't
think he sees me. So I'm just gonna let him
go and then I'll get back to my truck. Well,
as I was standing there's it stood up. I mean
it's that's the only way to describe it. It stood up,
and it stood well over the height of the bush.
And as I standing there, this is embarrassing. But I
didn't know what to say. I was like buffering. I was.
I wouldn't say I was in shock. I was just confused,
and I just said whoa, just like that, like whoa,
the same volume, same temperature, because I was surprised, and
it just came out. And when I said that, it
squatted back down, and a few more seconds went by,
and again I just I don't you know, in real time,
I'm not thinking this is bigfoot. I I didn't know
what to think. I wasn't really thinking. I was reacting,
and I said, uh, when it squatted back down, I said,
I see you, just just like you would say to
somebody you know, or a kid, even I see you.
And when I said that, it stood back up, turned
around and ran fast, fast through through the opening, through
all the thick brush, and then into some a stand
of trees and you could hear as it was just
you know, blazing a path in the dark. Mind you
through all of these trees and prickers. Everything's pointy in Texas, right,
So a person couldn't run that quickly with no light,
not on a path in the dark. I don't know
what else to describe it as other than bigfoot. So,
you know, I got back to my truck, I locked
the doors. I got back to my truck, locked the doors,
and I just the hair on my arms was standing up.
I was like, oh my god, I just saw a bigfoot.
I just saw bigfoot. And I firmly believed that I
saw something that was unexplainable. I wish, I wish there
was somebody with me. I wish it was just a
little bit lighter out I would been able to make
out more details. But it's frame just like you would think.
It's shoulders exceptionally wide, no neck, pointy head. I could
see the silhouette of its hands hanging like you know,
they were hanging like this, and that's all I remember.
And it turned and ran. That's all I had. It was.
I still hunt there, I still hunt there, and there's
a small part of me. I crawl through along the creek.
I look every square inch at that place. I'm looking
for everything. I don't feel scared out there, you know.
I still go out and hunt and fall asleep against
the tree. Well, you know, some of the best sleeps
you get are when you're hunting. But I feel, I
truly believe that if whatever was bigfoot, which I believe
wanted to harm me, it wouldn't have turned and ran.
It was large. It was large. So that's my true story,
true story, my encounter, and all it really did was
fuel me even more to get to the bottom of this,
get some answers right. So, yes, it was crazy. It
was crazy, and it's just hard to tell people that
don't believe, right. I'm sure there's a bunch of people
in the chat that really that really understand. Let's see
Poncho great, thank you, that's a great compliment. Thank you
very much. This is being a friend of the camera
isn't always as easy as I thought it was I
was going to be. But this is fun. You know.
I'm enjoying doing the live. I think I might do
some more. Let's see, let's go through the chat a little.
What plays surprised you the most, that got a report,
well that you got a report of reports from from
Helton aka fast aka faster Man. There's a few places
that have surprised me that I wouldn't say that I
got reports or reports from. Generally, I try to look
at the data on a holistic From a holistic point
of view, what are the trends I'm seeing, what are
the behaviors where the hot hotspots are a big thing
for me, So there are some hot spots that surprised me.
And not knowing a lot about Bigfoot when I started,
I think the one of the places that surprised me
the most was Pennsylvania. I really didn't expect Pennsylvania to
have as much activity as it does. And then another
place which I didn't know until I really started looking
at the data, was Florida is loaded with hotspots and
it's it's got a ton of activity. So those are
two places that I wouldn't say surprised me, but stick
out to me a little bit. And then also East
Texas is very interesting when you look at the map.
Let's see I told everyone, oh, Lee, yeah, Lee, please
reach out again. If you guys are watching and you
I don't address I don't, I probably won't get to
everyone's questions. And if I don't, please email me. It's
Scott at bigfootmap dot com and Lee please go ahead
and email me. That would be great. Sasquatch Wizard, adirondecks, Matt,
what do you think about having a specific category for settings,
tracks or vocals that have been strongly vetted? So that's
a great a great question, and one of the ways
that I thought about doing this was surprisingly a lot
of the research didn't the researchers didn't get back to me.
But if you go to bigfootmap dot com, you'll notice
there's a researcher log in, and I actually, really I
do have a category for that already, sasquatch Wizard, where
I've created a form specifically for researchers so that I
can display those in a in a kind of segregate
them a little or highlight them a little bit as
being contributed from either search groups or individual researchers, and
allow people to follow along on their journey. And I've
gotten very little response from the researchers I've reached out
reached out to on that form, so I'm open to
suggestions on how to get a better response from them.
That's something I've had some challenges with, and I think
part of it is that they are concerned about sharing
their research areas, which I understand, but that's not the
whole purpose of the Bigfoot Mapping project, which is very
focused on crowdsourcing data. So maybe there's a conflict in
ideology there that keeps people from sharing their researchers and
research group, that keeps people from sharing their information on
the map. I understand, but I don't know how to
conquer that. So if you guys have suggestions, please please,
by all means let me know. Let's see who else
when was that encounter. It was I think twenty twenty
one in October, l if I remember correctly, I have
a jotted down in my notebook. I'll definitely let you
know in the show notes when i'll repost this and
it'll come out and we can all watch this on
YouTube afterwards, and I'll make sure I get you the
exact date and time. I have a journal where I've
kept that I wrote down exactly what I experienced, and
that's actually really good advice that I got, and I'm
glad I got this before I had the encounter. But
if you are out in the field or life in general,
anything you experience that's either stressful, traumatic, or you feel
like you're going to need to recall it in the future,
write it down. Write it down as soon as you can,
because you know, over time your brain fragments things, it
combines memories. We as humans, we don't have perfect recall.
So the sooner you can get something written down, the
better and the more of a viable your information about
whatever happened is going to be. So I'm glad you
asked that question. Al It led me to some being
able to relay some advice that I've received that I've
has helped me in the past. Let's see, Kenny Hess,
what would be the possibility of being able to cross
reference footprints in a database to see how far they
range or of migratory migratory nature? So you can actually
do that in the map, Kenny, let me show you
how you can do that. So I'm going to present
my screen now and I'm gonna pop open screen three
again and we're going to go to the pro map.
So if you go to Bigfoot Mapping Project and you
hit new map here with this lovely AI generated logo,
and you go to Bigfoot map Pro. What you can
do You'll see on the right there's this pop out
screen right, so if you pop it open and you
want to filter. Let's say you just want to filter
new reports that have come in to the Bigfoot mapping project.
I want to look at all the footprints, and I'm
going to click let's say my research area is I
don't know this hot spot here. I'm going to click
this graphic down here. I'm gonna draw a polygon, double
click to finish, and then I'm going to click apply.
So now I have a list here of all the
footprint reports in the map. And if you're really dig
there's a lot of tools that I've put out there,
and I don't think people have found them very easily,
and I don't I haven't done a lot of tutorials.
But if you want to see those footprint reports in
the map, you can click your results here. Then there's
a button here that says actions, and if you hit
show on map, it will show all the results on
the map. So then what you can do is you
can go to your map layers and you can turn
everything you don't want to see off right, so you
have full control over what's in the map. So I
don't want to see my let's see where is it here?
The historical layers I don't want to see. I don't
see the worldwide I don't want to see the hot spots.
I don't want to see really anything, right besides what
I'm interested in, which would be the footprint the track
sign right that you're asking about somebody else. What are
the blue dots in the map. The blue dots that
are in the map are reports that have been submitted
in the last ten days. So there's some categories that
pull reports and activity to the surface that I've added.
So there's a category for the ones that have occurred
in the last seven days. They show up as orange,
reported in the last forty eight hours show up as green,
and last ten days is blue. So these are all
your footprint reports, Kenny, that that have been submitted to
the Bigfoot mapping project. Right. But if you want to
dig a little further, I've got the historical reports, and
if you want to see track sign in that area, again,
we can just draw a map. They draw a polygon
rather and trace the one we did. If it's the
same area, right, just to be consistent, and we click apply,
and now you're going to get another list and they're
gonna all show in the map, and then we can
say show on map again. And now what you've done
is created a map of just tracks in your research
area that you can go through and then you can,
you know, if you want to reference them against the
hot spots like I had, let's see precise hotspots. Right,
you can start to see, okay, where are the track
signs within those hot spots and you can zoom in
and say, okay, I've got some interesting I've got trailheads
in here. So if I click and I see this
is a trailhead. The Quehana Trail has a bunch of
tracks and it's in a hot spot in Pennsylvania, right,
So look how fast I just picked a trail that
I might be able to start my research from. Right.
So it's really interactive, and then there's some really nested
tools in here that can really help you get at
some good information or information that you want to use
how you want to use it. Right, That's what I'm
trying to do with the map. I'm not just trying
to put it out there I'm trying to help put
GIS in your toolbox, really if you will, so that
you can get out and do your own research. Let's see, Kenny,
was I hope that answered your question? Please let me
know if you want to see a little more. Let's see.
Are there video on the mapping project? Yes? There are they.
You know, they're not highlighted with any specific symbol, but
they You can attach videos to a report, so I'll
show you how to. If you go to the report
and you submit a report, you can attach them on
the report. Who asked that here, powerband? Yes, so short answer, yes,
they are on there. But if there was really any
crazy compelling videos, I would have shared them already. But
there are some interesting ones out there. Let's see, Helton.
Let's see. Oh that's a good point, Helton. So Helton says,
if you ask ten people they've seen a UFO average,
probably seven out of ten I've seen them, so seventy percent.
How many have reported it? Maybe one? So how many
people that see a big foot will report it? Point
zero one if you're lucky. Right, No, that's a really
good point. So to add that there are about fourteen
thousand total records in the database of Bigfoot reports that
I've compiled or that have been submitted to the big
Foot Mapping Project. So, like I said before, we've received
thirteen hundred over the last four years approximately, and then
outside of that, I've digitized John Green's database. I've collated
some historical reports. So all together, what you're seeing in
the map and what the hot spots and all the
different analysis I do are based on, and all the
different maps I make that I share, they're all based
on the fourteen thousand aggregated reports that we've got behind
the scenes in the Bigfoot Mapping database. Let's see no
more burning questions. I'm going to scroll through the chat
make sure I'm not missing anything. I think I'm only
seeing chats from YouTube. For some reason, it says it
can't post comments stream yard here from any other destination.
So if you're on Facebook and you want to ask
a question, pop on over to YouTube. For some reason,
I'm not seeing them, So I apologize for that. It
must be some kind of technical thing with stream Yard.
But please, you know I'm gonna be here a while.
I'm not going to end the show while you're switching
over to YouTube. So Kenny says, I was thinking in
the realm of light our scanning cast footprints to show
how far a certain individual might range. Now, I think
that's that's very interesting, and that's very granular, right, that
would be very I think if you could do that, that
would be very impressive. And I think I know it's possible, right,
But really finding and verifying that you know, a track
is the same individual and getting a cast of it,
you know, and coordinating all that, that's pretty cool. I
hope I hope you can do that. I hope you
do do that. But light AR is very interesting, since
you say that, not only for analyzing tracks and casts
and objects or evidence in three dimensions, on a larger scale,
light R is actually very useful for understanding terrain. And
I think I mentioned it earlier, but there are some
great resources that I've shared, particularly in the Pacific Northwest
where they have really good light our data. And if
you go back in some of the older episodes, I
can't remember which number it was, it might have been
number five where I talked to Tanner Hoskins of the
Pacific Northwest Missing Persons Project. He and I go through
some light UR data and it's a little off topic
but what we do in the episode is we use
light our data and a track from a missing plane
that has crashed, and we start searching in the Pacific
Northwest in Oregon for anomalies in the light our data
that look like plane wreckage. And in the episode we
actually find something that measures about fifty feet long and
it looks like the body of an aircraft, so the
hull of an aircraft, I guess you'd call it. And
he is at some point, at least last time we talked,
he's going to go check that out. So I'm very
curious to see what the results are. And in my opinion,
that's just another illustration of how GIS and mapping and
technology and everything that's available, believe it or not, for
almost free on the internet, can be used to solve mysteries,
help you help when things there's crisis going on. In
the last episode, I did the recap of twenty twenty four,
I talk about the fires that are going on in
LA and I put the or we're going on. I
don't know if they're still burning. I have to look,
but I made a map of the fire perimeter and
what I actually did was put on all the tax
parcels inside of the perimeter of the fire, so you
could get an idea of how many buildings were impacted
on the fly, and I actually show and we go
through that as well. So I was looking at specific
neighborhoods and all the tax parcels and population density that
was affected inside the perimeter of the fires. And it
was crazy. So if you guys want to see that
and then also hear about you know, twenty twenty four,
go check out the last episode of Mapping Bigfoot. It's
just me, but I go through a few things that
I think are interesting. So if you haven't watched the
last few episodes, there's only this is only episode nine anyway,
but I've had some really really great guests. I think
you guys would enjoy Fuselage Lee. You're winning, You're winning
this broadcast. I'm not. You're the winner so far. Let's see.
Did I miss any questions? No, no, anybody, I'll talk.
I can talk. So if you're thinking of a question,
I'm not bashful. I'm gonna scroll back through the chat
here and make sure that I uh answer all the
questions that have come up. I didn't skip any When
was that encounter from L that was funny, sas question wizard.
I'm I'm Scott. Keep calling me Matt. I think that's funny.
I'll answer to it though. Whatever. Let's see what would
the possibility of being able to cross reference footprints and database? Kenny?
I answered that cool? All right, out back Orchard, Scott,
do you have an overlay of hiking trails on the maps?
I e? Appalachian Trail, Appalation trail? He's got Can I
borrow twenty dollars? And said, to ask you anything? Help
to ask a good question. I did say ask anything.
I'll think about it. I'll let you know at the
end of the show. Stick around. Let's see out back Orchard. Yes,
I do in some areas. I did have them on
the map at one point. But what I've done let
me clear the map and I'll show you what I've done.
I'll share my screen again. Let me get this queer.
I'll just refresh the map so I'm gonna present Sorry,
I keep going back and forth between presenting it up.
But I just don't want the map to sit there
and be like, you know, boring when I when I'm
not looking at it. So let me go to the
map again. Share so out back Orchard. Yes, I do
have trails on the map. You'll see these black dots
pop up when I click on the when I zoom in,
and those are trail heads. Based on what the USGS
has in their data set, I probably could add the
major trails like the Appalachian Trail and the you know trails,
different trails in the Pacific Northwest and throughout the United
States and the national parks and things, and that wouldn't
be too heavy for the map. One of the reasons
I didn't add or I haven't added all the trails
nationwide is it would make the map pretty heavy and
pretty slow when you zoom in, because that would be
a ton of lines and it would kind of get crowded.
So it's a balance between what I can add to
the map because there's a ton of data to add,
but and then also performance and how useful the map is.
So I haven't really put too many hiking trails in
the map. But if you're looking for that information or
you need shape files of it or whatever, I can
absolutely get it and share it with you, or I
can happy to help people make maps for their individual
research areas and things. I do that all the time.
So if there's something you really really need help with,
reach out and if I can fit it in, and
I will. I can't always. I'm busy with a few
other projects that I you know, have to take priority.
But if I have time, I will always always help,
and I'll let you know. I'll let you know if
I can or can't or when I can get to things.
So don't be afraid to reach out please if I'm not,
if I if you need something that you think I
can help with, Let's see Scotch wis oh man? Am
I bad? Yeah, no worries, No worries, I look like
a Matt. That's okay. You know. I'm just glad you're here,
so don't worry about it. That's funny. You're in US
Air Force, bet Lee cool Well, thanks for your service.
Let's see anything anybody else wants to see or no,
I'm an open book. Have you decided if we are
mappers or bumps bumpers yet? You know I talked to
my wife about it. So for those of you that
are just tuning in, I at the end of one
of the shows, I couldn't decide if I wanted to
call our group here. You know the folks that are
take the time to hang out with me and listen
to the podcast. I didn't know if we should create
a nickname, and the first one that came to me
was mappers, right, which I think is logical. It's kind
of cool. What's up mappers, you know? I think it's
got a good ring to it. And then b MP,
which is Bigfoot Mapping Project. I thought bumpers and I
was like, I don't know, let me let me ask
you guys what you want. I think I'm leaning towards mappers.
What do you guys think? I think mappers is pretty
pretty cool. I think it's a good one. And that's
you know, that was my first title as my professional
career as a GIS guy. I was a mapper, right,
So it's logical as well based on my experience. So
I'm leaning towards mappers. I think. I think that's pretty cool.
If you guys are cool that you like it good. Yeah,
I like mappers too. I think that's pretty cool. I'm
glad you guys like it. So let's see. Let's see
outback Orchard says, I think they correlate with some encounters
here in New England. Awesome, awesome. Let's see, I'm going
to scroll back, make sure I'm not missing anything, all right,
if there aren't any more questions, see it, mappers good?
Another vote for mappers. That's two votes, so we're on
the right track. I'm gonna, hopefully I'm going to talk
about a few things that hopefully sparks some questions, you know,
things that I things that I like or go to,
you know, when I'm when I'm trying to understand what's
happening with bigfoot, and uh, I will always start with
what I think is the most interesting piece of authoritative
data that was created that I've kind of uh adopted,
uh and and and I don't think it was ever
intended to be used for Bigfoot research. But Ezri has
put out something for a green infrastructure, and it's called
it's I referred to it earlier when we looked at
the Connecticut corridors. It's these least cost pathway corridors. And
this is generally just as it sounds, it's the the
path of least resistance between two areas. Right. So let's
say there's a state forest on one, you know, one
in one area, and then uh near that, there's like
another state forest or wood woodland of some sort between that,
how do the animals and the wildlife travel to get
between each of those hubs? Right, It's like a network.
So there's a hub here and a hub here, what's
the corridor that connects them? And that's how what you
use the least cost pathway analysis for by creating a model, right,
and then and then you start to look at you
know what that network looks like in I mean in
simple terms. So what they've done is they've created this
data set of the entire nation, right, all of these
least cost pathways, and I took those and intersected them
with within a certain distance of those pathways, those corridors,
I found all the bigfoot reports that were within like
a quarter mile of them. And man, it really is crazy,
Like I can see almost the bigfoot network that it
may may or may not travel throughout the whole Unit States.
It's pretty interesting. And I've made a few maps. I've
published them on my Instagram. If you'd like to see them,
they are available. And then if you are going to
get into more research, please reach out. I'll supply you know,
a much more in depth, more high definition map. But
at a high scale state level, state by state, you
can see these what I've done with these corridors and
pulled them out, and I think it's really interesting. Let's see.
Matt Simms says, I've been interested in Bigfoot since a child.
I really got interested when hearing stories of people shooting
them and the bigfoot turn into stars and fly off.
That is bizarre. As you say, Matt, I've you know,
I've never heard of reports like that. I'd love to
know where that happened when, and then you know, start
to dig into those reports in the history that area.
A great resource that I use a lot when I'm
looking at the history of area is you can actually
go search old newspaper archives on Google. It's like Google
dot com news slash newspaper and you can actually look
at old scanned articles. I do that a lot, and
I've found stuff all the way back to the eighteen hundreds.
Very interesting. I'll share that in the show notes. And
I think, you know, something like that would be where
I would start with the map, but then I would
start to dig into old records and periodicals from the
from the time that it happened around then heard one
report on real Earth files from Linda Malton. Howe. You know,
she's somebody I've never talked to. She's very interesting. I've
watched a lot of her stuff, but I've never spoken
with her. I think that would be really interesting how
detail is told in the dark. I like that. I
like your your your your tag there, that's cool. I'm
gonna have to visit your channel. Presc Isle, Pennsylvania. Scott
stan Gordon, Mark Casting says yes, another vote for mappers.
All right, that makes three. Kenny Hess says Trailblazers. Yeah.
I like that. We'll throw that in the running. Why not?
Uh ah, Okay, Stan Gordon has one of a case
of one disappearing while being shot. Stan Gordon, Okay, I'll
definitely look more into that, because you know, it's interesting.
I've I've never heard of one heard of that happening,
or at least in the reports I've read, haven't seen
it in the database. A weird experience I had, And
I don't know what this was actually and this this
I only remembered this very recently and and connected it
to being maybe something unexplainable, but I was driving, as
I said. I've worked in seismic for the last almost
twenty years and I was working in Cashadaw, Louisiana, not
the casino. There's actually a little town called Cashata on
the Red River. And I was driving back from Shreveport.
I had had a disappointing night at the casino, so
I was driving home and the Riverbo casinos there and
I was in the middle of nowhere in a cypress
swamp and some shadow of something came up running out
of the swamp and dove in front of my vehicle
like full on Superman dove, and I swerved, I missed it,
and when I looked in my rear view, there was
nothing there. I called the police, reported it and let
him know, you know, that there was something weird going on,
but nothing more ever came of it. And it was
so spooky. I mean, Louisiana's, you know, famous for haunting
things and things like that, but I never in that moment.
I just thought, you know, this is somebody that's trying
to get me to stop my vehicle, gonna mug me
or you know, God knows what, wants to steal the
car or rob me or something. So I stop the
vehicle because I wanted to make sure, you know, nothing happened,
and when I look, there's nothing in the road. So
again call the cops, let him know mile marker, what
roade all that kind of time, and you know it
was just went home and I was freaked out. You know.
Then it's still to this day, I don't know what happened.
So things disappearing, I'm open to that because I've experienced it,
but I've never connected it that like, I've never connected
it to Bigfoot, especially not in the evidence I receive
for the reports I get in the database. Let's see
sasquatch wizard Scott. Was it a that there was waterways
frequently associated with the corridors in relation to the Bigfoot
reports being a quarter mile from these corridors, Yes, definitely.
So if you hit the instagram that I've got out
there at Bigfoot Mapping Project in particular, I did an
analysis of Chestnut Ridge in Pennsylvania, and there's the in
the zoom in that I did, you can see that
there's the least cost pathway corridors that I've mapped, so
terrestrial corridors right on land, and then there are reports
that are very close to waterways. So there's two sections
where you can see that the Bigfoot is obviously traveling.
So yes, that's one instance, Sasquatch Wizard where your your
question does apply. And I have seen that pattern in
other places, but that's the first one that comes to mind. Lee.
Did I lose time when that happened? No? No, I
didn't lose time. I just, you know, luckily was able
to react and miss whatever it was. I was freaked out, though,
I'll tell you that I was scared. I was by myself.
I was at the time, I was probably like twenty
I was twenty one, so that was seventeen years ago,
eighteen years ago. And no, it was spooky. It was
very spooky, very spooky. Let's see. Can you merge Sumatis says,
sorry if I'm saying your name wrong. Can you merge
with subarcticle asses sasquatches maps site as well? Yes, I
would love to. I'm glad you brought that question up.
There's a few people and groups that have reached out
to me lately and I've i have replied, Yes, there's
two things I can merge with. Anybody that's out there,
any group that would like to contribute to the Bigfoot
mapping project. That is the goal to have all big
Foot reports or as many as possible in one central location.
That way, there we can analyze all of the data
in one place and really hopefully get the most out
of it. So that's the first reason, and the second
thing is if somebody does contribute their information, I also
want to make sure that they get credit for it.
You'll notice in the legend that Kerry kil Murray has
a shout out in the legend, and anybody else that contributes,
I will be sure to represent that and cite that accordingly.
However you want to be presented in the map. I
don't want to take credit where I haven't earned it.
So yes, short answer, I would love to incorporate as
many reports and databases and information as possible. And then
if there is like a map curve, if you will,
where I may need to do some work to help
get those sightings into the format or into the shape
that they need to be to get into the map,
I'm also happy to do that work, right. I do
that every day professionally, That's my job. I massage data,
analyze data work. Would work with huge, huge, enormous data
sets in the cloud every day, So working on this
is you know, very nerdy, very fun. It's what I
love doing. So great question, Sumati. I think that I
would love to get more groups incorporated and participating in
the map. And actually a great way for them to
get their reports in the map is something I talked
about earlier, which is the researcher log in. If they're willing,
if that group is willing for that person is willing
to fill out that form, I actually have a method
to get their information straight into the map and have
them be symbolized as those reports originating from you know,
that group, and I can even put like their logo
in the map as you know, the point in the
map that they people click on and read. So absolutely,
what year did that happen? Are you referring to Louisiana
thing mark? That probably was oh gosh, two thousand, two
thousand and nine, I guess two thousand and eight somewhere
around there. Definitely before twenty ten. Let's see power band.
Am I missing any other questions? Thank you, Lee, I
didn't sneeze, but if it sounded like I did, I
appreciate it. As long as you're not saying, bless your heart.
I live in the South. I know what that means.
Uh Stan Gordon, Okay, Okay, well, I'm going to keep
going on the tangent I was on before while more
questions come in. So I was talking about corridors. But
one of the other things that I you know, obviously
g I S and data is really really really important,
and and uh finding good data is uh, you know,
one of the things that I want to talk about,
because you know, how do you how do you make
conclusions and how do you do analysis that you can trust?
And that's by using data that is coming from authoritative sources.
So one of the greatest sources of data that I
use is the USGS. I mean elevation data, topo lines,
contour lines, the forest canopy density, land use, land cover,
all of those things that can help inform the analysis
I do in the Big Foot Mapping project. On the
different and various maps that I make and that I share,
I'll always incorporate as much data as I can find,
but I also make sure to confirm that it's coming
from an authoritative institution, if you will, or at least
a source, so that I know the conclusions I'm drawing
aren't going to be incorrect if you will, How accurate
do you believe these sightings for your map. Love your maps.
Thanks Robert in Oregon. You know, that's a good question,
and that is a tough one to answer because of
the crowdsource aspect of the Bigfoot mapping project. I think,
you know, you touch on an interesting point. Not every
report that I get is probably true. It's probably not
the location, maybe not be accurate the content. You know,
everybody communicates in different way, so the content might not
be as accurate as it could be. But I will
say that's true of any report. For example, law enforcement
is riddled with inaccurate reports when they're investigating something right,
and then other research efforts and all kinds of and
just about everywhere that people are involved, you're going to
get different perspectives, different information, different recall. But so that's
the first part of it my answer. The second part
of my answer is there the approach that I'm taking,
I hope will account for some of that, where if
we get enough reports that I can start to look
at the big data, the trends from a big data aspect,
if you will, where those inaccuracies and those outliers will
fall out of the data set and fall out of
the analysis and what I'll be left with is the
real meat and the real reliable, repeatable information. So that's
not to say that if something falls out of the
data set when I, you know, when I eventually get
enough reports in there that I can start to do
this really really in depth analysis, that it's wrong. It's
not just if a report doesn't it may be an outlier,
but it may be true. It just hasn't been reported
enough to fall into a greater trend, right, So you know,
we're hoping to identify the larger, bigger trends and then
and then we can build from there. Just we've got
to start and build a foundation of verified or at
least repeatable knowledge and then go from there. And it's
as close to the scientific methods as possible. Right, you
have a hypothesis, and then is that hypothesis repeatable? That
answer you know, that answer you get, and then you
verify that from there, and that's that's when you can
trust that. Let's see, do I get reports from Alabama? JD.
I see your comment there. Yeah, we do get reports
from Alabama. Lee. I actually see I'm looking at the
map right now. I see two blue dots in Alabama
at the moment, so they were reported in the last
ten days. The first one I clicked on happened in
twenty sixteen, and then the second one in southern Alabama
near happened in twenty twenty two, and they're both around
ones in I'm gonna say this wrong Knica National Forest.
It looks like just north of Florida, so just north
if you go straight north from like, let's see Deston. Actually,
if you go straight north from Deston into Alabama, there's
one there. And then there's also one just east of
Evergreen that was just reported in the last in days.
Jd uh. You know, I don't know where you are
in Alabama, but there are definitely a bunch of hotspots there,
particularly the biggest hot spot in Alabama, there's one in
Actually I'll go ahead and share my screen so you
can see them. Why not, I've got all night. I
don't know about you, guys, but I do. So let's see.
So I'm looking at Alabama here again. If you guys
are just tuning in, I'll show you how I got here.
It's bigfootmap dot Com and then you click on new
map and it'll bring you here. Right. But if you
want to see Alabama. JD. There's a bunch just there's
a hot spot just south of Huntsville, and it looks
like it centers around Lacy's Spring. And then if you
come back out, there's another one that centers around William B.
Bankad Nash Forest. There's one around Tuscaloosa, a dense one
around Aliceville. Uh. And this is one I was talking
about earlier when I decided to share my screen. Jackson
has a pretty good one. And let's see, did I
miss any really good hot spots? And then there was
one right on the border here near Bruton, Bruton. I
don't know how to say that, so forgive me, but yeah,
there's a lot going on in Alabama. JD. Let's see
Robert Oregon, great answer. I hope, I hope you're referring
to the uh, the accuracy question, because that's you know,
it's a hot topic, right. People think that, you know,
it is easy to get trolled because this is crowdsourcing.
And don't get me wrong, I do go through and
remove obvious and they're obvious obvious trolling reports as fast
as possible. There's some funny ones actually, like I think
it was a fifth grade teacher recently just emailed me
and from Washington, and they do a project where their kids,
their students write letters to lawmakers where they try to
get laws on the books. So basically their lobbying to
protect sasquatch in Washington, which I think is great. It's
a great project for the kids, and it's a great effort.
But one of the kids in the class, actually the
teacher emailed me because the kid thought it was funny
to put fake reports in and I found them, but
the teacher also emailed me and made the student write
me a handwritten apology letter and admitting to what they did.
I thought it was, you know, funny, right, because kids
will be kids. But so I wrote them back and
I'm sending some stickers to their class, you know, for
being honest. I appreciate it. Scott. When we click on
the new map, are all the reported sidings, tracks and
vocals listed on this map? Yes, So when you click
on the map, you just have to zoom in to
see them. Sasquatch Wizard, what you'll see at first on
the new map is all the hot spots. And I
did it that way because if I didn't, the reports
would start to overwhelm the map, and I wanted to
give you, guys, at first glance. I wanted to make
the map as informative as possible. And if there's just
a point, a bunch of points grouped together, you can't
really discern where the real hot spots are because of
the way that they draw on the map and the
size of the font. Basically right, they just start to
coalesce really easy. So that's why I decided to build
it that way. But I also kept the classic map
available that has just the points in it if that's
what you want to see, however you want to work
with it. Both maps are available, but the hotspot one,
because you know that's really a living a living layer.
If you will, you know, as more reports get submitted,
those hot spots do update. So I think it's very
interesting over time to see how the hotspots are growing, shrinking,
becoming more intense, et cetera. Do you get reports, JD.
I asked you, I answered your question how many in Indiana?
You know? I did know at one point, but I
don't always count. I don't count them up like that Helton.
But I can tell you at first glance. Here I
can tell you about how many it looks like in
Indiana include all the ones I've got, you know, just
just eyeball, and I'd say between fifty and one hundred,
maybe a little more in Indiana, so definitely enough. And
it seems like a lot of them center around the
Hoosier National Forest and Patoka River National Wildlife Refuge there,
and then there's some up near Michigan City, the further
north you go, let's see. Okay, So while I wait
for more questions to come in, I'm gonna get back
on the tangent that I was talking about with authoritative data,
and I talked about the crowdsourcing aspects. So what else
do I want to talk about? Oh, so different analysis
I've done. So. One of the things that comes up
with Bigfoot and the public and people that are trying to,
you know, their skeptics are trying to refute Bigfoot Bigfoot exists,
is they blame existing wildlife. As I don't want to
say blame. They try to use existing wildlife to explain
away what people are reporting. So, for example, a lot
of report reporters and articles lately have talked about bears
being the culprit if you will, for a mistaken encounter
right where people think they saw a bigfoot when really
it's a bear walking on its hind legs. And one
of the maps I made, which i'll share my screen again,
I think this is a really interesting one because you know,
it's important to if you're going to answer questions, you
need to answer them with good information. So one of
the maps I made, there's a bunch out there. I
haven't made a ton lately. I apologize for that. I've
been busy with a bunch of other projects that will
be I'll be talking about soon and I'll announce them
through the Instagram. So, but like I was talking about
just now, brown bears and black bears couldn't possibly account
for bigfoot across the United States. Now, don't get me wrong,
there's overlapping range between bears and bigfoot. But when you
look at this map, you can see the shadowy black
area here that's laying over all the points is a
black bear range, and then the light brown area is
brown bears. Right, brown bears range is much smaller than
it used to be. But then you'll notice that outside
of these ranges you're going to see all these Bigfoot reports.
So how possibly could Bigfoot always be a bear. There
are Bigfoot reports in areas where it's not a known
bear range. Now, don't get me wrong, black bears can
be very far ranging and they are known to go
outside of these established ranges. So is it possible that
there's black bears, for example, in East Texas. Absolutely, In fact,
there's been quite a bit of documentation of black bears
expanding in the East Texas and Louisiana. But is that
is that an established range? It's it's becoming one, right,
it's coming back to one. So it's possible, right that
bears probably do get confused for Bigfoot frequently, but is
it always the case? No? And that's what I'm trying
to show with this map, right, Another map that I've
I've wanted to show recently is a topic that I
think is very important for people to think about when
they're looking and trying to understand why Bigfoot hasn't been seen, captured,
documented better. And that is the actual scale of North America. Right,
And just that I'm just going to talk about North
America for now. But when you look at this picture
that I've got in the in the map here on
the screen, all the red areas that you've got on
the map are urban right areas, So it's like where
most of the population in North America lives are in
these red areas right, and there's you know, there's some
smaller ones here as you zoom in, but in general,
the ones that pop out in the map that we're
looking at here is where probably ninety nine percent of
the population in North America lives. And then people will
still ask the question of you know, how could North
America support Bigfoot? Well there's your answer, right. Look needly
forests in general, all that dark green you see Canada
all the way up to Alaska, throughout the Rockies here
in East Texas, and then you've got hardwood forests and grasslands,
wetlands all the way to cropland. There's so much rich
resources in North America to support wildlife in general, not
to mention Bigfoot. So I guess my point with bringing
this map up is that it's very possible for Bigfoot
to remain hidden because there's just so much land out
there and such a vast area for it to disappear into.
I mean, you know, that's just my take on it.
But being a mapper and understanding that having been in
many of these places, either driven through, hiked, hunted, worked,
or all the above. You know, when you get out there,
you just realize you know how much land there is
an area and places that are untouched for a creature
like Bigfoot to hide. I don't see any more questions
in the chat. You guys are off. I hope I'm
not putting you to sleep. You guys, I'm gonna check
in YouTube make sure I'm not missing anything real quick,
but feel free. Please be as bold as possible. Helton,
I'm still thinking on your twenty dollars. If you're still here,
I don't know. We'll see how I feel at the
end of the show. I haven't gotten too many controversial questions.
Nobody's stumped me yet, very open to being stumped. I
would love to see you know what people think. Please
don't be shy. If not, I'll keep talking for a
little while. But if I don't get many more questions,
it's been an hour and a half already, so I
may sign off if I don't get anything coming in
in the chat. Otherwise it's just me hearing my own voice,
and you know I do that enough. So oh, here's one.
Robert Oregon. Have you used your maps for your own sighting?
Out here in Eugene, Oregon, twenty miles in each direction,
your map shows a sighting. Thank you again. Yeah, I
use I use my mind the Bigfoot mapping project all
the time. You know, when I'm going to certain areas
to plan where i'd like to go, what i'd like
to do, what time of year I'm going, those types
of things, or if I happen to be going on
like a hunting trip, I'll reference the map and see,
you know, if I can understand what's happening in the area.
Things like that all definitely, Lee, great question. Has my
family seen Bigfoot? Yes? Actually I need to have my
brother on the podcast. My brother and my father saw
something they couldn't explain while they were driving early one morning.
And this isn't the map. It's in New York around
Beacon and they saw a bigfoot that both of them
looked at each other after they saw and they were like,
did you did you see that? It was just off
the side of the road, standing up walking through the
woods early morning. And I'll definitely I'll have to have
my brother on to tell the story. My brother is
I would say I have two brothers. One is I'm
the oldest. One is a game warden in New York,
the equivalent of a game warden. He's an encon officer,
so he works for the DC in New York. And
then my youngest brother is just got out of the army.
He's an Apache pilot. So between my family, I mean,
we're pretty good at identifying an understanding wildlife. Like my
degree is GIS with a minor in conservation biology and
computer applications, right, so I'm uniquely qualified to at least
do the mapping project, I would say. And then my
brothers are both good at reporting and being observant and
staying calm in situations like that, so I think it's
definitely worthwhile to get them on the show. I'll have
to do that. We've talked about it before, it just
hasn't happened. But short answer, Lee, Yeah, my family has
seen Big Butt, or at least two other people in
my family. Yes, Kenny, your research area in West Virginia
is purple. Well, that means there's some sightings nearby, not
a ton, but definitely some sightings. So you're close to
a hotspot, which is good. Scott, I don't read these
before I post them, so I might get surprised here, Scott.
Not that i'd want to do this myself, but I've
been curious. Can specific researchers inject their information into your
map without the general public being able to access or
view it? Not yet, Not yet, I don't. That's not
how I've intended the project. I hope to keep things
open for the public, but that's not to say that
I won't help with research. I will. I don't know
how to handle that, because I'd really like to make
things transparent. I've started to think about that. If there's
researchers that want to, you know, would like to work
on things together, I'll absolutely respect it's your data, it's
your research area, and I wouldn't put it in the
map if you didn't want to allow that, but I
certainly I would want to, you know, maybe map it
at the county level and say, hey, look, this county's
you know, got a lot of sightings. Heres at the
county level or some type of area, so people can
at least know, hey, this is you know, a very
active area, but maybe not the specific location. I'm not
quite sure how to handle that. It's a good question,
bat Mom, I like that name. That's a good name.
I heard you mentioned the Red River. Have you heard
or know anyone who has had sightings along the Red
River and Hobo Jungle. I don't know where Hobo Jungle is.
I'm talking about Red River in Louisiana, right, So I
know there's Red River runs all through a couple of states, right,
So that's where I'm talking about. Never heard of the
Hobo Jungle. So I yes to the Red River in Louisiana.
I do know people that have had sightings along that area. Because,
again I said at the beginning of the show, one
of the things that inspired me to start the Bigfoot
Mapping project was talking to people that had had sightings
in all across the US while I was doing work
as a mapper for oil and gas explorations. So I
always had this idea in the back of my mind
that I should capture this data in a database. And
it was because of what people were telling me in
the field along the Red River in Oklahoma. No, I
don't know anybody there, but there are plenty of other
Oklahoma locations where I do know people that have seen things,
particularly way out west in Oklahoma. Near a fair view.
There's a lot of weird stuff going on that people
told me so very interesting. I love Oklahoma. I spent
a lot of time there. Let's see, I would like
to see a database of all the videos, pictures, and
tracks and trackways available. Sure, that is available through the
interactive map if you click around, but maybe I can
put that up in a different way so that you
can access the videos and pictures faster and we can
kind of filter them to the surface. I'll think about
adding that to the map, or at least make another
link maybe to like a gallery or something. I'll definitely
think about that, Hilton. I think that's a great, a
great suggestion. Thank you for asking that. Let's see. Yeah,
thank you for that, Sasquatch Wizard. I appreciate that you
know you agree and you see my you understand my
sentiment with that. Excellent let's see your maps took Bigfoot
research to the next level. Thank you, Robert in Oregon.
I can only hope that one day they help get
to the truth, get to the answer. I hope it's constructive,
and I hope that you know the data and information
and the way that I'm collecting it. I hope that
when we acknowledge and document and start to make laws
around the protection of bigfoot. I also hope that it
helps with the conservation of bigfoot. It's made it this
far without our help. But I do think that, you know,
we can do better, and that's in the case of
a lot of wildlife in general. But I do think
that conservations a very, very very important part of protecting
sasquatch in the future. Lee, you touch on an interesting one.
I think known cave systems would be an interesting that
can be turned on and off. I one thousand percent agree.
But believe it or not, mapping specific cave systems and
publishing them is a federal offense. I kid you not.
It's the speeleological act of like I can't remember what year,
but they publishing specific cave locations and cave networks is
actually a federal offense because I've gone looking for that
data and I cannot, for the life of me, get
specific cave network data in map format. I've gotten cave
concentration data, like if you look at different For example,
I made a cave concentration density map of Nevada, which
is really interesting. Since you brought it up I'm gonna
go ahead and share my screen because I think it's
a very interesting that you're talking about caves, and I'll
show you what I was, at least what I was
able to do with cave concentration data that I got
from Nevada. Oh it's way back. Let's see if I
can find it. Guys, hit my instagram. If you're ever
born and you just need something to scroll through, please read.
I put a lot of thought and effort into the
maps that I do put out there, so I'd love
to hear what you think, and I hope it inspires
some research and new thoughts and shows what gis can do.
Here's the Nevada map that I was talking about. Lee,
So I was unable to find cave network data for Nevada.
But when I looked at face value of all of
the sightings and bigfoot reports in Nevada, they did not
make sense to me. They did not. They kind of
they're sparse. They're you know, if you ignore this cave
system data that I've got in the map, there's sparse.
There's no real logical pattern. But then I throw this cave.
Oh wait, shoot, I'm not sharing my screen, am I now?
I am sorry. Okay, So uh you'll see, like like
I was saying, when you look at all the bigfoot reports,
there's not really a noticeable pattern, right if if you
exclude this cave concentration data. But when you throw this
cave concentration data into the map, then it's like whoa
wait a second. These bigfoot reports all are in a
certain proximity to these cave concentrations in Nevada. And that
makes sense, right, fair Point Mountains. That makes a lot
of sense. Batmm, I see your comment there. But what
to me, what really tied them together was this cave
content cave network data. Leave it to me to suggest
the federal offense, you know. Yeah, it's all right. I
found out through my research and that's that's I'm glad
I found it before I did anything like that. But yeah,
then this isn't Avada map. And I think it's really interesting,
you know, to to really bring in data. And that's
the great thing about GIS is it can really show
you what's going on. When you have the right data
in the map, it can really explain things or at
least shed some light on what's happening in a very
easily digestible, very easy way to communicate things. When you
look at this map, you know, hey, this cave network
is connecting these bigfoot reports. It's very easy to see.
So it's one of my favorite things about GIS, and
I think this is a great example of that and
how it works and how you can communicate things and
maybe come up with some hypothesis and maybe even answers
using GIS and available data. Let's see, I'm gonna go
for a few more minutes. It's been about an hour
and a half, but if you get me on the
right tangent, it could be another hour and a half.
I'll just see what other questions I might have missed
in the chat. Let's see, Helton, that would be great.
I happen to be a pro photographer, so of course
I like to see pictures awesome. I'm a somewhat of
a novice wildlife photographer myself. You can see behind me
other hand that's an orca. Well, this is tough. I
feel like a weatherman. That's an orca. I shot photo
of up in Washington, a ringtail lemur. There's a few
other photos, alligator gower under the light there. Those are
all my photos, so yeah, I love photography. Very nice
to speak to somebody who as it as professional. I'd
love to be able to figure that out. How could
I chase bigfoot and take photos and hunt professionally and
spend all my time outside? That would be great. That's awesome.
Helton is a rock star. But we should please email
me or or let me know how I can get
in touch with you or follow me on Instagram reach out.
I'd love to see more of your work. Have you
from cans Squatch, Kansas Squatch? I'm guessing I hope that's
not you and your profile photo. Have you thought about
using AI algorithms to scrape YouTube for encounterlocations? I've thought
about using. Actually I have used AI as an analysis
tool on the database itself to identify patterns that I
might not otherwise be able to easily garner, because what
AI is very good at is reading entire bodies of tech.
And that's one thing about bigfoot reports is they're very anecdotal.
So two things about that. One, the form I've created
tries to standardize the way that reports come in, so
I can do analysis through GIS and through filters and
different queries and things. So that's the first part. But
where I where I haven't been able to do that
is like the additional comments fiels, where people can really
type and describe their encounters and what happened and things
that I might not capture in the form. That is
where AI is great, right, because it can read all
of that and contextualize it, and then I can query
that in plain language and start to get really really
really useful information out of the entire database in ways
that might be very difficult if I was to read
all fourteen thousand reports myself, right and then try to
try to standardize them, try to do that work. AI
can do it so much fast and human it's really
really interesting can squatch. But to get to your question,
I'll put it up again. Have I thought about using
AI an algorithm to scrape YouTube for encounter locations? No? No,
I haven't. Not to say that, I wouldn't. I wouldn't
do that. I just haven't. I haven't put really a
lot of thought into how to scrape locations out of YouTube.
Video submissions, photographs and image files do contain location data
in the metadata. FYI, if you help and will back
me up on this, there's a lot you can learn
about them about a lot of metadata attached in like
JPEGs and things that people don't realize is in is
in the metadata, including like the model of your camera,
the settings, all kinds of stuff. But one of those things,
if you have location turned on on your phone or
your camera, the location of that where the image was taken,
does get embedded into the metadata, and you can scrape
that and extract that from photos, and then you can
plot that in maps. And there are a lot of
algorithms and software that does that, including law enforcement software.
There's AI that does that. There's an AI now that
just came out I forget the name of it, where
it can identify where a picture was taken from inside
of a building. So if you're like sitting in your room,
but it can still see a little bit outside of
like the like your neighbor's house or something. It can
use Google streets and images data to to figure out
where that photo is taken. It's insane what AI can do.
It's a little actually a little worrisome because you know,
surveillance will become so much easier. But I digress. Short
answer to your question, I haven't thought about it, but
there's a lot AI can do. Let's see. Let's see, Lee,
let's see Helton. You guys are great. Thank you for
tuning in. By the way, this is fun. I wasn't
sure how this was going to turn out. I've never
done a live before, so yeah, I was winging it.
But here we are, and I think we've talked about
a bunch of good things. There's been a lot of
good questions. Sasquatch Wizard says regarding Lee's question about cave systems, Lee,
that was an excellent topic. I've served for cave mapping
or any cave information so many times. I am one
who leans towards subterranean Bigfoot living quarters being a possibility.
You know, it's a to to to add to your comment,
sasquatch Wizard, there's you know, that's how a lot of
human evolution occurred was in cave systems. And uh, there's
so much archaeological information and artifacts that are found in
cave systems that contribute to human history that it's only
logical that something like Bigfoot would also use caves. Let's
see what is my tattoo of? Oh that's an owl.
It's hard to see, but it's an owl. Let me
see it there, put it in front of the camera.
It's a owls seem to follow me around, so I
it's my spirit animal, I guess, and that's why I
have it on my arm. Let's see any other questions
you guys. I am starting to wind down. I'll probably
go maybe fifteen twenty more minutes and then I'll wrap
it up. So if you have anything that's burning and
you haven't decided to put it into the chat, please
please ask now. I'd love to get on another topic
and talk about anything that you want to talk about.
Please these suggestions, criticisms, I got a thick skin, doesn't
even have to be constructive. Just let me know what
you think. I'd be excited to to really hear it
all unfiltered. You guys have been great, though. I think
these have been great questions. If not, I'm going to
fill the last fifteen minutes by just talking in general
about ways that you can get in touch with me,
things that I would love to, you know, to work
on or do in the future. So the first thing,
a great way to get in touch with me. The
way that I communicate the most is through Instagram. I
post and publish what's going on in big the big
Foot Mapping Project world. Like I said, I'm working on
a bunch of projects that kind of are still in
the Bigfoot world, but I can't really share all the
details yet hit the Instagram. I don't even know how
they're going to shape up, which is why I can't
really talk about them because I don't even know what's
going on with them. I'm just they're they're evolving, I
guess would be a good way to say it. What
else is going on. I've got some new work going
on with the app itself. Surprised nobody asked about me
about it in the chat. But you'll notice the Bigfoot
Mapping Project phone mobile app is not available and Android anymore.
The version just lapsed. I need to make a whole
new app to get it into the app store, so
I am working on that. You should see it sometime soon.
Getting a brand new app out is a lot of work,
so I'm doing that when I can. But in the meantime,
the bigfootmap dot Com. Both maps that are out there,
the map and the new map are very mobile friendly.
I design them that way on purpose, so you can
still get into the map and it would behave very
similarly to an actual mobile app on your phone. And
then let's see. Another way to get in touch with
me is Scott at bigfootmap dot com. If you have
a burning question and you didn't want to answer it
ask it in the chat, please, by all means reach
out Scott at bigfootmap dot com. I'll do my best
to get back to you. You know, sometimes I'm traveling
or something might take me a little while, but I'll
always always reply, So please reach out to me there.
If your question didn't get answered in the chat here.
Another way to get in touch with me would be
on Facebook. I have a group, so please go ahead
and join if you want, the Bigfoot Mapping Project group
on Facebook. And then, last, but not least, this is
a monthly podcast mapping Bigfoot that I do for Doug
high check he is he runs. You'll know Doug Hicheck
from Untold Radio Am and Monster Quest on the History Channel.
He put together the whole network of all different podcasts
talking about all kinds of things, from Bigfoot to aliens
to all kinds of stuff. Please check out the Untold
Radio Am channel a bunch of good stuff to listen
to while you're driving at work. Et cetera. And then also,
like I said, this is on once a month, second
Saturday of every month's show. It's usually about an hour,
but if we really have a good guest or I
just feel talkative that night, sometimes it'll be like three hours.
So buckle up. You never know what you're in for.
But please come listen. And if you guys, you know, really,
if you have somebody that you'd like me to have
on the show and talk to an interview, please by
all means drop that in the chat, email me, connect
me if you know them, if you think they need
to be on the show. The premise of the show
in general is, you know what I try to do
with ma Bi Bigfoot is pull experts and people that
aren't necessarily in the field of bigfoot research into the show,
and I try to learn from them and apply what
they're experts into bigfoot research. And the idea in that
is that we're going to break out of this echo
chamber that's kind of happening, or at least from my
experience in the bigfoot community right now, there's a lot
of well in that could echo chamber, right so there's
there's just we I don't want to say we've plateaued.
But you know, new information never hurt, new methods never hurt.
Looking at things from a different angle always helps. So
that's what I'm trying to do. I hope it helps you, guys,
and I think that's what you know the show's all about.
With that, I don't see I'm seeing some scary information.
In chat. People are saying the owls are not what
they seem. Well, I see a lot of owls, seriously,
so I'm a little concerned with that. Don't tell me anymore.
I want to sleep tonight. So let's see SUMMATI says
you'd like to see a gallery at as well. Okay,
all right, consider it. Don I'll figure out how to
get that up there. Let's see four cond lots of work,
all right, wonder if there's a bigfoot and owl connection?
Who knows? Who knows? See what I did there, it's
an owl joke. Let's see, all right, y'all. I think
with that, I've let you know how to get a
hold of me, and I don't see any more questions.
I think this has been a great show. I've enjoyed
talking with all of you guys. Please come back for
you know next month's episode, it's gonna we have a
really cool guest. As it stands right now, he's I
don't want to spoil it, but he's gonna be on
that new Fox TV show that's coming out called Extracted.
He's one of the cast members from that show, also
a hunter, also a bigfoot believer. So I think you
guys are gonna be I'll just go ahead and tell
you guys. His name is Austin leg and he's gonna
be on the show. I'm talking to him at the
end of the month here and then that show will
air early March, So please take a listen to the
next next month's episode. It's gonna be awesome. He and
I have corresponded since before he did this TV show,
and we've talked about bigfoot back and forth, talked about
hunting here and there. He's given me some great advice.
He's got a wild story, he's got a great insight,
especially being such an expert hunter like he is. Cannot
wait to have him on the show. I think you
guys will really enjoy that episode. So please come back
next month in March and have a listen and join us.
I think I think it'll be great. Y'all have a
great night, and with that, I'm gonna end the show.
I do want to say good luck in your search.
If you're out there putting in the miles, that's all
it takes, right, just time in the field and you'll
get results. Be prepared, be careful, and be ready. Enjoy,
enjoy your weekend, and have a great night. Thanks everybody.
Speaker 4: White Reds Guy read shot so.
Speaker 3: Quiet, Be aware of the focks night, cold free, dark,
rage my blood, ain't you frozen?
Speaker 5: Rains, dreams not no pain, run fasting, broken, change, breeze me.
Speaker 4: Sun cool. Call if