Speaker 1: If you've had a bigfoot sighting and we'd like to
be a guest, please go to bigfootiewitness dot com and
let me know. Tonight's guest was featured on episode four
ten about two years ago, and on that show we
talked about his first sasquatch sighting and several other sasquatch
related experiences he's had. Well, because of those experiences, he
decided to create the American Primate Conservancy. That's one of
the things he talked about on that show. But his
research goes so deep I wanted to bring him back
on so we could go deeper. But having said all that,
without any further ado, I want to welcome back Toddnys Todd,
thanks so much for coming back.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you for having me back. Beck. It's been
a ben quite a while, and so much has happened,
so I'm glad we have a chance to catch up.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm so glad to have you back. Someone like you.
I know you definitely don't let any grass grow under
your feet, so please tell us what you've been up to.
Speaker 2: Sure, So, just to catch everybody up, two years ago,
I moved from the formerly great state of Oregon to Arkansas,
quite a culture shock. I'll have to tell you, I'm
just glad I married a translator, because people do things
a little different around here. But it's grown on me
and I've been loving it, and it's probably the best
move I've ever made. But moving from really what Bigfoot
ground zero if you will, that the Pacific Northwest is
known for to backwoods Arkansas, I was really concerned about
whether or not there was any sort of Bigfoot activity
in the area. I hadn't really focused on Arkansas at
allso but I was pleasantly surprised to find out not
only are are there a lot of sightings, both recent
and going back literally before the Civil War. I was, well,
I'll put it this way. I went through one database
and I found within about a forty mile radius of
where our ranch is up here above Jasper, Arkansas, I
was able to identify nineteen sightings. And now, when I
say sightings, I'm not just talking somebody said something and
somebody put a pin in the map. I'm talking sightings
that were not just reported, but were investigated. And so
I was very excited to find it nineteen sightings within
forty miles of here was happening, and honestly, just driving
around the area and getting myself familiarized with every red
dirt road I can find. I have been very impressed
with how many people as they get to know me
and what I'm all about, what they've had to say
and have come up to me in private. I happen
to have a couple of magnetic signs that have my Conservancies,
the American Primate Conservancies logo on it, so it's attention
as you can imagine. But I've just really been impressed
with not only the recorded history of they put sightings
in the air, beginning to meet the locals, and I
have to tell you that it's very interesting on a
number of levels, one of which is just the names
they call them. I have reference material that shows me
so hundreds of names actually, especially when they get into
the the indigenous people's languages. But around here it's kind
of it's I don't know, it's almost kind of goofy.
But at the same time, they are legit. They are
very humble people that they just kind of kick back
in their own way in the Arkansas way. And I
give you a couple for instances. There's down maybe ten
miles from here, as an area called Ponka, a little
tiny town. You blank and you miss it. But the
Ponka National Forest, which is comes right off of the
Buffalo National River, has had quite a few sightings in
soo much that they've actually named given a name to
the creature. Perhaps they just assume it's a single individual,
but the sightings have been so virulent that they they
just call it ponc a pete, right, pc a pete.
Of course, you get, you know, the standard stuff like oh,
the wild man buggers. One that jumped out at me.
That really struck me as just being so nonchalant. Somebody
told me, you get up around the area around like
deer and nails. You know, they got pretty funky names
for these towns. But these are like little amlets. They said,
don't mention bigfoot at all. Just bring up the wild folks,
not bigfoot at all, and they'll know exactly what you're
talking about, what you're referring to. And I just found
that so interesting because I've never heard that in over
thirty years of research. Just the wild folks. You know,
we got us regular folks here in town, then we
got them wild folks just outside of town. And yeah,
they're out there, and Floyd saw one about three weeks
back in this such and such holler, and they just
talk about it like you were talking about a horse
or a dog. You know, it's like the big deal.
Oh yeah, just them wild folks. Another one just down
the hill from me, there's a boy Scout camp called
Camp of War and it's literally as a crow flies,
probably less than ten miles from where I'm at right now.
And they've had so many sightings around that boy Scout
camp and the surrounding area, including Twin Falls, that they've
also come up with a name for it. They call
it Smokey Joe. So but again, nobody even like you're
waiting for a punchline, and nobody's bringing it, because that's
they're very serious about it around here. I think the
oldest sighting I've found was in eighteen twenty seven and
a friend of mine contacted me and said, check into
the Blue Man. I'm like, okay, the Blue Man, I'll
look into it, and so I did, and it's it's
interesting the story. He talks about a local in eighteen
twenty seven who was out hunting. And you and I
both know if you didn't own a rifle and hunted,
you were, that's right of vegetarian so or unless you
knew a farmer, you know. But it was this guy
was out hunting for, you know, whatever game he could find,
and he figured the bigger the tracks, the larger the meal,
and ultimately came upon some tracks that were extremely large
that he couldn't make hedge tails of. But he's like,
I'm going to go check this out. So he followed
these large human like footprints and came up in an
area near well, just say he was following his game
trail and this game trail start angling up this hill
and he's following these tracks when he heard a noise
and he looked up the trail and here comes a
boulder about as big around as a dishwasher, just comes
rolling down the hill down that game trail toward him,
and he jumped out of the way. And you know,
if you know anything about geology around here, that's not unusual.
You know, the gravity kicks in, and you know, winter
comes and water pools up around these rocks and it expands.
They get loose, and every once in a while they're
gonna fall. It's no big deal. So he stepped out
of the way. And this huge boulder goes rolling by,
and okay, he's going to get back on the hunt.
He stepped back in the trail only to see a
second boulder coming down, this one a little larger than
a watermelon. But it's coming again down the trail. He's like, okay,
now the odds are getting a little interesting. So after
the second boulder went by, he stepped out a third
time and caught the culprit in the act. And it was,
by his description, a giant human, hair covered human, a
wild man that if anything he had ever seen. So
at that he left the area. And now the area
is known as Blue Springs. It's not too far from Yurika.
And the reason they call it Blue Man, it's kind
of a play on words, if you will, because the
gentleman's name was Blue. His parents had named him Blue,
and so Blue was in the area where this happened,
and there was this spring there. And everybody thinks Blue
Springs named after the color of the water, it's not.
It was named after Blue, who discovered the springs while
hunting the this this creature that he didn't realize was
what it was. So anyway, so you're talking, you know,
forty years before the Civil War, and so these stories
go way back around here. And so bottom line is,
I've decided to re establish myself here. And in the
course of the last two years since we talked, I've
put on a couple of town halls. For instance, I
did one at a place called JJ's Buffalo Bar and
Brill just across the county line. And I just happened
to have a documentary team staying with me here at
the ranch doing a documentary on the Ozarks. They put
in the Ozarks, and so they were more than happy
to participate in this town hall. And we're talking a
Thursday in a very small not even in a town really,
just outside this county line. Thursday would normally be a
karaoke night and there may be eight to twelve people there.
We really didn't even advertise this much. And let's just
say the owner was pretty shocked when seventy five people
showed up that night. And yeah, so since then it
actually made the papers. And I've done some other free
talks to Jasper Library or at for the for the
Kowanas up in Eureka area Berryville, and I have to
say last year was the busiest year I've had in
terms of public speaking, I spoke at no less than
ten different events all around the country. And that's after
turning down three this year, I'm kind of kicking back
a little bit. I've been doing quite a bit of
research in writing and what have you. I did, however,
put on an event here locally at a place called
J three at the Gap, and we just called the
event Squatching at the Gap, And for our first time
event in an area that's never had an event like this,
we did alright. I think we counted about one hundred
and seventy two attendees and I was very fortunate to
get some kind of a lister speakers to show up
on their own accord. Ron Moorehead, Scott Nilson, Bryan Terrell,
Daryl den and Brett Eichenberger and Jill Brenda Smeyer from
Residents Productions that put out the flash and beauty series
Flash Beauty Bigfoot, Reveal the flashm Beauty Pronomal Bigfoot, and
they're working on a number of others. But they flew
all the way off from the Oregon. We had people
coming from Starways, New Jersey and all on their own dime,
just because this was essentially a nonprofit event set up
to be a fundraiser for a local veterans support group
called Camp Jack and we raised for six hundred dollars
for them. And so yeah, I've been busy getting some
uh getting established here in the area. I've got a
speaking engagement coming up on the sixth and uh North
Little Rock a place called Old Bart's a big brewery
there in North Little Rock. It's called Cryptofest. Should be
a lot of fun. And then I'm scheduled to speak
in October in uh In, Texas at the Texas State
Foot Conference. So other than that, I've just been keeping
busy here. I'm on a farm and trying to stay
out of trouble.
Speaker 1: Well that's a lot easier said than done. But with
as busy as you stay, I guess it's probably a
lot easier than it could be. Huh oh yeah, all
debt todd Like pretty much everywhere else this year, Arkansas
has absolutely eaten up with ticks. Do you stay out
of the woods during the warmer months the way a
lot of other investigators do, or do you still head
in when it's warm out?
Speaker 2: Well, it's interesting you should say that. My wife actually
is become a victim of what they call alpha gal
syndrome that is spread by the lone start tick, and
it's affecting her diet and her ability to consume anything
that might be related to beef or pork. So we're
kind of making that adjudstment. You know. Ticks. I You know,
when I first moved out here, I was like, what
have I done? I mean, there's spiders it'll kill you,
snakes that will kill you. It ticks the will ruin
your life, you know pretty much. There's plants that can
kill you that I mean, the air condemnic you with
tornadoes and you know what I mean. So what have
I gotten into it? But when it comes to that, now,
one thing I was turned onto by locals that work
in the field quite a bit. You know, utility workers,
people work on water systems and electrical systems and and
sewer systems whatnot. Is there is a special soap. I
won't uh plug it, but there is a soap that
they sell down here at the hardware store that ironically
is from Oregon, you know where I come from. But
they sell it out here. And if I'm going to
be working out in the yard or if I'm going
to be out in the in the woods. I lather
up with this stuff. It's got kind of a pine
scent to it, and apparently the takest out don't like it,
and that's mine by me. But as long as I
as long as I, you know, scrub up with that
so before I get out, it seems to work pretty
darn good.
Speaker 1: Well that's interesting. After we wrap, I'm gonna definitely have
to find out what that soap is.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you got ticks in your area too.
Speaker 1: Dew we all over the place.
Speaker 2: This has been a crazy year.
Speaker 1: It sure has. As cold as it was this winter,
You think that would have really put the KaiB wash
on them, but with all the snow we had, unfortunately
it insulated them, so that's why they're so bad.
Speaker 2: I didn't think about that, unfortunately.
Speaker 1: I don't think I ever asked you this before, But
why did you move to Arkansas out of all the
places you could have moved to when you decided to
leave Oregon?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, actually, the decision to leave Oregon was
never on the table. And in fact, I've spent over
sixty years of my life in Oregon and I love
it very much. Don't get me wrong. When I met
my wife Angela. We met at a big Foot conference
go figure. And this was in the Watchetaw Mountains which
run southwest to here kind of along with the Oklahoma
Arkansas border, beautiful mountains, very similar to the Ozarks, and
I was speaking there. We met. We kind of ate
it awfully, changed phone members. Next thing you know, I
come out to Arkansas and took her hand in marriage
and then kidnapped her and took her back to Oregon.
We lived there for about two years now. We still
owned a small house in Benton, just south of Little
Rock that we had so we had a place to
stay when we came to visit family and whatnot. But
it was a It was on a vacation that we
rented a cabin here maybe I don't know, ten miles
from where I'm at now, And we just decided because
we really didn't know where we're at other than we
were up in these beautiful mountains, and we decided to
take a road trip. So we got our rental car
and we started driving. And I don't know what possessed me,
but I'm driving up in the mountains and something said
turn here, and I left the pavement and I got
on this red dirt road, and I didn't I had
no idea where we're going, but I thought, well, let's
see where this goes. And we got probably about a
I don't know, half a mile in and there was
this little tiny sign that said house for sound. Now
where we looking for our house now? But we're just
out tool and around. Let's check it out. So we
ended up just going up, up and up, and then
we crested this hill and here's this little one story
ranch brick house with a separate matching brick two car
garage in a swimming pool out bag. But it was
not the structures that struck me, but the view was
is incredible. On a clear day, I can see over
fifty miles in almost every direction. Well, had this had
this house not even been here, I have no doubt
I would have just bought it for the property. I
mean picture taking a basketball and cutting it in half
and then placing it down on the on the top
of a point. The point's already twenty one and forty
seven feet high, towering above the Buffalo Nashville River. But
now you put this basketball, you know, this dome if
you will, on top of that point and We're sitting
at like twenty two hundred and ten feet and there
is nothing in any direction that I turned that's higher
than we are. And so yeah, we just you know,
we did some inquiring, got the calculator out, did some math,
and went, yeah, I think we can do this, and
so I we bought this as actually a third home
at that time, with the intent of staying in Oregon.
But you know, we we got addicted and we just
kept coming back and back, and pretty soon we just
made the decision, you know what, let's sell the Oregon house,
let's get caught up on our bills, and let's let's
just stay here. And like I say, I think it's
probably one of the best moves I've ever made. I
really love it.
Speaker 1: You well, from the way you describe it, I can
understand why. It just sounds like a dream property to me.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. I've always said if the highway went past
our property, they would have they would have taken it
and turned it into a viewpoint. But you know, we've
got it to ourselves, and it's just gorgeous. In the morning,
the fog raises off the Buffalo River down in the
valleys fifteen hundred feet below and you can just see
this ribbon, a fog going as you know, as far
as you can see. And I can't hear a vehicle
from my backyard, like all I hear is birds and
a little bit of a breeze, and it's very peaceful.
Put that way.
Speaker 1: Oh, it must be aping a beautiful picture, you really do.
I'd imagine that Arkansas would be one of the most
favorable places for a sasquatch investigator to live due to
a lot of factors. But can you think of any
drawbacks that came along with you moving there and doing
what you.
Speaker 2: Do well other than trying to get myself initially recognized
in the area. Not really, you know, living in small
towns like this, people kind of tend to major you,
if you know what I mean. And you know, I'm
sure I had had my my detractors, if you will.
But all in all, I think people have been very
receptive to what I do. And I don't get the
sort of, you know, the ridicule that you might find
in more suburban or urban areas, because people out here
in the country, it's not a it's not a new
thing to that. In fact, they almost think it's funny
that you think it might be, you know, but it's
really part of the vernacular in a way I did
not expect. And so for whatever drawbacks there may have been,
there's been plenty of support locally of me doing the
research around here and really trying to put Gaspar on
the map.
Speaker 1: For more reasons than the ones you highlighted. I would
imagine that that area of Arkansas would be almost a
perfect place for an investigator to live. It's got to
be all right, Todd. What can you tell us about
the experiences you've had since we recorded that episode four
ten two years ago.
Speaker 2: So I have gone out locally with some local bigfoot groups. Specifically,
there's one called the Those Are Bigfoot Cartel. Funny name,
but some very very serious people involved, and I've been
out with them several times, and with varying degrees of success,
we've gotten some tracks and some vocalizations in an area
they've marked off. They call it area too, so I
imagine there's a one out there. But now that and
getting out with the documentary team and showing them around,
it seems like the Buffalo National River is kind of
a magnet or sidings because of a couple of things.
One that this area was visited thousands and thousands of
years ago by upwards of five different Native American tribes,
some that stayed here long term, like the Osage as
well as Cherokee. Literally lived in caves and cliff dwellings
as they're called, and they're all over the place, and
it's caves go into the hundreds and those are just
the ones they know about. They're constantly finding new caves.
The cliff dwellings are very interesting because they may have
a cave to the back of them, but just geologically,
if you look at it as a huge be like
a cliff with a big overhang over it, and there
were tribes that set up in there, you know, over
three thousand years ago. I've discovered two of them just
within less than a mile of my property. And these
have yet to be even analyzed and researched at all.
Both of them are on private property. So you know,
is Bigfoot or sasquatch, what do you call it? Trumpodite?
Do they do? They use caves and caverns and bluff dwellings.
I don't see why not. There's plenty of it around
and no matter how how harsh the weather, can be here,
and you know, first year I was here, we hit
minus four degrees in the winter. In the summer it'll
get well into the three digits. But in those caves,
you don't have to go back more than one hundred
feet or so, and it's consistently like in the mid fifties,
which not only helps in terms of sheltering individuals, whether
they be a Native American or the Bigfoot, but it
also helps in preserving food. For instance, it almost acts
like a like a refrigerated storage area when you get
back inside of those And of course most caves are
carved by water seed you generally have a water source
within the cave system itself, So it really doesn't surprise
me that the Buffalo River estuary is as active as
it really is. One of the sightings I heard about
was right when we got it, maybe about two years ago.
Father and son were kayaking. You have to understand, the
Buffalo River is Nemo's kayaking canoe river in the United States,
so kayaking is very popular around here, and the river itself,
although from beginning to end, if you just drew a
straight line, it's only fifty miles from the headwaters to
where it goes into the White River. It's actually so
squarely that it breaks down into one hundred and thirty
seven miles of river in that fifty mile stretch. So
we'll give you an ideas it's one turn after the next,
and people a lot of times will camp. They may
take two or three days and camp out on the
way down, which was the case two years ago with
his father and son. They put in. Trying to remember
the name of that little town, it'll come to me
about probably about halfway down the river. Rush is the
name of the town. It was an old it's an
abay as of ghost town right now, but it used
to be a zinc mine right there along the river.
And so they put in at the Rush put in,
and they've gotten maybe a little more than a mile downstream,
and I think one of them had to go to
the bathroom whatever. So they pulled up on a beach
and took care of business. And when they did, they
were hearing some very interesting vocalizations coming from across the
river that they couldn't assign to any sort of known animal.
It's just really bizarre vocalizations coming out of this hollow
from across the river. And as they were getting ready
to get back in their kayaks. Suddenly some very large rocks,
anywhere from size of watermelon to candlo were being launched
out into the middle of the river. So I'm not
talking like rolling down off the cliffs or anything along
the shore line. These things are being launched from out
of this hollow where these sounds are coming from. And
I mean, you and I pick up a watermelon sized rock,
we won't be able to throw it ten feet. But
yet these things are sailing through the air hundreds of
feet to get out to the middle of the river.
So that was enough to get them to get the
heck out of there, which is what they did. And
I don't even know what the odds are vic this
the way. It continued that night because they went another
couple of miles downstream and decided to set up camp
for the night, and they had they build a campfire,
and they were having a good time, father and son,
and they decided to turn in, and so the fire
is still flickering a little bit. They're sharing a tent,
and sometime in the middle of the night they start
hearing these vocalizations very similar to what they had heard.
A couple of miles upstream, and initially it was coming
from behind them, from behind where their heads were, and
then just as quickly they heard it similar vocalizations coming
from the opposite direction. So there was actually there were
actually two different individuals that were conversing, I imagine, and
that really got their attention, of course. And then ultimately
they heard footprints going foot steps, if you will, very
heavy footsteps literally walking through their camp area. And so
come the next day, before the sun even rose, just
at the crack of dawn where there was enough light
to see, father and son made a plan to get
the heck out of there, and they be doing so,
they left their entire camp site behind, their tent, everything
they had brought. They as soon as they had enough
light to see, they got in their kayaks and laughed
and never came back and left their entire campsite behind.
So that's one of the more current ones. Although I
did see something in the competing podcasts name I will
not mention, but that supposedly happened here again with a
kayaker just in the last couple of weeks, where this
individual is with a group of four or five different
kayakers and they looked up on the cliffs above the river,
which you have to understand with the way this river
flows through the forest, it's kind of like a miniature gorge,
if you will. On the outside of every turn is
about a two to three hundred foot high white limestone cliff.
On the inside opposite of that cliff, it's generally like
a little beach. And then so it's turning counterclockwise, the
next corner you come to might be going clockwise. And
now that this cliff is on your left and a
beach on youre right opposite that cliff, and it's like
that all the way down. Anyway, they were cruising through
this one area and they looked up on the cliff
and they noticed what appeared to be a cave. And
they noticed two individuals up along that cliff at that cave,
one smaller than the other, And initially they thought they
were they were hikers, but as they were familiar with
the area, they knew the Buffalo National the Buffalo River Trail,
the BRT doesn't go up that high on the cliff,
and they're like, well, they would have had to really
bushwhack to get into that up to that cave, being
no trail going there. And then Ultimately they got a
better look and they're like, that doesn't look like people
at all. And just about that time, these two individuals
disappeared into the cave. I'm still trying to get in
touch with the podcaster that ran that interview because that
literally is probably within ten miles of where I'm sitting
right now, and I really need to find out where
that that cave is, and if I have to repel
down to it, i will. But yeah, there's this a
lot of activity in this area, and I have not
been disappointed yet.
Speaker 1: Well, when you consider all the the woods and all
the habitat of these guys would have, Yeah, you would
think the area you'd be crawling with them. You really would.
When you had your first sighting in the Oregon Coast range,
do you have any idea how that experience would change
the shape of your life?
Speaker 2: Oh? No, no, I had no idea. You know, I
had about a twenty five second view of these three
individuals back on April third of nineteen ninety three, and
like so many people, the vast majority of people, right
after having you know, seen them and a good, good,
clear viewing of them for a substantial period of time,
you know, relative to most sightings. Once I lost sight
of them, I kind of you know, you can imagine
my head was just like spinning with all kinds of questions.
But ultimately I had decided that probably the best course
of action for me would be to keep my mouth shut.
You know, the ridicule factors certainly plays a part, But
of course, anybody that knew me, I was somebody that
was prone to making things like that up. But on
the same token, I was not only a non commissioned officer, yeah,
the military, but I was a family man, and being
in the National Guard, I had a day job, and
I was at that time a vice president of a
shipping company in Portland, Oregon, and I worked hard for
that reputation, and I really did not want, I didn't
need the attention. For sure. I've always said most people
have a lot more to lose than to gain to
by coming forward. So I put myself in that category.
Even though, and I know we discussed this. There was
another soldier who almost within a few minutes of my sighting,
caught on to the fact that I was, you know,
straining to look in the direction where they had come from,
and approached me and asked me if I had seen
what he had seen at this last sight and you know,
same description, same number, everything. But even with that, you know,
like I was like, Okay, I didn't need the corroboration.
I can't see what I saw, But on the same token,
I don't need the attention, you know. So it took
me quite some time before I ever considered going public.
I was very fortunate in that the first serious research
group I got in touch with was actually what was
called then the Bigfoot Research Project, that was headed up
by none other than Peter Burn, who you may know
had been a pioneer in the Bigfoot research for decades,
and I was very fortunate to meet up with him,
and then they came out and then investigated my sighting
and considered it, considered it valid. And it was actually
Peter who suggested to me. And it's kind of funny
because you know, Peter himself never really had a sighting
in all of his sixty plus years of research, unfortunately,
but he knew of a group called the Western Bigfoot
Society that was in the Portland area that met monthly
in the basement of this news book store, and he
kind of took pity on me. I think to a
degree that.
Speaker 4: He he after interviewing so many different people in the
course of decades, that he realized the stigma that comes
with having.
Speaker 2: Seeing something that isn't supposed to be or the knowledge
of something that most people will not will not believe in,
and we'll question you on that. That stigma is very real.
And so what he introduced to was probably the Bigfoot
equivalent of alcoholics. Anonymous. Yes, it was a bunch of
a bunch of a lot of not just believers, but
people that had actually had witnessed these creatures gathering together
in the basement of this book story. Like, you know,
like it was different, but but you know, you felt comfortable.
There were people there that had shared the experience that
you had. But it was you know, it's like him,
My name's Todd. I'm a big Foot experiencer, Hi Todd.
You know, Yeah, I kept waiting to get my you know,
my six month coin never came. But just the same,
it was it was a nice outlet for people, and
really the first place I spoke semi publicly, I guess,
kind of within a group of my peers. Ultimately, things
came down the pike. The first television show I got
involved with was Unsolved Mysteries back in nineteen ninety four
when Peter burn had told me that they were coming
out to do some filming. And since then, I've actually
I've lost count, to be honest with you, I think
like thirty plus different TV shows and documentaries I've done
since then. But there just comes a time where you
have to make a choice, where you have to really
ask yourself the hard question, and that is what is
more important in the final analysis. What's more important todd
Niece's reputation or the fact that there is an unrecognized
species that lives among us and that that is scientifically
and historically important. And it's no pun intended, but far
bigger than me. And so when I got to that point,
I knew that, you know, once the genie was out
of the bottle, I couldn't put it back in. But
I have no regrets. I don't I've followed my heart
and I've done a lot of research, and that research
continues to this day. I don't make money doing what
I do, contrary to what a lot of people think.
I'm lucky if I break even these days. But in
the past I've spent well into six figures in the
purchase of all kinds of equipment and traveling and putting
together expeditions. So yeah, So for me, it's it really is,
it's a personal passion, both on two levels. Really. One
one is very personal and that is I I want
so much to to see them again. It's it's you know,
it's kind of like winning the lottery if you do
get that opportunity. So you know, I'm going to keep
buying tickets till till I win again. But the other
part is the science of it, the biology of it,
and the fact that knowing these things exist and knowing
how rare they are that I'm concerned that the species
as a whole, the health of that of that species
may very well be threatened, if not endangered, And the
goal of the conservancy they are and primate conservancy ultimately,
our goal is to get laws on the books, to
get them protected, to at least attach some sort of
a penalty we have monetary or jail time or both.
But for anybody that would harm, intentionally harm or kill
one of these things, because let's face it, it's until
science is willing to, you know, accept that these things
are out there, it's open season. And I would not
be able to live with myself if I, in all
of my adventures and research, if I did absolutely nothing
to prevent something like that happening. And so you know,
the key is recognition, official recognition, and I'm working towards that.
You know, we've seen what's been going on with the
current administration and their willingness to bring out for instance,
and I hate to put them in the same category,
if you will, but they inevitably do. But when it
comes to the UFOs or what they're called UAPs and
unidentified aerial phenomenon, you know, I think a lot of
what held them back in coming public about that was
a lot of people, a lot of taxpayers may get
a little have an issue with the tax money being
spent on tracking UFOs. Be that as it may. I
think I think the government has been somewhat surprised at
at how many people actually accept that and actually expect
that of our government, uh to to be on top
of what's going on in in that department, there's a
an organization that it's called ARROW that is the ones
that that actually manage that through the Department of Defense.
But we talked about unidentified aerial phenomena that's looking up.
Where is the unidentified terrestrial phenomena group or the unidentified
marine phenomena? You know that, You know, we've got things
happening right here on my Earth that are still unexplainable.
And if we're going to be, you know, devoting our
time looking up into the universe and looking for certain
anomalies that are unexplainable, then my god, why not here
on this blue green marble we live on, you know.
So I'm actually working in the direction of getting in
touch with D O D and asking those raising those
questions and putting together a team of investigators who include
PhDs people with solid academic backgrounds as well as researchers
and historians and photographic analysts, audio analysts, whatnot, and saying hey,
we're right here, stop looking up and look right in
front of you, because we haven't figured everything out here,
and so we'll see where that goes. But I think
if it's addressed properly, and especially looking through what AERO
has put out there as their mission and their mission statement,
I'm looking right at it says minimize technical and intelligence
surprise by synchronizing identification, attribution, and mitigation of U a
P in the vicinity of national security areas effectively and
efficiently detect, track, analyze, and managed anomalists detections and u
a P the normalized and systematized department defense. I see
in civil business practices adhering to highest scientific and intelligent
tradecraft standards with transparency and shared awareness that it's not
really a huge leap to go from UAP to say
UTP that identified terrestrial phenomena. And so this is a
direction that the Conservancy is heading and putting together a
team and just using their own words, you know, their
mission statement and their vision and their function. It dovetails
very nicely. If you ask me with the sash squats phenomena.
Speaker 1: You're talking about the research in the UAPs and UTPs.
That brings a really good question, or I should say
that raises a really good question if you think about it.
I'm sure there's no lack of people out there who
would have a really big problem with their tax dollars
being directed towards research into UAPs because they see that
as being nonsense, absolutely ridiculous. But have you ever thought
about how many people, how many more people would have
such a problem with their tax dollars being directed towards
looking into the possible existence of Sasquatch.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and let's be honest, the reaction when they
formed ARROW and brought up the fact that they've had
been running files Project Gluebook being one of them that
go back fifty sixty years. They're just finally coming out
with it publicly that the Department of Defense has actually
been working on that. And I can imagine almost every
country on the planet has their own divisions that look
into this. You know, the United States isn't unique in
seeing UFOs or UAPs, whatever you want to call them.
So I think they've actually been quite amused, if you will,
at the lack of backlash that they've been getting when
it comes to their handling of the UAP issue. And
I think that has opened the door for us bigfoot
researchers that I don't think it's a big stretch to say, Look,
you've already signed off, You've signed off on the fact
that your tax money is being used to investigate unidentified
aerial phenomena. Is it really that much to ask that
we apply the very same scientific standards to the potential
of unidentified terrestrial phenomena? And I don't think they're going
to get you know, it's sure. I mean you could go,
you could take this way out of whack and start
talking about you knowicorns and you know what have you.
But there is so much information and so much interest
in the Bigfoot phenomena. It's it's literally become pipe pop culture,
maybe even more so than the UAPs or UFOs that
I don't think it would be really that hard of
the cell PIC to say, look, you guys already signed
off on the UAP thing. We're just opening another division
or just a branch you will, UH to look into
just a team of scientists to looking possibility of any
species here on on terra firma that that we have
yet to to identify positively. The sale has already been made.
If you asked me when when they When the government
came forward with the establishment of AERO and their mission
being focused on unidentified aerial phenomena, UH, I think they
opened the door for the same tax dollars being used
UH in a in a way that that people might
accept is to look for some species that are yet
to be identified, either ultimately identified or ultimately eliminated. But
you can't just leave this open question out there as
to whether or not this species exists, and there's there's
far more evidence that they do than that they don't.
And so Bigfoot is pop culture, and probably even more
so than Little Green Men. So it's hard to find
anything that doesn't have a Bigfoot on it anymore. So
I don't think it's a hard sell now. I think,
like I said, I think with the government coming forward
saying yeah, we've been spending your money on this. Oh,
by the way, we just opened another branch or, we
put together another team of qualified sciencests and researchers, and
we're going to follow this, you know, follow this to
see where it leads. I don't think it's that. I
guess when I heard about Arrow coming into public knowledge
and their willingness to share what they know about EAPs,
I just saw an opening. And I really think that
I don't think it's a big stretch to be able
to put together a good argument anyway for them to
just extend what Ero's doing to terrestrial phenomena.
Speaker 1: See, that's one thing I think we disagree on. Todd.
It sounds like you think that for the most part,
it would be fairly widely accepted if it was led
out of the bag that this amount of our tax
dollars are being directed towards research into the existence of
these guys and who knows whatever sasquatch related programs are
out there. But as far as I see it, I
think we've come a long way when it comes to
sasquatch and people being open minded about that. But I
still think there'd be a lot of blowback if the
general public had a clue how much money are a
government directed towards programs like that. Now, I could be wrong.
I'd be the first person to admit that I could
be wrong, but I don't think I am. But we're
never going to know. That's just one of those things.
Speaker 2: Everything is relative big And I'm saying ten years ago,
if the government said we want your tax dollars to
go toward investigating the possibility that theyfould exist, yeah, I
think you would be correct. But again with the with
them coming forward with er under the Department of Defense
pointing out that it's being used for up to think
about public is they want to know there is a
thirst for information with regards to certain anomalies that have
just been persistent that continue to linger out there and
more and more evidence piles up that nobody seems to
be doing anything with it. You know, AERO stands for
all domain, keyword all hyphen domain, All Domain Anomaly Resolution Office. Okay,
you're going to talk about all domains and anomalies that
need to be resolved in every domain. And you can't
just arbitrarily cut terrestrial the Earth itself off or the
other seventy percent of the planet, which is the oceans,
which are you know, relatively as vast as outer space,
and we don't know, we've hardly scratched a surface on
that stuff. So if in fact ARROW is the All
Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, then there's a domain called Terra Firma.
There are anomalies that are happening with regards to what's
going on on the ground here and they need to
be resolved. So just by their own definition, they need
to look at all domains. It's not just space. So they've,
like I said, they've opened that can of worms. People
have seemed to have accepted it and seem to be
very open to learning more and more and more about
you know, these press releases about about UFOs. So I
think they've you know again, I think they've opened that camera.
They've let that genie out of borrow and I think
I think I said, if it was ten years ago,
you know it wouldn't happen. You'd go to Department of
the Interior or the Canadian version of it, or the
Department of Defense, and people have and they've gotten nowhere
with it. But now with the advent of arrow, I
think they've definitely increased the odds that we can get
some funding to increase our research and our understanding. That's
just my two cents of that. There are more anomalies
out there that need to be resolved than what is
over our heads.
Speaker 1: Oh a niless number. And with regards to aero, can
you imagine all the things that they've gotten key and
behind glass walls?
Speaker 2: Holy cow, you'd ever know? It could be like men
in black You never know, they might be working with them.
Speaker 1: Who knows, or might supersede that even Well, we're about
out of time, Todd. But before we do get out
of here, two things. Number One, if a sasquatch eyewitness
wants to contact you or the APC in general to
share an experience with you, what's the best way for
them to do that?
Speaker 2: Well, I'm not that hard to find. I have four
Facebook pages, but I primarily monitor one, and that's the
one that's just in my name, Todd, Nie and eis
that Facebook. It's my personal page. I look at that
quite regularly. Do have a website it is American Primate
dot org and that's out there, and there's a reporting
forum there that people can utilize and will alert me
to any reports that come in. And then if said
you just feel more comfortable with email, My email addresses
American Primates at aol dot com. So any of those
three avenues are probably as good as any. Appreciate you asking.
Speaker 1: Oh no, you're welcome, And of course I'm going to
put your contact in film the description for tonight's show.
That'll make it really easy for him. Glad to do that. Well,
before we do get out of here, lastly, are there
any projects you want to promote or would you like
to promote the APC?
Speaker 2: Well, last time, Well again, I think we've kind of
hit on. I'll be speaking in North Little Rock at
Old Bart's Brewery. It's a great venue, fairly new venue
to do some of the best pork barbecue you could ever. Well,
it is the South and some great, great different ales
that they put that they grew up. We've got some
great people coming out. Guys from Crypto to the Corn
Podcast will be there. I would just keep your eyes
open online for that. It's an Arkansas Cryptid Festival coming
up June sixth in North Little Rock. And lastly, I
will be speaking in Jefferson, Texas in mid October. I
believe it's the fifteenth and sixteenth at the Texas Bigfoot
Conference and I'm looking forward to that. So from that,
keep them busy.
Speaker 1: Well, like I told you before, that's just job secure.
Just sitting here listening to you share what you did tonight.
I can only imagine how much fun it would be
to go to a convention and sit and listen to
one of your presentations.
Speaker 2: Well, I try to change them and keep them fresh.
My research is always ongoing and I've I've always prided
myself on never repeating the same presentation and I don't,
So whatever you may have heard me say in the past,
trust me. What I'll be talking about next month and
here in a couple of weeks and what I talk
about in Texas will be completely different and updated. And
so yeah, an ongoing quest.
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm sure it is. I'm sure it never does
end well. Having said that, I can't thank you enough
for coming back on to share these experiences with this
and that info. I really do appreciate it, and if
I can ever help you, please let me know.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Beck, it's been an honored to be back
on your show, and yeah, please keep in touch.
Speaker 1: I'll do that well. Having said that, thanks again so
much for your time and have a great night. If
you'd like to be able to listen to the show
without ads and have full access to bonus content, that's
an option. To find out how, please go to Bigfoot
Eyewitness dot com Forward Slash podcast.
Speaker 3: That's it for another episode of Bigfoot Eyewitness Radio with
Vic Kundiff. If you've had a sasquatch encounter and would
like to be a guest on the show, please go
to Bigfoot Eyewitness dot com and submit a report. We'd
love to hear from you. Thanks for listening, have a
great night.