Speaker 1: Now one of your pudding. I got a string going
Speaker 1: on here, something just because my dog. Something killed your dog,
Speaker 1: my dog. We're flying through the or over the tree.
Speaker 1: I don't know how it did it, Okay, Damn, I'm
Speaker 1: really confused. All I saw was my dog coming over
Speaker 1: the fence and he was dead. And once you hit
Speaker 1: the ground like, I didn't see any cars. All I
Speaker 1: saw was my dog coming over the fence. Sat, what
Speaker 1: are you putting? We got some wonder or something crawling
Speaker 1: around out here? Did you see what it was?
Speaker 2: Or was it was?
Speaker 1: Standing enough? I'm out here looking through the window now
Speaker 1: and I don't see anything. I don't want to go outside.
Speaker 1: Jesus Quice, you better Hellohet thebody out here? Quin, I'm
Speaker 1: out there. I thought of a mention about Tech fort nine.
Speaker 1: I don't know easy out there? Yeah, I'm walking right. Hey.
Speaker 2: I've never done a year in show, not once in
Speaker 2: all my years of podcasting, never felt the need to
Speaker 2: do a year in review, never felt compelled to look
Speaker 2: back and take stock of where we've been. But this
Speaker 2: year is different. This year I couldn't stay silent. We
Speaker 2: lost some giants, and I mean that word deliberately. Giants
Speaker 2: now let me be real with you. The Bigfoot community
Speaker 2: is complicated. It's messy. There's infighting, there's bickering. There are
Speaker 2: grudges that go back decades. People argue about evidence, People
Speaker 2: argue about methods. People argue about whether we should even
Speaker 2: be calling them bigfoot or sasquatch or something else entirely.
Speaker 2: I've watched researchers tear each other apart online. I've seen
Speaker 2: friendships dissolve over disagreements about a footprint cast. I've witnessed
Speaker 2: the heattiness and the ego and the territorial nonsense that
Speaker 2: plagues this community, just like it plagues every other community
Speaker 2: of passionate people. But you know what, none of that matters.
Speaker 2: At the end of the day, none of it. When
Speaker 2: someone dies, all that noise fades away, the arguments stopped mattering,
Speaker 2: the disagreements become irrelevant. What remains is the work. What
Speaker 2: remains is the contribution. What remains is the mark they
Speaker 2: left on this subject that we're all so passionate about.
Speaker 2: Whether you agreed with these men or not, whether you
Speaker 2: stood in their corner or debated them at every turn,
Speaker 2: they left their marks on the subject of Bigfoot. Each
Speaker 2: one did it differently. Each one brought something unique to
Speaker 2: the table, and now they're gone. So tonight I want
Speaker 2: to remember them. I want to honor what they gave us.
Speaker 2: I want to set aside whatever differences might have existed
Speaker 2: and simply acknowledged that we've lost some truly important figures.
Speaker 2: I know people die. I get that it's the natural
Speaker 2: order of things. People are born, they live their lives,
Speaker 2: and eventually they pass on. That's how it works, that's
Speaker 2: how it's always worked. But knowing that death is inevitable
Speaker 2: doesn't make it easier when it happens, especially when it
Speaker 2: happens to people who meant something, people who contributed something,
Speaker 2: people who spent their lives chasing the same mystery that
Speaker 2: keeps so many of us.
Speaker 3: Awake at night.
Speaker 2: So let's talk about them, Let's remember them, Let's give
Speaker 2: them the tribute they deserve. Before I get into the
Speaker 2: individuals we lost, I want to take a moment to
Speaker 2: acknowledge just how heavy this year has been for our community.
Speaker 2: Twenty twenty four and twenty twenty five have been brutal.
Speaker 2: We didn't just lose one or two researchers. We lost pillars,
Speaker 2: We lost institutions, We lost people who shape the very
Speaker 2: foundation of modern Sasquatch research. And it wasn't just the deaths.
Speaker 2: We lost places too. The Bigfoot Discovery Museum in Felton,
Speaker 2: California closed its doors after twenty years. Michael Rugg, who
Speaker 2: opened that little museum back in two thousand and four
Speaker 2: after seeing a Bigfoot as a child in Humboldt County,
Speaker 2: finally had to retire. Health issues and financial struggles made
Speaker 2: it impossible to continue. Twenty years of history, artifacts, footprint casts,
Speaker 2: and that famous map with all those push pins marking
Speaker 2: local sidings, all of it gone. That museum was a
Speaker 2: pilgrimage site for believers and skeptics alike. People would drive
Speaker 2: down Highway nine in the Santa Cruz Mountains just to
Speaker 2: step inside that barn like building and talk to Michael
Speaker 2: about what he'd seen and learned. He collected over one
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty local siding reports, He had pieces of
Speaker 2: the Patterson Gimlin film playing on a loop. He had
Speaker 2: newspaper clippings going back decades. And now it's closed, another
Speaker 2: piece of our community's infrastructure simply gone. Then there was
Speaker 2: the tragedy in December of twenty twenty four. Two men
Speaker 2: from Portland, Oregon, ages fifteen thirty seven, went into the
Speaker 2: Gifford Pinchot National Forest in Scamania County, Washington, looking for sasquatch.
Speaker 2: They never came home for Christmas. Over sixty volunteers searched
Speaker 2: for three days, through freezing temperatures, snow, high water levels,
Speaker 2: and heavily wooded terrain. The Coastguard provided air support. When
Speaker 2: they finally found those two men, it was too late.
Speaker 2: They died from exposure. The weather was brutal and they
Speaker 2: weren't prepared for it. That hit hard. Those weren't celebrities,
Speaker 2: they weren't researchers with podcasts or book deals. They were
Speaker 2: just two guys who believed enough in this mystery to
Speaker 2: spend their Christmas Eve in the woods looking for answers,
Speaker 2: and they paid the ultimate price. Scamania County, for those
Speaker 2: who don't know, has more Bigfoot sightings than almost anywhere
Speaker 2: else in the country. They even have a law on
Speaker 2: the books making it illegal to harm a sasquatch one
Speaker 2: thousand dollars fine. And yet despite all that history, despite
Speaker 2: all those sightings, the forest took two believers from us.
Speaker 2: So when I tell you this year has been heavy.
Speaker 3: I mean it.
Speaker 2: The losses have been significant, and the three men I'm
Speaker 2: going to talk about tonight represent something even bigger than themselves.
Speaker 2: They represent eras, they represent approaches, They represent the very
Speaker 2: soul of what bigfoot research has been for the past
Speaker 2: several decades. To understand the significance of the men we lost,
Speaker 2: you have to understand the history of serious Sasquatch research,
Speaker 2: and that history starts with four men who became known
Speaker 2: as the four Horsemen of Sasquatchery. Grover Krantz, Renee de Hendon,
Speaker 2: John Green, Peter Burn. These were the pioneers, the ones
Speaker 2: who took bigfoot from campfire story to legitimate subject of inquiry.
Speaker 2: They didn't always get along with each other, in fact,
Speaker 2: they often didn't, but together, whether they intended it or not,
Speaker 2: they built the foundation that everyone who came after them
Speaker 2: would stand on. Grover Krantz was a physical anthropologist at
Speaker 2: Washington State University who risked his academic career to study sasquatch.
Speaker 2: He was the first serious scientist to devote his professional
Speaker 2: energies to the subject, starting back in nineteen sixty three.
Speaker 2: It cost him research grants, it delayed his tenure, His
Speaker 2: papers were rejected by peer reviewed journals, but he kept
Speaker 2: going anyway because he believed the evidence warranted scientific attention.
Speaker 2: Renee de Hendon was a Swiss born researcher who became
Speaker 2: one of the most dedicated field investigators in the history
Speaker 2: of bigfoot research. He spent decades in the Pacific Northwest
Speaker 2: interviewing witnesses and examining evidence. He was tenacious, he was
Speaker 2: no nonsense, and he was absolutely relentless in his.
Speaker 3: Pursuit of the truth.
Speaker 2: John Green was a Canadian journalist who compiled a database
Speaker 2: of more than three thousand siding in track reports. His
Speaker 2: book Sasquatch, The Apes among Us, published in nineteen seventy eight,
Speaker 2: is still considered by many to be the best written
Speaker 2: book on the subject. He started investigating sightings back in
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty seven after meeting Renee, and he never stopped
Speaker 2: until his death in twenty sixteen at age eighty nine.
Speaker 2: Peter Burne was an explorer and big game hunter who
Speaker 2: led multiple expeditions in search of the Yeti and the
Speaker 2: Himalayas before turning his attention to bigfoot in North America.
Speaker 2: In the nineteen nineties, he founded the Bigfoot Research Project,
Speaker 2: which received funding of nearly five million dollars from the
Speaker 2: Academy of Applied Science. He set up a toll free
Speaker 2: hotline one eight hundred Bigfoot and investigated reports that came
Speaker 2: in from across the country. These four men didn't just
Speaker 2: investigate Bigfoot. They created the infrastructure for investigation. They developed methodologies,
Speaker 2: They collected in cataloged evidence. They appeared in documentaries and
Speaker 2: wrote books and gave interviews and kept the subject alive
Speaker 2: during decades when it would have been easy for it
Speaker 2: to fade into obscurity. And now they're all gone. Renee
Speaker 2: died in two thousand and one, Krantz died in two
Speaker 2: thousand and two. Green died in twenty sixteen. Byrne died
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty three, at ninety seven years old. The
Speaker 2: men we lost in twenty twenty four and twenty twenty
Speaker 2: five were the next generation. They were the ones who
Speaker 2: picked up where the four Horsemen left off. They were
Speaker 2: the ones who carried the torch forward into the twenty
Speaker 2: first century, and their loss leaves a hole that may
Speaker 2: never be filled. When you say the name Jeff Mildrum,
Speaker 2: people know exactly who you're talking about, even people outside
Speaker 2: the Bigfoot community, even skeptics who spent their careers trying
Speaker 2: to debunk everything he stood for. They knew his name,
Speaker 2: they respected his credentials, and whether they admitted it or not,
Speaker 2: they took him seriously. That's because doctor Meldrum was different.
Speaker 2: He wasn't just another enthusiast with a podcast and an opinion.
Speaker 2: He was a scientist, a real one, A full professor
Speaker 2: of anatomy and anthropology at Idaho State University. The man
Speaker 2: had a PhD in anatomical sciences from Stonybrook University. He
Speaker 2: understood primate locomotion at a level most of us can't
Speaker 2: even comprehend, and he chose to focus that expertise on sasquatch.
Speaker 2: Think about that for a moment. This was a man
Speaker 2: who could have played it safe. He could have stuck
Speaker 2: to mainstream research, published papers that nobody would question, and
Speaker 2: climbed the academic ladder without controversy.
Speaker 3: But that wasn't Jeff Meldrum. That wasn't who he was.
Speaker 2: He was born on May twenty fourth, nineteen fifty eight, in.
Speaker 3: Salt Lake City.
Speaker 2: He got his bachelor's degree in zoology from Brigham Young
Speaker 2: University in nineteen eighty two. Specializing in vertebrate locomotion. His
Speaker 2: masters followed in eighty four, and then he went to
Speaker 2: Stonybrook for his doctorate, studying under John Fliegel, one of
Speaker 2: the leading primatologists in the world. After that came a
Speaker 2: postdoctoral position at Duke University Medical Center. This man had credentials,
Speaker 2: real credentials, the kind that opened doors and guarantee respect
Speaker 2: in academic circles. In nineteen ninety three, he joined Idaho
Speaker 2: State University as a full professor, and for the first
Speaker 2: few years he did what professors do. He taught human
Speaker 2: anatomy to graduate students in the health professions programs. He
Speaker 2: published research on primate locomotive adaptations. He built a reputation
Speaker 2: as a serious scientist. Then came nineteen ninety six. He
Speaker 2: was shown a set of fifteen inch footprints in Washington State.
Speaker 2: Something clicked, something changed. From that moment forward, he devoted
Speaker 2: a significant portion of his professional life to studying the
Speaker 2: evidence for sasquatch. He collected over three hundred footprint casts,
Speaker 2: three hundred. He analyzed them with the same rigor he'd
Speaker 2: applied to any scientific study. He looked at dermal ridges.
Speaker 2: He studied the biomechanics He examined the pressure points and
Speaker 2: weight distribution. He asked the hard questions that most people
Speaker 2: were too afraid to ask. His laboratory at Idaho State
Speaker 2: University became a repository for sasquatch evidence. He built a
Speaker 2: collection that's probably the largest and most carefully documented in
Speaker 2: the world. When other researchers found interesting tracks, they'd send
Speaker 2: casts to Meldrum for analysis. When witnesses reported encounters, they
Speaker 2: knew there was a credentialed scientist at a major university
Speaker 2: who would take them seriously. Meldrum brought forensic techniques to
Speaker 2: the study of alleged bigfoot tracks. He looked at the
Speaker 2: way weight was distributed across the footprint. He examined how
Speaker 2: the toes spread during locomotion. He studied the depth of
Speaker 2: impressions at different points and what that revealed about how
Speaker 2: the creature moved. He was particularly interested in the mid
Speaker 2: tarsal break, a feature scene in some of the footprint
Speaker 2: casts that suggests a flexible foot structure different from human feet.
Speaker 2: Humans have relatively rigid feet, an adaptation for efficient bipedal
Speaker 2: walking on flat surfaces. Some of the sasquatch track showed
Speaker 2: evidence of a mid foot flexibility more like what you'd
Speaker 2: see in great apes, suggesting an adaptation for walking on
Speaker 2: uneven forest terrain. His book Sasquatch Legend Meets Science was
Speaker 2: published in two thousand and six, and it became essential
Speaker 2: reading for anyone serious about this subject. It wasn't sensationalism,
Speaker 2: it wasn't entertainment. It was an honest attempt to bring
Speaker 2: scientific methodology to a topic that most scientists wouldn't touch
Speaker 2: with a ten foot poll. The book accompanied a Discovery
Speaker 2: Channel documentary of the same name, produced by Doug Hicheck.
Speaker 2: The documentary brought Meldrum's work to a mass audience. People
Speaker 2: who had dismissed bigfoot as nonsense saw a real scientist
Speaker 2: examining real evidence and treating the subjects seriously. Did he
Speaker 2: take criticism for it absolutely. Some of his colleagues called
Speaker 2: his work pseudoscience. The Skeptical Inquirer published a detailed critical
Speaker 2: review anthropology. David Daggling said Meldrum was unable or unwilling
Speaker 2: to distinguish good research from bad science from pseudoscience. Some
Speaker 2: critics went further. In two thousand and six, a group
Speaker 2: of faculty members at Idaho State University petitioned to have
Speaker 2: his tenure revoked. They argued that his bigfoot research was
Speaker 2: damaging the university's reputation. The petition failed, but it showed
Speaker 2: the professional risk Meldrum was taking. There were also accusations
Speaker 2: that he had been fooled by hoaxers. Paul Freeman, a
Speaker 2: forest patrol officer in Washington State, had produced multiple sets
Speaker 2: of alleged Sasquatch tracks in the Blue Mountains near Walla
Speaker 2: Walla during the nineteen nineties. Mildrum had examined some of
Speaker 2: these tracks and found them convincing. When questions arose about
Speaker 2: Freeman's credibility, some argued that Meldrum had been taken in.
Speaker 2: Meldrum defended his analysis. He pointed out specific features of
Speaker 2: the Freeman tracts that would have been difficult for a
Speaker 2: hoaxer to fake, and stay tuned for more SaaS Odyssey.
Speaker 2: We'll be right back after these messages. He acknowledged that
Speaker 2: some tracks Freeman found might have been faked, while maintaining
Speaker 2: that others showed genuine anatomical detail. But Jeff never backed
Speaker 2: down from his overall position. He believed in what he
Speaker 2: was doing, and he had the courage to keep doing
Speaker 2: it despite the professional cost. He edited a scholarly journal
Speaker 2: called The Relict Hominoid Inquiry, providing a venue for serious
Speaker 2: academic papers on Sasquatch and related subjects. He traveled the world,
Speaker 2: from China to Siberia, examining evidence and building connections with
Speaker 2: researchers in other countries. In twenty eleven, he attended a
Speaker 2: conference in Russia about the Siberian Snowman, investigating alleged footprints
Speaker 2: found in a cave. He appeared in countless documentaries and interviews,
Speaker 2: always bringing that measured, accessible approach that made complex ideas understandable.
Speaker 2: He never stopped teaching either. He taught human anatomy to
Speaker 2: graduate students in the health professions programs. He mentored young researchers.
Speaker 2: He gave lectures and presentations. Even as his bigfoot work
Speaker 2: drew attention and controversy, he remained committed to his primary
Speaker 2: academic duties. In twenty twenty three, he had a medical
Speaker 2: emergency while on an Alaska cruise. He had to be
Speaker 2: evacuated for treatment. He canceled an appearance at a bigfoot
Speaker 2: conference the week before his death. The end came quickly.
Speaker 2: Now I want to be honest with you here. I
Speaker 2: didn't always agree with doctor Meldrum. We had our disagreements.
Speaker 2: Anyone who's been around this community long enough knows that
Speaker 2: disagreements are inevitable. We all have our theories, we all
Speaker 2: have our methods, we all have our interpretations of the evidence,
Speaker 2: and sometimes those interpretations don't line up. But here's what
Speaker 2: I want you to understand. Disagreeing with someone doesn't mean
Speaker 2: you don't respect them. Disagreeing with someone doesn't mean you
Speaker 2: don't like them. Disagreeing with someone doesn't mean you can't
Speaker 2: recognize the value of their contributions. I disagreed with Jeff
Speaker 2: on certain points, but I never for one second doubted
Speaker 2: his integrity. I never questioned his dedication. I never thought
Speaker 2: he was anything less than a sincere, honest researcher who
Speaker 2: was trying to get to the truth. And here's what
Speaker 2: makes this so personal for me. I had the privilege
Speaker 2: of sitting down with Jeff just a few weeks before
Speaker 2: he passed, just a few weeks. We had a great conversation.
Speaker 2: He was kind, he was generous with his time. He
Speaker 2: talked about his research with the same passion he'd always had,
Speaker 2: even as his health was failing. I didn't know it
Speaker 2: would be our last conversation. I didn't know that brain
Speaker 2: cancer would take him so quickly. The illness was brief,
Speaker 2: they said, brief and brutal. He passed on September ninth,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five. He was sixty seven years old. His
Speaker 2: family was at his side in Pocatello, Idaho. His wife,
Speaker 2: Lauren said something that stuck with me. She said, he
Speaker 2: loved teaching and researching Bigfoot, but he was a husband
Speaker 2: and father, first nine children, six grandchildren, a man with
Speaker 2: a full life beyond the research. She called him a
Speaker 2: force of nature. I can't think of a better description.
Speaker 2: Jeff Mildrum gave our community something precious. He gave us legitimacy.
Speaker 2: When a skeptic dismissed Bigfoot research as nonsense, we could
Speaker 2: point to doctor Meldrum and say, here's a credentialed scientist
Speaker 2: who disagrees with you. Here's someone who's actually examined the evidence.
Speaker 2: Here's a full professor at a major university who thinks
Speaker 2: this subject deserves serious attention. He picked up where Grover
Speaker 2: Krantz left off. He continued the tradition of academic rigor
Speaker 2: in a field that desperately needed it. And now he's gone,
Speaker 2: leaving behind his collection of over three hundred foot print casts,
Speaker 2: his published works, his students, and a legacy that will
Speaker 2: influence Sasquatch research for generations to come. Henry Franzoni passed
Speaker 2: away in August of five, twenty twenty four, so technically he
Speaker 2: falls just outside of twenty twenty five, but I felt
Speaker 2: compelled to include him here. I had to include him
Speaker 2: here because Henry's contribution to this community deserves recognition. If
Speaker 2: Jeff Meldrum brought scientific credibility to bigfoot research, Henry Franzoni
Speaker 2: brought something equally important. He brought the Internet back. In
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety three, Henry created the first bigfoot website on
Speaker 2: the World Wide Web, the first one let that sync in.
Speaker 2: Before social media, before YouTube, before podcasts, before any of
Speaker 2: the tools we take for granted today. Henry Franzoni looked
Speaker 2: at this new technology called the Internet and said, this
Speaker 2: is how we connect, This is how we share information,
Speaker 2: this is how we build a community. He also created
Speaker 2: the first online bigfoot discussion group, the Internet Virtual Bigfoot Conference.
Speaker 2: He called it the IVBC. From that foundation grew pretty
Speaker 2: much every Bigfoot Organization and website you see today, the BFRO,
Speaker 2: the forums, the Facebook groups. All of it traces back
Speaker 2: in some way to what Henry started. He was a pioneer,
Speaker 2: a real one. He understood before most people that the
Speaker 2: Internet would change how we shared information, how we connected
Speaker 2: with witnesses, how we built a community around this shared interest.
Speaker 2: Think about what the world of Bigfoot research looked like
Speaker 2: before Henry's work. If you wanted to learn about Sasquatch,
Speaker 2: you had to find books at the library, if they
Speaker 2: even had any. You had to track down researchers through
Speaker 2: word of mouth. You had to travel to conferences or conventions.
Speaker 2: Information was scattered and hard to access. The Internet changed everything. Suddenly,
Speaker 2: researchers in Washington could communicate instantly with researchers in Florida.
Speaker 2: Witness reports could be shared and discussed in real time.
Speaker 2: Archives of sightings could be built and searched. The isolation
Speaker 2: that had plagued Bigfoot research for decad aids began to dissolve.
Speaker 2: Nineteen ninety three was before most people even knew what
Speaker 2: the World Wide Web was. The first web browser, Mosaic,
Speaker 2: had only been released that year. Very few people had
Speaker 2: Internet access at home, and yet Henry was already building
Speaker 2: Bigfoot infrastructure online. The Internet Virtual Bigfoot Conference he created
Speaker 2: became a gathering place for researchers around the world. It
Speaker 2: was a precursor to the forums and social media groups
Speaker 2: we have today. People could ask questions, share evidence, debate theories.
Speaker 2: A community began to form. From that foundation came the
Speaker 2: organizations we know today. Matt Moneymaker founded the Bigfoot Field
Speaker 2: Researchers Organization in nineteen ninety five, just two years after
Speaker 2: Henry's online work began. The BFRO built on the model
Speaker 2: of online community that Henry had pioneered. Other organizations followed.
Speaker 2: The infrastructure Henry created became the template for how Bigfoot
Speaker 2: research would operate in the digital age. Henry was born
Speaker 2: in Paris, France, though he was raised in glen Ridge,
Speaker 2: New Jersey. His father served in the army during the
Speaker 2: Korean War and was sent to Paris as a French
Speaker 2: interpreter at NATO's Shape headquarters. That's where Henry was born. Eventually,
Speaker 2: the family moved back to the States, and Henry ended
Speaker 2: up settling in the Pacific Northwest, where he lived for
Speaker 2: nearly fifty years. His scientific training was rigorous. He built
Speaker 2: a career as a fishery scientist, working with Native American
Speaker 2: tribes on salmon management and conservation. He understood data, he
Speaker 2: understood methodology. He brought that scientific mindset to bigfoot research,
Speaker 2: even as he explored more unconventional approaches. He worked with
Speaker 2: some of the biggest names in bigfoot research. He was
Speaker 2: on the board of advisors for Peter Burn's Bigfoot Research
Speaker 2: project alongside Ron Moorhead. That project spent nearly five million
Speaker 2: dollars investigating Bigfoot during its run from nineteen ninety three
Speaker 2: to nineteen ninety eight. Five million dollars. That serious money,
Speaker 2: that serious research, and Henry was right there in the
Speaker 2: middle of it. Peter Burn was a legend in his
Speaker 2: own right, a big game hunter turned conservationist who had
Speaker 2: led expeditions in search of the Yetti in Nepal and
Speaker 2: the Bigfoot in North America.
Speaker 3: The Academy of.
Speaker 2: Applied Science in Boston funded his work, providing resources that
Speaker 2: most Bigfoot researchers could only dream of. They had a
Speaker 2: toll free hotline, sophisticated equipment, professional staff. It was the
Speaker 2: most high tech, well funded bigfoot research operation ever attempted.
Speaker 2: Henry was part of that he contributed to their investigations.
Speaker 2: He helped analyze evidence. He was there when the Jeff
Speaker 2: Glickman analysis of the Patterson Gimlin film was published in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety eight. He appeared in documentaries like Drumming for
Speaker 2: Bigfoot in nineteen ninety seven, where he famously played drums
Speaker 2: in an attempt to communicate with Sasquatch. It was unconventional, certainly,
Speaker 2: but Henry believed that the creatures might respond to rhythmic sounds,
Speaker 2: that drumming might be a way to attract their attention
Speaker 2: or establish contact. He appeared in Sasquatch Odyssey in nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety nine, the documentary that profiled the four Horsemen of Sasquatchery.
Speaker 2: More recently, he was in A Flash of Beauty Bigfoot
Speaker 2: revealed in twenty twenty two. He was interviewed countless times
Speaker 2: over the years by podcasters and journalists and documentary filmmakers,
Speaker 2: and then for twenty three years Henry went quiet. He
Speaker 2: stepped away from public Bigfoot research and built a career
Speaker 2: as a fishery scientist working with Native American tribes. Twenty
Speaker 2: three years of silence on the subject that had defined
Speaker 2: so much of his life. Why did he leave. That's
Speaker 2: a question many people asked over the years. Henry never
Speaker 2: fully explained it. Maybe he got burned out. Maybe the
Speaker 2: controversies and conflicts within the community wore him down. Maybe
Speaker 2: he simply needed to focus on his career and his
Speaker 2: personal life. The reasons were his own, but he came back.
Speaker 2: In his final years, Henry started talking about Sasquatch again.
Speaker 2: He appeared on podcasts, including mine. He gave interviews, He
Speaker 2: reconnected with old colleagues and made new connections with younger researchers.
Speaker 2: He appeared in the documentary A Flash of Beauty Bigfoot,
Speaker 2: revealed in twenty twenty two. In January of twenty twenty four,
Speaker 2: he attended Squatch Fest in Kelso, Washington with Tim and
Speaker 2: Dana Hallerin. He was out there, engaged, part of the
Speaker 2: community again, and then he wrote a book. And that book,
Speaker 2: let me tell you about that book. Henry called it
Speaker 2: Failing in a Cooler Way, Why I Never Found Bigfoot.
Speaker 2: Listen to that title again. Let it sink in. Failing
Speaker 2: in a cooler way, Why I Never found Bigfoot? There's
Speaker 2: something profound in that title. There's something that tells you
Speaker 2: everything you need to know about who Henry was as
Speaker 2: a person. He was humble, genuinely humble. In a field
Speaker 2: full of people claiming to have all the answers, claiming
Speaker 2: to have definitive proof, claiming to know exactly what Sasquatch
Speaker 2: is and where to find them. Here was a man
Speaker 2: who admitted he often failed more than he succeeded. That
Speaker 2: takes courage, that takes intellectual honesty, That takes the kind
Speaker 2: of character that's increasingly rare in this world. I got
Speaker 2: to interview Henry about a year before he passed. We
Speaker 2: had a wonderful conversation. He talked about his early days
Speaker 2: in the Pacific Northwest. He talked about his first encounter
Speaker 2: near Scukum Lake in Clacamus County, Oregon, back in ninety three,
Speaker 2: when he and his wife went camping and experienced something
Speaker 2: they couldn't explain. According to old Indian legend, Skukum Lake
Speaker 2: was inhabited by a powerful mystical entity. Henry and his
Speaker 2: wife experienced a series of inexplicable events during their stay
Speaker 2: that led Henry to believe they had encountered a Sasquatch.
Speaker 2: He shared his theories, he shared his doubts. He was
Speaker 2: open in a way that many researchers aren't now. Like
Speaker 2: I said about doctor Meldrum, I didn't always agree with
Speaker 2: Henry either. We had our differences of opinion. That's just
Speaker 2: the nature of this field. When you have passionate people
Speaker 2: investigating a mystery with no definitive answers, you're going to
Speaker 2: have disagreements. But disagreements don't mean dislike. Disagreements don't mean disrespect.
Speaker 2: I disagreed with Henry on certain points, but that didn't
Speaker 2: make me like him any less. It didn't make me
Speaker 2: value his contributions any less. After that interview, Henry did
Speaker 2: something that meant the world to me. He sent me
Speaker 2: a copy of his book. That copy of Failing in
Speaker 2: a Cooler Way sits on my shelf today, and I've
Speaker 2: cherished it.
Speaker 3: I really have.
Speaker 2: It's a reminder that the best researchers are the ones
Speaker 2: who can admit what they don't know, the ones who
Speaker 2: can acknowledge their failures alongside their successes. Henry died on
Speaker 2: August twenty second, twenty twenty four. He was sixty seven
Speaker 2: years old, same age as Meldrum. When he passed. He
Speaker 2: was living in rural southwest Washington in the heart of
Speaker 2: Sasquatch country right up until the end. He had remarried
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty two and was living with eight cats.
Speaker 2: Cliff Barackman and Bobo fet from Finding Bigfoot dedicated a
Speaker 2: classic episode of their podcast to him after he passed.
Speaker 2: They talked about how he encouraged other researchers, how he
Speaker 2: stayed above the fray when things got contentious, how he
Speaker 2: supported people even when he disagreed with them. That was Henry,
Speaker 2: a pioneer, a truth seeker, and above all, a genuinely
Speaker 2: good human being. And here's something that struck me when
Speaker 2: I learned of his death. August twenty second is a
Speaker 2: significant date in cryptozoology. Bernard Hoevelman's the father of modern cryptozoology,
Speaker 2: died on August twenty second, two thousand and one. Peter Burne,
Speaker 2: the Yetti and Bigfoot hunter, was born on August twenty second,
Speaker 2: nineteen twenty five, and now Henry Franzoni passed on August
Speaker 2: twenty second, twenty twenty four. Maybe it's just coincidence, maybe
Speaker 2: it means nothing, But in a field where we're always
Speaker 2: looking for patterns, always trying to find meaning in the unexplained,
Speaker 2: it's hard not to notice. If you've ever been to
Speaker 2: Willow Creek, California, you know about Bigfoot books. And if
Speaker 2: you know about Bigfoot books, you know about Stephen Streufurd.
Speaker 2: Stephen was an institution, not just a researcher, not just
Speaker 2: a bookseller, an institution. He'd been selling rare and unusual
Speaker 2: books in Bigfoot country since the early nineties. His little
Speaker 2: shop on Highway to ninety nine became a pilgrimage site
Speaker 2: for anyone serious about this subject. You went to Willow Creek,
Speaker 2: you stopped at Bigfoot Books, you talked to Stephen. Willow
Speaker 2: Creek itself is the self proclaimed Bigfoot capital of the world.
Speaker 2: It's where the modern Bigfoot phenomenon really began with those
Speaker 2: tracks found by logging crews at Bluff Creek back in
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty eight. The town has embraced its reputation and
Speaker 2: stay tuned for more sasquatch ott to see. We'll be
Speaker 2: right back after these messages. There's a Bigfoot statue downtown,
Speaker 2: there's a Bigfoot museum, and for more than two decades
Speaker 2: there was Bigfoot books. Stephen had been a professional bookman
Speaker 2: since nineteen ninety two, selling online since nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 2: He had moved to Willow Creek in two thousand and one,
Speaker 2: and he quickly became one of the most knowledgeable people
Speaker 2: in the community when it came to the history and
Speaker 2: lore of Bigfoot in that region. But Stephen was more
Speaker 2: than a merchant. He was a historian, a scholar of
Speaker 2: Bigfoot history in the truest sense. He knew the stories,
Speaker 2: he knew the players, he knew the timeline of how
Speaker 2: this phenomenon evolved from local legend to international sensation. And
Speaker 2: then there was the Bluff Creek Project. For those who
Speaker 2: don't know, Bluff Creek is where Roger Patterson and Bob
Speaker 2: Gimlin shot their famous film on October twentieth, nineteen sixty seven.
Speaker 2: That footage of a large, bipedal, hair covered figure walking
Speaker 2: along a sandbar changed everything. It's the most analyzed, most
Speaker 2: debated piece of evidence in the history of this subject.
Speaker 2: By the nineteen nineties, the exact location had been lost,
Speaker 2: Nature reclaimed it. The sandbar changed, the vegetation grew back,
Speaker 2: the flood of sixty four had transformed the landscape. Nobody
Speaker 2: could agree on precisely where Patterson and Gimlin had been
Speaker 2: standing when they captured that footage. Stephen and his colleagues
Speaker 2: set out to find it. The Bluff Creek Project became
Speaker 2: their mission. They poured over old photographs, They studied the
Speaker 2: original film frame by frame. They interviewed people who'd been
Speaker 2: there in the sixties. They consulted with geologists. They hiked
Speaker 2: into that remote canyon over and over again, comparing landmarks
Speaker 2: to frames from the original film. It was painstaking work.
Speaker 2: They had to scarred many cherish theories and bits of
Speaker 2: wisdom that had built up over the decades. Old timers
Speaker 2: had different memories of where the film was shot. Maps
Speaker 2: from the sixties were imprecise. Nature had transformed the landscape.
Speaker 2: The flood of nineteen sixty four had changed the creek
Speaker 2: bed dramatically. Vegetation had grown up where there had once
Speaker 2: been open sandbar. Trees that were saplings in sixty seven
Speaker 2: were now mature. Some of the landmarks visible in the
Speaker 2: original film had rotted away or been buried by debris,
Speaker 2: but they kept at it. The members of the group
Speaker 2: lived nearby, so they had a unique opportunity to conduct
Speaker 2: local historical studies on site and to explore the whole
Speaker 2: watershed intimately. Week after week, month after month, they hiked
Speaker 2: into that remote canyon, comparing what they saw to photographs
Speaker 2: from the archives. They studied the original film frame by frame.
Speaker 2: They looked for specific trees, specific stumps, specific rock formations.
Speaker 2: The exam photographs taken by Renee de Hendon when he
Speaker 2: visited the site in the years after the filming. They
Speaker 2: consulted geological surveys. They did everything they could to triangulate
Speaker 2: the exact position, and in twenty eleven they found it.
Speaker 2: The breakthrough came when they identified certain stumps that were
Speaker 2: still visible barely above the accumulated vegetation and debris. The
Speaker 2: angle matched, the distances matched. A geologist friend did trigonometric
Speaker 2: calculations and confirmed that this was, mathematically speaking, the spot
Speaker 2: where Patterson had stood when he filmed. Miraculously, some of
Speaker 2: the stumps and logs from the original footage were still there.
Speaker 3: The big old trees visible.
Speaker 2: Behind Paddy were still standing. Those trees had grown, of course,
Speaker 2: but their positions matched the film exactly. They documented everything.
Speaker 2: They took photographs from multiple angles. They created detailed maps
Speaker 2: and surveys, They recorded GPS coordinates. They did everything they
Speaker 2: could to create a permanent record of their findings. The
Speaker 2: result was their six hundred page book, The Bluff Creek Project,
Speaker 2: The Patterson Gimlin Bigfoot Film Site a journey of rediscovery.
Speaker 2: It's dense and technical, full of maps and photographs and appendices.
Speaker 2: Not light reading, but it's thorough, it's rigorous, and it
Speaker 2: stands as a permanent record of one of the most
Speaker 2: important pieces of research in the history of Sasquatch studies.
Speaker 2: Think about what that accomplishment means. For decades, researchers debated
Speaker 2: where exactly the Patterson Gimlin film was shot. Different people
Speaker 2: had different theories. Some thought the site was gone forever,
Speaker 2: destroyed by floods and logging. Without knowing the exact location,
Speaker 2: analysis of the film was limited. Now we know, thanks
Speaker 2: to Stephen Stroyford and his colleagues, we know exactly where
Speaker 2: Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin stood on October twentieth, nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty seven. We can go there, We can stand in
Speaker 2: the same spot. We can compare what we see to
Speaker 2: what they filmed. That opens up new avenues of research.
Speaker 2: We can analyze the proportions of the figure in the
Speaker 2: film against known distances in the landscape. We can study
Speaker 2: how the site has changed over time. We can look
Speaker 2: for other evidence that might have been overlooked. The Bluff
Speaker 2: Creek Project also set up trail cameras in the area,
Speaker 2: hoping to capture footage of any Sasquatch that might return.
Speaker 2: In the process, they documented rare wildlife, including footage of
Speaker 2: the endangered Humboldt Martin. Whether or not they ever photograph
Speaker 2: a Bigfoot, they've contributed to our understanding of that remote ecosystem.
Speaker 2: That's a legacy, that's something concrete and valuable that will
Speaker 2: outlast all of us. Whether you think the Patterson Gimlin
Speaker 2: film shows a real Sasquatch or a man in a suit.
Speaker 2: The rediscovery of that film site was a major accomplishment.
Speaker 2: Its genuine historical preservation, done by dedicated volunteers who spent
Speaker 2: years in difficult terrain. Stephen Stroyford was a key part
Speaker 2: of that team. His knowledge of local history, his network
Speaker 2: of contacts in the Bigfoot community, his bookstore that served
Speaker 2: as an informal headquarters for researchers passing through the area,
Speaker 2: all of it contributed to the project's success and beyond
Speaker 2: the Bluff Creek Project. Stephen was simply a wealth of knowledge.
Speaker 2: He'd read everything he knew. The history of every major case,
Speaker 2: every researcher, every controversy. If you wanted to know something
Speaker 2: about the history of bigfoot in northern California, Stephen was
Speaker 2: the person to ask, Here's something else about Stephen. He
Speaker 2: was a skeptic, not a debunker, but a genuine skeptic.
Speaker 2: He approached claims with critical thinking. He didn't believe everything
Speaker 2: he heard. He demanded evidence, He asked hard questions, and
Speaker 2: yet he remained open, He remained curious. He dedicated his
Speaker 2: life to this subject while maintaining the intellectual honesty to
Speaker 2: admit he didn't have all the answers. Now, I have
Speaker 2: to be honest here too. Stephen and I didn't always
Speaker 2: get along. We had some rather public disagreements in his
Speaker 2: Facebook group. If you were around back then, you probably
Speaker 2: saw some of them. We went back and forth on
Speaker 2: various topics. We argued, we debated. Sometimes it got heated.
Speaker 2: But here's the thing. That's what this is all about.
Speaker 2: That's what a community of researchers should look like. We
Speaker 2: can all have our opinions and still show mutual respect
Speaker 2: for one another. We can disagree passionately about the evidence,
Speaker 2: about the methods, about the theories, and still treat each
Speaker 2: other with dignity. Stephen understood that even when we were
Speaker 2: going at it in those Facebook threads, there was never
Speaker 2: any real animosity. It was just two people with strong
Speaker 2: opinions trying to figure out the truth, and at the
Speaker 2: end of the day, we both wanted the same thing.
Speaker 2: We both wanted answers. In September of twenty twenty three,
Speaker 2: Stephen nearly died a fire broke out at Bigfoot Books
Speaker 2: on September first. Was a Type one diabetic, and he
Speaker 2: had passed out from low blood sugar shortly before the
Speaker 2: fire began. He was awoken by the flames, managed to
Speaker 2: make it to the front porch, and then lost consciousness again.
Speaker 2: He was sitting there, unconscious on the front porch, with
Speaker 2: smoke billowing out the windows and flames encroaching when a
Speaker 2: California Highway Patrol officer happened to spot the smoke from
Speaker 2: the highway. That officer dragged Stephen from the porch to safety.
Speaker 2: He was loaded onto an ambulance and taken to mad
Speaker 2: River Community Hospital in Arcada. If that CHP officer hadn't
Speaker 2: been driving by at that exact moment, Stephen would have
Speaker 2: died in that fire. As it was, he lost everything.
Speaker 2: The store was a total loss. He'd been living in
Speaker 2: the building for about a month, so his personal possessions
Speaker 2: were destroyed too, Decades of accumulated books and research materials
Speaker 2: all gone. To make matters worse, Stephen had canceled his
Speaker 2: insurance due to financial struggles. The bookstore had been hit
Speaker 2: by online shopping, the pandemic, and a decline in the
Speaker 2: local economy. It simply wasn't financially viable anymore. Stephen described
Speaker 2: going back to salvage what he could. He called it
Speaker 2: completely disturbing to see his whole life in ruins, burned up,
Speaker 2: covered in ash, saturated in fireman's hose water, just totally destroyed.
Speaker 2: But the Bigfoot community rallied around him. People who disagreed
Speaker 2: with him online, people who'd argued with him in forums.
Speaker 2: They all put that aside and helped a friend set
Speaker 2: up a GoFundMe. Another friend paid for two months in
Speaker 2: a room in Eureka so Stephen wouldn't be homeless. Cliff
Speaker 2: Barrockman from Finding Bigfoot, posted about it on social media
Speaker 2: and encouraged people to donate. I, along with many from
Speaker 2: our community, donated because that's what you do when someone
Speaker 2: in your community needs you. You set aside the disagreements,
Speaker 2: You set aside the debates.
Speaker 3: You help.
Speaker 2: And now Stephen has gone too. The shop on Highway
Speaker 2: two ninety nine closed. The man who knew where to
Speaker 2: find the Patterson Gimlin film site is no longer with us.
Speaker 2: Another voice silenced, another gap in our community that can never.
Speaker 3: Truly be filled. So where does all of this leave us?
Speaker 2: What is the state of sasquatch research at the end
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty five. It's a complicated picture. On one hand,
Speaker 2: we've never had more tools at our disposal. Trail cameras
Speaker 2: are cheaper and better than ever. You can set up
Speaker 2: a network of motion activated cameras in the woods for
Speaker 2: a few hundred dollars. Drones can survey remote areas that
Speaker 2: would have taken days to hike. Thermal imaging that once
Speaker 2: cost tens of thousands of dollars is now available in
Speaker 2: handheld devices. DNA analysis has become more sophisticated and more accessible.
Speaker 2: Anyone with a smartphone can document an encounter in high
Speaker 2: definition video.
Speaker 3: The Bigfoot Field Researchers.
Speaker 2: Organization continues to collect and investigate reports they've cataloged thousands
Speaker 2: of sightings across North America. Washington State alone has over
Speaker 2: seven hundred reports in their database, more than any other state.
Speaker 2: That's followed by California, Florida, Ohio, and Illinois. The Pacific
Speaker 2: Northwest remains the hotspot, but sightings are reported in every
Speaker 2: state except Hawaii. New researchers continue to enter the field.
Speaker 2: Podcasts proliferate. There are dozens of active Bigfoot podcasts now,
Speaker 2: from serious investigative shows to entertainment focused programs. YouTube channels
Speaker 2: attract millions of views. TikTok has brought Bigfoot content to
Speaker 2: a whole new generation. The cultural fascination with Bigfoot shows
Speaker 2: no signs of fading. Television continues to cover the subject.
Speaker 2: Finding Bigfoot ran for eleven seasons on Animal Planet from
Speaker 2: twenty eleven to twenty eighteen, investigating reports across the country.
Speaker 2: New documentary programs continue to be produced. Streaming services have
Speaker 2: added Bigfoot content to their libraries. But the old guard
Speaker 2: is dying. The pioneers are gone, the institutions are closing,
Speaker 2: and the losses of twenty twenty four and twenty twenty
Speaker 2: five have accelerated that transition. When Grover Krantz died in
Speaker 2: two thousand and two. Jeff Meldrum was there to carry
Speaker 2: on the tradition of academic rigor. When John Green died
Speaker 2: in twenty sixteen, others had already digitized his database and
Speaker 2: continued his cataloging work. But who picks up the mantle
Speaker 2: now that Meldrum is gone. Who continues Henry Franzoni's work
Speaker 2: of building online communities. Who preserves the historical knowledge that
Speaker 2: Stephen Streyford accumulated over decades. These aren't rhetorical questions, They
Speaker 2: are challenges that our community needs to face. Doctor John Bendernagel,
Speaker 2: the Canadian wildlife biologist who wrote North America's great ape,
Speaker 2: the Sasquatch, died in twenty eighteen. He was another credentialed
Speaker 2: scientist who took the subject seriously. Gone, the circle of
Speaker 2: academically trained researchers who are willing to publicly associate themselves
Speaker 2: with bigfoot research grow smaller every year. The stigma remains.
Speaker 2: Young scientists are warned away from the topic. Those who
Speaker 2: pursue it risk their careers, just as Grover Krantz did
Speaker 2: decades ago. And then there are the setbacks that have
Speaker 2: nothing to do with death, the DNA studies that keep
Speaker 2: coming back with disappointing results, the hair samples that turn
Speaker 2: out to be from known animals, The hoaxes that damage credibility,
Speaker 2: the infighting that fractures organizations. In twenty fourteen, Brian Sykes
Speaker 2: at Oxford published the first peer reviewed genetic analysis of
Speaker 2: alleged Bigfoot hair samples. Out of thirty seven samples tested,
Speaker 2: all were identified as known animals bears, horses, dogs, cows.
Speaker 2: Not a single one was from an unknown primate. That
Speaker 2: study didn't prove Bigfoot doesn't exist, but it did demonstrate
Speaker 2: how many supposed pieces of evidence turn out to be misidentifications.
Speaker 2: It showed how easy it is to fool yourself when
Speaker 2: you want to believe. There was also the Melbuqtchum controversy.
Speaker 2: In twenty twelve and twenty thirteen, veterinarian Melbokechum claimed to
Speaker 2: have conducted DNA analysis proving that Sasquatch is a hybrid
Speaker 2: species the result of human females mating with an unknown
Speaker 2: primate around fifteen thousand years ago. She spent years and
Speaker 2: reportedly half a million dollars on the study. The scientific
Speaker 2: community rejected her findings. Todd Dissattel, a professor of anthropology
Speaker 2: at New York University, called it complete junk science. The
Speaker 2: paper was never accepted by a peer reviewed journal. Ketchum
Speaker 2: ended up self publishing it in a journal she created herself.
Speaker 2: Whether Ketchum's work was legitimate science that was unfairly rejected,
Speaker 2: or flawed research that didn't meet scientific standards, the controversy
Speaker 2: damaged the credibility of DNA based bigfoot research for years,
Speaker 2: and yet the sightings continue and stay tuned for more
Speaker 2: Sasquatch odyssey. We'll be right back after these messages. People
Speaker 2: who have no reason to lie, keep reporting encounters. Witnesses
Speaker 2: with nothing to gain, keep coming forward. The phenomenon persists,
Speaker 2: even as the explanations remain elusive. That's the paradox of
Speaker 2: sasquatch research. There's too much smoke for there to be
Speaker 2: no fire at all, but the fire itself remains stubbornly invisible.
Speaker 2: The BFRO continues to host expeditions where members and the
Speaker 2: public can join investigators in the field. The North American
Speaker 2: Wood Ape Conservancy conducts research in Area X. The Olympic
Speaker 2: Project focuses on the Pacific Northwest, various state and regional
Speaker 2: organizations continue their work. Technology continues to advance. In twenty
Speaker 2: twenty four, researchers used AI to analyze reported Bigfoot vocalizations,
Speaker 2: trying to identify patterns that might distinguish them from known
Speaker 2: animal calls. Others have experimented with environmental DNA analysis, testing
Speaker 2: soil and water samples for trace genetic evidence. Camera trap
Speaker 2: technology keeps improving with higher resolution and better night vision,
Speaker 2: but we're still waiting for the breakthrough. We're still waiting
Speaker 2: for the clear, unambiguous video, the physical specimen, the DNA
Speaker 2: that can't be explained away, the proof. Maybe it will come.
Speaker 2: Maybe someone hearing this will be the one who finds it.
Speaker 2: Maybe the next generation of researchers, armed with tools we
Speaker 2: can't imagine, will finally solve the mystery. Or maybe the
Speaker 2: mystery will remain unsolved. Maybe Bigfoot will continue to dance
Speaker 2: just beyond the edge of verification, seen by thousands but
Speaker 2: proven by none. Maybe that's the nature of some mysteries.
Speaker 2: I want to be fair here.
Speaker 3: I want to.
Speaker 2: Acknowledge that there are smart, thoughtful people who don't believe
Speaker 2: Bigfoot exists, and they have reasons for their skepticism.
Speaker 3: The lack of a.
Speaker 2: Body is the biggest problem. After all these decades of searching,
Speaker 2: no one has ever produced a bigfoot corpse. No bones
Speaker 2: have been found, no teeth, no definitive DNA. In a
Speaker 2: world where we've cataloged millions of species, how could a
Speaker 2: large primate remain undetected in North America. The hoaxes damaged
Speaker 2: credibility too.
Speaker 3: Ray Wallace, whose.
Speaker 2: Logging crew found those famous tracks at Bluff Creek in
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty eight, was revealed after his death in two
Speaker 2: thousand and two to have faked some of them using
Speaker 2: carved wooden feet. His family showed the feet to the press.
Speaker 2: Some researchers argue this doesn't invalidate all the evidence, but
Speaker 2: it planted seeds of doubt. And then there's the ecological argument.
Speaker 2: A study published in the Journal of Biogeography in two
Speaker 2: thousand and nine used ecological niche modeling on reported bigfoot sightings.
Speaker 2: The researchers found that the locations of reported sighting matched
Speaker 2: almost perfectly with the habitat of the American black bear.
Speaker 2: They concluded that most bigfoot sightings are probably misidentifications of bears,
Speaker 2: particularly when bears stand upright. These are serious objections. They
Speaker 2: deserve serious consideration. But here's the thing. None of them
Speaker 2: prove Bigfoot doesn't exist. They prove that we don't have
Speaker 2: definitive evidence that it does exist. Those are two different things.
Speaker 2: The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.
Speaker 2: Just because we haven't found a body doesn't mean there's
Speaker 2: no body to find. The forests of North America are
Speaker 2: vast millions of acres of wilderness where humans rarely set foot.
Speaker 2: Bodies decompose quickly in the wild, scavengers consume them, Nature
Speaker 2: recycles everything. The hair sample studies prove that many samples
Speaker 2: submitted as Bigfoot evidence were misidentified. They don't prove that
Speaker 2: all samples are misidentifications. They don't prove that somewhere out
Speaker 2: there there isn't hair from an unknown primate waiting to
Speaker 2: be found. The hoaxes proved that some people have faked evidence.
Speaker 2: They don't prove that all evidence is faked. Ray Wallace
Speaker 2: might have carved wooden feet to make some tracks, but
Speaker 2: that doesn't explain the thousands of other tracks found by
Speaker 2: thousands of other people across the entire continent. And the
Speaker 2: ecological niche modeling proves that bigfoot sidings correlate with black
Speaker 2: bear habitat, but black bears and bigfoot could share habitat,
Speaker 2: they could both prefer the same environments. Correlation is not causation.
Speaker 2: Doctor Meldrum understood this. He spent his career carefully distinguishing
Speaker 2: between good evidence and bad evidence, between credible sightings and
Speaker 2: obvious hoaxes. He didn't accept everything at face value. He
Speaker 2: applied rigorous methodology to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Speaker 2: That's what real science looks like, not blind belief, not
Speaker 2: dismissive skepticism, but careful, methodical examination of the evidence with
Speaker 2: an open mind and high standards. I've interviewed close to
Speaker 2: one thousand people over years of research. A thousand people
Speaker 2: who claimed to have seen something they couldn't explain, something
Speaker 2: large and bipedal and covered in hair, something that shouldn't
Speaker 2: exist but appeared to them.
Speaker 3: Nonetheless, these aren't.
Speaker 2: All credulous believers desperate for attention. Many of them didn't
Speaker 2: want to talk about their experiences at all. They were
Speaker 2: afraid of being ridiculed. They were worried about what their
Speaker 2: friends and family would think. They came forward reluctantly, often
Speaker 2: years or decades after their sightings because they felt they
Speaker 2: needed to tell someone. I've talked to hunters who've spent
Speaker 2: their whole lives in the woods and know every animal
Speaker 2: that lives there. They saw something that wasn't any animal
Speaker 2: they'd ever seen before. I've talked to law enforcement officers
Speaker 2: trained to observe and report accurately. They saw something that
Speaker 2: defied explanation. I've talked to forest rangers and biologists and
Speaker 2: people who have no reason to make things up. Their
Speaker 2: stories share common elements. The size, the bipedal locomotion, the
Speaker 2: way it moved through the woods with a grace and
Speaker 2: speed that seemed impossible for something so large. The smell,
Speaker 2: often described as overwhelming, like a wet dog mixed with
Speaker 2: something worse. The eyes that seem to reflect light in
Speaker 2: the darkness. Not everyone who claims to see Bigfoot is
Speaker 2: telling the truth. Some people misidentify bears, some people hoax,
Speaker 2: some people have experiences that are more psychological than physical.
Speaker 2: But a thousand people, ten thousand people across North America,
Speaker 2: hundreds of thousands of reported sightings over decades. At some
Speaker 2: point you have to wonder, if there's nothing out there,
Speaker 2: where are all these stories coming from? Why do they
Speaker 2: share so many common elements. Why do people who've never
Speaker 2: met each other, who live in different states and have
Speaker 2: no connection to each other describe the same thing. I
Speaker 2: don't know the answer. Nobody does. But the witnesses deserve
Speaker 2: to be heard. Their experiences deserved to be documented. Their
Speaker 2: stories deserve to be taken seriously, even if we can't
Speaker 2: explain them. That's what doctor Meldrum did. That's what Henry
Speaker 2: Franzoni did. That's what Stephen Streyfert did. They listened, they documented,
Speaker 2: They took the witnesses seriously, even when the rest of
Speaker 2: the world laughed. What can we learn from the lives
Speaker 2: of doctor Jeff Mildrum, Henry Franzoni, and Steven Streyfert. I've
Speaker 2: thought about this a lot since learning of each of
Speaker 2: their deaths. What wisdom can we extract from their experiences?
Speaker 2: What should we carry forward? I think the first lesson
Speaker 2: is the importance of bringing your unique skills to the table.
Speaker 2: Mildrim brought academic credentials and scientific methodology. He could analyze
Speaker 2: footprints with an anatomist's eye. He could publish in scholarly venues.
Speaker 2: He could speak the language of academia, Frienzoni brought technological
Speaker 2: innovation and community building. He understood how to connect people,
Speaker 2: how to create infrastructure, how to build something lasting in
Speaker 2: the digital world. Stroyford brought historical knowledge and critical thinking.
Speaker 2: He knew the stories, the players, the timeline. He could
Speaker 2: separate fact from legend. Each one contributed something different, Each
Speaker 2: one filled a role that no one else could fill.
Speaker 2: The lesson for us is to figure out what our
Speaker 2: unique contribution can be. What skills do you have that
Speaker 2: could advance sasquatch research? What perspective do you bring that
Speaker 2: others might not. The second lesson is persistence. These men
Speaker 2: didn't study Bigfoot for a few months and then move on.
Speaker 2: They dedicated decades of their lives to the pursuit. Through ridicule,
Speaker 2: through setbacks, through personal costs, they kept going because they
Speaker 2: believed the question was worth asking. Mildrim faced professional consequences
Speaker 2: for his Bigfoot work. His colleagues tried to revoke his tenure.
Speaker 2: Grant agencies declined to fund him, peer reviewed journals rejected
Speaker 2: his papers. He kept going any way. Frienzoni spent nearly
Speaker 2: five million dollars through the Bigfoot research project and still
Speaker 2: didn't find definitive proof. He took a twenty three year
Speaker 2: break from the field, but he came back. He kept going.
Speaker 2: Stroyford lost everything in a fire, his business, his possessions,
Speaker 2: his research materials. He'd been struggling financially even before the fire.
Speaker 2: Life knocked him down repeatedly, but he never abandoned his
Speaker 2: interest in the subject. Persistence matters. The mystery hasn't been
Speaker 2: solved yet. That doesn't mean it can't be solved. It
Speaker 2: means we have to keep trying. The third lesson is
Speaker 2: intellectual honesty. None of these men claimed to have all
Speaker 2: the answers. Meldrum always emphasized the need for more evidence.
Speaker 2: He acknowledged when tracks looked suspicious. He didn't endorse everything
Speaker 2: that was presented to him. Frienzoni wrote a whole book
Speaker 2: about his failures. The title alone tells you everything you
Speaker 2: need to know about his approach. Woifford maintained his skepticism
Speaker 2: even while spending his life in the heart of Bigfoot country.
Speaker 2: He demanded evidence, He asked hard questions. They approached the
Speaker 2: subject with open minds, but demanded rigor. They were willing
Speaker 2: to believe, but not willing to believe without reason. The
Speaker 2: fourth lesson is the value of community. Even when they
Speaker 2: disagreed with each other, even when they argued and debated
Speaker 2: and went back and forth, they were all part of
Speaker 2: the same community. They supported each other when it mattered.
Speaker 2: They recognized that the pursuit of truth was bigger than
Speaker 2: any individual ego. When Stephen's bookstore burned down, the community rallied.
Speaker 2: People who had argued with him online, sent money to
Speaker 2: help him get back on his feet. That's what community
Speaker 2: looks like. That's what we should aspire to be. When
Speaker 2: Jeff Mildram died, even his critics acknowledged his contributions. Benjamin
Speaker 2: Radford at the Center for Inquiry wrote a tribute noting
Speaker 2: that while he disagreed with many of Meldrum's conclusions, he
Speaker 2: respected his will, willingness to engage, and found him sincere, knowledgeable,
Speaker 2: and funny. That's how you treat people in your community,
Speaker 2: even when you disagree. And the fifth lesson, perhaps the
Speaker 2: most important one, is that life is short. Meldrum was
Speaker 2: sixty seven, Frienzoni was sixty seven. Neither of them lived
Speaker 2: to see seventy. The illness that took Meldrum was brief.
Speaker 2: The silence that took. Franzoni lasted twenty three years before
Speaker 2: he returned, only to have a few more years before
Speaker 2: the end. None of us knows how much time we have.
Speaker 2: None of us knows when our own chapter will end.
Speaker 2: All we can do is make the most of the
Speaker 2: time we're given. All we can do is contribute what
Speaker 2: we can while we can. Don't wait, don't put off
Speaker 2: the research you want to do, don't postpone the connections
Speaker 2: you want to make. Don't assume you'll have time later
Speaker 2: to pursue your curiosity. These three men used their time well.
Speaker 2: They contributed, They built things that lasted. When they died,
Speaker 2: they left behind legacies that will influence Sasquat's research for generations.
Speaker 2: That's the goal. That's what we should all aspire to.
Speaker 2: When our time comes, what will we leave behind? So
Speaker 2: where does that leave us? It leaves us with a responsibility,
Speaker 2: That's where it leaves us.
Speaker 3: These men spent.
Speaker 2: Their lives investigating something that most of society considers a joke.
Speaker 2: They endured ridicule, they faced professional consequences. They sacrificed time
Speaker 2: with their families to trump through forests and analyze footprints
Speaker 2: and interview witnesses They did it because they believed it mattered.
Speaker 2: They did it because they thought the truth was worth pursuing,
Speaker 2: even when that pursuit cost them something. Doctor Jeff Meldrum
Speaker 2: brought science to a subject that desperately needed it. He
Speaker 2: gave us credibility. He gave us academic rigor. He showed
Speaker 2: that serious people could take this question seriously without abandoning
Speaker 2: their intellectual standards. Henry Fraenzone connected us all through technology.
Speaker 2: He built the online infrastructure that we still used today,
Speaker 2: and he showed us how to fail with grace, how
Speaker 2: to acknowledge our limitations while continuing to pursue our curiosities.
Speaker 2: Stephen Stroyford preserved our history. He maintained the institutional memory
Speaker 2: of where this phenomenon came from and how it developed.
Speaker 2: He located the very spot where the most famous piece
Speaker 2: of bigfoot evidence was captured, and he taught us to
Speaker 2: think critically even while remaining open to possibilities. Each one
Speaker 2: of them made this community better than they found it.
Speaker 2: The infighting doesn't matter. The bickering doesn't matter. The petty
Speaker 2: arguments over evidence and methodology and who said what about whom?
Speaker 2: On Facebook? None of it matters. What matters is the work.
Speaker 2: What matters is the pursuit. What matters is whether we're
Speaker 2: moving closer to the truth or just spinning our wheels.
Speaker 2: We owe it to these men to keep going. We
Speaker 2: owe it to them to do better, to be more rigorous,
Speaker 2: to be more humble, to support each other instead of
Speaker 2: tearing each other down. I know Bigfoot exists. I've seen
Speaker 2: one with my own eyes from just ten feet away.
Speaker 2: After almost forty years of research, after interviewing close to
Speaker 2: a thousand witnesses, I can now say that for certain.
Speaker 2: But I know the question. For many of you, it's
Speaker 2: still worth asking. I know the mystery is worth pursuing.
Speaker 2: Doctor Meldrum knew it too. Henry knew it. Stephen knew it.
Speaker 2: They're gone now, but their work remains, Their contributions remain.
Speaker 2: The foundations they built remain. It's up to us to
Speaker 2: build on those foundations. It's up to us to honor
Speaker 2: their memory by continuing the search, not with ego, not
Speaker 2: with pettiness, but with the same dedication and intellectual honesty
Speaker 2: that they showed us. Some people will mock us, some
Speaker 2: people will dismiss us. Some people will never take this
Speaker 2: subject seriously. No matter how much evidence accumulates. That's fine.
Speaker 2: Let them mock, let them dismiss. We're not doing this
Speaker 2: for them. Stay tuned for more sasquatch oat to see.
Speaker 2: We'll be right back after these messages. We're doing this
Speaker 2: because we saw something in the woods that we couldn't explain.
Speaker 2: We're doing this because someone we trust told us a
Speaker 2: story that didn't make sense. We're doing this because there's
Speaker 2: a mystery out there that refuses to be solved, and
Speaker 2: we're not the kind of people who can just walk
Speaker 2: away from a mystery. Doctor Mildrim didn't walk away. Henry
Speaker 2: Franzoni didn't walk away. Stephen streiferd didn't walk away.
Speaker 3: Neither.
Speaker 2: Will we rest in peace. Jeff rest in peace, Henry
Speaker 2: rest in peace.
Speaker 3: Stephen.
Speaker 2: Thank you for everything you gave us. Thank you for
Speaker 2: the years of dedication. Thank you for the battles you
Speaker 2: fought and the criticism you endured. Thank you for believing
Speaker 2: when it would have been easier not to. Your torches
Speaker 2: have been passed. We'll do our best to carry them forward.
Speaker 2: Before I need to say something about safety. Those two
Speaker 2: men who died in Scamania County in December of twenty
Speaker 2: twenty four. They went into the woods looking for sasquatch,
Speaker 2: and they never came home. They died from exposure. The
Speaker 2: Sheriff's office said they were ill prepared for the conditions.
Speaker 2: This is serious, This is life and death. The forest
Speaker 2: where Bigfoot is most often reported are dangerous places. The
Speaker 2: Pacific Northwest, the Appalachian Mountains, the swamps of Florida, the
Speaker 2: wilderness areas of the Rocky Mountains. These are beautiful places,
Speaker 2: but they can kill you if you're not prepared. Hypothermia
Speaker 2: can set in faster than you think. One wrong turn
Speaker 2: can leave you miles from your vehicle with no way
Speaker 2: to navigate back. Cell phones don't work in most wilderness areas.
Speaker 2: Weather can change in an instant. What starts as a
Speaker 2: pleasant height can become a survival situation in a matter
Speaker 2: of hours. If you're going to go looking for sasquatch,
Speaker 2: please do it safely. Tell someone where you're going and
Speaker 2: when you expect to be back. Bring proper gear for
Speaker 2: the conditions. Carry fire making materials. Bring more food and
Speaker 2: water than you think you need. Know how to use
Speaker 2: a map and compass. Consider carrying a satellite communicator like
Speaker 2: an inReach device that works where cell phones don't and
Speaker 2: know your limits. If the weather turns bad, turn back,
Speaker 2: if you're getting tired, stop if something feels wrong. Trust
Speaker 2: your instincts. No piece of evidence is worth your life,
Speaker 2: No sighting is worth dying for. Bigfoot will still be
Speaker 2: out there tomorrow. You might not be if you make
Speaker 2: a stupid decision today. The sheriff in Scamania County said
Speaker 2: it best. These volunteers sacrifice time away from their families
Speaker 2: during Christmas to search for those men. They fought through
Speaker 2: freezing temperatures, snow, high water levels, heavy rain. They did
Speaker 2: everything they could, and they still didn't reach those men
Speaker 2: in time. Don't put your family through that, don't put
Speaker 2: search through that. Be smart, be prepared, come home. I've
Speaker 2: been at this for almost forty years now. I had
Speaker 2: my own encounter back in the mid nineteen eighties in
Speaker 2: the North Georgia Mountains where I grew up. I was
Speaker 2: just a kid. I experienced something that I couldn't explain
Speaker 2: then and I still can't explain it now. That experience
Speaker 2: shaped my life. It led me down this path. It's
Speaker 2: why I'm here today talking to you about researchers who
Speaker 2: died pursuing the same mystery that's haunted me since childhood.
Speaker 2: I've made a lot of friends in this community over
Speaker 2: the years. I've made some enemies too. I've had great
Speaker 2: conversations and heated arguments. I've been praised and criticized. I've
Speaker 2: been proven right sometimes and proven wrong other times. That's life,
Speaker 2: That's what happens when you're part of a community of
Speaker 2: passionate people who care deeply about something. But here's what
Speaker 2: I've learned in all those years. The disagreements don't matter
Speaker 2: as much as we think they do. The arguments fade,
Speaker 2: the grudges see petty in hindsight. What matters is the relationships.
Speaker 2: What matters is the shared pursuit. What matters is treating
Speaker 2: people with respect, even when you think they're wrong. Doctor
Speaker 2: Meldrum and I didn't agree on everything, but I respected him,
Speaker 2: I valued his contributions, and when I sat down with
Speaker 2: him a few weeks before he died, none of our
Speaker 2: disagreements mattered.
Speaker 3: What mattered was two people who.
Speaker 2: Shared a passion talking about the mystery that had shaped
Speaker 2: both our lives. Henry Franzoni and I had our differences, too,
Speaker 2: but when he sent me that book, when he took
Speaker 2: the time to mail me a copy of his work.
Speaker 2: That meant something. That was one researcher reaching out to another,
Speaker 2: saying we're in this together. Stephen Stroyford and I had
Speaker 2: our public disagreements. We went at it in his Facebook group.
Speaker 2: We argued about evidence and methodology and who knows what else.
Speaker 2: But at the end of the day, he was a
Speaker 2: fellow traveler on this strange journey. He was someone who
Speaker 2: cared about the truth as much as I do. Three
Speaker 2: of them are gone now, and I find myself thinking
Speaker 2: about the conversations we had, the arguments we didn't resolve,
Speaker 2: the things I wished i'd said differently. That's the lesson
Speaker 2: I think. Be kind to each other. While you can
Speaker 2: say what you mean, mean what you say. Don't let
Speaker 2: pride get in the way of connection, because someday, sooner
Speaker 2: than you think, one of you won't be around anymore,
Speaker 2: and all those arguments will seem so small. If you're
Speaker 2: young and just getting into Bigfoot research, I have a
Speaker 2: message for you. You're standing on the shoulders of giants. Doctor Meldrum,
Speaker 2: Henry Franzoni, Steven Streyfert, Grover Krantz, Renee de Hendon, John Green,
Speaker 2: Peter Burne, countless others who came before you and paved
Speaker 2: the way. Learn from them. Read their books, watch their interviews,
Speaker 2: study their methodologies. Understand their mistakes as well as their successes.
Speaker 2: But don't just copy them. Bring something new to the table.
Speaker 2: You have tools. They never had technology. They couldn't imagine
Speaker 2: access to information. They had to spend years compiling by hand.
Speaker 2: Use those tools wisely, apply rigorous methodology, Be skeptical without
Speaker 2: being dismissive, Be open without being gullible. Question everything, including
Speaker 2: your own assumptions. And when you find evidence, document it properly.
Speaker 2: Don't just post a blurry photo on Facebook and call
Speaker 2: it proof. Take measurements, note the conditions, preserve the chain
Speaker 2: of custody. Make your evidence as bulletproof as possible, because
Speaker 2: someday someone might actually find definitive proof. Someday someone might
Speaker 2: capture clear video or recover physical evidence that can be
Speaker 2: tested and verified, And when that day comes, it needs
Speaker 2: to be done right. The men we lost this year
Speaker 2: did the best they could with the tools and knowledge
Speaker 2: they had. They made mistakes, they weren't perfect, but they
Speaker 2: moved the field forward. They built something. It's up to
Speaker 2: you to build on.
Speaker 3: What they created. It's up to you to take it.
Speaker 2: Further than they could. Don't let them down. So here
Speaker 2: we are at the end. Twenty twenty four and twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five have been brutal years for our community. We
Speaker 2: lost doctor Jeff Meldrum, the scientist who gave us credibility.
Speaker 2: We lost Henry Franzoni, the pioneer who connected us through technology.
Speaker 2: We lost Stephen Stroyford, the historian who preserved our knowledge
Speaker 2: and located our most sacred site. We lost institutions like
Speaker 2: the Bigfoot Discovery Museum. We lost two nameless believers who
Speaker 2: died in the woods on Christmas Eve. But we didn't
Speaker 2: lose everything. We didn't lose the mystery itself. It's still
Speaker 2: out there waiting to be solved. We didn't lose the
Speaker 2: thousands of witnesses who've had experiences they can't explain. We
Speaker 2: didn't lose the footprint cast that doctor Meldrum collected, now
Speaker 2: preserved for future study. We didn't lose Henry Frazoni's book,
Speaker 2: his Record of Failure and Perseverance and humble per suit
Speaker 2: of Truth. We didn't lose the documentation of the Patterson
Speaker 2: Gimlin film site that Stephen and his colleagues created. We
Speaker 2: didn't lose each other, and to everyone listening, take care
Speaker 2: of each other. Life is short, the mystery is vast,
Speaker 2: and we're all in this together. Hug your loved ones,
Speaker 2: Tell people what they mean to you while you still can.
Speaker 2: Don't let disagreements fester into bitterness. Remember that at the
Speaker 2: end of the day, we're all just humans trying to
Speaker 2: make sense of an inexplicable world. The men we lost
Speaker 2: this year understood that they lived it, and now they're gone.
Speaker 2: But as long as we remember them, as long as
Speaker 2: we continue their work, as long as we carry forward
Speaker 2: what they taught us, they're never really gone at all.
Speaker 2: The search continues, the mystery endures, and somewhere out there
Speaker 2: in the deep woods where humans rarely tread, something is watching,
Speaker 2: something is waiting, something that's been there longer than we have.
Speaker 2: Maybe we'll find it someday, maybe we won't. But the
Speaker 2: looking itself matters. The pursuit itself has value. The community
Speaker 2: we've built around this shared curiosity is worth preserving. So
Speaker 2: keep looking, keep asking questions, keep sharing your experiences and
Speaker 2: listening to the experiences of others. And remember the giants
Speaker 2: we lost along the way. Until next time.
Speaker 3: They say you don't gotta go home, but.
Speaker 4: You can't stay. I don't want to be open chant
Speaker 4: this child, that chime. Everything came in R Bay rocket
Speaker 4: back for joy from me, joy staying right, you come
Speaker 4: in right away. Still stay steps about stas, still stand
Speaker 4: past states GAS, USS