Ep. 221 - Matt Pruitt & The Phenomenal Sasquatch!

(00:02):
Big food and be on with Cliffand Bobo. These guys are your favorites,
so like say subscribe and read ittime stage and listening watching, always

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keep it squatching. And now yourhosts, Cliff Barrickman and James Bubbo Fay.
Good day, Bobbo. How areyou doing? Man? Oh good,
just tired but good tired. Yeah, well I know what you were
doing. I mean, anything youwant to share with the audience or anything.
Yeah, I got a call fromCliff saying that a woman came into
the museum and she had of coursehe was when I just was driving down

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to Plastererville area down above Sacramento togo meet Warren, the producer of the
documentaries, and I had to godown how to do another day after that?
So I was gonna be got likeit's always when I'm not at home,
you know that something like that comescalls in, call comes in.
Yeah, Murphy's law man. Weneed that thing Murphy for a reason.
Yeah, every every time. Andso it took me a couple of days

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to get back up to UM.So I drove home like I got home
at like one thirty, two thirtyin the morning or something like that.
And then had to get up atfour thirty to get meet the witness up
in Oregon. She was so pumpedup after going to see you because you're
excited about the toes and it was, you know, it was an odd
picture. I mean, is ita hand, is it a foot?
What is it? So we locatedit and then I spent the next hour

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like I had thoroughly, thoroughly trackedup all up and down, and I
found definite bear bear prints, bigones. I mean it could have been
a big foot like some weird circumstances, but it didn't add up to that
added up to a bear like Imean, every the prince before and after
we're bear. Yeah, yeah,that they had to be. Yeah.

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Well, we've got a couple otherorders of business here. I guess before
we jump in on jump in witha guest today. But I guess,
first of all, word is leakingin as we speak that I guess Peter
Byrne has passed away. Yeah,you're saying he was in ninety six night.
Oh he's got to be at leastI mean one hundred ninety six.
He might as well have been.And he's old. He's been in the

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game a long time. Of course, most people know who Peter Byrne is.
Even if you don't know his name, I think most of our listeners
probably know his name too, though, been around forever on the Yetty expeditions.
Back in the nineteen fifties, inthe Pacific Northwest Expedition, he had
a couple different funded projects looking forsasquatch full time Bigfoot research project in the

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nineties and yeah, maybe that's whatit was called. Well, I know
he had the Bigfoot Information Center inthe Dowells in the nineteen seventies as well.
So yeah, hats off adventure hatI should say, adventure Hats off
to Peter man bond voyage. Goodluck out there on the next step,
whatever that is, and now youcan know for sure what you were chasing.
And of course another sad note thispast week, Mike Greene died.

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Yeah, yeah, Mike green was. I mean, I knew Peter and
stuff, but like Mike green wasa good friend. So that was kind
of a blow. I've known thatguy for a long time. I know
you have as well, a lotof good times in the woods with that
gentleman um And what a snarky,sarcastic lovely man. I just loved him.
I was on a I was ona email chain with him and his
buddies, a couple other big footerslike cham from Florida, then just some

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of Mike's friends from being an investigatorin college and stuff like that. But
I mean there was like you knowthat like closed group guy humored, like
a little harsh, you know,like, but he was funny as hell.
Man, he was. He wasfunny. He well, we had
him on the show. He wasa guest, so you can hear him.
Hear him on that. I wastelling Clifton, I'm like, gott
he passed. I we can nowwe can release this whole interview, the

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one that was like he would havegot sued, maybe us sued too,
for everything he was saying. Butit was yeah, yeah, I'm not
so sure we should do that ifwe might get sued over that. His
stories, Yeah, well I thinkI think we can say this. Um
it's like his stories about team upwith Biscardi. Holy smokes. I wish
we could air those sort of things. But um, yeah, maybe it's
better that we don't. Who knows, who knows, who cares? Yeah,

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So Mike, what a bum out? I'm going to miss that guy.
He's the guy from the Squeaky Thermalphotos from North Carolina. Yeah,
yeah, of course that's that's inthe museum as well. Mike gave me
permission to show it in the museum. And just just a great guy.
Man, he's gonna be missed.And then a final passing as well.
John Eves, the witness from theGeorgia episode, the guy at the scar

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across his head or whatever. Radguy. You. I was not on
that investigation you were, but Iloved the dude he was rad. Had
such a good time hanging out withhim and talking to him while filming.
So another passing in the big Footand I guess circles. So I was
just gonna bring that up. Yeah, John, I kept touching it for
a few years after that. Buthe was always pretty bitter that Moneymaker called
him a liar on TV. Hewas because I believed him, like as

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Moneyger was like no, and rememberhe was gonna stab Moneymaker. I never
had to calm him down. Well, I remember he was mad. I
remember he was mad, but hewas like he's like, it ain't lyon,
I ain't lying. That guy can'tcome to Georgia and just honored my
family name. Like he was justlike all worked up and he was cool

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dude, Like I had had agood time with him, and then we
stayed in touch for a few years. Then I just when the show started,
well even when it started, butwhen we just got like when like
because I think he was season one. I'm pretty sure right that Georgia was
that season one. Yeah, thatwas the premiere episode of the whole series.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, sothat was the first episode. And
then we got done filming, andwe stayed in touch during that time frame,

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and then when the show was ahit, that's when we just went
on like that two year run withthe hat was filming all the time,
just kind of lost contact with him. I thought, well, when I
get back to Georgia, you know, we'll hook up again. And then
I never met him, met him, thinking like every few years you might
get a phone call or a textor an email, but yeah, I
didn't talk to him in gosh,probably five years, six years. Now.

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Well, hopefully Moneymaker will talk tohim with John if you can hear
this, if you get radio wavesand wherever you are, come haunt Moneymaker.
He was a character man. Hewas a true Southerner, you know.
Yeah, Peter Burne, John Evesand Mike Green Bond voyage, gentleman.
It was good knowing you men.You made a difference in our lives,
so thank you. But anyway,we have a guest, and because

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the biggest news of the summer,of course, is the release of a
book called The Phenomenal Sasquatch by ourguest today, Matt Pruett. Of course
he's a good friend, but he'salso the producer of this podcast, and
he has been working on this bookfor years and it has now been released.
We're selling the heck out of itat the North American Bigfoot Center autograph

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copies. By the way, Ibelieve at this moment North NABC is the
only place you can get an autographcopy, so look for that link down
here in the show notes if youwant to order one of those. Frankly,
it's cheaper on Amazon, but ifyou want an autograph copy, nabc's
the only game in town. Sobattle give you the that lane in the
show notes below, And Matt PruettNERD welcome to the show again. Yeah,

(07:05):
thanks for having me on. Thelisteners might not know I'm actually in
every episode. It's just that youcan't hear me. I guess if you
listen really hard on a very quietstill day, you might hear me.
But good to be here. Officially, Yeah, he's like the quiet voice
of reason and guilt whispering over myshoulders of the production of this podcast.

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I don't say that. Edit thatout, take that out. So yeah,
thank thank you Matt for anything todo. Yeah, he cuts in
like a lot of times, so'llbe like, hey, what like clipping
onto discisters? So like what wasthis with like fruit? And then like
you don't hear that part? Wego to fruit and then we come back
on selling smarts. We have theanswer to something. Yeah, as far
as I'm concerned, it's really hispodcast. But now he has a book.
He has a book, The PhenomenalSasquatch, Seeking the Natural Origins of

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a Cultural Icon. I've read it. I think, Bubba, you finished
an hour right just today, justtoday. Fantastic. Well, The Phenomenal
Sasquatch. As far as I cantell, I mean, I read the
thing. I'm pretty familiar with it. It's a really good overview book.
It's an overview book on the subject. But if there is a central thesis,
and I do believe there is.There is a word in here that

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I was introduced to in this bookthat was not familiar with, which is
phenomenology, which is basically the ideaof humans making a phenomenon, making having
ideas that fit their their worldview aboutnatural events. And I think actually the
cover art of this book is itkind of says everything you need it to.

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It's a tree, and in theroots of the tree is some sort
of hominid skull, and above thatis a representation of the hairyman pictograph from
the southern Cianavada mountains, and abovethat is a tree. So basically saying
that perspectives of these animals no matterwhat they are, whether it's paranormal or
magical, or religious or whatever,and all of these things are represented in

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the Bigfoot community and in the historyof the big Foot community. By the
way, all of the phenomena,all these perspectives, all these images in
human human minds are the origin ofall these is basically a biological animal.
That is that I read it right, Matt, Or is that is that
you have a different way to putit. No, I'd say that is

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the central thesis is that, youknow, we do have this phenomenon that
I would say you could define asa phenomenon, even though it is comprised
of multiple phenomena. You know,you have claims and then you have physical
items that are touted as evidence,and so the claims are not just sighting
reports. You know, there's obviouslyreports of you know, hurled stones or

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throne sticks or sounds or these othersort of encounters. And then you have
a variety of evidence multimedia evidence,physical evidence, et cetera. But you
could house all of that under therubric of a single phenomenon, the sasquatch
phenomenon. And then the question is, well, what's responsible for it?
What's generating it? And you couldsay the phenomenon exists because the claims exist
and these items exist, so theyseem to have some influence on the observers

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and an effect on the environment,and so to look at it and say,
well, what's generating this phenomenon?And the central thesis of the book
is, yeah, that there couldbe this biological source, you know,
animals fitting the description of the claims, and that you know, humans experience
these things phenomenologically. And the technicaldefinition of phenomenology is essentially the study of

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phenomena without the assistance of tools orother detection mechanisms. Like it's basically the
study of experience, or the studyof the experience of being, let's say,
and you know, housed within that. Obviously, people try to represent
their experiences through claims, through stories, through narratives, or artistically, and

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a lot of the sasquatch that theworld sees and studies is actually just the
representation. And the representation is verymuch a living thing because it's always evolving
and changing and being updated with newclaims and new evidence. And so that
was the central idea behind that imageis that, you know, that's why
the representation is in the form ofa living tree that has roots in something

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you know, biological. But youknow, these representations are very much alive,
and you know, obviously the Hairymanpictograph has a sacred place to the
peoples who created it and to thosewho are essentially the caretakers of it now,
but it's gone cross cultural. It'svery significant to a lot of people
in a lot of different places whoare looking at it as a representative symbol

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of the sasquatch phenomenon. So Itry to encapsulate all that in one image
that would be like semi archetypal.So you know, the Tree of Life
is a major archetypal motif, andso I went for that. Well,
you know, no matter what theauthor thinks about Sasquatch, it's not you,
but any any bigfoot book that youpick up, whether it's a diehard

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believer or a paranormal sort of thing, or anthropologists or even skeptics, they
all say that in one way oranother, they may not use these words,
that the phenomenon, the the sasquatchexists. It's a question of whether
it's a physical entity or just thatthis human thing because it is out there,
and that is the phenomenon that you'retalking about, is that there's something's

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going on. There's no one inthe world I think can say that sasquatches,
that there's not a thing called sasquatchor bigfoot. Now, anthropologists and
scientists and many of them are onthe perspective of that there's no biological reality
behind that. It's just a thing. But there is this thing, and
you try to get to the rootof it, and you try to point
out that there's other things like thisas well that the like For example,

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I thought one of the more interestingsections of your book because when you're talking
about gorillas, brown bears, andtigers, and how the local people have
these their own perspectives on these animals, and how that overlaps with the sasquatch
as well, and all of thoseare real biological animals, and perhaps sasquatches
are two. Oh, certainly,you know, metaphysical attributes have been associated

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with the sasquatch phenomenon, or let'sjust say the mystery phenomenon worldward for as
long as people have been claiming tohave encounters with these things or describing those
encounters in a narrative form. Andyou can see throughout history, especially let's
just take North America, that thefirst ethnographers or the first non natives who
are recording these stories relegated the subjectsof these stories to the category of sort

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of mythological beings solely because they wereassociated with these supernatural elements or supernatural attributes
or let's say powers, for lackof a better word. And that line
of thinking has continued today on bothsides of that coin. And so even
today there are people who attribute supernaturalor metaphysical abilities to the purported sasquatch,

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and there are people who reject thenotion altogether due to the inclusion of these
supernatural attributes. So what I wastrying to illuminate with that particular section is
that this seems to be the normativeway that humans observe the natural world,
and the way that they represent thoseobservations and experiences of the natural world as
through a metaphysical or supernatural lens.And so there's a few things that you

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could argue from that was, onebeing that if the sasquatch exists, you
should expect for it to be associatedwith supernatural elements, as are these other
very real biological animals. And thenyou could look at the category of animal
that the sasquatch is that I sortof fractionate out in the book as these
three categories together sort of very large, very rare, and intimidating or frightening.

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And so when you look at otheranimals that fit that description, not
only do they have supernatural elements associatedwith them, typically by the indigenous peoples
of those regions around the world,but they're exactly the same supernatural attributes that
are associated with the sasquatch, andso you could almost look at that as
validation to some degree to say,well, if it exists, not only
should you expect these attributes to occur, but here's the specific ones you should

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expect, and low and behold,there they are. Now, we wouldn't
reject the tiger or the bear orthe gorilla as being you know, quote
unquot not real simply because indigenous people'sassociated with them with these metaphysical abilities,
and so why should we do thatwith the sasquatch. And then the flip
side of that, for let's say, the supernatural proponents, you could say,

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now we no longer really see theseother very now understood animals as you
know, possessing these supernatural abilities.So we probably shouldn't treat the sasquatch like
it's the last hold out of supernaturalpower in the biological world. And so
I'm trying to achieve a number ofthings with that particular chapter in section Stay

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tuned for more Bigfoot and Beyond withCliff and Bogo will be right back after
these messages. Yeah, but that'skind of disingenuous to compare like, well,
the African GIRLA wasn't a scheduled ninetoo. It's like, yeah,
going in like these deep dark checkels. I mean, there's millions of Americans

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armed with high powered riticals out huntingevery year. There's thousands of these anither
animals in captivity. There's a tonof thousands of hours of footage of them,
and no one knows like scientists orWesterners are reporting seeing orbs around them
or you know, like there there'sthere's kind of things that they're not great
comparisons to the fact that we don'thave one holotype body. We don't have

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we've got very little quality footage almostalmost practically speaking none. I mean,
there's there's things about it that it'snot just like natives, you know,
like some other like Stone Age nativeshave some you know, mystical perception of
things. I mean like there's there'sstuff that they just don't line up the
same, you know, like there'sthere's way more there's more strangeness of the

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sasquats than those other animals. Well, you know, there is an entire
chapter that addresses those very questions.The chapters are called primary contentions, and
so you know we can go intosome of those, but I would say
just as a sort of a responseto like the one statement you've mentioned,
and I know you don't mean itas pejorative, but to say, you
know, like Stone age natives.I think that's one of the flaws that

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people make today is that they thinkthat we are somehow different than these peoples
of the past, and go,oh, well, you know, these
archaic societies believe such and such.Can you imagine that when it's like,
no, we're exactly biologically, cognitively, psychologically the same creatures, and we're
interpreting the natural world in the sameway that they did. Now we have

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this new process over the last fewhundred years that we call science, but
it's not normative, you know.And I try to make that case in
the book, is that magical thinkingor mystical thinking is the normative state of
human cognition. Which is why wehad to develop a method, you know,
the scientific method, in order tostrip away the subjective to arrive at
some approximation of objective reality, youknow, because if we thought scientifically normally,

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we wouldn't need the process or themethod. It would be useless because
we would already be thinking that way. And so of course you would expect
people to still can tinue thinking thosethings today, and especially where there's novelty,
So where things are new and thingsare unknown, you can you know,
there's a void there that you canproject those normative sort of metaphysical interpretations
or thoughts into. But I thinkthere's very reasonable explanations for the lack of

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a body thus far, collected byyou know, a hunter or you know,
hit by a vehicle, or thelack of fossils, etc. And
there's, like I said, anentire chapter devoted to that. So we
could hit some of those points ifyou like or or not. But you
know, I don't think that justbecause they're still in the unknown that we
could say, well, it turnsout that these similar animals that lived similar

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lifestyles, that had identical supernatural elements, those all turned out to be incorrect.
But with those asquats, no,they're actually all true. It really
is supernatural. It really does haveall these abilities. Again, because we're
treating it like the last holdout ofthese powers somehow until such time as it's
known. And you know, I'veheard Cliff say it on the podcast many

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times. It's like, well,if that's all true, we'll find out
one day. As long as wefind out, I'm happy with that.
But the case that I'm just tryingto make is that skeptics shouldn't dismiss the
sasquatch at least as a possibility simplybecause it's associated with supernatural abilities, and
likewise, people who are proponents ofsupernatural abilities shouldn't necessarily assume that those interpretations

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have a one to one relationship withobjective reality, because we've seen the same
occur across a number of other animalsthat don't have those powers, but they're
experienced in such a way that wouldlead someone to believe that they did,
which is I think a charitable viewof that those sorts of attributions. I
agree that you said, it's justthere's there's a phenomenon like the orb phenomenon,

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Like that's to me like that,I mean, I'm not saying the
Sasquatch generates it, but or maybeit's just coincidental that they're around, that
they're around each other a lot.Well, I would say, like orbs
are clearly a natural phenomenon that seenthe world over. You know, willow
wisps, ghost lights, spook lights, you know, there's all sorts of
terms for that, and people seethem, and they're associated very often with
like volcanic activity or tectonic activity.You know, I've been to places where

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the lights are prominent, even thoughI haven't seen them. But you know,
I've heard so many stories about theplace that we all like to go
to that's on the southeastern slopes ofRainier. And there's places like that in
the Washatas and in the Appalachians.But at the same time, those places
are full of other animals. Sowhy not assume that the orbs are associated
with possums or raccoons or deer orany of these other things that are in

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greater abundance. Well, I thinkthey're like they're like stick structures in a
way that people go looking for sasquatchesand they find these instead. But since
they were looking for sasquatches, theymust be connected in some way. Maybe
they are, maybe they're not.They are. You know, there are
multiple mysterious phenomena in the natural worldthat can co occur in the same region
but not be correlated. And again, why not assume that they're associated with

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possums or rackoons or all these otheranimals that are in a greater abundance,
or why not assume that they're directlyassociated with humans, because thus far humans
are the only detection mechanism for thesethings. Because it's not like there's lots
of footage of orbs or earthquake lightsor whatever they end up, you know,
turning out to be. And soit's like, well, as long
as it's only observed by humans,why wouldn't our first assumption be that,

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okay, well, they're associated withhumans rather than this other, very very
rare natural phenomena. Because orbs seemto occur all over the planet, whereas
obviously sasquatches don't. And so ifit is something with a semi uniform distribution,
because it's some natural tectonic phenomenon orgeologic phenomenon, then why not assume
that, Okay, well, itjust occurs wherever those things occur, and

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it just so happens that other animalsare in those areas too, sometimes but
not always. It's just strange thatwe don't have we haven't got a body,
you know yet, or extended footageyou know of more extended footage of
them. I mean, it's justyou got I mean, it could all
It's probably gonna work out to justalll be normal whatever, you know,
three dimensional, you know, fleshand blood, and that's that's the most

(22:10):
like that. But it's just strangethat we don't have a single specimen yet.
I don't really think it's all thatstrange because there's not that many people
that are trying to do that.So you'd have to make a number of
assumptions. And that's what I sortof lay out in that Primary Contingents chapter
is that skeptics, I think,make the de facto assumption that or they
stated explicitly, you know, ahunter would have shot one by now,

(22:32):
and they have this, haven't broughtone in. Those claims exist, and
so there are there are those claims. They're out there, and so whether
they're true or not, we haveno idea because no one's provided an any
substitute proof of the veracity of thoseclaims. But you could at least say,
well, let's look at all theassumptions that rest upon it. So
what kind of hunter are we talkingabout? Well, we're not talking about
squirrel hunters or bird hunters for themost part, because they're carrying insufficient firepower

(22:57):
you know, you would have tohave in order to drop a sasquatch,
you'd have to have sufficient firepower,so we can eliminate multiple categories of hunters,
and then we're looking at something that'slike, all right, well we're
talking about bear hunters, moose hunters, elk hunters, these sort of megafauna.
You know that there are hunting animalsthat present a certain profile, and
then you'd have to ask all theseother questions. Okay, well, how

(23:18):
would this occur. Either they seea sasquatch and they're mistaking it for their
target animal, which is totally possible, because such things do happen. And
unfortunately, you know, there arehunting accidents every year where people have shot
other people under the assumption that theywere seeing a deer or an elk or
a bear or some other creatures.So that's certainly a possibility, but you

(23:41):
know, most hunters thankfully operate bythat golden rule of fully identifying the target
prior to pulling the trigger, andso thankfully, hunting accidents are very very
low, especially when you compare thatto the number of hunters that are out
every year, and so those errorsdo happen, but they're exceedingly rare statistically,
and then you'd have to imagine that. Okay, well, if someone

(24:02):
had such an observation and we're ableto pull the trigger, I mean,
that's the other big thing is thatare they even able to do that?
Because what tends to happen? Andyou know, I'm preaching to the choir
with you two here, but maybefor the sake of the audience, they
could understand that when you interview hundredsor thousands of witnesses, you know,
certain patterns emerge, and especially humanpatterns, and a lot of that has

(24:23):
to do with the human response.And so a number of things occur within
the human perception and physiology. Frankly, not just the psychology and the cognition,
but the physiology. Very often whatpeople describe is that, you know,
when they're first seeing it, theygo into a state of confusion.
And that's typically because the sasquatch,as described by claimants, really defies a

(24:45):
lot of categories because it's fairly manlikeand simultaneously nothing at all like a person,
and it's a big animal covered inhair, but it's not like any
other animal. It's not like ayou know, an ungulate or a bear
or these other things. And sopeople spend the first several seconds of those
encounters processing and trying to fit itinto a category, and those categorical frameworks

(25:07):
are just disintegrating, they're breaking down, and they're thinking, what is that?
What is that? What am Iseeing? You know, that sort
of results in a cognitive shock.Now very often, depending on the proximity
of the encounter in the other contexts, it can be very frightening. And
so there's this hardwired, innate responsethat's called tonic immobility, which is the
freezing response. It's an evolutionarily bakedin response that we have to predatory threats

(25:33):
or animals that are potentially predatory.And so you have these two things going
on at once, very often wherethey're completely frozen and immobilized involuntarily, and
then they're also going through this bitof cognitive shock as they're trying to categorize
something that's disrupting all their familiar categoricalframeworks. And then you know, beyond
that, you also have this othersort of surprise that occurs, this kind

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of shocking novelty because they're in whatthey would consider to be explored territory.
So there's a bit of mental preparationthat you could have, like you know
the analogy I always uses if wefound some habitable earthlike planet that was covered
in forest, and we sent youthere, as I can astronaut explore,
well, you'd go into that environmentknowing that I'm about to see some things

(26:18):
that no one's ever seen before,and so you're expecting the unexpected. But
people don't experience that when they're inKentucky or California or wherever you know where
they feel like this is explored territory. I know everything that's there. There's
nothing novel or surprising that can emerge. And so all those things happening at
once, the novel, the unknownin the form of the large predatory animal

(26:40):
that defies all categorization. So it'syou have this sort of bottom up physiological
response that's sort of a system shutdown, and then this top down cognitive psychological
response. And so I mean,we've all heard this from witnesses hundreds or
thousands of times in these narrative andso you can also look at the narrative

(27:02):
and say that, well, mostencounters are just a matter of seconds,
and so by the time those systemscome back online, the thing is gone.
And you hear people describe that aslike, oh, you know,
I saw it through my rifle scopeand was shocked and confused and then it
was gone. And so the expectationthat you know, a hunter would have
shot one by now it's like,well, that's a bit of a faulty

(27:22):
assumption. Well it's faulty because theyhave well their claims they have, certainly,
and some of those claims may betrue. But it's more than just
that though, because a shot isn'tnecessarily immediately lethal. So let's say that
someone does fight through all those things. Either those things don't occur because they've
misidentified it, so in their mindthey are seeing a bear, or like
in the case of the nineteen fortyone Manitoba story, Paul, you know,

(27:48):
he thought he was seeing a moose, and so you know, he
didn't have this sort of cognitive shockand confusion and categorical disruption. He just
saw what he thought was a mooseand he shot at it. But you
know, in a lot of thesecases you could say, well, you
know, a signing doesn't even necessarilyequate to a shot opportunity, and a
shot opportunity, you know, ifyou take the shot doesn't even mean you'll
connect with the animal. And ifyou do connect with the animal, it

(28:11):
doesn't mean it's going to be immediatelylethal. You know, it might run
for some distance. It might noteven be lethal at all. It might
just eventually recover. And so evenif it is a lethal shot, how
far is it going to get beforeit eventually collapse as expires. Maybe it
gets several hundred yards, maybe itgoes several miles. Who knows, but
you know, so even if yousaw one, knew what you were looking
at, and decided to take ashot, that doesn't immediately make it discoverable

(28:36):
or recoverable for that matter. Andso all these planets would have to align
for the assumption that like a hunterwould have shot one by now to equal
institutional acknowledgement, because it's not justthat like someone saw one and pulled the
trigger. It's like, no,they saw it, and they pulled the
trigger, and it died in sucha way that they were able to access
it, and then once they accessedit, they were able to recover some

(28:57):
or all of it, and thatthey were willing to take on whatever personal
legal risk, moral risk, whateverthe case may be, to recover that
and deliver it, to deliver itto institutions for them to make this sort
of announcement to the world. Andthat's another set of assumptions that I don't
necessarily think because we've heard those claims. If any of those claims are true,

(29:18):
I mean, very often these peopleare faced with what is this going
to do to my life and myfamily? Yeah, because I've talked to
people lot of convinced that I believethat they said they shot. They looked
at they said, it looks sohuman that it was so creepy looking,
like it wasn't like, you know, had the big padded feet, you
know, like the dog pad footand like the descriptions, they said,

(29:42):
but the face, like the bodywas like a gorilla, they said.
The face and like the eyes justmade them look so human that they just
they didn't want to They didn't wantto get introb they don't want to be
like the guy had known they gotthat shot big Foot and you don't have
You can imagine how their life wouldbe. You know, Oh, it
would absolutely up in some one's life, There's no doubt about that. And
there would certainly be intensive investigations.I mean, we see that with known

(30:06):
animals, with people that shoot bearsout of season, for example, who
claimed that, oh no, thiswas actually in self defense. There are
still very intensive investigations. And thenyou know the reference that I use in
the book because it's such a compellingstory. You know, there's a great
book by a nature writer named DavidPeterson called Ghost Grizzlies, and it's about
the potential survival of a sub populationof surviving grizzlies in the South San Juan

(30:30):
Mountains of Colorado. Because grizzlies onceextended all through Colorado up into the greater
Yellowstone Eco region, but they wereextirpated, hunted essentially to near extinction in
that region, at least under stateand federal bounties. But supposedly some clung
on to existence. And I forgetwhen there was one that was taken in
like the twenties that the state sortof said this is the last one.

(30:53):
And then there was one taken inif I'm not mistaken, in fifty two,
I guess, for the sake ofthis conversation, we'll just say that
nineteen fifties. And then the statesaid, okay, that's for sure the
last Colorado grizzly. And then inthe nineteen seventies, there was an elk
hunting guide, a guy named EdWiseman, who was taking a client out
hunting for elk and rounded a corneressentially, and a huge bear burst out

(31:18):
of hiding and tackled him and beganto maul him. And this guy was
able to dispatch this bear by hewas on his back and it was on
top of him, and he wasable to get an arrow out of his
quiver and despatch this bear by handwith an arrow from underneath. That's right.
And so of course there were allthese accusations that like, oh,
well, you you were actually poaching. You did this illegally. It was

(31:40):
like, well, how are yougoing to poach something that's not even supposed
to exist anymore. So there wasa very extensive I think it was roughly
a six month long investigation by multipleagencies to check the veracity of his story,
which did eventually check out. Youknow, they performed a neck cropsy
on the bear and saw that,you know, his description of the event
was consistent with the wounds on thebear. The other interesting thing about that

(32:02):
story is that it was a femaleand they could tell through various means that
she had given birth more than oncein her life. So she clearly wasn't
the last of the Colorado Grizzlies.But anyway, and so he's still carried
a few search interviews with this individual. I mean, he's carried the stigma
of being the guy who killed thelast of the Colorado Grizzlies for decades,

(32:23):
and you know, it's been sortof used as a poster child unwittingly or
unwillingly, let's say, for anumber of causes, these sort of pro
hunting causes and then anti hunting causes, And so you look at something like
that, and then you try toimagine, like, well, what would
happen to the individual who collects thefirst North American ape, you know,
whether they're the closest living relatives tohumans or not. I mean that would

(32:46):
be in the extreme if they werecloser to us, let's say than champs,
if they are derived from some Africanline. But even if they are
part of this Asian ape line,you know, related to like Endopathecus,
Gigantopathecus, the orangutan, etc.There's a lot If someone thinks like,
oh, this is going to bethe biggest discovery of all time, well
yeah, and it will probably beassociated with the most intensive investigation of all

(33:09):
time, at least in the fishand wildlife sort of realm. There's no
way that that wouldn't be true.And imagine the media scrutiny that this person
would face in the court of publicopinion, and that their family members would
face. And so if you thinkall that wouldn't go through a person's mind
as they were standing over one ofthese things, Let's say, you know,
hypothetically this happens, and that someonewith any sense wouldn't wrestle with that

(33:35):
and think, am I about togive up my life? My family are
relative obscurity, maybe my legal rightsor personal freedoms, employments and employability in
the future, or just like,hey, no one knows I shot this
thing. I can just walk away, which is what these people claim to
have done. In you know,there's no claims where someone's delivered the body

(33:57):
to an institution and then we neverheard about it, you know, in
a cover up sort of sense.The claims are always like, hey,
you know, I shot this thingand I decided not to tell anyone for
decades. And to me, that'sif they exist, and if people have
shot them, that's a plausible reason. That's a plausible explanation. So the
idea that hey, man, ahunter would have shot one by now,

(34:19):
therefore we should know about these Ithink that's a faulty argument that sits on
so many weak assumptions. Then there'sa whole section of the book devoted to
that. Stay tuned for more Bigfootand Beyond with Cliff and Bobo will be
right back after these messages. Istill, even though everything you just said

(34:42):
about all that, I still thinkit's odd that one hasn't come in.
And a lot of people think thattoo. Oh, it's frustrating. I
don't think it's not odd. Imean, I definitely think it's odd,
But I also think there are veryreasonable explanations for that that many of the
sort of like lay people just haven'tconsidered because they haven't spent as much time
going down all these sort of thoughtrabbit holes or interviewing people who claim to

(35:06):
have been in those positions. Andnow, again, we don't know that
any of those claims are true ornot. They could all be fictional,
who knows. But I think onceyou, as you know, and Cliff
knows, like, once you've gonethrough those thought experiments, so much and
then talk to so many people oreven posed hypotheticals to people, you know,
it's funny. There's a few otherpodcasts I listened to a few of

(35:28):
which are hunting podcasts, even thoughI'm not a hunter. They just have
some of the best up to dateinformation about animal behavior and ecology and conservation
efforts and things within that sphere ofpublic lands efforts, etc. And one
of them, the host is very, very skeptical kind of the sasquatch is
the butt of many jokes, youknow. But they had asked him like,

(35:49):
oh, if you saw one,you know, what would you do?
Would you shoot it? And hewas like, oh, absolutely not.
And then he basically said like Iwouldn't even tell a living soul if
I saw one. And it's like, well, yeah, that's the that's
the typical case. And so youinterview enough people and that's usually there.
Like I've almost never met anyone whowould like, oh, yeah, you
know, I would absolutely risk lifeand limb and everything to bring one of

(36:10):
these in, you know, thelay person. Because of the hunting community,
what percentage of them are sasquatch researchers, you know, one percent?
Maybe it's very small. You know, even if it was five percent,
let's say, so, the vastmajority of people who are in a position
to have made this quote unquote discovery. You know, a hunter would have
shot one by Now, well,that's not even on their radar. It's

(36:31):
not in their interpretive scheme of thenatural world. They're not aiming for something
like this, no pun intended,you know, it's just not something they're
striving forward. So when you factorin all those things, it's like,
yeah, it's it completely makes senseto me that one has not been shot
and recovered and delivered to authorities thatwe know of. That's, to me,

(36:52):
is not a crazy proposition, youknow. And some of this I
think comes back to another thing thatone of my other takeaways from your book
here is the the I guess faithmaybe that's a good word, the faith
that the general populace, you know, regular citizens put in institutions of authority,
the proverbial they why haven't they foundone yet? Like that sort of

(37:15):
thing. And you address that prettythoroughly in the book as well. And
we have to to some degree,Well, sure, I don't. I
can't. I don't know anything aboutquantum physics. I don't know anything about
you know that kind of like geology. I go to the geologists. Of
course we all do that, butthe but but there is no they in
this case. There's no one doingthe stuff that people think they would have

(37:35):
done. I mean the biologists.Biologists are doing their own thing because they
have grants and very focused research.Um, it's it's it's it's sasquatch would
be like a byproduct or something.But there's no they out there focusing on
this except for people like us,where you have this massive body of individuals
who claim to have seen them.You know, That's what always is one

(37:57):
of the funniest things. Um.I do remember having a conversation with this
person who had said, how doessomething like this remain undetected? Well,
if you take a bird's eye viewof North America for the last two hundred
plus years, and you plot sidingreports or credible citing claims, let's say,
you can hardly make the gains whenyou look at all those dots that
they're undetected. Or again, ifyou were to go into doctor Meldam's lab

(38:22):
or the North American big Foot Centerand look at all these track casts,
it's like, well, if they'rereal, then certainly some of these footprints
were left by them, and soif they're real, then they're hardly undetected.
But you know, what people mean, unbeknownst to them is like that
they in that question why haven't theyfound one is always institutions, And I
think because it, first of all, it makes things much easier because,

(38:45):
like you said, we're not geologistsor physicists, and so we are constantly
engaged in like deferring. We're outsourcingour trust to institutions, and that's what
institutions are predicated on, this sortof trust I mean, and I try
to make that case at a laterpoint in the book, is that,
you know, because people bandy aboutthe word belief as a sort of pejorative

(39:07):
or negative word, It's like,hey man, we're all believers because you
know, belief the technical definition isto accept a statement as true, or
to accept a claim or a propositionas true. It's like, well,
most things are things that you believe, because unless you personally witnessed each of
these events, you're believing the veracityof the claims associated with them. We

(39:30):
could talk about history, modern scientificobservations, or unless you personally replicate each
of these experiments and arrive at thesame findings that it's like, well,
no, you're believing the results ofthis study, or you're believing the experts
who conducted the study. It's thatwe have to there's just not enough time

(39:51):
or energy to evaluate everything on ayou know, one at a time basis.
And so of course we're believing inthese things, and we tend to
believe institution a great deal more thanwe do individuals, especially desparate individuals.
So even though you might have let'ssay, credible sasquatch sightings of living individuals,
I bet we could say that thereare thousands of reliable eyewitnesses who claim

(40:15):
to have seen a sasquatch under favorablevisual conditions right now. Now, maybe
historically it's in the tens of thousandsthat have come forward publicly. If these
animals are real, maybe there's hundredsof thousands of people that have seen them.
It just never told anyone. Wedon't know. But so the body
of individuals certainly outweighs the number ofpeople that populate these institutions. But because

(40:37):
they're seen as individual units like eachone, you know, they don't sort
of stack up like a mountain oftestimonial data for the public the way that
they do for me or Bobo orCliff. So we place a lot of
value in that. But yeah,it's the other thing too, is that
institutions haven't signed off, let's say, on a body of claims and evidence,

(40:58):
you know, a collection, Andso very often when people say things
like there is no evidence for theexistence of the Sasquatch, it's like,
well, what they really mean,and a lot of times they don't even
know that they mean this, butthat there's no collection of evidence that's been
sort of collectively deemed valid by multipleinstitutions so that you can readily accept it

(41:19):
without thinking too much about it orlooking into it for yourself. That's what
that claim means, you know,because there is a tremendous amount of evidence.
Now, it's subjective and it requiresa lot of expertise, or at
least diligence or familiarity with certain disciplinesin order to sort of evaluate or interpret
that evidence. But there certainly isevidence for the Sasquatch phenomenon. But yeah,

(41:43):
that most people when they say oh, there's no evidence, what they
mean is, well, there's nothingI can readily accept on the basis of
institutional authority alone. That's another excellentstrong point of your book, in my
opinion, is that. And honestly, when I was going through, particularly
the first half of it, becauseit's really I felt it was divided into
half into two parts basically, Butthe first half of the book, you're

(42:05):
you're essentially kind of reconstructing a lotof the best evidence and a lot of
the significant historical markers in the historyof the subject. And several times when
I was going through this reading thebook, it reads a lot like Meldrum's
book, honestly, where the doctorMeldrum's book kind of says, here is
a piece of evidence, and hereis somebody who's uniquely qualified to wagh that

(42:28):
evidence, and here's what they sayabout it. And you did a lot
of that sort of kind of reflectionor echoes of that same style as you're
going through the history of the subject, in the history of the significant evidence
that has arisen over the years.And I really really do appreciate that,
especially with the references to the originalpapers or the books where these things were

(42:50):
written down and analyzed and shared.Yeah, certainly in the evidence chapter there
was a little bit less of theeditorializing on my part. Now it's still
are somewhat, but obviously I'm deferringto the words that the experts in their
relevant disciplines who evaluated each piece ofevidence that I sort of presented. Let's
say, so, the way thatthe book has structured for listeners is that

(43:12):
it's sort of building a case forthe potential biological reality of the sasquatch phenomenon
from the bottom up. So itbegins with sort of an introduction and overview
of the phenomenon and why it isin the state that it's incurrently, which
is that you have once again,individuals who claim contact with this phenomenal,
they claim to have observed it anddocumented it. You have institutions that don't

(43:35):
accept those claims and don't accept thatevidence, and so like, where are
we at with this? Why isthat occurring? How do we move forward
and rive at a solution or ananswer that satisfies the individuals who claim to
have contacted the phenomenon, the individualswho pursue it like ourselves, and the
institutions. That's sort of what we'reaiming at. And so then it goes
through, Well, let's start atthe beginning in terms of the fossil record.

(43:59):
Is there thing in the fossil recordthat approximates this particular form that could
be a plausible candidate that Okay,well they didn't show up out of a
void. Is there anything that mightserve as a good explanatory mechanism, let's
say, for where these things camefrom and what they might be. And
then it moves through the historical record, I mean, first in sort of

(44:20):
prehistory with the indigenous traditions and art, and so in each step of the
way, I'm sort of presenting thesethings and then offering my interpretations or what
I believe to be the best wayto perceive or to look at these things,
or offering my perspectives. But yeah, when I got to that particular
evidence chapter, it felt more responsible, I guess, to just present the

(44:44):
expert words and opinions of the peoplewho offered those and just try to collect
it all into one place. Andthere were things I found through that process
that I wasn't even aware of afterhaving read everything I could get my hands
on, traveling the country and interviewingwitnesses and other investigators and scientif for all
these years, there were still thingsthat I was like, oh wow,
I had no idea about this,and so trying to put all that into

(45:06):
a single chapter was a little tricky. But the way to fit all that
was to leave out a lot ofmy sort of editorializing there, although it's
still in there, like my perspectivesand opinions, but in that evidence chapter,
for sure, it's a little lastthing. In all the other chapters,
well, and your perspective should bein there. It is your book,
after all. Stay tuned for moreBigfoot and Beyond with Cliff and Bogo

(45:27):
will be right back after these messages. You're amongst the smartest people in Bigfoot,
and that's another thing I admire aboutthis book is I believes at the
very beginning, possibly even in theintroduction, you said basically to the reader,
I'm not gonna treat you like adummy. I'm gonna use the big

(45:49):
words and to support you with thatand tell you what they mean. And
we're going to talk about this inan intelligent adult fashion. Because nowadays,
as I've complained about many many times, most people learn about sasquatches from television
and the Internet, both of whichare just rife with frauds and nonsense and
misinformation and all that other stuff,and TV is just terrible. I remember

(46:12):
I was arguing with one of ourproducers. This is back in season two
or something like that of Finding Bigfoot, because I'm at the time. I
just came out of teaching fifth gradersfor a living. But I taught my
fifth graders I think rather well,and I would use those big words.
I'd use the Greek and Latin andall that other stuff whenever it was appropriate,
especially when we're talking about science andall that jazz. But I was

(46:34):
just doing this teaching method called scaffolding, where you say the big word and
then you tell them what it means. You see it all the time in
books, you know, you seeit all the time in books. And
I was telling the producer It's like, no, no, no, no,
I know. I know it's television, but we need to treat our
viewers as if they are very,very intelligent. And there's lots of ways
you can do that. You're notgoing to lose anybody because we can structure
it in a way that you knowthat they're gonna they're gonna basically, they're

(46:57):
gonna walk away feeling empowered and elligenfeeling respected because of their intelligence and not
dumbed down and spoken down to likemost television does. You know, Television
kind of speaks to an eighth grader, eighth grade level intelligence for the most
part, you know. And Iwas arguing with the producer, saying,
we need to do better for ouraudience, and the producer says, no,

(47:19):
no, nobody wants that. Nobodywants that. No, they disliked
TV. That's what. Want toturn the brains off. That's not true.
It just simply is not true.And your book does not do that.
And I so kudos to you treatingthe readers like intelligent people. I
think if we start treating each otheras if we were intelligent, then I
think everyone will rise to the occasion. I appreciate that very much. You

(47:42):
know. I started speaking publicly aboutthe subject in two thousand and seven.
You know, the very first interviewI ever did about this subject was on
a morning radio show for the numberone top forty radio station in DC,
and so it was a huge listenership. So but you know, I grew
up playing music and was in amajor leagull band, and so you know,
I don't really get stage fried oranything. Of that nature. But

(48:02):
so for all these years I've beenspeaking on radio stations, at terrestrial radio,
satellite radio, I've done well overgod, there's no telling how many
podcasts and back in the days oflike internet radio, and then public speaking
and conferences and then one off speakingevents and just years of that, and
I've always maintained what I consider tobe like the proper way to present information

(48:24):
about this subject, which is atthe highest level that I'm capable of,
which you know, there's many peoplethat are far above me in that regard,
but like, I'm trying to presentit in the highest level that I'm
capable of, and it's always workedfor me, you know, I keep
getting asked to come back, andso it's clearly not a problem for an
audience, and I always get positiveresponses, very thankfully, and I'm very

(48:45):
grateful for the responses I get frompeople. But it's always so funny because
then you get interest from television producersor you know, other sort of media
people who are like, oh,we'd love to do something with you,
and like, great, let's talkabout it. And I always take the
call, and I always end upsaying no to most of these things because
they sound like nightmares, you know, but it's always becomes clear in those

(49:07):
conversations that like, yeah, welove you, we want to work with
you. All we need to changeis everything about you. And it's because,
you know, people just they won'tget it. And it's like,
well, you got it enough toreach out to me and think that there
was something here worth exploring, andother people get it enough that they're willing
to continue listening. And so I'vejust grown so sort of tired of hearing

(49:29):
that from people where it's like,Okay, well you have this show on
this network, you know, andit barely runs half a season, and
YadA, YadA. Well it's likesome of these podcasts that I've been on
or that friends of mine have amillion downloads a month and they've been around
for years. And so you can'ttell me that there's not an audience out

(49:50):
there if people who are hungry forreal information presented at a high level,
because the Internet absolutely demonstrates that throughpodcasts and YouTube channels, with these long
form discussions with people you know,much more articulate and verbose than me,
and they're drawing millions and sometimes tensof millions of views and so the final
straw was, you know, someonehad reached out, Oh, I'd love

(50:13):
to, you know, weigh inon your book, and it was basically
like a literary professional. And thenthis person said the same thing, so,
oh, well, you need toditch all this language. You got
to get rid of all these technicalterms. You need to change basically change
everything that there is about your book. And I was like, I've heard
this for the last time. I'mnot changing anything, which is why I

(50:34):
self published, because I didn't wantto bow down to someone else's wishes or
what someone else thought would work ina subject that they don't know anything about.
And so that's why I thought,you know what I'll do, I'll
just I'll just put something right upfront. It says, here's why I
chose to write this the way thatI did. And it's partially because I
don't underestimate you the reader, andI never will. And it's to me

(50:55):
the same thing. You know,if you if you wanted to do anything
that you were going to gain somethingfrom, it's going to be a little
bit challenging. You know, ifyou went to a personal trainer or you
know, of continuing education class,it's like, yeah, this is.
There's going to be moments where itmight not be easy, but you'll come
out the other side and be betterfor it. You will have learned things,

(51:15):
you will have encountered things you haven'tencountered before. You'll integrate them.
And that's why we read books,that's why we listen to shows like this
one. You know, we're hereto learn and to expand and to develop.
And so I thought, well,I'll just put that right up front
and it won't be a problem.And it's not been a problem. No
one has complained about this is too, you know, because the fact of

(51:36):
the matter is the audience that's interestedin The Sasquatch are intelligent people who are
open minded, obviously, or elsethey wouldn't be here, and they're they're
interested in learning, and they're they'reinterested in saying, Okay, well let
me hear your perspective. And soI'm grateful for that. So I'm glad
you enjoyed that part of it aswell. I enjoyed that part too.
I mean, it worked. Itworked, I mean, and I learned

(51:59):
a couple of new I mean,I was familiar with almost all of it,
but there's a couple times I'm like, what's that you know? And
but you explain things well and youmake it accessible and understandable, So it's
gonna raise people's vocabulary a little bit, Oh, wouldn't you Guys say,
like Meldrum and Krantz's books are muchmore technical than mine. Yeah, so

(52:20):
it's like, I'm not even themost technical one in the genre, probably
not even the top five most technicalbooks. And so I try to explain
that to this person too. It'slike, Hey, I don't know what
kind of recreational reading you do,but I do a lot of recreational reading
of like popular science nonfiction, andthat's pretty technical stuff. And even within
the Sasquatch literary canon, let's say, there's plenty of things that are much

(52:44):
more technical in Danse than this.Yeah, the hardest book, the hardest
Bigfoot book I've ever read. Andby the way, I don't know.
I mean, I'm sure this isn'tvery well known. I'm not a great
reader. I like reading, butvery often I have to reread a lot
of the stuff that I read,you know, not like the whole book,
Like I get a couple paragraphs downto go, I'm not I don't
think I'm getting this and I haveto go back and reread. It's just

(53:06):
I'm that kind of reader. Andthere's nothing wrong with that. I taught
reading. I mean, I'm obviouslyan expert reader, but like I taught
people how to read, and thisis what I do is very very common,
you know. So I'm going tosay I'm not a great reader,
like I can zip through everything andto digest it all at once. But
I didn't have that much of aproblem with your book, of course.
And but the hardest book I've everread in Bigfoot is The Discovery of the

(53:29):
Sasquash, the inter Augal Stuff,his second book. I found that very
challenging to read, and I lovedit. I got through it. You
know, again, I am anexpert reader, even though it takes me
while. I'm a very slow readeras well. That's why we didn't do
this podcast before. I because forme to really digest something, I need
to read it kind of slowly andvery often several pages multiple times. You

(53:52):
know. It takes me a longtime to get through a book. But
I didn't find that this book wasextraordinarily challenging or anything like that. I
wouldn't want anybody listening to the podcast, thinking like, oh, I don't
know that. I'm not that smart. I don't think I should read this.
No, you absolutely are. Youabsolutely are smart enough to read whatever
books, even the discovery of theSasquash books. Just you know, do
what I do. Reread it acouple of times and really get a good

(54:14):
grasp on it so you can takeit and make it meaningful for you.
And yeah, so I want toput that out there, like yours isn't
the most challenging book out there.It's not. You're not going to readers
are gonna be overwhelmed with you know, too many terms and jargon and scientific
terms in Latin or it's something likethat at all. But you don't dumb
it down. And I think thatthat is something that's sorely needed in the

(54:37):
community in general. It's just highlevel, straight talk about about the subject
when we're presenting something we're passionate about, Like obviously that's what the three of
us share is like this is aprimary importance to us and extraordinary good looks.
Yeah, exactly. Well, wecan't all be Bobo and humility Bobo's
the stud Yeah, imagine if wewere all Bobo, it would be amazing,

(55:00):
or if there's like a small talentof Bobo's, Oh God, look
at this handsome dude. But youknow, we're all incredibly passionate about this,
and so when we're representing it topeople, we want it to have
a certain sort of resonance with them, right, And so I tend to

(55:20):
live in verbal space, you know, I'm I'm hyperverbal. I think in
words. You know, there's there'salways there's a split in the population of
people that think in images and peoplethat think in words. Like it blew
my mind when I learned that therewere people who didn't constantly have a dialogue
going in their minds, but there'sa lot of people that only think in
images and rarely think in words.But you know, I've always been in

(55:42):
the verbal space and a hyperverbal person, and so to me, it's like,
I use the words that I thinkthere is no better alternative. When
people say, oh, couldn't therehave been a simpler word, Well,
yeah, maybe, but it mightnot be the right one. And I
remember describing this to Cliff when Iwas writing the book, and you were
asking about, like, how's itgoing, And it was kind of a
struggle at the time because there's amillion ways to say something, and you

(56:06):
know, you can ask yourself,is there a better way to say this?
And the answer will always be yes, Even if you say it five
hundred different ways, there's always adifferent way, and that way might be
better to some of the audience.But the analogy I was trying to use,
it's like, well, when youare setting up the North American Bigfoot
Center, like every decision plays intohow you're representing the totality of this thing

(56:29):
that you're passionate about. You know, every font choice on the display,
the lighting, the types of bulbs, the angle of that lighting, the
position to height, and so you'retrying to build this experience that someone can
enter into and see the same beautyand complexity that you see in it.
And that's exactly what I was tryingto do with just words. And so

(56:49):
it's like, no, I wasmeticulous about every word choice, and like,
yeah, they're not always the simplestone, but I would stick with
that one because I thought, man, there is just no better word,
in my opinion, in this particularone to illuminate this particular point so that
someone can see what I see,which is the whole point of trying to
express yourself in a book is tosay, like, here's my perspective.

(57:12):
Take it or leave it, butI'll at least make this as clear a
perspective as I'm capable of. Well, I think you succeeded, and I
think there are very few people whoprobably could have written this book other than
you because of your perspective on thesubject. Also your experience in the subject
as well, that I don't thinkyou get a lot of kudos for because
you're kind of behind the scenes onthe podcast. But you've been doing this

(57:34):
for a long time and you havea lot of experience. You've read everything
out there on the subject, You'vespent a ton of time in the woods,
You've had contact with most of themajor players in the game, you
have been in various groups, andexperience that you've been on various television shows.
You've been behind the scenes on varioustelevision shows, including Finding Bigfoot.
Your experience is just huge in thesubject. And we're kind of running out

(57:58):
of time in this particular podcast,but I think that that would be a
good topic to cover in the memberssection. Oh, i'd love too,
that'd be so much fun. Yeah, because your experience is just vast.
There are very few people out therewho've been doing it well. I mean
there are people out there have beendoing it longer than you, but that
there are very few people who havehad more experiences than you. I think.

(58:20):
I think that's a good way tosay it. So, and I
don't mean just like bigfoot interactions either, just the variety of various bigfooting experiences
and not necessarily with the animals,but like I mentioned television and this and
that and the groups and all thatjazz, so well, many of those
experiences are a direct result of yourgoodwill and Bobo your goodwill. I mean,
both of you have extended so manyopportunities to me, and I'm very

(58:44):
grateful. And you know, ifthere's if there's any audience of people that
were like, oh, I can'twait to read your book, and I'm
so appreciative of every one of thosemessages I've gotten, Like I know that
those people paid attention because Cliff andBobo told them, Hey, you should
pay attention to this. So ifthere's if there's anyone to attribute a lot
of these experiences too, it's bothyou and so I'm very very grateful for

(59:05):
that. Thank you. Well,just trying to put the spotlight where it
belongs. Yeah, I mean,your book covers so many angles, like
it is. It is the bestintroductory book. It's the it's the best
book to give to someone who's likea big Foot officionado and they have a
significant others in their lives, whetherit be co workers and boss or siblings
or parents or children or or spouses. That it's the perfect gift to someone

(59:29):
that's like an agnostic or an atheistabout the big Foot US. It's such
a great it's all encompassing. Imean it's to condense it down a three
hundred words, I mean that hadto be a chore, I mean three
hundred pages. Yeah, the difficultthing was what not to say, and
in fact even just the sections thatI removed, because the book is about
one hundred thousand words and the stuffthat I removed is about thirty thousand words.

(59:52):
So I'll find a place for allthat stuff at some point. But
yeah, it was really difficult totry to manage because I wanted it to
be a comprehensive overview of the subject, but at the same time I wanted
it to be deep, or atleast as deep as it could be in
those sorts of boundaries, those sortsof limitations where it's not. I'm hoping
it's the kind of thing that eventhe most ardent Sasquatch students would go,

(01:00:13):
oh wow, I never thought aboutthat, or oh wow, this is
new, or you know, ohno one's gone in this particular rabbit hole
or this direction before. But thatit would also you know, if someone
was brand new, they could readthis one book and come away with a
pretty thorough education on the whole subject. Well, I think that's a success.
On that one. You hit themark. I walked away with things
that I didn't know before, andI mean I'm pretty well versed in the

(01:00:35):
subject. I think it's fair tosay I walked away with learning some new
things. But also you're and alot of it, and you know I
already knew I knew I knew alot of these things. But that's what
makes this book perfect. For somebodywho's kind of entry level or Bigfoot one
oh one, that's what they're lookingfor. This book will deliver that,
and unbeknownst to them, it'll alsotake them through big Foot three oh one.
I appreciate that so much, veryglad to hear that. Well,

(01:00:58):
that sells itself. Man. Imean we sold fit of them in less
than a week at the museum becausepeople heard it came out and people were
hearing that, Um I was pointingat it and whatever else, And I
just think it's a perfect book tohave on the shelves at the museum because
so many people come in and theyask questions that that deserved good answers.
And I said, I could givethem my my one minute spiel or whatever

(01:01:20):
while I'm work in the counter orat the shop, but why not give
them a more thorough education. SoI just point to this book and say,
yeah, well check this book out, and if you have any further
questions after that, come on back. And generally that people do people do
all right, Matt, I was. I would say thanks for coming on,
but I mean you're you're on everycall anyway, So thanks for piping
up during the during our regular episode, because he usually just come on and

(01:01:42):
talk to us during the members episode. M speaking of members episodes, that's
what we're gonna do next. We'regonna have Matt back on for our members.
If you want to become a memberof Bigfoot and Beyond, look at
the show notes. There's a linkin there, or go to the website
big fan Beyond podcast dot com andfollow the links there. It's five bucks
a month and base basically you getit's about an extra hour, maybe a
little less, maybe a little bitmore, sometimes an extra hour of us.

(01:02:05):
Matt Pruett is very much more vocalon that side of the podcast,
and he usually is here. Butthanks so much for talking about your book,
and you know, actually thanks forwriting that book. I do really
appreciate it. And like I said, I think it's great. I know
I joke around. I was jokingaround earlier saying that it was the most
important thing written since the Magna Carta. Yeah, I'll stand by it.
I think it's good. I thinkit's great, great book. Everybody should

(01:02:29):
check it out. If you wantautograph copies, you can. You can
only get them at this point atthe North American big Foot Center or by
seeing Matt at a gig, youknow, some conference or something like that.
So but check it out. If, and again it's on Amazon,
you can always buy it there.It's a little bit cheaper than from us
because we charge for that autograph andshipping and all that other jazz. So
what gigs do you got coming up? Oh, I've got a couple actually,

(01:02:49):
um next weekend, I think theAugust fourth, I'm going to be
at the Hawking Hills Bigfoot Festival.That's in a little town called Logan in
southeast Ohio. I was there lastyear. I was there last year and
it was the first year that theevent happened. Eleven thousand people showed up.
It was insane, and then thisyear supposedly more are going to be

(01:03:10):
showing up. But you know why, it's free. Right in the middle
of Bigfoot Country, downtown Logan onAugust fourth and fifth. There's gonna be
all sorts of other there's craft andvendors, and there's sasquatch stuff, and
there's a couple of speakers. There'sgonna be a ton of food and live
music. There's a jeep show,which is kind of cool. I drive
a jeep. I think, Idon't know if a lot of people know

(01:03:30):
that. Yeah, it's gonna beit's gonna be great. And then at
the end of the month there's thisother deal called Squatch Con, which is
gonna be It's in Idaho. Ithink it's in Boise at place called Indian
Creek Plaza. Meldrum's gonna be there, Michael Freeman's gonna be there. I'm
gonna be there, and I thinkwe're gonna do from I understand, I

(01:03:52):
guess we're gonna be doing a paneleddiscussion that'll be broadcast there were streamed online
worldwide. We're going to be doinga panel discussion. I think Doug Hicheck
is going to participate in this aboutthe Freeman footage, so that that should
be kind of interesting. I'm kindof looking forward to that. Yeah,
and on oh yeah, I'll justforgot Brian king Sharp is also going to

(01:04:13):
be on the gig there, soI think he's gonna be the moderator or
something. I'm not really sure what'sgoing on, but it's going to be
a discussion of the Freeman footage andthat'll be broadcast worldwide. And if you
want to go to that, orif you have some ideas about that,
you can go to squatchcn Idaho dotcom. But that's at the end of
the month there, August twenty sixth. There's probably gonna be any more seven

(01:04:33):
books. The next speaking event thatI have is going to be on October
twenty first and Jefferson, Texas atthe Texas Bigfoot Conference, and so I'll
put a link to that in theshow notes as well. So it'd be
great to meet some listeners there andsee some familiar faces. And my good
friend and field partner Daryl Collier isgoing to be speaking there as well,
and so it's going to be agreat event. All right, Well,
there you have it, Thanks everybodyfor showing up. Bobba, why don't

(01:04:55):
you jake us out of here,Get out of here, go on,
get thanks to tune it in youguys. And seriously, the batch book
is awesome. You gotta get it. Get a few comics because they're they're
great gifts. And like I said, given the people that you know in
partant in your life and you wantto understand where you're coming from, why
Bigfoot trial this is this is it? Yeah? Buy two of them,

(01:05:16):
one for your left eye, onefor your right, and you can read
in stereo. Yeah. So untilnext week, y'all, keep it Squatchy.
Thanks for listening to this week's episodeof Bigfoot and Beyond. If you
liked what you heard, please rateand review us on iTunes. Subscribe to
Bigfoot and Beyond wherever you get yourpodcasts, and follow us on Facebook and

(01:05:40):
Instagram at Bigfoot and Beyond podcast.You can find us on Twitter at Bigfoot
and Beyond that's an end in themiddle, and tweet us your thoughts and
questions with the hashtag Bigfoot and Beyond. Four